Hey everyone. Christmas is fast approaching and I know what everyone wants for Christmas- a huge update to the fanart section! Go check it out, there's a TON of really good stuff there.

Also, you may be able to tell that this comic is coming to a close. I haven't said anything about it because I have no idea what to say, except thank you to everyone who's been reading for this past year and a half. Have a great holiday, you guys, and I'll see you in the new year!

Hola amigos. I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya. I've been busy with schoolwork and with my new comic Bobwhite. I'm thinking of putting together a book of Good Crook's first hundred pages or so. Is that something any of you might be interested in? I'll probably do it through Lulu since I'm not entirely ready to take the Seriously Published plunge yet.

Guess what, everybody. I have a new comic strip! It's called Bobwhite, at bobwhitecomics.com. I know right?! This one's gonna be four panels, five days a week, still in full color. Are you as excited as me? How could you not be.
Good Crook's still going up three days a week as scheduled, but now you get more than double the amount of comics you were getting before! Crazy!

Also, there's 31 strips already in the archive, so read away!

Oh shit guys! Do you know what today is? Today's the first anniversary of The Good Crook! Did you get me presents? No?! God damn you, guys. Seriously.

No, I'm kidding. This past year has gone better than I'd ever hoped it would. A few days ago I finished drawing the last page of this comic (minus color- I'm only a couple dozen ahead with the color pages.) I feel really great about, and I can't wait until I get to post that page here. The comic online is more than halfway done. But I've got a new comic that I've been working on. If all goes to plan it should debut next week, on Monday September 8! So stay tuned! And thank you for a wonderful year of misplaced guns, carjackings, the mafia, and little girls who are probably too smart for their age!

Con was FUCKING AWESOME. Also I'm back in New York- my internship is sadly over. I'll have a better report on all that stuff up soon- I just wanted to get the post announcing "Comicon! It's comin' up" off the top of the blog. So, yes.

Comicon! It's comin' up. On Tuesday Kris and I are heading out to San Diego! Here's what's going on:
I'll be wandering around with flyers and hanging around the Halfpixel booth (2107!), so stop by and see me! I'm dying to meet you guys (really!).
Here's the crazy exciting part- When you get to booth 2107, you can buy a Good Crook minicomic or some of my original art! This is the first time I've tried to sell any of my work so I'm really excited and a little nervous about this. The minicomic has the first twelve pages in grayscale, with many of the panels redrawn to not be so terrible. You're basically getting brand new, never before seen art which you won't find online! Of course you can also get that if you want to grab one of the Good Crook original pieces, which are one of a kind. I'm pretty happy with how they came out and I hope you'll like them too.
Also get some Starslip stuff too, it's pretty great. There's gonna be a whole bunch of awesome stuff going on and we've been getting ready all week, so I hope to see you there!
Also- I've also put up a new page in the Extra Comics section, which you might like. The comics that are up there are all little stories about the Good Crook characters that don't directly relate to the main plot, but I hope they add a little something after you've read them. This one is no exception but its probably the most direct "prequel" so far.

When I was a kid, probably eleven or twelve, I bought an Adam Sandler comedy cd. My dad immediately gave me a copy of George Carlin's You Are All Diseased, saying that if I was going to listen to that kind of thing, I might as well listen to the good stuff. From that point on, George Carlin was my all-time favorite comedian.

George Carlin passed away yesterday and I just wanted to write a little bit here about what he meant to me. What does this have to do with The Good Crook, you ask? Well, George Carlin's bit about how he prays to Joe Pesci (because he looks like a guy who can get things done, and the results are the same anyway) was a big part of what got me interested in mafia movies in the first place.

I'm still a little shocked about this. RIP, George. In one of his routines, he said he believes that when people die, they go wherever they think they're gonna go. I hope he thought he was going somewhere good.

Remember when I said I was gonna put up a forum? I totally wasn't lying. There's a link to it up now, and I've started a couple of (hopefully) fun threads! Please come hang out with me there. It's up to you guys to make this not suck.

Hey guys! Guess where I am right now. Okay, I'll just tell you- I'm in Dallas Texas, working with Kris Straub (and Erica Stephens) of Starslip Crisis! I have a blog post over there about it and there will be a few more over the month and a half I'll be here. Starslip is also one of my favorite comics so check it out if you haven't already. I'm learning tons about the webcomics business, and hopefully I'll use it to make this site and this comic better. Everyone wins!

Also, I'll be with Kris and some of the other Halfpixel guys at SDCC, so come visit me! This will be my first time actually working at the con so I'm really excited. See you there!

Hey guys! A few quick things-

Site updates: I've made some changes to the cast page. Check it out if you're interested in that kind of stuff. I'm gonna be fixing up most of the "extras" pages over the next week so they match the rest of the site, especially the "about" page which has been down for a little while. So NOW YOU KNOW.

