Superhero Girl 100

Yaaaaay Superhero Girl comic number 100!!! ... aaannnnd, hiatus. Yes, sadly, this is true, and not just a punchline. I'm currently swamped with work, and although Superhero Girl is one of my many jobs (as some of you know, it's published in The Coast, a free weekly in Halifax, Nova Scotia), it has become too time consuming to fit into my pressurized schedule. So I have asked the Coast for a bit of a break, and they have kindly agreed. Superhero Girl will return in June with new adventures, and maybe by then I'll have the time to build her a proper webpage. We'll see! So keep an eye on this website and my twitter for updates. I really appreciate all my reader support this past year, and I hope you'll rejoin me when the comic starts up again. My friend Miriam Gibson will be taking over my spot in the Coast with her bizarre and entertaining comic, Everyone's A Centaur. I hope you enjoy her work!

Otherwise, did you know I have a graphic novel coming out TODAY??? Yes! Friends With Boys, my new graphic novel from First Second, is out now! For the next week, you can read the ENTIRE comic online for free, and if you like it, I hope you will consider buying it to support me, so I can continue to make comics just for you. ;)

Upcoming events: I know for sure I will be at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival May 5th -6th. There are other events I plan to go to, but due to schedule craziness, everything is a bit up in the air.

So ... see you in June, guys!

Superhero Girl 89

Yes, that is a bear wearing a monocle in the last panel there. Also, FOR REALS, Superhero Girl's roommate needs a name so I should get on that. I have reasons for not giving Superhero Girl a name, but there's no reason (other than general laziness) that Roommate Girl doesn't have one. So ... soon there will be naming, I promise.

Otherwise, hey look, my website got revamped! My Wordpress knowledgeable friend Lissa put it together, and I think it looks very nice. I really just want a portfolio site to store my good artwork (for clients to find & hire me) and online comics, not a personal site that requires regular updates (I have NO TIME for that), and I think this design works well. Let me know if you have any issues with the site, I'd appreciate it! There are still a few things I need to fix up, but overall it's pretty complete. (Btw, If you would like a nice little wordpress site, you can hire Lissa too.)

And check out the guest art I did for my boyfriend Tim's online comic, One of Those Days! It's sparkly and inspired by Laputa. :D

Superhero Girl 86

Even though there's no hanky-panky going on, Superhero Girl's roommate should have put a sock on the doorknob or something. Also, I enjoy that dressing in civilian clothing means Superhero Girl just puts a zip up hoodie over her superhero costume. Doesn't even get rid of the cape or anything ...

So hey, this coming weekend, I will be at Hal-Con, Halifax's biggest science fiction/comics/other awesome stuff convention. I'm a guest, so I'll be on panels and stuff, talking up comics. I will have a table, where I'll be selling all my books as well as my self-published Superhero Girl book, and other stuff like prints, buttons and original art. So if you are native to Atlantic Canada, come to the convention and say hi! I will probably talk to you, especially if you bring me food.

Alternate Universe Superhero Girl by Mike Holmes

SURPRISE! Today's Superhero Girl comic is written and drawn by my fellow Halgonian (that's a person who lives in Halifax; yes, I know it's a weird name) cartoonist Mike Holmes! Mike and I share the comic page in The Coast (right above the phone sex ads!), and we thought it'd be hilarious to switch comics for a day. So Mike drew this very excellent Superhero Girl, and I took over his comic, True Story. The concept of Mike's comic is that people send him emails about their weird real life adventures, and he turns those stories into beautiful art! Mike's been doing his comic a lot longer than I've been doing Superhero Girl, and you can buy the True Story book collection here (or on Amazon, whichever). Here's my True Story:

I think this comic gets super-meta if you imagine the drunk guy as a grown up, drunk Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. O_O Whoa, deep. Anyway, we will be back to your regularly scheduled Superhero Girl next week, but enjoy the special today!

Superhero Girl 80

Aw, Kevin. And oh hey, this is comic #80! That is more than 79 or 78 but not as many as 100. I'm looking forward to having 100 comics drawn, for some reason.

Mike Maihack (previously of the awesome Supergirl/Batgirl fancomic) drew a very nifty Superhero Girl fanart recently, which got me thinking: my birthday's coming up (it's September 29th), and fanart is a pretty awesome thing to get on your birthday. So if you're someone who enjoys any of my comics (Demonology 101, Ice, Friends With Boys or Superhero Girl) and would like to throw some love my way, fanart would be a great birthday present, hint hint. ;)

Superhero Girl 76

Superhero Girl takes a well deserved vacation! Unfortunately she's stumbled on one of those ninja-attire only beaches that are all the rage in Europe. Gotta dress like a ninja or no fun in the sun for you!

Okay, I'm sure some of you lovely readers already know about this, but there is big comic news! I (surprise!) draw comics other than Superhero Girl, and one of those comics, my soon to be published graphic novel Friends With Boys, is being serialized online! You can read the first 36 or so pages here, and it will be updating five times a week (every weekday) until its publication in February 2012. I'm REALLY THRILLED that I'll be able to share this comic with my online readers, and I hope that you'll support me by passing the link on to your friends (and anyone else you think would enjoy the comic) and buying the book when it comes out in February. Please spread the word!

