LAST POST OF THE DECADE!

It's Batman!

Catch you in 2010.

ALLOW ME TO RE-INTRODUCE MYSELF!

It's another drawing of THE FOX.

I'm getting a little obsessive, I'll stop now.

Thanks for looking.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

From my family to yours......Happy Holidays!

THE FOX

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I'll try to do better in 2010.

My buddy Mike Oeming is drawing a comic story of The Fox.

This pulp style hero was created by Alex Toth for

Red Circle comics back in the 70s. Now he's being revived by DC.

I'm jazzed for Mike, and super jealous at the same time.

I thought I'd do my own drawing of The Fox just for fun.

Hope you dig it. Thanks for looking.

Happy Holidays everyone!

BIG OGRE

I did a signing last night as a part of the Nob Hill Shop & Stroll.

Had a great time signing and sketching through the cold.

I met upcoming comics superstar AARON CAMPBELL (good dude).

Who knew there were other comics pro's here in ABQ?

Here's a drawing of a big ogre I did at the signing.

Thanks for looking.

HERO INITIATIVE-WOLVERINE COVER

A short while ago I did this

Wolverine cover drawing for The Hero Initiative.

They are currently auctioning my cover,

and others by more talented people on ebay.

All the proceeds go to help former and current

comics professionals in need.

To bid on it GO HERE.

Thanks in advance.

SUPERMAN

This is a drawing of Superman that I did for an

auction to benefit a local food bank.

I'm no man of steel but I try to help out when I can.

Thanks for looking.

SAMURAI JACK

Today's post is a drawing of Samurai Jack,

done in a faux sumi brush style.

SJ is one of my favorite cartoons of all time,

and it's creator Genndy Tartakovsky is a freakin' genius!

Have a great weekend.

Thanks for looking.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

For those that celebrate it, have a happy Thanksgiving.

For those who don't, have an awesome thursday!

MILES DAVIS

Today's post is a drawing of Miles Davis.

An amazing musician with an equally amazing face!

Thanks for looking.

OUTLAW TERRITORY

Today I'm posting my thumbnails from a story I did for the second

Outlaw Territory anthology coming soon from Image comics.

It's a story about Bass Reeves, a real character from the old west.

This guys life was so incredible,

I can't believe they haven't made the movie yet.

It was written by my bud Shannon Denton and it's colored

by the supremely talented Kelsey Shannon. Watch for it.

As always, thanks for looking.

FIREBREATHER - FINISHED PAGES

Continuing from my last post...

My next step is to blow up the layouts

to full page size ( in this case 8.75 x 13.5).

I do my Firebreather pages smaller than the

normal 10 x 15 to save time (HA!).

After I blow up my layouts I print them out on 11 x 17 paper.

I then tape the layout to the back of a piece of bristol board

and put it on a lightbox. I then start inking.

I try to draw as much as I can in ink.

As you can see, however by comparing the last two posts,

there are always bits and pieces that need to be changed.

That's when I get out the pencil.

I'd love to say that I never pencil anything and

that I just draw it all in ink, but that's not the case.

I try to pencil as little as possible (mostly it's fixing faces and hands).

The main reason for this is that the more times

I redraw something the more I suck the life out of it.

As i said in a recent post I dream of a day when I'm confident

enough to ink strait from my thumbnails. Or better yet,

draw the whole thing in ink with no under drawing whatsoever.

A cartoonist can dream can't he?

Thanks for looking.

FIREBREATHER - LAYOUTS

Young talent Brian Churilla axed me to post more process stuff.

Since he's almost the only one looking at this blog......sure, why not?

Today I'm posting layouts from the last Issue of Firebreather.

When i draw a funnybook I usually do the entire issue as thumbnails

first (see yesterdays post). I do these 1.37" x 2.25 "and I can fit

an entire issue on a page of 8.5 x 11 paper.

I then blow up my thumbnails to about 3.25" x 5.25"

and redraw them on tracing paper.

These are what I've posted here.

At this point I am changing and fixing the layouts.

I am also spotting blacks as well.

For most artists the next step would be pencils.

I work much tighter than many artists at the layout stage

because I try to do as little pencilling as possible.

At every juncture I am trying to fix and refine the work

to the best of my abilities. Many times I'll get to the finished page

stage and realize that i need to completely change a panel.

My motto is, whatever works, works.

Tomorrow, finished pages.

As always, thanks for looking.

FIREBREATHER - THUMBNAILS

I have nothing to show you from the new Firebreather series yet,

but here's my thumbnails to issue #4 of the last series.

Thanks for looking.

FIREBREATHER.....FINALLY!

I'm finally starting the next Firebreather series.

It will be out in the spring of next year.

Here are some cover roughs for the first issue.

These ideas didn't make the cut.

I'll post the new cover shortly.

Thanks for looking.

NIGHT AND DAY

This is a sketch of a face that I did last week.

I didn't do any under drawing in pencil.

I just started drawing with my Pentel Pocketbrush.

I threw a little photoshop at it after the fact,

but I'm pretty happy with the drawing on it's own.

I dream of getting to the point where I could do a

complete comic like this. Unfortunately most of these sketches

don't come out this well...........ah, someday.

Live it!

THE DEMON

I'm back home and ready to work.

