Holiday Greetings From Yellowland

WELL, it's that time of year again. A time when blog posts everywhere begin with cliches like, "it's that time of year again."

There's no movement on the "Yellow" front, other than to let you know that I plan to dive fully back into production after Tropical Storm Christmas has blown over. I apologize to my many fans, and to my detractors say, "You may have won this round, but the war is far from over."

Look for "Feels Like The First Time" to land sometime in late January/early February, with subsequent issues following every month or two after that. (Some new techy gadgets might help me speed up production. I'm talking to you, Zombie Santa!)

In the meantime, I hope you have some good times with family and friends over the next couple of weeks, stuff yourself with plenty of good food, and don't forget that the holidays aren't just about eating other people's brains. It's about giving your brains to be eaten, too.

In the immortal words of the ever-eloquent Neil Diamond: Have a very merry, cherry-cherry, holly holy, rock n' rolly Christmas. Thank you Neil. You truly are the Shakespeare of our time.

Nothing to report.

Sorry to disappoint you, loyal readers, but I have nothing new to report at the moment. But since it's been exactly one months since my last post I figure it'd be a good idea to at least let you know I'm still alive. And so is Yellow.

What with the Holidays n' stuff, I haven't had much time to devote to it. Unfortunately that means my publishing schedule has been thrown off quite a bit. Issue #5, "Feels Like the First Time," is probably looking at a January release, if not February. My hope was to have my second trade (or Episode, as I choose to call them) printed and available at Planet Comicon in March. However, that would require me to not only get #5 pumped out by January, but to immediately turn around and within a matter of weeks have #6 ("Butterflies & Hurricanes") written, drawn, inked, scanned, lettered, shaded, printed, and shipped back to me.

Miracles have happened, but not in the comic book world.

Funny story: Back when I first started drawing Issue #1, I had grand delusions that I could push out one episode every month. I was so excited that I went through the calendar in my phone and set alarms to remind me when to start writing, drawing, and publish each issue. Great idea at the time; but now that my pace is much slower it's more like a constant, mocking reminder of my failure. It's a blow to your morale when you're struggling to draw Issue #5 and you get an alert on your phone saying, "Publish #10," and another a few days later that says, "Start writing #11." And apparently I was very thorough in my alarm-setting, because the reminders never...seem...to stop.

I-CON...and I Did

So, I'm recovering from an exciting time in Des Moines over the weekend. Wait, let me make sure I just said what I think I said. Excitement...in Des Moines? Yep, that's right. The something-something annual I-CON comic convention was Saturday and it was a blast. Much bigger than the Slash & Bash film fest a few weeks ago, and I met a lot of great people. Thanks a lot for those of you who came out to visit, and to those of you who are visiting this blog for the first time after having met me at the Con.

Unfortunately my phone died shortly after I arrived, so I wasn't able to really take any pictures--wait, let me make sure...Phone...pictures...yep, that's right.

But some of the guys I met there--including Dale Martin, Mike Sullivan, and Bill Hook (actually Bill and I met at S&B weeks before, and he's the reason I even knew about I-CON at all) were taking several pics and I believe we were all thwipping together in one of them. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds.

But if you want to see some great pictures from the event, head over to the gallery on Des Moines's Metromix site. Not to toot my own horn, but--out of twenty-nine pictures total I have two of them. (Three if you count the back of my shirt.) The gallery features 5 creators that were at the event (out of at least a dozen or more), and I'm one of 'em! I guess it helps to be dressed in an obnoxious color.

Don't know what's next on the agenda, other than continuing to work on Issue 5...available soon. But I hope to see you all at the next Con, wherever that might be!

Bobby

Don't Forget About Des Moines!

Just a reminder to you one or two readers out there...I'm going to be at the I-Con comic book convention in Des Moines this Saturday from 9am to 5pm.

You know who else will be there? Darth Vader. That's right. And Spider-man. And Batman. And Clark Kent (but no Superman for some reason...)

Also there will be a bunch of other comic book creators there, and even animators and designers. Important people!

So bring $5 and a copy of Yellow for me to sign, and head up to the Adventureland Inn for the festivities. Or just send your best wishes. Those will be helpful, too.

