No Comic this Week, but...

For the first time since we started Solo Acoustic, there is no comic this week. I thought I would use this momentous occasion to reflect on some of the stuff I've been up to this year!

February 26th, 2013.

Troy says, "Okay, what do you think of an official Sparkshooter side-story. It would be called "Solo Acoustic", and it would be about another guy that Jack manages. You interested in that?"

To which I replied, "very".

Solo Acoustic #1 went up on March 13th, 2013. Link

Solo ran every Wednesday until October 30th, 2013. Link

The following week, I started on Sparkshooter with #44. Link

For the continuing Mighty Master Schedule, hit the Link

Some other fun stuff we've done:

April 4th, 2013. Troy's Sparkshooter/Solo Acoustic Interview on ComicBook.com Link

I think there was another ComicBook.com interview somewhere.

September 20th, 2013. MP Cavalier's 3 Questions with Troy Brownfield and Ben Olson.

October 25th, 2013. Solo Acoustic #1 appears in lazy boy's Sticks & Stones #11

November 7th, 2013. Big Sparkshooter Interview on Newsarama Link

November 18th, 2013. Troy and I talk comics at the Plainfield, IN Public Library.

Sparkshooter will be back next week, and Solo Acoustic will be back January 31st!

News and Links!

TODAY!
New Sparkshooter page from me and Troy Brownfield (@TroyBrownfield).
New site design thanks to Sarah Vaughn (@sarahvictoriav)!

NEXT WEEK!
Monday 11/18 at 6:30, Troy and I will be guests of the Plainfield | Guilford Township Public Library to talk comics! If you're nearby and interested, we'd love for you to come out. Feel free to bring the kids, too!
Details and Sign Up Link!

Newsarama Interview

Thanks to Lucas Siegel and Newsarama for this: and interview with me, Troy Brownfield, Sarah Vaughn and Enkaru on Sparkshooter and Solo Acoustic (and a bit of Alex + Ada).

Enjoy! LINK

Big Sparkshooter News Day!

My first page of Sparkshooter is up today! @TroyBrownfield also announced that the new artist for Sparkshooter Chapter 3 will be Enkaru! AND, former Sparkshooter artist Sarah Vaughn has a book out from Image Comics today with Jonathan Luna, 'Alex + Ada'. It's off to a great start, check it out!

Sparkshooter Page Forty Four: Link
Artist Announcement: Link

Solo Acoustic #31

New Solo Acoustic from me and @TroyBrownfield is up!

Enjoy!

Only 3 more installments until the break! If you haven't heard the news, hit the link for full details!

We'll be taking a short break on Solo Acoustic while I move over to take over art duties on Sparkshooter to finish up Chapter Two! Solo Acoustic will break on Oct. 30th.

Solo Acoustic on Facebook

Solo Acoustic is now on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/soloacousticcomic

Solo Acoustic #30

New Solo Acoustic from me and @TroyBrownfield is up!

Enjoy!

The countdown to the #34 break has begun! If you haven't heard the news, hit the link for full details!

We'll be taking a short break on Solo Acoustic while I move over to take over art duties on Sparkshooter to finish up Chapter Two! Solo Acoustic will break on Oct. 30th.

Programming Note, regarding Sparkshooter and Solo Acoustic:

Solo Acoustic will continue its regular schedule up through #34, on October 30th. It will then take a short hiatus . . . as we welcome back Sparkshooter! Beginning on November 6th, we'll see the final pages of Sparkshooter Chapter 2, delivered by Troy and guest artist Ben Olson (yeah, him!). Once Chapter 2 wraps, Ben will hop back over to his home at Solo. We hope to have further Sparkshooter news in the near future.

Thanks!
Troy Brownfield, Sarah Vaughn, and Ben Olson

www.Sparkshooter.com

MPCavalier's 3Questions w/Troy Brownfield and Ben Olson, 20 Sept 2013

Here it is, the interview with Do It Indy! MP Cavalier met me and Troy Brownfield at Downtown Comics West to talk about Solo Acoustic, Sparkshooter and more! Big thanks to Gregg and Scott from DoItIndy for coming out!

Some things we talk about include:

Nick Jordan's, Lazy Boy's Sticks & Stones Music Zine

From Zenescope

Grimm Fairy Tales Myths and Legends &

Unleashed - Zombies

Stuart Sayger's Walking Dead 100

for the Hero Initiative

Kyle Starks'

The Legend of Ricky Thunder

Calvin and Hobbes

Chris Clermont

George Perez

Curve

Nightwish

Girl Talk

Bob Mould

Nikola Tesla

RASL

Solo Acoustic #28

New Solo Acoustic from me and @TroyBrownfield is up!

