Ryan Dunlavey's Obligatory Art Blog

2012 Comic Convention Schedule

2012-01-09T21:11:00.000-05:00

Every year I say I'm going to do less comic conventions, but then I always end up doing more.
Here's my schedule for 2012 (so far)
Mocca Art Fest - April 28 & 29
TCAF: The Toronto Comics Arts Festival - May 5 & 6
Asbury Park Comic-Con - May 12
Wizard World Philadelphia - June 2 only
San Diego Comic-Con International - July 12-15
New York Comic Con - October 11-14
I will post a new update as each convention approaches. Hope to see you at one of them!

My new comic "BAD GUY" from MTV comics coming in spring 2012

2011-11-11T19:03:00.001-05:00

Hey everybody - I'm writing and drawing a comic for the soon-to-be-launched MTV Comics. Here, listen to my giant, pasty, cough medicine addled head spill all the details!

Geek: Event Coverage - Full Episodes

Oh my god - shut up you idiot!!!

If any of you liked MODOK: Reign Delay then I just *know* you're going to like this. Bad Guy is going to be a three issue digital comic series starting sometime next spring, with a print collection to come later that year. I'm scripting the story right now and having a blast!

How to Make a Guerilla Video comic

2011-11-08T18:30:00.001-05:00

A short non-fiction comic I drew for Idealware (a tech consulting firm for non-profits) a few months back. The text was written by Idealware's Colin Pizarek, and we collaborated on coming up with the visuals and gags throughout the comic. Really fun little project that I was really happy to be a part of!
Copyright Idealware. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License

Rat Boy revisited

2011-10-25T08:50:00.000-04:00

So last weekend at New York Comic Con, the big highlight for me wasn't the announcement of my new comic (more on that in a few days) but an unexpected reunion with my old college friend Andy Sanford, whom I haven't seen or even talked to in almost 20 years. Andy and I made a handful of comics together while we were students at Syracuse University - he wrote, I drew - they were the first comics I ever collaborated on with anyone, ever. Andy's comic ideas were inspired by classic underground model that I love - wildly imaginative and incredibly obnoxious - and at the time I met him I was struggling with my own writing and ideas so combining forces with him suited me perfectly. I learned a lot working with him and it helped me find my own groove both as a writer and an artist which I will always be thankful for.

Andy graduated with a film degree and spent a few years kicking around Hollywood before getting tired of it and going back to school for law - he's now a very successful trial lawyer in LA.

I was hoping I could find some of the comics that we did together in the archives so I could scan and post them here but they must be in storage at my in-laws house, so instead I whipped up this updated drawing of RAT BOY "World's Smartest Punk", the main character of our last, and dare I say greatest, collaboration.

Thanks a million Andy!

Another one!

2011-10-14T10:43:00.000-04:00

WHAT

2011-10-13T09:34:00.000-04:00

M3 Money Club comic strip: "Spendville"

2011-08-19T17:58:00.000-04:00

M3 Money Club is ©Subcat marketing and drawn by me!

Bad Boyfriend: The Big Date!

2011-08-03T10:38:00.002-04:00

M3 Money club comic strip: "Mad Man"

2011-06-20T11:37:00.000-04:00

Another M3 Money Club comic strip. Art and characters ©Subcat marketing.

Warm up sketch: Cobra B.A.T.

2011-05-11T10:57:00.002-04:00

When I first saw the Cobra B.A.T. action figure in the store as a kid I thought it was the coolest GI Joe figure EVER - he had a robot hands and could swap it out with a back pack full of kick ass-weapons. MAximum firepower with no guns - awesome! I also thought it was just one guy - some sort of Cobra cybernetic super-soldier. Then I saw the cartoon and was so disappointed when it turned out that B.A.T.stood for Battle Android Trooper and there were THOUSANDS of the useless losers. What a gyp. I like my idea better.
Drawn in Photoshop.

More Bad Boyfriend

2011-04-07T15:25:00.002-04:00

Bad Boyfriend

2011-03-16T11:40:00.002-04:00

Bad Boyfriend is a mini-comic I've been working on in my (ha!) spare time. More soon.

Ten Buck Commissions - Round Two!

2011-03-14T12:29:00.016-04:00

~~THE BASICS:~~ ~~$10 (plus shipping) buys you a black and white marker drawing on 5 x 8 inch bristol board~~. ~~See my tumblr blog~~ ~~for samples. Paypal only - use the form below to order.~~

~~THE RULES:~~ ~~You MUST use the paypal button to order~~ ~~- it will calculate accurate postage and helps me keep track of the number of commissions coming in.~~ ~~First come, first served.~~ ~~Pre-existing characters only.~~ (Examples: Wonder Woman, R2-D2, James Bond, Godzilla, Charlie Brown, etc.) I'll gladly draw characters of your own creation if you can provide visual reference, but I won't design new characters for you. You can order more than one piece of art, but no cheating by asking to group 2 or more characters on one piece of artwork. One order, one character, one piece of art - no more, no less because at just $10 a pop I simply don't have time in my schedule to get too fancy. I reserve the right to refund your purchase if I feel your request is too difficult, too complex or offensive (but I will almost always email you first to discuss). I'm sorry to spell it out that this since I'd say 95% of people who commission art from me ask for perfectly awesome and reasonable requests anyway, but I'm sure the remaining 5% would appreciate the clarification.

~~Commissions will be open until March 15, 2011, 1:00pm Eastern Standard Time or until I fill 100 slots, whichever comes first.~~ ~~Last time I did this I ended up selling 60 commissions in less than 4 hours and had to shut it down early, so if you are at all interested order sooner rather than later.~~

~~LET'S DO THIS!!!~~

UPDATE: Commissions are now closed. It was a LOT! I will start drawing next week and get them all in the mail. Thanks to everyone who ordered or helped spread the word!

Make-A-Wish comic

2011-02-22T09:26:00.001-05:00

About a year ago I was asked to help out on what has been the most challenging and most rewarding work I've ever done, co-creating a special comic book "Super Shot" with Luke Robinson, an 11-year old childhood leukemia survivor. The comic was made possible by the Make-A-Wish foundation, Luke created and designed the characters and came up with the story ideas - I wrote the script and drew the artwork under the supervision of then-Marvel Comics editor Nate Cosby. This past week the book was printed and distributed for free to hospitals in Luke's hometown area of Tennessee - the story is an origin of Luke's characters Super Shot and Dr. Shrink, who battle the Virus in a story that demonstrates that kids need not be afraid of doctors or medical care. This was all Luke's vision and I was just lucky to be asked along for the ride.

Here's a local news broadcast on the book's release:

And here are some more articles about the comic:
Dickson boy realizes comic book dream
Local boy's Marvel-drawn comic book release

Thanks to Marvel Comics, Nate Cosby, Make-A-Wish, Luke and the Robinson family for allowing me to be a part of this!

X-Force #1 on Covered

2011-02-17T13:56:00.001-05:00

I re-drew Rob Liefeld's cover to X-Force #1 (1991) for the Covered blog. Buy a print at Deviantart. I'll also have prints for sale at C2E2!

Ten Buck Commissions!

2011-02-16T10:17:00.006-05:00

I'm suddenly in need of some quick cash, so I'm offering cheap commissioned artwork - one character, drawn in black and white on a 5 x 8 piece of bristol board for only $10 plus shipping just like the one seen above (which is available for sale, of course). To order just type in the character that you want and click the button. I'll post scans of the artwork here on the blog. My schedule only allows me to do 30 of these, so order soon!

UPDATE: I'm overwhelmed with the response so far! Those first 30 spots filled up much sooner than I expected, but I've decided to keep the button up at least until the list gets crazy out-of-control.

UPDATE 2: Commissions are now closed. Thanks so much to everyone who bought one - or several! Keep watching this space for the finished pieces.

UPDATE 3: All artwork has been drawn and is in the mail - I've been posting the results on my Tumblr blog. This went so well that I'm going to do another round of these next week - commissions will open on March 14th, first come, first served.

