Stink and the Title Recreation That Definitely Does Not

Back in February a friend of mine, Kurt Belcher, contacted me and asked if I could recreate a comic logo for him as part of a project that he was working. Stink is published by Source Point Press, and they had a title/logo designed by Sheldon Vella, but needed a scalable version for use on the book title, spine, and various promotional materials. It was a fun design to recreate, even though it was not a design of my own.

Contents of the graphic novel itself are by Chuck Messinger and Kurt Belcher. The story is of a post-apocalyptic world where three weird friends – chain-smoking unicorn Ray, failed fairy godfather Bundy, and evil cursed prince Michael – make their way in the aftermath. Check it out for sale now on Amazon!

For anyone who picks up this book, please let me know. Also remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator or Letterer, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.

Fry Day the Thirteenth!

I have not been as good about posting updates in recent months as I would like to be, but I could not let today pass without maintaining my blog tradition. I have posted at least one brand new, specially-themed illustration on every Friday the 13th since beginning the blog back in 2014. Today will be no exception!

I’m a fan of Matt Groening‘s Futurama and Bender’s cry of “Kill all the humans!” popped into my head this week when I was trying to decide what to draw for today. As you can see, I believe Bender is pleased with himself for having done his best to follow Jason‘s legendary example. Fry, however, seems to be carefully considering the situation. 🙂 This one is completely hand-drawn on Canson 98-lb 9×12-in paper, using pencil + markers to finish.

I hope to get back to regularly blogging again soon, and I have a huge backlog of things I’ve been doing that I need to get posted. In the meantime, please let me know what you think of this one and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.

Khan Job Fringe Kisses

*I know what you’re thinking… He disappears for months and doesn’t post anything at all, then he comes back and posts this horrible joke? I’m amazed (or is that a-maized?) that this was not a thing already, but I scoured the Internet for at least five whole minutes and could find no evidence that anyone else had as horrible of an idea for a joke as I did, so enjoy! Does this mean Fringe Kisses is back as a regular strip again? Does it mean I’m back as a regular blogger again? Nobody knows! 🙂

A Twist of Fett

Young John Connor really enjoyed the Star Wars movies. His mother, Sarah, allowed him this escape knowing full well the terribly difficult future that awaited her son. She was also very generous in helping John to amass one of the greatest collections of Star Wars action figures, vehicles, and play sets that any kid could ever hope to own. For all that generosity, however, there was something conspicuously missing from young John’s collection. John Connor had never owned a Boba Fett action figure of any kind!

Each year he would ask his mother for Boba Fett for Christmas and for his birthday… but each year, while she would buy him the most wondrous and rare of all Star Wars toys, she would never buy him a Boba Fett toy of any kind. John did have lots of other toys such as Play-Doh and Lego building blocks, and he had fun with those too, but oh how he longed for his own Boba Fett. One day, John finally spoke to his mother about this. “Mother, “ he started, “you bring me lots of Star Wars toys and I enjoy them all…”

“You’re welcome, John, I want you to enjoy your childhood as best you can before the machine apocalypse,” she replied.

“And I thank you graciously for that, mother, but why do you never buy me any Boba Fett toys? I so wish I had some of those too,” John exclaimed.

Sarah pointed towards the Play-Doh and the Legos, but John did not understand. “I will never buy you such a toy, John, you should know that by now,” she added.

“But, why, mom?” he asked.

“Because, John… you have all that you need right here,” assured Sarah.

Still confused, John looked around… and his mother could see that he had not yet learned the most valuable lesson of all… “If you want a Boba Fett toy, John, you will have to create one from the other toys I have given to you,” she commanded.

“I don’t understand,” John replied.

“There is no Fett but the one you make for yourself,” said Sarah.

Inktober 2017 Part 5: The Conclusion!

For the final few days of Inktober 2017, I continued making new 2.5×3.5-in. sketch cards. Check out the Troy Library Mini-Con, Week One, Week Two, Week Three, and Week Four posts to see all of the previous work I’ve done so far this year for Inktober. Also remember to visit the Inktober Web site to learn more about the concept.

Inktober: The Last Three Days:

Phantom of the Opera

Leprechaun

Female Zombie

Only three days worth of work for this wrap-up of Inktober 2017. I’m proud to say that this year (my second year of participation) I made it through every day with a new illustration every day! I think my wrap-up is pretty strong here too… The Phantom of the Opera is based on the Universal Monster classic. The Leprechaun is the creepy scary one from the movies of the same name. Last, but not least, the female zombie is a non-specific zombie of the type you might see in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead or Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.

Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.

Inktober 2017 Part 4

I’ve been a little lazy about posting on the blog, and maintaining my comic strips lately, but I have been busy with Inktober at least! For the fourth week in Inktober 2017, I continued making new 2.5×3.5-in. sketch cards. Check out the Troy Library Mini-Con, Week One, Week Two, and Week Three posts to see all of the previous work I’ve done so far this year for Inktober. Also remember to visit the Inktober Web site to learn more about the concept.

