Special Holiday Announcement

With the immanent release of House of Twelve #3 via Comixology's Comics app — and because we love you — we here at Team 12 Headquarters have a special holiday gift for everyone, House of Twelve Monthly #1 is available for the low, low cost of absolutely free.

Take this opportunity to check out some of the great comics running in each and every issue if House of Twelve. Issue #1 features stories by award winning cartoonists like Miss Lasko-Gross, Sam Henderson & K. Thor Jensen along with longtime webcomics fan-favorite, Darryl Ayo.

Available right now on the web and on the Comics App for the iDevice of your choice.

Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival

http://www.comicsandgraphicsfest.com/

Come out this Saturday to the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival and stop by the Ho12 table to see some stuff from the up coming Comixology iPhone project and pick up the latest issue of House of Twelve, Touching Children's Stories for all the weird kids in your life. The show runs from 11-7 and we'll have an excellent selection of rotating guests through out the day, Miss Lasko-Gross, Sam Henderson, Jenny Gonzalez, AYO and special guest Adam Suerte will be running around being all kinds of sacrilegious and shit.

House of Twelve #5: Touching Children's Stories 9/09!

Here are the front and back covers for the next Ho12, due out this September at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD. The cover is by Kevin Colden and Miss Lasko-Gross.

The book is a real deal, honest to goodness all ages book done by your favorite underground smut-peddlers. So you can expect the Happy Meal version of all our favorite Team 12 themes.

See as the familiar boy who wouldn't grow up tempts the children to indulge in their imaginations...

...with tragic results.

A Mess of Video

Fantagraphics just posted a little video preview of Team 12 den mother, Miss Lasko-Gross' new book, 'A Mess of Everything' which we will be debuting at Tcaf in May. It's pretty gosh darned beautiful.

The Cons of 2009

Miss, Cheese and Kevin at Tcaf 2007

With exception to the NYCC, (which isn't cool enough to be San Diego*, and too high-end to be about actually interesting comics) I love me some comic-con action.  I really get a thrill piling Team 12 into a van and driving out in the wilds of the great adventure that is North America. 

This year we have a metric ton of material coming out, so much so in fact that there should be a new book or debut at every one!  Lucky you, the Ho12 consumer! Here are the shows and crew members you can expect to see this season...

Tcaf

The Toronto Comic Art Festival

May 9-10, 2009

Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St. 

Toronto, Canada

Every other year we treat ourselves to this wonderful show, crossing borders to sell dick and fart comics is the most honest thrill an artist can feel. I feel I am helping America by contributing to down-paying the national trade deficit.  

Attendees: 

Cheese, Miss Lasko-Gross, Kevin Colden, Brian Musikoff, Dave McKenna

New Stuff: 

• Miss is debuting her latest opus A Mess of Everything at Tcaf!  Come on out and get your filthy hands on one of the first copies off the presses!  AMoE is the sequel to her 2007 graphic novel Escape from Special, both are available from Fantagraphics, and from Miss herself at the con. 

• Brian Musikoff will have copies of the latest in his Mauled! series, Mauled! #4: Mauled by Machines, which I would explain, but it kinda explains itself. 

• Kevin will have copies of his Xeric Award winning Fishtown graphic novel that has been burning up the review charts.

• And I'll have copies of House of Twelve Goes to War! (#4), a collection of autobiographical stories of our intrepid cartoonists in the heat of battle!  All amazingly true, right down to the last detail!  Honest to god!  

MoCCA

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival

June 6-7, 2009

The 69th Regiment Armory at Lexington and 25th street

New York, NY

This one's the no-brainer, it's our hometown show.  This year at a new location I talked up a few months back, the 69th Regiment Armory, the show needed a new venue and they found the perfect on here. 

Attendees: 

Cheese, Dave McKenna, Miss Lasko-Gross, Kevin Colden, Kate Allen, Jenny Gonzalez, and more.

New Stuff: 

• I'll be debuting my first solo art book, MATH, some of which I posted right here on this very blog not too long ago.  The final version has several new pieces and more fun notes from Dave's high school calculus notebook.  

• Miss' sequal to Escape from Special, A Mess of Everything will also be available in mass quantities.  

• Kevin's Fishtown will be right there, on the table for all to gaze upon.

SPX

The Small Press Expo

September 26-27, 2009

The Marriot Bethesda North Hotel & Conference Center

Bethesda, MD (Actually, I think it's Rockville)

My favorite show, we kill at this gig every year. This is where the big Ho12 guns come out and play.  This year you have three new releases as well as the always popular Strike Team Dodecca Sales Experience managing the table. 

Attendees:

Cheese, Miss Lasko-Gross, Kevin Colden, Dave McKenna, Kate Allen and a special guest, Pete Townsend (no relation).

New Stuff:

• House of Twelve #5: Touching Children Stories - Ho12 is proud to announce the latest in it's always popular, cutting edge anthology series with this awesome collection of all-ages stories meant to tickle the funny bone of both adult and child alike. 

• Dave McKenna's long awaited adult comic debut, Monstaland will finally see the light of day.  Dave has take his two favorite things in life, porn and giant monster movies and combined them into one of the most amazing adult comics you'll see this decade. 

• The second issue of Kate Allen's fabulous Milk-Teeth will make it's first showing at SPX 2009! The first issue of M-T was a grand-slam, out-of-the-ball-park smash, selling every copy we had with us. 

Add to this Miss's A Mess of Everything and Kevin's Fishtown and whatever other junk we can fit on the table and Ho12 is looking to murder each and every one of you with our amazing line up of great comics. 

So keep your peepers peeled for the 2009 line up coming from Ho12 Industries and it's affiliated partners. 

