ForeverFreshman

WonderCon2012

2012-02-29T21:54:00.007-08:00

Look For us at WonderCon 2012 at the Anaheim Convention Center. March 16th-18th.

SMALL PRESS TABLE 67

Unfortunately we will not have issue 2 back from the printer in time for WonderCon, but we will have have some new merch and possibly something special for those who pre-order the book.

Hope to see you there!

Neil inking a Comic Page

2012-01-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

WIN a set of limited edition Figures!!

2011-11-27T19:55:00.001-08:00

Help us get over 300 likes on facebook and WIN! Refer a friend and you both can win a set of Forever Freshman figures! The 310th person to like our page will win as well as the person who referred them. Send people a link to our site www.foreverfreshman.com where they can learn more about us and read some free comics. If they enjoy what they see encourage them to like our facebook page for a chance to win these unique limited edition figures. Make sure they let us know you referred them. Thank you all for your continued support and Happy Holidays!!

Link to our Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/foreverfreshman

First Comic News Interview

2011-11-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

Fist Comic News interviewed us about Forever Freshman's past, present and future. If you'd like to find out more about how we met, our high school years and how we started the comic then you must read this interview. First Comic News is a great comic book resource with news, interviews, podcasts, and reviews. Make sure you check them out and support these guys!

Click on the link to read the interview

http://www.firstcomicsnews.com/

2011 Long Beach Comic Con & Comikaze Recap

2011-11-06T19:56:00.001-08:00

So we spent the last two weekends at comic conventions. The first was over Halloween weekend in long beach. This was our second time attending and the one year anniversary of our first self published comic book. Hooray!

It was nice being back in a small convention where we could take the time to talk to people about our book and what we are all about without the crazy crowds. We did however get stuck right in front of a stage where performances went on all day. Very loud and distracting when we were trying to talk to people, with the exception of the Los Angeles Chapter of Dumbledores Army busting out a sweet song and dance about their beloved Harry Potter. Besides that the stage in our opinion was there purely to ruin sales. On a better note, we meet some great people and fellow artist and creators.

Our good friend and last years table mate Sheika Lugtu was there with a trade paperback of a whole years worth of her autobiographical online comic, in which we make a appearance! Sheika is one of the most inspired, honest and enthusiastic artists/comic creators we have met. Check out her stuff at http://omgcow.blogspot.com/

Our neighbor Chris Kawagiwa was selling his prints and comics. Good Stuff.

http://chriskawagiwa.com/

Another artist a little ways down the isle was John Wales who had some original paintings and stylized prints of superheroes.

http://johnpwales.blogspot.com/

The great Geo Brawn IV promoting The Untold Chronicles.

http://brawngraphix.com/

The guys from Toonhole a very funny and dirty web comic that made me laugh to no end.

http://www.toonhole.com/

After the convention we took a walk down Pine St to check out the Zombie Art Show where Neil Segura and other great artists (Nick Marquez, Garry Booth and Kevin Bannister just to name a few) showed off some fine zombie art. You can see all of the art from the show at http://www.zombieartshow.com/

The next weekend we took a trip to downtown LA to check out Comikaze. We took a break from exhibiting and just walked around enjoying the con.

We picked up Reed Gunthers all new Trade Paperback and you should too!

http://reedgunther.com/

Sean Allen writes science fiction/fantasy novels. He's a great guy with an amazing talent.

http://www.devolutionnovels.com/

We talked to the writers of the comic book Freakshow, David Server and Jackson Lanzing. They are working on getting this comic made into a film. It's a unique story about mutant heroes. Great book and great guys!

http://freakshowcomic.blogspot.com/

John Ottinger holding his Boner. Whoa, that's the name of that little dog/skull thing. John is an amazing artist and maker of things like these crazy Optimus Prime art pieces.

http://www.facebook.com/bonerpage

Edgar Pasten is the creator of YO! A character that with a wild imagination and a thirst for adventure.

http://www.facebook.com/YOpage

Paul Roman Martinez is the creator of The Adventures of The 19XX a comic based in the WWII era. The art is great and you can't go wrong with a WWII story. Paul's set up was impressive very clean and professional.

http://adventuresofthe19xx.storenvy.com/

We picked up this semi-autobiographical trilogy of comics called Buffalo Speedway created Yehudi Mercado. It's right up our alley.

http://www.turbopizza.com/Turbo_Pizza/HOME.html

So it's been a busy last two weekends, but also an inspiring one. We are going to start working extra hard to get the next book out early next year and hopefully another one done by later 2012 before the world ends. Thank You.

Halloween Comic

2011-10-20T23:17:00.000-07:00

Check out our new Halloween mini comic. It's totally free for you to read online. We will have a limited number of printed copies at Long Beach Comic Con Oct 29-30. Have a great Halloween!