Sketch cards of lesser-know X-Men

2011-02-13T16:50:00.000-05:00

Commissioned by the same patron who ordered yesterday's Cable drawing. Above: Madison Jeffries/Box (my favorite X-Man/Alpha Flight character), Dr Kavita Rao, Dr Takiguchi & Red Ronin, Dr Nemesis, Elixir, Maggot, Match and The Vanisher. Below: Ernst and No-Girl. Each card measures 2.5 x 3.5 inches, drawn with markers on Strathmore Bristol artists sketch cards.

Cable of X-Men/X-Force

2011-02-13T01:17:00.000-05:00

Commissioned piece - markers on bristol paper.

M3 Money club comic strip: "Mad Man"

2011-02-11T20:48:00.001-05:00

My latest comic for the M3 Money Club. Art and characters ©Subcat marketing.

Taskmaster vs Deadpool commission

2011-02-08T11:04:00.001-05:00

Another private commission that I'm mailing out today. The patron's request: "Taskmaster and Deadpool playing a table top game."

2011-02-07T09:56:00.001-05:00

A commissioned piece I'm mailing out today:

Karate Kid vs MODOK

And some sketch cards from a Twitter contest I held a few months ago:

Deathlok/MODOK = DOKLOK

Karl Marx/MODOK

Super[Tank]Girl

Thor with a coffee

Comic Book Advice and stuff.

2010-12-15T14:56:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago a young person who was just starting out with drawing and developing their own comic ideas contacted me through my DeviantArt page to ask about how to turn their ideas and sketches into self-published comic books. Since that is a HUGE leap to make I ended up dishing out a LOT of advice about all levels of comic book development through a series of message board replies and emails.

I thought it might bear repeating so here’s most of what I wrote back, edited for readability & applying the language to all projects and not just this specific individual’s goals. It’s also just my opinion as a semi-succesful cartoonist and self-publisher and should not be taken as iron-clad facts. As always, your milage may vary.

SELF PUBLISHING:
I started self-publishing comics 6 years ago, in print, professionally distributed through Diamond Comics. (I had made mini-comics for about 10 years, and I tried to self-publish through Diamond back in 1998 but was rejected the book because it wasn’t up to their standards.) We were lucky because we had received a grant to pay for the printing AND our comic was profitable right away, most people risk and usually lose their own money self-publishing, and breaking even is considered a success by many. Diamond has since changed their sales minimum threshold and if released today, Action Philosophers would never had made it into stores. Right now and for the foreseeable future it seems like web comics are the best way to start out, with plans for print editions after building an audience online. If I was starting out right now, that’s what I would do.

MAKING “PROFESSIONAL” LOOKING COMICS:
You should get your hands on a scanner if you’re drawing your work by hand. Even for print comics it’s going to go into the computer at some point. It’s good that you can recognize your art is still rough - I would work on making it a little more polished first, there are lots of tutorials online about how to do that, here on [deviantart], on YouTube, all over really, just do a google search. “Comic book artwork tutorial”, “Comic art inking” etc. Practice, practice, practice, get your work as best as you can, aim to be as good as the comics currently being published or better. In the meantime post as much of your art to the web as possible - get feedback, make connections, make friends, support each other. Always be nice, but always be honest too.

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas from posting on the web - just make sure you indicate that you’re the creator when you post your artwork and you should be fine. [deviantart] does this automatically with everything you post, so it’s pretty safe here. People borrow and adapt other people’s ideas all the time, it comes with the territory, but if it’s outright plagiarism you can always point to your original work if/when you see someone ripping you off. I have been in this very situation myself - and it always worked out in my favor, the web is very democratic that way.

HOW TO INK COMICS:
1 - Draw in pencil on BRISTOL BOARD PAPER. Strathmore Bristol is a good, relatively cheap brand that you can get most anywhere in pads of 20 sheets, even Staples sells it. It’s thick enough to handle lots of drawing and re-drawing. I also like Borden & Riley Paris Bleedproof Paper for Pens because it has a nice surface for inking and you get a lot of pages for not a lot of money, but it’s not as durable as Bristol.
2 - Trace over the pencil drawings with black markers (here are the ones I use): [link]. They’re called Alvin Penstix markers and you can get them in almost any art supply store. A lot of people use Sakura Microns but the felt tip is too fragile for me. You could also try using a #2 or #3 round brush and bottled ink if you’re feeling ambitious. Try to make the ink drawing look better than the pencil drawings.
3 - Let the ink dry, then erase the original pencil lines and smudges that are left. The ink won’t erase. I find kneaded erasers to be the best.
4 - Scan it in. Looks a lot better than just pencil drawings, right?
5 - Clean it up in the computer. Use photoshop or whatever photo/art program you have to make it look better by adjusting the contrast or getting rid of smudges and stuff. Look up tutorials for more in-depth instruction like “Scanning comic art”.

SENDING STORY AND CHARACTER IDEAS TO PROFESSIONALS FOR REVIEW:
Don’t do it. Professionals can’t read your idea for legal reasons. Writers are developing new ideas and projects all the time, and if your idea is coincidentally similar to one of theirs it can put them in a morally awkward position. It may force them to abandon a project they are already working on, or worse they could read your idea, forget about it and then months or years later it will pop back into their subconscious and they will start working on it themselves, not realizing the idea originated with someone else. So for these reasons most will just ignore such requests, not read your ideas or just not reply at all. Only share your ideas privately, OFF-line, with close friends that you trust to give you honest feedback. If you produce a finished comic most professionals will be glad to take a look and give feedback if they have time and you ask nicely. FInished means finished - a full blown, ready to read comic, not sketches or a plot outlines or scripts.

If you have story and character ideas I encourage you to start creating comic stories IMMEDIATELY, and not work on character designs and back story too much. You will learn more by putting your ideas into a finished story than you ever will by planning and sketching.

CHOOSING A PROJECT:
Do NOT try to do an epic story right away - start simpler or smaller if you’ve never done a comic before - try writing and drawing a short story or scene with just 2 or 3 characters, maybe 4 pages long - 8 pages long at the absolute most. You will be able to see on your own if your ideas work or not, and in the process of creating the comic you will discover things about your characters, ideas and even yourself that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Plus when your done, you’ll have a finished comic that you can show people and get feedback on before you do more.

Whatever style or genre you choose to make your story is completely up to you - funny or dramatic, fantasy or reality - do whatever you feel like is best or what you’re most excited about, that’s the most fun part of being creative after all. If you have lots of ideas and can’t choose, just do the one you’re MOST excited about, save the rest for another time.

IMPROVING:
THe best, in fact the ONLY way to get better at making comics, is to MAKE COMICS. Then make more. And then some more. Etc. They might be terrible, they might be great, most likely they will be somewhere in-between, but regardless of how it turns out it’s a step in the right direction, and you’ll be able to see what your strengths are and what you need to improve on so you can make the NEXT comic even better.

But stop planning, start drawing. Right now. You have characters and plot ideas - draw comics of those ideas, post them on the web, then draw more. Start small then try bigger projects and stories as you get more confident. If you try and do a big story right from the start, you’ll never finish. You might not even get started. Don’t expect to make money or get famous making comics and stop doing it if it stops being fun.

Making comics is really fun and is a lot more rewarding than just having stacks and stacks of notes and ideas that no one ever sees.

Good luck!

Real Cartoonists, Fake Convention

2010-11-15T10:03:00.006-05:00

Screenshot taken from the illegally downloaded episode - purely for journalism purposes. Please don't sue.

Back in May I worked for 2 days as a "real" extra on HBO's Bored to Death along with several other Brooklyn cartoonists. The episode aired yesterday, and there was a nice shot that most of us cartoonists were in all at once. Pictured here: Emily Flake, Lisa Hanawalt, Robin Enrico, Tony Murphy, Fred Chao, Gabby Schulz/Ken Dahl and me. There were 4 or 5 other cartoonists on set as well but I didn't spot them in the episode. They also filmed a scene where Ted Danson's character hits on Wonder Woman and Fred and I were right next to them, but they ended up using a different take. Two 12-hour days of work for a 10 second appearance in a 3 minute scene of a 30 minute show. Yay, Hollywood!

