Sneak Peek and Pinstripes

Okay, so here's a sneak peek at a piece for an anthology I just finished. I'll post details here about the book, BAM 2, when I get them. Speaking of anthologies, I decided recently to undertake one myself. I live in Chicago and there is a rather large group of talented comics artists that live here. I wanted to put together an anthology that showcased those artists. Then is occurred to me that if the anthology was going to be all Chicago artists, that the theme of the book should be about Chicago as well. I decided to embrace the stereotype and have a theme about Gangster violence in the 20's and 30's. The book will be called Pinstriped Bloodbath and my plan is to have it ready for this years SPX. I'll be posting here with details about the book as they come about.

Also, I have a couple more of the Pop Culture Portraits that I still have to post, that I'm going to put up the next couple of days. Aside from comics, the guys and bindeldog.com and myself have finished another comedy video short. It's a sequel to Before and After, the sketch about two brothers who pose as the before and after photos in weight loss ads. This one is quite a bit longer than the first, but the Rocky spoofs, and Jay Gish as the stereotyped Frenchman, Pierre are can't miss material! You can check it out here.

FCBD Mania

Free Comic Book Day is coming up on May 2nd and I have a couple of things going on. Firstly, I've been asked to be a part of a FCBD download anthology, the cover of which is above. As you can see the theme is ancient civilizations and my 5 pager is about ancient Egypt and the God Anubis. You can Download the whole book filled with a bunch of talented people on May 2nd at this website. ancient.wideawakepress.com Here's the official blurb.

The Ancient Age presented by Wide Awake Press
On May 2nd (Free Comic Book Day!) revel in a pantheon of illustrated lore from the ancient age. This free comic download gathers fantastic stories about the world's earliest civilizations, as told by the mighty sequential artisans of today. A monumental mix of new and classic tales featuring heroes, philosophers, creatures, and gods. It’ll be spectacularly epic, epically spectacular, spantafically epilacar—it’ll be good!

And here's a list of the people involved.

Dan Boyd
Michael Bresnahan
J Chris Campbell
Andrew Davis
Andrew Drilion
Patrick Dean
Paul Friedrich
Alexis Frederick-Frost
Justin Gammon
Bernie Gonzalas
Brad Mcgintiy
Corinne Mucha
Dusty Harbin
Mike LaRiccia
Joe Lambert
Josh Latta
Pat Lewis
Rey Ortega
Katie Skelly
Steve Steiner
Ben Towle
Rob Ullman
Jeff Zwirek

It's a strong group of cartoonists and I want to thank J Chris Campbell, (the man behind Wide Awake Press) for allowing me to be involved.

In addition to the download I'll also be doing some work at the Roselle Public Library, who are having several comics people doing talks and workshops for all the kids. I'm going to be doing a presentation on comic drawing, and on getting published...or at least self publishing. Should be a good time with free comics, and buddy Elliot Serrano will be on hand to talk about his writing prowess.
http://www.roselle.lib.il.us/

I'm almost out of portraits to post so I suppose I'll be going back to posting once a week or so with whatever I'm currently working on. Lately I've been lucky enough to get some commissions that have put some money in my pocket, and I've been doing lots of writing (in my head at least) for the next long form comic. Before starting that though, I'll put doing more short comics, like the one to appear in the Ancient Age, and I'll have a piece in the new Big Ass Mini BAM 2 anthology.

In related news, the bindledog guys and myself have recently landed a legit job producing cartoon shorts for ESPNchicago.com Those should start appearing soon, and I'll post them here for people to check out.


For anybody who might be missing them, I am planning on getting back to the cartoon excersises from Ivan Brunetti's book, so stay close.

Halloween Launch

Reminder that I'll be doing a signing of my comics along with Elliot Serrano and Art Baltazar at Dreamland Comics in Schamburg this Saturday November 8th from 1-3 pm!




Happy Halloween! Belated I'm afraid, but the holiday kicked my ass this year. Been really busy in the last couple of weeks with all sorts of projects. Top of the list had to be Van's Halloween costume! Emily and I have challenged ourselves to make Van's costumes from scratch each year. This year we weren't really sure what to pick for the costume seeing as he was old enough now to understand it better. So I thought about some of his favorite things, and since he's been absolutely obsessed with airplanes lately, and since one of his favorite DVD's is Duck Tales, (I'm so very proud of this fact) it was a natural to make him a costume of every ones favorite crash prone duck billed pilot, Launch Pad McQuack!

