World's Sharpest #20 is up. This is one of my favorite comics that I've drawn. It doesn't have the best art out of what I've done or a wonderful Detective Fork musing but I think the action came out frantic and quick as I intended and I love SuperFork's moment of bragging dorkiness as she completely misses the threat to her in panel two.

In my CD player: Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, Live at Billy Bob's Texas. The CD is growing on me but it doesn't really capture the energy and brash strenth of a Peacemakers show. Billy Bob's is a honky tonk place and The Peacemakers have some honky tonk but are really rock 'n roll. I think it's something with the mix. Still, the disc is very good and you can sing along with it; you start to feel it more after a couple listens. I'm probably jaded because I've been to many shows of theirs and have a box of concert recordings. However, I'm enjoying the hell out of it. It can be found here. Just track yourself down a few good concert bootlegs or see them in person, too. :)

I went shopping last night with one major goal in mind - Buy jean shorts. I had a gift certificate to Old Navy and proceeded to there. They gotta have lots of jeans of varying length there, right? Nope. They had like five pair, all of them so wide you could fit a whole fat person in one pant leg. So what did I do? I did what I always do when I go shopping for something besides shirts. I bought more shirts. And a couple pair of shorts that were non-jean and I was only somewhat iffy about.

World's Sharpest #19 is online. Behold the secret of Captain Smash!

July 3 is the last day of voting in The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards, in which Detective Fork is nominated for OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC. Then begins a long week of waiting to see who the winners are. I get really suckered into this stuff. Yeah, it's just an online award but even those kind of victories give me a thrill. I like the attention it gets for the comic, although I get all the validation I need from the readers I already have. Whoever thought I'd find such a supportive bunch? Anyway, there's some pretty good competitors Fork is up against. Sometimes he's known to pull forward in a tough situation, though. :)

World's Sharpest #18 is up. I also made a long overdue update to the fan art section. It includes some awesome World's Sharpest-themed wallpaper that Adrian Ceroni made.

Detective Fork is nominated for OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC in The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. Thanks to those who nominated it and please cast your vote for Fork to win the award!. Voting ends July 3.

To register to vote for The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards:

Send an email to the WCCA Bouncer at the following address -- trbinth@aol.com -- that includes your name as well as your webcomic's URL. The WCCA Bouncer will check to ensure that you have a valid online comic, then send you a reply with all the instructions you need on how to submit your nominations or vote from that point on.

Big battle in World's Sharpest #17. I drew this strip last night, way after the other comics in this story, and made little effort to hide that fact. ;-) I'm starting to have a tendency to draw a little abstract but I've always felt style should supercede realism.

Readers on the Duck were very supportive about Fork's rejection (see last entry), one even saying that means Fork is undergrond and must be too "cutting edge." All this is appreciated. :) In other news, I'm not sure I can get the Detective Fork book done by next month (read: unlikely). If I can, I wanna grab a table in artist's alley at Anthrocon in Philly, which is July 7-10. If not, I guess I'll have to shoot for next year. :-/ I read about this con in the letter pages of the current, awesome Ninja Turtles book by Peter Laird.

World's Sharpest #16 is up.

Well, my Detective Fork entry for the third Drunk Duck book got rejected. That's never a fun thing; you wonder what they didn't like about it and why it wasn't one of the stories that there was room for. The positive in this is that even if Drunk Duck doesn't want my story, I think you guys will enjoy it. It'll be posted in full here, after the current storyline and the short one after it conclude. The theme of the book was humor and so was the tale. The story, "Detective Fork vs. The Martians," takes place during the flying saucer-paranoid 1950s. So, yeah, you'll get to see an older Detective Fork who's past his noir-ish days of glory!

At last, the big reveal comes in World's Sharpest #15.

