Custom T-Shirt Marketing Tip

And really, this applies to any small business. I just happen to be in the custom T-Shirt business.

Your success depends entirely on your relationships with current and potential clients, and how you dialog with them.

Sometimes in thinking of marketing, I see it as an abstract problem of putting out a blast of information through three or four marketing channels to garner enough business.

I tend to forget, unless I am talking to someone about printing their custom T-Shirt order, I'm not doing business!

Steve

The Comic Bastards gave my new book Menage a Bughouse a rave review!

You can buy Menage a Bughouse from the publisher here. It won't be going through the Diamond distribution system, so please consider buying it direct.

Steve

Complete Bughouse Tour Dates

Here is a complete list of my tour dates for this summer. I'm hitting the road with Menage A Bughouse, the 408-page book collecting my trilogy of Bughouse graphic novels. The tour starts tomorrow in Providence, Rhode Island at ADA Books.

Tour Dates

July 11, Ada Books, Providence, RI, 7 pm

July 13, Bergen Street Comics, Brooklyn, NY, 7 pm

July 14, Locust Moon Comics, Philadelphia, PA, 8 pm

July 17, Boxcar Books, Bloomington IN, 7 pm

July 18, Daydream Comics, Iowa City, IA, 5 pm

July 21, Time Warp Comics, Boulder, CO, 2 pm

July 25, Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, 7 pm

July 28, Cosmic Monkey Comics, Portland, OR, 2 pm

Zip me an email if you'd like more information.

Steve Lafler

Bughouse at Brooklyn's Bergen St. Comics Friday the 13th

Cartoonist Steve Lafler teams up with publisher CO2 to release Ménage a Bughouse. a 408-page volume collecting Lafler's trilogy of Bughouse graphic novels, Bughouse, Baja and Scalawag.

Lafler will be touring the U.S. during July to promote Ménage a Bughouse. The Bughouse tour comes to Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn, NY at 7 p.m. on July 13, with a panel discussion of Lafler's new book. The panel will feature rising art-comics star Austin English and CO2 publisher Gerry Giovinco.

Bughouse is the story of Jimmy Watts and his band of jazz playing bugs. The character driven story is set in a stylish “insect-noir” world, invoking an indigo-toned Manhattan of the early 1950s. Be-bop is king, and the alluring substance “bug juice” threatens to destroy the players against a backdrop of romance and intrigue.

Ménage a Bughouse retails for $24.99. A hardback edition will be available for $39.99. The large format book (8.5 x 11) showcases Lafler's fluid brushwork.

“Steve Lafler is a master cartoonist and his work is in a class by itself; an unpredictable amalgam of fun, intelligence, breeziness and glorious strangeness that keeps your eyes fed and your synapses sizzling.” --Jim Woodring

Bergen Street Comics, 470 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 230-5600

July 13, 7:00 p.m.

Further info from Steve Lafler

Steve Lafler at MoCCA July 12

The Steve Lafler event at MoCCA has been cancelled. As of Friday July 6th, I am scrambling to come up with an alternate venue in NYC or Brooklyn.

 Cartoonist Steve Lafler teams up with publisher CO2 to release Ménage a Bughouse. a 408-page volume collecting his trilogy of Bughouse graphic novels.

Lafler will be touring the U.S. during July to promote Ménage a Bughouse.

Bughouse original art and Radio Insecto CDs will be among the offerings at Lafler's MoCCA stop.

Bughouse is the story of Jimmy Watts and his band of jazz playing bugs. The character driven story is set in a stylish “insect-noir” world, invoking an indigo-toned Manhattan of the early 1950s. Be-bop is king, and the alluring substance “bug juice” threatens to destroy the players against a backdrop of romance and intrigue. 

Ménage a Bughouse retails for $24.99. A hardback edition will be available for $39.99. The large format book (8.5 x 11) showcases Lafler's fluid brushwork.