So it's basically just a WW1 fighter pilot outfit, with some webbed feet, a shock of orange hair and a rubber duck bill that van didn't want to wear.

As you can see, Emily did a fantastic job with the sewing! The whole thing is handmade aside from the pants.

But what pilot costume would be complete without a plane? This was my end of the costume, and this was also made from scratch. Half way during the construction I realized that the damn thing was too big and too fragile for a two and a half year old. Oh well. I'm sure he'll destroy it in good time, as it's only made from foam core and duck tape, with assorted cardboard and spray paint. I did actually use reference from the cartoon to get the details of the plane right, although I obviously played with the proportions.

in other Halloween news I carved my pumpkin with the knife of my white sox love. Below is the result; a mix of the old 80's sox batsmen logo and a jack o lantern.

Also went to the windy city comic-con a week or so back. What a great show. And by all accounts, from what I heard in talking to people at the show, it was busy and successful. I saw a bunch of friends there, and meet some new people as well. It was nice to go to a show that was small and creator focused, the kind of show I've wanted here in Chicago for years, as Wizard World leaves a lot to be desired.

Got to swap books with Jeff Brown, Jeff Lemire, and Neil Brideau. Jeff Browns latest, Sulk, filled with all Big head stories is a blast and quality as always from Jeff. Jeff Lemire was also super generous and swapped me a couple of his trades in the Essex County Trilogy. A beautiful, sad, tale and Jeff is quite nice to boot. Also meet Neil Brideau who I knew from the Indie Spinner Rack Forums. Neil and I swapped as well and his books are fun and creepy in the rich tradition of Gorey, Addams, and Tim Burton.

I also stopped by the table for Short Pants Press, a local distro/publisher. I picked up their new anthology The Short Pants Observer, and meet Sarah and Kristin. The Observer is a quality package, nicely put together with some great comics that were all quite different from each other, (always nice in an anthology). You can check it, and all the other quality wares out here.

Also bumped into Elliot Serrano again, and did yet another interview with him! This time for the Red Eye. You can check that, and Elliot's other coverage of the con here. And don't forget about the signing!
One more thing! Phew, lots of crap to cover right now. The new bindledog cartoon is up! Adam, Jay and I have been working on this one for a while. It's a cartoon featuring the lovable logo character bindledog. I hope you find it sad and cute.

Zombie Toddler

Let me give a quick "shout out" to a couple of my other non-comics efforts. I've been working with my twin brother, and Jay Gish on a website called bindledog.com for a while now. It's part flash animation and live action sketch comedy. We've built up a good enough bunch of material over there to keep a person busy at work for at least an hour. Recently we've been in a long production mode for a couple of more complicated projects. The live action one is called "Guitar Hero A-hole", and we're working on getting that edited, and the Flash one is an animated short for our website's mascot, Bindledog. Please go and peruse, if you haven't recently.

Also, just recently I've become a podcaster! (cue dramatic music) Yes, my brother Adam and I have channeled our love for the Chicago White Sox, into our own weekly podcast, Oral Sox. It's mostly a couple of fans talking about their favorite team, but we try to be funny about it. We've only done a couple of shows so far, but it's been fun, and we're planning on going through the whole season. So, if you are a fan of my comix, live in Chicago, like the White Sox, and listen to podcasts.... (sigh) anyway you can get it on itunes.

Well, as for the three things...

Here are some character sketches for another bindledog project. It involves a contest that Radiohead is holding, to make a video featuring one of the songs from their new album, In Rainbows. The story is a Greek tragedy with some weird magical elements. We're going to put together a storyboard for the video first and I'll post it here when it's done.

Here's a picture of Van transforming into a zombie from his 2 year photo shoot.

The ipod shuffle song selection.

Thank You by Dido

Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler

So Fast, So Numb by R.E.M

So, the first two are Emily's songs. Songs, like Thank You are pretty and nice, but put me to sleep. Hey Dido, Sarah McLachlan, Norah Jones, and all you other easy listening broads, WAKE UP! Go drink a Mountain Dew!

There is something in Total Eclipse that I do like though. The vocal on it is pretty passionate and strong, and I'll take vocals like that, over a more technically sound, but dull performance every day of the frickin' week! Bring the Passion! Bring the Heat! R.E.M.'s new album is supposed to be good. I've just about given up on them, and their last couple of albums have been too passive and plodding for me, but when they're upbeat, R.E.M. is hard to beat for feel good, American rock 'n' roll.