I've said before that I'm a couple months ahead in drawing comics. The good part about that is there's less pressure of a deadline. The bad part (in a way) is that I believe my art has been improving since I started drawing Detective Fork again. I look at today's comic, for example, and think it looks okay but I start thinking of how I could draw it better, only a few months after I originally drew it. A few months from now, I'll probably look back on the comics I'm drawing this week and wish I had done better! The one solace is that I look at some of the early strips form published comic strip artists, Jim Davis' Garfield in particular, and see how much he's changed over the years. Even if his art started out a little weak, he plugged ahead and kept getting it published as he improved. Hell, I think my dog could draw better than some of the artists whose comics appear in daily newspapers.

For awhile, I thought about starting to shade the comics in my paint program. It seems a lot of people do that, though, and I want to maintain the old school B&W look that Detective Fork has. I looked at ancient Dick Tracy comics and decided to focus more on the inking, to go more with an illustrated look. Chester Gould (which many people think is my last name!) made everything very stark and I haven't even seen any of his strips that used toning sheets. Inking is something that was never a strong suit of mine but I'm continuing to work on it. I especially think it adds mood to the darker scenes in my comic, which thre are a lot of. All the daylight scenes that you see in the current storyline are more a reflection of SuperFork's sunny disposition than Detective Fork's style. Anyway, on the right is a preview panel from the comic I drew last night.

By the way, I don't really have a dog. :-( I just thought it sounded funnier to say I did.

Detective Fork is nominated for OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC in The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. Thanks to those who nominated it and please cast your vote for Fork to win the award!.

To register to vote for The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards:

Send an email to the WCCA Bouncer at the following address -- trbinth@aol.com -- that includes your name as well as your webcomic's URL. The WCCA Bouncer will check to ensure that you have a valid online comic, then send you a reply with all the instructions you need on how to submit your nominations or vote from that point on.

I'm sick, sick, sick as a dog. I guess it's the price I pay for partying hard all weekend. I'm not sick enough to skip putting up World's Sharpest #14, though. This is the 50th regular Detective Fork comic, even though I drew it after the rest of the comics in the story. It features a cameo appearance by someone who will become more known to you (and the Detective) in an upcoming storyline.

Detective Fork is nominated for OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC in The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. Thanks to those who nominated it and please cast your vote for Fork to win the award!.

To register to vote for The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards:

Send an email to the WCCA Bouncer at the following address -- trbinth@aol.com -- that includes your name as well as your webcomic's URL. The WCCA Bouncer will check to ensure that you have a valid online comic, then send you a reply with all the instructions you need on how to submit your nominations or vote from that point on.

World's Sharpest #13 ist up.

Ahh, there's nothing like a Peacemakers show. Asbury Park was sweltering last night. The Saint was a hot box of bodies and sweat. My friends couldn't make it all the way through but I perservered, in part no doubt to my uncanny love for high temperatures. There must be lizard in my blood. The band played on with its mix of western rock and honky tonk, Roger Clyne wearing a pilot's jumpsuit and sharing his nautral good bearing and humor with the audience between songs. Some tunes got us jumping, others swaying and there were some that shot me through the core and made me feel alone. At a truly good concert, you don't just listen, you feel it and it carries with you through the night, through your life. After the show, you meet with old friends you've seen at other shows and walk out the door into air that feels cool and refreshing, even on a summer-like night. In my case, the two friends I brought with me had enoyed the show from outside, even getting to see a few of Asbury's fattest chase a thief of some sort and give up the pursuit because their lungs and legs couldn't keep up. I drove home, steady but high on one beer, no doubt due to being a mostly non-alcoholic and having barely more water in my body than the Sahara. Awesome night - I'm off to do it again, this time in Philadelphia. Salut!

World's Sharpest #12 is up.

So, Wizard World Philly 2005.

If it did anything, it gave me an idea of what's required to at least have a shot in the comic book industry. I met up with some small press companies and they seem open to new ideas. However, they want to see a full package. I've got comic pitches I'm very confident in. However, I know that I don't possess the art skills to adequately draw them. So, I would need an artist and convincing someone to jump onto a project, produce work and then hope like me to get picked up if we want to get paid...I'm not sure how many people would do that. I'm looking.

