Oaxaca Paintings from Steve Lafler

I've been out and about Oaxaca with my painting kit again. Let me know if you're interested in your own little piece of Oaxaca via email.
-Steve Lafler

 Parque Llano Memela Puesto

 Parque Llano Bench

 San Agustinillo "Kids Club"

 Parque Llano Monument

Organic Market Vegetable Women

Let's Paint Some Pets

Just finished this commissioned painting.

Would love to do yours too!

Drop me an email.

Steve

HEY, You Gotta Get Steve Lafler's New Oaxaca Comic Book

Here's some of the latest AHT from my new title Death in Oaxaca #2. Now's the time to order your copy!

Discover the intrigue of craft tobala mezcal from small stills in the campo, and tejate, the cacao/maize drink of indigenous Zapotec kings. Oh, there's masked wrestler babes and ancient vampires too.

Mural on building in Colonia Jalatlaco, Oaxaca, Oaxaca

 Sexy scene from next issue, Death in Oaxaca #3

Kim Thompson Was a Great Guy in My Book

I've been thinking about Fantagraphics co-founder Kim Thompson on the 2nd anniversary of his untimely death.

I was never close to Kim, but we had a friendly acquaintance and mutual respect. He made a difference in my life, indeed he help me quite a bit as I was struggling to make it as a cartoonist.

By December of '85, I'd already published six issues of my seminal indy comics title Dog Boy under my Cat-Head Comics imprint, but I was hungry for a bigger audience. I submitted a huge batch of pages to Fantagraphics, and Gary Groth wrote back with a thumbs up. I was delighted! Gary wrote that Dog Boy was more up Kim's alley than his, so I'd be working with Kim.

Via the mails, Kim and I went back & forth for a few months, discussing the particulars, but nothing really happened, and I was getting frustrated. I published Dog Boy #7 under Cat-Head, and hoped I could still work with Kim and Gary.

Fast forward to the San Diego Comic-Con, summer 1986. I haunted the Fanta booth looking for Kim. Jaime and Gilbert were in the house, but I froze up and was too shy to go over. Dork! Finally, I cornered Kim at the booth, and showed him 46 finished pages, about two-and-a-half comic books worth of Dog Boy. A great conversation ensued, and Kim said, "This is publishable work". We agreed he'd send a contract for me to look over, and I was over the moon.

Later that evening, I was hanging with a bunch of ne'er-do-well cartoonists by some hotel pool. Dori Seda had the world's tiniest bathing suit, and she was saying to her boyfriend Don Donahue, "I'm a very bad girl" and she jumped in. That looks like fun! Knowing I had on brand new black bikini briefs, I peeled my clothes off and in I went.

After the swim, I noticed Gary Groth and Carol Lay by the pool too -- Carol was up to the same as I that summer, inking up a deal with Fanta. Gary and I chatted, and he confirmed that I'd talked with Kim. I was happy as a clam.

Working with Kim, I did ten comic books with Fanta, and some work for his title Critters at a nice page rate. Kim was a straight shooter, no bullshit. Quietly enthusiastic, a real pro and very knowledgeable. And, I will say that the checks arrived in good time, with honest reporting on sales. Believe me, that is appreciated in the funky world of indy/alternative comics.

Did I mention this all happened in a brief window in the 80s referred to as the "black & white boom"? Well, the boom went to bust. Kim called one day, somber. He asked if I was still freelancing for other clients. "Sure", I said. Always have a few sticks in the fire. Turns out my sales of 10,500 for our first issue were down to about 2800 by issue #5. Ouch! So it goes.

Later, I mighta pissed off Kim a bit when my anthology title Buzzard ran a parody of the Comics Journal in Buzzard #6 in 1992. But I'll tell you, the piece, entitled "The Comics Urinal", was in truth an homage, a love letter to Kim and Gary.

I Will Eat My Own Pants if it Means I Can Make Comics

Funding Death in Oaxaca with Sales of Classic Dog Boy & Bughouse Original Comics Art

 

I'm about 70 pages into drawing Death in Oaxaca, my new graphic novel. I'm serializing it as old-school comic magazines with publisher Alternative Comics, working towards the complete novel. The muse is handing this book over to me—it's flowing like honey! I live for this sensation, fully alive, deep in the trance of art-making, that I worked to such satisfaction with Dog Boy in the '80s and on BugHouse in the '90s on up to 2005.

