upcoming…

So everyone, the first issue of Cursed Pirate Girl will be in the Feb. issue of Previews magazine.  It will be under Olympian Publishing, it might be kind of hard to find.  I also would like to announce that my website is getting an overhaul the new site will enable you to (if one were so inclined) order portfolios and posters.   Okay that’s about it for now, I’ll post again when the site goes up.

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the next portfolio

Yes for the WonderCon in San Francisco I will have a third portfolio.  The previous two portfolios- The Patient Snail, Ink Decoration for Paper and Tedious Treats of Whimsy Born of an Overwhelmed Brush will also be for sale although they are limited and I am running out.  I will have to come up with a name and that is one of the harder parts of the process as you can tell by the predessesors.  Here are two of the four pieces I already have completed.  For all of you that are wondering why is he drawing these portfolio pieces instead of working on his frekkin book I just have to say “jeesh!  I need to break it up a bit”.  The first one is entitled “The Octopus and the Silver Cello” the second “Admiral Doonch’s lion clock”.  I can also tell you that there is a Pook piece in this portfolio.  That doesn’t really help unless you know who Pook the Tarantula is though.  Well Emily and I look forward to seeing you at the show.

first con of the new year…

I’m going to San Francisco!  WonderCon is Feb. 27th through Mar. 1st and you can find me in artist alley as of now at table 122 here’s the layout of the floor when you walk in.  The pink area is artist alley and in the second shot the turquoise table is mine.

Way in the corner, but hey it’s cool with me.  I had a real awkward table at the last Wizard World Chicago (I was facing a wall) and I still got some real traffic coming my way.  Mostly because of a lot of people who sent more people over, thanks again to everyone that likes my work so much.  Plus, as of now table 123 will be occupied by the Petersens, so I’m sure there will be plenty of traffic.  I will not have Cursed Pirate Girl #1 yet.  I’m pretty sure we will have a preview available with material from issue one and two.  I will have a third portfolio ready for the show though I’ve already got 4 of the seven images done and I think it’s the best yet.  I’ll post a couple soon (and not in a Jeremy soon kinda way, a real soon kinda way).

I spent this weekend at the Baltimore comicon. It was a two day show but I really enjoyed it. Emily and I stayed with Dave and Julia Petersen at the nicest hotel I have ever set foot in. It was called the Intercontinental, the room was humongous, the breakfast’s pricey and filling, and the master bath had a friggin pool for a tub. My list for con illustrations filled up in pretty much the first half hour. Before I even had everything set up. I’m not taking as many these days just because it really stresses me out. Here are the ones I was able to complete at the con. <img src=”” alt=”” />
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<img src=”” alt=”” /> I’m still working on one for Mr. Shawn Fritschy, one of my best clients. Feel free to check out his CAF (comic art fans for the uninitiated) gallery here. I met some really nice people who really like my work.

I would like to take this time to just say how much I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to stop by my table and become fans even though my book isn’t out yet. It gives me hope that the series won’t be a complete failure.

Emily and I drove the 8 and a half hours into Baltimore and Dave and Julia were waiting for us to show up before they had dinner. Which meant dinner at 11 at night when most things were already closed. We had an awesome dinner the second night with a lot of the folks from Archaia Studios Press, I had a great time thanks Nick, Jackie, Kate, and Alex.

Among the people I talked with at the con was a gentleman named Christian Slade, I first met Christian in San Diego he sat at the same table at the Eisner awards. His book Korgi was nominated for an Eisner and I must say it is very beautiful. I had not been acquainted with Korgi but I picked one up and immediately bought it, I highly recommend it. Thankyou very much Christian.

One more con for this year… the Windy City con. I’m especially excited about this one since Olympian Publishing will be setting up there also we’re gonna be neighbors. Here’s a link to that one. Hope to see you there.

The con. was a definite success and I want to do it again next year.