Long Beach Comic Con Oct 29-30

2011-10-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

Once again we will be attending the Long Beach Comic Con on halloween weekend. We will have a brand new halloween comic, T-shirts, buttons, original art work, burrito dolls and a skate deck for sale. This is one of our favorite events and we are happy to be apart of it once again. In addition to the comic con there will also be a Zombie Walk / Street Fest going on and a Zombie themed art show which Neil Segura will be participating in. It will be a fun all-ages event so bring the kids!

http://www.longbeachcomiccon.com/

http://zombiewalklb.com/

Comic Book Release Party Recap

2011-08-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

The release party was a huge success we couldn't have asked for a better turn out. Everyone came out to help us celebrate the release of our first full length comic book. About an hour before the party started we were stressing out trying to get everything ready on time, but everything came together nicely thanks to the help of some generous family members. Right at 7pm the first guest started to show up and they just kept coming. We were pleased to see a lot of familiar faces a few of them are actually characters in the book.

We did a whole lot of signing and taking pictures, we felt like rock stars. We're not gonna lie it felt pretty damn good! After people picked up their copy of Forever Freshman issue 1 they were able to socialized in the back while having a drink and some tasty treats. We set up a few drawing station where people could try their hand at drawing Neil and Ray. We were sooo pleased with what people drew.

Ray's sister Kalynn did a fantastic job making posters and bartending.

At 9pm we made our grand entrance with a thrilling introduction by the one and only Raul Aguirre Jr. of Man vs Art. Raul worked the crowd like only he could as we busted through a paper banner just like a High School pep rally! It was classic. That led into our raffle which our good friend and number 1 fan Rogelio (there he is up above throwing the metal sign!) helped us pick the tickets. Rogelio actually ended up winning 2 prizes himself which was well deserved. Leon Ingram won a set of block prints and Ray Mendivil Sr. was the winner of the big prize, a custom skate deck. Congratulations you guys!

After that we were able to socialize a bit and catch up with everyone. A huge thanks to Sal at Geeks for letting us have our party there and selling our book. It was really great sharing this accomplishment with friends and family. We thank everyone who came out to support us and will do our very best to give you the best Issue #2 we can.

You can see more pictures from this event on our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/foreverfreshman

San Diego Comic Con Video

2011-07-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

A fun little video of highlights from San Diego Comic Con.

San Diego Comic Con 2011 Recap

2011-07-29T15:47:00.001-07:00

Wow, we did it! We survived our FRESHMAN year at SDCC. It was a great experience, but also extremely exhausting. With only a few small conventions under our belt we had a long week ahead of us, luckily we had some familiar faces and gracious neighbors to guide us along the way.

We certainly were tiny little fish in a sea of giants, but we managed to keep our heads above water, which may not be great for fish but is totally fine with us. We learned a lot and made some valuable contacts. Next year we will be better prepared and hope to increase our fan base. For now we are just happy to have been part of such an event.

First we gotta give a great big shout out to the fans new and old who supported us. We love you and are forever grateful. THANK YOU!!!!

Kirk Kushin & Robert Luedke were super awesome neighbors.

Jim Lujan (Ghettomation), Jose Cabrera (Crying Macho Man) and Michael Aushenker (Cartoon Flophouse) brought the funny to comic con and were cool enough to be seen in public with us after the con.

We were so glad "El Muerto" creator Javier Hernandez could make it out for a few days. He was promoting his latest comic "The Battle of Santa Muerta" an action packed mash up of his characters "El Muerto" and "Weapon Tex-Mex" a must read!! He also had custom sketch dolls seen above with the freshman figures.

The coolest new find this year was definitely Ryan Claytor. His work is extremely autobiographical and hilarious. It was awesome talking to him and learning about his approach to comic making. We highly recommended picking up some of his stuff.

It wouldn't be a party without the Houghton Bros. They were promoting their re-released full color comic REED GUNTHER at the Image booth.

We had the pleasure of being interviewed by Tony Orozco from Pretty Cheeky an online entertainment website.

Back at the Forever Freshman table we partied with Yo! and Boner.

Here are some more fun photos

The most surprising and inspiring thing we saw was the Aquabats panel. These guys have been trying to make a TV show since the 90's and finally they are teaming up with the HUB network to bring us "The Aquabats Super Show". Best of luck to those guys.

San Diego Comic Con 2011

2011-07-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

We will be in the Small Press Pavilion

Table Q-15

A Sneak Peak at Issue 1

2011-07-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

The new book will be available in just a few weeks. Until then we made this video trailer for your enjoyment.

Comic Book Release Party!!!!!

2011-06-23T21:18:00.001-07:00

Saturday, August 13th 7:00pm - 10:00pm

Join us as we celebrate the release of our first full length comic book entitled "Forever Freshman and the Cunning Code Crackers of the Girl Network". A story about two awkward band geeks who are smitten by a new girl and must journey into unfamiliar territory in order to infiltrate the so-called "Girl Network"! It's full of laughs, action, and some good humored cartoon violence.

Get your copy signed by the creators Neil Segura (Illustrator) and Ray Mendivil (Writer). See original artwork, join a raffle, and check out all the new products including figures, T-shirts, buttons, stickers and more…

Food, Drinks, music and lots of fun will be had by all!

Come out and support your local Indie Comic Creators!

Geeks Comics

6747 Greenleaf Ave Suite A

Whittier Ca 90601

562 696-9393

New Comic Book Coming July 2011!

