Last Sunday of 2014

Here is the last Judge Parker Sunday of this year, which I finished and delivered to King Features this week. Next year I'll be heading into my 6th year on the strip--where does all the time go? It goes into millions of little lines that equal a huge pile of strips by now!!  I might start selling some as I need to manage my space in my archives, its almost filled to the brim. The gang is still stranded in the trailer park and who knows when they will be able to break free and get back home. It's been 2 days in strip time but at this point its been 26 weeks of storyline, as time works much slower when you have multiple story lines and only three panels daily. I enjoyed drawing the baby squirrel  here the most--though sexy gals are always a joy to draw and a constant pull for the message board trolls to fantasize over. I know a few of the trolls haunt my blog.

I think teenage girls are the hardest to draw as the teens all look much older today that when I was a teen. A 16 year old can look 22 now pretty easy, they are way more affected by fashion trends of celebrities. I teach a lot of young students, a bulk of them young women, art schools are full of way more women than men in my experience,  so I do get to see many trends and ideas from my students. In my Illustration Class I have 99% female students so I see a wide mix of fashion styles, though i realize since they are artists they are probably a bit more eclectic and stylish.

 I still wish we had a full page for the Sunday strips like the great golden age, but I suppose we are lucky to even have the size we get now. I haven't seen a Sunday paper in a long time myself, and the last time the strips were printed so small it was a shame. In a change-up I inked most of this Sunday with an old Esterbrook nib.

Between JP and the DC work it's double duty for a few months in the studio, but being winter I suppose that's OK, I wish I could squeeze out a few more paintings as I have a show with the PPAP in January.

Convergence!

I'll be doing two issues of DC's big Convergence event featuring the Justice league International, written by Ron Mars and coolors bySotocolor

Willingboro Art Alliance

Yesterday I had a great time giving a short talk on my career as a cartoonist and now as a painter as well as doing a demo at the Willingboro Art Alliance.

The WAA was a great group of folks and I enjoyed myself very much.. I had attended the WAA a few years back with my friend from PAFA to see and demo by John Ennis.

A big thanks to RJ Haas for inviting me to do a demo and the talk. Here is a picture of the demo I did in about 45 minutes.

I wish I had more time to continue the demo but we had to be out of the center by 9. If you live close by in New jersey I urge you to join up with the WAA, they are a great group of artists.

Good strip news!

Its good news for Woody, Terry and myself in this article on the Times Dispatch website  It seems Rex Morgan and Judge Parker were the top two strips in a recent poll of what strips to keep and drop  at the Times Dispatch. Its not always good news you hear about continuity strips these days, many papers want to drop all strips in favor of advertisement, etc. Most continuity strips have one-by-one vanished from the papers in the past 20 years. Yet features like comic strips are one of the few things papers can offer readers  these days of 24 hour news cycles and declining circulations. These strips and our work is highly regarded by regular readers. Normal people. I have been told the Comics Kingdom gets over 10,000 hits a day on Judge Parker alone. So we raise a glass to the readers of the Times Dispatch--Thanks!