MAX DE RAD DAY!

Hey!  Remember the AWESOME CCS fellow from 2010, Max de Radigues?  WELL, he was chosen as a special selection in the ONGOING Angouleme Comics Festival in France for his new book, "Meanwhile in White River Junction" called "Pendant ce Temps a White River Junction" in French.  It's an awesome book, and he's an awesome guy!  I miss him tons!

 

LOOK HOW RICH I AM IN PANEL 4!!

BIKEMAN PAGE 155! A BRIEF HIATUS

 

Sigh!  Well, this is it guys!  Again, I have, by no means, exhausted the current Bikeman page surplus, but I've gotten too close to the point at which I've printed Minicomics.  The idea of starting this Bikeman webcomic was to be a sort of archive for pages that had already been released in minicomic form.  If I pass that point and start posting pages that aren't in print, it just doesn't make sense.  So, for now, this dragon is going to take a mystic slumber!  Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

Also, I haven't played the new Zelda: Skyward Sword game, but a couple people now have said that you can spot a Bikeman-esque character running one of the shops in the game .  Apparently he runs an airship and uses a bike pedaling system to keep it aloft!  My heart soooooooooons!

Bikeman Page 154

 

Hello faithful Bikeman readers!  It is with a heavy heart that I am to inform you that this will be the last week of Bikeman updates before I take a little bit of a hiatus.  Now, DON'T WORRY, we have, by no means, exhausted the amount of Bikeman pages that have already completed.  There is another 150 waiting in the wings.  However, we are starting to catch up with the minicomics that have been released thus far.  Also, work on other projects has occupied a lot of my time.  Stuff like Leo Geo, work for the Air National Guard, Leo Geo 2 (!!), and pinball work for Stern (!!), has come onto the front burner.  Bikeman will continue!  The pages are there!  We're just going to take a little break!

This spring is going to be pretty crazy, but it's going to be a lot of fun!  Amongst all the who-haw, there are multiple places where you can get your Jon Chad fix:

- Drop Taget Zine Blog: The blog for the pinball zine that Alec Longstreth and I do.  We're still going strong and are starting to shape up the next issue.

-The Stern Pinball Blog: The currently only manufacturer of pinball machines has graciously extended a portion of their site for Alec and I to run wild.  I post illustrations and dream machines.

- The Fizzmont Institute of Rad Science: The fake science institute that bankrolls my Leo Geo books has asked me to start writing a blog that covers what goes on at the Fizzmont Auxiliary Imaging Division.  It has somewhat turned into a crafting site that goes over various screen-printing, letterpress, and handmade objects that I create all from the world of Leo Geo.  Science!

Bikeman Page 153

Bikeman Page 152

Bikeman Page 151

Bikeman Page 150

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ME!  Somehow, I've managed to keep my miserable carcass on this planet for 26 years.  I don't see 26 as any sort of sizable milestone, but, if nothing else, it means that the annual brouhaha known as the Capricornucopia is right around the corner.  Man alive, if there is one party that I'll NEVER miss, it's the Capricornucopia.  Last year the theme was time travelers.  I dressed up as...me, but I was carrying around a baby doll all night that was ALSO DRESSED AS ME!  It was me from the past.  I tried to keep the little guy out of trouble, but it's hard!

Bikeman Page 149

Bikeman Page 148 and CAAAAAAAAATTTTTSSSSSS

 

Sigh, I know that these transition pages must be getting tedious, so I have a little extra something something for you all.  Recently, my floor-mate (and awesome student) Laurel Leake and I held a Cat and Gold-Themed floor party.  It was ba-zonkers.  I wanted to add an extra Jon-Chad-touch to the decorations, so I screen-printed some gold and cat prints.  This was one of my first forays into halftone printing, and I was EXTREMELY surprised with how well it worked.

 

There were about five different cats, gold bars, gold coins, and a big money sign.  The coolest thing about these prints were that they were derived from images downloaded off the web.  72dpi.  They held up really well.  Here was my favorite:

 

The SAD thing is that this is the first image that comes up if you google "King Cat" on google image search.  Are you for real, Google?  'Cause, last time I checked, there was a little something called King Cat Comics!  You know, 72 issues!  Loved by all!  Ugh, whatever.  That cat is so regal, I'm going to let it slide.

