Some years back I was asked to do a full-size recreation of the Milk & Cheese "Merv Griffin" one-pager, only with the dairy duo yelling the customer's name. And so, "Casey Levinson". Interesting to see the improvement in my cartooning chops since 1991, but, I haven't written a strip anyone's remembered as well as that old...
2020-04-17 04:55:50 +0000 UTC View Post
I just sold this series of gags from the Kodansha-published Attack on Titan USA anthology, and while packaging them up I found the layouts for them. So, I scanned them all and, hey, presto, here's another round of "how the sausage gets made".
And in this case, it's how the sausage gets made when you don't like sau...
2020-04-13 01:54:14 +0000 UTC View PostI've been getting stuff done this past week or so at a pretty decent clip. Unfortunately, I'm in a situation where I can't show off anything I'm working on because the project is still a secret. So I'm muzzled by army brass. I'm working on the inks for a cover, and waiting for notes and approvals on the first script. I'm also...
2020-04-10 17:34:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Pencil and inked versions. As the pencils took longer and longer I added more characters and details, making things take even longer.
Q: Why pencil in the black sky? A: Because that's how compulsion works.
Observation: Clayface is a rip to draw. What a fantastic character design.
Trivia: F...
2020-04-07 21:57:39 +0000 UTC View Post
We keep a file copy of pretty much everything we work on. In the past we would either trade in the extra comp copies we didn't need to our local shop, or lug them off to conventions. We also started selling some of the stock on our House of Fun website. Unfortunately, our LCS closed last year (R.I.P. Comic Book Jones), ...
2020-04-04 21:40:49 +0000 UTC View Post
The final Eltingville Club story was my attempt to out-do all that had come before in the comic. The idea of having the characters destroy a comic convention had been in my mind for a long time, and I figured wrecking the San Diego Comic Con would be a fitting send-off for the club and the comic. Unfortunately, I was going th...
2020-04-03 19:30:14 +0000 UTC View PostWe now have a replacement webcam, and it works with the laptop. Sarah's set things up for the technical side of things but I have to figure out where I can physically set the webcam up and do whatever it is I'm going to do with it and all that. We're going to try a small test to see if things work, hopefully within the next f...
2020-04-01 21:10:23 +0000 UTC View PostSome good news for the House of Fun: The only ongoing comics gig we have on our docket is still in play. So, we have some work for a while. Now all I have to do is stop passing out all the damned time. I'm sleeping crazy hours, and not sleeping regular shifts. Or I'm staring at the ceiling. In-between I type stuff or draw stu...
2020-03-27 13:48:41 +0000 UTC View PostGood morning. Been up all night, working on a script. Trying really hard to finish it to get an invoice in asap, because who knows how long everyone will have a job before the inevitable big freeze hits freelancers and staffers. Sometimes I really wish I could just learn to credibly hack script pages out. It works for a lot o...
2020-03-26 13:13:34 +0000 UTC View PostI used to try to announce our convention appearances with quickly-done one-page comics. I was thinking about these because of all the recent news about shows and events shutting down across all fields, and how I was planning on doing some work-related traveling this year after not setting up at all during 2019. I had a signin...
2020-03-23 05:55:08 +0000 UTC View Post
I just spent an hour on a post and lost it. Thought I posted it, left the page, aargh.
I'm a downy clowny.
Two things I'll mention before I throw myself down the basement stairs -- I was hoping to post some old comics for folks to read while things are a mess, but they're on Sarah's computer, wh...
2020-03-22 04:49:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey --following up on the Fight-Man origin/background post, here's the Marvel handbook material I mentioned. I want to try to throw some extra reading material on here while things are so depressing and folks are spending more time indoors. Hope this is a fun read. Above is a penciled page from the 1993 Fight-Man One-Shot...
2020-03-16 02:39:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Just to remind you, don't mix the bleach and ammonia during these difficult times. Or ever.
2020-03-13 03:05:22 +0000 UTC View Post
A thing for a thing.
G-pen nib and Uni-bal Signo white gel pen.
2020-03-09 08:25:38 +0000 UTC View PostI Fell Down the Stairs
We did our lettering revisions for MARVELS: SNAPSHOTS FF while Ben Dewey's finished art was coming in and then the colors came in and everything was sent out with no time to spare so the book will ship on time for March 25th. That was a real goocher.
Blackwood #2 comes out next week, V...
2020-03-06 16:24:22 +0000 UTC View PostSilly or serious, comics or not.
