Turtle Time

Boy, been a little bit since I blogged here. Between the end of school, and the workload I have on top of the Holiday Crunch I took a break from blogging. A lot of what I've dobne I can't show due to rights and contracts, like the board work on Growing Up Creepie and New Frontier, but I can show you a page from the Turtles issue I have to finish soon.

Happy Holidays!

Semester's End Figures

These are from the last session of DCAD's Tuesday night open figure drawing. There won't be anymore until next semester, sometime toward the end of January. I'll be hiring a the same model though to do some more private sessions for Echo and me.

These are all 2 minute or 20 minute poses.

DRAW! 13 at the printers/Ships DEC 27th

Draw! 13 is at the printers and should be shipping into stores the 27th, right after X-mas which means subs will be out that next week and shoukd arrive fairly quick since the bulk of the holiday mail should have subsided. After being resolicited we are finally back on track. The next issue will ship for the San Diego Comicon.

read all about it and order a copy from our web store You'll also find a great 20% off sale on all the Twomorrows products just in time for the holidays!

Spider-Ham, Spider-Ham, does whatever a can of ham can

Here is the final color version of cover of Spider-Ham that I just inked over Mike Wieringo's pencils last friday. You can see Mike's pencils below.

Remo Remembered-Secret Agent Corrigan

Here are a few pages from an issue of remo Williams I did a long time ago...or it seems like a long time ago, and also a page from an issue of Marvel's Powerline comic I did that Al Williamson inked. Al also inked some of the Remo job as well. I posted these as I will be doing an all new Secret Agent Corrigan, Al's old strip that is still being reprinted overseas. The demand is good enough for the reprints that King features who owns the rights contacted me about doing one, possibly two stories, which I jumped at as I was always a big fan of newspaper strips and of course Williamson who I worked with and shared a studio with back in the late 80's along with my buddy Blevins.

there are very few places left to do this type of drawing, as the adventure newspaper strip is a dying breed.

Back at it

I took a bit of a break from the blog here due to the super-busy schedule I've had recently with work, visiting parents and the Thanks-Fer-Nothing holiday. This afternoon Echo and I had Shanna come over for some private modeling, and it was the first time in weeks I have had a chance to do figure drawing, but hell, I am rusty as ****!

Here is the only semi-decent drawing I did.



I just finished up my sequence on the WB Adaption of DC's New Frontier but still have quite a bit of board work left on my second Growing Up Creepie. I got to board a sequence with John Jones AKA Martian Manhunter and Slam Bradley and then a sequence with Jones and Batman in the Batcave. I hope it's animated well on the DVD.

Next up is laying out an issue of Aquaman and doing a Secret Agent Corrigan story for King features and an over Seas publisher.

York PA!

A beautiful, yet eerie sunset on the way to York.

Your's truely, Mike Hawthorne, Jamar and Chris Moreno.

A few weeks back Echo, Jamar and I rode out to York ,PA to give a talk and really a portfolio review to Mike Hawthorne's comic class he was teaching at the cool revamped main library. Mike is one of the best younger guys in comics today and he's also just a really swell guy as well. It was a fun trip that was made even more enjoyable by riding with that cut-up Jamar. We meet Chris Moreno another cool artist who's also friends with Mike and was there to also give a portfolio review.

No figure drawing...back to boards

Last night our model Shanna called out sick so there was no figure drawing officially at school, but there was an impromptu session in the next class over with your's truely as the model. Teressa who teaches the Drawing 1 CE class was having her students take turns drawing each other, so while I waited for Echo to show up and drive us home, I sat as the model (clothed sillies!)

When Echo showed up both she and I posed, sitting together and several of my students who would have drawn in the regular session came over to draw in Teressa's class. It was fun and we spent about 45 minutes posing before we left, Teressa did a cool drawing of Echo and me which she gave to us. I left it in my office as it was raining but I'll bring it home and post it next week.

This week I am aback boarding on two jobs, the Direct to DVD New Frontier which is the adaption of the Darwyn Cooke DC miniseries. I just boarded a section featuring batman and John Jones. It's a short section since I am also boarding another episode of Growing Up Creepy for Discovery Channel. I still have to finish my Turtles issue and I have a few other job possibilities on the horizion, one featuring an old comicstrip character. More on that if the job is 100%

The rain last night and this morning has washed away most of the remaining leaves and color giving this morning a soggy drab look. Good day for warm coffee and working.

Halloween Figure Drawing

last night instead of handing out candy I was at the weekly figure drawing session.

I did take along some candy to hand out to the ghouls and gobblens attending the Halloween drawing event. These are all the ususal 2 minute-5 and 20 minute drawings.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Interview with me in the News Journal

The Delaware News Journal is running an interview they did with me in their Home and Life section today.

