Appearances

Ask Axe Cop #100 – Bigfoot

I have loved Bigfoot since I saw Harry and the Hendersons in theaters.  I wrote a massive report on Bigfoot in highschool that was something like 30-40 pages long.  I have always been fascinated by the creature and was excited to get to draw him.  Plus, this is Ask Axe Cop #100!  I set out to do at least 100 Ask Axe Cop questions when I started doing them.  DONE.  I think we still will do more, but for a while we will be taking a break.  I’m going to be posting guest episodes for a while.  If you want to submit some guest episodes, feel free to submit your own.

If you live in the Los Angeles area, Jason Brubaker and Travis Hanson will be doing a seminar on how to make money with your web comic.  Of course, that is the title, but chances are it will be an over-all seminar on web comic making in general, and you will have the opportunity to drill us with questions to your heart’s desire.  The class does cost some money, but I am throwing in a free Axe Cop TPB signed to all students, and Jason is throwing in a free signed book as well!  So right there it’s already a deal.  The class is this Satrday, March 1st at Gallery Nucleus.

And if you are looking for Axe Cop toys is looks like they are now available at many toy stores!

 

Ethan

Page 219 – This Is Too Late For You

Another Amelia page. The line “I’m sorry, but this is too late for you” is swiped directly from her telling of what Axe Cop does and says in this scene. Ethan frowns upon using kid quotes directly in the dialogue or narration, but in this instance (and a few others) I just couldn’t help myself. Having a staredown with a monster and saying “I’m sorry, but this is too late for you” is just a perfect kid logic translation of how one talks when they’re trying to be intimidating. I love it.

To anyone that noticed that the dragon didn’t get his head chopped off, be patient. You just don’t know how the Axe Cop Swinger™ 2008 works.

Any metal fans out there? I’ll be traipsing down the east coast with my band Lich King in two weeks’ time. For full dates go here.

When you traipse, you’re probably singing “tra-la-la-la-laaa” or something. I’ll be sure to swing my arms in wide arcs and kick my knees up, grinning sweetly as I do.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

I’m driving Charlotte home from school.
Charlotte: “I’m hungry.”
Me: “Why don’t you eat my fist?”
Charlotte: “Well THAT wasn’t a very nice thing to say.”
                                        -Charlotte, 6 years old

Mommy: “Amelia, are you a human being?”
Amelia: “Noooo, I a lady!”
                                        -Amelia, 3 years old

Ask Axe Cop #99 – the Mole People

It’s  strange coincidence that I happen to have star-nosed mole beasts in both of my web comics at the moment (in Bearmageddon, my characters have been in a battle with a giant bear mole).

It’s also strange that I posted this on Friday, but even though I kept reminding myself to update Axe Cop yesterday, I kept forgetting, and somehow continued to forget to actually do it, until I fell asleep at 4:30a.m.  So, I am posting it a day late.

If you live in the Los Angeles area I will be part of a web comics seminar on “Making a Living With Your Web Comic” at Gallery Nucleus on March 1st.  If you are an aspiring web comics maker I recommend it!  Also, if you just want to buy a book or get something signed, or just say hi, there is a signing open to the public that day at 4pm.

Well that is Ask Axe Cop #99.  1 away from 100, which was my goal when I started doing Ask Axe Cop 4 years ago.  If you have Axe Cop Volume 5, you have already read #100.  After I post #100, I don’t have anything new to post for a while.  We will finish out Revenge on Rainbow Girl with Tom and then we will be posting guest comics for a while until I can get caught up.

Ethan

Ask Axe Cop #98 – Insane, Evil, Comatose or Dead

The idea of Axe Cop going insane is terrifying, but not altogether unbelievable.  He is already constantly walking the thin fine line of sanity as it is.  One of my favorite things about Axe Cop is his many contingency plans for any and all situations.  This is one of my favorites.

Reminder that Axe Cop Vol. 5 is out now!  This is possibly my favorite collection.   It is very dense and has a lot of good stuff in it.

Ethan

Ask Axe Cop #97 – Time Machine

This episode of Ask Axe Cop is full of ret-conning, but it wouldn’t be Axe Cop if he didn’t switch directions on you when you least expected it.  So, here we go… Axe Cop’s parents are alive, Telescope Gun Cop is dead, Flute Cop and Axe Cop are aware of everything.

