Made Out of "Mac"

I've added a few new strips in my series based on the "Hero of the Beach" comic book ads.

I'm hoping to pull together a revised collection soon.

And here's an old one that I've improved somewhat:

Anyone interested in playing around with the comics form should consider trying my upcoming Comics Inventions course, Tuesday evenings in Manhattan, along with my other classes for SVACE. So many possibilities...

Oulipo Canada Dry

Here's the latest in my series of permutations of The Insult that Made a Man Out of "Mac." This one is an attempt to create a Canada Dry. According to The Oulipo Compendium, a Canada Dry is fake constrained writing-- a work that seems like the product of a constraint, when it actually isn't.

You'll have to let me know if I pulled it off. For comparison, here again is an actual constrained comic from 2010, an N+7. Every major word and image was replaced by the seventh word of the same type (noun, verb, adverb, adjective) following it in a dictionary.

New Tragic Strip: The Brick That Made a Offissa Out of "Pupp"

This is the latest installment in my Made Out of "Mac" series, more of which can be found by scrolling here.

It appears in the current issue of The Brooklyn Rail, on the stands right now. This issue, we're launching an expanded comics section exclusive to the website, on the fiction page. Please have a look. In addition to the comics from the print edition, it includes great comics from France by David Prudhomme and Alfred.

David Prudhomme will be attending this year's Brooklyn Book Festival, as will another contributor to this issue, Lebanese cartoonist, Zeina Abirached.

Portfolio 2013

This is my current illustration portfolio, which I'll display here until I finish rebuilding my website.

First are examples of cartooning combined with hand lettering:

Next are book illustrations from The Golden Ass:

More book illustration and wild figure drawing:

...and inventive pages in a mix of styles:

Skillful and ingenious, right?

Recent Tragic Strip: Mac Fold-In

Here's another in the Made Out of "Mac" series. It appeared in The Brooklyn Rail over the summer. You'll want to download this, print it out, and fold it up.

Best American Comics "Notables"

I see that the Made Out of Mac comic was plugged on the Drawing Words and Writing Pictures blog. Please have a look.

Made Out of "Mac"

I'm stoked to hear a reading of new poems by Harry Mathews at 192 Books tonight. In honor of that, here are my newest installments in the "Made Out of 'Mac' " series of Oulipo cartoons (I'm not sure whether they qualify as Oubapo).

I've already posted others in the series, including two Mathews's Algorithm examples here and here.

The first collection can still be purchased here. This collection, by the way, was listed among the "Notable Comics of 2009" in the latest edition of Best American Comics.

Tragic Strips: Made Out of "Mac"

I've fallen seriously behind on my plan of posting recent Tragic Strips.

Last summer, I did four more permutations in the Made Out of "Mac" series: 2 Mathews's Algorithms, a panorama, and a larded acrostic (the original strip runs vertically down the middle).


I published a collection of the strips so far, which includes a number of guests and jam strips. It can be purchased from the Squid Works.

Some Recent Strips

When my Tragic Strips appear in The Brooklyn Rail, they print them nice and big. But the versions on their web site are kind of too small to read. So I'll start reposting them here at a generous size. Click on these for a good look at the drawings.

These three are from an oubapo-esque series I'm developing called "Made Out of Mac."