Oh Brother, My Sister

Forgot to post about it here when this went up a few weeks back, but I recently illustrated a comic for James Sturm's 12 Panel Pitch series on Slate.com.

It was a surprisingly fun piece to work on, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Story by Josh Melrod, art and layouts by yours truly. Click the image above to read it.

Post-SPX

 

So SPX happened, and it was a real fun time! Much was learned about comics, about ourselves, about the nature of FRIENDSHIP... And if you have any doubts, just look upon this picture of myself with my lovely tablemates, Chris and Marta. Revel in the friendship just streaming out of this sucker!

In all seriousness though, it really was an enjoyable show. Both the first print collection of Darcy Cheyne: Werewolf Hunter and my angsty teen comic Rage Forever made their debut and - with the exception of one minor snafu on the part of the print-on-demand company used for Darcy - I'm pretty pleased with how both books turned out. It was also really great catching up with some old friends and making some new ones as well, and just seeing folks and talking comics all weekend long. Comics, you guys! What's not to like? WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE??

In non-SPX news: a Spanish-language comic I did as part of a collaboration with the University of Iowa International Writing Program a few months back, El Equilibrista, is now online. Story by Angel Franco, art and layout by yours truly. The comic was partially inspired by the final performance of famous tightrope walker Karl Wallenda in San Juan. It's in Spanish of course, but as someone who does not speak the language, I think it still reads pretty well. You can also see some of the other comics done as part of this project over here.

Cartoon College

Hey, so remember that documentary that I'm in, and that I did some illustration work for a little over a year ago? Well that documentary has now been released! It's available for streaming/VOD through iTunes, or you can pre-order the DVD through the website. It's a documentary full of awesome people, some of whom are pretty dear to my heart, and serves as a snapshot of a fairly important time in a bunch of our lives. It also features, like, 80 straight minutes of people talking about comics. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?

 

Also, in honour of this sucker coming out, I'm going to spend the next couple weeks posting the chapter illustrations I did for the film on my tumblr. The first one's already up, so go check it out!

Pancake Prevarication

I realize it's been awhile since I've put a full comic up on ye ol' blog-o-tron, so I figured why not rectify that, even if it is only a two-pager. This comic was originally done for the anthology Lies Grown-Ups Told Me, which is a pretty solid collection of comics if I do say so myself. As always, click the pages to view larger.

Spider-Man Hates Weddings!

Saw this Spider-Man cover while bagging comics at work the other day, and instantly felt compelled to redraw it, if perhaps only for the pun. "With this ring, I do thee web?!" - hilarious! I'd submit it to the Covered blog, but it turns out they've already done this cover. Plus, I think my version kept a bit too close to the original. Oh well! Original cover by Gil Kane, who is a genius, and Spider-Man and all that stuff is owned by Marvel Comics, in case you didn't know.

I feel a bit bad for having fallen behind on the twice-a-month blogging schedule I'd had going for awhile, but I was away end of last month visiting Nick Patten, Ryland Ianelli and Beth Hetland! All three of whom are frickin' fantastic human beings, and who it was a total blast to see. It was fun having a chance to just wander around Chicago for a bit too. Beth even made a blog post about it! (I'm hiding in the dark in the picture at the bottom, 'cause that's what I do)

A couple other quick things: Steve Bissette recently posted a preview of his inks of my pencils for the N-Man collaboration we've been working on for the last little while. It's extremely exciting to watch this thing take shape - hopefully we'll have more for you some time soon. In the meanwhile, however, turns out SPX is this weekend! I won't be there physically, but I will be attending in spirit through my contribution to Lies Grown-Ups Told Me, which will be debuting at the show. Pick it up from Jen Vaughn, Nomi Kane or Caitlin M at table C6, if you're attending!

Some Things I'm In (Figuratively and Literally)

A couple quick things I've got/am going to have work in that I wanted to post about. First off is "Lies Grown-Ups Told Me," an anthology that the ever-lovely Nomi Kane, Jen Vaughn and Caitlin M. are putting together about the improbable things we are led to believe as children. I've got a two-pager in it called "Pancake Prevarication," about breakfasts and false expectations. I'll likely make another post as a reminder when it gets closer to release, but it looks like it's already shaping up to be a pretty serious anthology. So be sure to check it out when it debuts at SPX in September!

