THE OPTIMIST, a comic strip (2010-present)

THE OPTIMIST is an open-format black and white weekly comic strip. It's about whatever I feel like it being about. The Optimist is also a series of occasional podcasts - same type of humor, just ideas that I couldn't easily condense down into a comic. Plus, I love the sound of my own voice. If you are familiar with Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! (below) or Pinhole (also below), you will pretty much know what you're getting here. - Visit THE OPTIMIST site

Labels: 2010, Comic Projects, Comics, Self-Published

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BROKEN LINES, a graphic novel in progress (2007-present)

BROKEN LINES is a graphic novel (in progress) about a cowboy, a spaceman, and a waitress on a cross-country adventure. They fight evil. It's supposed to be funny. I'm about halfway through the story, independently publishing issues with little to no distribution at all. When the story is done, I will be shopping it around to publishers. In the meantime, "get in on the ground floor of this amazing opportunity." I encourage you to visit the official site for plot stuff, sample pages, multimedia crap, and the chance to purchase. Issues of Broken Lines are also for sale on this site, the BUY COMICS page. - Visit the BROKEN LINES site

Labels: Broken Lines, Comic Projects, Self-Published, Wicked Awesome

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EVEN LIONS WILL FEAR YOU - Two Years of Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! (2009)

EVEN LIONS WILL FEAR YOU: Two Years of Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! , A towering collection: every WTF strip published in 2007-2008, plus a bunch of unpublished ones, some early comics (Turn It Up ads) that pre-date the strip, and a few full-page comics that were published elsewhere. If you've only read WTF online, you are missing the glorious effect of a bloopy yet crisp halftone pattern on bright white paper. Highly recommended.

Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! is a comic strip about two kids you wouldn't want to know in real life. At least I think they're kids. One's crabby and dumb! The other one is dumb and crabby! ...and fat! To my knowledge, they do not have names. W!T!F! is not really about much. I mean, like, the two kids don't do much, you know? They just sort of sit around and complain about things like consumerism and television and are generally sort of annoying. W!T!F! ran in The Valley Advocate from January 2007-Dec. 2008, and special strips appeared in issues of Royal Flush and I Want Your Skull.Download a PDF preview of the book (7MB), or take a look at 12 random strips. 52 pages, 8"x10.5", self-published (2009)

Purchase a copy for the extremely reasonable price of $4 on the BUY COMICS page.

Labels: 2009, Comic Projects, Self-Published, Turn It Up CDs, Valley Advocate

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FAMOUS FIGHTERS - Situation: Armageddalypse! (2006)

FAMOUS FIGHTERS is 52 pages of evil-fighting mayhem! Incredibly stupid! Culled from the past 10 or 15 years of dumb collaboration between Tom Pappalardo and Matt Smith. You got yourself some zombies and some barbarians and a couple of headbangers and Satan. Sweet! A very small number of copies made it into circulation with a glitchy computer error on one of the last pages of the book. If you have one of those, you are either in possession of a highly collectible rarity, or a defective piece of merchandise. Only time will tell.

"...one of the most original books available" - Broken Frontier

"Buy it and laugh" - Optical Sloth

"Better luck next time, guys" - The Comics Journal

"...see how good a self-published comic can and should look" - Comic Book Resources

full reviews HERE | for sale on the BUY COMICS page | visit the FAMOUS FIGHTERS site

Labels: 2006, Comic Projects, Famous Fighters, Kung Fu, Matt Smith, Self-Published, Star Wars

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FAILURE, INCOMPETENCE - Aborted Jokes and Abandoned Stories, 1995-2005

FAILURE, INCOMPETENCE is a collection of unpublished comics & stories spanning the last decade. Jam-packed with fantastic mediocrity. Sixty pages of immense time-killing. Hated by many, loved by few.
After having spent so much time working on various attempts at comic strips, comic books, short stories, and illustrations, it was really depressing to me when I realized how few people had ever actually seen 'em. So in late 2004, I decided to start "cleaning out" my proverbial "closet" of old material. But as it happened, most of this stuff really was in my closet, in portfolios next to my sweaters. It took about a year of occasional scanning, cleaning up, and text-replacing before Failure, Incompetence took shape.
This collection represents several failed (though by no means bad) attempts at full comic book stories, many single panel comic strips (I didn't even include 'em all), some straight prose, a comic strip called Pinhole, some stuff previously published in zines like VMAG and Lollipop.

"...gags by the pound..." - QUIMBY'S

"The inconsistency here is enough to drive you insane" - COMICS WAITING ROOM

Failure, Incompetence is out-of print

Labels: 2005, Comic Projects, Failure, Self-Published

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ALEC DEAR: A Dark Pome (1996)

(Artwork: Matt Smith - Story: Tom Pappalardo) The blurb: "Find out what Alec Dear, the mischievous gasmask-wearing dead guy does when he finds himself in the burn victim unit of a secluded children's hospital!" Zowie fun times! Alec Dear was written by me, mostly while sitting behind the cash register at an All For A Dollar store in a mall in Salem, NH in the early nineties. A perfect setting to write grotesque horror, if you ask me. I tried drawing it, but knew my good buddy Matt Smith had more talent and vision than I did, so he took on the art side of things. He worked on it in Massachusetts, New York, and maybe New Orleans. He applied for a Xeric grant and scored a little money for printing. It was later heavily tweaked and released by Caliber comics in 1998. Alec Dear is free with purchase of another comic or a poster, if you email and let me know. I've got boxes of these fuckers! Read the reviews here. See the cover: AD

Labels: 1996, Alec Dear, Comic Projects, Matt Smith, Self-Published

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