(By the way, the $5 is for admission--not my signature. Although now that you mention it...)

New Books, and A Look Ahead

Just got the new books ("Spares" and "Shrinking Universe") as printed by 360 Digital Books in the mail. Er, that is...I got them in the mail. They weren't printed in the mail, you see...anyway.

They look great. A bit different from the look of the previous books, but not necessarily for the worse. Come up to I-Con in Des Moines next month and see for yourself. Or don't. It's a free country. (But you still have to pay for a library card. Go figure. What's that? You don't have to pay for a library card? That homeless man owes me!)

Okay, focus. Where was I? Oh yes, over here.

There, that's better.

Anyway, work is continuing (slowly) on the next issue, "Feels Like the First Time," but I'm already in the planning stages for the follow-up, which now has a title of its own: "Butterflies & Hurricanes."

Those two issues, along with "Spares" will comprise the second "Episode" of the series--which doesn't have a title just yet. Nevertheless, it should be available for purchase by Januaray or February of 2010.

Bee-tee-double-you, how fun is it going to be to say "twenty-ten" all the time? It's almost like the future is really here. My flying car should be arriving any day now...

Slash and Bash Wrap Up

THANKS for coming out and being supportive at the film fesitivus. If you bought a comic, hopefully you'll like it enough to keep buying more. If you didn't buy one because you weren't sure it was worth it, well, you'd better get on board now before you get left behind. You don't know what you're missing! (By the way, in the photo above, that's Adrienne Barbeau in the middle, pimpin' the Zombietowne tee! That's my aunt-in-law on the right, and me on the left. I'm not really that tall. The camera phone adds three feet. And a beard.)

I had a great time at the festival and am looking forward to hopefully being invited back next year. My steam-powered number-crunching predictor machine tells me that in one years time I should be on issue...10 or 11. I wish it would go faster than that, but doing both the writing and the drawing makes it difficult to crank out these things any faster than one every two months.

But looking ahead, I am hoping to get into a comic convention coming up shortly in Des Moines. (Thanks to Bill for telling me about it!) After that, there's another horror film fest at the Tivoli in Kansas City that I will hopefully have a presence at, even if it's just a display.

And in other news, I'm continuing to make headway on issue #5, "Feels Like the First Time." Start brushing up on your Foreigner...and your Dr. King. (You'll see.)

See you in the funny pages!
Bobby

Getting closer...

SEPTEMBER 25th is fast-approaching. (It seems like it gets closer every day!) Be sure to buy your tickets or steal them from someone who trusts you so you can get in to see all the great classic horror movies and meet Adrienne Barbeau. But most importantly, bring some cash, because you're going to want to buy a few copies of "Yellow," so you can read it again and again and again.

In other news, I've begun work on Issue #5 now--tentatively titled "Feels Like the First Time". (And yes, I promise "Yellow" #5 will included at least one reference to Mountain Dew.) I've written the script, and am in the process of storyboarding the panels. I hope to already be partway through drawing it by the start of next week, although if you come visit me at Slash and Bash you will undoubtedly find me working on it there, too.

Well, that's all for now!

Bobby Bierley
writer & drawer

Slash and Bash 2009!

WELCOME, bloggers and comic book aficionados. For my first post ever on the Yellow blog, I'm going to direct you to join me at Slash and Bash 2009 in Topeka, KS. The three day festival of film and fright runs Friday, Sept. 25th to Sunday the 27th.

There will be special guests, including directors introducing their own films, and legendary actress Adrienne Barbeau (Swamp Thing, Escape From New York, HBO's "Carnivale"). See screenings of Army of Darkness, Phantasm, Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula (I'm looking forward to that one, personally) and more!

And best of all, you can buy copies of Yellow! I'll have nice, freshly-printed copies of "Shrinking Universe," the trade paperback collecting the first three issues--as well as the all-new issue, "Spares." Plus, this will be the only time you can get an exclusive "Slash & Bash 2009" Yellow mini-poster.

I promise you will be the coolest kid at your church youth camp.

Hope to see you there! (At the film fest, I mean. Not youth camp.)

Beardy Bobby B.
writer/drawer