Category Archives: comix

Coming Soon: Rashy Rabbit In Rabbit On The Half Shell.

Boy, naming a comic sure is hard. Why, it’s much harder than naming a part of your anatomy or a child. You really got to live with it forever.

Other titles I have kicked around: ‘Rashy Rabbit in Mutiny On The Booty‘ or just ‘Rashy Rabbit’s Droppin’ Anchor’.

What do you think, dear reader(s)?

Coming Soon…

Coming soon…in, oh let’s say, April…

Super Secret Rashy Rabbit No. 7 Preview-O-Rama

Coming soon, really, really, really soon.


Ben Towle on A Rabbit In King Arthur’s Food Court: A Rashy Rabbit Adventure

“Latta’s background in animation really shows through in things like character design, great gestures/expressions, and a wonderful sense of timing–and it all works great on the printed page.” – Ben Towle, cartoonist.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

Franquin’s Dark Thoughts


Some things the Belgians will always be better at doing than us, like waffles and uh, more waffles. Oh, and cartooning.  The best cartoonist in the world seem to all come from that tiny, little European country. Today’s case in point:  André Franquin (January 3, 1924 – January 5, 1997) could be the finest draftsmen to ever dip his pen in the ‘bigfoot’ well.

Franquin cut his teeth on children’s comics,from a early age, first appearing in the pages of Spirou from the 40′s through the 60′s, drawing and scribing such hits as  Spirou et Fantasio and Gaston Lagaffe.

After Franquin’s second nervous breakdown (cartoonist are the neurotic types), he started work on his finest  and most personal strip yet, Idées Noires (aka “Dark Thoughts”). It’s a shame these strips haven’t been translated into English, or actually, the shame is that I don’t read a word of French.

Despite my lack of worldliness, I really connect with these strips, and if you read my blog, chances are, you will too.

ANOTHER sneak preview of Rashy Rabbit 7

So, this is how the magic happens, how the fudge is made, how the, uh,um.  I guess I am all out of analogies now.  Here’s another super-secret sneak preview of the STILL untitled 7th issue of Rashy Rabbit. I am almost done with the thumbnailing process. I guess I have to start writing a script. I am thinking of just blowing these up, printing it as blue line art and inking directly on the bastards.  That’d save me the process of tracing in pencil. I really need to speed this crap up. I got many Rashy tales to tell and not much time. Y’see, I am dying. Not really. Well, one day I will.

Sneak Preview Of The Next Rashy Rabbit

Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. Here is a super secret sneak peek of what’s happening to your pal and mine, Rashy Rabbit in his still-untitled 7th issue.

I am about halfway through the thumbnailing stage  which just means that I have to write the script, blow up the thumbnails, trace the thumbnails in blue non repro pencil, ink  them, scan the pages and then print the comic. *sigh* Why do I bother?

Anyway, I am surprised it’s taken me this long to draw a comics with a character lost at sea.

A Rabbit In King Arthur’s Food Court is Midnight Fiction’s Favorite.

Would you look at that?  Richard Krauss of Midnight Fiction awarded the latest Rashy Rabbit adventure, ‘A Rabbit In King Arthur’s Food Court’ an MF favorite for 2010!

I gotta say that I am super flattered, because I know that Richard has read hundreds upon hundreds of comics this year alone.

What makes it a fave? According to Richard, “A favorite is a favorite—a reading experience that delivers something extra.”

Thanks for the award, Midnight Fiction!


The Comics Journal on A Rabbit In King Arthur’s Food Court: A Rashy Rabbit Adventure


“Latta’s work has that underground feel to it in its tension between slacker sleaziness and cute figure work.” -Rob Clough

CLICK HERE FOR FULL REVIEW

Heroes Con 2010 Report: Nerds Gone Wild

Oh, hello! I didn’t see you there. I guess I was too busy reading comics to notice you coming to this blog. Y’ see, it’s hard for me to do much else but read funnies after getting back from Heroes Con.

Travelmates/bedbuddies Brad McGinty, J. Chris Campbell and I met up and made the trek up to North Carolina- Oh wait, is Charlotte in North Carolina? I’ll have to ask our Father-figure slash roomie and all out organizer-for-us, Rob Ullman, when I get a chance. At any rate, we made the trek up to the greatest comic convention in the world, Heroes Con.  What makes it so great, you ask? Some nerve! Well, I mean like, besides the fact I get to see my favorite people in comics and/or world, I get more comics than I can shake a limited edition light saber sword at. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself.