Gabby did a nice write up of the whole experience on his blog, Fred did some great on-set sketches and I spotted Tony working on his comic strip between takes. The crew and actors were all really nice, and I got to get paid to draw sketches, hang out with cartoonists and comic nerds for 2 days, get free food and appear in one of the few television shows I actually like in an episode that was really funny! Overall a fun experience, but probably something I won't do again anytime soon.

Graphic Design

2010-11-10T20:30:00.002-05:00

I don't just draw stuff. Here are some samples of my graphic design and production work.

Print design

Wizard Entertainment

creative director - Steve Blackwell

Time Out New York

design director - Ron De La Pena

Evil Twin Comics

responsible for all graphic design and print production, co-edited with Fred Van Lente

Phoenix Public Library

illustrator - Donato Giancola

Apparel Graphics

The Children's Place

Miscelaneous

Awesome: The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology -

editorial direction and print production.

Book design and cover illustration by Jon Adams

Character Design work

2010-11-10T20:18:00.000-05:00

Some character designs I found while digging through the archives:

"Paper Knight" character concepts

http://www.paperknight.com/

©Bioroid Studios

Celphone Wallpaper

Emouse for eschoolonline.com

See him in action

MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!

2010-11-10T19:56:00.002-05:00

I'm drawing a cartoon cookbook. "The Dirt Candy Cookbook" (just a working title) is written by chef Amanda Cohen and illustrated by me, and will be published by Random House/Clarkson Potter. It should hit shelves in summer 2012. The pages here are from the book proposal, which I drew back in June of this year. I'm so excited to be a part of this project I can't even tell you - I will be posting more in-progress work when I can!

M3 Money club comic strips

2010-11-03T08:39:00.001-04:00

Two more comics for the M3 Money Club. Comics and characrters ©Subcat marketing.

Cable

2010-10-20T12:25:00.003-04:00

Sketch for a larger piece I'm working on.

Animation Reel 2010

2010-10-06T01:45:00.002-04:00

Ryan Dunlavey Animation Reel 2010 from Ryan Dunlavey on Vimeo.

Morning sketch: MODOK & The Leader!

2010-10-04T09:34:00.000-04:00

The first Diarrhea Dog comix!

2010-09-22T17:44:00.003-04:00

Hey hey! The maniacs over at Royal Flush have a new amazing looking issue coming out next month, with a cover story of my favorite current TV show It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia! Sadly, I did not have time to make a new Diarrhea Dog comic for this issue, but here's the very first Diarrhea Dog comic strips I did for issues #2 and 3 (long since sold-out).

Last of the DCBS sketch cards (I hope)

2010-09-01T09:20:00.000-04:00

I'm about to send off 180 sketch cards of Marvel Comics characters to my friends at Discount Comic Book Service, who ran a promo last year for my MODOK comic (buy the comic, get a sketch card). I've been posting scans of the cards as I go - I think this is the last of them.

If I had the energy I'd write some commentary about these cards. Like how I feel guilty at having to only spend a few minutes dashing each one out instead of lovingly laboring over every single one them. How I discovered the depressingly low rates that the criminal trading card companies pay artists to draw sketch cards for them. How I thought I'd be drawing, at most, 100 - 150 cards but ended up having to do over four hundred. Or how deceptively complex the Falcon's costume is, or how much I like drawing Doctor Octopus, Rogue, The Angel and Galactus, and how much I hate drawing Daredevil, Cyclops and Iceman, or how I probably spent more time drawing these giveaway promos than I did actually writing, drawing, coloring and lettering the very comic book they were promoting. And ultimately how I learned I will most likely never, ever, EVER do anything like this ever again. But I'm too tired.

Instead I just leave you with this gem, my favorite card of the entire bunch, a character I don't much care for to be honest, but it came out so nice I could hardly believe a I actually drew it, so I decided to keep it for myself:

Ta-da!

Diarrhea Dog In Space!

2010-07-14T08:00:00.004-04:00

Here's the comic I did for Royal Flush #6!

Royal Flush has started a Kickstarter page for book #7 - it's an amazing publication unless any other, tirelessly run by my friends Josh Bernstein and Steve Chanks - the same mad men behind the Hispanic Batman comic I posted about earlier this week. Even if you don't feel like backing the project, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of book 6, it's chock full of amazing art and gut-busting humor that put my stuff to shame.

Hispanic Batman!

2010-07-12T22:57:00.002-04:00

Here's my contribution to Royal Flush Magazine Presents: Hispanic Batman The Collected Archives!

This book collects all the Hispanic Batman comic strips and artwork from Royal Flush magazine plus 25 pages of brand-new comics and pin ups. Hispanic Batman has been hands-down the highlight of every issue of Royal Flush since the beginning and I so glad I finally got to get in on the action. The book will debut at this year's San Diego Comic Con and will go on sale at the Royal Flush web site shortly thereafter - the print run is limited to 1000 copies, so don't miss out!

Twitter sketch card contest details

2010-07-05T21:29:00.003-04:00

I'm having a contest to give away 5 full-color sketch cards! To enter, just re-tweet THIS MESSAGE using your Twitter account by 11:59pm EST on July 6th, 2010. 5 randomly selected re-tweeters will get one full-color sketch card of the character of their choice, mailed for free to anywhere in the world. Any questions? Post them in the comments. Thanks and good luck!

UPDATE: Contest is over and it went awesomely well. I will post the winning cards once they are all done and mailed out.

Wonder Woman

2010-06-30T10:08:00.000-04:00

A quick Wonder Woman sketch I did this morning after hearing DC is re-designing her costume.

The strongest man… in the world!

2010-06-13T13:52:00.000-04:00

I got a wacom cintiq tablet about a month ago. tested it out by inking and coloring a doodle out of my sketchbook: Artie The Strongest Man In The World, from The Adventures of Pete and Pete (one of my favorite shows).

Heroes Con Day 2 Sketches

2010-06-05T18:43:00.001-04:00

not pictured: Dr Mindbender, multiple Bodhidharmas

Heroes Con Day 1 Sketches

2010-06-04T19:52:00.000-04:00

Not pictured: Kitty Pryde, Ariel the Little Mermaid, Socrates 3000 and a fistful of MODOKs.

M3 Money Club comics Spring 2010

2010-05-25T23:31:00.002-04:00

Two more comic strips for the M3 Money club - and right now I'm drawing strip #8!

HACK!

2010-05-21T15:59:00.003-04:00

I did the publicity artwork for the Impetuous Theatre Group's upcoming production HACK!: An I.T. Spaghetti Western, written by my good friend Crystal Skillman.

From the theatre's home page: "When Hedge fund I.T. employees, Cal, Dash, and Jay, discover that they’ve been hacked – and that the hack is one of them - they scramble to pin it on each other to snag the gold in this ultimate showdown of the Good, the Bad and the Geek." I've yet to see the play live, but was lucky enough to read the script and watched ten minutes of a low-budget version of the play on Vimeo, and it's hillarious from start-to-finish. I've known Crystal for a long time and have always wanted to work with her and am super-excited that it was for what is probably my favorite thing she's ever written.

The production will run from June 10 -19 at The Brick theatre in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City. Get the full details and buy tickets here. They're also holding a fundraiser on May 25th at Barcade which I will most likely go to. Hope to see you there - just don't challenge me on Robotron because I will take you to SCHOOL, son! Oh yes.

UPDATE: I'm not going to make it to the fundraiser, but you should totally go!

Couple of sketches

2010-04-07T22:11:00.000-04:00

Trying out some new inking techniques with markers on some random sketches I had lying around.

Tales From the Crypt

2010-03-15T10:00:00.019-04:00

Some pages from "Glass Heads" the Fred Van Lente written story in Tales From The Crypt #8 that came out about a year ago.

Sales instructional comics

2010-03-12T08:13:00.000-05:00

Here's one of two different comic strips I drew that were part of a sales manual for T-Mobile employees. During the development process, the team really liked the look of my pencilled art, so we decided to work with that look for the final strip rather than my usual inked line work.

