Atomic fallout

So I found this one in the office the other day and just sighed. I know that many of you know about the loss of the Atomic Comics stores here in AZ. The news pretty much shook the whole comics business. But I will always think back on all the times I had there as a fan and as a pro knowing that it was a great group of people.
I don't wanna get to emotional about the loss. Life will go on, but it is great to know there are other amazing stores here to carry on the tradition of working with fans and pros to serve the comics needs for AZ. So my sincerest thanks to Mike and all the great folks who worked at Atomic Comics in the past and up to the dramatic end. I appreciate all that you did for us.
Thank you.

Student Bodies-inks

So In my absense I have been working on quite a number of projects from sketch cards, to pages, and even more inks on Covers for ZVC. These were the inks for the 6 page story I did with my buddies Gerrad McConnell, Matt Hebb, and then colored by the amazing Tracy Bailey. I assume it is safe to post these as they have been on shelves for 2 months now. So I will show you just the inked pages. Gerrad came up with a fun story and Matt's panel layouts were just great. I had a so much fun inking these and hope we get another chance to contribute to the book again. Like soon...wink, wink.

Spider sense tingling!

This one was done for Todd at Hero Comics here in AZ. His son is actually named Peter Parker and he is getting all these great Peter/Spidey sketches from all the artists he can. I was more than happy and honored to contribute to his collection.
I will be at Hero Comics for the Kids Need To Read event on August 13th. If your in the area there will be a ton of great and talented artist there to do sketches for just a $5 donation to this awesome charity. Come on by!

Drawn on Comics

I did this sketch cover for Ken at Drawn to Comics in downtown Glendale, AZ. Ken has always been a big supporter of us local guys and when he asked me to do a sketch cover for him I jumped on the opportunity. I received a blank Amazing Spider-man cover and compelled to do my favorite version of the wall crawler, Spider-man 2099. I was pleased with the outcome of this one and so was Ken.
I always appreciate all the AZ stores for showing their support for the local artists and I'm always glad to give back whenever I can. Thanks to all you guys for helping us spread the word about our art and comics.

Real piece(s) of work!

I wanted to get the word out that there are two pieces of my work available on ebay right now. They are sketch covers I did up around the time of the Phoenix ComiCon. Each one was penciled and inked by me. I usually do a lot of sketching and rarely sell them. But this time I have given them up to see how they sold.
Depending on how these do I may be tempted to do more or even take on commissions for future projects.
Take a look and let me know what you think.

UPDATE! I do take commissions for sketch covers. You can contact me trough my Deviant Art page if you are interested.

Phoenic ComiCon

Hey everyone. I will be at the Phoenix ComiCon from today until Sunday (5/26-5/29/2011). I'll have prints and comics for sale. I will also be doing head sketches as well. So if you happen to be in the Phoenix, or even the southwest area, come in and see all the great artist and guests at this years event. I'll be at table #469 in case you wanna drop by.
See you there.

Horror in Black and White

Here are the black and white versions of the ZVC/ ROTTEN FLIPS OUT covers I inked for 5Finity. I have said it before, but these were a lot of fun to do! Having the chance to work on these covers with these two artists was such a pleasure. Joel Gomez did this image originally in a graphite and wash version. My job was to take it into a strict black and white for the colorist. I can only hope that I managed to do the image justice.
For the ROTTEN cover I was teamed up with Daniel Campos and Garry Henderson with whom I worked previously on the cover for ZVC #2. I always enjoy inking over Daniel pencils and find myself chomping at the bit to get started when I do get the chance!
Both these images were inked by brush primarily and Copic Multiliners for hard edges.

New ZVC stuff in stores soon!

I can finally show what I have been working on for the past couple of months. First up is my cover to Zombies vs Cheerleaders #3. This cover is an homage to great classic romance comics such as Young Love and Young Romance. I also joined up with my felow Wonderdog inc. team mates, Matt Hebb and Tracy Bailey, to do an interior story for this issue as well. Plus I was very lucky to have my best friend Gerrad McConnell write the story! But I will post later on how it came to be. The next two are my inks over some amazing artist Joel Gomez and Daniel Campos for Moonstones ZvC/Rotten Flips out book. These guys are really great artists and you should check them out! I was very honored to ink these covers for them and hope to get more chances to do it again. These books will be out later this month for the Flips out book and in late April for the ZVC#3. To see all the covers for these books go here. Please keep a look out for them and ask for them at your local comic shops!
I think this post has more links in it than actual text!

Missing Linx!

I just learned that another book I inked a while ago will be published through Viper comics! The Penciler and Writer did and interview with CBR and you can read all about it here. It is more of an all ages/kid friendly book, so it will be great for parents to give to their kids. Here is the information from Vipercomics.com

"DR. ERASMUS Q. BEDFELLOW is bent on releasing the creatures of the Fantasy Realm into our dimension, using the creatures of nightmares to rule the world. Only one thing stands in his way. An unlikely group of heroes – the result of Bedfellow’s last attempt to breach the border between realities – BIG FOOT, SASQUATCH, SKUNK APE and THE YETI."

Written by Dale Mettam, Art by Courtney Huddleston
72 Page / Color / Retail: $7.95
Diamond Order Code: FEB111188
ISBN: 978-0-9827117-9-8

Publication Date: April 2011

SomeTHING to post!

Finally found the time to post another sketch! This one I did on one of the Atomic Comics sketch cards provided by the store during Free Comic Book Day last year. I always like drawing the THING so I figured that this would be a good time to post up an image. I have been working on more sketch cards with 5Finity as well as a few more inking projects with them that will be out later this year. There will be definitely be more to come on that when I am cleared to talk about it. I don't tend to post many of the sketch cards I do here. But I do post examples on my Deviantart account, which can be accessed through my link menu. You should check it out and some of the people featured there as well, they are all great artists and some are down right masters of what they do!
Well more to come really soon!

