Steppin' In A Slide Zone

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I'm just stepping out the door to catch my flight to Minneapolis! FallCon 2008, here I come! Here's a panel from the Perhapanauts backup story I'm working on. Inking of said story should commence when I get back from the convention!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Lorelei

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James Powell, editor of Braids of The Gorgon, has just written about how he got involved Braids and where we are, in terms of progress in the project. He even shared a couple of my character sketches I've recently done (different drawings from the one I'm sharing!). He's a valued member of the BotG team and a great guy. Go check out his site by clicking here.

I'll be out in Minnesota this weekend for FallCon 2008! Looking forward to hanging with good friends, talking to comic fans and making flight connections in Chicago (well, not that last one)! I'll have my brand new convention sketchbook, Marks On Paper, for sale so please drop by and give it a looky. Talk too you soon!

Catch My Fall

One week from now I will be attending FallCon 2008, in Minnesota! Looks to be a great show. Hope to see some of you there!

Heart Of Lothian: Wide Boy/Curtain Call

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Here's a page from my new convention sketchbook, Marks On Paper. These are a few panels from a short story that Josh Fialkov and I did for a anthology that never materialized. On the left are the panels in their pencilled form, and on the right are the same panels in their final inked form. I like pages like this, as they help show my process, sort of a peek behind the curtain.

The sketchbook will be making its debut at Fallcon, which happens in a few weeks! The books have already been shipped and they will be waiting for me in Minnesota upon my arrival.

Under Cover of the Night

I'm just putting the final touches on my very first "convention sketchbook". I'm pretty happy with the drawings that are going into it. I've been talking about making a sketchbook of my various work drawings for quite some time, but now that FallCon is so close, I figured I should get off my ass and actually do it.

Special thanks go out to my wife, Jackie, for helping me sift through the mountains of loose drawings and sketches that litter my work area and organize them. We managed to come up with a good selection of drawings that show a nice range of styles and content. There is even a space on the opening page for me to do a personalized sketch! I'll let you all know when I get some of these bad boys printed up. If you're interested, they will be for sale... just let me know how I should sketch in it. Here's a look at the cover for the sketchbook. It's not finalized, but it's real close.

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(Which reminds me, I will be in Minnesota for FallCon 2008 this coming October 4 & 5! Looks to be another great show with tons of cool creators. Let's just hope the weather is cooler than last year. )

When The Lights Go Out

No, I'll not be making my way down to San Diego for Comic Con International. I opted to spend my convention going money on my trip to Heroes Con, this year. SDCC is not a great con to go to if you're not promoting a recent/upcoming book, as far as I can tell. I will miss getting the chance to sit and chat with some of my comic book creating brethren, though. I *may* go next year but I'll have to make sure I've got a book coming out around SDCC time. And on that note, here's a look at the inked version of the panel from the previous Kill All Monsters! post.

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Exactly Where I'm At

Heroes Con was excellent! I got to meet a bunch of people face-to-face that I've only known through the Worldwide Web. The internet is an amazing thing, but getting a chance to talk to fellow comic creators in person is soooo much better.

I had a great time talking to Perhapanauts creators Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau. I'm a huge fan of the 'Nauts, so it was very cool to get a chance to hang with them. Todd has offered me a chance to do a little something for a backup feature for an upcoming issue, which I jumped at in a heartbeat! As a warm up to whatever that something will be, I did a Perhapanauts pin-up (below). I took it down to Heroes and gave it to Todd. He seemed to like it and even thinks it should appear in the 4th issue of the book! Sweet!

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Being a HUGE Guy Davis fan, it was an amazing few minutes when I got the chance to talk shop with him while he drew a very cool Marquis sketch for me... for free! Thanks, Guy!

I also got the chance to talk to some comic creator friends like Kevin Mellon, Dennis Hopeless, Kody Chamberlain, Josh Elder, Dwight L. MacPherson and Charlie Kirchoff (and his lovely wife, Elbonie). All in all, Heroes Con was excellent and I'm very close to saying I'll be back there again next year.

Meanwhile... back at home...
Things are moving on the Kill All Monsters! pitch pages. I had a few days off from drawing, after my trip to Heroes Con, but now I'm all about the giant robots kickin' giant monster butt action!

More soon!

Two For The Show

Looks like I should have booked that trip to the Baltimore Con, after all. You see, the Harvey's are presented during the Baltimore Con and I just found out that POSTCARDS was given nominations in two categories! One for "SPECIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION" and the other for "BEST ANTHOLOGY". Huge pat on the back goes out to Jason Rodriguez who now has the book in the running for the Best Anthology Harvey AND Eisner!

Here's what the "Best Anthology" nominations look like:

Flight Volume 4, edited by Kazu Kibuishi, Ballantine Books
Mome Volume 8, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics Books
Popgun Volume 1, edited by Joe Keatinge and Mark Andrew Smith, Image Books
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriquez, Villard
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, edited by John Clark, Gemstone

Heroes

One week until I'm climbing aboard an Airbus A319 and traveling to Charlotte, NC to attend my very first Heroes Con! Late last year, I decided that I wasn't going to go back to the San Diego Comic Con this year but I still wanted to get out to a good sized event during the summer months. I've always heard great things about Heroes Con, so I put 1 and 1 together and now I'm a week away from finally meeting some amazing talents that I've known only through the internet.