Six Years

 As I'm rounding up and finishing the guts to the upcoming book Screw Comics! 4, I had a realization. It's taken me six long years, from idea, to pencil-to-paper, to inks, to scans, to greys and finally to the layouts. Clocking in at nearly 100 pages of new art and comics, Screw 4 is my best book yet. But I felt something was lacking. Sandwiched in the middle of the those six years was the very turbulent, disgusting and disturbing Trump administration, who day after day topped their latest atrocity with a new one. Seriously, every day was new shit to be upset about. For four years. And in those four years I felt my own anger and outrage, as well witnessed those around me get fired up, by the various shenanigans stirred up by this raft-of-floating-shit-of-an-administration as they steadily and reliably ran this country into the ground. And yet, there's not a hint of it in the book. While there's certainly themes within the stories that do reflect our society, there was no hint of any specifics going down. Indeed there was so much to be pissed about by the time you finished a cartoon or comic admonishing one atrocity, two more would have popped up.

I guess I recognized this from the beginning and decided to not even try to tackle any of that. There's plenty of other cartoonists and progressive heads out there that can better articulate how I feel, and in a far more timely manner. Still, there was this empty void. I simply don't want to let my readers think that I wasn't paying attention or that I didn't care. I believe as an artist I have a responsibility to address issues I feel super strongly about, to bring attention to grievances and injustices happening to the groups of people I belong to. So as I was compiling the guts of Screw 4 I simply sat down and described the process of making the book amid the chaos and media frenzy that was under way. It became a 4 page intro to the book, and drawing the panels, each representing a year, was not only fun but also puzzling at the same time, as I try to include the more pertinent occurrences of that year. I also tried to include more obscure/pop references such as the mummified monk, or Bong Joon-ho making his Oscars kiss. And certainly the death of the app Vine is a definitive mark on this upcoming generation, stuff like that, as well as personal milestones, like getting me getting married in 2018. Needless to say there were too many shootings to include. Go figure, America.

So here are the years posted in panel by panel, as I shared them on my Insta. 

 

And then to top it off I depict the year 2021 as an giant, engrossing Abadox monster. At first I thought this would come off as pessimistic, but a few days in I had nothing to worry about.

A pretty apt description of the year so far, eh?

More Progress

The end of the summer found me zoning out and chipping away at my latest book, Screw Comics 4. Page-wise I'm in the mid 60s, but I still haven't figured out how to end the damn story. While the characters are culminating for the final showdown with minutes left on the clock, it can still go in any direction; anything can happen, which is so damning. It's almost like the opposite of writer's block, and abundance of different choices of outcomes have me paralyzed. But not to worry, these things always work themselves out for me. A lot of times something will happen in real life that will give me that lightning strike of what to do in my stories. However, never one to sit around and wait for inspiration to strike I'll keep it moving wrapping up and finishing up other parts of the book. So, until then I'll still be chipping away.

Anywayz, peep these progress snaps.

Participated in Skessions this month. One of my friends mentioned something about how people refer to Frankenstein's monster as Frankenstein so I decided to clear up any confusion in my drawing.

Past Grievances

Another book I'll have at Comicpalooza, on the Pulp 21 label...
The original format is to be in color, but it's a finished book in time for a convention so I had to throw down some limited edition single issues with bonus recycled stock paper. A color version will be out when I finished coloring the last 16 pages. Here's the cover with a look at some of the pages.

It's about a woman who time travels back to visit all the epic live music shows in history.

I hand-lettered this first issue will keep on for the rest of series.Unless there are some Comixology terms that require digital letters. I may have heard something like that...but anyways here's Rock in Time.

 

Black & White/ Color comparison

 

Get your copy, edition of 25. Get it here.

LA Noire

So, where have I been all winter? What have I been working on? Have I been hybernating? Maybe...
Actually I was hibernating, on a certain project for a creative colleague of mine. I took the gig, a 50 something page 2-part comic full of mystery and intrigue, crime, passion, and music. I sat, penciled and inked the first 10 pages and then it just sat on my desk for about a year to be honest. I felt terrible for not getting to it sooner as I wrote and penciled other work, mainly mine. But, sometimes some projects take a back seat to others depending on the frame of mind I'm in. This past January however she gave me a deadline and that lit a fire under my ass. So for two months I was finishing the last 20 pages and putting the book together in time to make it in time for the album debut. And behold, the latest helping from Whitney Mower aka Iva Dawn, True Voodoo!

Cover art (no text)

And there's those snips of some favorite pages without giving it all away. So now go listen to the album:

And of course buy the comic HERE!

Making Miscreants

Here's what I've been doing all summer: working on the main story to Screw Comics! #4

The name of the story is The Miscreants of Time and it picks up some time after Heavy Duty Judy & the Two PJs in Screw Comics! #3 as well as right after Screw Comics 1 story Smoke & Mirrors. So were gonna have a major collision of wacky characters; Armstrong and Blindside will meet Evil PJ and Dark Judy in a dusty, doomed parallel Earth and somebody's gonna die, I'll tell you that.