I'll answer everyone as soon as possible, if anyone asks anything at all.
In the future, I hope to possibly do AMAs and process posts as videos, but for the time being, I can only type back to you.
Anyway, feel free!
2020-02-27 02:50:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, folks. Couple of quick notes about a few things while I can't sleep.
First off, I know most -- if not all of you -- follow me on Instagram and/or Twitter, and are familiar with the drawings I do on index cards while I'm watching bad movies or waiting for something to print, depressed, bored, whatever.
A...
2020-02-25 15:24:46 +0000 UTC View Post
I was grateful to have been asked to draw a variant cover for the upcoming Black Hammer mini-series from Jeff Lemire (with art by Tyler Crook) featuring the Colonel Weird character. It allowed me to draw some oddball stuff and play with some texturing I've been a bit obsessed with lately (stippling, Kirby dots and waves/vorti...
2020-02-22 02:17:38 +0000 UTC View Post
I can't remember if this signing was set up for when I was in Gainesville visiting Sarah or if it was later on and Sarah and I were there visiting her family. I do remember that the store had a life-size cardboard stand up of Dr. McCoy from Star Trek across from the table I was seated at. I'm also pretty sure no one showed up...
2020-02-14 05:04:36 +0000 UTC View Post
I wish I had a better copy of this, this is a scan of an old xerox copy (I would copy my Bill and Ted and Fight-Man penciled pages when I dropped them off at Marvel -- sometimes the copier wasn't up to snuff).
So, well, well, look at me trying to draw semi-straightforward superhero stuff back in the day. I couldn'...
2020-02-09 05:48:52 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm working on the last two commissions from the previous list, having finished up a Fun Strip recreation to go along with the M&C/Kitaro piece done for Zack Davisson. Above is an over-sized piece I've been adding to over the months. Below is the Fun Strip, which is several times larger than the original. I used to ...
2020-02-07 01:20:13 +0000 UTC View PostMultiversity Comics interviewed me, Veronica Fish and Andy Fish about the new BLACKWOOD series -- the first issue of which will be in comic shops next week from Dark Horse Comics.
http://www.multiversitycomics.c...
2020-02-04 01:41:58 +0000 UTC View Post
The second issue of the first dedicated Beasts of Burden series was a story called "Lost", which often gets referred to as "the issue with the puppies". It's probably our most depressing story -- we've had three or four, at this point (five?) -- and probably the story that got the biggest reaction from readers.
I'...
2020-01-30 04:32:58 +0000 UTC View Post
We did this sheet of character heads last year for a Forbidden Planet NYC sticker pack, part of a gig where we designed a piece that was used for posters, mugs, t-shirts, etc featuring the mascots, Forbiddus and Planetron. The green kaiju is Forbiddus, the robot is Planetron. We never named any of the floating heads, they're ...
2020-01-28 07:55:59 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been in bed sick these past two days, I was feeling pretty badly after I got home from Tom Spurgeon's memorial and had a feeling something was going on beyond just being tired and bummed out. I've been listening to old horror radio shows and checking my Animal Crossing campsite and generally feeling very crappy because b...
2020-01-27 10:30:58 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been a busy week, with a number of our writing projects all moving forward. Here's what's happening:
MARVELS SNAPSHOT: FANTASTIC FOUR #1
Sarah and I are just got the editorial notes on the last 20 pages of our 30-page script, which Benjamin Dewey is doing all the art duties on. We asked Nate Piekos (of Blambo...
2020-01-25 09:06:14 +0000 UTC View Post
I drew this several months ago to pitch to Robert Newsome as a potential cover for his excellent wrestling zine, The Atomic Elbow. I just haven't had time to do a finished version, but hopefully a cleaner version of this will appear as a cover sometime down the line.
Previously I drew George "The Animal" Steele fo...
2020-01-21 21:39:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Above: Captain America's Bicentennial Battles, pg 32. Written and drawn by Jack Kirby with inks by Herb Trimpe, colors by Phil Rachelson, lettering by John Constanza.
In 2017 I was fortunate enough to be one of the comics professionals asked to write a testimonial essay for the KIRBY 100 anniv...
2020-01-21 10:06:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, have a new Fun Strip.
This is the straight inks, if I knew how to use photoshop like an adult I'd clean up the rough spots, center the caption in panel 3, and swap panels 2 and 3 so the dates were in order.
Sometimes the strips have bugs which get smoothed out digitally by Sarah, they all have ele...
2020-01-19 02:06:06 +0000 UTC View Post
