The Creepertins are Coming

This is a partial preview of the Creepertins strip I'll be doing Starting in January. It'll be one new strip every month in the Delaware County times, a free give-away paper that is published here in Delaware county, right outside of Philly. My buddy Scott Neely is head art honcho at the paper and got the publisher to agree to run a page of comic strips, so he got Jamar Nicholas (Leon protector of the Playground) and me to do a monthly strip along with his strip about his pooch, Alfie.

The first Creepertins art was just a doodle of some weird kid characters I did for a fun, next time I drew them was a short five page story for the Philly Cartoonist Society's anthology they published out in 2005. I suppose like most cartoonists I have always had on my wish list the desire to take a shot at doing a newspaper strip, traditionally the Holy Grail for a cartoonist. If you did a strip, you were officially "big Time." i really enjoy the art and craft of what I call "Pure cartooning," which is something that is in rare supply today in the funnies.

So while this strip runs but once a month it is giving me an opportunity to develope these characters further and I will see where this leads, who knows, I might even ttry pitching them at the syndicates or run a daily strip on-line.

March Creepertins

The March Creepertins strip.

Creepertins #1

Here is the full first strit of The Creepertins now available in the newest issue of Delaware County Magazine. I'm working on the second strip now, which will be out in roughly a month. I did everything old school here, including lettering on the board.

Holiday Creepertins

It seems impossible in some ways but the Happy Holidays are upon us already. Tom Turkey sits frozen ready to meet the oven and his delicious fate.

That means it's almost one full year since I started doing the Creepertins in Delaware County Magazine, seems the time flew by and I will so glad to see 2008 go bye-bye. This has been the worst year of my life as an adult, there was lots of really bad stuff this year, so while there was also some very good things like being in School, and professionally to, but personally I can't wait to see the calender for 2008 fall into the waste basket. Too bad some people can't also fall in along with it.

Creepertins for September

Here is the September installment of the Creepertins.

Thanks Fer Nothing Creepertins

No sooner do we toss old jack Pumpkin head into the trash than i have to churn out the Thanks-Fer-Nothin' Creepertins strip. And in 2 week I'll have to do the Christmas strip no doubt. As much as i enjoy the holidays with my friends and family I have to say I dislike the pushing and haste of the tin tasting commercialization that seems to ramp up a bit each year.

So this year I am ramping down in this trickled-down economy. Time to retrench and retool the whole shebang amigos. I have already done a lot in this area because I'm back in school, but I think 2009 will be an even bigger belt tightening year even in Obama wins--which I clearly hope he does.
I guess with all of this on my mind, and thinking about how things seemed different in the last depression, or were romanticised and how different that image is in what appears to be the new depression.

What popped into my mind was the image of Hobos vs Homeless. Hobos, the ever present comedic foils of old movies, comics and TY shows. Hobos were fun, or funny in a way that I think Homeless people are not. There was even the Hobo-clown...though they were just too scary for most.

Hobos were like happy, half-baked or drunk goof balls. Harmless pranksters, like a goofy uncle or rapscallion. Hobos were white it seemed for the most part, fuck, Bing Crosby played a hobo. How many WB cartoons had hobos in them? It seemed they traveled under boxcars, ate pies and chickens they'd steal,lived in hobo-camps with other hobos. Hobos shared. They often had very mock upper-crust manners. Top hats, derbies, pinkie-out eating habits. They hardly seemed to have anything bad about them except they were dirty. They'd take their hat off when talking to a lady and were just one hair-brained scheme away from being back on their feet. Hobos, a word that is pretty much gone from out current vocabulary--it has been replaced by the Homeless. And the Homeless have little humorous attached to them. In fact the only funny Homeless person that pops to mind is Dave Chapelles homeless guy.

Homelessness isn't romantic like being a Hobo was. It seems that maybe the Hobo set some terms of his down-and-out lifestyle. The Hobo didn't seem as much of a looser or a reject. The Hobo seemed cunning, scheming, resourceful, living by his wits. Homeless is also tainted with a more of a racist stigma as for the most part all the Hobos I saw as a kid were middle aged white guys--and they are never bad people.

So maybe the Hobo needs to make a comeback, and this months strip is just such a bold stride in that direction. Kids need hobo friends like in days of yore. The bum at the end of the street that will convince you to bring him a pie or buy him a bottle of hooch. The Hobo who will regale you with the stories of his world travels beneath the clickety-clack boxcars of the Santa Fe, and the Northern Pacific.