“Steve Lafler is a master cartoonist and his work is in a class by itself; an unpredictable amalgam of fun, intelligence, breeziness and glorious strangeness that keeps your eyes fed and your synapses sizzling.” --Jim Woodring

Tour Dates

July 11, Ada Books, Providence, RI

July 12, MoCCA, New York City

July 14, Locust Moon Comics, Philadelphia, PA

July 17, Boxcar Books, Bloomington IN

July 18, Daydream Comics, Iowa City, IA

July 21, Time Warp Comics, Boulder, CO

July 25, Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, CA

July 28, Cosmic Monkey Comics, Portland, OR

 Photo of Steve Lafler by Jeff Charles

Menage a Bughouse cover

Call (or email) Steve for further information at 503-213-3671.

Ménage à Bughouse Official Roll Out

CO2 has formally announced the publication of Ménage à BUGHOUSE, the 408-page collection of all my insect-jazz comics.
The book is a print-on-demand item--it will not be sold via the traditional book distribution system. The paperback edition is available here for $24.99, and the hardcover edition is available for $39.99.

As an artist, the publication of this volume is a dream realized. It takes the body of work at the center of my life and puts it all on one gorgeous place. Kudos, and big thanks, to Gerry Giovinco and Bill Cucinotta of CO2 for helping me bring this book into existence.

The work in Ménage à Bughouse has previously been published as a trilogy of graphic novels from indie comix publisher Top Shelf Productions. I love the Top Shelf series, each book is a complete jewel that stands on it's own. But you can't knock having all the Bughouse material in one book, and the real bonus here is the larger format--it really features my brushwork to advantage.

I've been blabbing about the new book for a month already, and the fact that I'm going to tour the U.S. this month (July, 2012) to promote it. So, I'm going to put a little something extra in this post. Here, I'm reproducing the foreword to Ménage à Bughouse, a pertinent bit of comics history explaining where the heck this book comes from:

The Coming of Bughouse

I was a bit feverish one October Monday some years back, so I called in sick to my part-time graphics job. Immersed in a wobbly, none-too-comfortable mode, I still found myself possessed of a playful curiosity. Picking up my pencil and a fresh piece of bristol paper, I determined to make one decent drawing before the day was out.

For inspiration, I pulled on some half-baked notions that had been piling up in my mind's eye. About six months prior, I'd read the shocking and lively autobiography of Miles Davis, the jazz trumpet giant of the 20^th century. Miles was a supreme ranconteur, spinning his narrative around the creative leaps of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and many others as well as himself. He was the brilliant bad boy at the center of cutting-edge jazz, getting into hair-raising scrapes as a matter of course.

It was more than synchronicity that David Croenenberg's film adaptation of William Burrough's Naked Lunch appeared about the same time. Croenenberg's film was a brilliant translation of the ethos of Burroughs' work to film, underscored by a sublime Ornette Coleman soundtrack. Actor Peter Weller hit just the right note as Bill Lee, the stand in for Burroughs—dead pan hilarious and desperate at once, all the while embracing his dark destiny.

My fascination with the post-war NYC world that served as a back-drop to the Be-Bop and Beat movements dovetailed perfectly with the mood I wanted to capture in my “one decent drawing” that day. I was pregnant with intent to create a story set in that milleau.

The intent gathered strength and spilled over into the physical world. I quickly sketched a tight little drawing of an insect saxophone player in a pin-stripe suit. I inked the drawing and had my first image of Jimmy Watts—the strutting saxophone genius, capable of explosive innovations at the drop of a hat, yet crippled by addiction to a substance known as “Bug Juice.”

Bughouse burrows into the spirit of the artist, the innovator, the improvisor. I put the nature of creativity itself under the microscope, while at the same time I scrutinized the dynamics of addiction. Why are so many great artists and musicians hopeless addicts? Are they simply escaping pain, or do they seek the key to “the other”, the secret font of knowledge, to put it to work in the service of art? I came to understand that addicts are very good at fooling people, but their supreme skill is self-delusion.

I dove into Bughouse head first, and was rewarded beyond my wildest dreams. I sought to give a unique voice and perspective to each character, driving the narrative forward by writing dialog that illuminated character. The muse showed up, encouraged by my drive and focus, and happily handed Bughouse over to me.