Enjoy!

Solo Acoustic to run in Lazyboy's Sticks & Stones zine

Indianapolis area people! Troy Brownfield and I have made a deal with Mr. Nick Jordan of Lazyboy's Sticks & Stones zine that will allow them to have Solo Acoustic running in their publication! Among the many fine Indianapolis locations wherein you can acquire this monthly missive to live music and culture are VIBES MUSIC, The Rock House, Indy CD & Vinyl, Metamorphosis Tattoo & Piercing, The Magic Bus, Melody Inn, LUNA music, Hardwick's Tobacco Shop, Downtown Comics West and more. This does not alter any of our future plans for Solo Acoustic; it's an awesome and excellent bonus opportunity that happened to come our way which allows us to spread the word about Solo (and Sparkshooter) in a cool and extremely appropriate venue.

And stay tuned this week (or next week?) for some more exciting Solo Acoustic news!

24 Weeks of Solo Acoustic!

Today marks the 24th week in a row of the webcomic, Solo Acoustic by me and Troy Brownfield! 
Please check it out!

Find more of our stuff!

Twitter:

@BenOlsonArt

@TroyBrownfield

@Sparkshooter

Tumblr

http://benolsonart.tumblr.com/

http://troybrownfield.tumblr.com/

Google+

+Ben Olson 

+Troy Brownfield

Gen Con is Happening

Tell me if you see my Adventure Time + MTG Tokens!

More Doodling

Thor!

Jake the Dog in the Rain

Doodling this afternoon! More here!

Solo Acoustic Hits 16th Week in a Row!

Today marks the 16th week of the webcomic, Solo Acoustic by me and Troy Brownfield! 
Please check it out!

Find more of our stuff!

Twitter:

@BenOlsonArt

@TroyBrownfield

@Sparkshooter

Tumblr

http://benolsonart.tumblr.com/

http://troybrownfield.tumblr.com/

Google+

+Ben Olson 

+Troy Brownfield

MORE Adventure Time, Magic the Gathering Tokens!

Find all of my Adventure Time, Magic the Gathering Tokens in one place!

Comics Creators Visiting Downtown Comics West!

Steve Horton 5/29/13

Steve Horton is the writer of the Dark Horse epic steampunk fantasy, Amala's Blade, with one miniseries out in 2013 and another in 2014. He's also done short stories for DC Comics and the non-profit Reading with Pictures anthology. When not writing comics and editing at the day job, Steve plays a lot of Magic and other games. He lives near Indianapolis with his incredibly patient wife and three incredibly impatient kids. And one beagle.

More info about Steve can and his comics can be found at about.me/tropicalsteve or follow him on Twitter at @TropicalSteve

Kyle Starks 6/1/13

Kyle Starks is a comic book writer/artist living in Southern Indiana.  He is the creator of the Robot Mountain webcomic series which includes Adventure Wizard, Punch Captain and the book comicsalliance.com called "the best wrestling comic of all time", The Legend of Ricky Thunder.  Last year a short comic, This is Wild Dog! was included in the Comics Bulletin's 10 Best Online Comics of 2012.

He might be a time traveller. I'm not sure. I heard he punched out a dragon once, though. Seriously. Dragon punching.

More info about Kyle and his comics can be found at www.kylestarks.com or follow him on twitter @starr226 or visit his tumblr www.robotmountain.tumblr.com

Ryan Browne 6/5/13

Ryan Browne is a comic book writer/artist living in Chicago.  He is the creator of God Hates Astronauts and Blast Furnace. He's also worked on books like The Manhattan Projects and Hoax Hunters.

"I don't want to oversell what Ryan has accomplished here, but I gave God Hates Astronauts to a blind man and he regained his sight." -Jonathan Hickman (The Avengers, Fantastic Four, The Manhattan Projects)

More info about Ryan and his comics can be found at www.godhatesastronauts.com or follow him on twitter @RyanBrowneArt or visit his tumblr www.ryanbrowneart.tumblr.com.

See you at CAKE (Chicago Alternative Comics Expo)

Designed by Chicago’s own, Jo Dery (http://jodery.com)

Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE)

Saturday and Sunday, June 15 & 16, 2013

11 am – 6pm

Center on Halsted

3656 N Halsted

FREE and open to the public!

http://cakechicago.com

Working Digitally

I've been curious about working all-digitally, so I started messing around with Manga Studio 5 last week. Apparently it's what everyone is using to ink stuff digitally now. Right off the bat it feels so much better than Photoshop, while still having a very similar UI. The default brushes you get aren't bad, but there are a ton of options for tweaking. I called out on Twitter @MangaStudio to see if anyone had suggestions for brushes. I got a ton of responses saying that @Frenden's are the best. I grabbed Ray Frenden's "Manga Studio 5 Pencilling, Inking, & Painting Brushes" and they are fantastic! I used them to do this week's Solo Acoustic. Frenden has a free brush available called "Lando Calbrusshian" that I definitely recommend if you want to see how much better his are than the defaults.

