I know I’m a little late on my news reporting, but blame it on the rain (or lack thereof).

Anyway, my friend Bearman, besides being an all-around great guy, he’s also a philanthropist (a bit different than a philanderer, I’m told). He’s sponsoring the Bearman Charity Challenge.

Now, before you get all into a huff, check this out: this charity drive costs you nothing, True Believer. Bearman’s the one footing the bill.

For every time you post a blog, tweet on Twitter, link to his Drive, or anything related, he’ll donate money. Now what could be better than spending someone else’s moola? I don’t know, either.

So, go check out the Bearman Charity Drive and see what you can do to help others in crisis situations and send Mr. Bearman to the poorhouse (I live on the second floor and I could use the company).

Tell ‘im Big George from ADDANAC CITY sent ya!

The guest strips have been coming in and, boy, do they look fantastic! You guys do such a great job. You’re gonna make my stuff look amateurish.

I thank you so much for contributing to the ADDANAC CITY mythos and I can’t wait to unveil what I have received.

If you want to send in an ADDANAC CITY Guest Strip, just check out these guidelines.

I aim to post these astounding strips sometime after June 21st. I look forward to seeing what you’ve got!

As many of you have heard, the King of Pop passed away June 25th at the age of 50, after suffering from a sudden cardiac arrest. The Gloved One touched souls from all over the world with his music. He was a recognizable icon across the planet. He even made his mark in ADDANAC CITY.

In honor of his musical achievements and place in history, I’m posting this encore presentation of the AC strip that made reference to Mike.

(Strip originally posted January 21, 2009)

I got an email within the past week or so from Robert Matejcek. He informed me that he was a fellow cartoonist and that he enjoyed reading ADDANAC CITY. He also asked if it was okay if we did a link exchange. Since I’m always eager to help out a new creator (and it helps to spread the word about ol’ Hank, too), I agreed.

We’ve been keeping in touch since then. I checked out his amusing site and I love his colors and character design.

Robert was kind enough to send me this really cool Fan Art that you see above. I got a kick out of it so I decided to share it with you guys. Now if I can get him to bless me with a full-fledged guest-strip (hint-hint, Robert).

If you get a chance, please go say hi to Robert and tell ‘em you saw his stuff on AC.

Click pic to go to Robert’s site:

The guest strips that all of the phenomenal cartoonists contributed over the past two weeks to ADDANAC CITY were an incredible success. During those ten days, these strips received over eight thousand visitors and over twenty-eight thousand pageviews.

Thanks to all of the artists and viewers who made this possible!

SPECIAL THANKS GO OUT TO:

Sandy Debrueil
Bearman
Michelle Billingsley
Neftali Rivera
John Norton
Dawn Griffin
John Jenkins
Nate Fakes
Matt Stout
Matt Barak
Donald Poquiz

Hello, Haters! I’m so glad you could stop by. Besides creating this comic strip series and kicking it with the many ADDANAC CITY fans I encounter each day, you guys are my third favorite form of entertainment.

Yes, yes, I know what you say….ADDANAC CITY sucks. The art is infantile. The humor isn’t fit for a four-year old. “Why do you even bother to make this tripe?”

Firstly, because I enjoy it. Secondly, because people out there like it. And lastly (not to mention least of all), because it irritates the heck outta you!

I welcome your whining and petty, elementary-school name-calling. You guys make my day because this itty-bitty, inconsequential cartoon that I create evokes so much passion and emotion from you. You hate ADDANAC CITY soooo much, yet you return time and time again just to see how much you hate it this go-round.

That’s fine with me, knock ya selves out. Spend your entire day telling your friends and neighbors that ADDANAC CITY sucks balls. In fact, form a club, coalition, or organization (I’ll even design your official logo). You can even call yourselves the Sentinels Against Addanac City Because It’s Truly Erroneous Rubbish (or SAAC BITERs for short)

Regardless, I appreciate your constant viewership and, even though you may hate me, my art, my mom, and/or my dog, the name ADDANAC CITY is still on your lips. Taste it, savor it, and swallow, Dear Hater, cuz you’ll be back tomorrow.

And I’ll be waiting for you to entertain me further.

‘Til then…

The runways of Paris were overflooded as the latest in the line of ADDANAC CITY fashion took the stage.

Well, not really… but the initial run of ADDANAC CITY SPORTSWEAR t-shirts were a complete sell-out. I’d like to thank the hundreds of faithful folks and new fans who purchased a tee whenever you saw me and/or the fam out hawking them from the trunk of our Bentley. Your continued support and patronage means so very much to this simple craftsman.

