CHEERY CHUNGUS FROM TRANSCAT!

Cheery Chungus, everyone!
Here's TransCat Santa Chungus! She's the GOOD one! Don't worry! You can trust your Christmas wishes with her!

If you follow me on my various socials, you have probably noticed that this lil guy has become my user avatar since the beginning of December!

What does she mean? What's going to happen with her? Oh, jsut you wait and see, my dearest lads and lasses! Just you wait and see! Maybe nothing? Who's to say? Maybe it will be THE most intense experience of all time!

Either way, you'll have to come in a check again on Christmas to find out for sure!

Hey, you know, it's been a long time since I updated this site! How do you like the new look? Let's just say I watched that short documentary on Brigitte Bond on Youtube, and was inspired. If you ain't seen it yet, HERE it is!
I've always been kind of a casual Ska fan, but I've never attempted to work the look and the aesthetics into TransCat. I've actually always been more of a punk fan, which, as you can see, is really represented in the site's new look as well. I would like for this to be a prooject I keep adding more to as the comic goes on and the site continues to evolve. There's a lotta punk rock icons that could TransCatified, and they will surely come to me more and more over time. When I got another two rows of brick walls worth of doodles, I'll add to the scroll.

Did you know I went to another con recently?
That's right, SF Fan Expo was just two weeks ago.
I practically INSIST you check out all my photos! Click the picture below :3

 

 

It was a GREAT con. And I'm not just saying that because it's the first con I've been to since March. It was legitimately very fun, and I did really good business there.
I also need to thank my table buddy, Stephanie, for accompanying me, helping me set up and break down every day, and guarding the table during my many bathroom breaks and explorations around the convention.

This was actually NOT a great con for merch! I hardly found anything there I wanted to buy. And the few things I DID want were FAR too expensive for me to justify. Maybe that's a good thing though, cuz I need to be better with my money.

I was sitting just over 50 feet away from the infamous Ken Penders himself.
I was so, SO tempted to cause some kind of incident over at his booth, but I really wasn't looking to get kicked out of the con either. Plus, I know Mr. Penders to be a very litigious person. He certainly ain't working on or releasing comics these days, so he's got all the time in the world to sue Sega, Archie Comics, IDW, Paramount Pictures and the like. Surely he would not mind adding me to the list of defendants.

For context, Ken Penders is the man who is most often credited for sinking the ship that was Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog adaptation. He is definitely also some kinda weird sex pervert too, if the storylines he kept trying to explore are any evidence. But yeah, he wound up adding like 100 new characters to the Sonic the Hedgehog roster during his time working on the comic, and for some reason, neither Archie nor Sega took the time to make this guy sign any kind of forfeiture of ownership agreement when he got hired. Both Sega and Archie CLAIMED this document existed. But after Ken got fired from the comic for being a sex pervert, and he made the claim that all of his original characters actually belonged to him, neither side could produce the document. So, they had no choice but to allow Ken Penders to take his army of cartoon furries with him, many of which had become INTEGRAL to the plot, thus sinking the comic.

You can make the argument that it was Sega and Archie that really dripped the ball here, but I still choose to think of Penders as the bad guy here because when you think about how fucking STRANGE the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom is, I feel like you can trace it directly back to this man.

But I guess the GOOD news was that IDW picked up the Sonic license afterwards, and decided to ONLY use characters from the games, which, should have been Archie's strategy to begin with. But, in all fairness, in November of 1992, when they first picked it up, Sonic the Hedgehog had exactly three main characters, Sonic, Tails, and Robotnik. So I guess the need to create a supporting cast WAS there. i just wish Ken Penders hadn't had such a heavy hand in creating it.

Anyway. I let the whole con go by and never gave this man a piece of my mind. I was actually kind of surprised that NO ONE did, considering how infamous he is. I cannot think of anyone who is a "fan" of this guy. Maybe that's why, honestly. Maybe people just walked by his booth not knowing who he was or what he did. Maybe I'M the weirdo for knowing all this, and wanting revenge after all these years. I am at least willing to explore the possibility.