As for Detective Fork, he was shown to a few people, although Tony DiGerolamo, who writes Super Frat and other comics, spent a long time giving me advice. While being encouraging, he also was realistic in saying that you have to consider your audience. Detective Fork, being a detective noir comic, has an audience that's dying off, he said. I asked about the audience who enoys action and a unique idea and he didn't discount that but said it could take a long time to get anywhere. He also said that it's a difficult concept because it's in a serious genre but has the inherently funny basis of the characters being cutlery. While he's right, it doesn't discourage me one bit. I love writing and drawing this comic; it's one of the few things I can decently do both for and I'll keep putting it online as long as I'm enjoying it. Hopefully, you'll keep enjoying it, too. :)

I met Jennie Breeden at the show and wow, I didn't realize how much she is like her character in The Devil's Panties. She had the flame boots and her pirate friend was even there! Jennie did a good job pitching Lulu.com to me for when I put together a Detective Fork book. Next year, I'm thinking about being in Artist's Alley, too. Anyway, Jennie is very nice and I congratulate her on her awesome comic being accepted into Keenspot.

The lateness of comics is not going to be a trend of mine. This one's a bit past the deadline because I was trying to figure out my new graphics program.

Anyway, here's the best part about the convention; My haul!:

Star Wars Action Figures:

-Lando Calrissian (Bespin Escape)

-General Grievous (w/ 4 lightsabers)

-FX-7 (vintage)

Comic Books:

-Sandman Mystery Theatre Annual, signed (although not in person) by Alex Ross, Matt Wagner and someone who's name I can't decipher. I've looked sooo long for this comic and finally got it for 10 bucks, signed no less.

-The Ride #1

-G.I. Joe #111

-Star Wars: Rite of Passage graphic novel

-Stars Wars #42, signed by John Ostrander, "creator" of Jedi Aayla Secura

-Star Wars: Jedi Shaak Ti

-Star Wars: General Grievous #1 and 2

-Ruule #3, signed by Jeff Amano

-Convention Confessional, signed by Steven Walters and Rob Reilly. Rob's an old friend and an awesome artist.

-Point Pleasant (Mothman, baby!)

-Dracula vs. King Arthur, signed by the very cool Christian Beranek

-The Devil's Panties: Freshman, signed by Jennie Breeden

Other Stuff:

-Power Girl poster, signed by the very lovely Amanda Conner

-Any comic character for $1 color drawings by Arthur Baltazar - Arthur is an awesome comic artist who has done stories for Disney comics. My friends and I took him up on his offer, throwing our most obscure favorite comic characters at him and he quickly obliged, knowing exactly how to draw each one of them (in his own unique style)! For me, he drew Scarlet Spider, Beta Ray Bill and the Disco Dazzler. I've gotta start planning what characters I'm gonna throw at him next year. :-) Arthur's site.

BTW, thanks for encouraging people to vote for me in the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards, MrChapel. It'll be tough to win, especially against a popular comic like Digger.

World's Sharpest #11, today's comic, is the first Detective Fork comic within a storyline that doesn't actually have Detective Fork in it!

June 5 quick update: I've been at Wizard World Philadelphia and will report more on that later. I've put up the cover for one of the two "Detective Fork" ashcan comics that I ran off to take to the event in case I wanted to show anyone the Fork. It's just a precursor to the actual book I want to make available pretty soon.

Would you like to know what's sitting on my desk? I'll tell you. There is a plastic snack bag. Sealed within that plastic bag is an old fork, the very one I scanned for images on this site. Next to the Fork is a platic hat and a small trenchcoat from a Thing action figure. Where is this going? Just file this away in your memory and you'll find out in due time...

World's Sharpest #10 is up.