Forum: I'm ... thinking of putting one up...? There's nothing sadder than a forum with no posts, but I think there's enough of you guys around by now to make it worth the risk. So... y'know, look for that. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter if you want!

Cons: Again, I'm gonna be at MoCCA and SDCC. So say hi! I'm told I'm a very nice person.

There's more big news coming up, but I'm not sure when to talk about it. Stay tuned!

It's my brother's birthday today. Happy birthday, Delaney!

Right now I'm excited because I'm done with school on Wednesday. I have to pack up all my crap by then. Wish me luck.

I'll be at Mocca this year, and also SDCC. For Mocca I'll just be wandering around, possibly with my mom, so I guess say hi if you see me? Seriously e-mail me (magnoliaporter@hotmail.com) if any of you guys in New York want to meet up there (Hi, Mary!). Unless you're crazy murderers. Anyway, it's gonna be awesome.

Okay so, that short story in Extra Comics is done now! You can go ahead and click "back" on it to read the whole thing on one page. It's pretty short so it won't take too much time, and hopefully it should contain some interesting information.

Also this car scene is wrapping up and I'd love to know how you guys felt about it. I was gonna talk about it but I decided it's a little too early to do that. I'm gonna wait for the deluxe hardcover book edition that costs sixty bucks and is sold out everywhere and has a gushing foreword by Alex Robinson. (totally gonna happen)

Good morning! I just want to quickly announce that a Good Crook minicomic will be running M-F this week and M-W next week over at Short Stories section. We won't be seeing Jackie's friend Rico for a while so he has a starring role in this one. (It's a flashback!)

My 24-hour-comic "Mickey Rooney" is also up there, you can read that one too if you haven't yet. In fact I would recommend reading that one first. It's not vital, but that's how I would do it.

These extra comics aren't hugely important to read to understand the story, but these characters go other places in my head, and do things that don't really have a place in the main comic. (I'd make a joke about how "LULZ cartoonists are crazy!" but I'm sure you've all heard people say stuff like this a million times before.) I do these extra comics sometimes just to try out these different stories. So maybe you'll like them too...?

Someday I hope to be remembered for writing such sparkling dialogue as "Get the fuck away!" and "You fuckin' get away, man!"

Now I know how Oscar Levant feels.

Anyway, I really want to talk about this part of the story, but I guess I'll wait for the scene to be over. CARRY ON.

Oh man, I totally forgot that we passed the 100-comics mark a while ago! Oh well. So, um, hooray for me.

This is the last page of probably one of my favorite scenes. I hope you guys liked it too. Fortunately I had kind of a small jump in readers during this scene- I'm glad people came in for that part of the comic. Anyway.

I had a great time at NYCC! There's new fanart up from Mary C. Shyne, who I met at the con. It was totally awesome discussing the women there walking around in leather underwear with her. (For real, con-going ladies, let's be serious for five seconds. )

I got a sketch from Alex Robinson too, and I was so nervous and excited I can't even tell you. He gave me a really good sketch but sometimes its weird getting drawings at conventions. I'm never sure whether to talk or not when they're drawing; I don't want to distract them, but there's also this awkward sort of silence. Oh well!

There was only one bad part to all this. When I got back from New York, I found out that Martin Scorsese had done a lecture at Brown that weekend, which is right next to my school. And I missed it. Noooooooo

Hey guys! I'm going home for NYCC. If any of you are going, maybe... maybe I'll see you there?

This is going to be awesome.

I loved drawing this page. I think this is a good one for new readers to come in on, if only because this is kind of the closest I've gotten so far to making The Good Crook EXACTLY what I want it to be. Does that make sense? No? Okay.

In case you guys don't remember, "Frank Brodka" is the name Nona found on the inside of the box where the gun was, back in the car when she was rooting around for it.

P.S. Kids with guns? Way way WAY fun to draw.

And hey, check out this comic Twelve Steps from Superman. The story is really cool so far, it feels like the opening scene of a great movie. Plus the art and characters are great, I love the layout and all the interesting little visual detours. That's the kind of stuff I wish I could do in The Good Crook but I'm afraid I'll screw it up. The artist, Mary Shyne, seems like a cool person too. I like it a lot is what I'm trying to say.

ARRRGH I SPELLED "WEIRD" WRONG NOOOO

Not to draw your attention to it or anything.

I'll fix that later today. Also, still messing with the site! Thanks for your patience. By the way, the Making Webcomics book is out! Not that it needs my traffic, but I'm excited. I pre-ordered mine so I'll be checking my mail with anticipation every day until it comes. It'll be like that one Calvin and Hobbes story.

OH MY GOD.

When I first started putting comics online, I said to myself, "I'll know I'm a Real Webcartoonist the day I get my first fanart."

Ladies and gentlemen, that day is today.

