Small Update

Just a quick update for anyone who's interested. I've got a couple of pretty cool things, kinda big things, that I'll be announcing soon. If you run in the same comic book circles I do, you might know about one of them already, but I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch. So, I'll talk about it when it happens. The other thing is I've just completed a cd packaging design and illustration for a fairly big radio program. They're putting out a cd of comedy bits. Can't say who it's for yet, no I'm not kidding, but it should be out in December. So, more on that later. I've had a few people ask me about Spookytown. Admittedly, it's been on the back burner with all the freelance stuff I've been working on, but I have be doing a little something on it each day (which was my New Year's resolution) and here is a photo to prove it. Have fun out there.

Blog Header Illustrations

Here are a couple of illustrations I was commissioned to do for this blog.

"One Night Stand" Mini Comic

David Hopkins is at it again. He's putting together another mini comic, like "Mine All Mine", with a ton of different artists and I'm doing it again as well. Participating that is. This is a teaser image of my page, why give away the whole thing? Buy the book!

I'll let David tell you about the project himself...

Diamond Comic Distributors will not ship any new comic books for the week of December 30th. There's been some talk about reserving that week for independent creators to provide original material for our favorite comic shops.

A year ago, I created a project called MINE ALL MINE. The mini-comic was a series of one page vignettes -- about thieves, crooks, scoundrels, con artists, etc. Each page, a different artist, written and arranged by me, all about stealing stuff.

I'd like to do a similar comic book to be released on December 30th. It's going to be called ONE NIGHT STAND. Stories about "casual encounters." The stories won't all be overtly sexual or explicit. Like MINE ALL MINE, I'm working with a broad definition. This mini-comic will explore sex and intimacy, guilt and anonymity, risk and fantasy. Lovely stuff.

I want to use this ONE NIGHT STAND concept as an opportunity to grow as a storyteller. I'd like to work with people who are experienced comic book artists, but also talented artists who have never attempted a comic before. It's only a one page commitment (hence "One Night Stand"), and should be a good opportunity to try something new.

You can help David out by donating to the cause...

Dead@17 Nara Pin-up

Here's a pin-up I completed recently for Josh Howard's Dead@17. It's supposed to appear in an upcoming trade paperback collection. I post again when it comes out. It was fun to do, I like how it turned out. Especially the colors. Hope you like it too.

Emma Frost Pin-up

An Emma Frost pin-up I did for someone who commissioned it as a birthday present for a friend of theirs. He wanted it to be a little Halloween-y.

New Pin-Up

I did another pin-up for Lutu - Warrior of the North by Steve Coffin, published by Ronin Studios. I was in a Fall mood.

Checking In

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted. I've been really busy wrapping up some book illustrations I've been working on. I did 135 illustrations for the interior of the book and designed the front cover as well. Since it's already solicited for pre-orders on Amazon, I guess I can go ahead and say what it is. It's called She's Crazy, He's a Liar-Now What?: A Single Girl's Guide to Understanding the Sexes by Cecily Knobler. And since that's all that's in the public eye right not, that's about all I can share. Once the book comes out and I'll post some of the other images I did. It was a lot of fun to do, but it was also a ton of work. I'm glad to be finishing it up and can't wait to see the finished product.

I've also worked on a few other things here and there but I can't post them until they come out too.

Some of the work I did for Tesar's Modern Steak & Seafood can be seen on a couple of online reviews for the restaurant.

Here...

First taste of Tesar's Modern Steak & Seafood

And here...

Brad's Adventure in Food: First Look: Tesar's, The Woodlands

I've made a collage of the images. Copyright their respective owners.

Lastly, I'm still working on my graphic novel, Spookytown. All the work I did on the book mentioned above slowed me down, but I'm ready to kick back into high gear. Look for updates soon.

Jeff: Okay, maybe the girl on the front of the book looks a little like Heather.

Fanboy Video Interview

Here is an interview I did recently at the Dallas Comic Con. It's with the fine folks at Fanboy Video and Fanboy Radio. Big, big thanks to Oliver Tull for doing the interview and to Luke Hawkins for filming and editing it. These guys and Scott Hinze have always been supportive of me and I really appreciate them taking the time to give me some exposure. Thanks fellas. The goofball on the left is me...

New Emma Pin-up By Jennie Wood

Here is the piece by Jennie Wood, which I mentioned in a previous post. She had sent me an jpeg of a work-in-progress image and promised a actual piece to arrival in the mail. It was worth the wait, I love it. It really makes me wish I do watercolor competently, maybe one day I'll give it a try. Thanks again Jennie!
Jennie Wood's Website.

Jack the Knife

I couldn't resist. Jack had his one year photos taken.

Tinkerbell Sketch Card

Something I did for Maria, a long time friend of mine.

More Spookytown pin-ups by other artists

Here are a couple of more nice pin-ups that other artists have done of Spookytown characters for me. Both of them of Emma this time and both international.

First up is a really cute piece by Jennie Wood, an artist from across the pond, south of London, if I remember correctly. I love the style of this one, really quirky and it has a lot of personality. She's said she's also sending a me a another piece made with, as she says, "actual pens and painty stuff!" I'm definitely looking forward to that. You can check out more of her work here.
The second piece is by Steve Coffin, a Canadian comic book writer and artist whose name you might recognize from this blog. I did two pin-ups for him in the past. One for his comic Lutu - Warrior of the North and the other for Kung Fu Engine. I love the atmospheric feel to this one, with the fog effect. I get a great Scooby-Doo vibe off of it. Check out Steve here.

