OF MIGHTY CABBAGES AND GOBLIN KINGS

Hello friends!

As you may know, my most recent book, Mighty Jack and the Goblin King, was released earlier this month. Once again I'm going on a short journey, crisscrossing North America to meet readers and sign books. This time, at most of the events, I will be "in conversation" with another author/artist. This will almost without a doubt make these evening bookstore events much, much more lively and interesting.

I've made a graphical poster image for the tour (posted below) with most of the pertinent information. Underneath that I will post links to the various venues.

I really would love to meet as many of you as possible. Tossing stories out into the wide world is great, but meeting readers in person is a particular and powerful magic.

And so, without further preamble, I give you:

Green Bean Books

University Bookstore

Once Upon a Time

The King's English

Red Balloon

The Eric Carle Museum

Toronto Public Library

McNally Robinson

Spirit of Spring

Hello friends! Just a quick note to tell you all that, despite five months without posting, this blog has not ended. It's been hard to keep up with though, for sure, and it definitely needs an update. Most of my creative side projects and daily updates are ending up on other social media these days (Instagram mer-folk anyone?), but this is still the best place for book announcements, tour announcements and roundups of my work.

And speaking of book announcements I should remind everyone that my next book, Mighty Jack and the Goblin King, will be out on September 5th! There is a very exciting tour shaping up around this book, which looks to have me traveling far and wide in late September, so stay tuned for more on that.

In the meantime, I'll try to stop neglecting this poor little blog.

-Ben

This Comic is Backwards, But I'm Posting it Anyway

Oh this poor comic! I got about halfway though it before I realized I had it all backwards. What seems to work better is that FIRST you bleed your heart out onto a page (or whatever medium you're working in) and THEN you use your brain to clean everything up and make it legible. 

Still I think the sentiment is right. It's not always like this. Sometimes making stuff is a joy from start to finish. But other times the worry creeps in. 

The Lone Adventurer, and a Commissions and Prints Update

FIRST THE ETSY ORDERS UPDATE: If you ordered ONLY ORIGINAL PAGES from me, you have likely received them by now. Most of those orders have gone out. If you ordered ART PRINTS ...well, I thank you for your patience. Some of the prints did not meet my quality control standard and so those orders are taking a bit longer than expected. I am hoping to have all the prints mailed off this week though.

OKAY ON TO THE FUN STUFF!

I reeeeeeaaally hadn't intended to participate in Inktober this year, but sometimes, unexpectedly, a story just claws its way out of you. I started the Ballad of the Lone Adventurer with a single, loose sketch and no plan. It grew from there with a life of its own.

And the response was just amazing. I'm very, very grateful for the level of engagement, the discussion and comments that surrounded this unexpected little art-child. I haven't had this much fun live-posting a project in a long, long time.

Many of you have been calling for a print version of this story and I am definitely looking into that. It may take me awhile, but eventually I'll make it available in some kind of physical form. For now though, I'm posting the whole thing here in one easy-to-scroll-through post.

Thanks again, my friends, and Happy Hallowe'en!

Mighty Jack Tour

Hey friends! Here is a list of some of the places I can be found in the coming weeks. Will I see any of you? Let me know!

Swording Again

Yikes. I seem to have let this poor blog languish a bit. Kind of a lot has been happening...

I've been juggling several projects, finishing one book (Mighty Jack) and plowing into the next (Mighty Jack 2). I'm home from my West Coast tour and Little Robot is out in the world being read by kids and their adults too. At home we're stacking firewood and doing other chores to get this old farmhouse ready for winter. I'm finishing off a new studio space, which I'm hoping to move into next month. I'm living on dreams and schemes.

And I have another new project coming up that's unlike anything I've done before. I'll be posting something about that right before Halloween. Stay tuned.

I do have one thing I can share here and now, though. Back in May I mentioned that I had helped out in the filming of a sword fight for a book trailer. The trailer is part of a new company called Serial Box that serializes fiction for readers. It's cool. It's how Charles Dickens would have released his stories if he had the internet.

The trailer I was a part of was for a series called Tremontaine. Here it is:

Everything I Need

Hello Gravagna Montale. I'd forgotten how much I loved you.

The picture above is my little studio space for the summer. It's a simple space that has everything I need for the project at hand and very little more.

There is a door, for coming in and going back out. There is a window that looks out onto a courtyard and the mountains beyond. The window is for daydreaming, but it also doubles as a light table for tracing (I've been doing more tracing and less dreaming lately). I have one big table full of pens and pencils and paper and sketchbooks. I have a computer, and a scanner and an internet connection that allows me to send the words and pictures from my table out into the wide world (or at least to my editor). I have a pair of quality headphones which, when the need arises, I use to tune out the distractions of my boisterous family.

I have a very specific task this summer. I'm working on a graphic novel called Mighty Jack. The book is completely written and I have a complete draft drawn out in thumbnail sketches -I had that part all finished before I came here. My job this summer is to turn those 200 pages of rough sketches into 200 pages of finished art. I'm fine tuning the story in small ways as I go, but mostly it's steady, quiet work.

Mighty Jack is the story of three young people and a magic garden. Here's some early concept art:

The style and characters have developed a bit and look a little more like this now:

I said I had everything I need here for the job I'm doing but there is one thing I'm missing. I used my own house as a model for Jack's house. I took plenty of reference photos before I came here, but it would have been nice to draw a scene or two from life like I did with Little Robot.