Problem is, I'm focused on the new work but struggling to make ends meet. My solution: Put the artwork for my Bughouse & Dog Boy material up for sale at attractive prices. I have a deep stock of more than 500 Dog Boy pages on hand, and close to 400 Bughouse pages. These comic art pieces are executed in brush & ink on bristol board, generally around 11” x 17” in size.

I'm offering the Dog Boy pages at $100 and the Bughouse pages at $200. The best way to see them is with my online publisher CO2, with Dog Boy here and Bughouse here. Pick the page or pages you that just call your name, and zip me an email. I'll check on availability of the pages you request and report back. Payment is handled via Paypal. 

I'm excited to offer these seminal works of original comic art to help drive my next work to completion. You'll receive a luminous piece of comics history while helping me to create more of the same!

CO2 also offers deluxe print editions of my back catalog, DoggieStyle: The Complete Dog Boy and Menage a Bughouse (The CompleteBughouse).

Art shipping details: All art is shipped in a heavy duty shipping tube, insured, via DHL from Oaxaca, Mexico. Shipping charge is $55, with no extra shipping fee for multiple pages. Ask about discounts for multiple pages. Note that you can select Dog Boy pages by issue at the CO2 site.

Thanks!

Steve Lafler 

503-213-3671

Small Business Tips: Credit Cards

A business credit card can be a useful tool for the entrepreneur, or an unwieldy albatross about the neck.

I've posted an article at MoneySavingPro, a business credit card checklist, pointing out the ins-and-outs of selecting the right card and using it wisely.

Death in Oaxaca #2 Slated for Summer 2015 Release

My next comic book Death in Oaxaca #2 is slated for a June, 2015 release from Alternative Comics.

Here's the promo rap on Death in Oaxaca #2, which will be a 32 page comic book at around five bucks:

Gertie, the glamorous expat writer living in Mexico, stalks a 2000-year-old giant vampire bat while dressed as Lucha Lucy, Oaxaca's newest costumed wrestling sensation. She doesn't find the bat, but a couple local kids mock our hero mercilessly, chanting “You Can't Fly!” Meanwhile, Gertie's husband Rex, the swashbuckling guitar-slinging expat cartoonist, talks about drunk driving with Death himself in the back seat. All this plus Tlayudas, the most delicious Mexican food you've never heard of.

I'm really pumped about this comic book series from Alternative Comics, building towards an eventual graphic novel. I'm in the best groove creating this material since my signature work, Bughouse. You can still pick up Death in Oaxaca #1 from Alternative. 

My shit-kickin' country punk outfit, The Dick Nixon Experience, will likely assemble in the San Francisco Bay Area this July to kick out the jams with a raucous publishing debacle on behalf of Death in Oaxaca #2! Details to follow...

Steve Lafler 

Steve Lafler's Holiday Art Sale 2014

Come on in, check out these favorite Lafler art pieces at ridiculous deals for the Holidays! Paintings and original comics pages & covers.

You’ll know which one you just have to buy, it’ll call your name.

The sale is a my Steve Lafler site here, with a full gallery of the offerings.

Have a fantastic holiday!

Just Finished

Just finished this page, from the upcoming comic book Death in Oaxaca #2.

Brush & ink on bristol board, 10.75" x 16.5".

First $250 takes it. Email Steve for details.

Death in Oaxaca Ebook at Comixology

Steve Lafler's new comic magazine Death in Oaxaca (Alternative) shipped to comic book stores in August. Now it's also available as an Ebook at Comixology--and it's a real steal, 34 pages of great comics for only 99 cents!

Visit Comixology to order Death in Oaxaca for .99

Meanwhile, Lafler is hard at work on issue #2 of Death in Oaxaca.

Somebody better give this guy a cuppa strong coffee! Time to buzz out more pages!

Steve Lafler Catalog Update: New Series, Old Faves, and Cool T-Shirts

First and foremost, I'm delighted to offer my brand new comic book set in my adopted home town of Oaxaca, Mexico. But there's more, I've peppered this post with links to the major works from my entire comics career. Thanks for visiting! I can honestly guarantee a fun, weird and unusual ride from all of these here comic books and graphic novels.

Steve Lafler 

My new comic book Death in Oaxaca is here! You can get it from the publisher Alternative Comics or from Amazon at this link for $4.99.

