Cropped Will Cardini artwork

August 28th, 2019

KC Zine Con #5

Filed under: Comic Fests — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 10:38 pm

Luckily I got in off the waitlist for KC Zine Con #5 and will be tabling there for the fourth time this Saturday! Here’s the awesome poster with all the deetz:

KC Zine Con 5 poster by Gabbi Brandini
Poster by Gabbi Brandini.

I’ll be at Table #57 with Urscape #1, Tales from the Hyperverse, Vortex, and some newer Retrofit comics like Fashion Forecasts by Yumi Sakugawa, Understanding by Becca Tobin, and Survive 300 Million #1 and 2 by Pat Aulisio.

I circled my table location on this map of the venue:

KC Zine Con 5 Pierson Auditorium on UMKC map
Map of Pierson Auditorium on UMKC campus.

This is the last year that KC Zine Con will be on UMKC campus. Pierson Auditorium is a great venue but UMKC allowed a hate speech event on campus in April which resulted in violence against trans people and has made people in our community feel unsafe on campus. You can read more about KCZC’s thought process behind the venue change on their website. I support KCZC’s decision to seek a new venue for future cons. Trans rights are human rights.

Bonus Zine-Related Content: A recent Twitter kerfuffle made me realize that there are art and comic makers who aren’t familiar with the term zine! ’Zine is short for magazine but means any self-published booklet. It could be photocopied for cheap at a local library or sent to a printer, but to qualify as a zine the booklet should be self-published. My understanding is that it originated with SF fans around the middle of the century who self-published fanzines that mimicked the pulp SF magazines that were so popular. Major SF writers such as Moorcock got their start in these zines. In the 90’s, the Riot Grrrl movement and others developed extensive mail-order networks of zine creators and traders. These zines featured an expanded array of content such as poetry, photographs, personal essays, and collages. My friends and I made and traded our zines from 4th grade on. One of the first zines I encountered that was made by someone I didn’t know was the Dishwasher zine by Dishwasher Pete, which chronicled his adventures during his quest to wash dishes in all 50 states. In my personal lexicon, I usually call my self-published comic books mini-comics, but I think they also quality as zines. Now if you want to talk about what is and isn’t a mini-comic, that’s a whole other discussion.

For a different perspective, check out this page provided on the KCZC Press page:

Whats a zine by KCZC
There’s no creator so I’m guessing this was a collective effort by KCZC staff.

If you want to make your own zine on a photocopier without a computer, check out Julia Gfrörer’s zine, Thuban Press Guide to Analog Self Publishing, available from her Etsy store.

You can also download a free copy of Re: A Guide to Reproduction: by Ron Rege Jr., Dave Choe, Brian Ralph, and Jordan Crane from my site. This PDF got me started self-publishing my mini-comics over a decade ago.

July 30th, 2019

Urscape #1 Reviews

Filed under: Press — Tags: — William Cardini @ 7:39 am

Urscape #1, which I self-published in the spring, has accumulated a couple of reviews!

The first review is on the blog Ryan C’s Four Color Apocalypse. Here’s an excerpt:

A phantasmagoric whirlwind of impossible nightmare geometries, ever-transitory physical formations and states of being, and impenetrable pseudo-realities greets our boy Miizzz as he enters the titular Urscape, a ferociously post-giving-a-fuck updating of The King’s “Negative Zone” or “Quadrant X” with all the stops pulled out, the foot off the brake, and the accelerator weighed down with a brick.

Read the whole review here.

Urscape 1 interior photo
Photo from Ryan’s review.

The second review is on the site Optical Sloth. Here’s an excerpt:

Sometimes I wonder what would happen to me if I gathered all the William Cardini comics I’ve picked up over the years, took an afternoon and read them all in a row. I’m honestly not sure what that would do to a person. I mean that in the best possible way, of course; comic-induced madness always seemed like a likely fate for me.

Maybe I should include a warning, “May cause comics-induced madness!” on the cover of Urscape #2? Read the whole review here.

Urscape 1 interior scan
Scan from the Optical Sloth review.

You can buy Urscape #1 here.

Urscape 1 animation of an interior page
You’re not hallucinating – I created an animated GIF based on a page from Urscape.

May 29th, 2019

CAKE 2019

Filed under: Comic Fests,Events — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 10:18 pm

This weekend I’ll be tabling once again at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, AKA CAKE. This year the fest is Saturday June 1st and Sunday June 2nd from 11am to 6pm at the Center on Halsted. And admission is free!

CAKE 2019 poster by Marnie Galloway
CAKE 2019 poster by Marnie Galloway.

I’ll have my new self-published comic, Urscape #1, and oldies-but-goodies including Tales from the Hyperverse, Vortex, my last copy of the climate change poetry comics anthology Warmer, some Retrofit comics, and the risograph prints I debuted at the show last year. I’ll be at Table 221B.

Urscape 1 cover
Urscape #1 cover photo.

Urscape 1 interior
Urscape #1 interior photo.

If you can’t make it to CAKE, Urscape #1 is also available in my online shop, or from the distros Birdcage Bottom Books and Domino Books.

