About

Welcome to Vidrio Cafe, where the comics are free, the glass is brown, and life goes on. A lifetime or so ago, I was working as the transfer station attendant for the town of LLoyd, New York. When you go to the town dump, that is the guy who tells you which recyclable goes in which dumpster. It was a terrible job, with more flies than you can imagine. Anyway, one of the dumpsters was marked “BROWN GLASS” in both English and Spanish, which is where the name Vidrio Cafe comes from. That’s why there’s an old beer bottle on the top of the page.

The comic used to be called Paperdummy, which I think was a name that people didn’t understand. Does it come from “It’s just paper, dummy?” Is it self-deprecating? No, and no. A paperdummy is a publishing term. When you’re having a book printed—a technical manual, or an instruction book, say—you might want a mockup to see how big the book will be when it’s printed. A paperdummy is a dummy copy of the book, exactly the size it will be in its final form, but with no content at all. My thinking was that this comic should be a similar kind of blank slate. I knew what size I wanted to draw at (having cut some 4" x 6" pads) but wanted the content to be intentionally unstructured: I wanted to force myself to do whatever I wanted.

I draw Vidrio Cafe when I can, but I am also working on a couple graphic novels (yes, both at once, kind of) and some other comics that you can see on my Patreon. I have price points all the way down to a dollar a month, and from time to time I post free stuff too.

Thanks for reading Vidrio Cafe!