In STREET CODE #3, Danger lurks everywhere in the streets of Carroll Gardens--even if that danger is mostly vehicular. Jack encounters his ex-girlfriend's ex-best friend: http://www.comixology.com/digital/3437/Street-Code-3




In STREET CODE #2, Jack gets into a would-be scuffle with an out-of-line line cook in Carroll Gardens in the wake of 9/11 and encounters a hulk with a basketball: http://www.comixology.com/digital/3325/Street-Code-2


FIRST ISSUE IS FREE: http://www.comixology.com/digital/3212/Street-Code-1



Jack, a native New York bruiser, is fed up with living in the dregs of a drug-addled Alphabet City where his neighbors are insane shut-ins and his bicycle is always getting stolen. He escapes from Manhattan to Brooklyn to make a fresh start in Carroll Gardens, only to face a new strain of street logic--where most everything he encounters is not as it seems. Jack steps in the hazing of eons-old rituals as a polarized community begrudgingly changes hands between tribes. With STREET CODE, Dean Haspiel returns to his semi-autobiographical roots and explores the emotional truths between prime and primate.

I'll be at Baltimore Comicon, sharing a table with Nathan [POWER OUT] Schreiber, Jim [SAM & LILAH] Dougan, Reilly [PRINCE OF POWER] Brown, and occasional guest, Robin [WOMEN OF MARVEL] Ha. I will have free copies of the SUPER RAY mini-comic Jonathan Ames and I created to promote HBO's "Bored To Death," and I'll be presenting at The Harvey Awards which has nominated THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER for 'Best Anthology.'

I'll also be doing a panel with Jose Villarrubia about our collaboration on the upcoming Vertigo graphic novel, CUBA: MY REVOLUTION.

Room 307 (Sunday)
2:00-3:00 - Spotlight on Cuba: My Revolution - Artist Dean Haspiel and colorist Jose Villarrubia discuss their new Vertigo graphic novel collaboration. Dean Haspiel is a native New Yorker who created BILLY DOGMA and STREET CODE and has collaborated on great superhero and semi-autobiographical comic books, helped pioneer personal webcomics with the invention of ACT-I-VATE, and draws for HBO's "Bored To Death." Jose Villarrubia is a renowned artist/colorist/photographer who has worked on such books as Alan Moore's "Voice of the Fire" and "Promethea" among many, many others. He is also the chair of the Illustration Department at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art).

For more information about Baltimore Comicon, please visit: http://www.baltimorecomiccon.com/

The Ignatz Award 2010 jury has nominated the book and me for Promising New Talent. Thank you! For the full list of the talented nominations see here.

Special offer still available! Get a 15% discount on your copy (thru 9/15) when you order through Lulu.com. Just enter the codeword NEWREAD305 at check-out.

I will also be participating at the New York Comic-Con 2010, more details coming soon. During the Con's weekend and a few block away, the Visual Arts Gallery will be opening the show "Ink Plots" exploring the tradition of the graphic novel at the School of Visual Arts and will feature original artwork from the book (other wonderful artists include Bill Plympton, Nathan Fox, Dash Shaw, Koren Shadmi and many more.) The reception will take place on Thu. October 14, 6 – 8pm at Visual Arts Gallery 601 West 26 Street, 15th floor New York, NY 10001 212.592.2145. 

Here are some of the recent impressions NFNF made:

“A new reading experience…masterful storytelling, subtle characterization…felt with a quick emotional wallop…Efal’s style is spot on.”
NYCGraphicNovelists.com

“Remarkable… an intense story about the generational, environmental, and societal gaps that open wider and wider in times of war… synthesizes the best of Japanese manga with the best of American graphic novels.”
LongAndShortBoxOfIt

“Beautiful brushwork…breathtaking”
BrokenFrontier.com

"...a powerful and engaging tale...a few brush strokes conveying a universe of meaning...the echoes of the loss and horror of the Holocaust can be felt through the story itself... It works as a beautiful combination of the best of both traditions."
Jewish Outreach Institute