This is one of those times where what I guess you could call my hobby has gotten in the way of a good time. I had plans to spend Memorial Day weekend in Ocean City, N.J. but Wizard World Philadelphia is fast-approaching (Next weekend!) and I want to have copies of the first two Detective Fork comic books ready. The first comic collects "Killer Familiar," "Leather & Steel," "The Original Detective Fork & Co." and other stuff. The second volume collects "World's Sharpest," "The 2 Forks" and other stuff, most of which has not even appeared on this Web site! It will require drawing a few new cartoons, pasting together pages, making copies and stapling together said copies. The only way I'll get it done is to sit out this weekend. Not only that, but my real job requires that I write today, since the paper still comes out on Tuesday even if we have Monday off. I feel bad about skipping Ocean City but there will be more shore days this summer. As I look out the window, there's also a raging thunderstorm so perhaps it wasn't that bad a decision. :)

If you're a Web comic artist, writer or webmaster, be sure to check out the Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. Voting starts June 5.

For your viewing pleasure, World's Sharpest #9 is available.

Someone found this site on Yahoo! by typing in "Dirty Fork Utensil picture." Hmm, maybe the Yahoo! listing isn't working out quite like I had planned. The scary thing is, if the person wanted silverware smut, there is one such picture hidden away on this Web site...

I'm still feeling warm fuzzies over Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Yes, warm fuzzies over a movie that is so dark that it will send little children screaming down the halls. But that's all okay. George Lucas has mostly redeemed himself in my eyes after the subpar quality of the last two movies. Then again, I still don't like the way he's tampered with the original films, especially on the DVD release. Hayden Christensen stars as Anakin Skywalker in...Return of the Jedi?!?!?! While Yoda and Ben are still their old selves as Force ghosts? Bad, bad move. Even worse than taking out the yub-yub song. Lucas should have made the originals available as extras on the DVDs for those of us who want to see the films we grew up with. Thank god for bootleg DVDs. Oops, did I say that in print?

World's Sharpest #8 is there to read and there's a new item in the fan art section.

The new scanner finally made its appearance and it's made a hell of a difference. The scans are so clean, so crisp. Looking back, I realize that the comics I've scanned in until now tend to be a little...beige. No longer; the blacks and whites are starker than stark like they should be.

If you're a Web comic artist, writer or webmaster, be sure to check out the Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. You can sign up to nominate and vote for your favorite comics in many categories. Of course, I hope you'll see fit to include Detective Fork in your nominations (which go until May 22). Some of the categories I'm hoping the comic will appear in are Outstanding Comic, Outstanding Writer, and Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic. Check it out.

World's Sharpest #7 is up. There's also a comic there about the ongoing debate about the color of Detective Fork's trench.

World's Sharpest #6 is today's new comic, along with a technicolor version of the third part of the story! I thought you might like to see Detective Fork and SuperFork in full color. Keep in mind that the Detective has many different coats, with the most common the white coat with black trim, the negative version of that and a typical P.I. plain, brown trenchcoat. He's got the white one on in this installment. Anyway, color won't be a usual thing because it's a pain in the butt for me to do and because my 1930s noir comic is meant to be in stark black and white. It's my style. Someone commented that my color job reminds them of the Justice League cartoon, which I took as a compliment because this is a costumed hero story!

Big compliments this week go to shadree, a.k.a. Adrian Ceroni, who won a Web site skin contest over at comic strip site Jelly Creations with his Detective Fork skin! He had suggested to me that I should make a Fork skin (heh heh, sounds funny) but my laziness and lack of expertise in graphic design led me to decline. He asked if he could do one, I said sure and the next thing you know, Jelly looks like a Detective Fork tribute site! It's really cool, the skin he made, since it has the Silver City skyline and actual utensil buttons that turn into my characters when you run the mouse cursor over them. Awesome job, Adrian! You can see a screen grab of the skin in the fan art section and I just put up a link to his web site, too. Shadree draws a funny comic called The Crazy Life. There's also a couple of other new links.

Oh, and this site FINALLY got into Yahoo! Thanks go out to the nice people there and I hope the placement in their directory will bring in some visitors.

World's Sharpest #5 is up. The Detective has been appearing in other people's comics again, this time with a cameo in Vampire Noir. To see the cameo, go to my fan art section.