April 3rd, 2019

Broken Panels at Lifted Spirits

Filed under: Art Shows,Events — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 11:12 am

This Friday I’ll be tabling at the Broken Panels Comic Book Creator Showcase at Lifted Spirits Distillery as part of the First Friday art event in the Crossroads district of Kansas City. The info’s on this flyer by the curator and local KC cartoonist, Shane Audley:

Lifted Spirits Presents Broken Panels Poster

You can also see all the event info on Facebook.

March 27th, 2019

Constructing Psychedelic Comics

Filed under: Events — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 9:50 am

Next week, I’m going to be giving a presentation on Constructing Pyschedelic Narratives in Comics to my friend Tim Brown’s college class, Special Topics: Narrative and Comics in Art (I wish I could’ve taken a course like that in college). Although my presentation is during class time on Johnson County Community College campus, it’s free and open to the public! Here’s the flyer with the details:

Constructing Psychedelic Narratives in Comics presentation poster

I’ll be showing examples from my comics, discussing how my influences have shaped my work, and dissecting the psychedelic “Time-Mind Sync-Warp” battle between Drax and Thanos in Jim Starlin’s classic Captain Marvel #28.

January 3rd, 2019

2018 in Review

Filed under: Recaps — William Cardini @ 12:08 am

In terms of my art and comics, 2018 was mixed. I wasn’t as productive as I had hoped I would be, but some exciting things happened. I wanted to self-publish a mini-comic or two so I was switching between two different comics but I didn’t get either one quite finished.


A preview of the black-and-white mini-comic I’ve almost completed.
Hopefully y’all will see it by mid-2019.

As I mentioned in last year’s recap, I’ve continued to collaborate with Zach Taylor on character and environment designs and the script for his video game-in-progress, Project Quinoa. In Zach’s latest update, he announces that the demo will be available in mid-2019!

Here you can see some of my designs on the left compared with Zach’s pixel art versions:

And here’s an environmental design:

I made three risograph prints in 2018, all printed by Oddities Prints, my local print shop. Two were for me to sell and are still available in my shop; the third was for the Oddities Prints Grab Bag Fundraiser.


On the left is a print of a splash page from Tales from the Hyperverse 2 showing Mim the Rainbow Robot descending on a new world. On the right is a print of a one-page comic from the first Tales from the Hyperverse called “Diana in Ghost Arrow.”

I included the Rainbow Robot and Diana prints and a Diana watercolor painting in my portfolio for the 2018 Kansas City Flatfile & Digitalfile show at the H&R Block Artspace. Flatfile is a cool biennial show in KC – this is my second time to participate. The invited artists put their flat artworks in portfolios that are stored in a huge flat file cabinet. The show runs for several months. Guest curators pick some of the art to go on the walls for a month and then the next curator picks different pieces. Visitors can check out the artwork in any of the files with the help of gallery assistants with gloves.

Thayer Bray Mobank Artboards
Artboards by my friend Thayer Bray.

This year I also submitted to another interesting KC arts event – the Mobank Artboards, where the Charlotte Street Foundation and a local bank commission and install art on two double-sided billboards in the arts district. The billboards are right next to each other, with a small space in between. It’d be interesting to see someone draw a comic for this space.


My submission for the left artboard.


My submission for the right artboard.

My submission wasn’t selected but I’m still proud of what I created for it.

One weird and amazing thing that happened was that Vortex was shown for a split second in the trailer for M Night Shyamalan’s next superhero movie, Glass! All credit to my wife, Glade Hensel, for her eye-catching cover design. You can see it in this screenshot or this link should go directly to the timestamp (0:48).

Screenshot of the Glass trailer

Eagle-eyed Zack Soto spotted that. Speaking of Zack, the fourth and final part of my second graphic novel, Skew, was posted on his comics site, Study Group Comics, this past April. Read the whole thing here!

Although my comic from Retrofit, Tales from the Hyperverse, debuted Sept 2017 at SPX, it was released through Diamond to the direct market in Jan 2018. As I’ve mentioned previously, Hyperverse was discussed in a few places in 2018, but it also made Colin Panetta’s 2017 faves list, which he posted on Dec 31st, 2018. I also drew some pages for the sequel in 2018.

Sphere Fear, my 2015 risograph-printed mini-comic published by Yeah Dude Comics, is now distributed by Domino Books. In addition to the review I’ve already posted about, it got positively reviewed (and analyzed!) on Ryan C.’s Four-Color Apocalypse.

Loving Richards Valley cover

I drew one page for Loving Richard’s Valley, a comics anthology edited by Scott Roberts that pays tribute to Michael DeForge’s originally online, and soon to be in print, masterful comic Leaving Richard’s Valley. All proceeds from the tribute anthology benefit the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society.

I only posted one book review on this blog in 2018.

I tabled for CAKE for the first time and KC Zine Con for the third time. Both were fantastic shows and I hope to table at them again next year. Maybe I’ll see y’all there!

