Hot Donut Salad! It's the Tastiest Deal in Town!

Where else are you going to fine 84 pages chock full of the most bizarro and heartfelt tales you'll ever read!? 

Hot Donut Salad is published by Undercover Fish Books.

Diamond Order code is: AUG121325

ORDER your copy at your local comic book retailer now!

Find a comic shop near you by going to www.diamondcomics.com and clicking on Comic Book Shop Locator or call 1-888-comicbook today!

Hot Donut Salad includes some of my earliest work, with characters like Gina the feral woman, and the adorable couple, Dollface and Chicken. In "A Night At The Movies," Dollface and Chicken go to see the French new wave film "Last Tango in Paris," thinking (from the title) that it's a light, romantic comedy. They soon find that it's, well, not quite what they were expecting...  

Stars of Summer

I love flowers! They're one of my favorite things about my favorite season. These are some shots I took on recent walks in Maine and around my neighborhood in central Mass.  

Hot Donut Salad - Spotlight on Bruce the Monkey!

What would Hot Donut Salad be without a generous helping of Bruce the Monkey? Bruce came to be during a very difficult time in my life, at the end of a relationship. Going through a break-up brings out all kinds of emotions. The mere exhaustion of it can sometimes oddly make you (or at least me) a little punchy. You get tired from all the struggle and sadness and then out of nowhere comes a burst of silliness. Well, Bruce was in one such burst.

I suddenly had this thought of how funny it would be if someone pitched a show to Lifetime TV in which a woman's husband leaves her, but to make up for the loss he buys her a pet monkey. The show would have all the schmaltzy-ness typical of Lifetime, but with a totally psychotic twist. And then I thought to myself, this is actually an interesting story idea that I want to bring to life in a comic.

It's funny because drawing Bruce and writing these stories actually brought me a lot of comfort during my difficult time. He really is a cherished friend, and I plan to continue his story!

Hot Donut Salad - Saddam Hussein Made Me Pancakes

These uncolored, unlettered pages are from my comic about Saddam Hussein making me pancakes. This comic is based on an actual dream that I had. It was around the time that Saddam Hussein was captured, so my subconscious brain was probably processing the media images just as my nose was catching a whiff of a neighbor making breakfast...

Whatever it was, after awaking and thinking about it some more, I thought maybe my psyche was trying to reconcile the disparity between Saddam's outward appearance with the actual person that he was. The dream made me realize that he does in fact kind of look like someone's bumbly, grandpa and/or a short-order cook, which kind of works against his whole 'I'm-the-embodiment-of-evil' schtick. 

Summer walks

I took these photos on a recent walk around my neighborhood... 

I saw this amazing huge tree (beech?) in a cemetery. Its roots looked like a claw...

Then check this out. I came across this gravestone of a woman whose first name was "Submit." Can you believe it? That poor woman. It would be bad enough to be born in the 1800's, as a woman, but then to be named "Submit" on top of it? I'd be like, get me out of here.

Hot Donut Salad - Spotlight on Timmy!

By now you might be asking, what IS Hot Donut Salad? What are the ingredients that make this 90-page comic concoction so tasty and delicious? WELL, one of the main ingredients is the characters. Each has a different story line. Although not connected by plot, each story combines absurd silliness with a level of sadness. The wackiness of the characters is what makes this combination work. 

So I thought I'd tell you all a little about each of them. Today the spotlight is on Timmy!  

Timmy is a boy-man character who, for some unexplained reason, is always in his underpants. He's one of those people that you can't tell whether their 'joie de vivre' comes from some kind of enlightenment or were they just dropped on their head early in life.  

Timmy has a lot of bizarre adventures in Hot Donut Salad, usually involving (but not limited to) cupcakes that are either floating in or falling from the sky. His weirdness and naivete are what make him endearing and vulnerable, and are what make you empathize with his whimsical plights.

It's funny though, because Timmy started out as a much darker character. Below is one of my earliest sketches of him, which describes some pretty tragic events as the reason for his 'condition.'

Hot Donut Salad in August Diamond Previews!

Hey everybody! Guess what!  Hot Donut Salad is listed with Undercover Fish Books in August Diamond Previews. So now's the time to run to your local comic book store and tell them you want it in stock! 


About the title and cover design:
I came up with 'Hot Donut Salad' as the title because I thought it sounded like a funny, outlandish, gross recipe consisting of donuts, lettuce, mayonnaise, thousand island dressing, cream cheese, pineapple chunks, and pimentos. I thought it would perfectly suit this collection of strange tales. Granted, none of the stories in HDS are gross, but they are outlandish, and I hope, funny.   


Because the characters in HDS each have their own story line and do not interact, I wanted the cover to depict a scene that would unite them (Timmy, Gina, Bruce, Paul, and Chicken). Once I had 'Hot Donut Salad' as the name and concept for the title, I thought it would be fun to show the characters gathered for a picnic in which it's being served in all its pulsating glory.   

Here on the front cover, Timmy is ladeling out hearty helpings of Hot Donut Salad.

Back cover