July 13, 2004
Butch! Your Back!entry,
Okay, the title of the letter is something of an inside joke from the #schlock_mercenary IRC crowd, but you get the point. Butch is back. Chopping Block, my favorite single-panel comic, has returned from hiatus!
Last October I went to the Las Vegas Comic-Con, where we determined that the word "Extrosion" they were using in their marketing materials really meant "just like a comic-book convention, only smaller." With me on that trip (which was the first road-trip for Turboschlock, back before my green turbo beetle had been named) was my long-time friend and confidant Chalain. He and I used to create RPG scenarios while getting our exercise walking around downtown Provo. He was there when Sandra went into labor with our first child, and he was there to congratulate me when I gave birth to Schlock (eeew.)
Well, at the Las Vegas Comic-Con I introduced him to Lee Adam Herold, creator of Chopping Block, and Chalain did what all creative loony fanboys do around their favorite artists -- he showered Lee with praise, and then began suggesting gags.
Usually in situations like this the artist smiles and nods while thinking "leave the comedy to me, sonny-jim." In Lee's case, however, he laughed. Not at Chalain, at Chalain's jokes. We went out to dinner, and my long-time-friend and favorite single-panel humorist began COLLABORATING on psycho-killer humor.
I'm not here to tell you that YOU can send Lee gags. You can try, but you won't get far. I know because I didn't get far when I tried, and I'm a PROFESSIONAL, sonny-jim. But Chalain, he's tapped into the same, sick muse somehow, and this week at Chopping Block is "Chalain Week."
I can't take any more credit than that. After all, all I did was DRIVE CHALAIN 400 MILES TO VEGAS, PUT HIM UP IN MY HOTEL ROOM, AND INTRODUCE HIM TO LEE. It was nothing, really. And the least YOU can do is visit www.choppingblock.org every day this week and see what a twisted genius my friend is.
(Oh, and Lee's art is pretty cool too.)