Appearances

Carnivorous Sheep Burgers (Songster LAST PAGE!)

And that is that! Thanks for following along on the adventures of Axe Cop versus the Songster. It was fun to revisit Axe Cop with Malachai a bit older and partnering with Parry Gripp was a privilege. We are going to come up with a cool package to sell this story and music as one item for those interested, I’ll post it on the blog here when it comes out. Thanks again to Parry for all his tunes. This was a lot of fun.

I won’t be posting new Axe Cop material for a while. Come see me over at Bearmageddon.com and keep tabs on me on Patreon, Twitter and Facebook to find out when other projects are being released.

Ethan

Royalties (The Songster page 24)

One page left, and one song left.

Parry and I are thinking of putting together a special highly limited edition cassette tape and full printed comic. If you would be interested in something like that, let us know.

Next week, the story shall end. I don’t have plans for more Axe Cop content at the moment. Thanks for following along with this story, it’s been a fun little experiment and working with Parry has been a treat.

Ethan

Axe Cop Never Says Uncle!

I’m excited to finally present to you BIRDS OF PREY! The first ever Axe Cop mini-game. To answer a couple inevitable questions…

1. YES it can be beaten.
2. NO, I will not give you any hints
3. The first person to WIN and email the victory screen to info@axecop.com gets this sumi ink drawing of Axe Cop riding a bear! UDATE: Congrats to the winner, Colin T.!

4. If the embedded game is not working for you, you can download the game for free here: Windows version, MAC version. I promise there is nothing malicious in that software, it’s just the game.

5. If some of the birds freeze in place, I told the game makers to keep the glitch because I like how old it makes it feel like an old glitchy NES game. You can still win if the birds freeze in place.

Huge, huge thanks to TBA Games! for making this game a reality and Parry Gripp for the amazing music, and of course Dave DeAndrea for the great voice work. This game is hilarious and I can’t get that song out of my head.

Also, PLEASE DO ME A SOLID! My other comic, Bearmageddon has been climbing the charts over at TWC.com. I am trying hard to get it to hit #1. I have never made it to the top 10 and I really want to see the effect it has on my traffic to reach the top 10. Please take a moment to vote, It is super simple and doesn’t require any sign ups or registering. You can vote DAILY. We went from spot #650 to #144 yesterday alone!

Good luck with those birds and thanks for reading Axe Cop.

Ethan

Songster #2: Red White and Black

Every great sitcom has an episode that begins with free concert tickets. Of course, every bad one does too. Whichever side we are on, this is ours. I can at least guarantee you this, it will be a wholly unique take on the old trope.

I decided to do this comic in red white and black with one or two shades of gray. I had to keep it simple. I didn’t want to worry about getting it colored, but I knew I couldn’t color it myself. Since I did the print in this color scheme and liked it so much, I stuck with it. I like it. It’s fun to allow yourself one color and use it in unique ways.

Want to see the next page and hear the first Parry Gripp song? Join Patreon for at least $2/month and you will get every page a week early, including Ask Axe Cop. Patreon members also get the pages in super high resolution, bonus materials and lots of other stuff. Try it out. If you like my work, you will really dig it.

Also, if you wouldn’t mind taking a minute to fill out this short survey it would really help me in my mission to understand my audience better. I really appreciate you doing this, it helps me a ton.

Check out my art-loaded conversation with PvZ designer Rich Werner about creativity and fatherhood titled Zombie Meatloaf.

Ever been to my store? Use the code ONETIME15 to get 15% off on your first visit. This shirt is now available and if you buy it with the print, you save even more.

Thanks so much for reading!

Ethan

Axe Cop #5: the Notes

I’m taking a break from my Making Axe Cop blogs this week. Instead, as a continuation in the history of Axe Cop, I am going to share with you the raw notes I took on my phone called with Malachai to write Axe Cop #5. Axe Cop #0-4 were written in person, so I didn’t have notes for those. This was the first time I tried writing with Malachai over the phone. I was amazed how well this went. I was afraif it wouldn’t have the same feel. In some ways it was different. It was a lot more information, less action. But it was actually a great way to work. I found this old text file in my Axe Cop folder.

I have a folder on my computer I started called “Malachai” when he was three. It includes a few drawings I let him do on my Wacom tablet, and a few drawings he dictated to me as I drew, then one day I added a folder called “Axe Cop”, because I drew a few Axe Cop comics with him. To this day, my “Axe Cop” folder is still inside the “Malachai” folder, and it is freaking massive. As you read, if you know the comic well, you will see how I organized this and did some editing.

Click here to read the original Axe Cop #5 Comic

Axe Cop #5 Notes
axe cop 5

malachai:
important mission
we need to save leaf man.
leaf man has powers but the bad guys stole his leaf powers
bad santa stole them (he steals the presents from santa)
bad guy gang… with an evil flying book that bites people and eats people
the book’s name: “evil flying book”
the book is actually a robot

(Malachai speaks as Axe Cop in first person)
at the sign up place someone was yelling for us, so we quit the mission
what’s your name? sockarang (boomerang socks) .. socks for arms
bad santa has christmas magic and the power to hurt ears (hurting ear power)
sockarang gets the blood of evil Santa and becomes super villain santa that is good

avocado cop touches the blood and becomes evil santa too

Follow up questions:
Q: Does avocado soldier use his horn for any magic? (maybe to change back into flute cop with a horn?)
A: He wishes to give leaf man’s powers back
Q: what does Ralph do?
A: he just watches and sings a loud song “tick tock the mouse ran up the clock”

Q: Does anyone die in the fight?
A: Good santa stole bad santa’s guitar
They go back to a try out: baby man.
“Shake what your baby gave ya.”
A baby that can fly when he gasses
A man who has a baby suit
The flying book is the hardest one
Uni man and a wrestler
Wrestler throws uniman at book

Q: Where are the bad guys? do they get leaf man’s powers back?
how do they get the blood out of bad santa?