Todays post is a drawing of Jack Kirby's character The Demon.

I'm not sure I did him justice, then again, I'm no Jack Kirby.

I did this at a signing a couple of months ago.

Thanks for looking.

LAST GREAT RACE-COVER

I'm going to be traveling for a few days, but i'll leave you with this.

It's my cover to The Last Great Race comic that I did recently.

I'll be back this weekend. Thanks for looking

QUICK MONSTER SKETCH

I was a guest at a local comic show here in Albuquerque today.

Here's a quick sketch of a monster I did at the show.

Hope you can dig it!

THE LAST GREAT RACE

I spent the last month and a half drawing a story called

The Last Great Race for a company called Rubicon.

They publish educational comics for canadian schools and libraries.

The story is about a 14 year old Inuit girl who wants to race

in the Iditarod dog sled race.

These are my thumbnails for the issue.

Hope you dig it.

p.s. These thumbnails were done for editorial approval

in lieu of pencils. They are considerably tighter

than I usually work at this stage.

I'M BACK WITH SPIDER-MAN

I'm finally able to get bloggish again....YAY!

I've reached a small breathing space in my schedule,

and I'm gonna try to post at least every other day.

Todays post is a drawing of Spider-Man I just did.

I hope you dig it. thanks for your patience!

Stay strong, people.

DARKSIED!

I'm still not out of the woods on a crushing amount of work,

but I thought I'd take a minute to do a quick update.

Here's a drawing of one of Jack Kirby's

greatest villians ever, Darksied of Apokolips.

This was done at a signing last weekend at Astro-Zombies Comics.

I should be back to my regular posting schedule soon.

Thanks for looking.

P.S. Go HERE to see an awesome Jack Kirby documentary.

WINDY CITY WOLVERINE

I'm still deep in "hunker down and finish this job" mode,

but I thought I'd make a quick post anyway.

I had an awesome time at Windy City Comicon last weekend.

Here's a drawing of Wolverine I did at the show.

Thanks for looking!

WINDY CITY COMICON

I'm not back to my regular posting schedule,

but I thought I'd mention that next saturday, 9/19

I'll be a guest at the WINDY CITY COMICON.

If you're in the Chicago area on the 19th,

please stop in and say howdy.

My band THE FUGLEES will be playing the WCC afterparty

at a place called John Barleycorn on Clark Street.

This convention is gonna RAWK!

See you there.

TAKING A BREAK....

I am totally swamped for the next three weeks or so.

I'll be back posting regularly around the first week of October.

Then I can tell you what this drawing is about.

Thanks for looking, and please come back.

BATMAN

I can't stop, I won't stop!

Here's another Batman drawing done awhile ago.

Have a great holiday!

WOLVERINE CON SKETCH

Today it's a drawing of wolverine

done at a convention earlier this year.

Thanks for looking.

SHIT MY DAD SAYS

I've joined TWITTER.

For any one who's interested, I can be found HERE.

I'm not really sure if there's a point to it yet, but I'm in it now.

The best thing i've found on twitter so far

is a guy posting as Shit My Dad Says.

It's a 28 year old guy who lives with his 73 year old dad,

and posts random things the father says. It's HILARIOUS!

Todays drawing is an illustration of one of his tweets.

Thanks for looking.

TREE DEMON

This was done last week at a local one day comic show.

I'm not sure what it is, or what it means.

Thanks for looking.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KING!

Tom Spurgeon over at THE COMICS REPORTER published a beautiful

set of images to point out that today would be Jack Kirby's 91st birthday.

Go HERE to see it.

You may not be able to tell from my artwork,

but I am an insanely huge Kirby fan.

The world will never see another one like him.

Happy Birthday Jack!

This might be my favorite Kirby page ever.

It's from DEVIL DINOSAUR #4.

So much awesome on one page.

My brain feel like she about to buss!!!

Here's the last known picture of Jack Kirby with Paul McCartney.

You still have to wonder what kind of music they would

be making today if The Beatles had kept Kirby in the band.

I'll leave it to better men to speculate.

All you need is Kirby!!!

WHAT IS IT ABOUT BATMAN?

Batman is such an iconic character. I just can't stop drawing him.

I'd say thirty percent of the time that I start sketching with nothing

in mind, I'll end up drawing the caped crusader.

Here's another one that just popped out.

Thanks for looking.

KARAOKE SQUID

Many times at comic book shows I get asked to draw in someones

themed sketch book. Usually the theme is a specific character.

Sometimes they're more interesting than others. This is a sketch

I did for a guy whose entire book was Karaoke Squid.

I don't know where that came from, but it was a pretty cool sketchbook.

I realize that this is not a squid, but it's the best I could do at the time.

Thanks for looking!

p.s. Thanks to Jake Ekiss for shedding more light on Karaoke Octopus.

Click HERE to see other talented artists KO sketches.

TOP SECRET...

Here's a piece of art I did for a top secret project that

Phil Hester and I are going to make at some point.

I could tell you more about it,

but then i'd have to kill you.....with kindness!

THINKIN' 'BOUT COMPOSIN'!

Awhile ago I was doing a lot of thinking about composition,

and how I needed to be better at it. Here's a batch of random

panels that I drew while either looking at, or thinking about,

how better cartoonists than myself approach composition.

Thanks for looking.