Blue Moon Blog

Taking a break from production on my children’s book in progress, Night of the Bedbugs, I’m still doing my Bedbugs characters, but instead for an idea for a project that’s now crystalized as a Bedbugs ABC book. For the Minnesota Spring comic show this Sunday, I’m hoping to have a mini-comic or two available. These little chapbooks serve as prototypes or first editions of the work-to-be, perhaps eventually a Bedbugs board book. Anyway, we’ll see how the week goes….

I colored these few to preview here. Of the three above, which mood is closest to yours today?

I’ll have a table and will be available to sign books and do sketches once again at this year’s annual Minneapolis Spring comic book convention, next Sunday, April 27th. Though I haven’t had comic work published within the industry for some time, it’s always nice to chat with fans, old and new alike, and catch up with local talent, most of whom are friends.

I’ll have on hand and will be previewing art from upcoming comics and childrens book projects, so stop on by to say Hi and check it all out.

I swiped a photo of myself (with good ‘ol pal, writer Len Strazewski) from Cedric Hohnstadt’s blog, who wrote about the show last year.

After several years in the comic book industry (at first self publishing, then working for established publishers like DC Comics), I began looking for chances to do comics outside the comics field. With The Adventures in Odyssey Bible, I got my first opportunity. Originally published in 1994, this bible utilized characters from the popular Odyssey series from Focus on the Family, now enjoying over twenty years of audio dramas, CDs, books and cartoon DVDs.

From rough scripts provided, I adapted into comics form eight four-page color story inserts, adding dialogue where necessary, breaking down and laying out the story. Each morality tale features and takes its cue from a verse from the bible. We also provided the cover art, and forty or so black-and-white spot illustrations interspersed throughout the text of the bible.

To begin work on this project, I was provided with a couple animated videos from which to determine character likenesses. Frustratingly, I was finally given model sheets only towards the end of the project. I did small page roughs on 3 x 5 cards, going directly to pencils then in larger 10 x 15 original art, sometimes penciling, inking and lettering more than a page a day. I had to work quickly, so as to keep feeding finished pages to the agency here in Minneapolis to the young guy coloring the pages. I found the coloring of the first story to be a tad too dark, but things improved rapidly after I spent an hour with him talking about coloring in general and how color can be used to aid the storytelling.

During that session, it was the first time I saw my art blown up on a large computer screen, and I was sold. Within a year or two, we invested in a computer set-up of our own, and no longer had to farm out or sub-contract our color work. From then on, we’ve had more control over the work and schedule, and have kept more of the income in studio.

Some sample comic book pages can be viewed in our Major Works section of this site (among work from other projects, so take a gander while there). Now out of print, used copies can still be found at amazon, ebay or half.com, etc.

I’ve done plenty of comics the last decade, just not any that have appeared in a comic book. After having drawn hundreds and hundreds of pages within the comics industry, all the comics I’ve drawn since have shown up beyond its borders. That’s about to change, as I’ve signed up to do a short story that will appear in the pages of Proof. I’ve not yet received the script from my pal, Alex Grecian, but the story sounds like it will be a blast to draw.

Alex has divulged to me I’ll get to draw even more crazy creatures from the book, and one that will be making his debut in the story I’ll be drawing. In preparation, I doodled a couple pages of character studies of Elvis Chesnut and the Dover Demon, two of Proof’s best buddies, and a couple of my favorites from the series.

Here’s a sneak peek, although Elvis will look different; he’s had a haircut since I did these studies, some in pencil, some in ink.

I’d mentioned last December the new comic book, Proof, from Image Comics, co-created and written by my pal, Alex Grecian. The series is making quite a splash, some may say the surprise hit of the year, and has been nominated for many of Britain’s Eagle Awards.

Issue 6 was just released, with #7 due out in a couple weeks. True to their word, Alex and his artist co-conspirator, Riley Rossmo have delivered their new book monthly, with more already in the can. For those who’ve been late to the series, it’ll be easy to catch up, as the first story arc, Goatsucker, is to be collected and released in May, at the special, low introductory price of just under $10!

So jump on board and catch up with the series, now beginning a new three-issue story, promising plenty of action and, as usual, weirdness galore.

And check this blog tomorrow, for more Blue Moon/Proof-related news!