 

P.S. If you are considering purchasing Manga Studio 5, if you use my link I'll get a little kickback.

Mayor Ballard declares Saturday, May 4th, 2013 “Free Comic Book Day” in Indianapolis!

Click the pic for the Downtown Comics Article!

Vote for Downtown Comics in the Best of Indy!

Be sure to vote for Downtown Comics under the "Shop Local" category.

We are listed under "Best Local Shopping for Books"

Solo Acoustic Week 7!

Solo Acoustic is back again for week 7! Head over to the Sparkshooter site to check it out!

Free Comic Book Day, May 4th!

See you at Westside!

Adventure Time + Magic the Gathering Tokens in Action!

I just got a comment on my Adventure Time + Magic the Gathering Tokens! page from Amy. She printed out some of my tokens for an awesome birthday present!

Here's a picture from her Blog.

Solo Acoustic #6!

Solo Acoustic is back again! Head over to the Sparkshooter site to check it out!
Also, if you missed it, check out the interview on ComicBook.com about Solo Acoustic and Troy's other projects.

New Solo Acoustic Today!

Solo Acoustic is back again this week! Head over to the Sparkshooter site to check it out!

Solo Acoustic Interview

Russell Burlingame and Comicbook.com were kind enough to interview Troy Brownfield about SOLO ACOUSTIC, the (still) new webcomic from Troy and me, which you can find at their website ComicBook.com, or the Sparkshooter site!

Happy Easter!

Solo Acoustic Week 3!

Solo Acoustic is back for week three! Please check it out over at Sparkshooter.com!

Be sure to follow me @BenOlsonArt and Troy @TroyBrownfield on Twitter for updates!

First Published Comic

Here's the first comic I ever had "published". It was in the high school paper at the beginning of my freshman year. I don't even...

Check out my current work on 'Solo Acoustic' 

over at Sparkshooter.com every Wednesday!

SOLO ACOUSTIC #2 TOMORROW

It's that time again, Solo Acoustic #2 by me and @TroyBrownfield is out tomorrow on the Sparkshooter website!

Thank You from SOLO ACOUSTIC!

Thanks to everyone who checked out the first installment of SOLO ACOUSTIC by me and Troy Brownfield yesterday! We had a great first day, and got an excellent response!

See you next week!

From Troy:
From Ben Olson and Sarah Vaughn and myself, I'd like to thank everyone for giving SOLO ACOUSTIC a great first day! We had a lot of eyes on the first installment and I personally received some very nice comments. Thank you all for reading! And extra thanks to the likes of Jesse B Snider, Janelle Asselin, David Pepose and Lucas Siegel for RTing and getting the word out. Expect to see a small piece on it, Sparkshooter and my new issue of Grimm Fairy Tales (out next week!) on Newsarama in the extremely near future. Thanks again!

SOLO ACOUSTIC

The webcomic by me and Troy Brownfield is up! Check it out over on the Sparkshooter site!

Tomorrow: "Solo Acoustic #1"

Tomorrow: please check out the first installment of the new webcomic "Solo Acoustic", by me and @TroyBrownfield at http://sparkshooter.com !

"Solo Acoustic" Preview Sketch

SOLO ACOUSTIC by me and Troy Brownfield begins next week on the Sparkshooter site. Here's a preview development sketch of lead character Will Border. Enjoy!

New Project, "Solo Acoustic"

Working on a new project, "Solo Acoustic" with writer Troy Brownfield. It's a spinoff of "Sparkshooter", a webcomic by Troy and Sarah Vaughn.

Keep an eye out tomorrow for a preview!


Here are some things to follow:

Sparkshooter.com
@TroyBrownfield
@sarahvictoriav
Savivi.com
@SparkshooterCom

Demon Knights #16 page by Bernard Chang

I got this awesome page from Demon Knights #16 when Bernard Chang did a promotion for people who bought the comic. This is page #20 featuring Vandal Savage and Jason Blood. 
Demon Knights is written by Robert Vendetti @robertvenditti and drawn by Bernard Chang @thebernardchang. 

Magic the Gathering, Adventure Time Elemental Tokens

Find all of my Adventure Time, Magic the Gathering Tokens in one place!