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ICECUBES in Japanese!
Posted on October 6, 2025 by Leroy Brown
Dear friends, I recently went on a surprise trip to Japan. It has to be said that Japan is the land of comics and cartoons, except they call them manga and anime. Did you know that manga and anime are one of Japan's biggest exports? It's amazing to see all the billboards, signs, TV shows and even subways full of cartoons and cartoon characters. To celebrate our great visit to Japan, I made an ICECUBES strip in Japanese! Accordingly, it is read from right to left and from top to bottom.

    Mini contest!

The first person to translate this strip in the comments below will get a free download of ICECUBES vol. 2 in pdf format. Leave the comment right here:

7 thoughts on “ICECUBES in Japanese!”

  1. Owen wooff

    Peckinpaw: “It’s difficult!”
    Freeze: “please draw it!”

    1. Leroy Brown

      Leroy Brown

      Congrats, you did it! Although it reads right to left, so Freeze first says: “Draw please!” and then Peckinpaw says “It’s difficult!”. Freeze is trying to get Peckinpaw out of his slump and wants him to draw another comic strip. We’ll see if he does… In the meantime you just won a free digital download of ICECUBES Vol. 2!

    2. Leroy Brown

      The link was sent to the email you provided when commenting. Thank you for being an ICECUBES reader!

      1. Owen wooff

        The link didn’t work

        1. Leroy Brown

          Hi Owen, I sent you a new link.

  2. J.P. Keslensky

    Very glad you had a wonderful trip to Japan. Very exciting. Love to hear more about your visit.

    1. Leroy Brown

      Thank you so much! I’ll make a post about it. It was quite the adventure.

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Artist Edition.

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Leroy Brown
ICECUBES the comic strip - book Limited Numbered Artist Edition. Here are the numbers that I still have: 54/ 55/ 57/ 58/ 59/ 170/ 173/ 176/ 177/ 178/ 181/ 183/ 184/ 186/ 192/ 195/ 196/ 197/ 198/ Very few left, hand numbered, bagged & boarded, individually personalized. No shipping until January 1st.
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Bo Lumpkin Our Friend.

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Leroy Brown
Bo Lumpkin was probably ICECUBES’ biggest fan. For a couple of years now he faithfully read ICECUBES and always commented on the strips. Often his comment would be the only one the strip would get. Even during lean times when it seemed all the other readers had disappeared, I could always count on Bo. I loved Bo’s comments. They were always funny, clever and most of all supportive. I remember one time when I felt the strip was being completely ignored and the web stats were down in the low single digits, there it was: a comment from Bo! I replied to his comment: “Hey Bo, knew I could count on you! 🙂 I’m hearing crickets otherwise… I think the internet generation is miffed ;)” and Bo replied this: “Crickets might be a good idea. No one seems to be bittin’ the other bait I keep throwin’ out.” Classic Bo! At times I can honestly say that his comments were the only thing that kept me motivated. So for that, I can only say: “Thanks Bo! :)” Leroy Brown ps: as proof of how good a friend Bo was to us webcomic artists, here’s a short list of other tributes: Life On 66 Bug Pudding Bearman Cartoons My Life In The Trenches The Joy Of Stephen

Holiday Special!

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Leroy Brown
Ok dear friends, as promised here is the *fantastic holiday special* on ICECUBES the Book! From now until January 1st 2014 *free shipping* on all book purchases (USA & Canada only and just $10 overseas for up to 2 books)!! That’s right, every book comes with free shipping so you only pay $15 for a regular copy or $20 for the numbered artist edition! I only have 19 numbered edition books left! (I’ll be glad to email you the numbers, just shoot me an email at icecubescomic(at)yahoo(dot)com.) I will sign and personalize every book, no exceptions! 🙂
Artist Numbered Edition! (they come bagged & boarded)
Additionally, with every purchase of a numbered edition I’ll include a super special limited edition copy of AtomikComix! This little zine was made for Houston Zine Fest and is the prelude for a book of my early underground comics. These were $5 each at Zine Fest and you can get one for free with your purchase of a numbered edition ICECUBES book! Hurry and get your books, the first printing of ICECUBES the Book is just about all gone! I just want to take this opportunity to say a big *thank you* to everyone who continues to support ICECUBES and helps to keep this strip alive! You make it all happen! More great things to come in 2014! Merry Christmas everyone and have a wonderful New Year 2014! 🙂 Leroy Brown
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Talking Balloons and Blue Lines!

