Happy New Year everyone! For those of you who didn't see my facebook post detailing the changes to how and what I promote from Carter Comics, I wanted to use my first blog of the year to elaborate on that announcement: As the headline suggests, 2016 will be all about The Figure-Of-Speech Mongoose!
Months of creative burnout from writing, illustrating, and promoting three comic titles (FOS Mongoose, Damn Tourists, and Cosmic Force), combined with the increasing popularity of my Mongoose Mondays illustration games on facebook drove me to this decision. As much as I enjoy all three of my comic titles, I need to start focusing on one title that can be the flagship of Carter Comics, and the FOS Mongoose fits that bill perfectly: Simple and fun to create, a growing audience on social media, and a character that can be or do anything.
To begin this creative shift, I will be doing some retooling of the Mongoose Monday games (which started up again last month). The game illustration categories will be broken up by the number of Mondays in a given month: The first week will be a Figure-Of-Speech illustration, with a theater background drawn, the second week will be a Pop Song illustration with a youtube player shell background, the third week will be a movie illustration with a multiplex theater background, and week four will be a tv show illustration with a flat-screen tv background. For months with five Mondays in them, I will be doing a special "Mongoose Mondays Mix" which will contain all four categories in one illustration that must be named (these categories will be different from the previous four given in a particular month). I will also be celebrating the third birthday of the FOS Mongoose, and the third anniversary of Mongoose Mondays in mid-February during my first show of the year at Long Beach Comic Expo on Saturday February 20th to Sunday the 21st. Also, expect a Mongoose Mondays figure-of-speech illustration book to debut at the show, featuring 16 pages of illustration games that readers can name. In addition, I will have a new vertical banner and table cloth featuring my flagship character to further hammer down my message.
So that's what you can expect from Carter Comics in 2016. Hopefully I won't be burned out enough to do another one of these blogs, but I can't make any promises. In any case, stay tuned to this site during the month for more of my thoughts on movies, comics, transportation, and other topics!