Bikeman Page 147

 

Bikeman Page 146

Bikeman Page 145 and a Chad Xmas Update!

 

Ahhhh, another transition page!  How atmospheric!  It's like the sun cresting over the horizon on Christmas morning.  Wait!  Xmas is IN TWO DAYS!!  I got back into Burlington, VT (where my parents live) on the night of the 22nd; just in time for the Annual Chadurjian Christmas Triathlon on the 23rd!  Event number 1 is the annual bloodletting, where we all go down to the Red Cross and donate blood.  The machines that draws blood records how long your donation takes, thus giving us quantifiable numbers as to how we did.  For the second year in a row I won this event with a (not too great) time of 5:48.  It was a good enough time though!  Mom Chad came in close second at 5:53.  Too close for comfort. 

The second event is the annual cookie decorating.  This year was tough.  My brother was really clever with the angel-shaped cookies.  Here's tray 1:

Here we can see a diagram of a breast done by my sister on the left, a Boston Celtics player below that, and a shark head by my brother on the right-ish side of the tray.  Here's tray 2:

 

My brother was bringing out the big guns with this one.  On the top left you can see Mysterio from Spider-man.  A little bit down and to the left of Mysterio is the Shocker, also from Spider-man.  I mean, it's PRETTY good, but when you play with the big dogs, YOU'RE GONNA SEE THE TEETH.  At the bottom-center of this tray you can kinda see my boot-cookie depicting the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.  Here's were most of my cookies ended up:

 

AHHHH, yesssssssss.  At the top left we see a piece that I call, "Violent Crime; the disintegration of the American Morality Fortress".  Moving down and right from there is Krang.  Down and to the right of Krang is a dragon head.  In the bottom left hand corner is duck man (??).  Above the dragon head and Krang is perhaps my most ambitious piece of the year:

Using cookie scraps and some engineering know-how, I've constructed a cookie replica of Barad-dûr, Sauron's tower from the Lord of the Rings.  See how imposing the back-lighting makes it!  Look at that M&M eye peering at you through the thinly veiled courage that shrouds your soul!

The last event of the Triathlon is informally the Bailey's drink-off, which I didn't win.  

This really has been an amazing day!  I got to go to the screen-printing shop where I USED to work (and where my brother NOW works) and visit with them.  I even got to catch shirts that my brother was printing as they came off the conveyor belt.  How flipping cute is that?!?  They have a new 10-station, 8-color automatic press!  I knew it was going to be there, but wasn't informed that it came FROM THE FUTURE.  that thing was outfitted with so many sensors, motors, magnets and computers, that I was amazed that my brother had gotten the hang of it in a short amount of time.  Christmas is going to have to pull all its stops if it wants to compete with how good the 23rd has been!  Happy Holidays!

Bikeman Page 144

Bikeman Page 143

Bikeman Page 142

Bikeman Page 141

Bikeman Page 140

Bikeman Page 139

New Leo Geo Page!

On the right you'll see a new link that will take you to the new blog for the Fizzmont Institute of Rad Science and, by extension, Leo Geo!  I'm going to be posting all sorts of images, links, and process stuff as the release date approaches!  Keep your peepers peeled!  Also, did I mention that Alec and I have started blogging for Stern Pinball?  Well, we have!  It's a ton of fun!  Alec has been posting pages from his first Zeroes to Heroes story while I've been interjecting with some pinball goodies that I've whipped up just for them.  Check it out!

Bikeman Pages 133, 134, AND 138

"Whoa, what's up with that title, Jon?!" I hear you cry!  Well, in what I can only describe as a senior moment, I reglected to post pages 133 and 134, which is a shame since 133 has the closest thing that I would call a "tender moment" in chapter 3.  Page 138 is pretty nice too.

 

Here is 138

Thank you to everyone that stopped by and said hi at Expozine this week!  I thought that I would be one Rad Chad if I just brought zines with me, but I just felt NAKED without my comics.  It was still a great show, and I wanted to personally thank Montreal for being SO CUTE.  For real.  I have gone to Montreal a couple of times in the past year, and every time it digs its poutine claws into me a little more.  It's also no real surprise that I completely fell in love with the bike culture.  Scamander and I would have a ball.  I got something sweet in the stables for you all this Thursday!