Cropped Will Cardini artwork

March 8th, 2011

STAPLE! Recap

Filed under: Recaps — Tags: , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:00 am

Hey yawl, the Gold County Paper Mill and Glademade had a blast at STAPLE! last weekend, thanks to everyone who hung out and bought stuff!

Glademade and GCPM at STAPLE!
Zoom out shot of the table (I was able to get everything in the image except for the second Glademade card rack). Glade’s face is like “why are you d00dz hiding?”

We met a ton of kewl people and got to hang out with kewl people we’ve met at past STAPLE!s (that plural spelling of STAPLE! is straight from the style guide, I swear).

Glademade and GCPM at STAPLE!
Now everyone is showing their faces. From left to right: Michael Miles, David Fullen, Glade Hensel.

Some highlights:

  • The people across the aisle from us, writer Adam Smith and artist Matt Fox of Wet Black Ghost press, had driven all the way from Little Rock, Arkansas, where they say there’s not much of a scene. I dug their short sci-fi comic and I’m looking forward to the fantasy webcomic that’s on the way.
  • Speaking of driving cross country, I met several people who said they had just moved to Austin from Portland, like the cartoonists Aaron Whitaker and Melinda Boyce. Coincidence or growing trend? Let’s hope more cartoonists defect here.
  • Jake Ewing, proprietor of Awesome Comics in Dallas, shared a table with the Arkansas boys. He makes pretty kewl little folded full-color comics.
  • I’m really glad that Sparkplug Comics had a table at STAPLE!, I wish their were more out of town indy publishers there. Chris C. Cilla was in attendance, so I’m glad I’d been waiting to buy his new book The Heavy Hand from Domy so I could get a signed book straight from the author. I started reading it on the bus ride home from work yesterday and I’m really digging it.
  • It was good to talk to Paul Maybury and his also talented assistant Ricky Valenzuela. If I’d had more dough I would’ve bought some of Maybury’s sick looking original pages. At least we got to talk about coloring for a bit.
  • Man, I love how Toby Craig is still putting out watercolored comics in Houston. His earlier series Monster Engine was the first DIY comic I ever bought back at Bedrock City Comics on 1960.
  • I dug Partydog‘s VHS-style comic The Body is a System. Also he handed me a hilarious xerox mini of stick figure collaborations with his bf on this site. Loved it.
  • I was hoping that Zach Taylor would have Bear Quest 2 ready but his jam comic with Chris Sweet, 16-bit Breakfast, will tide me over for a bit.
  • I always enjoy chatting with Jen and MC of Buttersword. Their comics are like an angrier Porcellino with some sf elements thrown in every once in a while. Basically, they’re super real, honest, and independent. Also I applaud them for monetizing MC’s toy collecting.
  • Palfloat is a true Austin original. Click that link – you’ll thank me.

I hope to see you all again (and more people!) at STAPLE! 2012. Also, if you’re wondering, I’ll start posting the eight-page Glade and Mark comic on Friday. Click here for additional photos and GCPM-centric commentary

March 4th, 2011

The GCPM and Glademade at STAPLE! 2011

Filed under: Events — Tags: , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:05 am

Hey y’all, David Fullen, Michael Miles and myself of the Gold County Paper Mill will be tabling at STAPLE! this weekend alongside Glade Hensel’s Glademade for the third year in a row.

STAPLE! banner

This year, for the first time ever, STAPLE! will be two days, March 5th and 6th! The event is at Marchesa Hall and Theater from 11am to 6pm on Saturday and noon to 6pm on Sunday. It costs ten dollars for one day and $15 for both days.

The GCPM and Glademade will be sharing Table 76, which is in the Annex. If you’re standing with your back to the entrance, the Annex is the room to the back and the left. We’ll be selling a lot of stuff, both old and new. Here’s what we’ll have in alphabetical order:

  • Screenprints and digital prints of my ATTACKS one-page comics
  • Candy or Medicine Volume 12, a minicomics anthology edited and published by Josh Blair (I drew the cover of this volume)
  • The second issue of Catch Up, a comics and poetry magazine edited and published by Jak Cardini and Robert Bozwell of the GCPM, featuring two different covers by Josh Burggraf, comics by Noel Freibert, poetry by Adam Day, and a short story by David Fullen
  • Comet a print by Glade Hensel
  • Froghead Hangover, a twelve-page xeroxed zine by me
  • Glademade greeting cards
  • Hypermorph, a digital print in original colors and the inverse
  • Lords ov thee Black Sun, a xerox zine by Michael Miles
  • Masks, a twelve-page xeroxed zine by me
  • One read-only copy of Math Fiction, a sixteen-page 11×17″ blue/red anaglyph 3D comic featuring Pat Aulisio, Ian Harker, Josh Burggraf, and myself
  • A two-color Miizzzard screenprint in purple/green or purple/orange
  • Original art by myself and Michael Miles
  • Shaman Thunder, a twelve-page xerox comic that Josh Burggraf and I made together
  • Slime Studies, a zine by Michael Miles
  • TRANZ, a twelve-page zine by me

Michael Miles process shot
A process shot from Michael Miles. He’s working to get Slime Studies finished in time for STAPLE!