(no answers recorded)

Random things axe cop says in a fight:

I think I’m gona chop your head off soon

I think I’m gonna go home and get something for dinner so I think I’m done with my job

My job is being an axe cop

I had a lot of work to do

I’m tired and hungry, so I am going to eat stuffed eggs with mayonnaise and yolk and mustard and then you put it in where the yolk was and paprika on top.

stuffed eggs with power potion

whenever I eat I get powers

one of the potions is called “transform”

turns into a gun pail buffalo and shoots out of his horns

____________________________________________________________________
reworked/organized:
Ralph Wrinkles’s important mission is this:
A guy named Leaf Man has had his powers stolen by a gang of bad guys
the gang of bad guys is Bad Santa (who steals presents from good Santa, he also has the power of Christmas and the power to hurt ears)
and also “evil flying book” which flies around and bites people.

in order to fight these guys they must have another tryout.
At the tryout, Sockarang joins the team. His arms are socks and they shoot off and return like boomerangs.
So Sockarang, Leaf Man, Axe Cop, Ralph, and Avocado soldier go to fight bad santa.

At the fight, ralph just sings “tick tock the mouse ran up the clock”.
Bad Santa hurts their ears with his guitar.
Evil flying book keeps biting them.
They retreat to hold more tryouts.

At the tryouts they recruit Baby Man, Wrestler, and Uni-man.
Uni-man says he took up crime fighting when his child was stolen.
Baby man’s motto is “shake what your baby gave ya.” and he can fly when he gasses.

In the fight they realize that the book is actually a robot.

The wrestler throws uni-man into the book and it explodes.
they defeat bad santa by taking his guitar… sockarang gets bad santa blood on him and gains his powers.

They win, but leaf man never got his powers back, so avocado soldier gives them back using his unicorn horn.

Page 221 – Sparkling Like A New Man

Yeah, I said someone would die. I didn’t say it would last. Thanks, Ralph Wrinkles!

When I asked Charlotte what sort of a battle cry Rainbow Girl may have as she kills Axe Cop, she blurted out “rainbowtastic!” almost immediately. Makes sense to me.

I’m on tour right now. I had to upload this and the next page, and write up the blog posts for them, in advance. Rough stuff. Right now I’m somewhere off in the south, playing metal for underattended shows. But, hey, it’s travel.

Next week we will finally see Axe Cop get… the perfect revenge. He and Dinosaur Soldier and Army Chihuahua planned it way back on page 6. What could this plan entail? We finally learn next time.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Charlotte is looking for Wiimotes and finds one of the empty
silicone sheaths. “I found one, but it’s got no bones in it.”
-Charlotte, 6 years old

“I dreamed I had twenty-nine ice creams with sprinkles,
cherries and hot fudge. Then I throwed up. I ate a
chicken and I throwed up again. Then me and Charlotte
falled down the stairs that were made of toilet paper
and daddy catched us before we broke our legs.”
-Amelia, 4 years old

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

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 212 – Showdown

Well, all right, all that art-talk over the last two blogs was a complete dud and no one cared. Sorry ’bout that.

I don’t have the time to write up much of a blog this week, I’m under the gun on an art deadline and am cranking out pages. I wouldn’t leave you with nothing, though, so here’s the audio of Amelia telling an Axe Cop story. I requested it be in a smoothie shop because I was trying to tie it in to the comic story, and didn’t wind up using this at all. I definitely don’t have the time to draw it these days, but if anyone has the time, this’d make a good guest strip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBiZBu5nkCw

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Me: “I need to take a shower.”
Charlotte: “Why?”
Me: “I need one, I’m stinky.”
She gives me a hug.
Charlotte: “You’re not stinky.”
Me: “Aww, thanks!”
I sneeze.
Charlotte: “But you ARE gross.”
-Charlotte, 6 years old

Amelia is going to get her room painted.
She says she’s going to have pictures painted
of “blocks and tigers and people and butts and people.”
-Amelia, 4 years old

Next week, the first act of aggression in this street fight is about to go down, and it’s a doozy.

Ask Axe Cop #87 – Sensing Perfection

This episode ties into the end of Axe Cop Gets Married. He is able to look at a baby and determine if it is a boy or a girl using these same powers. The bottom left panel is the closest thing to something sexual we have had in the Axe Cop comic. It’s also just really weird seeing him with no mustache. I feel like we have slowly been peeling away the mysteries of Axe Cop’s head in Ask Axe Cop. We took his hat off, we shaved his mustache… all that is left is to see his actual eyes. Maybe some day.

Just a reminder that next Tuesday, Axe Cop: Revenge on Rainbow Girl begins. Check out the interview with artist Tom Martin I posted last Tuesday and the preview art we posted.

Saturday night, one of my favorite Axe Cop episodes is airing on FOX. When Night Creatures Attack. I think I actually like it better than the Halloween episode it is based on. I like the design of the night creatures. They remind me a of a combination of the Attack the Block creatures and Sam Keith’s “Isz”.

Ethan