In the early ’90s, for some odd reason, I agreed to ink a horror story for Comico Comics. They’d published my comic, Trollords (with partner and co-creator Scott Beaderstadt) in color for a short time in 1988-89, before the company imploded and came into new hands. A couple friends were doing work for them, and I took on the story as more of a favor at about half my regular rate, throwing in lettering, too.

“Better Off Dead” is a horror story drawn in a style similar to horror comics great, Bernie Wrightson, though I can’t for the life of me recall the name of the penciler. Patrick Something? It was fun enough, but I hadn’t seen it in years before stumbling across this page online. Someone else had seen it, too and emailed me to inquire whether I’d want to draw something in this style for him. Not so much.

It remains the only job, in the comics field or otherwise, for which the check bounced and I was never paid. It became clear I was never going to see my money. While attending a Chicago comic book convention shortly after the check bounced, I sought out the new Comico head honcho, one Andrew Rev, with a plan in mind. My buddies who’d enticed me to do the work saw me coming and scattered like bugs. I walked right up to Rev and shook his hand, introducing myself…then wouldn’t let go. He tried to finish the shake and pull away, but I wouldn’t let him. I held on to his slimy, increasingly sweaty hand and calmly but firmly laid into him about the money he owed me. I held on until I was finished, then finally let him off the hook.

This isn’t close to my usual style, and I’d never before made a guy squirm and sweat like that, but I think he’d earned the treatment. Anway, I never did see the money, and I had figured that would be the case going in. But it was worth a shot, and man, was it ever satisfying!

Here’s a larger version of that same page, from that infamous story:

In creating the cover for the Superman vs. Hollywood book (about which I’ve written here before), I was asked to do three initial layouts, then two more additional compositions. In all, we needed to suggest Superman without outright showing him. Each rejected layout shown here has its own strengths:

• the first shows a full figure, and has a pop art feel, what with the sound effects

• #2 was a later exploration, and an obvious approach, suggesting the iconic action of the reveal of the logo and costume behind the street clothes; this idea has been used on other covers for pre-existing Superman-related books

• The third has more action, but was a bit too literal with Supes punching out a Hollywood agent; not an easy read

• The last is my favorite, with Supes in the foreground and largely in silhouette, striking a confrontational before a movie theater marquee, on which would be displayed the book title

I can see why the final cover art was chosen, as it retains the confrontational elements, while adding more action lacking in others. It was a fun project, all in all, and its always a kick to see the final art in print.

It was weird watching baseball on TV opening day last Monday, with big, fluffy snowflakes falling here in Minnesota. We got 4-5 inches that day. And though it all melted during the rest of the week, we got a little more snow yesterday. It’s Spring, can’t Winter take a hint?!? They’re out there playing baseball, for gosh sakes! And I see I’m not the only one who feels this way:

One great thing about comic strips is how they can sum up or comment on a mood or idea so quickly; in and out. The first features Nancy, currently drawn by Guy Gilchrist. Blog nod: Heidi MacDonald’s The Beat. The second: I receive Mutts comics every day via email. It’s easy for you to do the same to read regularly Patrick McDonnell’s timeless strip. Lastly, of course, features good ol’ Charlie Brown in an edited Sunday Peanuts strip from late March, 1956. You gotta admire that kid’s tenacity…or is it stubborness?

And if you think I’m done writing about Spring, snow and baseball, just wait….

“This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.” ~ Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1894

Welcome back to the blog; thanks for checking in again. We’re still plenty busy, but have posts at the ready for the coming days (I even jumped the gun with a post yesterday about baseball).

A couple years back, I did ten illustrations for Disney’s Family Fun magazine to run in their April Fools’ issue, with ideas suggested from readers of the magazine. Borrow a prank to fool a loved one today and enjoy the laughs.

I was chosen for that particular assignment as they wanted to vary the illustration styles, while still using one artist. Of course, Mary pitched in on the coloring on most. I scanned these from the printed magazine, and they still look all right. For more April Fools tricks, visit the Family Fun site.

If the Jewish GrungeBoy wasn’t enough for you yesterday, here are more done for American Jewish Life magazine. This series of illustrations depicting an improbable scenario. For obvious reasons, these were a ton of fun to do.