Sean Äaberg

TOLKIEN

I started rereading the Fellowship of the Ring as kind of a book club with my kids. It has been 20+ years since I read it last & when I read it last it had been around five years probably. Anyhow, it has been great to read these pages again, pages that I’ve read over a dozen times! When I was a pre-teen I decided I would become a Tolkien scholar, not knowing that I’d want to distance myself from the stuffy & intentionally neutered academic world. A great read, my favorite read. 2022-09-18 19:18:23 +0000 UTC View Post

THOU SHALT FLYER

I did this for the Eugene based band Psyrup for a gig at the Wandering Goat probably in 2008. Anyhow, I’ve done a lot of show flyers & gig posters over the years & I love having my art being part of the street/life tapestry & it’s really important to me.

BELIEF

I had the idea that all ideology, all belief is like a parasitic mind virus that exploits some kind of weakness in the host & then tries to replicate itself while ignoring the health of the host & prioritizing replication. I don’t know if my pragmatism has gotten extreme or people’s beliefs are so getting in the way of societal function, but my theory really seems true! I use it when thinking about people whose beliefs stand out or apart from the functioning of their life. I’m n...

NEW FREEBIE CARDS!

We just got the proofs for new Freebie Cards! These will be with future Die Wursts, the new Dungeon Crawl Adventure & the new mission book I'm working on!

DUNGEON DEGENERATES IS GETTING DISTRIBUTED!

Big news! We just signed a deal with Funagain Games* to distribute Dungeon Degenerates: Hand of Doom! The game has only had spotty distribution so far, & now it is going to be much easier for stores to get with their normal orders! The window for pre-sales is open now, and we need your help! Please go ask your Friendly Local Game Store to carry Dungeon Degenerates! They can ask their normal distributor, or contact FunAgain Game...

HALLOWEEN FLAGS

I designed a couple of new Halloween flags & if they get the thumbs up from Katie, they'll appear in our store. 

ADVERTISING

A little ad we’re running in Blood of Gods zine, the internet age has changed advertising a lot, especially people’s expectations around advertising, but human psychology hasn’t changed at all! People still need a story!

HALLOWEEN BOOK

There is a delay on the Halloween Book so fulfillment will start after Halloween, but we got the advance copies & they are gorgeous!

HALLOWEEN ZINE

I'm working on a Halloween zine, this zine is going to have a feature on Stiv Bators. A side note is that we signed a distribution deal with Microcosm Publishing for these & most of the other things we publish, so my zines will be getting out there a lot more! I'm stoked!

I HAD TO DO IT

DON'T BE A DANG HALLOWEENIE!

I recolored this old comic I made in 2007 to give out to Trick or Treaters in Eugene. I was really involved with trying to make Eugene more interesting, this was as a teacher & a young parent & coming off of co-founding the civic arts project Oaklandish. I still feel like these things are important & the degree to which people celebrate Halloween in your neighborhood is a big metric of civic health. Same thing with the number & diversity of free publications in your town. Anyh...

MONSTER DRAWING CLUB!

I’m stoked to announce that the Monster Drawing Club returns!!! A whole new list with mostly new Monsters! The action starts in October on Instagram!

BREAKDOWN

This Disconnects cover was the sequel to the Nightmare Boyzzz cover of a typical PORK reader going nuts with drug abuse & seeing stuff on the streets! This was a rarity in Portland at the time but has turned into a common occurrence, including guys with knives!

LOVECRAFTIAN

It was a weird breakthrough when I realized that I could draw whatever fantasy stuff I wanted - I create elaborate rule systems for myself, at the time I was working on the American Trash Culture project that would become PORK. But I also realized that I wanted to do illustrations for Fantasy Role Playing Games. So, I worked on my own ideas!

NEW STICKERS

These are new stickers that will be going out with orders but they haven’t been sent to our fulfillment company yet!

FANTASY

My fantasy world has always had a clear feeling to it. It’s a real place, it’s not something that feels like I made it up, it feels like I am discovering it slowly.

THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE A BATMAN

Do you want a Bat Man? (Man Scrag) This is how you get a Bat Man. As a lifelong Anarchist I’ve got a fully developed moral code with no use for laws or police to enforce them. Not the case for the yahoos around me! I have no question as to the status of my personal anarchism but it is abundantly clear that the society around me needs laws & plenty of enforcement! It’s not even funny! So, my new phrase is Anarchy for me, Democracy for thee! Now I just need the enforcers to get my note!...

DUNGEON DEGENERATES

I’m lucky to have documented my drawing process so much! Also, I’ve got so much pre-stroke work that hasn’t seen the light of day! That said, I’m pretty sure how I want the next chapter of my artistic career to go, it’s a big change but I think that I’m up for it!

WHITE PEOPLE…

I got a 3 day ban on R/Portland for commenting “White People” on this photo. What I want to express is not the ban (which is whatever), but more about the concept of White People. There is definitely a dominant white culture & Portland has its own style, a style that I am not a part of. I’m definitely white, I have no question about that, but the distortions & craziness that white people have are just fucking crazy to me. We were watching the Sopranos last night, & Steve Bus...

DECADENCE

In 2010 I had a ten year retrospective art show at the Voyeur Gallery in Eugene. It was a good show, full of a solid range of work & not even touching on my DUNGEON DEGENERATES or PORK work. Even if the drawing portion of my art career has gone off the rails due to the stroke, I have been very productive since & moreso every day. (A priority for me) I probably will never be as productive as I was in my 30s, but I think that’s how the life arc goes!

TRIBULATIONS AT THE TUNNEL OF TERROR

I'm working with Erick Bouchard on his next stand-alone adventure for Dungeon Degenerates with extensive polish by Leigh Shepherd! Should be fun!

NEW PROJECTS!

I'm working on a bunch of stuff right now, the first personal zine I've worked on for over twenty years & the Würstreich for D&D 5E, there are a bunch of other things too, but these two are the ones that will probably come out sooner than other things.

From the Würstreich for D&D 5E

"Dungeons & Dragons was the first role playing game I played. I liked how the title said what it was about. I like both dungeons & dragons, & to combine the two is awesome. I ...

DIE WÜRST

Die Würst is the first zine I’ve done since PORK ended. We released three at once! I’m prolific. If you get all three they come with the exclusive Jabberwock epic monster card.

UNIQUA

I was having a realization the other day that as an artist the point should be to be unique. I’m such a competitive person that I was aiming for “better” but in doing so I arrived at unique! It’s a rough path that you have to clear on your own, no one treads it for you!

NEW POSTCARD

Seems like I design a new postcard every year or so, stickers more frequently. Anyhow, this is a postcard that Katie has been wanting for years, & here it is! This should be going out in orders in 3 weeks or so.

HELLSHIRE XII & XII

I started doing the Hellshire beer labels in 2010 for Oakshire brewing down in Eugene. We still lived in Eugene, the owner, Jeff was our neighbor, we both had jobs as teachers & we’d talk teaching, beer & whatever when we’d see each other outside. It’s been a cool project & I’m really glad it has continued since the stroke! I can’t draw new labels for it, but I can repurpose old work for them!

ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY

The style never really mattered to me, it was more the ideas… pictures are worth at least a thousand words, more if you’re trying to express complicated ideas like Vimanas & other ancient technology! I did this one in Eugene, probably around 2006, I was using Copics a lot!

REALM OF CHAOS

At some point I figured out that I could return to drawing whatever I wanted so I started drawing some fantasy stuff, in this case a Slaaneshi Chaos Space Marine on a Frenzied Mount! I get myself into a grind & then I forget about options! I think that’s the nature of the grind!

TRASH

Here’s the color version of the PORK 18 cover. I’d feel pigeon holed every six months or so doing PORK & would want to do an aesthetic reassessment, PORK 18 was very much a result of this. Also, if you remember this probably came out in 2015 when the beginnings of today’s climate were being cemented! We could have leaned in to the divisiveness that characterizes today’s world, but it has always felt wrong. So - we didn’t. Seven years on this crazy bullshit has just increased, I ...

HAPPY 4TH

Listening to the Clash’s Combat Rock & Sandinista outside waiting for our neighbors to light up the sky tonight. We had grilled hot dogs & that sort of thing & it’s nice. I know people are having a hard time with the country, but it’s important to think of what things can be & not be defined by what you’re against!