Near the end of last year, I painted a watercolor commission of the character Diana in Tales from the Hyperverse. I did two versions and let the commissioner choose.
Here’s a detail of the first version, with additional lines in India ink:
Here’s the second version, without any India ink:
If you’d like to commission a drawing or painting from me, send me an email at william cardini at this website.
If your local comic book shop ordered Tales from the Hyperverse through Diamond, it’ll arrive tomorrow!
In other news:
Ryan C. reviewed Hyperverse for his blog, Four Color Apocalypse.
Here’s a quote:
My only previous exposure to Cardini’s singular psychedelic abstractions was in the pages of his B&W comics ‘zine Vortex, as well as a in a couple of anthologies, but he’s claimed a territory all his own in a fairly short period of time, and he plants his flag in it more firmly than ever in the pages of his new Retrofit/Big Planet solo anthology comic, Tales From The Hyperverse, a cosmos-shredding series of interlocked (at least thematically) stories that reduces Kirby-esque interplanetary/interdimensional clashes of absolutes to its barest elements, shakes them up kaleidoscopically, and dares you to figure out exactly what comes out the other end.
San Antonio comic book shop Gotham Newsstand already has Hyperverse and my other in-print comics (because it’s run by my brother, Peter Hensel, so I make sure he keeps everything in stock) and he put Hyperverse as #3 on his list of the best stapled comics of 2017!
Here’s a quote from the write-up:
In beautiful full color (but still filled with psychedelic patterns when they can be effective!), we see a cast of warriors, rival wizards, creatures, and more of the odd universe to which his graphic novel introduced us. I can’t wait to find out more of it!
Finally there are more pages of Skew Part 4 over on Study Group!
Skew Page 177.
From a geopolitical perspective, 2017 was a horrible year and the chances that our civilization will survive the coming climate catastrophe still seem remote. Our woeful lack of preparation for extreme weather events was unfortunately evident when the homes of my friends and family in Houston were imperiled by the record-shattering inundation of Hurricane Harvey. My parents’ house was inches from being flooded. I feel so grateful that they escaped that nightmare and I feel so much sympathy for the people who are still rebuilding in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico.
In response to the climate change denial, racist policies, and class warfare of the current Republican government, I was more politically active in 2017 than I have been in any year since 2003, when I participated in anti-war protests against our invasion of Iraq. It felt good to fight back and I feel like progressive forces in American won some victories.
Despite the national calamity, I continued to make comics. Madeleine Witt and Andrew White, the editors of Warmer: A collection of comics about climate change for the fearful & hopeful, included my submission in their anthology. I experimented with creating abstract comics from a template and Mike Getsiv posted some of the results of my tests on the Abstract Comics blog.
Abstract comics test. Each of the pages has the same circle shape, deformed or modified in different ways.
My biggest comics accomplishment was when Retrofit / Big Planet Comics published Tales from the Hyperverse, a collection of my short comics that I’ve been planning to put out for years. It’s difficult to match the feeling of excitement and anticipation that I got when I picked up the first box of comics from the post office. Tales from the Hyperverse will arrive at local comic shops that stock Retrofit / Big Planet Comics on Wednesday January 10th!
My friend and fellow cartoonist Colin Panetta drew this fan art of the Floating Crystal Witch, who features prominently in Tales from the Hyperverse.
Both Warmer and Hyperverse were funded by successful Kickstarter campaigns. Thanks to everyone who supported those campaigns with a pledge or a post!
I tabled at two comic fests this year, KC Zine Con for the second time and Cartoon Crossroads Columbus for the first time. I self-published a small print run of my minicomic Drumstick Pit for KC Zine Con. I’ll probably do one regional and one national show again next year.
It was fun to xerox and then fold and staple Drumstick Pit. It’s been too long since I last made my own mini-comics! An essential comics skill.
On this blog, which passed its tenth anniversary this year, I posted four book reviews:
I’ve got a few projects in the works that may see the light of day in 2018, including a collaboration with Zach Taylor on a videogame code named Project Quinoa. You can see updates from Zach, including videos of his great pixel art, on his development log.
Here’s a drawing I made this year that I might use for one of those aforementioned 2018 projects:
Dome city drawing.
And here’s a couple pages of a comic I’ve been tinkering with:
“So I Folded” Miizzzard grid comic page.
“And Piped Out” Miizzzard grid comic page.