Also, there are pre- and post-parties for STAPLE! The pre-party is 7-11pm tonight at Austin Books and Comics. There are an after-parties Saturday and Sunday at Club Deville from 8pm to whenever. We might be at some of these – if you see us feel free to say wuzzup.

November 18th, 2010

Stop #107 on the East Austin Studio Tour: Second Weekend

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 12:54 am

Thanks to everyone who came out to our place on the East Austin Studio Tour last weekend! Those who couldn’t make it, there’s still this upcoming weekend. We’ll be open to visitors from 11am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday with free beer, snacks, and art.

Here’s how my studio is looking during the interstitial:

View of my Studio between the two E.A.S.T. 2010 Weekends

If you look closely on the bookshelf on the left, you can see an old broken toy Grimlock. Is that worth anything? The painting on the easel in the middle is something that I intended to finish during last weekend (working on it while people stopped by). I didn’t get very far, though; I forgot how hard it is to actually work on anything during E.A.S.T. On the right, in the background, you can see a collection of Gold County Paper Mill merch that I have for sale. On the right, in the foreground, you can see two screens that I got burned at Industry Screenprint this past week. I plan on using them to print a new Miizzzard screenprint for next weekend.

Click here to see more interstitial shots

March 9th, 2010

STAPLE! 2010 Recap

Filed under: Recaps — Tags: , , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:47 pm

Thanks to everyone who came out to see the Gold County Paper Mill and Glademade at our half table this year, we had a blast!


Left to right: Dave Fullen and Dr. Chuch of the GCPM, and one of the guys from the Poopsheet Foundation

Each year STAPLE! gets better for us and we really appreciate y’all for making it happen. As you can see, the GCPM debuted a lot of new items at this show, including our DVD of performance art, GPCM t-shirts, David Fullen’s zine of sci-fi short-short stories Swimming at Work, Jak Cardini’s poetry chapbook There Is a Mars, and dope three-color screenprints of my one-page comic WITCH ATTACKS done by the super talented Rand Renfrow as part of his publishing initiative Test Everything. Next year, we’ll have even more – we’re definitely going to have to get a full table.

And for all of y’all who weren’t at STAPLE!, never fear, we’ll be posting our new items for sale here or on our etsy soon. And hey, if you don’t want to wait, just leave a comment or send an email to [RE DAC TED] at gmail dot com (no spaces).

January 15th, 2010

Titanic Clash of the Shamen Page 1

Filed under: Print Comics — Tags: , , , , — William Cardini @ 12:43 pm

Inspired by my lady Glade’s resolution to make one new card design each week of 2010, my resolution is to draw at least one finished page of comics a week, and document it here on this blog. I might not always be able to show the whole page, but I will at least show part of it.

So how am I doing so far? Well, I’m considering a week to be from Sunday to Sunday, so I finished a page last week and I’ve sketched out and plan to ink two more pages this week.

Last week I finished the first page of the collaborative comic that I’m doing with Josh Burggraf called Titanic Clash of the Shamen. Here are the first two panels:

I’m super stoked about this project, our goal is to have the zine done in time for STAPLE!.

January 12th, 2010

2009 Recap

Filed under: Print Comics,Recaps — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:08 am

2009 was a great year here at the Hypercastle! Here’s some of the highlights:

  • I self-published two minicomics:
    • TRANZ, a collection of one-page shorts based around action verbs like “melt,” “grow,” “muliply,” and so on; copies available from me or at Domy Books in Austin
    • Froghead Hangover, a short autobiographical story about when I was living by myself in an apartment and had a run-in with a shaman; copies available from me, at Domy Books in Austin, or at Austin Books
  • I had my comics in issues of Smoke Signal, Taffy Hips, and the online zine hahaclever.com
  • I was in a few art shows, including Monster Show #4 at Domy and No More Worlds at Concertina Gallery in Chicago, which was picked as one of the top art shows of 2009 by Time Out Chicago (congrats to all the other artists and the curators!)
  • I participated in STAPLE! 2009 alongside the rest of the Gold County Paper Mill and in E.A.S.T. 2009 with my lady Glade Whitworth
  • I finally finished making websites for the G.C.P.M. and Glade (linked above)

2010 is already shaping up to be a great year, here’s hoping that it’ll blow 2009 out of the water! I’ve got several projects in work with some awesome and skilled creative people that I’ll be talking about as they manifest, a half-table for the G.C.P.M. and Glademade at STAPLE! 2010, and ideas for plenty of more comics that I’ll be submitting or self-publishing. I hope that everyone out there is having a great start to the new year, thanks for reading!