Still more sketch cards

2010-03-08T10:29:00.001-05:00

More sketch cards

2010-03-04T22:47:00.003-05:00

Here's a bunch more - you can totally tell where I was just going through the Marvel Handbook in alphabetical order.

Sketch cards!

2010-03-04T16:24:00.005-05:00

Drawn with marker on Strathmore Smooth Bristol Artist Trading Cards, done as a promotion for Discount Comic Book Service. I did 450 of these all told, this is only 50 of them. Will post more soon!

These are already spoken for, but you can order a custom card for yourself right here.

The Creeper

2010-02-24T00:57:00.006-05:00

character sketch request

Comic Book Comics #5 cover

2010-02-18T15:11:00.007-05:00

Get ready for non-stop action, action, action -- LEGAL action, that is! The incredible, insane true story of the American comic book industry continues with the ALL-LAWSUIT ISSUE! DC vs. Fawcett! Disney vs. the Air Pirates! Jack Kirby vs. Marvel over his stolen artwork! Steve Gerber over Howard the Duck! Don De Carlo over Josie and the Pussycats! And that pales next to the all-out war over the rights to Miracleman! All this, plus the Creators' Bill of Rights, too! Don't like it? Well, sue us! (Wait. No. Please don't.)
COMIC BOOK COMICS #5
writer - Fred Van Lente
artist - Ryan Dunlavey
40 pages, black and white, $3.99
On sale June 2, 2010

Toys that never existed

2010-02-17T13:07:00.003-05:00

I recently did a massive backup of all my files and came across these gems in the process. I made them at my old dot-com job circa 2002/2003 during some down-time. My obsession with Star Wars toys is well documented, so it seemed like a fun way to polish up my photoshop and typography skills. I always liked the old style toy packaging - and at Toy Fair this week it looks like Hasbro had the same idea. All the type and design elements were re-created from scratch based on the old Kenner Star Wars action figure designs. The toy photos and movie stills were swiped from the internets. Click for slightly-bigger versions.

I made a list of a bunch of figure packages I was going to make of characters from the original trilogy - but soon enough another project came through and down-time was over. I wish I could find my original high-res versions, if only to show off the photoshoped playsets I made in the 4th image, but they haven't turned up yet. Shortly after I made them I had posted high-res versions of them to a toy customizer message board under the alias "MC-3PO", but the last time I checked the board had gone private and I wasn't able to get a login. Oh well, no huge loss. Enjoy!

Firestar

2010-02-02T12:21:00.000-05:00

This is a privately commissioned piece done on 7 x 10 on watercolor paper, using watercolors, india ink and a little white pencil for touch-ups. Since 1998 I've mostly used Photoshop for my color work, so this was my first time painting in many, many years. I had fun with it and I think it came out pretty good all things considered.

Heroes 4 Haiti auction: the MODOK: Reign Delay cover!

2010-02-01T14:25:00.001-05:00

click to enlarge

I'm auctioning off my cover art to MODOK: Reign Delay with 100% of the money going to UNICEF's Haitian Earthquake relief fund.

Bid here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260546837600#ht_500wt_1182

Thanks for looking and spread the word!

80 characters in 15 minutes

2010-01-08T00:59:00.003-05:00

I decided to take a stab at the challenge of drawing 80 cartoon characters in 15 minutes invented by cartoonist Mike Lynch. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be and just to drive myself extra-crazy I did it free-form on one sheet of paper rather than using the recommended grid. Started at the bottom of the page and worked my way to the top and ran out of room around character number 60 so I had to cram the rest in where I could. Results above - click to enlarge.

Pottymouth Robin

2010-01-08T00:00:00.001-05:00

Found this doodle on the back of one of my comic pages, so I inked it. What am I, twelve?

M.O.D.O.K. #1.5

2010-01-05T10:02:00.001-05:00

Fall of the Hulks: MODOK #1 is a Marvel Digital Comics exclusive that's coming out this wednesday, January 6, written and drawn by me!

This is my second MODOK story for Marvel - it's not a true sequel as it's only 8 pages, but still in the same spirit of the original. It's more like "MODOK #1.5" than a proper "MODOK #2"

Full preview and details on the Robot 6 blog.

Complete Action Philosophers headed to the printers!

2009-11-19T10:19:00.001-05:00

The More-Than Complete Action Philosophers will hit stores very soon - just (barely) in time for Christmas, and features a full 20 pages of all-new material not availalble anywhere else - the new philosophers featured are William James, Auguste Comte, Rumi (the 13th century Persian poet philosopher) and Epicurus. Order your copy now an Amazon.com.

Above is a small sample from the Epicurus story - in fact it's the very last figure on the very last panel of the very last page that I have drawn for Action Philosophers. Appropriate, no?

Comic Book Comics #4 finally hits stores this wednesday!

2009-11-09T23:17:00.001-05:00

COMIC BOOK COMICS is the first-ever comic book about the history of the comics industry, written by Fred Van Lente and drawn by me. All the facts are real, all the jokes are fake. The long delayed fourth issue hits comic stores this wednesday. This was a crazy issue, and a heck of a lot of fun to do - the highlight of which is the 14 page story "Tales To Marvel At" on the Marvel Comics super hero renaissance of the early 60's. From the birth of the Fantastic Four all the way through to the now-legendary creative split between Stan Lee and his chief collaborators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Here's a preview that ran on Newsarama last week:

We also cover crime comics, the rise of underground comics (with a heavy emphasis on Robert Crumb of course), and the beginning of the post World War 2 European comics movement. 40 pages of comix history goodness, cover-to-cover. No matter how big a comic fan you are or how familiar you are with these stories I can guarantee you'll learn something new and that you've NEVER heard these stories told the way we tell them, so check it out!

M3 Money Club comic strip Fall 2009

2009-11-03T23:27:00.001-05:00

Another quarterly comic strip for the M3 Money Club - ©Subcat Inc.

Comic Book Comics #4 is here!

2009-11-02T12:40:00.001-05:00

Hot off the Fed Ex truck I just got my copies of Comic Book Comics #4!

Click here to read an exclusive 8-page preview of the lead story "Tales to Marvel At" at Newsarama.

The issue should be arriving in comic stores next week, if not sooner.

More comic strip mashups

2009-10-28T14:11:00.002-04:00

More mashups I did for Wizard.

Dr. Suess and Super Heroes. "Hop on Cobblepot" and "Oh the Things You'll Destroy" were my ideas, the rest came from the Wizard staff.

Little Orphan Ani

Annie and Revenge of the Sith. I couldn't find a version with the dialogue, but you get the idea.

Power Man and Iron Fist #50 recreation

Not exactly a mash-up, but close - recreation of a classic comic book cover for a ToyFare promotion (I think I might have posted this on the blog once.)

Comic strip mashups

2009-10-23T09:00:00.004-04:00

Something I've done a lot of for Wizard and ToyFare magazine were these mash-up comic strips where I'd take popular genre characters from comics, sci-fi, and draw them in the style of a classic newspaper comic strip. Most of the gags and strip ideas were generated by the editorial staff and I was just hired to illustrate them, but a few were ideas I pitched myself. They were pretty fun and emulating (or at least doing a passable likeness) of the original art styles was a real challenge.

X-Nuts

(Peanuts / X-Men)

I think this is the first one I did.

Orlando Bloom County

(Lord of the Rings / Bloom County)

This one was my favorite.

Deadman/Family Circus

this appeared in a fake Daily Planet newspaper

Phantom the Menace

(Star Wars prequels / Dennis the Menace)

The Doctor Doom Is In

(Doctor Doom / Peanuts)

I think this was for Inquest, I never actually saw it in print, but I have seen it used for people's internet avatars all over the web.

The Dark Side

(Star Wars / Far Side)

Fantastic Family Circus

(Fantastic Four / Family Circus)

This is one of the ideas I pitched myself that got greenlit.

Cringerfield

(Garfield / He-Man)

Kraven and Hobbes

(Calvin and Hobbes / Spider-Man villain Kraven the Hunter)

Nancy Callahan

(Nancy / Sin City)

I had pitched an idea for "Sin Ziggy" but this was way better.

Little Zemo in Slumberland

(Little Nemo / Baron Zemo, a Marvel comics villain)

Spy vs Spy vs Alien vs Predator

This was printed in color, but I think it looks more authentic in B&W. Mad Magazine even reprinted it, so now I can tell people I'm a published Mad cartoonist.

Thunderkatzenjammer Kids

(Thundercats / Katzenjammer Kids)

Prince Valiant

(Prince Valiant / Valiant Comics)

Only people who read comics in the early 90's will get this one.

I just noticed I colored his gloves white in panel one, and then red in panel three. That's just awesome.

Animation samples!

2009-10-21T10:26:00.003-04:00

It walks! It talks! Here are some flash animation samples I've done over the past few years, arranged from most-recent to oldest. Someday I'll put together a proper demo reel, but for now these will have to do. WARNING: the "Double Dee" segments in the middle might not be safe to view at work. They were OK for basic cable TV, and there really isn't anything explicit or bad in them, but I wouldn't show them to minors and you should at least put on headphones to curb the curiosity of any easily ruffled co-workers. Enjoy!

Crif Dogs animation - June 2009

Bird animation for The Bouncing Souls "Pizza Song" music video - 2004 (I think)

Cine-o-mat website intro - 2005

Double Dee cartoon - 2004

Double Dee talking clips - 2004

Old, uncompleted demo reel of material from 1999-2003 (I was still learning flash, please be kind.)

"Gimme One With Everything"

2009-10-18T22:29:00.006-04:00

I've done a lot of work for Wizard magazine and their related publications like ToyFare and the no-longer published Inquest Gamer. Mostly goofy editorial stuff with nerdy geeky pop culture icons like superheroes, sci-fi movie stars, cartoon characters, etc. - the most popular of which were all the feature article illustrations I did with dozens of characters interacting together in one scene. The Wizard staff always referred to them as "Where's Waldo" pieces. I always called them "just draw everything" assignments.

Click on any of the images for a super-sized version and please do not use any of this artwork without permission.

This was the first one I did "The 80's Strike Back!" and I think one of my first pieces for Wizard ever as well. I'm not sure why they asked me to do it as I had NOTHING like it in my portfolio at the time (I maybe think the original artist they had lined up either dropped out or wanted more money or was too busy). I was given a typed list of characters, asked to place them in a club/disco setting interacting with each other, but otherwise to "go nuts", which is the best thing you can hear when doing work-for-hire art. I wrote about this piece in an earlier blog post.

"Adult Swim Pool Party" About once a week some know-it-all 13 year old posts a comment on my Deviantart account about how dumb I was for not including or any other number of characters in this piece. This was for ToyFare and the article was about all the Adult Swim action figures that had been made at that point in time, which is why there are "only" 40 or so figures in the picture, and not every character from every show ever. I love the Venture Brothers and Home Movies too, but there aren't any toys of them (at least when I drew it) , so they aren't in the picture. Dear 13 year olds: art cannot travel through time. Sheesh!

"Where's Guy Gardner?" I'm not a big Green Lantern fan, but this one was fun, filling it up with all the well know Green Lanterns, homages, and green themed characters I could think of. Oh, and in case you're wondering, Guy is hidden on the far left, halfway down, behind Kilowog's hand. You're welcome.

"Banshee's Wake". Banshee is a somewhat obscure Irish member of the X-Men who was killed as part of a big storyline and Wizard commemorated the occasion by commissioning a drawing of Irish comic characters and real-life characters like U2, Oscar Wilde, attending his funeral. Yes, I know Groundskeeper Willie is Scottish, not Irish, which is why he's getting kicked out. And no, I don't know why Power Man is there - maybe the original Power Man was Irish? Do we Irish have a rep for being racist or something? I don't get it really, but the editors insisted he be included, so there it is.

A whole mess of dead comic characters sprinkled with real-life famous dead people. Tried a different approach to the layout of this one, which I didn't think was very successful. Since the time of drawing this I think at least half of the characters have come back to life in one way or another. The editors wanted Johnny Cash and Ray Charles as the stage band, but screw that, gimme The Ramones! The bar is modeled loosely after Southpaw, a music club in my neighborhood.

"The Geek 100" I didn't quite understand what the focus of this article was - I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be about Easter Eggs, or just cool moments or what - it was like it had A.D.D.

Black vs Black. Oh boy - this one had the potential to get me in a LOT of trouble, but people really dug it. The characters of Black Panther and Black Adam both got married at the same time, in Marvel and DC comics, respectively, in essence "a double booked Black wedding", which character with Black in their name was invited to: Black Manta, Black Lightning, Jack Black, Men in Black, etc and of course Black Sabbath as the house band.

"Greatest TV Cartoon Characters of All Time" This one is my favorite, and I think the most successful by far, but ugh - that Mighty Mouse still bugs me, he just doesn't look right. I just assumed Homer would be #1 and took it from there. The composition is based on Gustav Dore's famous etching of Moses with the 10 commandments tablets. For the most part I agreed with the editor's choices, but for record, I didn't want to put Anakin Skywalker in - that was an editorial choice, and in my first sketch Samurai jack was in his place (who I ended up putting in the background anyways). The 2-D Clone Wars is a great work of animation, but I just think all Star Wars post-Return of the Jedi has been a epic train wreck of awfulness, plus the cartoon had only been on for a few months so I thought it didn't yet deserve a place amongst the greats. I was also told to cut the girl Wonder Twin, but keep the guy, which was odd (at least I didn't have to draw that stupid monkey). I can't stand Scooby Doo, but I won't argue he doesn't have a place here, so I just drew him very small.

"The Limbo Lounge". Another Dead Super Characters piece. This would be a pattern. This was a rush job - wish I could have spent more time on the background.

"Hot For Teacher" This article was about teaching the rules of the most popular CCG games at the time: Magic the Gathering primarily.

"Super Hero Movie Trivia" Opening illustration for a trivia quiz about Superhero movies and tv shows. Celebrity likenesses aren't really one of my strengths, but I'm proud of the way this came out.

"Know Your Ninjas" Famous ninja characters from TV, movies, video games and comics. I forget what the article was about exactly.

"Stilt Man's Funeral" Stilt Man is a D-list Marvel super villain so his funeral was attended by all the D-list super villains I could think of. Note murderous vigilante The Punisher running into the room drooling like it's a steak dinner with all the trimmings. There's a step-by-step tutorial of this somewhere else on the blog.

"Beach Party" Another article about toys, this one on action figures based on animated cartoons.

Jeez, only 14 pieces? I feel like I did way more than that, maybe some will turn up in the future.

EDIT October 28, 2009: Found another one, for Star Trek. Sorry about the text on it, it's the only version I've got:

Expect more posts like this soon - I'm overhauling my online portfolio and will be archiving a lot of my older artwork here on the blog. Oh, and again, please do not use any of this artwork without permission - I worked really hard on it and I'm just posting it here in great detail for people to look at and enjoy, not so you to turn it into t-shirts or whatever. Of course you already knew you weren't supposed to use ANYONES artwork without permission - but a friendly reminder never hurts, right? Thanks.

Web design

2009-10-17T13:45:00.008-04:00

While I'm primarily a freelance illustrator I occasionally do job in other visual arts fields like animation and web design. I like being able to exercise other skills and creative muscles from time to time, it helps keep from getting too burnt out just doing one thing all the time.

Here are some samples of my website development work. Click on the images to view them at full resolution or click on the URL's to view the live site.

jsrussellwriter.com - James S Russell, Writer

euphoriaspanyc.com - Euphoria Spa, New York City

oraziostudio.com - Orazio De Gennaro Studio

khushispa.com - Khushi Spa Products - Flash
(site has since be re-branded)

heilborn.com - Heilborn LLC

thegraphicdetail.com - Liza Pagano, Graphic Designer - HTML/CSS only

luccany.com - Lucca & Co - HTML/CSS (layout only)

marilynneherbert.com - Marilynne Herbert, Photojournalist

royal-oak.org - The Royal Oak Foundation - HTML/CSS only

Diarrhea Dog is back in Royal Flush #6!

