The Young Protectors Giveaway Winner Announcement!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered our Young Protectors Giveaway! We picked a winner randomly from all of the entries. Congratulations to:

Reed W. from Beaverton Oregon!

Be sure to keep checking the blog on a regular basis! We will be starting a new contest in the coming weeks!

Enter To Win: The Young Protectors Vol. 1 Signed by Alex Woolfson + Awesome Fan Bundle!

Enter to win a free copy of Young Protectors Vol. 1 "Engaging the Enemy" signed by Alex Woolfson and both artists, penciler Adam DeKraker and colorist Veronica Gandini! On top of which, you will get more goodies! See below for a breakdown!

Entries accepted until Midnight on January 30th. Winner will be notified via email - so ixnay on the fake email addresses. If you do not respond to our winner confirmation email within 72 hours, we are going to pick a new name. Also, we will not use any of your personal information for anything other than the purposes of this contest. So, no worries. You won't suddenly start getting a bunch of unwanted spam in your inbox.

The prize will be shipped sometime in February or early March directly from Alex Woolfson's staff.

Here's what the winner gets:

1) The Young Protectors Vol. 1 signed by Alex Woolfson and both artists, penciler Adam DeKraker and colorist Veronica Gandini!

This is a physical copy of the first trade paperback of THE YOUNG PROTECTORS: ENGAGING THE ENEMY, a multi-chapter superhero comic with explosive action, sly comedy, tender romance and powerful drama.

It contains the Prologue, Chapter One, the Interlude, and the Spooky/Commander Bonus Story from the webcomic, along with exclusive bonus features, including an illustrated, newspaper article explaining the origin of superheroes in the TYP world!

2) An authentic and official Spooky Cap, just like fan-favorite superhero Spooky Jones wears in the comic!

This is a baseball-style cap with an adjustable strap, dark charcoal in color. It features an embroidered Spooky Jones Ghost Logo on the front and an embroidered The Young Protectors logo on the back velcro strap.

Bring your Spooky cosplay to the next level or just impress your friends with this very unique and fun premium-quality cap! It's a cap like no other!

(Oh, and the white parts glow under ultraviolet (black) light. It's pretty cool.


3) Four Packs of trading cards: POWERS, ROMANCE, ORIGIN, and FIRST TIME. + A special 18+ Fifth Set of Erotic trading cards!

The POWERS CARD PACK contains 9 cards featuring the heroes and villains of The Young Protectors Volume One, with full-color art showing each character using their abilities in powerful and dramatic scene.
Each card also reveals information about that character's abilities along with other cool superhero/supervillain stats.
The ROMANCE CARD PACK contains 9 cards featuring the heroes and villains of The Young Protectors Volume One, with full-color art showing each character in a sexy, "calendar pin-up" style pose.
Each card also reveals details about that character's sexual orientation along with their romantic interests, turn-ons, and ideal type.
The ORIGIN CARD PACK contains 9 cards featuring the heroes and villains of The Young Protectors Volume One, with full-color art showing them using their powers as a hero/villain for the first time.
Each card also reveals how that character discovered their powers and chose to be a superhero (or villain!)
The FIRST-TIME CARD PACK contains 9 cards featuring the heroes and villains of The Young Protectors Volume One, with full-color art showing their very first "real" kiss.
Each card also reveals intimate details about that character's first-time experiences with romance and sex.
The 18+ CARD PACK contains 9 cards featuring fully nude art of the seven adult heroes and villains of The Young Protectors: Engaging the Enemy Vol. One. The backside of these cards reveal intimate sexual stats and what each  character is actually like between the sheets. This pack also includes two NSFW fantasy pairing cards voted on by the readers.


4) Two 4" x 5" sticker sheets featuring the heroes and villains of The Young Protectors Vol.1 
Drawn and colored by artist Brian Stone, each character has been re-conceived in a totally huggable-style, and rendered in poses that show off their cool powers. And you can peel every hero/villain off the sheets individually and stick them to whatever you want!

Bring your favorite characters with you everywhere and show off your The Young Protectors pride with these premium-quality sticker sheets!

Good Luck and Thanks for Entering!

