Whatever 2

I couldn't actually find the original files so I had to scan one of the printed issues. It made the artwork looks extra gritty, which I think actually work in it's favour. 

In Whatever 2 we wanted to explore Beatrix' real life and find out what kind of life can create such a bizarre and demented child. The result was hands down the darkest story I've ever written with some amazing art from Sally. It was so dark that one review tore us apart for being mean spirited and vicious for the sake of it. I stand behind this story, but I doubt we'll go in that direction again any time soon in future installments of Whatever (and yes, a new story is on the way, after over six years!).

Whatever 2 is a triple feature including some more "traditional" Whatever humour for balance.

Enjoy.

--Mickey

Pritty Please

Ah, Pritty Please. An early effort by Kenric and me. I tried cramming too much story into twenty two pages and some of the artwork was rushed due to deadlines, but I'm still quite fond of it. It's a strong concept and the end result isn't all bad. There's lots of action and some silly one-liners to make it worth a read. Lets just say that you learn from your mistakes and that Pritty Please was a great learning experience for us...!

There are plans to reboot the concept from scratch and I hope it'll work out better on round two. Until then, you can read the first effort here.

--Mickey

Dick Taistee

This is one of the few comics I illustrated myself. Jeff Smith (creator of Bone) stopped at our booth in one comics convention and bought a copy of C4 where this story was originally published in black and white. He pointed at the artwork and said he liked it. So I can say, without lying, that Jeff Smith likes my penis. That's OK because I also like his Bone.  Haha.

If you find these penis puns painful, avoid reading this strip at all costs because you'll find it too hard (hahaha) to read.

--Mickey

Jewish Comics!

Digging up through some of our old stuff I found this old submission Sally and I made for the Jewish Chronicles. Just in time for the Jewish holidays!

--Mickey

Vampy the Buffalo Slayer

Vampy the Buffalo Slayer is a short and sweet Buffy the Vampire Slayer parody by Kenric Narbrough and Mickey Blumental.

--Mickey

Chip

A short story by Sally-Anne Hickman and me. It was printed as part of the anthology C4.

You can read it here.

--Mickey

Puppy Love

Along with restoring old Cheese Comics content and creating new webcomics, we'll also add other work we created over the years outside of Cheese Comics.

Puppy Love is a World of Warcraft strip made with screenshots taken in-game. The cast consists of my main character at the time and my friends' characters as well as key non-player character. Needless to say, most of the jokes require some familiarity with the game.

World of Warcraft is fun, but requires the time investment of a part-time job so I gave up, but it was fun while it lasted.

You can read all 13 strips here.

--Mickey

Sally Shines: Comic Heroes Magazine Feature

Sally is one of people mentioned in a small press article in Comic Heroes Magazine with several samples of her work.

Yay Sally!

You go girl!

--Mickey

Whatever 1

I re-uploaded Whatever 1 while still working on the new website. Now you can read the entire sold out issue! Catch up with the old adventures of Beatrix Bordeaux before her spectacular-ish come back.

Well, actually I think I might have a few extra copies stashed up in the attic, but you know what I mean.

Click here to read it.

--Mickey

Scrambled Eggs

This one pager by Sally was the backcover of one of our comicbooks. It just had to be printed in colour!

--Mickey

Webcomics vs Small Press

Cheese Comics' original focus was printed media. There's nothing like holding a comicbook in your hands and flipping the pages to find out what happens next. It's simply a special experience that can't be recreated electronically, not even with a flashy iPad and a comicbook reader.

So we launched Cheese Comics in 2003 with three printed books. We made 200 copies of each. Since colour printing was cost prohibitive we only printed the covers in colour. I can't remember the numbers, but for each issue the colour cover cost more than all of the black and white pages put together. Each issue cost more than £1 to print so we couldn't sell for less than £2 a pop which put us in the same price range of the Marvel/DC full colour main stream books. On paper it didn't look like such a great deal.

We went to a few comics conventions where we sold 20 or so issues on average from each title. Now, if we sold 20 or so issues in every single comicbook shop in the world it'd be great, but we didn't. We only got to a few conventions here and there. Very few comicbook shops agreed to stock our books and without any promotion they just sat there gathering dust.

Months later we decided to upload them all to the website and suddenly dozens of people a day could read them. We didn't make money of it, but that was never the goal. Not right away, anyway. First we needed to promote ourselves as comics creators and putting your comics on-line meant that hundreds, if not thousands, of people could see your work in the same time span you work your ass off to sell one hundred books.

We got carried away with life, and to some extent that hasn't changed for the better for any of us, but we decided to give it another push and create some new material before we die of old age and let our dream die with us. Our focus now is solely on-line. Once we collect enough new material we might consider printing, but that would be just a side-bonus.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll start restoring the website content together with a new design and the first thing to go up will be our old work. So if you missed it the first time around, it's not too late. I'm even going to make special versions that can be read offline with comicbook readers on your computer or phone. 

Exciting times ahead...

--Mickey

We're back!

Well, we're on the way to coming back. After my web host deleted all my files (thank you onedollarhost!) I decided it was a good time for a site makeover. It was seven years since the last redesign and a few good years before new content was added by the Cheese Comics crew. We're all working on new projects and this blog will be the place to get sneak peeks and behind the scenes stuff.

While getting ready for the new material, I'll be restoring some of our "vintage" comics back to the website for your reading pleasure. Bear with us as we get this show back on the road!

--Mickey