THE NARC(m)AN® COMETH
Gumball Man's Boing Bro
GREETINGS,
Been a long time that feels like a short time. Certainly a HECK of a lot has happened since my last post about a certain election themed zine in October:
Aside from the creative accomplishment and achievement of receiving distribution from Zine-o-matic for my collaboration with Alina Cortez on My President is a Bed-Bug, the project was a failure in driving eligible Americans to the voting booths. More people did not vote at all than did vote for any particular candidate.
But don’t you worry, this post is REALLY not about elections, or politics, or the way in which my country seems to be tripping over its own dick on the international and domestic stage — This is not even a post entirely about Gumball Man…. Rather, this is a post about the fruits of our gumtree. Starting with the latest collaboration between Trina and myself that will be unfurled in the form of a banner for our table at Wondercon at the end of March:
Obviously Trina is responsible for everything amazing in the above, building on the original logo designed by Beverly Salas. And someday I will do a post analyzing the amount of marvelous Trina mischief that was worked into this piece of magic based on an incredibly simplistic idea I had.
And please don’t hate me, I don’t think the banner detracted her too much from Todd and Penny… I have seen the outlines for the next pages of Gumball Man and you are in for a jaw dropping delight.
As hard as Trina works on that project, and as rewarding as it is to roll out pages here the moment they are completed for all to see, having a project like Narc(m)an® that is only available at live events provides a particularly fulfilling balance. Over the last year several amazing collaborators have jumped aboard Narc(m)an® to help raise awareness for the opioid epidemic. At Los Angeles Comic Con we unveiled
‘s art for a story I wrote about the recent PLUMMET in fentanyl related overdose deaths:
And last month we had the incredible honor of tabling at LA Zinefest. See if you can find me in this throng of people that broke the record for attendance at The Broad Museum:
At LA Zinefest we debuted the latest installment of Narc(m)an® with art by Elaine Page: — focussed on the fact that an injectable version of naloxone is now readily available.
All of this wonderful work — sans watermarks — will be at our table (Sp-7) at Wondercon in Anaheim from March 28th - 30th. Where we shall also be debuting an episode from the latest Narc(artist) Ricardo Antonio with our magnum opus ‘RISE OF THE META-BEAST’:
This month you can catch Ricardo inking the project on his twitch channel live: Stream Here
Elaine and Ricardo will be at the table with other work of their own during the weekend of Wondercon. Not to mention Narc(m)an®’s Mommy: Beverly Salas will be in Artist Alley going full Bev.
And there are even more episodes being drawn as we speak by an incredible line-up of to-be-announced artists with new episodes dropping at each of our upcoming shows: @wondercon 3/28-30, @comicconrevolution 5/17-18, and @pasadenacomiccon 5/24…. BILLINGS FUN CON 6/14-6/16 and a show I am particularly proud to be a part of is the second annual Eddie P Comic Con this September in Pennsylvania.
But more on why that is a meaningful event to me and Narc(m)an®’s OG Mommy, BEVERLY SALAS as it gets closer. And more shows to announce as well.
I can’t believe this is only a small sampling of what is coming off the presses for Narc(m)an® (there is even a bootleg version floating around already) and maybe — if my public pressure campaign is a success — we will get a 4-panel episode by our very own Trina.. — FINE! FINE! I’ll quit distracting her from Gumball Man.
But I’m just sayin’, though we DID fail at getting people to vote with zines, overdose deaths are thankfully in notable decline. READ THIS — imagine the positive effect a Trina episode would have on the crisis. (She has no relation to the Dr. Dasgupta mentioned in the article)
I have a light approach to starting conversations and raising awareness, but the opioid crisis is no laughing matter, a caregiver in that news story revived over TWO THOUSAND people with Naloxone! THAT is a Narc(m)an®… who I may have to create an episode in honor of.
Everyone I have had the opportunity to work with, and every step forward I have had in this medium traces back to Trina taking a chance on me with Gumball Man and the motivation that has built from there. Even though this post is very heavily focussed on a different project — and a loooooot of attention fell upon that project at LA Zinefest — I will close out by throwing a proverbial spotlight on Trina with a story form Zinefest. One person, and I mean literally one, in that record breaking crowd of people pointed out our Gumball Man mini-comic and said “I love this art”. Upon being informed the artist, Trina, worked in Portland at Laika Studios, the gentleman pointed out that Portland is where he grew up — But I knew that already, because everybody in the zine game knows where Matt Groening grew up… That is right Gumball Man fans, you are in good company, and so is he. Thank you all for noticing us in the crowd and for for following the twists and turns of our boinging journey. None of it happens without the support you have shown us in so many ways.
Looking forward to silver linings in 2025 like this.
And thank you to the fabulous organization BEING ALIVE for providing us with the Naloxone we distribute at events.
A tease of an upcoming Narc(m)an® foe and clear demonstration of how much these stunning visual artists bring to these stories… compared to my paltry abilities.
More Todd Ball is bouncing your way soon…. we are 1/5 of the way to the amount of subscribers we need for my brother to follow through on his tattoo pledge.
Woooooooooo Narcman to the rescuuuuuueeee with good news in bad times!