Playoffs? PLAYOFFS?!

Not much of a post today, as I'm trying to wrap up some freelance stuff before going over to John's house to watch the Pittsburgh/San Diego playoff game with a bunch of friends...among them my pal Brian, who I let tag along with me to Heinz Field back in November, despite the fact he's a Chargers fan.

Go Steelers.

Ginger Classic

Late posting today, due to my sitting on my ass all afternoon recovering from the Ginger Classic, an inline Iron-man hockey tournament organized by carrot-topped super-hero Chase Vaughn. My wife actually came out to the rink to spectate and brought the camera, but unfortunately, the only action shots she got of me were when I was trying to stop Evie from stealing someone's gatorade. Thankfully, Chase's pal Matt snapped some shots as well.






EDIT: Goalie Patrick Snyder's wife was also taking photos, and got me in an actual action (as in, I'm moving) shot! Srsly, the best part of my game is the Whalers jersey.

Power Girl

Hope I have time to ink and color this someday soon.

Wrigley's Believe It or Not

Hope you've been keeping up with my Traffic and Weather strip over at Richmond Magazine dot Com. This week: The NHL Winter Classic!

Cabbage Patch Frenzy

Karate Kids

I got an assignment last year from University of Virginia Magazine about martial arts clubs on campus. It was fairly straightforward, just talking about the different options available to students and the good physical and mental health benefits that go along with participation...in other words, nothing negative for me to focus on! So, I took a different approach, looked at a ton of books about martial arts, and created all these small figures of people practicing the various disciplines, whcih were in turn spaced throughout the layout. Now, being that I don't know Aikido from Feng Shui, I'm sure I'm far less than accurate on a few of these poses...so if you see something I have wrong, and want to leave a comment about it, please don't bother, because I DON'T CARE.

Journalist

Strange and Stranger

One of my absolute best and favorite clients is The Stranger...they give me all kinds of kooky things to draw!

Painted Ladies

Here are some new sketches, used as the basis for a couple watercolor paintings I'm far too fragile to post here.

Mountaineers, Dodgers, Predators

My Half-Assed Best of 2008

Even though they're overdone, I kinda love reading year-end best-of lists...now that I'm old and can barely manage to stay even remotely ahead of the curve on stuff like movies and especially music, I find them to be pretty helpful in finding stuff I missed over the course of the past year. I myself, however, often have a hard time coming up with lists like this...mainly because I'm usually catching up on last year's music until July or August!

So, you've been warned.

MUSIC

Sloan-Parallel Play This record seems to get no respect, even among fans of the band. While not approaching the heights of '07's Never Hear the End of It, it's still rock-solid, especially the first three tracks.

Deerhunter-Microcastle It took me awhile to decide whether I liked this massively-hyped indie darling, and I still haven't completely figured out why...But yeah, it's pretty great.

Baseball Project-Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails I was initially just attracted to the track names ("Ted Fucking Williams", "Harvey Haddix"), but I quickly realized this jangly gem was no gimmick, but a knowledgeable, savvy tribute to the national pastime. If you like baseball and know anything about it's history, you'll love this.

Nomo-Ghost Rock I read a good review of this someplace, and gave it a whirl on eMusic. Dig it a lot...all the things I like about Tortoise and Artanker Convoy, but kinda...I dunno, funkier?

Apples in Stereo-New Magnetic Wonder Okay, this actually came out in 2007, but it's probably the record I listened to most in the past year. Just great.

I should probably mention that I downloaded all of the records on this list from eMusic, which is a pretty colossal source for good music (especially if your tastes tend toward the independent labels), and super cheap to boot. If you want to get a bunch of great stuff without all the illegal downloading or paying .99 a track, that's the place.

MOVIES

I'd be surprised if I even saw five movies in the theater last year...I went to see Cloverfield, Iron Man, Wall•E, and The Dark Knight, all of which I enjoyed. Didn't get around to even seeing many of last year's critical darlings either, except for No Country for Old Men, which, great film or not, I pretty thoroughly disliked, and Michael Clayton, which was easily the best movie I watched all year.

COMICS

Brush with Passion: The Life and Art of Dave Stevens I've been waiting for this book forever, and not only did it not disappoint, it exceeded my expectations. Ironically, I get the feeling that had Dave not passed away in March, this book might not have ever been published, perfectionist that he was. It's a loving, magnificent tribute, and makes the fact that he's no longer with us sting just the tiniest bit less.

Sixteen Miles to Merricks by Barnaby Ward The story that takes up about half of the book is good if not terribly overwhelming, but this cat's art is just freaking fantastic.

Skyscrapers of the Midwest by Josh Cotter Skyscrapers is on just about every best-of list I've read this year, and deservedly so. Beautifully drawn and designed, a treasure to read.

Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle Looser and more episodic in scope than Delisle's other travel books, it's just as interesting.

Too Cool to Be Forgotten by Alex Robinson I am so jealous of how easy Alex Robinson makes creating great comics look.

