On to New Horizons and Growing Body Counts!

Man, I've been waiting to load this image for some time now. It's a version of the solicitation art for Jack of Fables #22.

It's a sloppy bit of art; I generated the entire thing on a Wacom Tablet, sketch to color, so there's no actual art. The inking is shoddy because I'm not used to the stylus. Oh, well. Next time right?

I really don't know about the "body count" thing. I haven't read the script yet since I'm still finishing JoF#21.
Andrew and I are both happy to be working on a Western-type story for Jack. Head over to Fabletown and follow the link to the solicitation.

Or not...suit yerself 'pard.

The Last of SanDiego!

I know, I know!!!
It's been a long-ass time coming but here it is!
I think it was Sunday, the last day of the Con.
Later I'd be sitting outside the hotel chilling with Jill and Brian, ogling Rosario Dawson through a plate glass window (baby!)...
But first, Mat and I had to get breakfast.

We set out, blindly, into the city. I was pretty sure we'd stumble across something fairly soon as SD is a second-class sort of town, with a second-class sort of mayor.
Sure enough we found SUN CAFE. It was perfect. I had chicken fried steak. Can't beat that with a second-class mayor!

Here's Matador juicing up.



Well malnourished we high-tailed it back to the Convention Center for our big to-do.
Here's M-man scooting from the Sun. It's really a great place. I think it should have an Honorary Bulfinch Street address. Pay no attention to the reflection in the window.



Panels are bit unnerving. Especially when the Fandom your facing is FABLES Fandom (the best in the world). Usually we saunter in with everyone else and jockey about on stage. But when Mat and I hit the door...the palce was already packed! Holy Fuck!

Seriously, the fans were out in force and cool as marble tombstones. Didn't women do a bit of knitting during the beheadings of the French Revolution?



Hey, there's Oppy (Chris Oppermann) and Adrienne Rappaport (Sequential Tart).



Here's the Panel at it's height. Bill has taken the helmy pulpit thingie and giving as good as he's getting from fans. Shit, this should be in one of those revival tents next time, I swear! Hand fans and dancing with serpents and good old timey stuff.

No?

This image is huge. Click on it and get the FULL EFFECT!!!



After the panel we're back on the DC/Vertigo pad signing signing autographs and talking to friends and fans. Here's Oppy again!



Here's a cute girl Bigby! She has a sword that is very much like as sword Gary has in the issue I'm finishing at present.



This is my second Flycatcher since being on the Fables team.



Cindy McShane sent some awesome cookies to us. They were delicious Cinders! Good sugar high to keep us going. Oppy brought them through...he and Cinders have some "cookie Ho Chi Mihn Trail" thing going.



OK Cinders made a hat for Mat. It's the Capybaras from the Las Vegas Arc. Pretty spiffy, Mat sporting it all gangsta style.



Here's a tighter shot. Yep, capybaras alright.



So what have we learned from this experience?

You can put anything on hats these days. You can smuggle cookies and girls can dress as Bigby Wolf. Yeah, that sums it up for me.

Ha! Look...I'm home.

h.e.

What's Ahead In 2008

In the words of Professor Farnswoth, "Good News everybody!".
'08 puts me back in the saddle after a multiple issue hiatus from "Jack of Fables". This year will see my contributions to the title on no less than 9 issues. Beginning with JoF#21 "Gary Does Denmark". GDD will be my first credit as both Penciller AND Inker on a single issue of Jack.
It's written by my beloved Matador Sturges; I guarantee that you'll laugh so hard that you will sprain your vagina or scrotum if not in the proper state of relaxation.
I did.
So there's going to be ass-loads of art that will be getting uploaded on the blog again. Hopefully this will please you. There will be commissions posted shortly and new sketches and collaborations.
You can also find me on Myspace.com.
So to kick off this new epoch of awesomeness, here are some promised photos; a first installment of the last of the SDCC pictures...


So, Friday night was the "Fables Family Dinner", I think...Maybe it was Saturday night. Anyway, there was a FFD. It was at Prado, a very nice place out by the Zoo.
Here's the exterior.
I want to see archers and grenadiers and shit.



Here's our arrival. A wedding party (a large one) was in the throes of exuberant occupation of a good portion of the grounds. A bloody, deadly run-in over cabs will ensue later.



Matador Sturges and Bill Willingham...



Striking that pose from "The Untouchables". That's Danny Vozzo's daughter on the right.


Here's Lou L. and Bucky.


Lovely Shelly Bond.


James Jean, yet to be hindered by the multiple awards heaped on him in the coming day...


Danny V., Steve L., Trina Robbins and Andrew P.




Lettering mogul, Todd Klein. Visit his website in my links to the right.


LOL. Look at Bill back there!


Un-ID'd creator along with the "dishy" Tara McPherson and Shelly Bond.


Mmmm, speaking of "dishes"...peach mousse with berry and mango sauces topped with a peppermint stick.



