Sqweasel Artwork For Sale

Sqweasel Chase

I've been a little negligent here lately.  Rest assured I'm working on another key issues list that I hope to have up in a day or so.  In the meantime, here's some Sqweasel artwork.  The medium is ball point pen on sketchpad.  I'm selling the original for only $400.  That, by the way, is a joke unless you really do want to pay $400 for it.

Sqweasel's First Webcomic

After creating Sqweasel to be the blog mascot, I figured that at some point I'd have to create an origin story for him.  I do have one and rather than type it out in a big block of prose as if this were the Official Handbook to the Key Issue Comics Universe, I decided on doing a webcomic.  Here's the first episode.  A giant thank you to the artist, Gene Dodge, who did the pencils, inks, colors, lettering, and interpretation of my second attempt at a comic script.

Sqweasel Picks the Best Irish Joke He Received In His Inbox Yesterday

A young Irishman goes into confession and says, "Bless me Father, for I  have sinned. I have been with a loose woman."
The priest asks, "Is that you, Timmy Shaughnessy?"
"Yes, Father, it is."
"And, who was the woman  you were with?"
"I can't be tellin' you, Father. I don't want to ruin her reputation."
"Well, Timmy, I'm sure to find out sooner or later, so you may as well tell me now. Was it Brenda O'Malley?"
"I cannot say."
"Was  it Patricia Kelly?"
"I'll never tell."
"Was it Sheilah O'Brien?"
"I'm sorry Father, but I cannot name her.  My lips are sealed."
The priest sighs in  frustration and says, "You're a steadfast lad, Timmy Shaughnessy, and I admire that.  But you've sinned, and you must atone. You may not attend church mass for three months. Be off with you now."
Timmy walks back to his pew. His  friend Sean slides over and whispers, "What'd you get?"
"Three month's  vacation and three good leads."

Create Your Own Comic Book Character

I was reading ComicsAlliance the other day and came across a link to an article at io9 called "How to create your own original supehero from scratch."  It discusses naming your character, coming up with an origin story, deciding which superpowers he or she should have, and what are their motivations.  The best part, some of our favorite comic writers like Kurt Busiek and Gail Simone are the ones giving the advice.  After reading the article, I feel like I've done a pretty good job with my own character, Sqweasel, who you can see in  the wonderful logo for this site done by my friend Gene Dodge.  As far as his powers and origin story, keep reading as bits and pieces of it will trickle out over time.

The Sqweasel: Mascot for the Key Issue Comics Blog

I've been trying to come up with an idea for some type of logo for this blog.  My thought process started out fairly generic.  It's called Key Issue Comics so maybe some type of key imagery.  That's pretty boring.  I need something that will sell T-shirts.  As Yogurt said in one of the greatest movies of my generation:

Moichandising! Moichandising! Where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs: the T-shirt, Spaceballs: the Coloring Book, Spaceballs: the Lunchbox, Spaceballs: the Breakfast Cereal! Spaceballs: the Flame Thrower!!

I thought, "Well, maybe I could have a large generic monster doing something with a key.  Opening a lock, eating a bowl of keys, using a key shaped gun to blow away issue numbers from a comics want list."  Well, I went round and round with some ideas and started to go down a few rabbit holes (I'll post more about one of those later).  Finally, I decided how hard can it be.  I'll just start drawing.

I dug through a storage closet and found a sketchpad and some art supplies that were collecting dust and sketched it out and finally moved to MS Paint (why pay for Illustrator when I have this free crappy software).  The result is The Sqweasel.  Eventually, I'll create an origin story for him but for now here he is: