O Human Star: Coming Soon!

Big announcement time, you guys.  For many months now, I’ve been working on a personal comic project dear to my heart, O Human Star. I’d posted sketches pertaining to it from time to time on this blog and on Tumblr, but the comic proper wasn’t quite ready. Well next week, Monday February 6, O Human Star will launch!

9 pages the first week, and then 2 pages every other week. I hope you guys will drop by and check it out. Here’s the gist of it: 

Alastair Sterling was the inventor who sparked the robot revolution. And because of his sudden death, he didn’t see any of it. 

Until he wakes up 16 years later in an advanced robotic body - and finds a world utterly unlike the one he left behind - a world where robots live alongside their human neighbors and coexist in their cities. A world he helped create.

Al seeks out his old research partner Brendan to find out if he is responsible for Al’s unexpected resurrection, but his return raises far more questions for both of them. Like how much of the men’s past should stay in the past…

Schoolchildren stay at home (yeah) and all the banks will close (yeah)

Pop culture!

I've been working behind the scenes on a bunch of projects, including the next chapter of The Accidental Candidate and my webcomic, which is getting close to launch! I'll make an announcement about that soon. In the meantime, I'll hope you'll indulge me when I post some drawings of pop culture things that have been on my mind lately.

I originally mentioned this bizarro dream of mine on Twitter, and the idea of a skinny punk Rooney Mara in a Trader Joe's Hawaiian shirt wouldn't leave me alone.  So I just made a pretty picture of it.

Drew a Dib, which my Tumblr followers seemed to enjoy very much.

And after watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood while I worked and getting to that... scene... I drew a Tucker.
I've been experimenting with colors and shading a lot the past week or so, and some experiments turned out better than others. I'd been working on more realistic lighting on skin and faces, too - I worked for quite a while on a sketch that I posted to Tumblr and hate now, so I won't post it here. Oh well.

Another big announcement next week, so keep your eyes peeled!

Losing you, losing you, losing you

The Accidental Candidate is live!

Today is the launch day for my newest comic collaboration with David Axe and Corey Hutchins: The Accidental Candidate. This serialized nonfiction graphic novel is the story of Alvin Greene, an enigmatic, awkward man who unexpectedly won South Carolina's Democratic nomination for the Senate in 2010 and how he becomes a piece of a larger picture in modern American politics.

I'm really, really proud of the work I've been able to do with this book and it's cool to see my art improving every month as I continue to work work work!  Plus it's been a great experience working with David Axe - he's a war correspondent who's scripted other graphic novels like War Is Boring, and he synchronizing this launch with me while he's overseas in Afghanistan.

The Accidental Candidate will update with a chapter or two each month.  Give it a read!

Instrumental

So this is the new year...

...and I have some updates to do. What have I done since Christmastime? Uh... I dug out my family's copies of all the Bone paperbacks...

I went back to work and have started documenting some of the people coming into the yogurt store...

And... sketching! Working on projects and same old stuff.  It's looking to be a bang-up new year ahead of me.

Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once

Happy Wassail!

Not much to post here until after Christmas except this.  Happy holidays to one and all. Enjoy your candy canes, hot cocoa, and wassail... in cans.

Then severe financial penalties to you

Sundry sketches

Probably my favorite non-work thing I did this week was this Al sketch with a color scheme that I realize I cribbed heavily from Jemma Salume. I still love how this turned out, but check out Jemma's art, too, it's fantastic.

But there's also a color sketch I did of some lady -

Some sketches from a manga series my coworker lent me this week -

And some sketches for a surprisingly detailed story idea that came from a dream I had. I seem to have a lot of those! I wrote a pitch for fun, if you're interested.

He corrido, he trepado, conquistado esa ciudad

So much to do

So much stuff to doooooo

I've been watching a lot of Shin Chan and MST3K as background noise for all my work. So here's a Manos: The Hands of Fate doodle.

More O Human Star doodles.  I've gotten a lot of pages of my webcomic done so it'll be ready to debut early next year. I'm so excited!

And my Smut Peddler story's done, too! I like how it turned out a lot. A lot. The whole book's gonna be spectacular.

Instrumental

I guess I should update this blog, huh.

AUGH, sorry guys.  Work, and all that.  I tend to update my Tumblr a bit more often than this, so next time this happens, feel free to mosey over there.
Stuff! Smut Peddler stuff! (All safe for work) The lady with the awesome mohawk in Picture 1 is EK Weaver's Darby.

And some other stuff. A Luther wallpaper I made over Thanksgiving break...

A (NSFW) drawing where I fiddle with textures, and a doodle of Mursu, my favorite teenage mermaid.

You know what's going on in that Bermuda Triangle? 

Odds and Ends

I'm working on a lot of stuff right now, but sadly there's not a lot of stuff I can show to you right now.  I can show you a little illustrated guide I made to the various noises that come out of my obese black cat.