By the way, Axe Cop Volume 5 just came out yeterday and I think it is the most jam-packed volume yet.  It is a web collection, but it has more unique extras than the other web collections.  It has…

-Foreword by Nick Offerman

-Lots of commentary and introductions by me

-Ask Axe Cop 72-100 (3 episodes that have not posted to the site yet)

-The Dogs

-Axe Cop Gets Married

-Axe Cop Presents:  The Animal Man

-5-page Axe Cop wedding photo album

-big sketchbook/making of section

-pin ups

 

AXECOPGM-TPB-CVR-BC

Ethan

Ask Axe Cop #96: World Cop

This is one of those things I love about how kids see the world.  When you get older and jaded, you tend to mock Mall Cops.  But to a kid, the job is equal to being Batman.  Malachai’s only real issue with the mall cop is that he only stays inside the mall, when he could be protecting the whole world.  A Segway is not a silly device to Malachai, it’s awesome.  It’s like a stand-up Batmobile.

I hope Mall Cops the world over are inspired by this one.

Also, Steve Jackson Games, makers of the awesome Axe Cop Munchkin Card Game, have partnered with AxeCop.com and will be advertising upcoming games.  Big thanks to them for helping pay the bills on the site.  I am a big supporter of their work.  They have a game that we will be advertising in February called Nanuk, and it has bears.  You know how I feel about bears.  Here is the info they sent me:

Winter is Coming
 
All the hunters boasted of their prowess, but you boasted the loudest. Now you have to deliver . . . 
 
In Nanuk, each player bids for how long he can stay on the trail and how much he will bring home. Each boast must be greater than the one before, until one hunter refuses to raise the bid, saying “You’re doomed!” Then the hunt begins. Will the hunt leader make good on his boast, or will the doomers be right? Every player decides secretly to help . . . or to let it fail.
 
Beware Nanuk, the great polar bear, who can end any hunt in failure. If you find an inuksuk, it will protect you — once. If the hunt is successful, the hunters share the animals collected. But if the hunt fails, the doomers score instead.
 
Nanuk is a fast-playing, highly social game of bidding and bluffing for 5 to 8 players
nanuk
Also, there is still time to enter the Revenge on Rainbow Girl contest on Facebook!
Ethan

Page 215 – The Fight Begins!

UPDATE: the splash image is no longer found by clicking the image, but you can CLICK HERE for it.

Let the violence commence!

Today’s page is what’s known as a double-page splash, so it’s technically two pages. When I started plotting out the comic I did it based on how I wanted it to look in print. Ethan says that’s the way to go, but because I wasn’t paying attention to how to leave off for each page, sometimes the pages for the site will leave off on a boring panel. Keeping two media in mind when drawing these things is not easy. As a double page splash it doesn’t really fit in the page format for the site, so handy Axe Cop site-guy Doug worked up a way to have it work out. Click  above for the full-sized page.

The only dialogue here wasn’t written for the comic. In the telling, Charlotte merely started describing the fight. For the beginning of the battle, though, I wanted a big double-page dealie with an introduction to the action. I took the dialogue from something Charlotte said when she was four. We were on the couch and she attacked me, and we started wrestling. She yelled “THE FIGHT BEGINS!” I always liked it as a line that one combatant would yell as a battle kicks off, and it seems very appropriate to Axe Cop. So here we go.

Interestingly- or not- Axe Cop’s “get out of my way!” on Page 3 was likewise based on something Amelia said when she was three. I probably couldn’t communicate what was funny about it, but she was grinning and barreling at me at the time.

First (non-child) blood next week, as we learn how to kill bad guys Dinosaur Soldier and Army Chihuahua style.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

The following was a playful insult:
“You’re a baby. You’re a baby that
was just born out of a belly.”
                                        -Charlotte, 5 years old

This was a song:
“i only had a sissy if you only had a sissy
with a gun, with a gun, with a gun”
                                        -Amelia, 3 years old

Page 214 – First Aid

Doctors spend years getting degrees and wasting their time. Just stick things back together and walk it off.

…I honestly don’t have much to say today, so this is going to be a pretty anemic blog post. Actually, let me take this opportunity to post something Charlotte and I talked about when she was four years old. We were in her room playing with her stuffed animals, and she established that we live in a world of dogs. I joked that I wanted to eat one of the dogs.

Her: “No, don’t eat one of the dogs. Here…” she brings over a stuffed dog. “This one’s dead.”

Me: “It’s dead??”

Her: “Yeah. So you can eat it.”

Me: “Oh. Well, that’s considerate and creepy. Where’d you get this dead dog?”

Her: “The store.”

Me: “You bought a dead dog at a store?”

Her: “Yeah.”