2009-10-01T02:15:00.003-04:00

Diarrhea Dog is back in Royal Flush #6, debuting at the Royal Flush Film Festival in New York City Oct 15-19, 2009 and on news stands soon after that.

Check out these SICK covers!

Joan Jett cover illustrated by Josh Bernstein

Hugh Hefner cover illustrated by Robin Eley

Feature article illustration for Wizard Magazine

2009-09-30T23:20:00.002-04:00

Last-minute feature illustration for Wizard magazine article on Disney's acquisition of Marvel Comics. When I got the call to do this I was away from the studio and didn't have access to a scanner, but I did have my laptop and Wacom, so I sketched it out with Alias Sketchbook, inked it with Adobe Illustrator, and colored it with Adobe Photoshop. 100% digital.

In your FACE Erie, Pennsylvania!

2009-09-28T13:58:00.001-04:00

J. Caleb Mozzocco wrote a really nice article about my MODOK comic in my home town newspaper's website. Go read it!

It's MODOK day!

2009-09-16T08:29:00.001-04:00

My MODOK comic comes out TODAY!

I gotta admit, I'm pretty excited to go buy my first Marvel comic off the racks of a comic store. Unfortunately I won't have time today to go into the big comic stores in Manhattan, and since they know me at Rocketship and Bergen Street Comics I'm going to have to go to the crappy mainstream "collectibles" store in my neighborhood to get a copy incognito. I just hope they ordered it.

Get to a comic book store and get your copy already! Hope you like it!

MODOK in stores Wednesday, September 16!

2009-09-13T13:51:00.001-04:00

It's finally here: M.O.D.O.K. #1, written and drawn by me, will go on sale at comic stores everywhere THIS WEEK so GO GET IT!!! Click here for more info.

M.O.D.U.C.K.

2009-08-31T14:13:00.002-04:00

Yup, Disney bought Marvel alright.

Character idea stolen shamelessly from Jeff Parker.

UPDATE: Check out Chris Samnee's MODUCK too!

RGB Hulks

2009-08-27T15:36:00.002-04:00

I really dig Chris Giarrusso's work - here's my take on one of the strips he does for Marvel. Right after I uploaded this I noticed I screwed up green hulk's right knee/foot. NICE.

My Star Wars action figure obsession.

2009-08-13T10:17:00.000-04:00

I'm a huge Star Wars fan and have been collecting the action figures since they first existed. Up until earlier this year I had a pretty big collection. Here's some pictures of it!

My collection consisted of nearly every single Star Wars figure made between 1977 and 1985, most of them in great condition with the original accessories (95 different figures all together - only 6 figures short of a complete collection!), a few oddball figures like Jabba the Hutt and the trash monster, a couple of collector cases and about 40 or so figures made from 1995-present. Took me decades to amass them, one piece at a time.

A lot of these toys are the same ones I bought with the allowance money I earned doing household chores and collecting deposit bottles as a kid.

Even after Jedi came out and I went into junior high school I was still collecting. I bought a huge chunk of my collection when I was in high school and was able to buy dozens of figures on clearance for a buck each at a time when all my friends used their money for things like albums and beer.

I never bought late released "Power of the Force" figures when they were new because unlike the older figures they never got marked down in stores and I thought $2.99 was too much to pay for one action figure. Stupid move on my part because now some of these figures sell for $100 or more each! I had to get most of them at inflated collectors prices in the 90's, but managed some good deals on a few of them.

When they started making new figures in 1995 I was pretty excited and bought them up like crazy. I quickly soured on the new style figures, preferring the vintage ones, so I just stuck to collecting the characters that weren't made in the old days like Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia in her gold bikini. No Jar Jar Binks for me, thanks - I'm strictly an original flavor Star Wars fan.

(Well, OK I guess Darth Maul *is* kinda cool.)

My collection was far from complete and certainly not without it's flaws, and there are far more impressive collections out there - but it was important to ME - these were the figures *I* wanted, and none of the figures I didn't want. I didn't care to get every single figure ever released, and in some cases I would toss out accessories or even figures that I thought were stupid or in some way unnecessary. A few months ago, I sold all these figures on ebay. Every penny earned from these auctions went strait into my son's savings account. I guess I could have hung onto the collection and hoped it increased in value, but keeping them locked away brings me absolutely no pleasure at all. Eventually my kid would have found the toys and I wouldn't have the heart to not let him play with them, and if the way he treats his toys is any indication, they wouldn't be in good condition for long. I just hope they all ended up with people who enjoys them as much as I have over the last THIRTY YEARS. Besides I'm not selling every last figure - I did hang onto some extras and a few other things for us to play with:

This isn't the last I will post on this subject - just wait until you see the mock action figure packages I made during some downtime a few years ago…

20 Sketch Cards in One Hour!

2009-08-04T11:12:00.002-04:00

For this. Gonna try to do a batch of these every day until I'm done.

Credit Union Comic

2009-07-30T13:18:00.003-04:00

MODOK - the final chapter!

2009-07-23T08:59:00.003-04:00

The fourth and final part of DARK REIGN: M.O.D.O.K. (written and illustrated by me) is out today as part of Marvel.com's Digital Comics Unlimited service! Here's some preview art from the entire 20-page epic taken from Marvel.com (click to enlarge).

If you like reading super hero comics but aren't into the whole collecting thing, I highly recommend the Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited service, and not just because MODOK is on it! They have over 5000 comics available to read (more than any sane person would EVER need) including Fred Van Lente and Francis Portella's excellent mini-series Super Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11, the story that precedes Dark Reign: MODOK. WIth a years subscription, like the one I got, the fee works out to only $5 a month, which is less than the cost of two regular print comics! SUCH a deal.

But if digital comics aren't your thing, the print version of MODOK will be in stores on September 16, 2009. Discount Comic Book Service is running a deal where you can buy a copy for only 99 CENTS and get a free sketch card from me from now until August 14th, so hop on it if you want something cheap and something free!

Okay, enough with the shilling. It was sincerely a joy working for Marvel - it's pretty rare when us working cartoonists get to write and draw whatever we want AND get paid well for it, but that's exactly what Marvel let me to do. I hope they ask me to do it again sometime!

Wizard World Philly 09 comic strip

2009-07-18T13:57:00.002-04:00

Click to enlarge.

This is the comic I drew for Wizard World's Philadelphia 2009 show - it appeared on the first page of the program. The directive was this: "A six panel comic strip about how to enjoy the show starring the Wizard Bunny and a fanboy dressed in a crappy Spider-Man costume. Panel 1 - Intro, 2 - Celebrity Appearances, 3 - Panels, 4 - Using the Map, 5 - Shopping, 6 - Wristbands and badges." I came up with the gags, pencilled, inked and colored it. I also wrote up a full script (with MUCH less text that what you see here) but I guess they didn't decide to use it because this text is totally new. No idea why. Oh well, they paid for it so I guess it's their prerogative, just like it's my prerogative to cut out the captions from panels 3 and 6 that committed the heinous crime of EXPLAINING THE JOKE THAT'S IN THE PANEL. Dumb.

Happy Canada Day!

2009-07-01T15:08:00.001-04:00

MODOK cover sketches

2009-06-24T10:00:00.004-04:00

Here's a behind-the-scenes peek at the cover sketch ideas I sent to Marvel for the one-shot's cover, which will be out in September!

Breakfast Club parody - wait, who's that in the back?

Lost In Translation take-off, with MODOK back in his childhood bedroom:

This is the one they ended up going with:

A combo of sketches 2 & 3, kinda cool I think:

And my personal fave of the bunch (I smell a bootleg t-shirt):

Part Two of DARK REIGN: MODOK is now available on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited!

Wizard World Convention comic

2009-06-11T09:00:00.001-04:00

I did a comic strip for the Wizard World Philadelphia convention program - "What You Need To Know" - offering "valuable" tips for enjoying comic conventions. Just a sample right now, I'll post the full comic after the convention. I won't be able to go, but my good buddy and frequent collaborator Fred Van Lente will be there as a special guest.

