House of Twelve #5: Touching Children's Stories is done!

I'm going to spend the evening taking one last look over Ho12#5 and then it's going to the printer. I am abso-fucking-lutely thrilled to say it's done. It looks great too! The book will make it's big debut at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD next month and be available from www.houseoftwelve.com then too. It'll also be one of the first things you can get from us on the iPhone through Comics by Comixology come October (along with a series of selections from the back catalog). Ho12#5 will retail for $7.95 for the paper version and $1.99 for the digital. It is 72 pages, has a full color cover by Kevin Colden and Miss Lasko-Gross and black and white interiors and is our first All-Ages book. Contributors include: Nick Jeffery, Jenny Gonzalez, Fufu Frauenwahl, Kate Lacour, Dave McKenna and yours truly, to name a few. Be sure to get your hands on it any way you can!

Next up: redesigning the website and getting ready for the monthly Ho12 book through Comics starting in January.

edit: I can't spell!

Above, this years 'weiner' of the Ho12 award for frankfurter excellence.

Another month, another jam. Ho-hum. Blah, blah, blah. Insert joke here.

Bring your pens, pencils, paper and bad attitudes to:

Ho12 Comic Jam

Thursday, August 6th, 7pm - 11ish

Jack Demsey's Pub

36 West 33rd St.

New York City

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.

Ho12 on the iPhone

Ho12 will be undergoing massive changes. I am proud to announce we have just signed on to create monthly content exclusively for Comixology's new iPhone app, appropriatly called, Comics.

Comics is designed and administrated by Iconology, Inc. outta New York City, who are the same guys who run Comixology.com, a site that integrates the convenience of the web with local comics retailers providing store-specific pull lists and new comic previews. Comics costs $.99 and individual comics vary in price. It allows folks to buy single issues as well as subscribe to their favorite series and comes with over 30 free comics to get you started, some good ones too, Mage, Skyscrapers of the Midwest and The Walking Dead to mention a few.

Comics and is available through the Apple App store and is exclusive to the iPhone and iPod Touch devices (and all generations of each). Click here to check it out.

House of Twelve will start running "Best of" issues in October for free (as well as Ho12#5:Touching Children's Stories for a couple of bucks) and starting in January Team Twelve will begin delivering new and original comics though the Comics App. The book will be 24 pages long and feature a rotating cast of Indie/Alt comics all-stars, including:

Fredo Noland (Black Sheep, Midnight Creep)

Miss Lasko-Gross (Escape From Special, A Mess of Everything)

Sam Henderson (Magic Whistle)

Kate Lacour (Milk Teeth, Ho12)

Jenny Gonzalez (Too Negative, Ho12)

Dave McKenna (Monstaland, Ho12)

Cheese Hasselberger (Ho12 Team Captain)

Kevin Colden (Eisner Nominated Fishtown, I Rule the Night)

Darryl Ayo Brathwaite (Little Garden, Ho12)

Bald Eagles, aka Victor Cayro, aka The Beard (Kramer's Ergot, Typhon, Ho12)

K. Thor Jensen (Red Eye, Black Eye, Ho12)

Some artists will use the space for single issue one shots, others for continuing story-lines. We plan on inventing how stories can be told in this new and exciting mobile world.

www.houseoftwelve.com is currently undergoing a redesign that will include author profiles and samples from everyone. That's going to take me some time to finish though, so in the meantime, the current site will be updated , and point folks to this bloooog (ho12.blogspot.com) and our Facebook page.

Take a deep breath, 'cuz here we gooooooooooo!

(edit - Cleaned up contributor list to mark recent changes.)

Ho12 Comic Jam - Thurs., July 2

You want a piece of this? Well, do ya, PUNK!?!

Come get some at the monthly Ho12 Comic Jam, happening this week at Jack Demsey's pub in lovely Herald Square, NYC. Come show off your funny bones and join in the all out madness that you get when you mix New York's indie comics art stars and a few gallons of beer. Bring your pens, paper and love of fart jokes to:

Jack Demsey's Pub

36 W. 33rd St., in the basement

New York, NY - Just down from Jim Hanley's.

Thursday, July 2nd

7 pm - 11ish

MoCCA 2009

House of Twelve did decent financially; better then last year, not as good as the year before. Kinda average, which is fine.

As you may have read by now, the 69th Regiment Armory is a 105 year old fortress with a wonderful huge open space, decent latrines and meeting rooms, three rocket launchers on display and NO FUCKING AIR CONDITIONING. The main gripe about MoCCA's Puck building past was how people would avoid going up to the 7th floor area because it was so dreadfully hot . Why they would choose a new venue that "solved" the problem by making everyone melt is beyond me. You haven't smelled the Earth until you've inhaled the funk of 1200 sweaty fat fucks, 10 tons of ink and paper and 100 years of military men with each breath.

So obviously, the lack of any AC is my biggest gripe (also maybe more then 1 garbage can for the entire hall would have been a good idea), but a close second is the announcement of next year's table prices; $400 a table. And that's the early bird price, making the regular price, what? $500?

For many of MoCCA's most ardent, core audience it's the self-published comic, or mini or zine or hand crafted silk-screened one-off that makes the show special. How are those people supposed to make the table cost back? Or even close? For much of the room 'making table' is considered a success. At $300 it's doable only if you huckster your ass off for 2 days, but $400-500? There's no way. No one is ever going to make 400 beans selling a $.50 mini. They are cutting out the very people who made the show what it is. And that's a shame.

If I'm not mistaken, MoCCA 2010 is now the most expensive 'small press' show in the country... during the greatest economic nightmare in three generations... with print comics sales losing ground to web comics day by day... with no AC... and one garbage can...

Way to go MoCCA, stay classy.

Cheese

photos by Jenny Gonzalez

Ayo is awesome:

MoCCA Week Jam

Hey there one and all, it's MoCCA week here in sunny New York City and as always Ho12 is proud to have it's monthly comic jam in conjunction with the show!  

Come on by Jack Demsey's Pub @ 36 West 33rd street (just up the block from NYC's famous Jim Hanley's Universe Comic Shop) Thursday, June 4th, 2009 from 7 - 11 pm.  Try the food, sample some beers and draw some shitty comics!  

All are welcome, (21 and over) so pack up your pencils, pens and sketchbooks and join in the fun at the House of Twelve Monthly Comics Jam, New York's largest and longest running comics event.

Check us out on the Facebook!