The first nine-page Bughouse story appeared in Buzzard, the underground comics anthology, in the spring of 1993. At the time, I was excited at the prospect of creating enough material to publish a full 32-page comic book of Bughouse.

I would have been flabbergasted, and actually ecstatic, to know that the series would extend to six comic books, one graphic novel and one graphic novella on my own Cat-Head imprint, and a trilogy of graphic novels from Top Shelf Productions.

Now, the entire work is here in your hands, inviting you to embark on a singular adventure to the insect-noir, indigo-tinged world of Bughouse.

Steve Lafler

Oaxaca, Mexico

Spring 2012

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back here in real time, it's July 3, I'm starting my tour in 8 days. If I don't see you out there on the road, I hope you'll consider ordering Menage a Bughouse!

 

Photo of Steve Lafler by Jeff Charles

CO2 Publishes Three New Books, including Bughouse

Captain Obese, Heaven and the Dead City and my own Menage a Bughouse are all available from the CO2 store right here. Each book is available in both paperback and hardcover.

Congratulations to my Gerry Giovinco and Bill Cucinotta, my publishers at CO2, on getting these 3 great books out!

That's Jorge and Felix from the Bughouse book, gettin' down. Acrylic sketch by Steve Lafler

Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom

This is the best movie I've seen in awhile. Granted, not everyone is a fan of director Wes Anderson, but I am.
Anderson's blunt deadpan humor is on display in Moonrise Kingdom, the story of a pair of 12-year old would-be summer lovers on an island off the coast of Maine. A wayward scout and a moody adolescent girl, played by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, abscond to the woods. It's a timeless love story full of humor, but as usual with Anderson, there is an undercurrent of potential mayhem and dread.

Here's what knocks me out: It's the way the director presents the narrative. Each shot is carefully constructed with characters and props placed in the most deliberate manner within the rectangle of the screen. The movie is visually rich with details such as era appropriate costumes (1965). As a cartoonist, I really respond to this! The overall feel is that of a DC comic of the era, straightforward narrative with no waste.

New Bughouse T-Shirt

I finally got it together to add a Bughouse Tour T-Shirt to my online shop. Yahoo!

The image above prints full color on a cotton ringer T (white T, navy trim) for $18.49.

Dreams of the Fox Mini-Bike

When I was 12 years old, I somehow convinced my parents to get me a mini-bike. I'd saved a few bux and they put up the rest.

 Restoration by Chris Meyer

What is a mini-bike? Basically, you have a few feet of steel tube bent into a smallish bike frame. Bolt a couple 10-12" tires on, throw a lawn mower engine under a foam rubber seat, and you're off!

Mine was a Fox Sprite with a Tecumseh 3-horsepower lawnmower engine. The same frame as the one pictured here, only with a smaller engine and tires.

I could barely fold my lanky frame over this thing, but spent a couple years zipping around the woods, parks and farmlands adjacent to my neighborhood, situated near the border of Longmeadow and East Longmeadow, in western Massachusetts.

Come fall with its wind, cold and mud, come the full-on dusty dog days of baking-hot August, you'd find me blasting full-throttle over the bumpy baseball field of Turner Park, or through the undulating dirt fire roads of nearby Wolf Swamp neighborhood.

Really, the only things that could compete for my attention were A) Spider-Man comics drawn by John Romita, and B) a plucky girl named Cathy who lived a couple blocks away. Homework? What's that?!

More than a bit dangerous, I was lucky to get only a few scrapes in falls from the bike. Helmet? Who wore helmets on mini-bikes in 1969? I had an insane amount of fun and learned how to take an engine apaprt (if not put it back together!).

Steve Lafler
Manx Media custom screen printing

Steve Lafler at San Francisco's Cartoon Art Musuem

 photo by Jeff Charles

Cartoonist Steve Lafler teams up with publisher CO2 to release Ménage a Bughouse. a 408-page volume collecting Lafler's trilogy of Bughouse graphic novels, Bughouse, Baja and Scalawag.

That's Lafler in the photo, the professional cartoonist as amateur guitar slinger. 

