Bored? Try This at Home.

This illustration of straightforward seduction will appear in the next installment of my ongoing web comic El Vocho.

Copyright 2009 Steve Lafler

El Vocho Marches On

Last spring, I started posting a graphic novel in progress, El Vocho, as a blog. The premise is that art boy meets science girl, they come out swingin' but fall in love. Along the way, the pair collaborates on the ultimate clean/green energy engine that runs on - you guessed it - air!

I thought I'd post the latest entry here also, to bring a bit more attention to El Vocho, but I also wanted to display it here because I drew a truly wacky thingamajig in the last panel. It is, ostensibly, an art piece by my character Eddie, but in truth, it shows that I was a big fan of both Dr. Seuss and Jack Kirby as a kid. I hope you enjoy this.







©2009 Steve Lafler, all rights reserved.

El Vocho gets chubby

I just posted a nice chunk of new material to my online comic El Vocho. In fact, I've done 24 finished pages (of course, it gets all chopped up online).
The old school method of publishing a graphic novel in progress, of course, was to issue a series of comic magazines as the work was created. That's what I did with my BugHouse material in the 90s as I buzzed it out.
These days, the economic model is completely different--the graphic novel is the elegant, efficient mode of print packaging (I need sell only about 400 books to get to profit!!!), and the "new media" (?) is here to flog, disseminate and otherwise bang people over the head with your message.
In any case, there is now enough of El Vocho up there to be entertained and amused, and to get a handle on the characters. I recommend digging into the archives on the El Vocho blog site, start at the beginning and read the chapters in order. IF you like it, spread the word!

Anyone who really knows me will tell you I'm a bit the wild eyed zealot, so I will just go ahead and say this: El Vocho will save the world! Or at least, it's a story about saving the world. From what?! From Big Oil, and our horrible addiction to oil, of course! Por Su Puesto.

I hope to complete the book and publish it as a GN by next summer. I'll be in the U.S. for at least a month then and will be looking to get around to promote it.

Steve Lafler

Here We Go Again: El Vocho

As mentioned here last month, I've written about 150 new pages of comics, pretty much a whole new graphic novel. The working name for the piece is "El Vocho", referring to the nickname earned by the venerable VW bug in Mexico, where it remains one of the most popular passenger cars.

In the past, when working on a longer piece, I've either kept a lid on the work until it was ready to be published as a graphic novel, or I've issued a series of shorter comic books (as with my BugHouse series). Now, in the new media future, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to post the material as I create it. It will save me a lot of expense and effort, it will save readers money and frankly I expect it will be seen and read by far more people online than it would be in comic book format.

That being the case, I've created a blog for the sole purpose of posting El Vocho comics as I create them. Go ahead and click the El Vocho link to see the first installment.

It is worth mentioning, since I moved to Mexico almost eight months ago, I've been casting about for a project (really for a mode of working) that truly captivates and engages my best energies. I've wandered down a couple different alleyways with regard to characters and storylines, posting some web comics I was pretty happy with.
But frankly, something was missing. While I'm excited about new media/electronic media, I still burn & yearn to work with the long narrative. I also want my stuff to appear in print in a graphic novel format.
With El Vocho, I've created a compelling story that serves all of the aforementioned interests and needs. I will post it as I create it, it is a long narrative with complex characters and an overlay of several story arcs, and I will collect it as a print graphic novel when it's done.

Looking over the web comics/online comics landscape, I see that there are several sites that do a fine job of hosting and promoting web comics. I considered posting with one of these sites, but ultimately decided it was not for me. I prefer to maintain my own proprietary blog for posting web comics.

Each of these hosting sites has a list of requirements to adhere to in order to play ball with them. The most odious of these was that one must create a web comic for web use only (it was forbidden to post a graphic novel in progress). Hell, I don't need some skinny pimply paste-faced teenage web dweeb entrepreneur telling me what color socks to wear; I prefer to captain my own ship, come hell or high water! Hopefully, I can attract more than four viewers to each of my El Vocho posts. We'll see what happens! Stay tuned.