I haven't updated this 'ol blog in quite some time, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to catch anyone who gives a shit, and I don't speak to regularly in the real world, up on what I'm doing.
As always, I'm still writing and drawing the weekly
RECORD HEAT strip for the
Phoenix New Times,, going to school ( I now officially have an AAS in Digital Art, and in the midst of attaining a Bachelor's degree ), and of course, spending time with my family (Shannon and I just had our 4th wedding anniversary).
Aside from that stuff, I've kept myself busy doing some little art projects, like drawing fliers, random sketches and whatnot. So, Here's a small smattering of images, most of which I already posted to my tumblr and/or Facebook:
This is pretty self-explanatory, but I was really happy with how this flier came out.
Anybody who knows my reading habits knows I'm semi-obsessed with the work of Jack Kirby, so what better way to honor one of my heroes than by butchering one of his drawings. The top pic is a scan of Kirby's pencils (which I stole from the Internet), and the bottom is the version with my inks and colors.
It inspired me to try my hand at doing a "pin-up" of Spider-Man, which has sat, unfinished. on my drawing board for about a month, now. I can't bring myself to complete the drawing because there is nothing more tedious than drawing all the web-details on this dude's costume; I probably should've done the black symbiote costume.
Switching gears, here's a pig I inked and painted with watercolors...
...which goes really well with the acrylic cow that has adorned my fridge for the last year or so.
Okay, about this thing...
Alright, now that I'm through with all that stuff, let's talk about "Get into Comix!". If you've been following this blog for a substantial amount of it's existence, you may have seen me mention this story and post preview images of it as far back as
December of 2009. Additionally, I ran installments of this story in the "Epic Tales..." mini-comics in issues #6-9, and about 50 pages into the story, I hit a major wall. I couldn't figure out exactly how to do a certain page, so I took a break from it, and started to work on other stuff, sure I'd return to the story eventually.Life happened, and we had our daughter, and I went back to school, and
eventually never came around. Well, until about 2 weeks ago.
The fact that I had this "massive" story (considering that the majority of my sequential work consists of comic strips at this point, I consider anything above 50 pgs to be long-form storytelling) which was unfinished, sitting on a shelf & collecting dust, nagged at me for a long time. But, until recently, I just didn't have the time to delve back into it. Circumstances being what they are, I find myself with a little more time to work on comics nowadays, so I've plunged headfirst back into the "Get into Comix!" story.
Going forward, I've decided to repost the
link to read the comic, in progress, on the homepage. I've also enabled the comments section so that maybe I can get some feedback from anyone willing to read through what's been posted so far. As of this post, I've just completed pg. 56, and I'd estimate about 10 more to go.
Once the initial story is finished, I plan on going back and redrawing the first 2-3 pages of the story (and probably some scattered panels throughout), so the illustrations are more closely aligned with my drawing style now, rather than circa 2010. Finally, I'm going to redo some of the clunkier narration/dialog in the story, and soon after, I'll begin worrying about how I'm gonna pay to get this thing printed. That being said, I'm pretty stoked to be this close to the finish line, and actively inching toward it everyday.
Okay.
Well, that's what's been going on.
Here's the newly completed cover artwork for the "Genetically Modified Punk rock Pandas" minicomic, sans title.
BTW, a week or so ago I had an entry on the 'Repaneled blog' in which I redrew a panel from TMNT (my head is very much stuck in the world of mutant animals right now, I guess!)... You can see it here.
I read a lot of comics, up until 7th or 8th grade. I dropped off for a long time, but still read a couple comics here and there, once in a while. By the time I was in high school, the only comics I read were the ones I already owned, but I was still interested enough in the events and storylines in superhero comics to have had a subscription to "Wizard" (the comics magazine).
I really do have an excuse; I work in an industrial neighborhood, don't have a car, and Tempe Marketplace is the closest place to eat within walking distance. Yeah, so fuck you and your judging me!
Much apologies to David for including his name in yet another comic strip of mine about pooping.
APE went pretty well, especially considering it was my first time behind a table there. No, I can't quite my day job, but I sold and traded enough minicomics to at least FEEL successful. Many thanks to all the people willing to buy comics from an unknown cartoonist, and all of our hotel-mates (Brandon, Amy, Jackie, David, Ben, JRC, etc.) for making it an awesome weekend!!!