* On a side note, I was having a drink or nine with buddy Chris P. the other night and he mentioned that at the last San Diego comic con there was a huge booth, one of the mega booths, a booth usualy reserved for an entire big time movie company, for the TV show 'The Office.'  Y'know, I get it, but FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOUUUU, Mr. or Mrs. The Office. Go have OfficeCon 2009 somewhere.  Y'assholes. 

Of Jams and Men

Upstairs at Jack Demsey's at the Ho12 Comic Jam, 2/5/09

So last week's Ho12 Comic Jam was another rousing success. If we keep having nights like these I am going to have to actually start putting thought into this, which after 7 years seems silly. I gotta hand it to the old facebook, I just signed up for it 2 months ago and it's already been responsible for rustlin' back several long lost contributors and bringing in three new guys. Seems my little recruitment plan has worked, let's hope it keeps up.

We are still having issues with getting the basement reserved every month, I really need to talk to Vinne, the manager of Demsey's, about that, I know in the past the relocation to the upstairs has caused at least one person to miss the event, I really don't want that to happen again.

Kevin and Miss seem to have rocked out at the NYCC this past weekend, good on them. Check out Kevin's blog listed on the bottom right of this page. It's twitery.

Seems all our convention appearances are coming together all at once, I will have post later this week going over it all.

Off to kill zombies with friends.

Cheese

January Jam Post-Op report

Man, there are times when the jams just get swept away in their own awesomeness, last night was one of those nights. The January 09 jam was one of my favorite jams in years. Not that I don't usually have a good time, but last night the room was jam packed with great talents and good friends. The jams we made were funny too, I talked McKenna into scanning some of them, hopefully that will happen soon and I will get it all posted in due time.

One of my favorite parts of the evening was when Miss asked for her check.



Don't let anyone tell you comics are a dudes only medium, see she's labeled even!

I only wonder what mine said, after the 8 (at least) beers I had, I don't remember looking.

Next Jam is Feb. 5, 7 pm at Demsey's more details to come as they are available.

Miss and Kevin on the Indie Spinner Rack

http://indiespinnerrack.blogspot.com/

Miss and Kevin let Mr. Phil and Charlito (and through them and their awesome podcast, Indie Spinner Rack, all of us) into their home and feed them donuts and comics. It's a good'un (although they coulda mentioned Ho12 more then .3 seconds at the end, grumble, grumble).

The Beards of SPX

If you have gone to the Small Press Expo over the last few years you've more the likely noticed the abundance of BEARDOS. As a tribute to the men of SPX, young and impressed with their own puberty, Team 12 went on safari. A Weird Beard Safari. Each of us was tasked with hunting down and capturing the most impressive display of beardism at the show. Here are the results:

First up is Kate Allen's entry, "The Beau"

Note the stringy hair and the 'is that a beard or is it chocolate cake' soul patch, all wonderful, but it's the wispy, curly-cue mustache that really tops off this history honoring beard/mustache combo. 1870, here we come!


Kevin Colden's "Beard on a Wire"


A bold and truly American beard, with a french twist! Part Grizzly Adams, part North American Indie Rocker; this ensemble is as classic as it is beautiful. Since it's inception in the mid 1990's it's become one of several "standard uniforms" for nerds everywhere; this particular variant includes a nod to our E.U. brothers with it's distinctive French Flip on the mustache. Here, Kevin captures the beard at it's most pure, needing no wearer, the beard stands alone.



Cheese with "Science Hair of the Face"



The chaos theory has never been so proven as with this amazing representation of the American Nerd. It's distinctive frizz and texture communicates, "I am comfortable with my face and hair resembling a pile of steel-wool and pipe cleaners." A bold statement, indeed. What truely brings the whole package together here is the addition of the safety goggles. Who hasn't been to a comic book convention and said to themselves, "Y'know, what I really need to bring next year is some safety goggles." BE PREPARED!

Dave McKenna, "Piltdown Man, Alive!"



Nowhere in a the annuls of fashion does it say that one's hair should be symmetrical, in fact some of modern style makers are renown for their off-center daring. Here is a perfect example. What Mom wouldn't be proud of her little angel sporting this inventive and heart-warming combination that screams both, "I am thirty cents from being homeless!," and "I am on discount, Canadian medication!" equally loud and with such conviction. A masterpiece!


Miss Lasko-Gross, "Big Rock Nerdy Mountain"



SPX has it's fare share of fatties, but to tell the truth, compared to other comic book events it's pretty sickly. It is here that a true man of girth can take a stand and shout out with pride, "You're all poseurs!" Such is the case with the above subject. Not only does he outdo the 16th President with his stylish "Lincoln++" chin defining neck-beard, but he subtly lets his preposterous size speak volumes about the state of the geek community. He says, where'd all you hipster bastards come from, take your motherfucking girls and go home. Leave comics to the fat and unwashed, as nature intended!" He is a statesman.


In the car on the way home, the entries were studied, examined for authenticity and voted upon. It was a close race, but in the end, Dave McKenna's "Piltdown Man, Alive!" won the day. Mr. McKenna was awarded a copy of a book I can't remember the title of, but he seemed to enjoy it. Congrats Dave!

We all look forward to next year when we can again go on another WEIRD BEARD SAFARI!

Miss/Kevin in The Villager

Hey, whattaya know, a post that isn't about monsters!

Local Greenwich Village/L.E.S. newspaper, The Villager, has a write up about longtime Ho12 contributors Miss Lasko-Gross and Kevin Colden. The author has a bit of an obsession with 'Maus' but it's worth a read nonetheless.

Check it out.

PS - In the interest of full disclosure, I am the Art Director of The Villager, and yes, I suggested the guy talk to them.