2011-05-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

"Forever Freshman and the Cunning Code Crackers of the Girl Network" is our first full length standard size comic book. It will make it's public debut at 2011 San Diego Comic Con in July. We will make the book available online soon after. We are planning other conventions this year to promote the book. Check back for more updates.

Anaheim Wizard World Recap

2011-05-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

We had a blast at Wizard World Anaheim! It was a busy, but productive weekend. We met a lot of great people and made some good contacts. Everytime we do a convention we learn something new. This time around we learned that buttons sell! We hand made a large variety of buttons, mostly of our characters, but we also had a few with just text. To our surprise the biggest seller that weekend was button that simply said " I Farted". Who knew.

Ray and Neil making buttons.

Besides peoples interest in proclaiming their flatulence, there was a solid response to our comic. We proudly displayed our newly printed books, which arrived just in time saturday morning. Previous to the new prints, we were hand making our comics, which we probably won't do again. Those of you who got one of the hand made books, should feel special.

We had a steady flow of people stoping by our table all weekend. We had some great conversations with many different people of all age groups. It's really hard to tell who is gonna be into our book. We found that people are drawn to different things. The most obvious are the fellow band nerds, we met a few of them. As soon as they heard us say "A story about two band geeks", they immediately responded "I was in band too. What instrument did you play." Then we totally nerd out about our band experiences. We had a few young kids stop by who were sold on the fun cartoony art style alone. I'm not sure if they enjoyed the story, since it's not exactly Nick Jr. material. A few people were interested in the skateboard decks, some liked the sketch cards. It was all over the board.

Friends Edgar Pasten and John Ottinger had a booth in a prime spot. Their booth was amazing. It was interactive, colorful and covered top to bottom with merchandise. Sculpted figures, Plush Dolls, Paintings, and Comic Books were just a few of the items for sale. You could not miss the giant bright green YO! figure.

Nathaniel Osollo was our neighbor. He has an interesting comic called 140. All the dialog in his book come from tweets. If you were to read it without knowing the concept, it could get very confusing, but once you understand the concept you realize how genius it is. Nathaniel does a great job of telling the story through his drawings which are very expressive and surreal. The theme for this book is the number 3, and it reoccurs throughout the story. There is an awesome triclops with a gun! What more do you need.

I picked up another really cool comic by Gabe Swarr who is the creative mind behind a web comic called " Life in The Anolog Age". I was first drawn to his table by the overwhelming amount of ORANGE. Gabe's comic has great drawings, 80's nostalgia and autobiographical subject matter. I was immediately hooked. I bought the comic and a print. His animations are really cool too.

We ran into our old pals Chris and Shane Houghton of Reed Gunther. It's always a pleasure to talk to these guys. We congratulated them on their new partnership with Image Comics. They are taking the comic world by storm, you really gotta pick up a copy of their books. Ray picked up a cuddly Sterling Bear, since we already own all the comics.

Ray also picked up a print from the very talented Terry Huddleston. This guy is so awesome, even after a guy in a green lantern costume puked right in front of his table, people were still coming over and buying prints. Freakin amazing!

We got a lot of compliments about our wonderful Fleece backdrop created by Forever Freshman pal Mitzi Olea. She did a great job with the banner, but did an even greater job making little fleece characters at the show Saturday. We hope to commission her to make some more for San Diego.

All in all good times. Just totally burned out. As much as we love talking about ourselves we were happy to say farewell to Anaheim and enjoy a great big BBQ dinner afterwards!

A great big thanks to everyone who came out. We are so grateful for all the support.

Inking

2011-04-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

Here are two pages I have started inking. I am trying different technique this time around. I am going to ink the characters first with a brush and then go back to ink the background with pens and markers. In doing this I hope to separate the characters from the background, giving them more energy and an organic feel. Many of the structures and objects have straight lines, so my plan is to give them similar line weights and treat them in a more mechanical manner. This is also helping to create an overall cohesive look. So, we'll see if this technique works out, for now I'm just enjoying inking the characters.

Anaheim Comic Con April 2011

2011-04-07T19:55:00.000-07:00

We will be at the Wizard World Anaheim Comic Con April 29, 30 & May 1. Looks like it will be a good turn out this year. Our table is near the Cafe, so after you get your nachos and a hot dog stop by and say hello. We will have our second run of the comic all nice and professionally printed. The FRESHDECK designed by Ray Mendivil will be on display, along with sketches, prints and who knows what else!

Penciled Comic Pages

2011-03-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

We are still working away at the new book. Neil is penciling in the pages and Ray is fine tuning the dialog. Right now half the book is penciled, and should be on its way to print in late April. We will premier the new book at GEEK CON in June. Look out for that, it's gonna be awesome. Till then here are a few penciled pages soon to be inked.

We will also be making our second print run of the premier issue of Forever Freshman, which will be ready for the Anaheim Comic Con in late April. This new print run will include this illustration on the last page.

Welcome to the new Forever Freshman site!

2011-03-11T20:06:00.000-08:00

It's the same as the old site, no work needed on your part. If you could hit the follow button to the right of the page we would surely appreciate it. Stay tuned for updates!

-Neil & Ray