I also want to shine the spotlight on the model in the above photograph. The gorgeous young lady who was gracious enough to sport her shirt for all the world to see, is none other than my beautiful stepdaughter, CiCi. I think her Hank shirt looks wonderful on her.

I’ll be taking orders again for another run of shirts, plus adding more designs to the line. So if you don’t wanna wait until you bump into me peddling on the streets, you can just hit me up via email or Twitter and cop one that way. Or you can order some of the cool stuff from the official AC Store. Thanks again for your support, and keep reading ADDANAC CITY!

A lot of you have asked me since I’ve started doing this series what my procedure is for creating an ADDANAC CITY comic strip. My simple reply of “magic” didn’t seem to suffice, so I’m featuring a step-by-step commentary about how I go about it.

The first thing I do is refer to my trusty AC comic strip template. I use this basic setup for each AC comic after I get an idea. I generally only have to shorten or widen the panels in order to accomodate the dialogue.

For dialogue, I prefer the font Anime Ace. It’s the closest I’ve come across that’s similar to my own lettering style. For those of you still hand-lettering, I’m tellin’ ya, it’s a lot quicker and easier to let the computer do it for you. I call it necessary cheating.

After I place the words where they need to be (and this can be kinda tricky and time-consuming at times because I have to allow room for the artwork and character placement), I print it out on 24 lb 8 1/2 X 11 copy paper.

Now I’m ready to start penciling. I use a 4H pencil because the lead produces relatively light lines. That comes in handy when I have to erase. When I pencil, I don’t get very heavy into detail. I like to get more in-depth during the inking stage. As you can also see, I don’t usually pencil the backgrounds either.

Penciling an ADDANAC CITY comic takes me about 10-15 minutes, depending on whatever else I’m doing at the time (talking on the phone, watching TV, cooking, or kickin’ it with the fam).

After I’m finished penciling, it’s time to break out the inks!

Inking is one of my favorite parts of comic creating because I can get into some detail. This is the stage where I add in the wrinkles in the clothes, the true facial expressions, some shading, and all of the backgrounds.

Inking takes more time than penciling (usually around 30 minutes), but I enjoy it more. After I finish this stage, I erase all of my pencil lines. Then I scan the inked page back into the computer so that I can use Adobe Photoshop to color it.

I currently work with Adobe Photoshop 6 to color. I know it’s an ancient edition, but it’s all I have at the moment and it works fine for what I need. I start out coloring Hank’s hair (if he’s in the strip), then I color the flesh, then move on to the backgrounds. I color the characters’ clothing last so I can ensure that they won’t clash with the background color scheme.

After a few tweaks and some highlights, I begin to color all of the bold words in the dialogue. Then…voila! I’ve just finished one ADDANAC CITY comic strip. Only 364 more to go for the year.

I hope you all enjoyed this little tutorial on the making of… If you have any more questions, feel free to hit me up. To see the final regular-size version of this comic, just click here.

Y'know Hank's gonna need a presidential pardon one day.

Hank’s really getting around these days. I’ve been enjoying viewing all of his various appearance throughout the internet. Here are just a few places you can catch a cameo or glimpse of Hank:

~ Hank made a surprise guest-appearance here in Matt Stout’s Big Sandy Gilmore comic.

~ Hank also got a chance to be in Phil Oliveira’s Canned Ham comic in this strip.

~ You can even see Hank in this Bearman’s Beartoons comic.

~ Michelle Billingsley’s JOE comic had a couple of guest-spots by Hank here and here.

There were also some cool write-ups and articles about Hank and ADDANAC CITY on a few blogs. If you get a chance, check out Hmm, Sweet Splendid Wisdom and Joe’s Heebie Jeebies Blog.

So, please, visit these fine folks and show them some good ol’ Addanac City love. I know they’ll be glad you came by!

I just want to give a huge, gigantic, mega-enormous THANK YOU to everyone who came by to wish me well for ADDANAC CITY’s 300th comic strip. You guys made me shed tears of happiness. I’ve got the best audience in the whole entire world! Your constant support is what makes this whole endeavor worthwhile.

Matt Dillon as Mr. Addanac?

Well, not really. I was just kickin’ the idea around. I was watching “There’s Something About Mary” the other day, and I thought that Matt Dillon‘s role as Pat Healy reminded me a lot of Hank’s dad, Mr. Addanac. They even look a lot alike. I know that movie is about a decade old, but Matt would be excellent in the role of Mr. A. After getting Mr. Addanac cast, I started imagining who would make a good actress to portray Hank’s mom. I ran across a photo of Heather Graham, and all I saw was Mrs. A.