Must Read: Intimacy Mini-Comic by Dale Lazarov and Martin Chan

Hot on the heels of a flurry of wonderful comic releases in the past six months, Dale Lazarov is back working his magic with the twelve page mini-comic Intimacy. This time around Dale teams up with first time comic illustrator Martin Chan. Though new to the comics game, Chan is a veteran illustrator who spent years working in the video game industry as a 2D artist and UI designer. And, I think not being over immersed in the comic industry allows Chan  to bring a fresh perspective to illustrating male interaction that we have not quite seen before. It's refreshingly heart warming.

Intimacy is a touching twelve page look into the best part of being with another human being - the intimacy. And no, intimacy does not mean getting it on in the sack. It means the cuddling, the stealing of kisses while doing the dishes, the knowing glances, the resting of legs on each other while watching tv. All the things that make both falling in love and sharing your life with someone else so special. Dale does a great job incorporating all age ranges, all walks of life, all types of guys into this comic. Honestly, there is pretty much no way to read this comic and not long for the romantic moments depicted. Lazarov and Chan have created a fantastic work of art.

If you missed it, we did an interview with Dale Lazarov back in July around the time that his comic Fast Friends was released. Dale is well known for his numerous erotic graphic novel series including Good Sports, Nightlife, Manly, Sticky, Bulldogs, and Greek Love. He has teamed with a cadre of amazing artists such as Steve MacIsaac, Bastian Jonsson, Yann Duminil, Amy Colburn, Dominic Cordoba, Chas Hunter, Si Arden, and lots more! 

Intimacy is available as a very reasonably priced digital download. It's under $3. You can get it online at Dale Lazarov's online store. Also, I suggest checking out his website or fun blog Fuck Yeah Dale Lazarov! 

Nothing Happened Today: An Interview w/ Illustrator Ed Harrington

Illustrator Ed Harrington is my hero. His snarky, single panel comics lampoon pop culture in a way that would make even The Far Side's Gary Larson green with envy. More importantly, they pretty much never fail to make me laugh. And, I am not the only one. Aside from his numerous national awards, Ed Harrington's work is being featured by the likes of Rachel Maddow, Buzzfeed, The Nerdist, and more. Check out The Onion's AV Club feature on his Ikea Instructions series, in which he shows you the tools needed to assemble your own horror movie monsters.

I looked and looked for any kind of bio info on Ed online. When I found none, I emailed him asking what gives. This was his reply:

Yeah -- I actually don't have much of an online presence. I'm not on Facebook and never had a MySpace! I live in Richmond, Va and am the Art Director for the local alt-weekly paper, Style Weekly, in which my comic strip appears. BTW -- It's called "The HR Department." I moved to Richmond in 1993 to go to art school (Virginia Commonwealth University), where I majored in Illustration and Graphic Design. Basically, I've been drawing comics my entire life.  I have binders full of all the rejection letters that I received from comic-strip syndicates. I loved getting them in the mail! There was a definite scale to them - from the standard form letter saying "no" all the way up to a hand-written note from the president of the company giving me advice on what to tweak. Once the internet became a thing, I switched over to web-comics and stopped submitting to syndicates. As far as my comics now, I think having that commercial-art design/illustration background has shaped my style. I try to draw things the way a robot would draw them -- simple, clear, concise, and use as few words (if any) to get an idea across. Plus, i spend way too much time watching TV and movies (Or as I call it, "Monitoring the Culture), so of course pop-culture is going to be my main subject matter. 

Aside from The HR Department, Ed and his girlfriend adopted a stray kitten a couple of years ago. They began to notice that he was an exceptionally animated dreamer. So, they stared a Tumblr called Milo Dreams of Adventure in which a sleeping, stretched out Milo battles Godzilla, poses for Jack on the couch aboard the Titanic, fights Agent Smith in The Matrix, and is superimposed in pretty much every other fantastical dream scenario one could imagine.

Ed Harrington was kind enough to put his drawing pad down long enough to grant me an interview! You will see he has an alarming love of 80s culture! After reading below, if you would like to delve even deeper into the world of Ed Harrington, check out his Tumblr, Instagram, and Website!