The mundane, the sublime and the bizarre show up in their best party attire in the new comic book series from the creator of Dog Boy and Bughouse. Two expats move to remote Oaxaca, the fabled highland city in southern Mexico. Rex, earnest yet duplicitous, flees from mid-life crisis and fear of death. Beautiful Gertie, cynical but honest, is just plain bored and craves adventure. They contend with Lucha Libre wrestlers and an ancient vampire who prefers chicken, and enjoy the best fresh corn tortillas on the planet.

And of course you need the Death in Oaxaca T-Shirt to complete the experience! OK, so it's in Spanish, so it's really a "Los Muertos de Oaxaca" T Shirt. Here is the Design:

 Available at this link from my Redbubble shop for $26.97. Visit my entire line of shirts at Redbubble here.

My back catalog books El Vocho and 40 Hour Man are available from Wow Cool, the mail order arm of my new publisher. You can also order these titles from my Lulu shop. Here's the books:

 El Vocho. Love at the twilight of oil. Rosa the Latina hottie inventor and Eddie the geek artist meet in a fender bender. Tempers flare but sparks fly and they fall in love. Working together, they create the perfect clean energy motor while being tracked by goons working for big oil.

40 Hour Man. Is it a career, or a series of really lame jobs? Stephen Beaupre (author) and Steve Lafler (cartoonist) pose this timeless question in Forty Hour Man, a hilarious saga of one working stiff's three-decade journey into the minimum wage heart of the American Dream. It's all here - from scrubbing a steakhouse floor with a toothbrush to going bust in the Internet boom. Every bad boss. Every crazy co-worker. All the more shocking because it's true!

 Wait a Minute! What about Bughouse and Dog Boy?

Don't worry, I did not forget about the work I am best known for! I've published two huge legacy volumes with CO2, collecting every page of both series!

Ménage à BUGHOUSE collects the funky jazz noir BUGHOUSE trilogy by Steve Lafler in one volume. Tenor saxophone maestro, Jimmy Watts, leads his talented band of bugs from the swing era into the uncharted maelstrom of Bop. And as he and his band mates claw their way to the top of the jazz world, they must fight the temptation to be consumed by addiction to a substance known as "Bug Juice".

Read Bughouse online at CO2

Doggie Style: The Complete Dog Boy. Imagine an enthusiastic, ambitious young artist of the 1980s who happens to have an enormous golden retriever head on a human body. Given to flights of fancy and the odd meditation on the truly mundane, this Dog Boy searches for meaning, all too often via a six pack of Rainer Ale pounders! 

Steve Lafler sat down from 1882 to 1988 and drew nearly 500 pages of Dog Boy. Most of the time, he drew with no script, and in fact looked to emptying his mind before putting pencil to bristol board. 

The entire results are collected here in in the 488 page omnibus, DOGGIE STYLE The Complete DOG BOY! Now you can pay witness to the genius that flowed from Steve's streaming consciousness as he created one of the most truly independent comic works of all time!

Read Dog Boy online at CO2

AND, one more thing! We've looked at my print books and T-Shirts, lets go ahead and buy a copy of my Ebook, Cat Suit!

CAT SUIT. What kind of whack job would put on a mask and a skin-tight suit and head out into the city after midnight? I mean, what is this guy really up to? What pathology, what perverse proclivity are we dealing with here? Is he fighting crime? Of course not, he’s just going clubbing—and he’s frankly perplexed when the aggressive bar flies & drunks single him out. The guy in question is Manx, a costumed cat man. Available digitally!

Steve Lafler's 2014 Comic Art Sale

I'm offering these select pages of original comic art from my new title Death in Oaxaca for $200 each. 

These gorgeous works are 11" x 16.5", executed in brush & india ink on bristol board.  I picked my favorite ten pages to feature in this offer.

Here is a historic chance to get some early art from my next major work, indeed each purchase is an investment in the ongoing production of the eventual publication of the Death in Oaxaca graphic novel.

I'm in the states through August 4th, and on August 5th I'm returning to my home in Oaxaca. So I can process any order that comics in up to the morning of August 5. Payment via paypal preferred, but checks and cards are a possibility. 

Interested parties can email me here, or call 503-213-3671.

Pages are shipped insured.

Steve

The serious collector (or institutional collector) may want to consider purchasing the original art for the entire 34 page story for $5500.00

Copyright 2014 Steve Lafler

New T-Shirts Designs from Steve

 Here's a couple new T-Shirt designs I just put in my Redbubble Store (here). If you order them, I can eat!

