Thursday, October 26, 2006

the Thing in my Sketchbook



I saw a cover of "what if" in the comics shop a while back that I dug well enough to copy in my sketchbook. VERBATIM.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Todd H.



Here's what Comic Art magazine's Todd Hignite looks like. According to my brush. Todd asked me to do an illustration of him for a website bio. So here he is inspecting a near mint copy of Canteen Kate. Todd's a pal and a true gentleman of comics. He just put out an awesome volume called In the Studio. The only book that takes you the reader into the private sanctums of guys like Dan Clowes and Gary Panter. Mr. Panter was in town recently for an exhibition of his work at a local gallery. He also did a book signing with Todd. I told him I really liked his tribute to Kirby that ran in the New Yorker. Apparently Panter visited Kirby in the 70's. Man I would love to have been the proverbial fly-on-the-wall for THAT. He said Kirby's pool was empty of water and had craggy, Kirby-esque dirt formations in it.
Anyway...
(update: I couldn't find it earlier but here's a link to an article about Todd and his mystic ways from the St Louis Post-Dispatch. The print version ran my illo but the online version is no-frills.)

TGIFR



Students of comic art take note of this nice page. A short intro to the career of the incredible Frank Robbins complete with some scans of his gone artwork. The writeup is kinda nerdy but also enjoyable - to wit: "With Robbins there is not long dwelling upon abdominal muscles – something you can certainly find in abundance elsewhere."
I've been meaning to post some favorite Robbins pages to my "library" so this may inspire me to get my ass in gear.
Robbins was the best latter-day Batman artist, period. And by latter day I mean post Sprang, Robinson, etc. Check out the splash page I'm posting (click image above) to see what I mean.
It's a little hard to find Robbins' work since editors often didn't let him do the covers of the books he worked on. This is because his material was so fresh it literally blinded people. Certain comics editors found this blinding quality uncomfortable and relegated his work to be shuttered behind lame Neal Adams-esque covers. But that just makes the longbox crawling that much more intriguing.
Robbins was one of the great adventure strip artists before getting into comics. His stuff on Batman was probably his best comics work. He also did great turns on the Shadow and Capt. America before seemingly getting worn down by the system.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Cover | Flip


Fellow ink-fink Jason Robards was just telling me he's getting into old Mad-style comics. This is one of the neatest covers I've seen of that stuff. Sorry I couldn't get a better scan. My covers page is mostly stuff I find online. Note: if anyone is looking to hand out any old issues of Plop, Sick or Eh! - go find Jason at itscoolsteve.com.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

A Kraken li'l drawring


Here's a yar illustration of a Kraken mutilating a vessel. My pal Drew Crowley IM'ed me at work about the next "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie and we all ended up drawing Krakens during a meeting. He posted our drawings over on his blog. So that's one for the sketchbook page.
PERMALINK! (I don't know what that means)

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Dream | Norman Fell

Last night I had a dream I was watching Rocky 2. In this movie, they had cast Norman Fell as the coach character played by Burgess Meredith in the first one (Norman Fell played Mr. Roper in Three's Company). I thought this was really excellent casting, but I also thought that it would be absolutely perfect if they would have had him wearing a Beatles wig. And I woke up feeling very strongly that they should have done that.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Reading | Tortilla Flat


Mrs. May and I are currently reading this book, "Tortilla Flat" by Steinbeck. Well, it's an audio book so we are reading it with our ears. And it skips a lot so it's like our ears have dyslexia. Anyway, it's a really good read. I think it would make a great comic but I'm sure some transnational corporation owns it.
It's about a hobo who ends up inheriting two houses so he lives in one and rents the other one out to his hobo buddy. Then the buddy rents part of his house out to another hobo. And so on until the gang of renter-hoboes burns down the one house and the whole gang ends up living in one big Hoborarium.
I found a really great looking book jacket for the novel online so I decided to blog it.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Hugs not drugs




..added to sketchbook page. Drawn during a meeting at work about "dream team". Not the dream team in the picture though. I WISH it was about them. Lemme know if you want to see a strip featuring these characters.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

On Sale | Flotation Device


Item! The latest issue of Keith Helt's comics-laden zine "Flotation Device" is on sale online. I did the front and back covers which were then silk-screened by the F-D squad and wrapped around an anthology featuring a bumper crop of small press luminaries. Check out my art: front cover and back cover. Click here immediately to buy a copy from Buenaventura Press.

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Cover | Boy Comics


Dig this way out cover. I've been reading this fantastic book about the dawn of comics publishing called "Men of Tomorrow" by Gerard Jones. That got me checking out a bunch of old crime covers from Charles Biro. I came across this gem at the Heritage Comics auction site. Covers don't come much more mind-melting than this. Posted at my little covers page.
By the way - does anyone know if there are any good reprints of Charlie Biro comics floating around?

Saturday, April 22, 2006

News Roundup | April 2006


Be on the lookout for the next issue of Vice Magazine. I've got a full-color one-pager in it called "Perils of Heracles". It's a new character from me and he's full of suprises. I'm thinking of making it a weekly strip on this site. Let me know if you dare me to do it. Well - bi-weekly.

Otherwise, I've been working on my bit of the second volume of the Orchid anthology on it's way from Sparkplug Comic books. We have no ETA yet on this thing, but we're getting close.

I haven't mentioned it yet on this site, but I was part of the Riverfront Times' "Best of 2005" listing under the category "Best Public Art (Temporary)". Here's a little scan of the article. The art showing was masterminded by Lisa Bulawsky and her Blindspot Galleries. Here's her photos I don't know what kind of other public art (temporary) my stuff was up against, but it's an honor to be noticed. Thanx Lisa and RFT!

AND - for all you fans of true love out there, I'm happy to announce that I just got married to the beautiful and talented Sacha Mardou. For those who don't know her, she's also a cartoonist - from the UK, no less! Check out her work at mardouville.com.