Anyway, it wasn't all bad. I had a really cute incident where this little kid was walking by my booth with his parents, and he excitedly pointed at my booth and shouted "CATBOYYYYYY!" I smiled and simply said "CatGIRL", to which he responded "CATGIRRRRRLLLLLL!"
Probably the highlight of the entire con.

I was also sitting next to a really talented Filipino artist named Kristian Kubuay who I wound up buying two books from.
The first one is COMPLETELY in Tagalog, and I cannot read a single word of it. I am not even sure what it's called, but it is apparently a fashion magazine from the Philippines that features a friend of his who is a transgender model, and is not only working on transgender advocacy, but is also very vocal and outspoken about sharing Filipini cutlure that existed pre-colonization, and urges fans and followers to not forget these roots, and actively fight back against homogenization, etc.
I could be wrong, but i think her name is Geena Rocero. That's what I get when I type "Filipino Transgender Model" into google, and those pictures KINDA look like the pictures in the book, and since I can't read it, iIam going on faith.

The other book I got from him is called Apoy Ni Lakapati, which apparently just means "Lakapati's Fire". Lakapati is a Filipino God who blesses not only the harvest, but also pregnancies. I am not SUPER well versed in the story behind this figure, but apparently, different interpretations of this God's stories lead people in the modern day to think of them as a transgender figure. I guess there's certain aspects of them that are thought of and conveyed very masculine, and others that are very feminine. I have not read the book yet, so perhaps I'll learn more about it after I do, but the good news is, I CAN read it, because it is in English! Phew! More to come, perhaps! If you wanna read it for yourself, you can get it HERE.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the con. Perhaps I'll say more later, but there's a lot going on in my house and I can't be on the computer all day. I'll close by saying my application to go to Queer Comics Fest in SF is in. Fingers crossed I get in. That will be February 18th.
I'm also considering going to Galaxy Con in August, which is a far way off still, but it's on my radar.

Pray for me :3

WonderCon 2023 and other little things!

 

Click the picture to see the photo album!

Heyyy guyyyssss

Long time no see, huh? I keep forgetting I have a blog. I keep updating the Facebook, the Instagram and the Patreon and then neglecting this boi right here. I mostly think of this as a link to purchase my books, and I need to get over that, because blogs are fun and I like writing them.

I've been doing plenty in the past few months, I just ain't been writing about them like I should be.

Like did you know I went to WonderCon? Of course you didn't, because I barely talked about it when it was happening! The end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 was such a mess for me, professionally AND artistically. I was actually travelling quite a lot for work, and then wound up travelling a lot for art and for fun as well. Work sent me both to Columbia, South Carolina AND Tacoma, Washington in a two month period, and right after I returned home, I wound up in Disneyland with three VERY good friends. A week after that I was swept away to WonderCon and since I've been home, I've been attempting to decompress between changing assignments at work, dentist appointments, car repairs and relatives coming to visit. What a life!

So anyway, a Monday to myself (mostly, at least) seems like a great time to pick up the good habit of writing in my blog, and why not upload my WonderCon photos as well? They've been sitting harmlessly on my phone for a month, and now, I unleash them upon you, the unwitting public!

I was first contacted for possible participation at WonderCon back in February by longtime collaborator Tara Madison Avery. you'll remember her from Stacked Deck Press, she is responsible for getting me into the "We're Still Here" and the "Alphabet" compilations. She at first was asking me if I knew anyone who would be a good fit for their Furry Panel. Most of the furries I know in real life don't really draw that much anymore. Being the opportunist I was, I volunteered! She said that sounded great, and before i knew it I was tumbling headfirst into into being part of the Furry Panel, the Trans Voices Panel and setting up a signing at the Stacked Deck and Prism Comics booth! I think most of these plans were being made from my hotel room when I was still in Tacoma.

The really funny part was after spending a week at Disney Land in Anaheim, I came back home and went RIGHT back to Anaheim. I guess I did not realize at first that the convention center was literally just a block or two away from Disney Land. It's interesting how many such cycles I tend to notice in my life. I find myself revisiting locations like this over and over again, and I dunno. It strikes me as fascinating and somewhat whimsical.