Secondly, I wanted to point out that "Panel to Panel: Exploring Words and Pictures" by John Rovnak is now available to order! I've mentioned this publication here a couple times before, as it's what my Public Domain Superhero drawings from awhile back were originally done for. Well now this 274 page monster is finally available for purchase, so you can hold it in your very own grubby little hands! In addition to illustrations by myself and a handful of other talented cartoonists, it features interviews with the likes of Alan Moore, Jim Woodring, Jaime Hernandez and Glen Danzig, among others, so definitely worth checking out if you have the cash.

Also, in real life news, I recently moved apartments! Which might account in part for the lack of updates as of late. You can see a brief photo-tour of my new set-up so far over on my tumblr. It's nice having a place all to myself, and having a room dedicated solely to drawing in. So yeah, that's kinda neat! We'll see how all that effects my productivity in the months to come.

Werewolf 4

So just some quick news! Volume four of the Werewolf Anthology premiered at MeCAF this past weekend, and I've got an eight page story in it! I posted a couple of in-process photos of me working on this over on my tumblr recently, and there's a preview of the finished pages over on the Werewolf blog, so check those out if you want a bit of a sneak peek.

The book should be available shortly through the Werewolf Anthology site now that MeCAF is through, so keep a look out! My story aside, there's a ton of awesome people in this anthology, it's definitely worth a read. And look out as well for Were-Pups, the kid-friendly sister book to this volume of the anthology! How can you say no to that Nick Patten cover? Kids need werewolf comics too, y'know!

Paw Prints, Online!

So I've been monkey-ing around with this old blog a bit today, and decided it wouldn't necessarily be such a bad idea to add a comics section to it. The plan is to gradually add more and more stuff to it over the next couple months, get some of that stuff that's currently just taking up space on my computer online for people to see. Truthfully, I could probably just put up a bunch of comics up at once. But I kind of think it's more fun this way, heh.

Anyway, to start things, I've put up the recently completed run of "Paw Prints," the comic strip I've been producing as part of an environmental campaign at Dartmouth College. I've mentioned the project on this blog before, but now I'm putting the strip online in it's entirety for all you crazy people to see! This is my first time putting it all online, so that's kind of exciting as well. You can find it through the "comics" tab at the top of the site, or simply by clicking the link below.

N-Man vs Draculex!

Wanted to post a quick sample from a recently completed project. This is page one of my pencils for "The Bride of Draculex!", a brand new N-Man story that's going to be featured in the upcoming "Tales of the Uncanny: vol 1" by Stephen R. Bissette.

(Script by Stephen R. Bissette, pencils by Josh Rosen; artwork & N-Man, Draculex, Sally Stevens, all characters and concepts TM and ©1992, 2011 Stephen R. Bissette, all rights reserved. The penciler asserts his moral rights.)

You see, Draculex has totally stolen N-Man's girlfriend, Sally Stevens, and wants to turn her into his Space Vampire Bride! Well clearly N-Man's not gonna stand for that! Unfortunately, N-man's first gonna have to punch through all of those wolves, as well as a bunch of other things, before he's going to have a chance to save her.

Longtime followers might remember me blogging about this project a year ago, over here and here, as well as Steve's comments on the collaboration over here and here. These new pages are an expansion on those "sample pages" from a year ago, having recently decided to take what we had and transform it into a full story for the finished book. The story is currently being inked by Bissette himself, which is a huge honour, especially considering his current state of "retirement" from the mainstream industry. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited to see the finished version in print. :)

Anyway, "Tales of the Uncanny: Vol 1" is due to be coming out later this year from About Comics. I'll keep you guys posted as it gets closer to release.

Public Domain Superheroes

So I recently completed a series of illustrations for the upcoming issue of Panel to Panel magazine. The idea was to take Golden Age public domain superheroes and put your own spin on them, and all three of the ones I chose ended up being a total blast to draw.