Superhero Girl 74

I made this comic a little bigger 'cause I drew it bigger! Yay, size doesn't matter on the internets. Anyway, WAY TO HANG OUT JUST WATCHING AND NOT HELPING, SPECTACLE. But I think she knew this was one fight Superhero Girl had to win on her own, by any means necessary. Which in this case, was appealing to the buried goodness within Supervillain Girl, then punching her through space and time. Superhero Girl, you are a bit sneaky when you need to be.

In other news, next week there will be something new and exciting that I'll be doing online, and I can't wait for you guys to see it! Yay! More comics for you to read! Oops, I've said too much. Next week!

Superhero Girl 70

I had to stick a Clark Kent joke in this comic at some point in time. Spectacle is a Reverse Clark Kent. She puts ON her glasses to fight crime. And I'm sure they help in fights, too, because you should never hit someone with glasses (them's the rules).

In my various attempts to make this humble blogspot a little more comic-navigation friendly, I put a link to the first comic at the top of the page, so you don't have to go back through the archives to read from the beginning. Hope it helps any new readers!

Superhero Girl 68

I enjoy Spectacle's boundless enthusiasm, especially in the face of serious property damage. No smoking roof will get in the way of her happy fun buddy movie!

If you are lucky enough to live in the Canadian Maritimes, I'm a guest at Animaritime, which is this coming weekend (yes, the July 1st weekend. No fireworks for me) in Moncton, New Brunswick. I'll be there to talk about making comics and sell my books (Zombies Calling, Ellsmere, Brain Camp and my self-published Superhero Girl book) as well as some really pretty prints and buttons and other stuff. So come and visit me and talk to me about comics. I'm hoping to find fellow Fullmetal Alchemist nerds (the manga, not the anime) with which to be super geeky and fangirly. I don't get to do this often, so am looking forward to it. :D

Superhero Girl 66

Hee hee! That whole 'holding someone at arm's length while they flail frantically at you' is kind of my favourite thing ever. I like how both Superhero Girl and Spectacle are surprised SHG can actually do that. Long arms, FTW! But don't worry about that crappy TV being smashed, Superhero Girl. Now you have an excuse to by an expensive flatscreen with all the money you don't have!

And with this comic, we are pretty much caught up with the current strips, so next week The Adventures of Superhero Girl will be going weekly instead of twice-weekly. I've been blown away by the support everyone's shown for the comic, and I hope the change in update schedule won't dissuade you from continuing to pass the SHG link around. It's been great fun to have a comic that updates more than once a week (a new thing for me!), but now the buffer's pretty much gone, so the SHG schedule must now reflect the rate at which I draw these comics ... which is one a week. :)

As for what day SHG will update, well, does anyone prefer a particular day? I really have no opinion... if there is a definite preference, I'll update that day. If not ... uh, I'll let my cat choose. :D

Superhero Girl 65

Oh crap! I sense possible fisticuffs in the future! Have at thee!

Well, I liked Spectacle enough that I wanted to bring her back and make her do stuff. Not quite sure what yet since I finished drawing this storyline, but I'm sure it'll be SPECTACULAR. (Or not.)

We're actually getting very close to the current comics, and when we do, Superhero Girl will be going once a week instead of twice a week. It's been awesomely fun to do twice a week updates for these past 7 months or so, but I only draw one SHG comic a week so can't go any faster than that. O wells!

Superhero Girl 54

... and then I was like "oh, whatever, just hit him with something and end this thing already" which is how many of my storylines seem to end. XD

So! If my calculations are correct (I'm typing this in the past), this weekend is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival! Please come visit me and buy a book (or two) from me at the festival (I will have copies of the self-pubbed Superhero Girl book, Zombies Calling, The War at Ellsmere, and Brain Camp as well as prints & buttons for sale)! I'd love to say hi and sketch in your purchased books and get your opinions on comics and life in general. I will be at table 206 on the 2nd floor of the library, with my awesome boyfriend Tim and my nifty friend Noreen. They will also have fun things (like buttons and prints) to sell, so buy something from them as well! Hope to see everyone there!

Superhero Girl 52

For some reason I imagine him speaking with a heavy Russian accent. So he's a hot Korean pop star supervillain raised in the wilds of Russia or something. Anyway, I think Superhero Girl's expression in the second last panel is my favourite part of this comic. She's so thrilled to meet this guy!

I keep forgetting to mention this, but I've self-published a collection of Superhero Girl comics. The title's been changed to avoid copyright issues (I'm calling the book Just the Usual Superpowers), and it'll be available for purchase from me at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) on May 7-8th and also at Animaritime (Moncton, NB, July 1st weekend). So if you're going to either of those conventions, please come see me and buy a book! The book collects the first 55 Superhero Girl comics with some bonus stuff like an author's note and sketches. If you're local to Halifax, you'll also be able to buy it at my local comic shop, Strange Adventures.