This was an expensive week in Forkworld. I finally gave up on my old Umax scanner and bought a new Canon model that should be arriving shortly. Thankfully, it was under 90 bucks. My old scanner has this awful habit of scanning everything in warped and crooked, no matter how straight the image is lined up on the glass or how flat the paper is. Although I fix the comics as best as I can in Paintshop, some of my online comics thus far may have text boxes and panels that seem a little off-kilter. I thought I was drawing them that way until a glance at the actual comics showed that the scanned versions have a bigger problem with the crooked stuff than my originals do. Big Dirty said it was likely because the old scanner hooks up through my printer port and the data transfer goes wonky. The new scanner is USB and just does cooler stuff in general, so I look forward to its arrival. I might even delay one of my next updates by a day or so if I have to so the next comic can be scanned with the Canon.

I also went against my better financial judgement today and bought a handful of old detective movies off Amazon. It's really getting under my skin that I might be missing an actual noir flavor in my stories and I couldn't wait to absorb some cinema classics. The titles I ordered were: Murder, My Sweet; Out of the Past; The Maltese Falcon; The Thin Man; and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. The latter is actually a modern film that at the same time pays homage and makes fun of the genre (at least as I understand it) and it stars Steve Martin, so I couldn't resist. I also have a pack of film noir movies I got for like 5 dollars recently but none of those are actual detective movies. It's easier to stop buying a lot of the usual crap I buy when bills get tight. It's a little harder to say no when it pertains to my comic strip, which hasn't made me any money yet but is extremely fulfilling. Later this month, I have to make some more copies of my Fork comic books before Wizard World Philadelphia. Well, looks like I'll be brown-bagging lunch for awhile. Anyone wanna buy an old Umax Astra 610P scanner? :-)

World's Sharpest #4 is today's new comic.

The last comic generated many comments about SuperFork's below-neck accoutrements, many conveying a sense of slobbering and thoughts that people had a hard time conveying in full sentences. I have been told by unnamed parties that they feel strange pangs of attraction for my female cartoon characters, which is even stranger for them when said characters are living silverware. Only a few nights ago , Big Dirty stared at my comic, his face twisting between confusion and outrage and he asked how in the world a fork can have breasts. This is an especially good question, seeing as how Detective Fork rarely seems to wear any clothes under his trenchcoat and looks like a smooth fork. Yet, other utensils seem more, well, human. I refer you to my stock answer, which is that utensils are kinda like Mr. Potato Head, picking and choosing what they need to have on at any given time. However, some always have muscles or other body parts that others don't feature and my only real explanation for this is it's just how I feel like drawing them at whim. So there. :-P

Oh, and even if many of my female character are well-sculpted, they do kick ass.

And to answer Stacie's question regarding whether all of SuperFork's parts are made of metal like the rest of her. The answer is YES. But soft metal. :-D Oh dear, now this topic is turning me on.

Here's an extra thing to think about. That "S" on her chest? It's cut-out to reveal her metal skin. Cya!

World's Sharpest #3 is up. Has Detective Fork met his match?

World's Sharpest #2 is up.

Someone gave me some constructive criticism recently, saying that I don't go far enough with the noir genre in Detective Fork. The current story, of course, is more of a take on costumed hero team-ups from the classic days of comic books. In fact, I think only the first story, "Killer Familiar," is really based on those old detective movies. Yes, he's always a detective wearing a trenchcoat and hat and being rough around the edges no matter the story. What I try to do is keep some element of darkness to the stories and the detective's character, no matter what situation he's in. As it is, I write whatever stories come to mind that I feel like putting him in. The next big story (and by big I mean like 75 parts!), "Floridian Fumes," goes back to a darker, grounded, more traditional noir feel. However, I just ordered a pack of ten film noir flicks for 5 bucks on Amazon so I can saturate my sub-conscious with them and perhaps add more of a genuine noir-ishness to the strips.

A new storyline begins! From here on out, it's all new, untested stuff. I'm curious to see how you feel it compares to the first couple of stories. This story marks the debut of a certain sexy uber-fork.

Last week, I should have given props to Big Dirty Mike again for helping me make up the Detective Fork comics. He stayed up late with me at Kinkos to copy, cut and fold.

