by Matt Feazell
Matt Feazell writes:
Chuck A Burger was on the riverfront. Their slogan was “Best burger west of the Mississippi (so far)”
This might be the only sketch in the bunch where an artist drew a restaurant they were actually familiar with. It’s still in business!
As promised, my new webcomic’s here! Visit this link to follow the story and, if you like what you see, share it with friends.
The restaurant sketchbook series will return soon. Thanks for your patience while I launch this new project!
Pictured on my drawing table: the first few pages of Sucker Street, my forthcoming webcomic. I’m preparing a printed version of the prologue for purchase this Saturday at the MSU Comics Forum. Then, beginning in March, I’ll be running the ongoing series here on fridge-mag.com, releasing a page a week until…oh, I dunno, however long it takes. Maybe the rest of my life?
This is a departure for me. As a minicomics creator, one of my personal challenges has been to tell a self-contained, one-shot story in 1-12 pages. Sucker Street, by contrast, will be a long-form serial with a sprawling cast of characters and multiple, interwoven story arcs. While I always intended for it to be a big story, I resisted doing it as a serial. Believe me, I tried to compress this big world I’ve created down to a single book, or even a collection of books. I’ve come to accept that this just isn’t that kind of comic.
Yeah, yeah, I know. You want me to get to the part where I tell you what the comic’s about. Okay, fine. It’s about a close-knit neighborhood in a floundering Michigan municipality (a fictitious one, although my home state has no shortage of live models to work from) and the people who live and work there. The setting and a couple of the characters first appeared ten years ago (in very primitive form) in a 24-hour comic called A Quest for Quiet Cat Toys. The full comic’s there at the link, but it’s not required reading. A lot of changes have happened on the street since then.
Anyway, after 4 years of digging in my heels, I’m ready to step out of my comfort zone and release this thing into the world, page by page. Chapter One needs another rewrite and I still haven’t fully scripted Chapter Two or anything beyond. And— just between you, me and the internet—that kinda freaks me out. In a way, though, it’s nice to know I’m still capable of being freaked out by cartooning, after so many years doing it. I’m looking forward to this new adventure and hope you’ll join me. I’ll let you know when the comic goes live!
Another unknown artist. Why can’t I remember these people?
I’m not sure when the Berkeley location closed, but the last Ground Cow (in Penryn, CA) ceased operation just a couple of months ago. Their Facebook page is still up, with lots of nice pictures of things you could’ve ordered.
I’m in a show opening this Friday at Henry Ford Community College’s Sisson Gallery. It’s curated by Sean Bieri (who is no stranger to this blog) and features a bunch of extremely talented local folks (some of whom also have done sketches I already have or will eventually post here, too).
More info: Featuring comics and illustrations created by eleven area artists, “Demented Detroit” is an eclectic sampler of cartoon artwork, including humor, horror, whimsy, adventure, social commentary and more. With art by James Anderson, Suzanne Baumann, Sean Bieri, Matt Feazell, Victor Green, Kelly Guillory, Jane Irwin, Kelly Larson, Crystal Mielcarek, Vicki Shepherd and Ted Woods. The show runs thru March 20.
New sketchbook theme, as promised. These are restaurant names I found in a 1966 edition of the National Restaurant Association member directory. The Association still exists, but no longer publishes a list of members.
Dante’s Furnace seems to be long gone. The only evidence I was able to find of its existence was this 2-sentence observation from a 1964 New Yorker article.
As for the artist on this one: I’m not sure. All I remember is that I met him that same day, and he was pretty excited about getting to make a literary reference.