Me: “What else do they sell at this store?”

Her: “I dunno. Nothing.”

Me: “So it’s a dead dog store.”

Her: “Yep.”

Me: “What’s the name of the store?”

Her: “World Dead Dog.”

Me: “Wow. What’s their slogan? A slogan is something the store says about itself. McDonald’s is I’m lovin’ it. What’s World Dead Dog’s slogan?”

Her: “I’m Puppin’ it.”

Me: “How much can I buy a dead dog for?”

Her: “Twenty cents.”

Me: “What do you do with a dead dog once you’ve got it?”

Her: “You eat it!”

Me: “Do they come in different flavors?”

Her: “Yep. Chocolate and strawberry.”

Me: “This sounds great, but how do the dogs die?”

Her: “Well, they live to 65 years old, and when they get to 75 they die.”

Me: “And World Dead Dog sells them to eat. Aren’t old dead dogs less tasty than fresh ones?”

Her: “No, they’re delicious!”

Me: “So if my dog dies, can I sell it to World Dead Dog?”

Her: “Yep. Fifty-five cents.”

Me: “They’re not making much of a profit, then.”

Her: “No they’re not.”

Me: “Do they have a kids’ meal?”

Her: “They have little monkeys that kids like to eat.”

Me: “Are the monkeys dead too

?”

Her: “Of course.”

Me: “I thought World Dead Dog sold only dead dogs.”

Her: “Well, they sell a few dead monkeys.”

Me: “I see. Do they do catering?”

Her: “What’s catering?”

Me: “Catering is when a restaurant brings food to a place. So do they go to parties and set up piles of dead dogs on long buffet tables?”

At that point I imagined silver catering trays filled with dead dachshunds and burst out laughing hysterically. I’d been trying to hold it in and just couldn’t anymore.

Oh, hey! Ethan and I are throwing a contest on the Axe Cop Facebook page. It’s the GET REVENGE ON RAINBOW GIRL contest, in which you tell us how you’d get revenge on that dastardly villainess. The winner gets a bunch of cool signed Axe Cop stuff. Visit the page for details and enter.

Contest-01

I guess that’s it for this week. Big page next week, and from here on out, not one page of REVENGE ON RAINBOW GIRL isn’t packed with violence. It’s been a peaceful story so far, but things are about to go off. Have a great week.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“I have a boo-boo in my mouth
and it’s like a toy for my tongue.”
                                        -Charlotte, 5 years old

“Mommy? I wanna be a drag
queen when I grow up.”
                                        -Amelia, 5 years old

Ask Axe Cop #94 – Axe Land

This has been a popular question and it was about time we look at what Axe Land really looks like.  This easily could have been an entire book.  Malachai was ready to map out a theme park that could cover a planet.  I think we get the idea here though… you just add axes and dinosaurs to old theme park favorites like Splash Mountain and the Jurassic Park ride (which already had dinosaurs, so you make them into mummies too).

I don’t think my wife generally keeps up to date on my posts, so I am going to take a chance here and post this link to an original piece by Doug TenNapel and me of Axe Cop teaming up with Earthworm Jim.  I want to use the money from this to put towards her birthday present.  It will help me be able to buy her something a little more spendy if I don’t pull money directly out of our checking account.  The use of bonus funds alone will be a gift to her, as she is very frugal, which is one of the many great things about her.

ac_ewjORIGINAL

I sold 100 of these as prints with a bit of color added.  This is the actual original drawing by Doug and me.  As far as I know, this is the only drawing we have ever drawn together.

Ethan

Page 213 – You Will Never Be Evil Again

And there it is, the first blow of the coming battle is struck, and it’s called foul right off. The way this came about was in telling the story, Charlotte got to this part and said:

“…Axe Cop walks up with all his pals. And he says to them “you will never be evil again! And then he chops off the little kids’ heads.”

She immediately rethought it and started to go another way, but it was too funny to let go so I kept it. You HAVE to keep a sudden, unprovoked axe attack on little kids to punish the parents. You know, when I type it out like that, it’s not so funny anymore. But… well… at least it’s funny in the Axe Cop universe. Infanticide is many horrible things, but at least we can enjoy that it’s hilarious in the context of an Axe Cop comic.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

‎”If The Hulk just played dead,
nobody would ever bother him.”
                                        -Charlotte, 6 years old

Amelia’s in trouble and she thinks her
stuffed bear, Vanilla, has told on her.
She yells 
“Curse you, Vanilla!!”
then throws him down the stairs.
                                        -Amelia, 5 years old