Deez clowns ain’t even under Division 18 jurisdiction, but we’re still gonna send some mooks over to bust their skulls on principle alone. Needless to say, this particular guy has got a lot of balls fer showin’ his face around here.

[Warning: This post has nothing to do with the apparently almost over WGA strike. But we do still support that cause and look forward to production resuming on Lost.]

So there I was today, literally minding my own business scrolling through the Division18.com web statistics, when I saw a perfect three-way split in our Web Search Criteria Report. 

Anyone with a website knows this is always a fun list to read, between the self-satisfaction you can get from seeing that people are actually looking for you or your work and the unintentional comedy of the handful of quirky search results that occasionally accidentally direct random surfers to the site. But self-satisfaction is always the best part for me. The self-high five can be a wonderful thing and I do love patting myself on the back. So you can imagine my disappointment when it sunk in that this perfectly distributed list of only three search items comprised the following:

1. “D18 Jeremy” – This is certainly not the problem. Jeremy is a workhorse and he deserves far more credit than  do for the comic. And it’s nice to see our hip, branded abbreviation for the comic title, D18, is catching on. Matt’s mood: not disappointed yet.

2. “Division 18″ — This one is a no brainer. I would be shocked if this wasn’t on the search list. Matt’s mood: still doing fine.

3. “Huge Vag!na” — Note the exclamation point in place of the letter i is there now because we’d rather avoid a ton of traffic from sex sites, gynocologists, and itchy women. But this is it. Three of three on this month’s search list. Are you effin’ kidding me, people?! I was happy when you searched for the artist. I was thrilled when you searched for the book itself. But then, instead of googling yours truly JUST ONCE, you all got sidetracked trying to satisfy your sick fetish for super-sized babymakers?! Well hear this perverts — Division 18: The Union of Novelty Costumed Performers is not, has never been, and (unless sales really take a dive) will never be about giant lady parts. 

Hrmph. Matt Bergin < Huge Vag!na? Thanks fer nuthin’, so-called fanbase! Of course, in my defense, the list was evenly distributed… so that means Jeremy Donelson = Huge Vag!na.

Matt’s mood: WTF?!

In a related note, I guess I ought to go bone up on my skills so I can garner more respect. I’ll start by checking out D18 publisher Christian Beranek’s brand new blog — What It Takes To Make It In Comics. 

Always plugging.

I leave the place for 5 minutes, and this what happens. Huge Vag!nas. Monkey costume guy with his junk hanging out. Sigh.

So allow me to wash out your brain with some various stuff that I’ve seen on the comics interweb lately. These are things that have been inspiring me as I work on issue #3. We’ve already seen what’s inspiring Matt…

Evan Dorkin posted Jaime Hernandez con sketches from the early 80’s on his blog. Holy mother of cripes.

Michael Lark interviews Sean Phillips. Phillips is the artist on Criminal, which for my money is probably the best comic you’re going to find on the stands today (except for Division 18, natch). You probably also know his work from Marvel Zombies and Sleeper. You’ve seen Michael Lark’s art on Gotham Central, Daredevil and plenty of other projects.

What am I reading these days? I’ve been deep into Norton’s collections of Will Eisner’s graphic novels lately. While the case could of course be made that the stories are too melodramatic, I find them more readable and more graphically inventive than The Spirit. You can find a lot more examples as well as a deeper look at Eisner’s art at Warren Peace Sings the Blues.

Thanks to Luke Foster over at The Pulse for his top-notch review of D18 1 & 2.

Read for yourself!

Straight from the thumbnails for issue #3, Snake enjoys a delicious cup of morning coffee. Yes, he’s enjoying it at Mother Effer’s Tuesday morning Happy Hour… but it’s still just the pick-me-up he needs to start his day off right! Oops, looks like it’s filled a little too close to the rim there, Snake!

You’d be surprised to find out what our lovable lard ass Lou was up to before joining the Union.

Here’s a little warm-up sketch I drew of the boss-man, Tony. He looks uncharacteristically pensive in this pose… though that might just be indigestion. A lot of Tony’s moods can be blamed on indigestion.

At a recent Oxford Health Alliance conference, experts declared that obesity is a greater threat than terrorism. The greatest threat? Fat terrorists.

This has nothing to do with our comic, though it probably has plenty to do with the majority of fanboys who read it. You’re on notice, tubby.