We are soon to be reliving those Hobo times my friends, catch the rails.

CReepertins Strip and Demo

I just finished the newest monthly Creepertins strip and I made a little step-by-step demo and edited it together in iMovie. Some stuff is a little fuzzy, I'm still trying to work out tech issues with my Powershot A80 and the lighting, but I think you should get the basic Idea. I'll try shooting on for my next X-9 pages to give people an idea about doing different types of styles too.

Creepertins No. 2

The next installment of The Creepertins, which will be published in Delaware County Magazine in a few weeks.

October Creepertins

This month's Creepertins strip. I'll have a post on Baltimore Con in the next day or so.

March Creepertins

Here is the March installment of the Creepertins

Creepertins Pencils

Well it's that time of the month again, time to do my Creepertins strip for the Delaware Valley Magazine. It's always a bit of a challenge to come up with something that will stand alone, 30 days apart, and yet reveal something more about the characters. I think this one does that. Sometimes I just for for a quick joke, like last month's strip.

Next I'll ink this up, color it,and it's on it's way....

Creepertins -June

After a two month hiatus, the Creepertins is back in the Delaware County Magazine. I missed drawing these little creeps on the break, but I think well be back on schedule now.

APRIL CREEPERTINS

The April installment of the Creepertins.

Creepertins for June

The newest Creepertins strip.

The Creepertins

Here is the back to School strip for the Creepertins this month, which is a play off one of the strips from last year. There was a bit of a break when the magazine bumped us 2 months in a row but it seems we are back on the schedule now. It's been quite the mix of jobs in the last few weeks, I finished the Secret Saturdays Kids book for Random House, this strip, teaching my cartooning class at PAFA, painting and now I'm back on the Martian book and finishing up DRAW!--the summer is burning down fast, in three weeks School starts again!

The Creepertins Page 2

This is the second page to the five page Creepertins story I just finished for the Philly Cartoonist Society anthology. I'll update tye street date for the book, but I suspect it will be ready for the SPX show in October if not before.

I had a lot of fun on this story which was based off a doodle I did one day on the wacom tablet a few years back. I think I will continue to develope these characters and do another story which I might post as a web comic since I want to dip my feet back in those waters.

I did everything here, write and letter the things as well. I feel to be a REAL CARTOONIST you need to "do it all". All the great cartoonists did.

The Creepertins

This is the first page of a 5 page story featuring a bunch of weird kids I made up one day called the Creepertins©

I am finishing up the story for the Philadelphia cartoonist Society's next anthology. I might post another page..but you'll have to wait till the books out to read the story. I am going for a very fun style on this, like kid comics of old I guess. You can see a larger version here.

January Creepertins

Februray Creepertins

And so it begins....

The holidays rushed by as they always do and now we are almost dumped into the new year running. I am buys here that's for sure. Between the various projects in house and those that are planned. It's seems so feast or famine now for me and has increasingly been that way since about 2000. I either have almost nothing in house, the last job finishing up with nothing new yet, or suddenly 5 jobs. All overlapping and compeating. It never used to be like that, but that seems the norm now, and the norm with many of my fellow artists too.

I think this will be a big year in a lot of ways, a big year for our country and really set the tone, good or bad for us for a long while. The Bush years have been SHIT! Everybody seems to feel the system is broken, the war was a farce that turned into a quagmire that we will long be paying for in ways more expensive than monitarily. I am not impressed by any of the democrats honestly, but I dispise all the republicans. The economy is gonna tank, if it already isn't. The real estate market, global warming, geeze. Everyone I know is tightening the belt and white knuckle squeezing the restraint bar for the ride down. But there are positives, people seem aware of these issues, and some seem pretty motivated, but the question is can enough people make collectively the right choices?

So even with these obvious negatives and dark clouds one always starts the new year with hope, hope we can overcome these problems. Last years was a bumpy ride. I lost a great freind when Mike Weiringo suddenly passed away. It was, and still is a shock, and I think about him just about every day. I also lost my dog Buster, again, suddenly. He literally died in my arms, so I hope this year has nothing like that.

I have some cool projects I want to work on, things like the Creepertins and a comic project with Greg Thompson, and of course get Draw! out more plus school. I'll be teaching more than ever on top of attending Pafa, so there won't be much downtime till the summer. But that's good too as I feel it's all positive work. I'm finishing up on what's to be the last storyboard I'll do for a while on Secret Saturday's. And working hard on my second X-9 story so by the time the school break is over I'll be ready to attack the new semester with a furry.