Your guide to finding Dernwerks this summer

Anime Expo
When: July 2-5
Where: Los Angeles Convention Center
Who: Darren J. Gendron, Robert Zailo
Bonus: Zailo will be taking commissions Friday to Sunday to get yourself drawn as a zombie.
Double Bonus: Claytime Workshop
Darren will be teaching a workshop on how to make clay chibis on Thursday. It’ll be in Workshop Room 1 (LACC Room 501), starting at 4 p.m. If you want to do this, please arrive a little bit early, as space is limited.

Otakon
When: July 17-19
Where: Baltimore Convention Center
Who: Darren J. Gendron, possible sneak appearance by Bryan Prindiville
Bonus: Claytime Workshop
Darren will be teaching a workshop on how to make clay chibis. This is the same workshop that’s offered to AX. I’ll update the times and locations when available. If you want to do this, please arrive a little bit early, as space is limited.
Double Bonus: Collaborating a Comic
Join Darren with his other webcomic friends as we go over the dos and don’ts of playing nice with others to make a comic. Then stay for the giant room full of pitches.

ConnectiCon
When: July 31-Aug. 2
Where: Hartford, Connecticut
Who: Darren J. Gendron
Bonus: Darren will be a guest of honor at this show. As promised, he will be attending in a top hat, spats, monocle and cane.
Double Bonus: No, really. A top hat, spats, monocle and cane.

SPX
When: Sept. 26-27
Where: Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center
Who: Darren J. Gendron, Bryan Prindiville
Bonus: Probably the only chance you’ll get during these six months to get a commission from Bryan.
Double Bonus: And Darren will be making clay commissions as well.

Note: There is one unconfirmed show on the schedule, but it’ll be in the fall. There will be more updates when that one is available.

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I’ve actually got myself an hour of free time, so I thought it best to give some reports on what I’ve been up to lately.
Running.
Screaming.
Putting out fires.
Setting things on fire.
More running.
Less screaming.

Well, maybe. It was only 22 days ago that Balticon was a’rolling, and as usual, it was a blast. The best part about this show is that it gives me an excuse to goof off with Nick, Marty, Jamie, Ross, Onezumi, Harknell, Barb and Chris (with scattered spottings of Rob, who is a rare nocturnal creature of writing at this point). I’ll be leaving the “who are these people” a mystery for now, as I’ve linked them all many times in the past and will link-love them many times in the future.
In fact, the ONLY link I wish to give out in the Balticon portion of this update goes to Chris Flick, creator of Capes and Babes. I’ve seen his stuff previously and liked it, so it was good to finally meet this guy face-to-face.
Balticon, mentally, marks an end of a season and the start of the big shows for me. Any show that I used to do between October and May were off-season gigs. I’d make sure that merch was stocked, but there never was the pressure to release something new or really push to get a good show in. The only reason I’ll do shows like Balticon, Katsucon or SPX is because I don’t have to travel too much to get to them, so they don’t take that big of a chunk out of my life.
Well, Balticon got slightly short-shrifted by me, as my shirt reorder came in late – the day after Balticon. Honestly, this is 100% my fault, for those that have heard me say wonderful things about my shirts guy, they all still apply. But for an entire month of June, I couldn’t but help notice that my entire merch supply was full, and I didn’t have a show to go to until July (the start of Conmageddon 2009). It was Wednesday, June 3, that a couple interesting things were rattling in my head. First, the Giants were playing in DC, and Randy Johnson was going for win 300. I had tickets to that game, rain and all. Second, two dear friends Ami and Bree were having a panic attack about MoCCA – they were lacking a person to split their table with. MoCCA was their second show ever, and first one with a table. Their getting the table was fairly last minute from the waiting list, but too last minute for the third party they initially planned to split the table with. Well, because Johnson got win 300, because I got the weekend off of work, and because I might be mentally unstable, I ended up adding MoCCA to my 2009 convention tour (which will cover five states and two time zones now).
There’s been lots of reports elsewhere. I agree mostly with the Evan Dorkin report. But ultimately, it was a fun show because of the people I met and the old friends I caught up with. Since last weekend, I’ve been slamming a dent into my forehead with the list of other people I knew that were also at the show. Which again might be my fault, because I did not do a very good job of promoting my being there. Which leads us to Conmageddon 2009. Give me one more free hour, and I’ll get that on the blog.

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I’ve been meaning to start this review for some time now, as I read a lot of webcomics and feel that I should try to share the good ones with you.
Circumstances are dictating that I change the order of which comics get reviewed, though. My apologies to Evil Diva, but it looks like it’ll be one more week before I start confessing how much I’ve enjoyed your new and fresh story.
Instead, we’ll be starting with The Kind You Don’t Bring Home To Mother, a Zuda Comic. Because if you don’t find out about it now, it might not make it much farther.
Let’s back up a little bit. Some of you may be familiar with the name Ryan Estrada. He is a legend of webcomics in his own right, thanks in part to his own comics, and in part to his guest stripalooza. He set himself a goal of becoming a webcomic professional. Somehow, this involves living in South Korea. Honestly, I’m fuzzy on those details. But in early April, Estrada got onto Twitter and hinted that he had some big plans coming. One day later, he noted that he was getting kicked out of his house. The next day, he announced that The Kind You Don’t Bring Home To Mother was up at Zuda comics. I’ll say this about Estrada – he’s entertaining in all facets of his apparently movie-scripted life.
Overall, this is an interesting story that I, a known storyteller, can’t resist looking at. But should this affect how we look at his comic work? Nope, not at all.
I’m behind the idea of voting for The Kind You Don’t Bring Home To Mother for completely different reasons. It’s light, it’s fun, it’s silly, and it’s got a werewolf.
The first two strips are bizarre in their slice-of-life normalcy. You can almost buy into this being a comedic melodrama about the worst set of parents ever – throwing a jacket in the garbage can? Really? But by the third strip, we already get a feel as to where this’ll end up, with the addition of the werewolf element. Also, we get a dose of awkward father-son probing of sexual history. Good times.
The story overall is rife with tiny details. Girls munch and boys chew. And I think they’re eating flowers for dinner?
By strip 6, we’ve set enough of the table that the best joke, the protection gag, hits it out of the park.
As I said earlier, I had to get this review up now, because this comic is one of the April competitors for the Zuda Competition. It has until Thursday, April 30, to tally up votes, favorites and comments. If it doesn’t make it to No. 1, it could very well be over.
So I implore you, my readers and people of obvious good taste, go there, vote, make it a favorite, and comment on it. Because I want to see the wedding.

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