the ULTRA UPDATE!

Okay, so I have good excuses this time for the lack of blog updates over the past few weeks! April was crazy! It felt like everything that could possibly happen to me, happened to me in April: did my taxes, got really sick, juggled two jobs for a little while before switching and had two conventions in two weeks! April had its ups and downs, but I'm glad it's May now. I've decided to take it easy this month. I'm also getting close to finishing the pencils for "Unpleasant People" #4. Just a couple pages left. I want to go to the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo in the fall and I want to have two new books by then (the aforementioned "Unpleasant People" and another issue of "Brain Parts").

Speaking of conventions, I had a great time at the Boston Comic Con and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival in NYC.

At the Boston Comic Con I tabled with my good pals Matt Aucoin and Jose Luis Olivares. We had a great time and even put together a little anthology called "School Pencil" the night before the con. It was a combination of one-page works from all of us, plus some jam comics. Matt drew the fabulous cover. It's a pretty awesome cover. I don't want to jinx it, but odds are, there will be a "School Pencil" #2.

Some of my favorite costumes from the con here in Boston: Starfleet, of course, I nearly shit myself when I saw a "Stargate" costume (first time I've seen one at a con), also the first time I've seen Carl Sagan cosplay (apparently not a lot of people were recognizing him. For shame, science fans!), I liked that this Harley Quinn was faithful to her costume in the comics and show (I'd seen enough interpretations), the Keymaster is always a hit, where else do you see Indiana Jones face off against Lady Deathstrike, and I loved these Doctor Who ladies (does this mean the Tardis is also the companion?).

A nice fellow named Rich Johnston stopped by the table to chat and shared some fruit snacks with me. If I had known at the time that he was a journalist, I would have tried to act more intelligent. But he did end up mentioning Matt, Jose and myself, as well as some other great exhibitors in an article he wrote about how great Boston Comic Con is. And it certainly was great.


Some of the great stuff I picked up at Boston Comic Con: "A Daley Dose of Monsters" by Rich Daley, "Avra Kedabra Vol. 1" by Elizabeth Neronski, "The Stuff of Legend, Book 2: The Jungle" by Mike Raicht, Brian Smith and Charles Paul Wilson III, "Caroline's Catalog" by E. J. Barnes, "Geraniums & Bacon #6" by Cathy Leamy, "Kristilyn's Burlesque Sketchbook Vol. 1" by Kristilyn, "The Superhighs" by Dani Marie and Jessica Vitali, "A Conversation about Spiders" by Aya Rothwell, "It's A Maglorificent Monday" by Andy Wong, "Inky Stories" by Dave Marshall, "The Underburbs #1" by Joe Haley and T. J. Dort, "Paul and the Reveres Issue 1" by Tina Pratt

MoCCA was a blast, too! Got to stay with my good pals Katherine Roy and Tim Stout (also alumni of the Center for Cartoon Studies). I also got to see my pal Kenan Rubenstein and pick up one of his great teeny comics. If you haven't checked out his shit, you should check out his shit.

A sampling of the great stuff I picked up at MoCCA: "Yasha Lizard" by Kristina Stipetic, "The Island of Doctor Moreau" and "Pugs on Drugs" by Kat Fajardo, "Rat Bastard Part 1" by Cliff Galbraith, "Amelia Part 5" by Denis St. John, "What's Normal Anyway?" by Morgan Boecher, "9 P.M." by Melanie Gillman,  "Franz Kafka's Poseidon" by Jarod Rosello, "Nothing is Private" and "El Diablo" by Luis Enrique Echavarria Uribe, "On the Beach" by Kenan Rubenstein

And since I feel bad that I've been neglecting my blog for so long, here's another comic to close out this post:

I can't stop with the Illuminati jokes!

Good Hair Days

So, people seem to enjoy my little installments of "Great Moments in Terrible Facial Hair" (at least, that's what I tell myself). But why should facial hair get all the props? There's plenty of great moments in non-facial hair, too! Like this little gem. I'm not sure how she got it that way, but she rocked it like a pro!

Another Work Comic

There is very little embellishment in the below comic. This is pretty much exactly how it happened.

From my last job, in New Hampshire.

Had a little scanning party this evening with enough material complete for another few weeks of blog updates. I drew this comic at a bigger size than I do normally. Didn't think about how small my scanner is. In the end, I had to essentially scan each panel separately and puzzle them together using the most anti-intuitive graphics program I've ever touched (no disrespect to the Linux crowd, I totally dig Ubuntu, but Gimp is a horrible thing that should be destroyed with fire. Unfortunately, I'm too poor to buy Photoshop right now, so I have no alternative).

Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

In case you were wondering...

And in honor of Valentine's Day I present...

Something that has absolutely nothing to do with Valentine's Day.
And here's a glimpse of what I'm working on right now: Unpleasant People #4. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's a narrative humor series about the trials and tribulations of a fantasy villain, his scantily-clad second-in-command and, of course, his long-suffering secretary. Issues 1-3 are available to buy (shoot me an email, holly_foltz@yahoo.com or come to the Boston Comic Con or MoCCA where I'll be selling in April).

My thumbnails tend to be very messy. Kudos if you can read the dialogue.

This week's post is done, I'll go back to stuffing my face with chocolate while watching Netflix with my cat.

You think I'm joking?

Secret societies are a thing and should be taken very, very seriously!

Does anyone else get the feeling that the Freemasons and the Illuminati and the like are just clubs for old men to sit around naked, smoking cigars and watching soap operas?

Maybe it's just me.

For what's probably the most accurate insight into secret societies, their formation and their operation, read the beginning of Guards! Guards! by Sir Terry Pratchett.

Here's Some Things...

Noticed something cool the other day: when I was drawing the below comic, I used two different "Star Trek" fonts, one from The Next Generation in the fourth panel, and another non-italicized version of the title font from the original series.

That's not the cool thing. (although Star Trek fonts are, in and of themselves, pretty cool)

The cool thing is that I noticed a diner in Somerville uses the same non-italicized Star Trek font for their sign! I wouldn't have made the connection if I hadn't drawn that comic! These are the things that excite me.

Also, I was walking around and noticed people staring up at the roof of a pizza place. I was thinking "What's so special about those air conditioners?", then I spotted it, too!

A red-tailed hawk, chowing down on a pigeon lunch. There were quite a few feathers floating down. My camera doesn't have a good zoom, or resolution, but I snapped a couple pics anyway. Eventually it flew off (probably got self-conscious with everyone watching him eat).

All raptors aside, it was nice to just chat with random people on the street that I would otherwise just walk past. Being able to just stop and look at something interesting and gab about it with strangers is something I really missed about the pedestrian lifestyle. I really like it here!

Too Much Star Trek

I've been watching "Star Trek: Voyager" lately and as you can tell from the comic below, I've maintained a healthy lack of personal investment in the fictional characters and situations.


Does anyone else think that Captain Janeway bears a passing resemblance to a Gibson Girl?
I think it's the up-do.

Note: I've disabled Lightbox on my blog, so when you click on an image, it will take you to another page with just the image and the option to see it full-sized. I realized that some of the smaller text was too hard to see using Lightbox, and might be unreadable unless seen at full size.