Honorable mentions: Empowered Vols. 3 and 4 by Adam Warren, Freddie and Me by Mike Dawson, Late Nights at Kinko's by Will Pfeifer, The Demon Omnibus by Jack Kirby and Mike Royer.

Steelerette 2009

Man, am I excited for some Steelers in the playoffs! To celebrate, I created an new version of my Steelerette character from the 2005 Super Bowl run. Soon to be available as a sticker!

Season's Greetings!

Thanks for another great year, everybody!

399

Facebook Fears

One of the things I dig about crap like Facebook is that it allows me to show my previous classmates that, despite my having been a complete, utter nerd in high school, that I more or less have my shit together these days. Not in an "I'll show those bastards!" kind of way...more of a "Hey, I don't dress like Marty McFly anymore!" kind of way. Some people, however, do not feel similarly adequate at their current station in life, and continue to feel bullied and belittled even years after graduation, as this piece I did for the Boston Phoenix illustrates.

Personally, I feel like anyone who gives shit one about what their fellow high schoolers think of them even a second after they toss that cap in the air is a hopeless pants-pee. But maybe that's just me.

Some Quickies

Made

Back in 2005, I was hired by MAKE Magazine to draw some industrious, nerdy little elves working on various techie DIY projects for their holiday edition. I was really happy how they turned out at the time, and I'm happy to report that they're made another appearance, this time on the MAKE Blog! They're encouraging readers to use the images in their own holiday projects...something I myself did for my "nice" (as opposed to "naughty") Xmas promo card for 2006!

Of course, all this does is remind me how badly I need to get crackin' on this year's version...

Traffic and Weather

My new web-strip, Traffic and Weather, debuted this past Friday on richmondmagazine.com, the all-new, souped-up web-straveganza of Richmond Magazine. The strip is very similar in tone and style to Lunch-Hour Comix, and probably could have been called that, actually...but a new title gives me one more thing to list on my resume, so Traffic and Weather it is!

Read episode one here...and new strips will appear every Thursday. Also, I need feedback, people, so don't be shy!

Just Sketchin'

Let's Go Pens!

They're Not Witches...

...well, technically they are, but not the stereotypical, "bubble, bubble, toil and trouble" kind they're sometimes thought to be. A look at modern Wiccans from the Boston Phoenix.

Kings, Cards and Reds

Kinda-Creepiness

More Halloweeny-ness, however tangental. A recent illo done for The Stranger about the Twilight series of novels, soon to be a motion picture. It sounds perfectly awful and about as entertaining as Joe the Plumber's forthcoming country music album...but the Vampire/Werewolf/Teenage Girl love triangle made for a nice image.

Happy Halloween!

A few years back, my good pal J Chris Campbell and the fine folks of Wide Awake Press published the Wide Awake 666 anthology. As a way of celebrating one of my favorite holidays, and because I don't imagine I'll have time to create anything new before said holiday, I thought I'd share one of my pieces from that fine book. It's one of two pieces I did for the book, the other which I mentioned quite awhile ago.

Now, as you're well aware, I'm kinda known as a guy who draws the girls. I wanted to do something in that vein for WA666, but I didn't want to do some gross thing where some cutie is being killed by a zombie or something, so I compromised, and came up with something totally gross yet pretty funny. I used the cover of an oft-seen collection of pin-up paintings by the great Gil Elvgren as a starting point, and did my own little homage to this familiar image.

It's Fun to Wash Your Hair...

...and this is how you do it!

It's Been Awhile

Sorry for the recent lack of updates...Hopefully now that the "show season" is overwith I'll get back to posting regularly!

Attention, Fellow Virginians!

Today's the last day to register to vote in Virginia. You're all signed up, right? I mean, I can't think of a single acquaintance of mine that wouldn't have their shit at least that together. Right?

SPX was last weekend. Yeah, it was awesome. Photos to come.

Stir Crazy

Just in time for SPX, my new print, titled "Stir Crazy", is finished and ready to go. The setting is based on my local coffee shop (called Stir Crazy, 'natch), which is just around the corner from my house and sorta doubles as my office...before our daughter was born, it was a daily stop...and often still is. I've been wanting to do this project for a long time, and the rush I got finally seeing it in print and finished was fantastic, indeed.

The printing itself was a true collaborative effort, the lion's share of the process ably handled by the talented Spencer Hansen of Team 8 Press (you can peep more of their spectacular work on their blog). Spencer's contributed to several screenprinted jobs I've done in the past, and he always does a swell job. However, this was the first time I'd been on-site for the process, actually pulling a good amount of two colors myself, and it was a lot of fun. 

Here are the details:

• 12 1/2" by 19"
• Limited, signed and numbered edition of 60 prints.
• Five colors (purple, pink, white, orange and dark blue) on 100 lb. stock.
• $30 each, plus $5 for shipping.
• All copies ship with a bonus 12" by 6" print by Team 8.

So, if you're in Bethesda this weekend, be sure to drop by the Small Press Expo and grab one! Otherwise, feel free to use the handy PayPal button. Meanwhile, some photographic evidenc of how it all went down!