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Leroy Brown
Recently I did a strip that required a lot of talking balloons in one single panel. I had to plan it out so that it could be read and understood properly and that there would be room for the characters as well. It took some fussing around and I ended up scoring the entire height of the panel with blue lines! ICECUBES the comic strip 220 pencils Since I don’t use a computer for lettering, once I place something I have to commit to it. In the past cartoonists would often blue line their whole strip and I’ve seen Lil Abner strips that were scored from top to bottom regardless of how much text there was! This was often done by an assistant. In my case I was surprised to get to that point where I actually had to do it for practical purposes. Pretty neat! You can see the inked panel here. ICECUBES the comic strip 220 ink I was pretty happy with the end result, especially in the last panel where I had to use some white paint for the snow effects! ICECUBES the comic strip 220 panel b
You can own this strip if you’d like! I am making it available with *free shipping* to anywhere in the US and Canada, and only $10 shipping overseas. I will gladly sign it and personalize it for you as well! **SOLD**
Read the final published strip *here*. Thanks for visiting! 🙂

Busy behind the scenes!

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Leroy Brown
ICECUBES comic zines and more Hello ICECUBES friends! Here are some of the things ICECUBES has been involved in ‘offline’ recently. In September I participated in the ComiCulture symposium at the University of Houston Clear Lake along with artists like James O’Barr (The Crow). October was time for the Houston Zine Fest. I even published a special ‘zine’ for the occasion: Atomik Comix.This contains never before published underground stuff I’ve done over the years put together for this little zine as a prologue to a full blown Atomik Comix book I am secretly working on… More to come. All this while going to conventions to promote the book and continuing to publish the comics page for my local news paper with contributions from Zombie Boy, Urban Jungle, Spudcomics, The Amaizing Jim Corn and PicPak! *phew!* 🙂 Leroy Brown

ICECUBES featured at University of Houston Comiculture symposium!

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Leroy Brown
Comiculture Icecubes Hey folks, ICECUBES is going to be part of a ‘cool’ comics symposium at the University of Houston – Clear Lake tomorrow September 21. If you are in the area it should be a great event to attend. There will be talks about comic art and writing as well as an art show and movie screening. Check out the flyer and mark the date. Comiculture Icecubes You can get more info here: www.comiculture.org Special thanks to Terry Wagner of Mental Diversions and Jeffrey Bowen, Art Gallery director at UHCL.

Moon Pie Dreams.

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Leroy Brown
Moon Pie As a kid I always loved Moon Pies. They’re sort of like magical ice cream sandwiches that can survive outside a refrigerator, with several delicious layers of frosting, cookie and marshmallow. These days I find myself craving them as a midnite snack when I’m hard at work on ICECUBES. Fortunately, my local Walmart stocks them including my favorite, the original banana flavor! One day I started wondering what it would be like to work at a Moon Pie factory. Do the people that make Moon Pies for a living ever stop to think: ‘Why am I doing this? What’s the point of making Moon Pies?’ All the machinery, the cooks, the packaging, the delivery trucks, etc. Sometimes, I wonder myself: ‘What’s the point of making comics?’. I’m not helping to solve the world’s problems or inventing new cures for disease, I’m just drawing a simple little comic. And then it dawned on me, that if a Moon Pie can bring me a small amount of comfort and happiness at midnite when I’m sweating over my drawing table, then perhaps, somewhere, somehow, ICECUBES can bring a little smile to someone too. That would really make it all worthwhile. So if I worked at a Moon Pie factory, I would tell myself that while I may not be helping to cure cancer, my work still had some meaning because somewhere, someone is enjoying a delicious midnite snack. 🙂