Q: I have spent hours going through your Tumblr, mostly because I was laughing uncontrollably. I am in awe of your ability to utilize pop culture icons from virtually every decade. What is the most obscure reference you have drawn that just completely went over people’s heads?
Ed: Not an obscure pop-culture reference, but a basic math one. I drew a comic where Optimus Prime couldn't figure out the next non-prime number in a sequence. That comic flopped. Learned my lesson - no more math comics. Or that idea just wasn't funny. My old web-comic, "Nothing Happened Today," had the characters on the show "Mantracker." This gameshow was about this Canadian Cowboy/tracker who would hunt down contestants in the woods of Canada. Basically, you had 36 hours to get to a certain pick-up point before Mantracker caught you. It was the best show ever. He would look at a broken blade of grass and could tell which direction you were going and how far along you were. Plus, nobody used his real name -- they would say things like "Shhhh! There's Mantracker!" Apparently, I'm the only person who watched the show.

Q: You frequently bring up 80s bands. IE: Twisted Sister, Joy Division, A-Ha, Misfits, The Residents. Are you trying to tell us something?
Ed: Ahhhh -- I love the 80's and 90's. I'm 39, so basically the music nodes in my brain were formed during those decades. I honestly don't think that I own an album by anyone younger than me. Plus, who's more fun to draw -- Dee Snider or Chris Daughtry?

Q: Just out of curiosity, what did poor little Susie Derkins ever do to you to deserve being turned into a psychopathic killer ala American Mary?

Ed: Ha! First -- American Mary is a sympathetic character and the hero of that film. Also, I'm a huge fan of the horror/thriller genre, and "American Mary" was the first actually good thriller that I had seen in a long time. Just wanted to draw a fun fan art in the Bill Watterson style. Gotta say, his drawing style is tougher than it looks! Every line has to be bold and confident -- done in one stroke without fussing around. The man is a master!

Q: Have you received a Cease and Desist or any type of invoice from Milo’s attorney about using his likeness in all of these fictitious so called "adventures?"
Ed: Fictitious? I spent hours training that cat to hold up that boombox like Lloyd Dobler!

Q: Roller skates. Gift wrap. Tacky decals. Is there anything you won’t do to an AT-AT?
Ed: I've even stripped an AT-ST off all it's "meat" so we could see it's bones. If it's funny, I'll torture an AT-AT. They're on the wrong side of the rebellion, no sympathy from me.

Q: When stalking you online, I ran across this YouTube video. Did you even know this existed?!

Ed: That is AMAZING! My girlfriend is going to be mad at you -- this is going to be playing constantly.

Here's a fun video of me lighting the Viking-funeral pyre of Oderus Urungus with a flaming arrow at the Gwar memorial this summer. Several thousand people watching, no pressure, right?

Q: You draw a lot of superhero stuff. What comics/graphic novels stick with you from when you were a teen?
Ed: I was a huge X-Men and Batman fan as a teen (Jim Lee and Frank Miller were my idols). Plus, I really enjoyed what Dark Horse Comics was putting out back then -- Sin City was visually groundbreaking! Plus, their foreign imprint "Cheval Noir" gave me a glimpse into drawing/storytelling styles from around the world. "The Dark Knight Returns" is still the best graphic novel ever written in my opinion and is the reason why I stopped collecting comics. Everything I read after that just seemed "Blah."

April, 1940: Dick Grayson’s first day on the job as Robin.

Q: What comics/graphic novels/artists are you currently following?
Ed: I'm not actively reading comics anymore, but i'm still following comic-book artists for their art. Frank Cho, Chris Samnee, Phil Noto, Adam Hughes, JH Williams III are a few of my many favorites.

Q: Who do you think you have drawn more? Jason Vorhees or Alien(s)?
Ed: Definitely the Xenomorphs. That world is so much fun to draw. And of course, have always been a huge HR Giger fan.

Q: Who would win in a fight? Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything or that bully Johnny from The Karate Kid?
Ed: Johnny. Cobra Kai all the way!

HeroesCon 2014 4th Annual Drink and Draw Photos!

Ever wonder what happens when you gather a room full of comic book illustrators, give them alcohol, snacks, and art supplies? Well, for the last four years in a row, HeroesCon, one of the oldest and largest comic conventions, has done just that at their Drink & Draw event. At the end of the night, they auction off the art for charity! Their deserving charity of choice is Team Cul de Sac, the organization founded in honor of Cul de Sac cartoonist Richard Thompson that raises money and awareness for Parkinson’s Research.

Thankfully, the booze and the snacks kept all the artists in a great mood so they didn't mind us peeking over their shoulders at their work! Here's our favorite shots! Click any pic to enlarge!