Our hotel was about 6 blocks away from the convention center (Me and Tara wound up sharing). Far away enough that I didn't wanna walk it, but close enough to where diving felt like a hassle. Also, parking was a nightmare, but that was mostly my own fault cuz I kept on sleeping and deciding I wanted to show up around 11 or 12. The second day, the garage was actually closed and surrounded by police! I dunno if something actually happened there, or if those are just the measures the city of Anaheim has to take to guard parking structures at or around the convention center and Disney Land at peak hours? I wound up parking in a different hotel's parking garage instead which felt a little too meta for my own good.

In either case, the convention was GREAT! The panels went GREAT! and above all, hanging out and signing at the Prism/Stacked Deck booth was GREAT!

One of these panels did make it onto YouTube and I highly recommend you watch it!

Click the picture to see the video!

There WAS a video taken of the Furry panel, but I'll be real, I have not seen it uploaded anywhere yet. I'm in touch with all three people who were on the panel with me and neither of them have spoken up yet, saying they got it. Please trust me though, as soon as I become aware of it being uploaded anywhere, you guys will hear about it too!

I know you're probably wondering, cuz I was wondering a lot too. WHY was I on a Furry panel to begin with? Well maybe you're wondering, maybe you're actually "In The Know", but TransCat, while not being a furry in the strictest sense of the word, but she's managed to amass quite the furry fanbase regardless. Makes sense, right? Catgirl? Cat ears? I didn't give her a tail, though. I'll bet if I did, I'd have an even BIGGER furry fanbase! Oh well, lessons learned.

There's s'more progress to report on. More music from the TransCat soundtrack is being released! My dear friend Dylan Farnum put together a badass rendition of "Santo Gold" from the mysterious unreleased film Blood Circus! When I first saw the trailer to this lost piece of shit, I was enthralled by the song that was in it, entitled "Santo Gold" by the equally mysterious and lost artist, also named "Santo Gold". The song, and by extension, the movie, was all meant to be one big commercial for director Santo Victor Rigatuso's fake gold jewelry telemarketing scam. Despite it's extremely inauspicious origins, the song remains a banger, and Dylan did a great job with it! Check it out!

Click the picture to hear the song!

The full soundtrack is still being pieced together, as is the new graphic novel it's to laugh alongside. Everything's been kinda derailed by the difficulties I've had with Issue #13 and my ever changing work situation.

Those are all my updates for now, but in June I'll be going back to Q-Con in Hollywood and you can bet I'll have a lot more pictures in stories! 

Until next time, dear readers. See you... OUT THERE!

TransCat at Fan Expo SF!

 

Suuuuup everyone!
I've got some actual NEWS to share for the first time in awhile that does NOT have to do with TransCat issue #13!

I'll be at Fan Expo San Francisco next month!
I'll be there in the artist alley for all three days.

No new comics avaliable, but if you have not gotten TransCat issues 11 or 12 yet, I'll have them ready for you.

I'm also realizing that I never put them in the shop like I said I was gonna, so we're gonna do that today, so that's the OTHER cool piece of news I'm sharing today. Go check out the TransCat Shop to get those two new issues right the eff now!

Here's what the covers look like, in case you somehow forgot.

Anywho, I'll leave it at that for now. I'll make more updates when I officially get assigned a table and stuff. Hope to see some of you there!

Oh man, another quick update!

 

Click the image to hear a brand new song from the TransCat Soundtrack!

Hey, remember the TransCat soundtrack? The one I started talking aobut like... I dunno, 5 years ago? Yeah, I'm still planning it! It has been a slow road. turns out, getting a bunch of musicians on board to one unified project is actually quite time consuming and easy to lose track of! Thank you to everyone who is still on board after me dropping the ball so many times, and i wanna give a SPECIAL thank you to my dear friend Jin Gin for her brand new submission "Like The Wind".

Now, if you're like me and you basically live on the internet, then you miht be aware of "Like The Wind" or as it sometimes also goes by THE MOST MYSTERIOUS SONG ON THE INTERNET! Basically, this song was found on a cassette tape recorded off the radio in Berlin roughly 1983-1984. That was the first and last time anyone ever noted hearing this song. The song title and the artist were NOT mentioned on the air, and to this day, the song's origins are a mystery. The title and much of the lyrics are all guesswork made up by people on the internet.