"Ink-heavy, occasionally scratchy, shadow-laden style to the art; anybody that likes the work of Goseki Kojima is encouraged to look closely at this one."
Fleen.com

"Samurai Struggles in the Shadow of Jewish Life: The Jewish mantra of “Never Forget, Never Forgive” is given new truths when transplanted into the foreign setting and foreign soil of historic Japan, and Efal tries to understand and interpret his own thoughts regarding those lessons."
Newsarama

STREET CODE #1 launches on Comixology today. Creator Dean Haspiel has a few words to say:

http://zuda.blog.dccomics.com/2010/08/18/street-code-launch-zuda-according-to-dean-haspiel/ 

The panel “The Future of the Traditional Comic Strip in the Era of Dying Newspapers” at the MoCCA (August 12th, 7pm) had a line-up change:
Ruben Bolling (Tom the dancing Bug) will replace Leroy Brown, who had to cancel in the last minute.
Ruben will join Rina Piccolo, Bill Roundy, Tony Murphy and AIV'lers Kevin Kobasic and Thomas Baehr for an interesting talk about comic strips.
Admission $5, free for MoCCA members.

link

The traditional comic strip in the daily paper may have been your first comic experience ever. The strip may still be around somehow, somewhere, but what about your newspaper? More and more newspapers are in financial trouble. Some have been forced to shut down completely, while others have gone digital. What does this mean for the beloved comic strip format? Are there any possibilities for the (daily) strip to exist outside printed syndication? How would such an option work?

“The Future of the Traditional Comic Strip in the Era of Dying Newspapers”, a panel discussion at the MoCCA (link below) in NYC, Thursday 12th at 7pm, with Rina Piccolo (http://www.rinapiccolo.com/), Tony Murphy (http://itsallaboutyouweb.com), Leroy Brown (http://www.icecubescomic.com), Kevin Kobasic (http://www.act-i-vate.com/creators?id=46) and Bill Roundy (www.billroundy.com/comics.html). Created and moderated by Thomas Baehr (http://penguinsforfree.com).

link

After some technical problems and thanks to the help of my friend Todd H. Page, I’m proud to announce that my new webpage is online now. I will upload new strips regularly. Please take a few minutes and check it out at penguins for free.com
Have fun!!!

link

Marvel editor supreme, Axel Alonso, kindly invited me to write and draw a Deadpool story for DEADPOOL 1000 [coming out this Weds., August 4th]. I was happy to receive the call, only, I've never read a Deadpool story. Excited by the challenge, I tapped current PRINCE OF POWER artist and studio mate, Reilly Brown, who cut his eye teeth on Deadpool, to school me and, after much deliberation, devised a short story that, I believe, befits the popular "merc with a mouth," as abetted by the coloring powers of Joe Infurnari.

Here are two articles about DEADPOOL 1000:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/deadpool-1000-axel-alonso-interview-100706.html
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=5916&disp=table

Here are some preliminary sketches I did for my Deadpool story, "A Nightmare on Elm Tree"

Have a look here
http://gizmodo.com/5585411/say-hello-to-this-months-guest-illustrator-nikki-cook

Photo by the ubiquitous Seth Kushner ( of this Parish )

I am celebrating Dark Horse's acquisition of Motel Art Improvement Service with "Bee in...The Ramble", a new short story at MySpace Dark Horse Presents:
http://myspace.com/darkhorsepresents?issuenu=36&storynum=3
I am honored to be included in the final offering from this venue for web comics. The good news, though, is that Dark Horse is reviving Dark Horse Presents as a genuine print anthology. Look for more web comics on the Dark Horse site at some point in the future, as well.
This story is the implementation of a new practice I call "putting it all in there." There's more variety in this story than in my previous work; this is a direction in which I'm going to push Bee, henceforth.
Try to identify some of my peers in the final scene, and dig out your 3d glasses for a brief stereo moment.