Here are some penciled pages. I usually have a broad idea where the story is headed or I'll work from and outline, so I do all my writing in the penciling stage. The drawings are also very rough to also speed things along.

After the story has been read, and re-read and edited and all that, I'll reach a point where I'm ready to lay down some inks and do some permanent damage. I start with the lettering first, then borders, and then main figures.

2 page spread

After this point I erase lines and then fill in all the heavy blacks. Sometimes I'll use an ink well and a brush to do the finishes. After that and the pages are practically ready for post-production. Keep in mind there are 4 chapters to this particular story. I'm up to page 40-something with the writing/penciling part. I'll still haven't written the ending yet, even though I know how it's gonna end. A lotta times I'll have no clue how the execution of the ending is gonna come out so I don't rush it, I give it time, and sure, enough the perfect sequence will present itself and I can give the story a satisfying ending.

I've got a few other stories in the works for Screw Comics! #4, as well as other projects on my desk. Just making the most of Summer time!

Denver trip 4th of July weekend

Luna Bear!

Sugar Tits

I keep pumping out Star Boob concept art. I still have a lotta of visualizations and fleshing-out to do on the characters before I start this first issue. Good thing is I have a rough outline for the story, but even that needs polishing. So just chipping away at it.
Such a fun concept. I've never written a deep superhero story in my modern work, and with all the rage happening with superhero movies (as well as all their parodies and cliches) I was a tad bit reluctant to dive in. But, I'm loosening up in the idea department and creating a strange and colorful cast so it won't read like these same old stories we heard before. At least that's the idea. And there's this other side to creating superhero comics, it sort of taps into that feeling we felt as kids when we created our own characters and would try and mimic the poppy sequential art. How we would shape our characters similarly to the characters we would read about, posing them in identical poses whipping out the coolest art in class. Yeah, there's definitely some homages and other references taking place here as well, and they just pour outta me, so I'm going with it.

Throw Starboob from the Train. Starboob throws Trains.

Starboob vs. Epitomi O'Fine, arch-nemesis.

Starboob in Blue.

For this piece, I did some very sketchy pencil work with a very classic comic feel to it, something I don't do very often. I then tossed the piece to my boy KCool and he inked it and threw the blue wash on as well.

Starboob: Plane Dream sequential.

Been sitting on this penciled test page for months now. And when I say test page I do mean test page, I shoulda did it on some better paper. Maybe I will. The imagery is too gorgeous to not redo it and take a bit more time on it. 

That's Star Boob's development so far. This is gonna be a real cool story. I would tell you more but I don't wanna give it all away.

Join the Club

Hey, 2016 here we are.

And so is this. The latest compilation of comics from Red Stylo entitled The 27 Club, which is about, you guessed it, those infamous poor souls in the Rock-n-Roll pantheon who didn't make it past 27. It's actually quite a few too, a strange coincidental phenomenon. And this compilation features stories inspired by their brief lives and extraordinary careers.
I contributed art to TWO of these stories. The first is a story about a futuristic beauty pageant based on the late bass player of the band Hole, Kristen Pfaff. If you look into her life story you'll find it ends very tragically. For the final art I also did the colors and lettering.

The second story is a "Jim Morrison: Vampire Hunter" type joint. It weaves in something more mythological and explains why his life was cut short.

The book is available in a beautiful hardcover "Rock Hard" edition as well as a regular paperback. You can also order my stories, digitally, separately HERE for Kristen Pfaff and HERE for Jim Morrison.

 

And a big muchas gracias to Enrica Jang, editor at Red Stylo, for tossing me these opportunities.

You bet there's more to come in 2016.

Hell Hath No Fury

Just wrapped up the latest double-issue from Shotgun Blast Comics, the spanking new issue of Mr. Demon #2: The Kravinski Situation. Nearly 50 pages of original comic art from me wrapped up into a perfect bound double sized book, completed with chapter pages and bonus sketches at the end. Expect me to have it at this year's Comicpalooza. The digital version will be up soon, as well. As always, here are my SELECT pages, for portfolio-scouring purposes of course. Even though there's no text the images MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS for the story.

as always click the image to see it closer, in fuller detail.

And, of course, the full color wrap-around cover. This is two comic pages butted up side by side. 

For those who don't know, this is the completion of a package deal I do for upcoming comic writers: I'll turn your script and concept sketches into a full comic book, 24 (or more) standard comic size pages with black and white art plus a color cover (wrap-around optional but extra), letters, additional non-comic-art layout pages (like title pages, ads, etc.), and then all laid out for print, ready to send to the printer. I also make a digital version for you as well. All within a super reasonable time frame. 

I'm your one-stop comic producer, baby.

Let me do your comic.

...

In other news, the BAD first: I won't have Screw Comics #3 finished AND in print in time for Comicpalooza. BUT, the GOOD news is I will have the digital version ready by then as well digital versions of Screw Comics #1 and #2. I started a Gumroad account to get these to you and when it's ready the link will be HERE. As well as at the top of this page. This wraps up a portion of what I did in April, mainly cuz I've been traveling and then working. Follow me on Twitta for updates, plus sketches and other day-to-day musings.