I found a book at work that was full of cave paintings, which reminded me of these books I read as a kid called the Magic Tree House series.  These two kids had a treehouse full of books that could transport them through time and space, and one of my favorite books took them to the Ice Age. They took shelter in a cave and met a bizarre man/animal/manimal who is actually based on a cave painting figure known as "The Sorceror."

And finally, I can give you one glimpse of what I've been working on.  It's a bit of a page I've been working on for O Human Star! I'm aiming to start uploading pages in February!

It's all about progression

MIX 2011 Report

Just flew back in from MIX 2011 in Minneapolis a few hours ago, and whipped together a little report of the con/weekend.  With special cameos by Annie Koyama, Dustin Harbin, Spike Trotman, and Anthony Clark.

Other nice people I met/saw again: Hannah Blumenreich, Jeremy Sorese, Sarah Glidden,Jim Rugg, Sam Hiti, Diana Nock, and the other Smut Peddler people! And thanks to my friends for putting me up! If MIX happens net year, I'm tabling. For sure.

Also, were you guys aware that Minneapolis is the most beautiful city in the world? I sure forgot.

Like it's cold... wintertime.

New short comic: Oh, Maker

While I'm off in Minnesota for the weekend, I have a special treat for you. Here's a short full-color comic I finished a couple months ago. Consider it a teaser for my upcoming webcomic.
And, as with my earlier effort, this has an audio companion. Queue it up and join me, won't you?

As I've been working on putting this whole OHS thing together, the biggest challenge has been to explain a story that has unconventional character dynamics, to say the least. But then Nathan and I started listening to Janelle Monáe's album The ArchAndroid while we worked, and this song stuck out to me.
Because it seemed to basically be about my guys. It was eerie.
So yeah, this became a challenge to introduce some of my characters with some lyrics and a few pithy images. I hope I did okay.

The lock of grey hair that she gave to him

Commission Time!

I’ve never tried accepting commissions before, but with the holidays around the corner I could use a little extra dough to buy presents for my beautiful family. Also, to buy luxuries like shoes and food.

I’ve got a range of commission options for you to choose from, including digital options (I will email you a high-res file of your commission) and physically mailing you a piece of original artwork. You can check out my art all over my Tumblr and blog, meanwhile I’ve broken down the prices after the jump.

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION (BUST): $15   This is a basic sketch, chest and up, of a character of your choosing. It will likely not be full color, but I may throw in a splash.

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION (FULL BODY): $20   This is a full drawing of a character, probably with minimal color as well. 

ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATION (7x10, B/W): $40   This would be a physical piece, done in pen and ink, that I would mail to you.  Don’t forget to include your address on the Paypal order page, or contact me separately about it!

ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATION (7x10, Color): $60   Same as above, but I will get all fancy with the watercolors. Here are some watercolors I did on the road earlier this year.

I can accept credit card orders through Paypal. On the right hand bars of both my Tumblr and my blog you can find “Commission” buttons with a text bar for you to specify what you’d like drawn.

I’ll likely be doing these through December, and will try and make the turnaround as quick as possible.  Thanks for your support, guys - I have a special treat in store for you tomorrow.

One fist of iron, the other of steel 

Happy Halloween!

And here are a few doodles from when I learned that Hiromu Arakawa, a cartoonist known for her popular high-drama action-adventure series and a huge influence of mine, had started a new comic, this one about kids at an agricultural high school.

I wrote a little Tumblr post about how Arakawa manages to convey the same interesting, mature, thoughtful messages in both Fullmetal Alchemist and Silver Spoon, despite the genre, scope, and story of the two being completely different. In a way, both stories talk about the power of nature and humans' successful - and unsuccessful - attempts to harness its power. You can see it if you compare the first page of both comics - it's a pretty interesting comparison.

Not to mention Arakawa always enjoys exposing the typical shonen manga tropes and twisting them ever so slightly. It's great for a laugh.

Anyway, happy Halloween, everyone.

They're whispering his name through this disappearing land

In which I keep pretending to be an ARTIST

More OHS stuff I did as I was drawing some pages for next year's comic (!!!)
First of all, Brendan, you little minx.

I also gave myself an exercise of drawing my characters as realistically as I could.

This was after I did a from-reference exercise based on some great portraits a photographer's been taking of Occupy Wall Street protesters.

Also the new Ghibli movie has an American trailer now did you seeee

The bats have left the bell tower

Cuteness abounds!

It's Mary Blair's 100th birthday today! She illustrated Golden Books, designed the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland, and raised national cuteness levels back in the 50s. Here's an attempt to copy her inimitable style.

Halloween is also around the corner.  wooooooo...

More Tales of Employment...

And some quick 30 Rock doodles.

It was a rocking werewolf zoo at Temple Beth Emmanuel