The Original Detective Fork (& Co.) #5 is up. It's one of the 1989 comics, with the slight difference that I drew it a couple months ago. :) So, I guess "1989-style" would be more apt.

Anyway, it's appropriate that we go back to the beginning because this week's other strip is the end of Detective Fork.

Oh, just kidding! Sort of. This comic was the final strip of Detective Fork's run in my college newspaper. After two years of putting the Detective through some rough times, I decided to be nice and give him an upbeat ending.

At the time, I did not know I would be reviving Detective Fork as a Web comic. I am going to say that the events of this comic stand but how they come to be might surprise you. It's only a small glimpse into the future.

This comic also marks the beginning of the new, 2005 comics. You've seen a few newer strips here and there but the first full-fledged story of my recent work will begin on Wednesday. It's called "World's Sharpest." See you in 4!

Janice Makes an Impression is up. It follows up on Fork's secretary search and I drew this comic while on the beach in Florida. Hate me?
;-)

I got to meet comic book legend Joe Kubert this week and I have to say, just talking to the man is inspiring. He's the nicest guy and has great stories to tell. He also has had a storybook career, getting started in comics when he was TWELVE and evolving into one of the greats. I don't know if he'll ever read it but Mr. Kubert is the first owner of the hot-off-the-copy-machine Detective Fork ashcan comic book. Just the fact that he knows Detective Fork exists is enough for me. :)

I've met some cool people in my time and have had the fortune to meet some of my favorite musicians and artists. No one left me feeling mystified like Mr. Kubert did, though.

The Search for a Secretary is up.

This mega-sized comic is an unpublished strip from Detective Fork's run in The Signal.

Leather & Steel #16 is up. This comic wraps up "Leather & Steel." I know some of you were expecting a bigger resolution and, trust me, it's coming, starting in a storyline later this year. This is the beginning of an arc that will last for awhile, although it won't be touched on too much in the next two storylines (with one having 24 parts and the other 7). When I drew this story, I was limited in its length by how many issues I had of the college newspaper before I graduated! That is no longer a problem, of course. :-)

Next up: The (very short!) Secretary Saga!

An update on my entry into the Ninja Turtles contest that I wrote about last time: I got the prize in the mail and it was actually pretty cool. It's a Turtles comic book that is signed by all of the current series' creators, including Peter Laird, who created the Turtles years ago with Kevin Eastman. Even neater, each person signed their name AND drew the face of a turtle on the book! Very cool.

Leather & Steel #15 is up and it's a doozie.

For fun, I submitted a drawing to the ongoing art contest at the official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Web site. Every two weeks or so, four new winners of who knows how many submissions are chosen and those four winning pieces of art are proudly displayed on the site. To the winners go some kind of Ninja Turtles book. Now, understand that most weeks, the art is really good and is obviously done by older people. Well, I was victorious and up went my picture of a hybrid Ninja Turtle/Utrom (a Krang like creature). The other winners, however, couldn't have been over the age of 10 judging by the artwork. Needless to say, I blew them all away. Mwahahaha! Be crushed under my heel, toddlers! See what I'm talking about HERE. Makes me wonder what poor 5-year old's crayon drawing of Master Splinter I bumped out of the running.

Also up, finally, are my Snowfork pictures.

With real spring conditions finally descending upon us here in the northeastern United States, let's reflect on the snowy days of a few months ago.

Instead of clearing snow like I should have been, I got distracted by the big white canvas before me and froze my finger off drawing Detective Fork on my neighbor's front yard. The poor woman probably wondered what in the world this 2D effigy of a three-horned devil was doing in front of her porch but the wind quickly snowblasted him away. Meanwhile, the Detective used my distraction as an opportunity to take a joyride in my own "Fork Rod" and I snapped a picture of him in the midst of this mischievous act.

Unfortunately, the snow wasn't of the good packing kind, so I was unable to create a true Snowfork despite my best efforts.

All hail warm weather!

Finally, whew, Detective Fork made cameo appearances in two of my favorite Web comics this week. Check 'em out in Forkworld.