Heather Graham as Mrs. Addanac?

I think it’s funny that I would pair Matt and Heather together because they both were in the movie Drugstore Cowboy. When I found this pic of Heather, I had to do a lil’ cropping due to the fact that she had some “protrusions” issuing forth from her blouse.

Yul Brenner as Principal Argent?

Even though he passed away more than a few years ago, I feel that Yul Brenner could have made a cool Principal Argent. Yul had style, grace, and a piercing gaze that would have made any student fall into line. Plus, I would have loved to see him in a comedy role.

She'd make a nice Ms. Yesnik!

I dunno who this lady really is (I just liked her pic), but I think she looks kindly enough (not to mention white-haired enough) to play Hank’s second-grade teacher, Ms. Yesnik.

Perhaps I can talk the lady who played Spiderman’s Aunt May to be in the movie? Who knows.

Who would wanna play this kid?

Anyway, this has just been a fantasy of mine. I can’t think of any current child actors who would make a good Hank. Most of the time, the directors will cast an unknown for the starring role. Who would you recommend to portray our resident hellion?

Or do you have any better suggestions for any of the other characters?

A couple of days ago, I was sent this neat piece of artwork from Stripy-Artist, a budding cartoonist I met on Twitter. I think it’s rather cool. Let’s all help support our young artists as they continue practicing and honing their craft. They’re gonna be the creators of tomorrow soon.

Thanks, Stripy-Artist!!!

Hank's Dad art by Antoine Gagnon

I love to see various artists’ renditions of Hank and the other characters from my comic strip ADDANAC CITY. Every cartoonist has their own style, so it’s interesting to see how they view the strip’s cast.

This pic was created by Antoine Gagnon of The Drunken Fools webcomic. Every Friday, he picks a webcomic character to draw in his own unique style. A few weeks ago he chose Mr. Addanac and give him the official Drunken Fools treatment. Thanks, Antoine! I’m diggin’ it.

Hank art by Hans

I received a second piece of Fan Art today which really surprised me. It was sent by a young cartoonist named Hans. The surprise is due to the fact that Hans and I have had a rather turbulent recent history. We’ve exchanged heated words over the debate of ADDANAC CITY’s creative validity.

But like the East Coast/West Coast beef that plagued the hip-hop scene for a while a few years back, Hans and I appear to have reached an amicable truce. I have no problem with his opinions and I feel that we have a healthy respect for what the other does. As a peace offering, he blessed me with this drawing of Hank commemorating his desire to see an ADDANAC CITY movie. I can’t wait to see one too!

Hans is practicing his craft and, little by little, he’s been bringing his ‘A’ game to the drawing table. I hope to see him with his own original comic strip soon where he can showcase his talent and grow. Good luck to you, Hans!

Created by Jynksie of "How Sweet It Is"

August 25, 2009 marked the 1-year anniversary of the ADDANAC CITY comic strip series. I’m thankful to all of the great people who came out to help me celebrate this momentous occasion.

I was pleasantly surprised to get a couple of pieces of really cool artwork by some extremely talented guys. I posted the first creation (by Speearr of Terence N Tijuana) on the blog for the Anniversary strip.

The second bit of artwork I received came from Jynksie, creator of the webcomic “How Sweet It Is”. Jynksie always finds a way to crack me up laughing and I love his rendition of Hank. You’ve gotta check out Hank’s guest-appearance in his latest strip.

So, go check him out and keep coming back here for another hilarious year of ADDANAC CITY.

I just wanted to take a second and let you know that there’s a small competition going on over at Jackson Ferrell’s This Week In Webomics. Jackson is having a contest to see which webcomic will be next to get one of his stellar reviews.

Last week, Brock Heasley’s SuperFogeys took the gold. Congratulations, Brock! You’re a promotional panther and a marketing maniac!

This week, the remainder of Jackson’s webcomic list gets a chance to be reviewed. While I’m never a glutton for punishment, I do like Jackson’s reviewing style and his candidness. Soooo…..head on over to Webcomic Week and cast your vote for ADDANAC CITY. It’s virtually painless, and all it takes is a click of a button.

And P.S. : Even if you’re one of my two AC Haterz, go ahead and get your vote on, too. Who knows? Jackson could be prepping to tear me a new one (and I know how much y’all like that). Hahahaha! Enjoy the week.