camping and bling

So last week Emily and I went on a camping trip. We left Wed. morning at 4:30 (nice and early) we headed out for the U.P. for those not fluent in Michigan geography that stands for the Upper Peninsula. Or as our little circle of artistic miscreants like to call- Canada Land. We first went up to Tahquamenon Falls and then White Fish Pt. had a pastie and then headed to Grand Marais to camp for the night. Very beautiful, nice weather, not too crowded. The next destination was Sable Falls (I liked these a little better than Tahq. Falls, not as touristy), then Pictured Rocks to look for bald eagles at tower rock/castle rock? Emily’s not here right now or I’d ask her. We did see a bald eagle sitting in a very tall pine tree. Then we headed for the pinnacle of our trip Copper Harbor, the most northern part of the U.P. it started to rain, we got to a campground then decided to spend the night in the car. Dinner was a disaster, fire took forever to start and then never wanted to die out. Woke up twice to find it started up after previous attempts to kill it. Nice campground though. The next day was nice and dry we checked out a couple of things Fort Wilkinson, the Estivant Pines (500+ year old pine trees), and the local gift and antique spots as well as a diner that made fritter french toast. Awesomely deliciously bad for you I’m sure. Then we headed south, managed to find a Fazoli’s in Escanaba just before dusk, then shortly after found a campground in the dark and set up. Again a nice night for camping. We were the only ones there with a tent, all the other “campers” were in campers. We were also the only ones there under 60, as far as I could tell. In the morning we took Connor out to the beach. It was chilly and foggy and very still, we let the dog run around finally giving him a break from riding in the car and being confined to a leash. Then I sat down on a drift wood tree trunk and Emily came to sit next to me. It seemed just right enough. I clumsily pulled out a small red box I’ve been holding on to for a month or so, and asked her to marry me. She said of course. The ring wasn’t too much of a surprise because she had picked it out. A gold Victorian red Garnett and seed pearl ring. We were both kinda goofy for a while after that. We headed home came down through St. Ignace trying to find more pasties, a sort of book end delicacy for the whole U.P. excursion. Ended up smack dab in the middle of a truck rally/festival/something, which was pretty entertaining to say the least. Nothing like being held up in a crowd of people trying to get a sweet ass picture of a semi cab with an airbrushed river flowing on the side with white horses breaking forth from the water. It rained the whole way back, had a detour to Call of the Wild in Gaylord a place I’ve been going to with my family since I was a kid. I just had to introduce Emily to it. We are thinking of having the wedding two years from this Oct. …um… the end… Oh yeah here are some pictures.
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Baltimore and then one

So next weekend is the Baltimore con. and I’m gonna be there. I think my table will be right next to Mr. Dave Petersen in artist alley so come on by. I will have the two portfolios that were available at the San Diego con. they each have 7 images printed on really nice paper and are limited to an edition of 100. I gotta check in with my publisher to see about posters still, so I’ll let you know about that soon.

I have also been invited to this con. which is pretty cool that I got an invite! It looks pretty sweet, Jason Howard is going to be there, I met Jason a loooong time ago and have been a fan of his since. And Scottie Young will be there and I absolutely love his work on the New X-Men. So that’s gonna be really cool! I encourage anybody to come on down, it’s a one day show and it’s only $5 a ticket!! Olympian publishing (my new publisher) is also setting up a spot there so you gotta check em out.

San Diego the con.

Well alrighty I’m back from the San Diego show, a couple of days to recoup and here’s why.
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no not the mustache… The con was a 5 dayer, wed. was preview night followed by 4 more full days of craziness. I was set up at the Century Guild booth(?) as you can see it was a little more than just a booth. Those are all original prints and posters from 1930 and earlier. Just a little bit intimidating.
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I had two whole tables to set up my picture wares as well as some pretty spectacular posters Olympian Publishing made from images created for the two portfolios I had available. Then I was surprised by this-
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the original image is 4.5 inches by 7.5 inches and this poster is 6 feet by 10 feet- hee hee hee! So that was cool. Here is where I would like to thank Tom and Jack and Stuart and Reagan and Kirsten (pronounced Caston) and I apologize if I spelled any of those names wrong. The whole Century Guild crew made me feel very special (not that Emily doesn’t call me special all the time). I was happy to meet a lot of people who really liked my work. Thank you everyone who stopped by to look and couldn’t leave without taking something with them and thank you to all of you who just stopped by to look. I had a really great time and that was mainly because of all of you.

Fri. night I had the pleasure to attend the Eisner awards with Emily and Mr. and Mrs. Petersen and was especially proud of watching Dave win two Eisner awards. Last year he won the Russ Manning award, I was not there to see that. I’m glad I was there to see this. Here’s Dave at the podium, I’m sure you’ll get more off of his blog through his site Davepetersen.net
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Now for something a bit different, here are three of the four con. illustrations I did for con. goers. I would like to thank all of you who decided to fork over the dough so I could make these little cookies (I don’t know was that to lame?).
<img src=”” alt=”the sea serpent” /><img src=”” alt=”5 color cowboy” /><img src=”” alt=”CPG” />

I should be getting a scan of the last one soon.
So one of the coolest things that happened at the con was almost to unbelievable. One of the neat things about setting up at the Century Guild was that since they dealt with not your every day con merchandise they attract different customers. I had the honor to meet one of my favorite directors. While the first Saw movie was a milestone, I truly find the sequels much more appealing. Darren Bousman is to thank for that. I looked up from trying to get some minutes in on one of my commissions to find that the person in front of me was the Darren Bousman. Well frankly… I turned into a frickin fanboy instantly. He did humor me by purchasing one of my portfolios and I forced a free print on him. It was the least I could do.