Zeck-tacular fun!

Here is yet another piece of work from Mike Zeck. I love his work and can't get enough of how solid his figures look or how fun they are to ink. I have a number of things going on project wise, but every chance I get I will do up a little piece like this and learn so much from it. This stuff is a blast and it is probably the closest I will get to working on anything from Mike in my life! But if this is as good as it gets, then I can live with that.

No rest for the wretched!

I have been working on some things these past couple of weeks that have been keeping me really busy. If the hustle and bustle of the holidays wasn't crazy enough, I have been working on quite a few things that probably won't even be seen for a couple of months from now. But I thought I would give you a sneak peek of just one of the things I am doing. Obviously it involves a zombie, but I don't think I should say more just yet. But all will be revealed in due time...

Try-out something ...old.

This is from the Marvel Try-out book from 1983 drawn by John Romita Sr. I am always looking for new styles to try out and see what I can do. Practice makes perfect, so I tend to use a couple of pages from each artist I can. With this one I took the rough layouts provided and then would draw over them. I could have stayed truer to the pencils here, but I was trying to get a specific look. I will probably try to get a more accurate feel for Romita Sr. pencils on a few other panels. But I was pretty pleased with how this came out for a first time experiment.

ZVC # 2 released!

Just wanted to let you all know that Zombies vs Cheerleaders #2 was release a week ago and available to most comic book stores. If your store doesn't carry them, please ask them to. It's a great series from Moonstone comics featuring a lot of new talent and fun stories. I was able to contribute as inker to the primary cover by Daniel Campos. Check out my previous posts for the black and white ink work.

One of my Real American Heroes!

I have been becoming an ever increasing fan of Mike Zeck in the past few months. I always really appreciated his Punisher stuff. In fact he did the very first graphic novel I ever picked up, Punisher: Circle of blood. I study this book almost every day. But I have also come to find out he did a large number of covers and comics I loved and cherished as a kid in the 80's. G.I.JOE was a major player in my life and I was studying his artwork on those books even before I ever picked up a pencil to draw. His work with John Beatty are some of the most impressive I have ever seen. So when I had some spare time, I had to give this piece a shot. Inking this was exciting and incredibly fun. I felt just like that 10yr old kid looking at those comics for the first time.

Getting into shadow shapes.

Here is a panel from one of the many Batman books that Tony Daniel has done. I really love his gritty sense of story telling. I was a fan of his work way back when and now I really like the stuff he is doing for DC. I wanted a chance to try out the shading he uses with all the cross hatched lines and strong graphic black shapes. It has a sense of Kevin Nowlan influence to me and I like that.I will have to try more of these to really get a feel for the flow in his work. Very nice work.
I find these pencil works online and print them out to practice over. I would hope that no one has a problem with that. In the past have asked that if any of the artists do have an issue to please contact me here and I will remove said piece. But as no one has, I push onward always trying to better myself in the craft.

Pulling my Herrera out!

Here is another lunch time ink experiment. This panel was drawn by Francisco Herrera and inked by me.He is an amazing artist and you should all go check him out.
I have noticed a real unfortunate trend in my works. As I get more and more work to ink now a days, I tend to want to do less practice inks. I know that this is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. I should want to perfect and challenge myself more when I have the time to "ink whatever I want". But I find that the times I do ink extra stuff are slipping away. I will have to do better and practice at least once a week on a bunch of panels from great artists. It's the only way I can learn and gain more flexibility in my inking techniques.
So much to do and so little time...I feel like the white rabbit.

Signing at Atomic Comics Nov 5th

Short notice I know, but I wanted to get it out there that I will be signing at Atomic Comics Mesa On Friday Nov. 5th from 3pm to 7pm. Steven L. Frank from 5Finity and writer of Zombies vs Cheerleaders with be there along with Ben Glendenning (aka Skulljammer) and myself will be on hand to do signing and sketches of ZVC comics and cards. I even hear that there might be a few exclusive comics and cards available to those who come out and visit us. I will also be bringing the inks from my ZVC #1 and #2 cover for exhibit. So if you have time come on out and get something signed or even just point and stare, we don't mind. See you there!

Halloween 2010!

Happy Halloween folks!
Thanks for coming by the blog and checking things out from time to time. I know I don't keep up with this as often as I should (read: never update this thing). But I have been very happily busy as of the last couple of months. I did a few more sketch card series for 5Finity as well as finished up another comic with Matt Hebb. I will tell you more about that later when I have all the clearances to do so. Wonderdog inc. is now available to order from Amazon.com and another Zombies vs Cheerleaders will be out in November. I did the inks on this cover over the amazing Daniel Compos . This will be the standard cover for the #2 of ZVC from Moonstone comics. So please pick up an issue at your local comic shops. Along with the inks for ZVC #2 I added some of the sketch cards I did for the first ZVC release. I had an idea of doing a morbid Brady Bunch homage for these or possibly a year book like set up. I really enjoyed the characters that came out of these and may just make it a running thing for future head sketches on books and cards. But I felt they definitely added to the Halloween theme for this post. So check in more as I actually have a nice back log of sketches and ink samples to post in the coming weeks.
Have a Safe and Happy Halloween!

SDCC 2010!

Hey All,
I will be heading over to the San Diego Comic Con once again. This time I will be signing at the Arcana booth (#2415) on Thursday and Saturday for the limited release of Harry Walton, Henchman for Hire and Wonderdog Inc. Come on by and pick up a copy of one or both books and get them signed. Matt Hebb and I might even be doing some tag team sketch cards for the event, if anyone is interested. Or just come over and say "Hi".

Thursday 2:30-3:30 pm.
Saturday 5:30-7 pm.

Hope to see you there!