Freking Sweer!

When one door closes, a trap door opens! After the untimely demise of Comics Now! magazine, I was offered the chance to become the official artist for the Freking Sweer comic strip over at Comic Geek Speak. I already was the unofficial artist on the strip, but now it's my baby. Check it out, I'll have an update at least once a week. You can find the strip HERE

New York Comic Con 2009: The Pictures

I brought my camera along again, and once again I forgot to use it most of the time. Here are some of the images I DID manage to shoot this time around.



A shot inside our hotel in downtown NYC. Vince is saying "Hello". Those wacky Eye-talians. Note the GINORMOUS bottle of Jim Beam.



The view out our hotel room window. I shot it in hopes of seeing Spider-man swinging by or getting a shot of Daredevil kicking ass. No such luck.



Walking to the Javitz on Saturday. That's Vince, Mike, Tiki and Wood.



In the Javitz headed towards the upper entrance to the Con floor.



In the subterranean general admission queue. It may look like Wood is standing in the middle of a rushing river of comic fans, but the line wasn't moving THAT fast.



Tiki Tim and Vince at the bargain boxes.



Wood digging through some bargain boxes.



The CGS booth is jumping. Pants, Murd, Shane and Tiki chat while Andrew Charipar takes care of business.



Murd and Andrew gleefully man the CGS booth. Pants is bending down in front of Adam for some reason.



What would a Con be without the boys from the Raging Bullets podcast?



The Podcast Arena is BUSY. Pants, Bryan and Peter at the booth. Danielle is busy doing a sketch.



Wood, the ever lovely Pat Loika, Vince and Mike. Shocking!



Danielle Corsetto chatting with a fan. I'm very good at capturing people with their eyes closed.



Vince, Julian Lytle and Tom Katers winding down at Stitches on Saturday night.



Tiki and Wood corner Mike Norton at Stitches. Oh yeah, one of the 2000 Jokers at the Con was there too. Didn't see a single Rorschach at the bars. Hrmmm.



Julian, Tiki, Mike Norton and Vince at Stitches. Yes, that is a mirrored disco ball on the ceiling.



Sunday morning and we're checking out. I thought it would be a nice bookend for this group of photos to end it the same way it started...with someone saying "Hello". In addition to being very good at capturing people with their eyes closed, I'm also very good at taking photos of people flipping me the bird. Thank you Mike.

That's it for NYCComicCon 2009.

Comic Geek Speak The End

In celebration of the Comic Geek Speak Super Show in 2008, CGS forumite Harold Jennett put together a comic book to mark the occasion. More than a dozen members of the CGS forum lent their artistic, writing and editing skills to tell the strange tale of the CGC podcast mascot, the Puppet Rios. Here's a sample from my pages.



If you're interested in seeing more, you can order your very own copy of Comic Geek Speak The End at IndyPlanet. It's fun with a capital F!

T-Shirt Week #5: CON! Unused CGS Tour Design

The guys over at Comic Geek Speak held a competition recently to design a shirt they can wear to comic conventions around the country for 2008. There were many good entries. I decided to go off in an odd direction when I was yelling the word "con" at home. It immediately reminded me of Captain Kirk in The Wrath of Khan movie. My design was born.



Some understandable legal concerns removed the design from the competition, but I still like it.

(Photo adjusted in Photoshop, converted to vector and imported into CorelDRAW for text and layout.)
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CGStories Final Cover Design

Thanks to the incredible Mister Chris Murrin, I got my comp copies of CGStories in the mail today . . . and it looks BEE-YOO-TEE-FOOL! Kudos to everyone involved. So finally . . . drum roll please . . . the cover artwork for the CGStories anthology.

CGStories Intial Cover Designs

There had been some discussion on the Comic Geek Speak forum for quite a while about doing some sort of anthology. The idea would get kicked around every so often, and then die. Sometime during the past year, a concerted effort was started to make the thing a reality. Chris Murrin shouldered the daunting task as editor of the entire project. It went for a grand 100 page plus monster of an anthology down to a typical comic book length read. A title was selected, CGStories, by a poll on the forum. What he didn't have was a suitable cover for the book, so he asked me. I gladly accepted and set about designing the cover. I ran through a half dozen goofy ideas and settled on an idea based the artwork of M.C. Escher. I wanted an image that would convey the fact that the book was done by artists and writers that are fans of the CGS podcast. Here are my initial sketches and mock-ups.

This first sketch is my original blueline rough of the cover idea


This next image is a cleaner and slightly inked version of the sketch. I added the outline of what would be the sheet of drawing paper and I added the iPod controls.


This image is the black and white mock-up, without type, that I sent to Chris for his approval. He really liked the idea and the art so I proceeded. I added the CGS logo and woodgrain to show what I was going to do and I rotated the art slightly to mimic the original illustration by Escher.


I'll post the initial colors and final artwork for the CGStories anthology comic soon.

'tis the season: Christmas Card Week, Part 2

Today I'm posting scans of the big Christmas card I did last year. The card was over-sized and a copy was given to my local comics shop Comics on the Green and another was sent to the cast of the Comic Geek Speak podcast. Naturally, the subject of the card is comic book related. Since each card was an original, I don't have a color copy. I do have scans of the inked artwork before they were colored.

First, the outside of the card featuring that lovable ol' Marvel planet eater out for a stroll on a brisk Winter's day:

The inside features those four fantastic do-gooders as kiddies, and they're up to no good:

(Micron pen and brush pen on drawing paper, scanned in Photoshop and imported into CorelDRAW for layout.)
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2007 CGS Freking Sweer Award

Every year since 2005, the Comic Geek Speak podcast has awarded their Freking Sweer award. The award is presented to listeners and forum members of merit as decided by the CGS cast. This year I was amongst a group of 4 recipients of the award presented during the 300th episode celebration in Reading, PA. I'd like to thank all the Geeks at CGS for this honor, it was humbling and totally unexpected. For more info on Comic Geek Speak click HERE.

CGS Episode 300 Trading Cards

Here are three original art trading cards created for the Comic Geek Speak Episode 300 artist card exchange. I decided to use my Mr. Zombie and Chad characters and I added one of myself. Since the cards are cut to the same size as traditional baseball cards, I designed them to look like classic Topps baseball cards.
(Micron and Sharpee pens on smooth bristol board, colored with markers and colored leads)

The Geeks Episode 300 Finished Artwork

Here's the finished artwork for the CGS Episode 300 comic book.
(Pen and brush on smooth bristol board, scanned and colored in Photoshop, text and vector art added in CorelDraw)
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The Geeks Episode 300 Original Inked Linework

More geeky goodness! Bryan Deemer from the CGS podcast asked me to submit some artwork for their 300th episode commemorative comic book. I said yes and started to ponder what I was going to draw. The inspiration came to me as I was boxing some comics. I saw the cover for the first issue of Garth Ennis's THE BOYS. I thought doing a parody of that cover was the way to go. There's no way I could ever expect to match the great Darick Robertson talent wise, so I hope my attempt is taken in the spirit it was presented. Here's the original inked linework for the image.
To learn more about the Comic Geek Speak (CGS) podcast, click HERE.
To find out more about The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, click HERE.
(Pen and brush on smooth bristol, scanned)
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