It’s summer. It’s July. And that means it’s time for San Diego Comic-Con International.
Yep, it’s Convention Time…and at this year’s Comic-Con you can find me in Artists Alley, table FF-18! Stop buy, have a chat, buy a thing, etc!
Hey gang, the latest issue of SPONGEBOB COMICS, the third issue, is now available at finer comic shops everywhere!
I’m responsible for drawing 10 of the 32 pages in this issue. But of extra note and excitement, is that those pages were done in collaboration with the one and only Ramona Fradon, who for those who don’t know, is a legitimate comics legend. As a comics artist in the 1960s she had a great run at DC Comics drawing Aquaman, and she co-created the fantastic character Metamorpho: The Element Man.
And while this collaboration mostly involved my drawing pages that were sent to Ramona to work on, I did get a chance to meet and chat with Ramona at Comic-Con in San Diego last year which was an absolute pleasure. Plus, I picked up this piece of art which, well, I’ll let it speak for itself:
I’ll be at Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC this weekend, 6/3-6/5, sitting at Artist Alley table AA-220. I’ll have original art, prints, sketches, books…a veritable smorgasbord!
Meanwhile, for those noticing a gap in when I last posted, I can only say I’ve been working and traveling and doing less updating. That said, over the past month or so I attended a tremendous Free Comic Book Day at Acme Comics in Greensboro, NC, closed out the first season of Saturday Night Live by closing out the first “season” of Stick Figure Night Live, and have been plugging away on the usual mix of SpongeBob SquarePants, TMNT comics for Russia, and the latest, Spider-Man work for a magazine to be published in Italy. A truly international enterprise.
I’ve got some other stuff in the oven which I’d rather not talk about too much until it’s properly golden brown and delicious. But until then, if you’re in or near Charlotte, stop by and say hello at Heroes Con!
This coming weekend, March 4-6, I will be at the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, Washington. It’s a great convention with a whole slew of talented guests and participants. I recommend it!
I’ll be there sketching and talking and selling all kinds of goodies from copies of SPONGEBOB COMICS #1, X-BABIES comics, Puppet Hero prints, and a selection of original art and comics pages.
You’ll find me sitting at table G-09, seated alongside my usual convention pals, Chris Giarrusso and Jacob Chabot, to my right.
But wait, there’s more! Not only will I be exhibiting at the show, I’m also hosting a panel. Indeed, on Saturday, the 5th, at 4pm, I’ll be hosting “Super-Blank: The Game Show”, a version of the classic game show, The Match Game, complete with a panel of comics celebrities including Kurt Busiek, Chris Giarrusso, Kirby Krackle‘s Kyle Stevens, Raina Telgemeir, Dave Roman and more.
Still not enough? Well, the art you see above of Pix, Teenage American Fairy v. a Minotaur, is part of “Monsters & Dames”, a full-color, 9″x12″ hardcover art book featuring contributions from guests and artists of the 2011 Emerald City Comicon limited to 1000 individually numbered copies. Pick one up for $30.00 at the Emerald City Comicon Show booth. Moneys raised from sales of the books and an auction of the original art go to the Seattle Children’s Hospital.
With all that going on, it’s a wonder if I’ll be able to make it to Top Pot Doughnuts…(spoiler alert: I will definitely be going to Top Pot Doughnuts).
Today, in fine comic book shops everywhere, SPONGEBOB COMICS #1, in which I penciled eight pages, hits the stands.
January’s come and gone and what do I have to show for it?
Well, for starters, next week, 2/9, sees the release of SPONGEBOB COMICS #1, a bi-monthly series in which I’m a contributor. More on that next week
The “Convention Sketches & Commissions” section has gotten a big update, showcasing art from the past year and a half or so (some has been seen on this news feed, but other stuff’s “fresh”). Additionally, the Puppet Heroes prints are officially in the “Illustrations” wing.
And the return in January of Saturday Night Live from their holiday break means the return of Stick Figure Night Live, which continues over at stickfigurenightlive.com…
Looking ahead, aside from the aforementioned SpongeBob Comics, the convention/public appearance season’s revving up and my first stop will be the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, WA the first weekend in March. I’ll be there sketching, selling, and trying something new. More on that as we approach March.
Happy Groundhog Day. This winter couldn’t end soon enough…
As mentioned two posts ago, the ongoing feature here of Stick Figure Night Live comics have spawned their very own “spin-off” site, appropriately named stickfigurenightlive.com.
While I’ll continue to upload the comics where they’ve been posted here (click “Comics” above), at stickfigurenightlive.com, you’ll also get the occasional “commentary track” talking about the process behind the comics, thoughts I had at the time, etc.
Maybe, just maybe, it’ll take off in that viral way that somehow…I don’t know, begets something else…?
In the meantime, check it out…and come back here for other stuff. I’ll be talking about SpongeBob Comics and Ninja Turtles comics soon.
It occurred to me that while I’ve been working fairly steadily on comics and comic related business in 2010, everything I’ve been working on won’t see print until 2011…and some of it won’t even see print in the United States.
So come February 2011, SPONGEBOB COMICS #1 will start the bi-monthly run of that series. More on that in the coming months, I’m sure.
And in the past month or so I’ve got a new cultural comics icon to add to my “I’ve worked on…” list: the heroes in a half shell themselves, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There’s a slight catch though. Remember when I said “some of it won’t even see print in the United States?” Well, these TMNT comics are being published in the UK, Russia, Poland, etc.
So for what it’s worth, I thought I’d share a couple of pages of inks of said comics. Here’s a 2-page story wherein the Turtles get into it with the Foot Clan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
Once again I’m attending Comic-Con International in San Diego, specifically holding it down in Artists Alley, table FF-18. I will have books, original art, and prints for sale, along with doing “sketches by request”, as usual.
Over the years a lot of people have lamented the growth of the con and that “it’s not even about comics anymore”. To that I say embrace it! For all the shop talk about bringing in new readers to comics and expanding the audience, it seems an event called Comic-Con that brings in people who while not specifically comics readers, dig on things that could be tangentially connected, could be a good thing and a good opportunity to reach out and/or open our arms to the anime/manga fans, the video game/MMORPG gamers, sci-fi aficionados, and yes, even Twilight fans.
I for one encourage you all to stop by and have a chat with me about any of it. It is convention after all, where people convene and discuss and share. So let’s do that!
Tomorrow, June 3, the X-Babies mini-series I wrote gets released in its “graphic novel” collected edition; all four issues, alternate covers, and even some design/development sketches…96 pages under glorious paperback stock covers!
With its release, I wanted to share an e-mail sent to myself and (X-Babies artist) Jacob Chabot shortly after the release of X-BABIES #4 in January. It’s a long one, even edited a bit for content (and be warned, there are spoilers) but worth sticking with it. The sender, Dennis, wrote: