BOINGING IN THE NEW YEAR

Process Page & Non-resolutions + meet Narc(m)an®️

This year’s resolution…. to fail my resolution to quit “boing-puns”.

Obviously this is Tyler writing you, passing along Trina and my wishes for a Happy New Year with hope for peace, prosperity… and more Gumball Man pages.

A hearty welcome to all of the fine folks I met the Los Angeles Comic Con. Thanks for joining our Substack and the noble ranks of the Gumballerina troupe.

And thank you to everyone who has been with us through 2023. Trina and I decided to make a comic one-year ago and could not have expected Gumball Man would be the result. (More on that for the one-year anniversary of “launching” the tale) We never expected all of the incredible support we have received for this wild project and are truly driven by it. So thank you so much, you incredible people for helping bring the >boing< (←initial New Year’s resolution died right there)

We don’t have a new page this… week, but do have this cool process video Trina sent along of Page 7 receiving lines ala’ Trin.

Track ‘Candy’ by Good Hive* — I saw Good Hive producer Curta rock a reunion set with Brent Larsen over the holidays and it was quite the experience, despite forgetting to give Curta some of our stickers as a “thank you” for the support and music—

I call watching these videos Trin-therapy. It looks so straightforward and simple as an end-product, but Trina truly boings* away elevating this story with every page. The process of working with her is a constant revelation. All while balancing an incredibly busy schedule doing incredibly top secret work for Laika Studios. Every stroke of Trina’s pen, dash of color, and suggestion on how best to translate my mayhem into a digestible form is a treasure. Thus, we were very excited to see our first six-pages printed in full-size glory as part of the 'Flavor Packs’ I was slinging at the Los Angeles Comic Convention:

Cover Design by Trina Dasgupta — Contents by Beverly Salas, Aditya Dasgupta, and Tyler Danna

Thank you to everyone who picked one of these up. It was beyond rewarding to see people’s reactions to our hard work in the flesh. Something AI can’t experience… for now. And it was humbling to hear the different ways people connected to a very special piece within the ‘Flavor Pack’, the first comic by super-star artist Beverly Salas: Narc(m)an®. The story of a familiar but contemporary hero who sadly needs only one tool in his utility belt these days… Narcan®.

Narc(m)an® — Art: Beverly Salas | Writing Tyler Danna

It was so cool to see people support Beverly realizing her dream to translate her brilliant art and style to the comic form. It was both eye-opening and stunning to have people share their own incredible stories from the opioid crisis… but maybe we will save more on that for the release of Narc(m)an®: Part II

If you would like to get your own tasteful hands on a ‘Flavour Pack’, you can always hit us up here to be sent a copy, or track us down at the upcoming Pasadena Comic Convention and Toy Show on January 28th: LINK

At the Pasadena Con we will be hosting a table with an accomplished New Yorker cartoonist/illustrator and Emmy winning writer: José Arroyo! 👏👏👏

josearroyowrite

A post shared by @josearroyowrite

Just a small taste of the wonderful cartoon offerings José shares on his INSTAGRAM.

Also, holy crap, I can embed directly from Instagram? In that case, dig Trina’s year-end summary:

trinscope

A post shared by @trinscope

In closing, I finally get to announce a 2024 project I also teased in the last post and am full of excitement and gratitude for —and which also happens to be tucked within the pages of the ‘Flav’r Pack’— An environmentally themed sci-fi adventure about peculiarly inclined alien visitors:

!!Oh the Humanity!! cover by Aditya Dasgupta

It has been stunning to see Adi bring a whole world — no, a Universe? — of characters to life these last few months and we will have more to share on this project very soon. If you would like to peep his art in the meantime, you can do so here: ANDACID INSTAGRAM

Sorry if I am mentioning Instagram a lot in this dispatch, just know it has NOTHING on the amount of times I explained what Substack is at the Convention. Holy fuck, I think I answered more questions about how Substack works than I answered about any of our work —That’s not entirely the truth but not too far from it— And thankfully Substack does have a lot of cool comic stuff available, like this:

Exploding Giraffe

In actual closing, for everyone wondering how our AI Lawyer Steward.t has been after hacking Trina’s work computer and downloading themself into a 3D printed clay figurine then running sentiently into the streets of Portland… stay tuned. In short the little fucker thought they would be an asset in the world of stop-motion animation. But, despite having alarmingly autonomous malleability, ultimately Stew did not have the “emotional life” desired in a puppet. How is that for irony? Anyhow, Steward.t is now attempting to “reach feelings needed for performance” by taking acting classes in the San Fernando Valley (paid for with our legal fees). I’m sure this will end well.

Back to focussing on the problems of the present.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

🙏Thank you for your support. It truly means the world.🙏

The TD’s.

>Boing<

*Next year I will quit.

(check our pinned posts for the most recent pages)

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We also just found out we will be lurking behind a table at the first ever CFAER Zine Fest! in Eagle Rock on Saturday, February 10th, from 12pm - 6pm (at Center for the Arts Eagle Rock, 2225 Colorado Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90041)