FIGURE DRAWING Back in Action

I finally really got back in the swing of things this week with figure drawing. I still feel that the few weeks of did hurt me a bit and weaken my momentum though. But I keep at it dispite my frustration with myself and what I do and the way the class is setup with the lighting, though this week was better. I think I want to really do longer pieces but would alomst prefer 2 hours of ten minute poses to really get loose. I was also trying in the last two pieces to work less with line but tone, edges as they were both 20 minute poses. But really I hope to start very soon, maybe next week on a series of long term drawings of figures. I think I'll start with friends first.


The drawing above was done straight without any underdrawing, I started with the left shoulder and drew "around and into" the figure as a continueous contour drawing. You can see how you can blow porportions and get distortion quick, yet there is something I really like about this try of drawing dispite that.





In these two drawings I was dealing with tone mostly...I needed more time to refine things like the cast shadows, reflected light etc., but this was all that time I had. I'm trying to push myself to rely less on just line, something I am so used to working with because of my daily job.

I think Echo did some really nice drawings this week, she's been using some Vine Charcoal, we posted some over on her Blog.

Back Blog-Elvis, Art, Pie and 45

The King of Rock N' Rolk ain't dead, he's doing storyboards!

Hey all, it's been a long time since the last blog here as I have been traveling and swamped with work until the last day or so. last week I was at the Consequential in Memphis, the home of Elvis the Pelvis. I had a great time as did Echo, what they say about Southern hospitality is true. I want to thank all the fine folks who helped put on the con and Cartooniversity, especially Dave Beaty and Micah Stewart and Dave's family. Dave and Micah do a cool comic called Bushi Tales. Micah was such an awesome hostess, she spoiled us too juch!

I also want to thank the Mid-South Cartoonist Association: Lin Workman,Antone wade, Kevin Williams and an extra-special thanks to Adam Shaw and his with Penny who hosted a swell B-B-Q dinner at their beautiful house and for hosting a really cool gallery show at Adam's studio that featured work by Bret and myself as well as many other local artists. Seems Memphis is yet another up-and-coming art center.

Bret and I at Shaw's gallery.

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The only costumes I saw all weekend...

Another one of the gallerys in the up-and-coming area.

And the band played on..



Bret hobnobed with Adam and the other artists





A cool spooky pic of Bret.

A Flash skecth I drew.

Bret sketching Vampirella.


We also got to meet several other animation and comic pros like Mike Norton, Greg Weisman and Earl Kress.

Mike Norton

Adam Shaw

Everyone was so nice and even wanted to take both Echo and I around to places like Graceland, but unfortunately I had to pass on any tours and finish a rush-rush storyboard and had to work right up until Friday night in our hotel room. Echo helped me tighten the job up and Bret brought over his drawing setup as he was also trying to finish the end of his huge Red Wall graphic novel, so we all had fun working together late into the night. But Friday we attended the gallery opening and then walked the area to visit some of the other gallerys.





Some cool snaps I took in one of teh gallerys of Bret, Echo and the musicians.

My fave was this gallery that was all candelight with a group in the back playing space/trance/world sorta'music. Adam had a group come play at his studio but I forget who they were, but they were a bit too loud fer me so we headed outside.



Bret and I gave our panel of drawing for comics on Saturday, even running over our time as we had a pretty packed room of eager to learn cartoonists in attendence who at the end of the weekend got a nice certificate stating they ahd gone all the way through the program. There were other classes on writing, painting, figure drawing and more. the only downside was that attendence was pretty light and I felt bad for teh gang who worked so hard to put this on. It was a really great opportunity for an aspiring cartoonist/writer to get an in-depth, one-on-one with a professional.

I hope they do this again next year and have a much bigger turnout. Memphis has good eats, plenty of BBQ, it's the land of meat and smoked meat, but don't try and get a cab, jebuzzz, it took 45 minutes to over and hour just to get a cab. Weird.



This week's crappy figure drawing.

Echo and I returned to Philly and I was back teaching this week and finishing up a bunch of business that got pushed back or delayed due to all the traveling of late. We even went back to figure drawing this week, but the stuff I did was pretty crappy, i was so tired and unfocused, I look forward to doing more next week when I will have had some rest andcaught up on my sleep. It was three cons in just about a month, starting with Baltimore, but that's it until next year. I think the first show will be the Feb NYC show at the Javitz.


Fall is here!

It's mid terms at school and I can see the end of the year rushing up.


I turned 45 yesterday, holding off on the big celebration till this weekend but Echo sang to me as I blew out the candels on my pumpkin pie, as I am not a big cake fan. year 44 was awesome and I image 45 will be awesome too, I don't feel any different than when I was 25 except maybe I need a new perscription for my glasses. I notice the close vision is good, but the distance is a bit fuzzier and not as sharp. oh well, Lens Crafters is cheap.