We came rollin’ up in my ’97 Corolla on Friday morning and decided to bite the bullet and park in a 20 dollar parking lot. I mean, like, dudes. We hadda lot of crap to carry, and I doubt you’d mistake Brad, J.Chris and I as people from your gym. (Rob Ullman, maybe, but still.) As it turns out, we didn’t move my car for the weekend so we got to slip out on Sunday sans paying for parking. Looks like we won this round, Heroes. Haha!

Friday was a bit slow on sales for all of us, well, everyone I talked to, but honestly, I didn’t notice. I don’t even think I was behind the table all that much,leaving my good friend Shannon Smith to man the table we shared as I was making the rounds and seeing what’s new with all my comic buddies. “Not much” was the resounding consensus. Comic people are so modest. I was pleased and surprised to see so many of my Athens pals (Robert Newsome, Patrick Dean, Joey Weiser, David Mack and Drew Weing) also seated in Indie Island. No wonder this show feels more like home that my hometown show ever does. Burn, Dragon*Con, burn!

That night Rob, J.Chris, Brad, Shannon and I met up with another good friend and favorite person in comics, Ben Towle, and had a costly dinner at some Chinese restaurant. Well, costly for us poor folks. We discussed comics(duh) and the breasts of our waitress and how they were all hanging out and stuff. Later on, we had a screening of Brad’s brilliant cartoons in the Dollar Bin suite. It always sounds funny to say, but sometimes I forget just how brilliant Brad really is. His cartoons slayed, and unlike last year, security didn’t squelch our party down plans, and party down we did,man! We drank like it was going out of style, just like comics books. We all woke up with hangovers the next day and ahead of schedule. Oh well, what can you do?

After a little hair of the dog, we got it together with some bagels and coffee and hit the convention. We got to see our pal, Ashley Holt, which of course, was really nice. Homeboy is smart.  Also, I got to spend time with my sister Sally Bloodbath and her boyfriend Matt Wiegle which was also very nice. Jeez, I need a thesaurus. Sales were pretty darn good, and I musta done, like, zillions of sketches.

That night we made our annual trek to Phat Burrito where I got to spend some time with Sally, Matt, Liz Ballie, Jackson New Jersey’s very own Meghan Ansbach and her boyfriend Lee. We mostly discussed records, n’ things, which was a welcome change from the 34 hours of comic talk. Ah, who I am kidding? We talked about comics too. Also, during the course of the evening, Brad, J.Chris, Rob and I had a beer with Tom Spurgeon and talked about the Atlanta comic scene. Surprise, surprise. I had only negative things to say about it. I read Comics Reporter daily, so this was a highlight of the show for me.

Later on that night, I got a chance to smoke a little grass* with my man P. Cleland and another unnamed cartoonist.
*Just kidding. We’d never really do anything illegal on the top of a parking garage.

Sunday is my shopping day, so shopping I did. I bought some weird, wacky comics for a dollar a piece, like this weird Daffy and Roadrunner comic (all the Looney Tunes birds,together at last!) and some peak Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge comics, because I can’t come home without duck books. Speaking of which, Boom! Studios was there with there new Disney comics, which I am a big fan of, especially the Euro duck stuff. Man, that’s some cartoony goodness! I love it. Love it, I say. We need more like that. I heard a DuckTales book is around the bend.

It’s always depressing packing up after this show, and this year was no different. I would say though, without a doubt this was my best year at Heroes. The con was stress free, and I sold a metric ton of crap. What more can I ask for? This is sleep-away camp for nerds that never went to camp.

Welp, that’s about it- Oh wait, I’d love to mention a few more fine people. Warning: more plugs than Steve Carell’s hairline up ahead.
Ken Dahl, M.K. Reed, Evan Dahm, Pale Rider crew, Gabriel Dunston, Chris Pitzer, Dean Trippe, Jason Horn, Van Jensen, Rob Venditti, Travis J. Hill, Jamie Walker, Boom!, Tom Bancroft, David Mack, Dollar Bin Podcast (Adam,Ted, Brian, Kris, Devin, Brandon), Mr.Phil, Martin Steenton, Andy Ruton, Heather McKinney, Stephanie Gladden, John Miller, Chris Schweizer, Duane Ballenger, Rich Barrett, Erakis Pemeza, Shawn Daughhetee, Scott Elingburg, Justin and Jason Gammon and Jamie Ouzts extra special thanks goes out to my man Dustin Harbin for inviting me to be part of Indie Island. See ya next year, sucker.

Tune in soon for more news on the next Rashy Rabbit!