Lafler will be touring the U.S. during July to promote Ménage a Bughouse. The Bughouse tour comes to the Cartoon Art Museum July 25 at 7:00 p.m., with critic Richard Von Busack interviewing Lafler about his Bughouse collection and discussing Oaxaca, Mexico where Lafler resides.

The Cartoon Art Musuem, 655 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 227-8666

Bughouse Tour in Boulder, Colorado July 21

Here is the straight dope on the Boulder, CO. stop on the Bughouse tour:

Cartoonist Steve Lafler teams up with publisher CO2 to release Ménage a Bughouse. a 408-page volume collecting Lafler's trilogy of Bughouse graphic novels, Bughouse, Baja and Scalawag. Lafler will be touring the U.S. during July to promote Ménage a Bughouse. The Bughouse tour comes to Time Warp Comics in Boulder July 21 at 2 p.m.

Bughouse is the story of Jimmy Watts and his band of jazz playing bugs. The character driven story is set in a stylish “insect-noir” world, invoking an indigo-toned Manhattan of the early 1950s. Be-bop is king, and the alluring substance “bug juice” threatens to destroy the players against a backdrop of romance and intrigue.

Lafler puts the creative life and the pitfalls of addiction under the microscope in this tour-de-force collection, tossing his name into the hat for contention as the Great American Cartoonist.

“I was inspired by The Autobiography of Miles Davis as well as the movie adaptation of William Burroughs Naked Lunch” quips Lafler. “The post-war Be-bop jazz and Beat literature scenes of New York called to me as an apt setting for an extended work”.

Critic Rob Clough named Bughouse to his top 100 graphic novels of the first decade of the new century at number 22.

Ménage a Bughouse retails for $24.99. A hardback edition will be available for $39.99. The large format book (8.5 x 11) showcases Lafler's fluid brushwork.

“Steve Lafler is a master cartoonist and his work is in a class by itself; an unpredictable amalgam of fun, intelligence, breeziness and glorious strangeness that keeps your eyes fed and your synapses sizzling.” --Jim Woodring

Time Warp Comics, 3105 28th St., Boulder, CO 80301 (303) 443-4500

Bughousee Book tour at Locust Moon in Philadelphia

Cartoonist Steve Lafler brings his Bughouse Book Tour to Locust Moon Comics and Movies in Philadelphia on July 14.

Lafler teams up with publisher CO2 to release Ménage a Bughouse. a 408-page volume collecting Lafler's trilogy of Bughouse graphic novels, Bughouse, Baja and Scalawag, previously released on the Top Shelf imprint.

Bughouse is the story of Jimmy Watts and his band of jazz playing bugs. The character driven story is set in a stylish “insect-noir” world, invoking an indigo-toned Manhattan of the early 1950s. Be-bop is king, and the alluring substance “bug juice” threatens to destroy the players against a backdrop of romance and intrigue.

Lafler puts the creative life and the pitfalls of addiction under the microscope in this tour-de-force collection, tossing his name into the hat for contention as the Great American Cartoonist.

“I was inspired by The Autobiography of Miles Davis as well as the movie adaptation of William Burroughs Naked Lunch” quips Lafler. “The post-war Be-bop jazz and Beat literature scenes of New York called to me as an apt setting for an extended work”.

Critic Rob Clough named Bughouse to his top 100 graphic novels of the first decade of the new century at number 22.

The event is July 14 at 8:00 p.m. Locust Moon Comics and Movies, 4040 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Lafler will sign books & art, and perform a short set of Oaxacabilly music, a blend of country-punk and hysterical hillbilly cacophony.

Ménage a Bughouse retails for $24.99. A hardback edition will be available for $39.99. The large format book (8.5 x 11) showcases Lafler's fluid brushwork.

“Steve Lafler is a master cartoonist and his work is in a class by itself; an unpredictable amalgam of fun, intelligence, breeziness and glorious strangeness that keeps your eyes fed and your synapses sizzling.” --Jim Woodring

Bughouse Tour Poster

Bill Cucinotta at CO2 (my publisher) put together this cool tour poster for me. Thanks Bill!

It's not too late to order the new Menage a Bughouse book from my indiegogo page. Just a few days left to snag this complete Bughouse phone book/door stop (and help underwrite the tour!).