Anyway, here are a few more pictures from the past couple weeks:

A Few More Wizards

Well, here we are. Inktober is winding to a close and I think I'm squeaking in with about 15 drawings. I may be able to do a couple more but I have a huge backlog of pictures of kids in Zita costumes to post, now that Halloween is immanent.

For now here are a few drawings:

The Dripping Barrel is the most terrifying thing in this world of wizards. It floats silently about 3 feet off the ground, dripping a poison black ichor as it drifts across the countryside. Most of the time it seems aimless, but occasionally whole villages have perished,practically dissolved, in the Barrel's path. Is is a spell gone terribly wrong? Or is it the still sentient liquid remains of a powerful magic user? Few are brave enough to attempt to find out...

And of course on the other end of the fear spectrum we have Arborus the Branchy, a gentle wizard with a tree grwoing out of his head. Young lovers keep carving their initials into his branches when he sleeps too close to a farm.

And finally, this guy. He's not a wizard at all. Just a tacky performer who often does a little song and dance for the nobility about the dangers of magic. It's a living.

Inktober: A Wellspring of Wizards

Well, it's become apparent that I am not going to end the month with 31 wizards, but this has been a very invigorating process nonetheless. I feel like, with this inktober wizard project, I've been stretching my creative muscles a bit. It's a good thing because all my book projects right now are in the writing and development phase -it's all text files and notebooks full of scribbles. So it's good to be pushing in different directions.

Here's the latest batch of characters from my world of Outlaw Wizards:

Crowquill isn't really a wizard at all. He's a government agent in a ludicrous disguise, sent by the nobility to spread dissent among the wizards. For if there's one thing the nobles fear it's that the exiled magic users will begin working together.

Mighty Rael isn't a wizard either. She was a contented ex-soldier-turned-farmwife until the day her husband was killed by crab-like mage. Now she wanders the Outlands hunting down magic users, and wearing the claws of the wizard that took her true love... (so dramatic!)

Emelia the All-Seeing is a professional treasure hunter and dungeon delver.

And finally there is Emerit the Handsome who is a very powerful wizard, but regrets ever starting down the path of magic because every time he casts a spell he becomes just a little bit smaller.

And that's all for this batch.

In other news, here is a link to a fun photo interview that I did with a book club at the Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle.

And here is an illustrated column in the New Yorker, titled The Endangered Bookstores of New York which has stories from the bookstores across the city and makes a brief mention of me at the very end.

Okay! That's all for now.

UPDATE: Oh! I meant to leave you with a link to this crazy video about the Great Martian War. Discovered via Michael Gagne. It's crazy in the best possible way.

2014!

Claus the Mighty

His beard is white, his sword is sharp, his magic is thunder:

Nicholas was...

A bishop in warmer lands, uncounted lifetimes ago. Now blessed (or cursed?) with something like immortality he wanders the Frozen North doing small kindnesses, leaving small gifts, vanquishing terrible things.

And all the time he waits.

He waits for the day when the cities crumble and the Dark Things rise and he is allowed to charge, laughing, into the last great battle.

Ho!

Ho!

Ho!

---

Happy Saint Nicholas Day! The format of the description above was taken from Neil Gaiman's hilarious, dark interpretation of Santa from the very short story "Nicholas Was..." which you can read here. By format I mean it starts with "Nicholas was" and ends with "Ho, ho, ho."

Good ol' Saint Nick, patron not just of children but also of archers! And thieves. I take heart. This guy was made to look after the Hatke House.

Oh, and thanks to everyone who ordered a copy of Memory Dragon! There's still plenty of time to nab a copy of your own!

Elf Waits for Adventure

So it looks like I'm going to chip away at a small party of professional dungeon crawlers. Tim Canny named our halfling "Nip ThimbleRig." Here is the second member of our group, an elven spellcaster called Tuck Lowsong.

Tuck was raised in the only known mixed Dwarven-Elven community. She is a naturally talented sorcerer, and has also trained as an alchemist (specializing in bomb making). She is volatile, undisciplined, foul-mouthed and unpredictable and that's when she's sober, which is frankly rare. But her knack for improvised magic makes her invaluable in goblin-infested and trap-laden dungeons.

The most important day in her life was when she spent her last coin on ale, was kicked out of a village tavern and saw a little halfling walking up the road followed by a weird little bird...

The Riddle of Steel (or wood)

The picture above is a two handed broadsword from Starfire Swords. Starfire swords are forged with stage combat in mind, rather than costuming or wall mounting, but I think they are all the more beautiful for it. The edges and tips are blunt, but the steel rings like a tuning fork when struck. I’ve had a pair of these for about eight years now (actually the forge has burned down and been rebuilt in that time) and as you can see they’ve had a bit of use.





I’ve been meaning to post something about swords for awhile now, and this is a good time. Because swords mean a lot, and even in these postmodern days they can still play an important part of our lives.

For instance, last week my sister-in-law (God bless her) locked the keys in our van. Thankfully, the passenger door was not latched all the way and I was able to wedge it open and work some strips of metal (flattened curtain rods) past the weatherproofing up to the lock button. But my paltry flattened curtain rods were not rigid enough to unlock the car. I was on the verge of calling the locksmith when I thought of an old French military saber I had at home. It worked like a charm.

Lately some friends and I have been sparring once a week with wooden swords and metal bucklers using a medieval fighting system developed from Manuscript 1.33 (and explained further by these guys). It’s a lot of fun and yes, okay, right after swordfighting we go in and play Dungeons and Dragons.