(Also: I'm trying to fix up the site so it looks a little better. Unfortunately, I am completely terrible at this kind of thing. Sorry it looks weird right now, I'm still messing around.)

I don't have much to say, but I wanted to get that There Will Be Blood post off the front page (although I saw it again the other day and it was EVEN BETTER).

I like Nona's expression in the "chick flick" panel, although it wasn't exactly what I was going for. She usually doesn't make the kind of faces Jackie does- in fact I think probably she would actively try not to. But it's fun to draw once in a while, because their faces are such a different shape.

I KNOW SO INTERESTING RIGHT

Oscars 2008

Well, my personal favorite There Will Be Blood didn't win Best Picture. But at least Daniel Day-Lewis got the well-deserved Best Actor. I was afraid they were gonna give one of those "You sucked in this, but you've done good stuff before" oscars to Johnny "I look like a fourteen-year-old goth on a Southern plantation in 1860" Depp.

There, I said it.

Anyway, I'm glad that didn't happen.

I'm such a sucker for Hollywood. I was weeping ten minutes into the ceremony. And I'm not ashamed.

I don't think I need to tell you why this is one of my new favorite Achewoods ever.

Feb 20's page:

I'm not sure why I think this is funny, but I really, really do.

I'm the first to admit that Good Crook was not written as a webcomic. I wrote it as a single book with a definite end. I hope it doesn't seem too slowly paced. I'm a little nervous to talk about this stuff here because I don't want to seem too down on my own work. I'm not; I'm very proud of this, but I do have some worries as I imagine you have to in order to hopefully start improving. (I'm also sometimes very doubtful of my skills as a colorist, and just generally transferring a page to the screen. It always looks to me like something's lost in the process. Oh well.)
I've got a decent bunch of readers right now- I'm pretty much where I sort of wanted and expected to be after the first few months of the comic. We're sort of nearing the hundredth page now, and I hope to get the comic out there a little more. I'm not totally sure how to do that, but... wish me luck. All of you who read, thank you! And those of you who have talked about and linked to the comic- it means a lot to me, more than I can say.
If you read, please don't hesitate to tell me what you think! I'd love to talk to you guys.
I hope this post doesn't seem negative. It isn't! I feel like my life is going pretty well right now and I guess I'm sort of trying to transfer a little more of that to my comics. Or something.
Anyway, there was a recent bunch of arrests of mob bosses from the Gambino family, and one of the guys they got owned the restaurant a block away from my house. We always called it "the mafia restaurant." It's weirdly satisfying to find out we were right.

There's a new picture for Valentine's Day up at the top of the page there. I drew that entirely while watching The Graduate, which is a pretty good Valentine's Day movie if you ask me. But in my "Viewer's Cut", Ben runs to the chapel at the end, bangs on the glass, yells "MRS. ROBINSONNN!" and then they run away together.

I mean, come on. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

I also just want to say that panel 4 there is pretty much the perfect Jackie moment. Getting seriously offended when someone doesn't believe an obvious lie.

Just saying.

This is one of the only times where I drew the expression EXACTLY how I wanted it.

ENJOY.

It's my birthday! HOORAY.

Just to let you know: the updated Sketches page is coming soon.

Also, I found something cool recently that I thought I might share with you guys. A few months ago a mob boss was arrested, and they found a piece of paper containing a list of ten "commandments" for being a good mobster. If you're like me, you think that's the coolest thing you ever heard of. I was going to do a one page for the Extra Comics section (which I hope will someday have a lot more in it) illustrating these commandments with Jackie and Nona, but I couldn't really think of a good way to do that. Here they are anyway.

1. No-one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.
2. Never look at the wives of friends.
3. Never be seen with cops.
4. Don't go to pubs and clubs.
5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife's about to give birth.
6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.
7. Wives must be treated with respect.
8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.
9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.
10. People who can't be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn't hold to moral values.


How badass is that? (Answer: SO badass.)

Hey guys! Happy MLK day! If the comic looks a little different today, it's because I redid most of this week's pages at the last minute. Just, y'know, a heads up.

Also, it is ten days to my twentieth birthday. AUGH.

The first panel just made Spike Lee's head explode.


Just sayin'.

Okay, so, the WCCAs are coming up. I already filled out my nomination ballot but maybe if you haven't yet you could cast a vote for me for best newcomer please? Maybe? That would be pretty great.

I started writing and drawing this comic in August of 2006. I started thinking about putting it online in 2007. Then Octopus Pie started in May and I seriously thought to myself, "Well dammit, there goes my Best Newcomer chances."

(p.s. it would still be an honor to be nominated.)

Also: I'm working on some new stuff for the main site, including a permanent link to the sketch page and some other "special features". I might want to work the whole thing like a DVD menu someday. Or maybe that would be too cutesy. Hell, I dunno.