I didn’t end up buying much, a couple of sketchbooks, a print or two. The con can get a bit crazy Emily and I only had time to walk around a little before they let people in. Just enough time to be ignored by some of my favorite artists. Oh well, I probably did that to some people too. I guess at that kind of con you can’t be Mr. Friendly to everyone.

A final nod to some friends who shared the insanity of the con with me- Katie Cook and Ryan Wilcox (I think I spelled that right?) Dave Petersen and Julia Petersen, Mark Smiley from Archaia, and once more to Tom and the Century Guild. I can’t tell you how much all of you helped make me feel less crazy and a little bit more professional. I’ll be putting up a little more once I figure out how to get the pictures up.

Thank you to everyone who decided to read all this.

hey a new post!

Well how bout that I finally got around to doing a new one. Soooo here’s what’s been going on, I had the Chicago con like a couple of weeks ago and it went pretty well. I was facing the far wall at the end of artist alley #1 (the big grouping) but I had a lot of people telling me that friends told them to search me out. Which is really cool, thanks to everyone who enjoyed my stuff so much they wanted to share it with others!!

The con was good, didn’t do to much socializing cause I’m me, talked some shop with my new publisher Olympian publishing. I will be having (instead of a sketchbook) two portfolios available with images painstakingly invented to thrill those who love the kinds of things I love. The manticore from an earlier post will be included in these. The first one is entitled -The Patient Snail ink decoration for paper. I think I’ve got a title for the second but I have to mull it over some more. Each portfolio will have 7 images and here are a couple I’ve come up with.

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I will also have some of these available as individual prints. The portfolios are $35 apiece the unique individual prints are $20. Those I have printed on heavy paper and then stain and bake them. I think they look like they’ve been torn right from old books. hee hee

A big thankyou to Mr. Tom Negovan for letting Emily and I stay at his amazing house. Shout out to the General Jack Cosmo crew for a hilarious night of berating someone much more powerful and far richer than us. Thank you to Mr. Dave Petersen for coming with me. A definate thank you goes to Daniel Thayer, his wife, and friends (I know I’m a jerk, I’m just really bad with remembering names so please forgive me, I do remember Rick and of course Tiara and Isaac. But I’m at a loss for everyone else… um…heh…*) for a equally hilarious night of wonderfully gross stories. Finally, the biggest thank you to my sweety Emily for putting up with facing a wall and for putting up with me. I can’t wait to see what she thinks of San Diego.

So I’m getting ready for Toronto! That’s in a couple of days. I hope to see anyone there.

new sketchbook

So if everything goes accordingly, I will have a new sketchbook for Chicago and all the cons that follow. Taking my inspiration from Mr. Mike Mignola and his sketchbook from San Diego 2006 -“some drawings”. It’s a cool little sketchbook with awesome Mignolaesque creatures and other. So here is the first drawing I’ve done for it, it’s a Manticore. A mythological creature that has the body of a lion, the head of a man, and a tail that can shoot needles (I put bat wings on mine cuz when I image googled him that’s how I saw a lot of them drawn). The originals will be for sale and under the prices my pages are available for. I won’t be posting all these because there should be some surprise in it but stay tuned from time to time and I’ll give you more glimpses.

My #1 fan

A few years ago when I first set up in Chicago selling the b&w issue one of Cursed Pirate Girl I met a man named Daniel. He purchased my book as well as a sketchbook I was selling back then. The next day he came back to my table with an illustration from my sketchbook that his daughter Tiara had drawn. I have unfortunately put that drawing and the ones that followed in a safe place, so safe that I cannot locate it right now… heh heh. Don’t worry Tiara I will be moving shortly and I’m sure to find it then.

When Tiara found out I was going to have a release party for my book in Ann Arbor she convinced her dad to drive her all the way over here. Then I had to cancel the release party. They still wanted to come over so I said sure. We met at Vault of Midnight where I was supposed to have my party (and printer willing, will still have a release party someday), and then went out for Ethiopian (which was really good!). Before dinner Tiara gave me the coolest fan art ever. The first one is to commemorate the release of my book (there was going to be a date at the bottom, but that will have to wait), and the second is the piece of wood that CPG drew a picture of her dad on. Tiara got it perfectly, I should have had her do it before I put it into my book. It would have been more authentic. So here are the images, and thank you again to Tiara and Daniel.