Rots of Rove, Steve

Steve Lafler Bay Area Appearances July 2014

Dog Boy & Keith on Ebay

 

My wacky Dog Boy & Keith Painting is up on Ebay at this link...

It's a 9" x 12" acrylic. 

Guitars and Rock Stars are fun to paint. Actually, so are cars and monsters. All these images stuck in my head, pop culture from 1963 and on. It's not profound but it looks cool!

Steve Lafler

New Music: The Skinny

Andy Keith and Steve Lafler comprise The Skinny (so far.)

We are a couple of guitar slinging guys with a fresh batch of our own tunes, working up our sound in the city of Oaxaca de Juarez in southern Mexico.

Andy is a midwestern son of Minneapolis, bringing his cracker-barrel Buddha, country infused songs to life with a warm, familiar voice and an ingenious signature rhythm all his own.

Steve is a longtime Californian by way of Western Massachusetts with a penchant for short bursts of surreal country punk narrative.

We went into the studio in Oaxaca in April, 2014 and laid down basic tracks for a bunch of our original tunes. Our ten song initial release is available from Amazon at this link for $7.99

Death in Oaxaca: The New Comic Book From Steve Lafler

Cartoonist Steve Lafler (Bughouse, Dog Boy) is back with a new comic book series set in Oaxaca, the magical city in the remote highlands of southern Mexico.

Death in Oaxaca will be a six issue miniseries and subsequent graphic novel published on the Alternative Comics imprint. 

The surreal adventure serves up Lucha Libre wrestlers and an ancient vampire who prefers chicken to human blood. Rex and Gertie are expats, moving to remote Oaxaca. Rex, earnest yet duplicitous, flees from mid-life crisis and fear of death. Beautiful Gertie, cynical but honest, is just plain bored and craves adventure. Their son Myles is simply in love with Oaxacan food.

Comics Retailers can order Death in Oaxaca from the June 2014 Diamond Previews comics distribution catalog. The book ships in August. Here is a copy of the catalog listing: 

 Death in Oaxaca is a 36 page comic book (plus covers) retailing at $4.99. There will also be ebook versions available in English and Spanish.

Weekly Bughouse Page

Here is the Thursday Weekly update of Bughouse at this link.

Bughouse is my graphic novel about the birth of Be-Bop jazz set in an insect-noir, indigo toned Manhattan of the early 1950s. CO2 comics is posted a page per week on their great webcomix site. They also have published a handsome book of the entire 400 page Bughouse saga.

This week's page focuses on the rationalization of the addict, "just one little taste surely is OK!"

Steve Lafler

Manx Media Offers Great Pricing on 100 Tshirts

Manx Media is offering great pricing on orders of 100 custom printed Tshirts through June 6. Details here.

Spring 2014 Custom T-Shirt Printing Price list.

Manx Media of Portland, OR Custom Screen printing prices this season. Email Steve Lafler for more info. Visit the Manx Media Custom Screen Printing blog.

Minimum 50 shirts.

Includes 1/c print, add .40 2/C, .65 3/C, .90 4/C, 1.10 5/C,

2/C .40

3/C .65

4/C .90

5/C 1.10

6/C 1.35

PRICES INCLUDE PRINTING in one color ink.

Add amount indicated above for multi-color printing.

Gildan 5000

$4.95

cotton T

Quantity Discounts:

Gildan 2000

$5.50

100 shirts, less .35 per shirt. 200 shirts, less.55 per shirt. 300 shirts, less .65

Hwt cotton T

2X, 3X, 4X shirts slightly more expensive.

Gildan 5000B

$4.75

child cotton T

Gildan 2000B

$5.20

WHITE TSHIRT slightly less – prices indicated are for color shirts.

Child T Hwt

Gildan 2400

$8.75

LongsleeveT

SALE ITEMS: When our supplier offers us special pricing, we pass it on to you.

Gildan 5400

$7.75

Check at time of quote for special offers.

LonsleeMdWt

Gildan Hoodie

$17.95

Prices based on print-ready jpeg, Photoshop or Illustrator files.

Adult 185

Gildan Hoodie

$16.95

Art & design services available

Child 185B

Am Ap 2001

$6.90

cotton T

AmAp BB301

$7.30

50/50women

AmApBB401

$7.50

50/50 Men

Am Ap 4400

$8.20

cotton rib T

AmAm 4305

$6.75

ScoopNeckT

AmAp 4321

$6.75

CapSleeveT

AmAp 4311

$6.50

Spagetti T