Red Vengeance and Mouse Guard: Baltimore Comic Con 2015

Once again, I've managed to go forever without blogging anything...it seems most of my posting activity gets sucked up with Facebook, Twitter, or just drawing and teaching.  My bad.  Here's my contribution to this year's Baltimore Comic Con Annual, the theme of which is the excellent Mouse Guard books by David Petersen. These are always fun to do, and I'm always grateful the fine folks at BCC ask me to participate.  If you'll be at this show this year on Sept. 25-27th come and find me in Artist Alley!  I'll have copies of Red Vengeance for sale, as well as sketches and other cool stuff!  It's a great comics oriented show in a great city, so come on out if you can! 

Okay, I know, it's been forever since I've updated this thing...

If anyone ever still checks this thing, I 'll brush off the cyber cobwebs...I stink at blogging, it's a habit I need to start getting into more...why tell people about my blog when I never post on here, right? Believe it or not I do have things to post about, I just don't for some reason. Well, let's try to change that now, shall we?  Every year for the past three years, the fine folks at Baltimore Comic Con have released these nifty little hardcover annuals, featuring a different independent, creator owned comic character each issue.  First is was Frank Cho's "Liberty Meadows", then Stan Sakai's "Usagi Yojimbo", and this year is Matt Wagner's "Grendel".  Grendel is a cool character not just because of Wagner's brilliant art and design work, but because the original Grendel, a man named Hunter Rose is a villain; he's evil, yet you still root for him.  He's a debonair, suave assassin, and Wagner has found cool ways to take the Grendel persona from Rose and expand it into this legendary mythic figure by having other people throughout history take up the moniker and become the next Grendel.  There are many Grendels and Grendel stories, and they all have their own appeal.

Baltimore Comic Con asks creators to submit a piece of art incorporating their own characters interacting with the year's featured star.  So, I did one of Red Vengeance and Hunter Rose duking it out.  Hunter is a time traveler, so I figured why not have him traveling back to the 1950's to test RV's mettle?  It was a lot of fun to do (they all have been, I'll post the others sometime soon), and I'm flattered that the fine folks at BCC asked me to participate.  Anyway, hope you enjoy...here it is.

Artist Alley Comics Preview Cover!

Artist Alley Comics is going to be launching it's digital comics goodness on June 22nd, and to kick it off we'll be offering an exclusive color print preview comic, available at this year's Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC!  In it you'll find an all-new exclusive "Red Vengeance" 6 page story in full color (by lil' old me), as well as AWESOME work by Randy Green, Richard Case, Craig Rousseau, Kelly Yates, Jason Copland, Michael May, and Rich Woodall!  So if you love great, creator owned comics and you'll be at the show, come check us out, pick up a copy (or two), get some sketches and say howdy!  I'd love to meet ya!

More Inks, Methinks!

Yes, it's been awhile.  But here's a fresh batch of new inks...still needs some touch ups, but this is a process blog after all....the big news is that this summer you'll be seeing all of this Red Vengeance goodness in living, downloadable color, as part of the newly formed digital comics hub of Artist Alley Comics!  Woot!  Until then, these will have to do.  So if any of you are still even coming here....thanks, and keep checking in! 

Inky Dinky Do.

Well, it's been awhile since my last post....things have been pretty crazy here at the Temple.  With school starting back up for me and the girls, there hasn't been a whole lot of time to blog it up.  With that being said, I've got 8 pages of rough inks for the latest installment of Red Vengeance.  They still need touching up, and eventually coloring and lettering of course, but hopefully you'll dig them...I'm having fun drawing 'em!  Although when you're writing, drawing, inking, and doing everything else, it takes a while.  Hopefully I'll have this first part done sometime this winter, get it out in front of people, and start the next one!  Enjoy!  Stay tuned...I'll try to update more often if anyone's watchin'!

Artamus Memories.....Comics Interview Magazine!

Back in the mid 90's David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview magazine did a feature on artist Mike Wieringo, a good friend of mine (and to so many others) who as everyone knows is sadly no longer with us.  I had the privilege of being an assistant at the studio in Hillsborough (named Artamus) where Mike and a lot of other comic artists were working at the time, and when the magazine came to photograph Mike, they decided on a group shot of everyone there. This was in the early days of the studio, a little before Casey Jones and Dave Johnson joined up for the later period. I had actually misplaced this photo for a long time, but recently when in Chicago visiting family (our cousins the Heniffs), they had a copy of it, and I was stoked to see it again!  I get a little misty seeing this, it really takes me back to a great time in my life. Most everyone in this photo has scattered to the four corners of the country now (Rich Case and Scott Hampton are still nearby, but Jeff Parker's in Portland Oregon now, Chuck is in California, John and Craig are in Georgia) so I really miss the gang, I considered them all close friends and great people.  I never really thought much about the studio eventually disbanding and people moving away (and of course Mike passing away didn't even occur to me), but I suppose change is inevitable. Even when it's the kind you don't want or aren't necessarily ready for, you have to embrace it at some point and go with the flow/adapt.  Had I known then what I know now....well, I guess that's the cliche, right?  The other slightly amusing thing to note is that for some reason they don't list poor Richard Case's name at all, yet they do name Scott Hampton, who wasn't even there that day!  Good times.  I miss 'em!

Here's One From Me, Just Because.

Red Vengeance pin up I did a while back, colored in black and white for that 50's retro feel. I think it was something I may have done for a proposal and it never made it in. And that's all I have to say about that.