I’ve been blogging at one incarnation of this site or another for over ten years (here’s my first post from May 7th, 2007, which was originally posted on a hypercastle blogspot but has since been migrated to this URL). I love having my own server space and my own site that I control. Even though massive, corporate-controlled social media sites like Facebook and Twitter make personal blogs like this less popular and less relevant, I’m going to stubbornly keep infrequently posting here.
I’ve neglected this blog. I lost my archives page with a link to all my tags and categories in a template update. I deleted a big category that stranded hundreds of posts in an uncategorized limbo. I struggle to find time to post here in between my day job, dad life, chilling with Glade, and studio time. But now I’ve added a new menu in the top right to try and make it easier to find content here and I’m slowly going through all my old posts and updating their categories and tags.
In some ways, this blog is my biggest, longest sustained artistic practice. I hope that y’all enjoy it.
Alex Hoffman has reviewed Tales from the Hyperverse on his comics criticism blog, Sequential State. Hoffman compares the storytelling styles of TftHV and Vortex, which he reviewed in 2015.
Here’s the summary quote from the end:
These short comics, strung together in this 32-page personal anthology, are likely Cardini’s strongest work yet. Bizarrely impersonal and naturalistic in their warped way, Tales from the Hyperverse is a dog eat dog kind of comic, and a fine cap to the Retrofit 2017 season.
Skew Part 4 has begun on the Study Group Comics site.
Here’s the cover for Part 4.
The first four pages are already up. Skew will update on Sundays.
Here’s a summary of where we’re at in the story: The hypermollusc has exploded. The fate of the Miizzzard is unknown. Bya the Space Yeti runs towards the burnt chunks of the hypermollusc with the remnant of the slime secretly hitching a ride.
The exploding hypermollusc.
The slime riding on the Space Yeti’s back.
This is the final part, except for an epilogue that I’m saving for a hypothetical print version. You can read the previous parts here.
Thanks to everyone who bought or traded for a copy of Tales from the Hyperverse and my other books at CXC.
A photo of me at the Retrofit / Big Planet Comics table at CXC 2017.
It’s a newer show so traffic is a bit slow but it has great potential. The downtown Columbus library is a beautiful location. I met and hung out with a bunch of great people!
I did this sketch of Destroyer for Matt Horak’s The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe sketchbook.
If you don’t have Tales from the Hyperverse yet you can now order a signed copy of it (and Sphere Fear and Vortex) from the Store page of this site. I’ve seen evidence on Instagram of copies in the wild in people’s mailboxes and on store shelves. If you read Tales from the Hyperverse, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads, it really helps to get the word out.
Here’s my CXC haul.
In other news, I’ve helped Zack Soto add a forum to the Study Group Comics site. We’re still tweaking but come join this new comics community!
I’ll be tabling with Retrofit Comics at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (AKA CXC) this weekend. I’m very excited because it’ll be my first time selling my new comic from Retrofit, Tales from the Hyperverse, and my first time at CXC! CXC is a big event that lasts this whole week, I’ll just be there for the CXC Expo and Marketplace at the downtown branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, which is from 11am to 6pm on Saturday Sept 30th and noon to 5pm on Sunday Oct 1st.
Also, I got some of my contributor copies of Tales from the Hyperverse yesterday and I’m very happy with how they turned out. Here are some photos:
After I get back from CXC, I’ll add Tales from the Hyperverse to my online store so you can order signed copies. In the meantime, you can already order unsigned copies from the Retrofit store.
My new comic from Retrofit, Tales from the Hyperverse, debuts this weekend at the Small Press Expo near Washington, DC!
Unfortunately I won’t be there but if you can make it, SPX is a blast. I will be at the next show at which Retrofit is tabling, Cartoon Crossroads Columbus.
And if you can’t make it to either show and you missed out on the Kickstarter, you can preorder at the Retrofit site or wait until I get my copies and can offer signed copies on this site.
Thanks to everyone who came by my table at KC Zine Con #3!
I had a good show, I sold my last copies of the “Miizzzard Experiments” print on the lower left of the photo. I had higher sales in 2016, but I think it’s because I had a wider variety of newer comics last year, so I’m going to try and increase my inventory for KC Zine Con #4.
Here’s my haul from the show.
Every year KC Zine Con has more awesome exhibitors, I hope the show continues to grow and thrive!