This first one is Mr. Satan. What I liked about him is that despite his ridiculous name, he has absolutely no super powers. He's just a rich dude who one day decided to go out, buy a devil costume, and start beating people up, just because he was bored! What kind of person would do that?! I figured he clearly has a flare for the dramatic with a name like Mr. Satan, so I decided to model him a bit after a modern stage magician, sort of a David Blane type. His mask wouldn't obscure his face very much, because clearly showing off is part of the point. At the same time I wanted to give him a bare-knuckled brawler, roll-up your sleeves, devil-may-care sort of feel. This guy has no issues getting his hands dirty - in fact that's the entire point!



Next up is Skywolf. His is probably the most radical departure from the original of the three. Golden Age Skywolf was a World War II flying ace who for some reason felt the urge to wear a wolf pelt on his head when flying into battle. For some reason the first thing that came to my mind when thinking of people wearing animal pelts was the lost boys from Disney's Peter Pan, so my Skywolf ended up being largely based on that. This Skywolf is just a kid, and his "flying team" is a gang of homeless street youth that guard the city rooftops. I tried to keep the flying ace theme, however, through the oversized flight jacket and the toy planes. Figured there's no reason he can't still be obsessed with flying, even if he isn't a pilot anymore.



Jane Gem, The Magician from Mars is the one where I stuck closest to the original design. I might have liked to depart further, especially with a premise as wacky as hers, but there was just so much to love about the original I couldn't resist! The hat clearly had to stay, as well as the cape and the puffy sleeves. My main goal became just to simplify and maybe add a bit more of a retro 80s feel. I could easily imagine her going out disco dancing or hanging out at the roller rink. I honestly came this close to giving her legwarmers too, but ultimately decided I didn't want to overdo it. (PS: if you want the full effect for this one, click to view larger)

The magazine isn't scheduled to come out 'till January, but in the meanwhile you can find out more about it through the Panel to Panel facebook page, and about Panel to Panel in general through their website. And if the wait for the magazine to be released is still incredibly unbearable, then you can pass the time by checking out some further public domain superhero drawings that my friend Bryan posted on his blog as well!

Paw Prints

Hey all, sorry for not updating in a couple of weeks! I've been caught up with a couple of different projects this last little while, and its been keeping me pretty busy. But rather than sitting around and whining about not having anything to update about, I thought I'd make a quick post about one of these projects instead!



"Paw Prints" is a series of strips I'm currently producing for Dartmouth College's Project GreenLite campaign, encouraging students living in residence to develop healthier energy consumption habits. The strip focuses on a lone polar bear, separated from his home, traveling the Arctic and witnessing the direct consequences that global warming is having on the environment around him. I don't want to post any full strips until they're up online, but in the meanwhile I figured I'd post a couple of panels from two of the most recent ones. The bear actually goes through some pretty serious stuff as the story goes on. But you know, that's all part of the fun.



Also doing work for the project are two other CCS alumni, the incredibly talented Bryan Stone and Jason Week. They've posted a few samples from their strips on their respective blogs as well, so you should totally check those out too!

In Other News...

You know what I love? This guy...





I think one of my all time favorite Gamera scenes is at the end of Gamera: Advent of Legion, after Gamera has defeated the evil alien threat and everything is safe again. Everyone's relieved, and the main characters are all walking and laughing and talking about how great Gamera is, when the main scientist lady is suddenly like: "Gamera's job is to protect the planet! And if humans continue to pollute the earth then Gamera will be very angry!" Then she just stares straight into the camera for an uncomfortable period of time. Then Gamera roars. Then the movie ends.

In other news, the White River Pirates comic I did awhile back is currently appearing in this week's Seven Days Magazine! The comic is a jam between me and my good friend Nick Patten, and was reformatted and colored by the amazingly talented Joseph Lambert. If you're in Vermont you should be able to pick it up anywhere that fun alternative weeklies are to be found, and if you're not then you can just read it online over here.