The investigation has gotten close so many times to unearthing any, ANY information at all, but when it comes down to it, we still don't know a single thing about this song that we didn't know in 1984. We may NEVER know where this song came form, or the mysterious people who performed it.

Many people have done thier own interpretations of this song. That much is not new. What is new is my dear friend Jin's version that she did for the TransCat soundtrack. she really did something special, and I really want you guys to hear it before I get my shit together making this actual soundtrack.

Also, you need to check out the rest of her music because it is all kinds of badass! I am definitely sifting thorugh her discography as we speak for a secondary track to include on this soundtrack. 

Anyway, thank you for indulging me in this quick update!

MAG West 2022 and some other updates!

 

Check out the full album on Patreon or Facebook

Yo! 
So here we are at MAG West! I came here as a very sudden surprise!
My friend tiger texted me like a week before and made it sound so fun, I could not resist. 

I did not get a table, because I already had to rearrange my work schedule a lot to make it to even 2 of the 3 days. So I resolved to just do the con as a regular attendee. I wrote a whole blog about it on my Patreon. Please go read it, it's not paywalled in any way. I WANT you to see that shit. Drop a dollar in the bucket on the way out if ya feel like it.

Next week I'm going to SF Zinefest.
I can't remember if I announced that officially or not. I got accepted, it's a very exciting time.
In preparation for this event, I finally ordered prints of TransCat #11 and #12. This is their first time in print, since they both came out during the pandemic, and we're only available on Comixology. But now there ain't even no Comixology no more, thank you very much, Jeff Bezos! So for a little while these two issues of TransCat were what YouTube would consider "Lost Media". Well now we have 'em on paper. Like comics USED to be, before everything started going so WRONG for us!

Will I put these comics on the TransCat store? Yes I will!
But Zinefest gets a crack at them first! After Zinefest, they go up on the store.
There is also a super secret special surprise in store for those of you who can make it to Zinefest. something that will not be available in the online shop! If you've seen me at cons before, you know what it is ;-)
If you cannot make it to Zinefest, or ANY conventions on the west coast that I'm likely to be at, don't despair! There IS a way to obtain this mysterious item! Stay tuned, for I shall be revealing the method SOON!

What else is happening?
I'm going to Tacoma Washington for a month. Not a month. Like 3 weeks. Almost a month. It's a work trip, it won't be fun, but I'll MAKE it fun! I worry I'm gonna slow down on my art while I'm there. Or maybe I'll speed up? Who knows. I'm gonna TRY! I'm gonna try my hardest. i won't have my scanner but I'll have my phone. I'll tryin' make shit happen.

Stay tuned cuz I'll for sure have some pictures from Zinefest coming up eventually, plus news about the new TransCat books and possibly even more to come in the not too distant future.

Convention Photos for 2022 (So Far!) Plus some updates!

 

Album #1

Album #2

Album #3 (Patrons Only)

Album #1

Yo yo yo yo!
So I said I was gonna be posting here more and I'm gonna make good on that promise, cuz I actually got shit to post.
So I finally finished posting all my convention photos from Fanime and Q-Con! You can check them all out on Patreon, don't worry, they are all free. Except for Album #3 from Fanime because that's all the personal photos. If you wanna just see me and my friends hanging out and other cool shots like that, you gotta pay!

I wrote blogs on each one of the albums, and you should read 'em, but here's a quick synthesis of everything I wrote.

It was so great to be back at Fanime. After a 2 year hiatus, I was definitely jonesin'. The line management in the beginning was a nightmare, and I know it was because they were trying hard to check out everyone's vaccine status and I appreciate that. They were very on it as far as checking for masks too. I witnessed one guy get booted cuz he wouldn't keep his mask on and i heard stories of another guy, a vendor, who was told to leave for similar fuckery.

Lots of stuff was cancelled because of covid concerns and lack of volunteers, but in a weird way, that kind of helped me enjoy the con more. I was forced to really explore the program for activities instead of just falling back on the shit I ALWAYS do when I'm at Fanime, like the theaters, the masquerade and the music video contest, etc. I was bummed at first, but once we really started exploring everything the con really had to offer, we really started having fun. One of the best things we got to see was the CWF, the Cosplay Wrestling Federation. I highly recommend checking out my blog in photo album #2, cuz I go in depth on those events. You should ALL know how hilarious and fun it was.

Q-Con was also hella cool. It felt too short, it was only one day, and I had to drive a lot to be there. But at the same time, it was also kind of mercifully short because being out there was expensive, and i only kinda/sorta turned a profit being out there. If I had payed for one more day at the hotel, I may have just BARELY broken even, or lost money, and yeah it would have been fun, but man, I would be sad if my first con tabling since September of 2019 actually lost me money.

But I DID come home with some money and I DID have fun! The highlight of this con was easily the cosplay contest which I detail in the one and only album I posted from Q-Con.

someday perhaps in the not too distant future when I am a little more secure in my career, I can happily take some extended time off work and hang out in SoCal and just accept I'll probably take an L on comic sales vs. how much i spend being out there. I am very attached to the idea of TransCat making me money, but the simple fact of the matter is I have a real adult person's job that pays me extremely well, and TransCat is more of a hobby now and less of a hopeful career. That being said, I am never going to stop hustling TransCat, because she is extremely important to me, even if she is not my main money maker. I just want her to be out there, reaching as large of an audience as possible, which is why going to L.A. in the first place was important to me.

Anyway! That's all for the cons!
I told you I had some news!

So I mentioned in my previous update that during my depression induced hiatus that Comixology got properly absorbed by Amazon, and all the digital TransCat comics that USED to be on Comixology all just sorta vanished into the aether.

So! I'm gonna get all my old TransCat comics back in digital form, and I've started with the classic issue #1!

Click Here to Purchase!

I uploaded only the first one because I wanted to make sure it worked out. I'm gonna try and tackle uploading the rest of the series tomorrow, if I can possibly wedge it into my already busy day. In either case, I am gonna try and make this happen. Digital TransCat comics have been unavailable for too, too long, and it's time to change that.

I am still on the waiting list for SF Zinefest, so no new news there yet. I'll keep you all apprised. 

That's all for now, friends. 

See you...
OUT THERE!

The TransCat Comics Annual Check-In

 

Wow, yeah, so it's been well over a year since my last update here. I kinda let it all go to shit during the pandemic. And by that i mean the pandemic we're still in, the one that is by no means over, but we're all sorta pretending it's over because our capitalist system simply demands that we get back to business as usual because we were not prepared to deal with a worldwide pandemic, and we'll be goddamned if we're gonna learn a lesson from this at all.

I too am a hypocrite because while I know that there are people still at risk, I am trying my hardest to get back out there and do TransCat things at conventions and stuff again after a long break of 2 years and 8 months. My first outing was back to Fanime. I have a lotta blogs and pictures up on my Patreon and there's actually more to come. The following month I booked it all the way to  Hollywood to take part in Q-Con! Those photos and blogs are still on their way.

The primary reason I wanted to make this post here today was because I wanted to inform everyone that The TransCat Graphic Novel Vol. 1 is officially back in print. You can get it at the usual place. I really let Transcat languish during the pandemic because, well, TransCat kinda thrives at cons. I figured if I wasn't going to cons, there was no point in printing new books. I do well every time I go out, but my online store is not as hopping as I wish it was. So when the book sold out finally, I made no plans to reprint it. I figured you could get it all on Comixology, but now there ain't even a Comixology no more, Thank you very much, Jeff Bezos. So now I gotta re-up all my digital TransCat comics to Amazon comics or whatever it turned into, I dunno, I hate it, guys. I fuckin' hate it here on the internet. Lelz.

Anyway, yeah, so I'm working on that. Issues #1 through #10 are all purchasable in the Para~Somnia shop. Issues #11 and #12 are now considered to be "Lost Media", but worry not, I'll get them printed up soon enough, but hopefully I'll get the digital comics thing up and working again before that. And the reprint of the graphic novel is the cherry on top.

Coming up on the horizon is issue #13. I've literally been working on it since before the pandemic started. Me and my co-author have finally come to an agreement on what we both want out of it, so I finally have some clearance to work. If I can actually get some work donw now between my work schedule, then we'll be sittin' pretty!

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.