People have been asking if they can order the book online, and at this point I'm not sure yet. I wish there was a print on demand service that could deal with orders and shipping the book for me, as that kind of thing is really time consuming ... anyway, I'll be sure to let everyone know if I do decide to sell the book online. But for the moment it'll be convention and Halifax only.

Hope to see a couple of Superhero Girl readers at TCAF and Animaritime!

Superhero Girl 31

King Ninja! Kind of a jerk. I mean, there's supervillainy (taking over the world, that kind of thing) and there's jerkhood which involves things like tripping old ladies and scribbling obscene drawings in library books, and King Ninja's just entered jerkhood.

So there's a couple things I want to discuss, in the hopes all you lovely folks on the internets can help me out. I finished the 50th Superhero Girl comic last week (and the 51st this week), so there's a good number of SHG comics drawn. I was thinking about self-publishing a book of SHG comics, specifically to take with me to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) in May. I'm not yet sure if I'll offer the book online for sale. That's something I think will have to be decided down the road, but I'd really like to put something out for TCAF, because I don't have anything that's wholly mine and new to sell there.

I've never self-published before. I don't know what options there are out there, so if anyone knows anything about that, options for printers especially, I'd love to hear them. I'd like to put together a decently sized (the strips are about 3.5 by 6 inches when published, I'd like to maybe have them a little bigger than that), probably perfect (square-bound) book. Any suggestions for printers or print on demand options? I'm pretty lost when it comes to self-publishing, so any help at all would be very appreciated.

There's also the matter of the comic's title. DC and Marvel own the trademark to the term "Super heroes," and if I'm going to sell this book, I potentially might get in trouble with them down the road. I find this trademark thing pretty confusing. I mean, the comic Invincible has the word "Superhero" right on its cover, and there are plenty of non-DC/Marvel superhero comics out there, so there seems to be some leniency over the issue, but I've no idea where the line is drawn. It'd be nice if I could just ask the mucky mucks over in mainstream comic land what the deal is, but that's probably not an option. Seriously, if anyone out there has firsthand knowledge about this issue, I'd love some information as to what's allowed and what's not.

ANYWAY. In order to prevent future headaches, I'm throwing the door open to title suggestions for this book. Since I'm not making money off the website, I'm hoping certain trademark holders won't mind if I keep the webcomic name the same, and publish the book with a different name. If you suggest something that I like, I'll be happy to draw you a pretty picture or something. :)

Okay, this is super-long. To recap: Looking to self-publish some SHG comics, suggestions needed for printing options. Also looking for a non-trademark infringing name. Go wild.

Superhero Girl 21

When I think about someone being a superhero, most of the time it seems like a very thankless job. You see society at its worst, and if you're doing your job correctly, most of the time people don't see the feats you perform to keep them safe. I think you'd have to be really selfless to be a superhero; you essentially are in a helping profession, serving your community, and those are the people who get dumped on a lot. But sometimes someone notices what a good job you've done, and that keeps you going.

Website stuff: so I've fixed up the site a bit to hopefully make it a little nicer for viewing comics. Thanks for all the feedback, and I'll try and get around to making things a little tidier in the coming weeks. At least the site now feels like a somewhat proper webcomic site, which makes me happy. :)

Also, thanks to everyone who's purchased an original strip lately. For some reason I seem to have lost a couple of strips in the teens (16, 17 and 14), so I can't sell those, and of course a bunch of people have asked about buying those particular strips. Erk. And I've decided to keep this particular strip for myself. But some of the others are still kicking around if someone wants to give them a good home.

Superhero Girl 18

My boyfriend summed this comic up perfectly: "You got tired of that plotline, didn't you?" Yeah, I kinda did. I always start feeling nervous when I've gone more than a couple of comics with a narrative, because this comic is going weekly in a newspaper, so I've no idea if people are actually following it from week to week. It's been an exercise in ... exercising a different part of my brain to keep the comic somewhat non-narrative. I mean, I want there to be SOME story evolution, but it can't be a continuing story the way my other comics (until now) have been.

Also: Thanks to everyone who gave me advice on how to make blogger more comic-browsing friendly. I'm busy right now, but hopefully in the new year I can make this site a little more easy to surf.

Superhero Girl 015

HEY LOOK WHO IT IS!

So there are a lot of inspirations for this comic, mostly in response to stuff I like or don't like in comics, superhero or otherwise. This comic came pretty directly from an Astro City story I read back in college where you were following this ordinary office lady as she navigated her way through a city of superheroes. I remember it was the first time I'd seen superheroes from the perspective of someone who wasn't super, and who was just watching them do their thing. It was nifty.

Website stuff: enough people have commented that they find the blogspot format I'm using unwieldy for reading the comics. I completely understand. I started using this format because it's very easy for me to update, and I need that (my life is stupid busy). If there are blog designs out there that utilize a more comic reading friendly format (that I can use on blogspot), or if anyone has any suggestions as how to make this blog more comic reading friendly, please let me know in the comments. Appreciate it!