Steve Lafler

Bughouse Tour Border Crossing

Let's get the Bughouse Tour from Mexico into the States!

Steve, Geni and Max get their mojo going at the border.

Bughouse Tour Indiegogo campaign

It's on -- I'm touring the US in July in support of Ménage a Bughouse, my 408-page collection of my bugs-playing-jazz opus. CO2 is publishing this career watershed book.

I've started an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the tour, and the campaign doubles as a great way to pre-order the book at this link.

The campaign also offers rewards such as original sketches and art to backers.

Bughouse is the story of Jimmy Watts and his band of jazz playing bugs. The character driven story is set in a stylish “insect-noir” world, invoking an indigo-toned Manhattan of the early 1950s. Be-bop is king, and the alluring substance “bug juice” threatens to destroy the players against a backdrop of romance and intrigue. 

Tour Dates

July 11, Ada Books, Providence, RI

July 12, MoCCA, New York City

July 14, Locust Moon Comics, Philadelphia, PA

July 17, Boxcar Books, Bloomington IN

July 18, Daydream Comics, Iowa City, IA

July 20, Time Warp Comics, Boulder, CO

July 25, Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, CA

July 28, Cosmic Monkey Comics, Portland, OR

 See you out there on Route 66!

 

“Steve Lafler is a master cartoonist and his work is in a class by itself; an unpredictable amalgam of fun, intelligence, breeziness and glorious strangeness that keeps your eyes fed and your synapses sizzling.” 

 --Jim Woodring

 

Coming Soon: Menage a Bughouse

Don't look now, but I am just about to publish my collected Bughouse under the title Menage a Bughouse with CO2.
This will be a 408-page volume collecting all three of my Bughouse graphic novels. 

Before you know it, I will be unleashing a steady stream of brazen PR in support of the book. For now, I'm just gonna give you a peek at the cover.

Where Were You in Summer 1969?

I was a 12-year old kid in Longmeadow, MA.

I've been thinking about doing a new graphic novel about Oaxaca, but if I started it today, this would be the first panel.

It's a template drawing about an amazing pack of kids reaching puberty and tearing up the woods, farmlands and suburbs on their mini-bikes.

Radio Insecto plays Big River

Radio Insecto played La Jicara in Oaxaca last night. Although we were plagued by an equipment problem, we still got it going pretty good for a few tunes.
We nailed a pretty decent cover of the Johnny Cash classic Big River, posted here on youtube.

Steve Lafler, guitar & vocal. Kazt, bass. Bill Stair, mandolin. Samuel Palome Aquino, drums.

Yes, I am in the main a cartoonist (something I'm actually good at), but playing and barking out a few tunes is, by and large, an insane amount of fun.

55th Birthday Art Show & Sale

I've posted some gorgeous Bughouse original art pieces from 1997 here.

I'm celebrating my 55th birthday with a showing of an eight page sequence.

Like most cartoonists (and chefs), I am very critical of my own work. I labored on Bughouse from 1993 to 2004. The result was a trilogy of graphic novels, almost 400 pages of comics. I went the extra mile to put my best foot forward and maintain a high level of craft, and here and there I was satisfied. Other times I'd look at the work and think it was lacking, a natural reaction for any serious artist.

From the present, I have to say I'm near astounded with Bughouse. It really shines. If you'd told me 15 years ago that I would write such an assessment, I'd be dubious, and maybe a bit appalled, but I stand by it.

With Bughouse, I created a singular, unique work in the history of comics that stacks up well with pretty much anything. A subjective statement, even audacious, but any opinion about comic art, all art, has a subjective element, so I'll just say it's true: Bughouse swings, baby!
I turn 55 tomorrow and I'm a happy man, some thirty plus years down the road as an auteur cartoonist.

These pages originally appeared in Bughouse #5 in June, 1997. They were reprinted in the Top Shelf graphic novel Scalawag in 2005. They are priced at $200 each. Of course, anyone who really digs the spread can buy all 8 pieces for $1200. These are potent, lyric works of comic art; a fine value for dedicated collectors.

Steve Lafler
503-213-3671