Virtual Gallery Show!

2009-06-08T08:00:00.002-04:00

A couple of months ago I had the honor of being featured at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's New York Artist showcase. If you didn't make it, no worries, because I've re-created the experience as closely as I could right here in blog form - enjoy!

Little Zemo in Slumberland from ToyFare Magazine #102
ink on bristol, 11 x 17

The Sinister Six from Wizard Magazine
ink on bristol, 11 x 14

Fantastic Family Circus from ToyFare Magazine #102
ink on bristol, 17 x 11

Comic Book Comics #3 pages 6 & 7
ink on bristol, 17 x 14

Crime: Oh Man Does It Pay! page 4 from ISR Presents: AWESOME
ink on bristol, 11 x 17

Action Philosophers #4 page 6
ink on bristol, 11 x 14

Action Philosophers #9 page 32
ink on bristol, 8 1/2 x 14

Action Philosophers #9 page 4
ink on bristol, 8 1/2 x 14

Action Philosophers #9 page 9
ink on bristol, 8 1/2 x 14

Action Philosophers #6 page 25
ink on bristol, 11 x 14

Action Philosophers #2 page 1
ink on paper, 11 x 14

Action Philosophers #9 pages 16 & 17
ink on bristol, 14 x 17

Action Philosophers #2 page 14
ink on bristol, 11 x 14

Click here to see photos of the exhibit!

More MODOK than you can possibly stand!

2009-06-05T13:38:00.004-04:00

Marvel Comics very special MODOK WEEK concludes with a Marvel.com podcast with me, host Jeff Sutter a very special guest: MODOK himself.

I haven't had a chance to actually listen to it yet, but I remember MODOK was pretty damn funny.

Take a listen here.

UPDATE: I also did a quick interview at Robot 6 about the MODOK series, how I got the job and some of my other comics work.

Tommy Atomic Action Figures

2009-06-04T11:14:00.006-04:00

Here's a few custom Tommy Atomic action figures that I kit-bashed together a few years ago using various GI Joe dolls and accessories, just for fun.

Tommy

Polly
(defending a mango)

Dr. Cowboy

Ace

And here they all are in their home along with the rest of my toy collection - (see if you can spot the custom KARL MARX figure in there!)

They're totally out of scale with one another and none of the faces really look like the characters but I like them well enough. Maybe one day when I'm feeling ambitions I'll put together some Mego-style boxes for them, but most likely not.

Some more MODOK for you

2009-06-03T12:44:00.006-04:00

I've seen these floating around the interwebs so I guess it's ok to re-post them here - a couple of my pages from DARK REIGN: MODOK available RIGHT NOW at Marvel.com's Digital Comics Unlimited!

MODOK!

2009-06-01T20:00:00.005-04:00

Time to spill the beans.

I'm writing and drawing a M.O.D.O.K. one-shot for Marvel Comics.

Let me repeat that.

I'M WRITING AND DRAWING A *M.O.D.O.K.* BOOK FOR MARVEL COMICS!

Down on his luck, MODOK sets his sights on his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania* as the staging ground for his latest world conquest plans only to discover that his family, old classmates and apathetic locals are more formidable enemies than any super hero could be. Guest starring Norman Osborn and an obscure Canadian mutant super hero you've probably never heard of.

MODOK: REIGN DELAY (a DARK REIGN tie-in, no really!) will debut as a 4-part series on Marvel.com's Digital Comics Unlimited service beginning June 10, 2009. The printed one-shot arrives in comic stores September 2, 2009.

Yes, I assure you this is very, very real, not a joke, not a fan-comic or anything like that. This is a real Marvel Comic book set in the "real" Marvel Universe 616 continuity starring Jack Kirby's greatest super villain creation - George Tarleton, the Mobile Organism Designed Only for Killing, written and drawn by the creator of such classic sequential masterpieces as "Jap Smasher" and "Diarrhea Dog". BELIEVE IT!!!

Big thanks to my editor Jordan White for making my first Marvel work a breeze, and an extra shout out to editor Nate Cosby and Marvel.com creative head and taco enthusiast Ryan Penangos for their early support and encouragement on this. Extra big huge mega-thanks to my comic book brother-in-arms Fred Van Lente for pitching this project with me and then being too damn busy to script it himself.

Check out the Marvel.com video where I babble on incoherently about the story, along with a bunch of preview art:

I'm excited, are you excited? I'm excited.

*(Yeah, I know the Marvel Handbook and all other official reference materials say MODOK's hometown is Bangor, Maine and not Erie - but that's all explained in the story, right on page 2 in fact.)

GI Joe #1 Covered!

2009-06-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

My "cover" version of GI Joe #1 for Robert Goodin's Covered blog where cartoonists re-draw old comic-book covers in their own style. Fun!

Sketch-O-Rama

2009-05-28T15:45:00.011-04:00

Some recent drawings from my sketchbook.

Dun dun DUUUUUUN!!! Captain Chaos! Drew this the day he died - will probably ink and color it later. RIP Mr. Deluise.

Artie! The Strongest Man… In! The! World!

Crazy Jane from the Doom Patrol

ROM and Ghost Rider

Imperial Gunner from Star Wars - really happy with this one, somehow it came out exactly how I pictured it in my head, which almost never happens.

Will post more when I have more time to scan!

How We Make Comics

2009-05-08T00:18:00.000-04:00

So about a year ago Fred and I did a talk at Drew University, and part of the presentation was a walk-through of how we produce our comics. Here's the first part in blog form , without my long-winded explanations.

Let's get started!

My part in the comics making process starts when Fred writes the script – almost completely independently from me – and sends it to me in its completed state. We are both very hands-off with each other, something we’ve never really planned out, it just sort of evolved naturally. My job is to then take Fred's hillarious scripts and translate them into visuals as well as attempt to make them even funnier by any means necessary.

Turning this:

Into THIS:

(click to enlarge)

Art research and character design process.

So 90% of the stuff Fred and I do is based on real people and real events from history, but with a lot of artistic license. Still, since the facts are always accurate in our work, I think it's important to at least try to be visually informed by the subjects true history and/or appearance, if not a slave to historical accuracy. So, I try to make them look like the actual people, but if I can stretch it so it's funnier, more compelling, or in some other way better, I'll do it, accuracy be damned.

Sometimes I get it right away, like when I designed Bodhidharma for Action Philosophers.

Of course there are no photos of Bodhidharma (some people even claim he never existed!) and all existing artwork of him shows different types of people - some fat, some skinny, etc. The things that all depictions of him have in common is that he was wild-eyed, bearded, Indian and a monk, so I went with that and ran with it. In the story I always had him staring strait ahead at the viewer with a stoic expression, to play up the intensity of his character. I think it works, and out of all the Action Philosophers designs this is the one I'm most proud of.

(and yes nerds, his costume is ripped of from Shang-Chi, but it only appears in this one panel anyways so let it go.)

Other times it takes some work – I start with photos or paintings of the subject, like Mr. Schopenhauer here:

Do a couple of sketches, usually starting off a realistic rendition:

Keep drawing until I’ve got something that looks like a cartoon character:

Sometimes I can’t find reference and have to wing it – THIS is how I first drew young, circa 1930's Jack Kirby in Comic Book Comics #1:

Luckily Fred had some nice reference of Kirby during that time:

So I changed it:

Much better.

Drawing a page.

I start off by drawing little thumbnails pages right on the script print-out.

Layouts – really rough and loose, really just working out the placement of images and text on the page. (sorry, I don't have an example of this)

Pencilling – You may have seen a penciled page before – full of tight detail and visual info it almost looks like a finished piece of art itself. I don’t work that way, I only draw just enough in pencil so I can ink it myself, sometimes even drawing directly in ink at the end of the process. Like so:

Send the final inked page to Fred to letter in Adobe Illustrator.

Fred sends it back to me, I sometimes do minor compositional tweaks but that’s it – boom! The page is done!