September 4th, 2018

KC Zine Con #4, Riso Print Grab Fundraiser, and Rise for Climate in Johnson County

Filed under: Comic Fests,Events,Online — Tags: , , — William Cardini @ 10:50 pm

This Saturday, September 8th, is going to be busy in the Kansas City metro area!

From 9 to 11am, climate activists will march in downtown Overland Park, in conjunction with sister marches nationwide, to demand that local governments will commit to a clean energy future and oppose all new fossil fuel infrastructure. You can see more info and the march route on this Facebook event page.

KC Rise for Climate poster

I won’t be at the march (except in spirit) because I’ll be slinging comics at KC Zine Con #4, from 10am to 6pm at Pierson Auditorium on the UMKC campus. Come find me at Table #88!

KC Zine Con 4 poster

I’ll have Tales from the Hyperverse, Vortex, my latest riso prints, a selection of Retrofit comics, and more.

Oddities Prints, my KC-area print shop, will also be at KC Zine Con, selling (among many other things) riso print grab bags to benefit RAICES, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood! Here’s a mockup of the print I designed for this fundraiser:

Earth First riso print

If you can’t make it to KCZC#4, you can also order these grab bags online.

June 13th, 2018

CAKE 2018 Recap

Filed under: Recaps — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 10:15 pm

I had a blast at CAKE, thanks to everyone who came by my table!!

I stayed with my friend Jon Mastantuono (AKA Jon Drawdoer). He draws great psychedelic comics that grow from slices of reality, check out his stuff here. He also helps organize CAKE so I got to see some of all the hard work the organizers put into making a show happen.

Jon Mastantuono AKA Drawdoer drawing
A drawing from Jon’s Tumblr.

Chicago is such a cool city, I’d never been before. KC is only a ten-hour drive away so hopefully I’ll be back soon. As a Texan, that was the coldest June weekend I’ve ever experienced, and I loved it!

The Friday before CAKE I went to Quimby’s for the first time. That’s an amazing comic book store! I felt so honored to see my Vortex promo print up on one of their bookshelves.

Vortex promo print inside Quimbys
Do you want a promo riso print of Vortex for your comic book store? Let me know…

CAKE is in a gymnasium. I went to BCGF in Brooklyn in November 2012 and I was in the gym part of the show. It was so hot and humid in there. Everyone was sweating and the books were curling from the humidity. So when I saw that CAKE was in a gym I got worried. But the gym was freezing which I prefer to heat. It’s kind of ironic that BCGF was in November and sweltering and CAKE was in June and frigid.

View from the balcony of the third floor of the Center on Halstead
View from the balcony of the third floor of the Center on Halstead, where CAKE happens.

One bummer for me was that I ordered a PayPal chip card reader for CAKE but it could not connect to my phone via Bluetooth (the only connection option) when the show was bumping, probably from all the interfering signals. Fortunately I brought my Square card reader that just plugs into the headphone jack of my phone as a backup. But I would advise against buying the PayPal chip card reader. I’ve heard the Square chip card reader is better but it’s much more expensive.

Will Cardini table at CAKE 2018
My table.

Sales were brisk. Selling some books from Retrofit Comics helped me out. Tyler Landry’s Shit and Piss really draws the eye. I was also in a good spot in the gym, in between Paradise Systems, a micropress who translates and publishes Chinese indie comics and other quality comics, and Secret Acres, who had a new, wonderfully out-there collection of short comics by Edie Fake, Little Stranger.

I haven’t had a chance to read everything I bought, but some highlights for me so far have been:

Behind is Late by Cynthia Alfonso, Grip by Lale Westvind, and But is it... Comic Aht?

May 29th, 2018

CAKE 2018

Filed under: Comic Fests — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 7:38 am

This weekend I’ll be tabling for the first time at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo AKA CAKE. CAKE is Saturday June 2nd and Sunday June 3rd from 11am to 6pm at the Center on Halsted. I hope to see some of y’all there!

CAKE poster by Johnny Sampson

I’ll have my comics Tales from the Hyperverse, Sphere Fear, Drumstick Pit, and Vortex; the climate change poetry comics anthology Warmer, which has one of my comics in it; some Retrofit comics; and these two new risograph prints:

Will Cardini risograph prints
The prints are Rainbow Robot on the left and Diana in Ghost Arrow on the right. I got them printed by a local shop, Oddities Prints.

I’ll be at Table 410A.

If you’re not going to be at CAKE, you can buy my new prints here.

May 10th, 2018

For the Love of Indie Interview

Filed under: Press — Tags: , , — William Cardini @ 10:25 pm

In Episode #58 of the For the Love of Indie podcast, Drew Van Genderen reviewed Tales from the Hyperverse, and then in Episode #61, he interviewed me about the comic and other relevant topics.

Crop from Tales from the Hyperverse
A panel from the last story in Tales from the Hyperverse, showing the Miizzzard’s floating head and the Floating Crystal Witch.

We discuss my history with comics, my influences, the themes of Tales from the Hyperverse, my favorite character, my character development process, the potential of Tales from the Hyperverse #2, and more!

Rainbow robot
A drawing of the rainbow robot (name TBD) for Tales from the Hyperverse #2.

Give the episode a listen here!