Inktober Week Four:

The Wolfman

Dracula

The Mummy

The Invisible Man

Leatherface

Jigsaw

Elvira

So, I started off this week with more Universal Monsters inspired cards: The Wolfman, Dracula, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man. Of this group I feel like the Mummy most resembles Boris Karloff as it should. The others are close, and Dracula is good, but I only feel like I nailed the Mummy like I wanted. I finished up the week with some more modern scary folk: Leatherface, Jigsaw, and Elvira. I’m happiest with Jigsaw and Leatherface. Elvira feels more like I drew an attractive woman cosplaying as Elvira and less like the true Cassandra Peterson version. Still, all told, I’m pleased with my efforts this week. Just a few more days to go and I can say I made it through the month intact and surpassed my inaugural effort last year! Stay tuned…

Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.

Inktober 2017 Part 3

For the third week in Inktober 2017, I continued making new 2.5×3.5-in. sketch cards. Check out the Troy Library Mini-Con, Week One, and Week Two posts to see all of the previous work I’ve done so for this year for Inktober. Also remember to visit the Inktober Web site to learn more about the concept.

Inktober Week Three:

Pinhead

Frankenstein’s Monster

Pennywise

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Bride of Frankenstein

Chucky

The Tall Man

This was another fun week. Pinhead (from Hellraiser) and Pennywise (from IT) might be my favorites this week… but I like pretty much all of them. I grew up on the classic Universal Monsters, so it was fun to do Frankenstein’s Monster, his bride, and the Creature… and then rounding out the week with Chucky (from Child’s Play) and the Tall Man (from Phantasm) made for a nice week of all horror-themed Inktober sketch cards. So far I’ve done a lot more horror cards this year than I did last year, which seems appropriate as we creep closer to Halloween! 🙂

Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.

Perhapanauts Deluxe Cryptid Field Guide Wraparound Dust-Jacket Color Flats

Pretty much as a direct result of my having worked on the Tellos Tribute Volume 2 Hardcover, I was contacted by Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau back in early September to see if I wanted to assist them with the colors for a wraparound cover to a comic that was to be part of an upcoming Kickstarter project. Now that the Kickstarter has launched earlier this week, I can finally talk about my involvement! I urge everyone to checkout the Perhapanauts Stuffed Choopie + Cryptid Field Guide Kickstarter for more information about the products available and how you can purchase your own cool stuff!

I was pleased to be able to be a part of another soon-to-be-published project with some cool guys who do great work! The Perhapanauts mines some very rich history in mythology and urban lore, so there’s really no end to the possibilities. This particular project from Todd and Craig involves a plush Choopie (one of the characters) and an A-Z Field Guide that describes all the various characters. Craig created an excellent homage cover in the style of the old Marvel Handbooks that used to describe their characters back in the day.

This was a fun piece to work on for several reasons… Lots of unique characters, twenty-six in total I believe… and I was asked to flat using reference colors. That meant when I was done, it was going to look pretty cool and reasonably like how a final rendering might appear. Typically flatting is done with semi-random colors as the process is mainly just to block out details to be colored later by the colorist. A few times, like on this project, I have been asked to use provided character references to color as appropriately as possible.

The image on top is the line art + color flats composited together, while the image on the bottom is just the color flatting work that I provided. I spent most of a day on this one, but it was worth it for how good it looks even without shading and lighting effects. Make sure when you go check out the project Kickstarter that you take a look at the final art for the dust-jacket wraparound cover for the deluxe edition of the book posted in the description.

Hopefully I’m going to continue to be able to work on more cool projects like this in the future, and continue working with some cool and creative people! Please let me know what you think and remember, if you are interested in requesting my services as a Flatter, please use the Contact page and provide me with as much information as you can about your request.

Inktober 2017 Part 2

Continuing with the second week of Inktober, I stuck to producing a new 2.5-3.5-in. sketch card every day. Check out the Troy Library Mini-Con and Week One posts to see what kicked off the month, and remember to visit the Inktober Web site to learn more about the concept.

Inktober Week Two:

Minimalism

Robot

Cyclops

EC Vault-Keeper

EC Crypt-Keeper

EC Old Witch

Jason Voorhees

I had fun this week, kicking things off with an experiment in minimalism that I think worked even though it was not what I imagined originally drawing. If I had to pick a single favorite card this week, it would be the Cyclops. That one just works in pretty much every way how I wanted it to work. But, I’m especially pleased with my trio set of EC classic host character sketch cards. I am a long-time fan of the classic EC horror comics and I tried to do those in a style appropriate for how they used to appear in the comics back in the 1950s. Those three were also the highlight of my Facebook likes during the week as I posted them, so I must have done something right 🙂 Rounded off the week with a Jason Voorhees card in honor of the Friday the 13th that we had this week.

Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.

‘Sects Saturday 10/14/2017

*I still want to see the Presidential IQ Test Challenge as a Pay-Per-View event. Many people are saying it would get the best ratings ever! 🙂 Also, I apologize for Buzz continually saying moron incorrectly, but that’s his thing… getting stuff wrong… kind of like that guy who is the President of the Virgin Islands… 😉

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