It's weird to see people that I can visit by walking a block from my home, hundreds of miles away in San Diego. Tom from Chicago's GRAHAM CRACKERS COMICS (also seen as "Comic Shop Mike" in JoF) gestures for a potty break. Sorry, Pal.


Later, I jacked this bitch from the wheezing gimp that was driving it without using his hands. Turns out that when he's in heavy traffic you can totally just walk up on his ass.


Um,...ok.


The Pirate Band! These bastards really were great! I just wanted to follow them around the floor. They really need a monkey to complete the act!


Con intern Fox meets ShinChan!


Then she gets "furred" by Sam and Maxx.


I got to hang and watch Cecil Castellucci of Minx shop the floor. Too cute! She's TINY!!! We're at Tara M's booth here.


I've already got that in green, babe.



No lie, this is Harvey Korman's SON! Christopher Korman. Too cool! That werewolf bit in "High Anxiety" always, always kills me!



More to come!!!

Training...

Brown Line to Francisco Station.
Rain. Sun. Snow. Day and Night. Training to the studio.
Training from the studio.
Watching for the new graffiti by rooftop ass-clowns.
I should put a paintball anti-tagging team together and collect some bounty on their punk-poseur asses. Yeah YOU, blanco nino!
First ice in the river. First bloom on the Acacias in Ravenswood.
Any cat loitering in a window above an alley. Hello.
I'm sorta bored but always have the music to color the thoughts and non-thoughts. Great for blocking the cellphone conversations of angry Serbian women, or the chatter teenagers.
NOTHING blocks out the thoughtwaves of the Kreplar-men and their invisible heater-dogs. God help me! HEY! That's MY threshold you're bargaining with, Missus MacKintosh, thank you very much!



Why?...It's gone so QUIET!

Bad, Bad Baby!!!

Children are certainly entertaining. I can spend hours watching them tire themselves out in traffic, or never fail to find a tear come to my eye whenever I hear a toddler say to it's 14year old mother, "Dag, I sent your broke ass out for some damn orange soda and you step back up in this muhfucka wif (baby looks at label, can't read it)... "what the fuck is this?"
I'm not a parent of anything.
They should start issuing parenting licenses from the look of things. That's beside the point. Here's an aborted project (Oh! That's where I was going with this! )...This was my idea of a PSA for print. What did I know, I was 18 here... Not too shabby. It's an unusual drawing as it's COMPLETELY devoid of Spaceships, or people in Spaceships, or people getting blown up by Spaceships. Or Spaceships blowing up other Spaceships. It was a theme I had going back in those days. Whacky 70's...



Oh, scary!





WOW! Such detailed notes! No wonder I colored the cobra Brown and Yellow!



Here's what's interesting (to me at least). That address is my first attempt at hurling myself into professional illustration. I still remember the interview. They were like, "Dude, you're like 17." I was like, "Oh, bitches...you gonna pay for that!"
Nah...wasn't anything like that at all.

They did set a tiger with rabies on fire an threw it at me to test my reflexes. They were REALLY good, so they said I was cool...but still too young.


...Fuckers.

Fuck, It's Cold!

Spine-snapping cold! And I'm not someone who feels the cold as easily as most. This shit is cold...Still I relish it a bit. Better a sub-zero day than one at 105 degrees (oh thank you so very much, God). The thermometer in the Volvo sat right at zero degrees and never varied. I wondered if it went below this to show a negative reading. It has to, it's a Swedish car, there should be some national pride behind having readings that display a dipping into the sub-zero temperatures.
I think of that Paul Newman movie, "Quintet". God that was insufferable. They conveyed cold well in that film, if not a plausible future where the world became frozen and barren.

"Hey, Tony...where's the art man?"
Good question. Ever-ree-thing I'm working on is so damned sensitive that I can't show it. But I will be posting art in earnest in two weeks or so. Do hang on!
It will be worth the wait (that's what she said)! I hope.

NO! No! Bad, Bad Intern!

Molly exploits her "unofficial" status by scrawling "Roman" graffiti across the studio chalkboard. Heyo!

In-studio Harassment

You that that scene where John Cusack is explaining how the guys that work at his record shop aren't employed there anymore, but they still show up. I know his pain.

Training Day

Rockin'Molly B. was good enough to bring back a lot of swag from the Xmas break. These wrestling masks entertain Tony Maldonado and I for a good bit. Head over to Tony's Flikr Page for more (under LONELY RICE CHRONICLES link to the right).
Yes, sometimes I like to wear a tie, wanna fight about it?

Do I EVER SHUT-UP?!

Adrienne at Sequential Tart pries me out of my shell.

In The Meantime...

I was going through some past files samples...Like seeing old friends, this is.
If I've published these already, well...sorry.
These are pages from HELLBLAZER:Papa Midnight, a mini I penciled, Dan Green inked and Mat Johnson (Drop, IncogNegro) wrote.

Hope you enjoy these.