Only 31 more to go!

Next: PUBLISHING!

Awesomer

2009-05-06T09:14:00.002-04:00

Above is a panel excerpt from my contribution to Awesome 2: Awesomer - The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology. Scripted by Fred Van Lente and drawn by me. I would tell you the title of our story, but it would ruin the joke!
Awesome is a benefit book for a scholarship to the Center for Cartoon Studies. I edited and published the initial volume in 2007 with Indie Spinner Rack hosts Mr. Phil and Charlito - I wasn't able to continue in that role but I'm very proud to participate as a contributor and extremely happy to see the series continue in Phil and Charlie's capable hands.

I sense a trend…

2009-05-02T01:03:00.001-04:00

First Ghost Rider fought a helicipoter in his movie, and now I see reviews that call the helicopter fight in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is one of the highlights of the film.

Those Hollywood people are GENIUSES - why settle for super heroes fighting boring old super villains when they can fight HELICOPTERS!!! Maybe Marvel will do a Helicopter ongoing series?! That would be f-ing bad ass dude!!!

I heard a rumor that in Iron Man 2 they're upping the ante and he's going to fight a LAWNMOWER. And in the Thor movie he fights a tractor and Green Lantern is going to fight a school bus, but of course he can't win because school busses are YELLOW! Those fights sound so much cooler than if they fought Living Laser or the Destroyer or Sinestro - thank you Hollywood!!!

Eh, I wasn't going to see the movie anyways.

But I am going to Free Comic Book Day! Be sure to bring your kids and pick up a copy of my buddy Fred's free Wolverine comic because it's sure to be great and (most likely) 100% helicopter-free!

80's Disco Party and The Bearriors "controversy"

2009-05-01T02:23:00.000-04:00

There must be something in the water because I've been getting a ton of requests from different people lately to use this image in various ways:

This was one of the first "one of everything" pieces I did for Wizard Magazine. In fact I think it's THE very first one I did for them. It was for an article on the massive revival wave of 80's era pop culture properties that were happening at the time (2004 or so). I've had it on my website for a long while, and now it seems everybody and their sister wants to use it for their party, or their softball team or dvd project or whatever - seriously, I'm getting a new request every 2 days or so. It's getting really annoying quite frankly, and I'm thinking of just telling everyone NO from here on out or even going so far as to obliterate the damn thing from my various websites just to spare myself the hassle.

I've also been getting questions about THIS character in particular, since a lot of people can't identify him:

He's Kodiak from The Bearriors - a group of eco-themed animal warriors, it was an obscure Coleco toy line and short-lived cartoon that ran in syndication in early 1988, and was kind of a cross between Captain Planet and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

In 2004 they were even all set for a comeback (in the wake of similar revivals for GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man, etc) courtesy of start-up company Topp Hatt Toyz.

Wait - you've never heard of the Bearriors?!

That's because they don't actually exist!

The Bearriors were an elaborate hoax that the ToyFare editors came up with, and I was in on it from the beginning, creating pretty much all of the artwork for the fake line. The idea was to make up this fake 80's kids property that was "coming back" and drive the collectors bananas trying to remember or find info on a toy line and cartoon that never existed, similar to what Marvel Comics did with The Sentry some years back.

It all kicked off with a two page article featuring some custom made action figures that they commissioned (I'll try to dig up some picture of those - I didn't make them) and I drew some concept art of the "All-New" Bearriors:

Kodiak, the leader, had a sword:

Polaar, the muscle - wielded an axe:

Koalus, he was supposed to be some kind of a commando/mechanic with boomerang shaped sixguns:

Pandor, the silent ninja type - he had a katana sword:

Cinnamon, the token girl bear who was an archer:

Old "splinter" like grizzly bear mentor, I forget what his name was:

Ruckus, the raccoon sidekick/comic relief:

The ToyFare design staff made a nifty retro-chrome logo:

I did a few more:

I also did a bunch of designs and graphics that the magazine "leaked" every few months or so.

And of course I slipped one fo the characters into the 80's article illustration seen at the top of this post. Bottom line, the hoax worked - if the nerd message boards are to be believed. ToyFare eventually came clean about it in issue #122, four years after it started. Now since this 80's disco image is making the rounds lately, I'm getting slammed with emails from people simply dying to know who the hell the bear is - maybe I'll edit him out and replace with Rainbow Brite or something so people stop getting confused.

But seriously people, try not to worry about this stuff so much.

Stupid bears.

Donkey Kong Junior

2009-04-28T18:37:00.000-04:00

Did this for a collaborative project way back in November 2008 and have been sitting on it ever since. At this point I doubt it will ever get published so screw it, here it is.

Stumptown bound!

2009-04-16T10:12:00.001-04:00

I will be at the Stumptown Comics Festival this weekend - table 94. It's my first time in Portland - I'm pretty excited! It looks like my comic book brother Fred isn't going to make it, but my wife, son and my real brother Eric will be there so I won't get lonely. I'm also going to be participating in the Comic Art Battle at Cosmic Monkey Comics on April 19th, 9pm along with Jeff Parker, Carla Speed McNeil, Paul Friedrich and Spike - should be INSANE.
I don't expect anyone to make a last-minute trip to Oregon just to see stupid loser-ass me, but if you were going to go to the fest anyways stop by and I'll tell you all about my super secret comix projects. Or you can just punch me in the face, whichever you prefer.

New Tommy Atomic characters

2009-04-12T00:35:00.001-04:00

Here's some sketches of a few new-ish supporting characters for Tommy Atomic that have been sitting in my sketchbook for a while.

ACE

Ace is a flying superhero who think's he's hot shit, and the one character who's an even bigger asshole than Tommy is. He was originally named Jet Ace and he was in the "Blind Date" strip already but I'm going to bring him back very soon.

THE ALL-NIGHTER

The All-Nighter is a semi-homeless super hero who's power is to stay up all night and crash on his friend's couches all day. He acts as a sort of elder statesman super hero mentor to Polly. He's also Ace's former team-mate, but they had a bad falling out. He's one of the demo characters we came up with for the Stuperpowers RPG and web comic and I'm recycling him into Tommy Atomic.

KARATEBOT

Karatebot's a totally 100% new character and will be the focus of an extended story I wrote involving all these characters, plus some more I'm not showing. I can't really tell you much more than that without ruining the story, sorry! Now I just have to find time to draw the damn thing…

I'm on NPR!

2009-03-25T21:22:00.001-04:00

Well, the blog anyways. Pretty cool huh?

More M3 Money Club comics

2009-03-23T22:14:00.000-04:00

More M3 Money Club comic strips

Marvel Sketches

2009-03-08T22:20:00.000-04:00

Just screwing around. Marvel comics characters - Modok with a minion and Box with his wife.

Evolution of the Superhero from Comic Book Comics #3

2009-02-02T23:23:00.000-05:00

Colored version of a page from Comic Book Comics #3 - on sale this wednesday!
Words by Fred, art by me.
I will be at New York Comic-Con this weekend - Artist Alley table B11 - and will have 11 x 17 color prints of this bad boy with me. If this doesn't make us rich, nothing will.

My reception this friday!

2009-01-28T09:27:00.000-05:00

Gallery Reception!
For Me!
THIS FRIDAY! (Jan 30th, 2009)
Mocca Art Museum in New York City!
7 to 9 pm!
Artwork!
Comics!
Nerds!
FREE SNACKS!

BE THERE!!!!

Pale

2009-01-26T22:03:00.001-05:00

Comic Book Comics #3 on sale Jan 28th

2009-01-18T02:06:00.000-05:00

The embarrasingly long-delayed third issue of COMIC BOOK COMICS goes on sale Jan 28th!

Written by Fred Van Lente and drawn by me, issue #3 "Comic Book Hell" tackles Fredrick Wertham, Pop artists, the demise of EC comics, the birth of MAD and the rise of the comics code and comic book fandom, with appearances by William Gaines, Harvey Kurtzman, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Hugh Hefner and Adam West!

Read the 8-page preview at Newsarama!