Sweet T's

Here's an another image I recently did for Tesar's. This is his wife, who does desserts for the restaurant. I'm not sure, but I think she might be getting her own place as well. I could be wrong.

Book Recommendation

Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin. If you've never heard of him, you should definitely look him up. Especially if 1. You like illustration and 2. World War II stuff fascinates you. I fall squarely into both categories.

The book is published by Fantagraphics and it's a really nicely done 2 hardback, slipcase set. Here's a description from their website...

Here, for the first time, Fantagraphics Books brings together Mauldin's complete works from 1940 through the end of the war. This collection of over 600 cartoons, most never before reprinted, is more than the record of a great artist: it is an essential chronicle of America's citizen-soldiers from peace through war to victory.

Bill Mauldin knew war because he was in it. He had created his characters, Willie and Joe, at age 18, before Pearl Harbor, while training with the 45th Infantry Division and cartooning part-time for the camp newspaper. His brilliant send-ups of officers were pure infantry, and the men loved it.

I've had this on my Amazon Wishlist for a while now. A big thanks to my buddy Randy for giving me the heads up that this was available at Half Price Books this weekend, during their 20% off sale. $65.00 set, HFB price $20.00 and 20% off. Awesome, awesome deal. Now, if I can just get his biography for such a great price.

Update

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted, which is lame. I know I get disappointed when I go to the blogs that I regularly haunt and there are no updates. "What? No new post?", I protest in my head. So here's at least a little something about what is going on in my uninteresting (at least to people other than myself) life.

Mainly, I've been busy with freelance stuff. I wish I had time to take a break (as you can see from the "tired eyes" photo), but I do like having work, so I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm thankful for it. I've been doing more things for Tesars Modern Steak and Seafood. Designing labels for different sauce bottles, typesetting some online menus, another illustration, this time of his wife. Bunch of fun stuff. Also, I've been extremely busy doing illustrations for a relationship book that's coming out soon. I did the cover and so far I've done over 60 images and there are still a whole bunch more for me to do. I don't even know what the final count will be. I'm excited to see the finished piece.

I've still been pretty good about working on Spookytown. I did miss a day or two on my "must work daily on Spookytown" New Year's resolution. Hopefully in a month or so I'll post about my progress. Also in comic book related news, I'll be contributing a page to David Hopkins' "One Night Stand" project. It's similar to his "Mine All Mine" anthology that I also participated in. One writer, one broad topic, multiple artists, one page each. This theme is "casual encounters". I eagerly look forward to it.

Also, the big goings-on at the Slayton headquarters is Jackie Bear turning 1 year old. It's hard for me to believe, but it's true. I posted a bunch of photos from his big bash.

That's all I got, later for you.

Dallas Comic Con Aftermath

I had a great time at the Dallas Comic Con this past weekend. Ben and Mark really outdid themselves. I hope this con fills the void left by Wizard World Texas, I think it eventually could. The show was packed and I drew non-stop on Saturday, it was crazy, the busiest I've ever been. I believe the final tally was ... 21 Pre-Drawn Sketch Cards, 6 New Sketch Cards, 4 Pre-Drawn Color Sketches, 14 New Color Sketches, 8 New BW Sketches, 1 Shades TPB, 3 Prints.

Obviously, the Sketch Cards were a big hit since I sold almost half of them. I'm definitely gonna keep doing them, I think it's an affordable way to get a full color original piece of art. I'm on a GI Joe kick right now, so I've been doing Dr. Mindbender, Major Bludd, Firefly, Torch, Lady Jaye, Spirit, Eels, Tomax, Xamot, Cobra Commander (hooded) and more. I also need to replace my Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes and Baroness that sold at the show. I'll also be working on some Star Wars cards too.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by, I appreciate it. Here are some of the pieces I did during the show...

Other Artists on Spookytown

I've been collecting original art of other artist's take on Spookytown characters. If the artist is a friend of mine, I've been lucky to work out a trade, sketch for sketch. If they're someone I'm not on personal terms with, I've paid for the commission. Any artist that would like to trade, drop me a line.

The following are by Cat Staggs, Michael Lagocki, Ben Dunn, Chynna Clugston, Howard Chaykin, Jim Mahfood, Richard Dominguez, Samax Amen and Steve Erwin.

Drawing on the Table at Macaroni Grill

GIve a kid a crayon...

More Color Sketch Cards

Here are the last of the first batch of cards that I will be selling at conventions. I like the GI Adventure Teams guys, Emma Frost and Lobster Johnson a lot out of these. In just over a week I did 45 of them. Also, here's a shoot of all of them in their little plastic sleeves.

Dallas Comic Con This Weekend

Come on out this weekend. I'll be doing commissions all day long and have my new color sketch cards for sale (see previous post).

August 15 -16
Saturday 11:00 am-6:00 pm, Sunday 12 noon-4:00 pm.
Richardson Civic Center
411 W Arapaho Rd
Richardson, TX

Other Comic Book Guests include:J. Scott Campbell, Paul Smith, Jason Pearson, Brian Stelfreeze, Brandon Peterson, Kerry Gammill, David Hopkins, Kez Wilson, Ben Dunn, Paul Milligan, Samax Randolph and Space Gun Studios

Click here for more information