Actually, there is a whole lot I could say about this comic. I am absolutely in love with the deceptively simple and beautiful art and the story evolves at a brilliant pace that is both surprising and satisfying. But my friend Tom over at Marooned Comics describes what makes Rice Boy so fantastic, and he does a better job at it than I ever could.

Heck, Tom even got to interview Evan about his work! Evan talks about the way he went about creating the wonderfully sympathetic character of Rice Boy:

He started as something I drew in high school; just a simple little person. Putting him in this sort of story seems to suggest an incongruously passive, meek character, and I liked how he contradicted the large scope of the story. It wasn’t that conscious, I guess; I just liked doing as much as I could with a severely visually limiting character.

Be sure to head over to Marooned and read the interview with Evan, then head over to rice-boy.com and check out the amazing world that Evan has created.

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I wanted to take a quick moment to thank everyone who has stopped by here and left a comment or sent me a personal email of encouragement. I have meet and befriended some brilliant artists in the past year who’s work I greatly admire. Their encouragement and helpful advice has been greatly appreciated. I continue to look forward to growing those relationships for many years to come.

I especially want to thank you readers who have for months and months, continued to come back and check on the latest antics of Carl, Larry, and Robot. This first year has certainly been a year of personal growth as a fledgling cartoonist, and the one thing that has kept me pushing myself to do better with each update is knowing that all of you are expecting something great. I do not want to disappoint. It may seem like a little thing, but knowing that my work is viewed by hundreds of eyeballs every day has been a huge motivating factor for me. I cannot thank you all enough.

So we’ve got one year in the can! Only thirty four more years to go! (assuming I fall of the face of the earth at the age of sixty five.) I hope you all will come with me, it’s going to be a crazy ride!

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It can be tough to make good money as a novelist these days. Heck, it’s tough just to make it on the bookstore shelves! But I have the key to success and it can be done in three easy steps!

Step 1: Write a novel.

It really doesn’t matter what you write about, just so long as you have some vampires or angels kissing in it. Also, make sure you write at least three books at the same time. That is Key. No one in Hollywood is interested in the film rights unless they can sell it to the studio as a trilogy. The key word here is FRANCHISE. You are not here to entertain. You are here to make money.

Step 2: Now that we have the boring first step out of the way. (Eugh, so many words. Writing a novel is annoyingly time consuming) Now it is time to move on to a more important part: Choose a title for your book.

This step is surprisingly simple. Again, like step 1, It doesn’t really matter what it is so long as the title is short and has some mystical element to it. Examples include: Creatures, Candlelight, Banished, Angelfire, Shadows, Potion, Dark Princess, Dark Sun, Dark Love, Dark Monkey, any title with the word “Dark” in it works well.

Step 3: Create an eye catching cover.

Creating a cover for your book is the most important part. It is very important for your book to stand out from all the other books on the store shelf and catch the eye, HOWEVER there are some hard-and-fast rules you MUST follow if you want to become a successful novelist. The cover must be black with the title of the novel in white or another bright, eye-catching color. You MUST use an ornate gothic-style font for your title, and you MUST have a feather-edged photograph in the background. Your choices for a photograph are limited to the following: Fire, smoke, A tight shot of a woman’s eye, a woman in a tank top, or a silhouette of a creepy looking tree.

And there you have it! You now have the keys to success. Now go out there and put your new found knowledge to work! (Just be sure to cut me a check when you make it big ok?)

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Well, life has a way of sneaking up on all of us doesn’t it? Without boring you with the details, Let me just say that some things have come up that require much more of my attention than I originally hoped. In light of all of this, I need to, for now, move back to a two-day-a-week schedule.

So look for a new Robot Beach strip on Thursday this week and after that, we will be back to the regular Tuesday/Thursday schedule until things calm down a bit for me here.

Thanks for your understanding!

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However, this weekend also holds very special meaning for me because Dave Kellet of my favorite webcomic Sheldon will be speaking to a room full of professionals and academics about the future of cartooning. Yes, Dave will be talking about Webcomics.

In his own words:

At the 1989 Festival, Watterson spoke of the incredible potency in comic strip cartooning: This rarest of arts that let one artist, one voice, speak to millions. This artform that lets the personal outlook shine through, where so many other mass media arts do so by committee.

So to be invited, some twenty one years later, to speak at the very same gathering of professionals and academics, is magical to me. (It’s humbling beyond words, too, in a stomach-churning way…but let’s focus on the magical aspect of it.)

Because, the funny thing? The thing I want to talk about? Is actually that very same Watterson speech from 1989. Or rather, to offer a loving and respectful rebuttal to it, from 21 years on. I want to speak to his concerns about the space allotted comic strips in newspapers; about zombie comic strips still being drawn long after their original creator had died; about why so many features have stale, interchangeable voices; or why so many are merely advertisements for dolls and greeting cards; or why comic strips in general have been on this slow, downward trend of diminishment in American life for the past 20-30 years

Because basically, I’m going to talk about this incredible change of fortune for the comic strip. I’m going to talk about Webcomics.

This means a lot to me because I feel that, in many ways, Dave Kellet is the spiritual successor to Watterson. The work he produces speaks to the adults who grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes, as well as their kids who are now turning away from newspapers and looking to webcomics for their cartooning entertainment. Plus, Dave is not only a very funny guy and a talented artist, but he has the educational background and the knowledge to speak with long time professionals and educators on their level about comics. Webcartoonists have been looking for an “ambassador” to represent us and “legitimize” us for a very long time, and I think that Dave Kellet may just be the man for the job.

So anyway, It should be a very interesting weekend for webcomics and I am very excited to get the opportunity to go!

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Looking ahead into the rest of June, I see a great number of potential conflicts to get in the way of a regular, timely update schedule, but please do not fear. I am not going on hiatus and I am not going to stop updating as often as I possibly can. You may see me miss the occasional strip, and you may see more Black and White strips go up before I can get around to posting a color version. To compensate for all of this, I plan on doing more traditional blogging so look for some cool stuff in the blog section of this site in the coming weeks.

However, please know this: I am extremely thankful that I get the opportunity to draw this strip and I am extremely thankful that all of you stop by so often to read and comment on my latest offerings. Please continue to check back often! I will still be here!

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Saturday, May 1st is Free Comic Book Day! Your local comic book shop will have plenty of free comics available, but if you can’t make it out there, why not download a free book from my friends over at Wishtales Publishing.

All three book offerings are excellent and I highly recommend everyone check them out!

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Next I stopped by Dawn Griffin’s booth and grabbed a copy of her childrens book for my daughter. She was very nice and had a really great setup at her table. I wish I would have taken a picture of it.

I tracked down Ramon Perez in the artist alley and got this simply amazing sketch of Leonard the snail lounging on the beach:

Ramon was just the nicest guy in the world and was very patient with me as I awkwardly showed him my site on my iPhone. I have been a huge fan of his since I started reading webcomics and so it was great to get a chance to meet him in person.

I also stopped by Danielle Corsetto’s booth and grabbed a great sketch of Jamie ready for a day at the beach and looking sexy in her swimsuit (McPedro the cactus sure seems to like it):

Her booth was packed with people wanting to talk to her. It was very cool to see a webcartoonist getting so much attention at a convention packed with many famous actors and traditional comic artists.

All in all, it was a really fantastic weekend. I had a great time and I am very glad that I had the opportunity to take a trip to Chicago and meet a few of the great artists that I have been following online for a while now.

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