Suddenly Seymour!

DC wanted to keep a lid on it, but I'm proud to announce my contribution to Before Watchmen..."Suddenly Seymour!" Just don't expect to see it published any time soon!

Rage is Coming October 4th!

I'm always working, so it's hard to find time to post. But I worked on this, so I had to take time out to post about it! I'm so looking forward to this game. And I'm not even a hardcore gamer. From what I've seen, it looks like it will set the bar for first person shooters. Absolutely incredible.
I was lucky enough to work with art director Stephan Martiniere and design a lot of in game assets, mainly posters, billboards and graffiti. Each faction or clan has their own style of tagging and visual iconography, so it was a blast getting to design a lot of that.
I'm already addicted to the ipad app that came out to preview the gameplay, but I can't wait for the full version.
The user plays as a survivor of the 2029 Apophis meteorite impact who has just awoken from an Ark (a world-wide movement which took scientists and other significant people, and froze them underground in cryo-pods so they could rebuild Earth). Soon, the player comes to realize that his Ark has malfunctioned and that he is the only survivor.
The Game hits stores Oct. 4th, so check it out. You can see more here. I'll be first in line!

Hero Time Part 5: New Avengers #1 Sketch Cover

I'm a bad blogger. Blogs should be updated in a timely manner, but my time has been short and my manners non-existent! So I'm sorry about that (see, my manners are coming back already, I just apologized!). I should have thrown this up sooner, since the auction has come and gone, but the good news is that the final bid was over $450.00, thanks to everyone who took the time to place a bid! It all went to my favorite charity, The Hero Initiative. Marvel Comics printed 100 blank-covered copies, and Hero had 100 stellar artists (and me) do original New Avengers covers on the special edition books which were auctioned off to benefit Hero and needy comic book artists, the late, great Gene Colan among them.You can see them all here.
When I was a kid, one of the first back issues I ever saved up and bought at a comic con was Giant-Size X-Men #1. I paid $20 for it, which was a lot for a little kid like me at the time! The iconic Gil Kane cover is forever seared into my mind, and since New Avengers #1 centers around introducing a new team, that was all the justification I needed to swipe-- er, "pay homage to" the late, great Gil Kane!

"In brightest day..."

	In brightest day, in blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight Let those who worship evil's might, Beware my power... Green Lantern's light!
—Hal Jordan

Haven't seen the movie yet, but I did get to work on some early packaging comps for the action figures from Mattel. Fun job! Haven't seen the action figures yet, so I don't even know if any of my comps made it through the approval process to the final packaging design or not. I really need to get out more!

My initial sketch was based on Hal Jordan from the comics, and then when we found out Ryan Reynolds had been cast, I tried to make it look a little more like him in the color comp.

Art for A Good Cause

If anyone in the LA area is looking for something fun to do tonight, may I recommend Art for A Good Cause: “Auction 9” Fundraiser for Public Arts HS #9
. You can read more about it here.

Featuring works by David Lynch, Shepard Fairey, Clayton Brothers, Betye Saar, from Luis Buñuel Archive, Eames Office, hundreds more.
 Benefits Downtown LA's Under-Served Youth attending LAUSD's HS #9 
@
HS for the Visual & Performing Arts / LAUSD #9

 You can see a slideshow here.

The theme of the show was La Lotería, and the idea was to reinterpret classic Lotería cards with a modern pop culture twist. So I couldn’t resist drawing Homer Simpson as El Borracho (The Drunk) in front of Moe's of course! Now if I had the time to do an entire set of Lotería cards Simpsons style, I would do Barney as El Borracho, but Homer is the much more popular character, and the goal of the auction is to raise money for the kids, so I figured Homer was the way to go!

Anyway, it’s tonight, Thursday, June 2, 6-8:30 pm. Hope to see you all there!

With Great Power Premiere

I was interviewed for the documentary WITH GREAT POWER-THE STAN LEE STORY. No idea if which, if any, of my scenes will make it into the final movie, but it will be screening on Sunday 11/7/2010 at 5pm at the:

Aero Theater

1328 Montana Avenue

Santa Monica, CA 90403

The screening is part of the American Cinematheque program and following the screening there will be a Q&A with the film makers including:

- Terry Dougas

- Nikki Frakes

- Will Hess

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Every now and then a job comes along that you would never imagine yourself doing. Not to say that it's not a fun job, just totally unexpected. The Discovery channel came to me (okay, strictly speaking, they came to my agent) and asked if I would like to do designs for the MythBusters bobbleheads. Yup, bobbleheads! I'm actually a big fan of the show, so of course I jumped at the opportunity. The red and white checkered pattern on the rocket that Adam is tied to is a nod to my favorite Herge Tintin story when I was a kid, Destination Moon! Unfortunately, they changed the colors on the final painted sculpture to yellow and black, probably to save money on paint. Oh well!

Also, the logistics of sculpting the clear glasses on Jamie turned out to be too problematic, so we changed them to his mountain climbing sunglasses. All in all, a very fun job! Hope Jamie and Adam like 'em! If you need more toys in your life and are so inclined, you can buy a set for yourself here...

Long Beach Comic Con!

Off to the Long Beach Comic Con. Come meet Norm Rapmund, Scott Koblish and me at our panel in room 301 at 3:00 pm on Friday October 29th. The panel is How to Survive as an Artist with Scott Koblish. Scott is headlining, Norm and I are just there for moral support and comedy relief!

Come out and say hi if you're in the area!

Dark Void Storyboards

I got to storyboard the some of the cinematics for the Dark Void video game which finally came out earlier this year. I haven't had time to play it myself, but the developmental game footage I saw when I was working on it was really cool. It reminded me a bit of Dave Steven's Rocketeer, and any game that simulates flying with a jet pack, count me in! You can see the trailer here, or embedded below.

The animation for this sequence was done by Blur. Always great to work with those guys, they do killer work as you can see!

What if... Jack Kirby Drew Archie?

My favorite charity The Hero Initiative is at it again, this time with Archie #600. Archie Comics has printed 50 blank-covered copies, and Hero will have 50 stellar artists do original Archie covers on the special edition books to be auctioned of to benefit Hero and needy comic book artists.
I grew up on Archie comics and I love the characters, so I wracked my brain to come up with an appropriate cover concept that would do the event justice. I drew a couple of sketches in my style, then in the Archie style and nothing really seemed to click. Then it hit me: what if Jack Kirby, The King of Comics himself had drawn Archie? That would have been great! Kirby is so distinctive, he would have made the characters his own.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked it! After all, Jack drew Jimmy Olsen for DC. And his take on Archie might have been close to that. So I attempted to pull off a reasonable facsimile thereof. Dunno how successful I was, but it was fun paying tribute to The King for a great cause.

BNS: Race to Target Field

This was a fun animated short for the Minnesota Twins and Target Field Stadium. I got to storyboard it for director Rob Bisi and the fine folks over at Brand New School. The ultra-talented Tuna Bora did concept designs and we all had a blast. I think the level of fun we had shows through in the final product, see for yourself here. There are actually 3 different endings, one with each character winning the race!

Loss of a Legend: Dick Giordano

I was so saddened to read on CBR that comics legend Dick Giordano passed away yesterday. I knew he had been ill, but I had no idea how bad it was. I'll leave the eulogies and tributes to the professionals, Dick's peers and close personal friends who knew him best. But when you see the massive list of lives he touched, it's a true testament how great of a man he was. I'll just relate one small personal story about how he touched my life.

I was 18 years old and trying to break into comics as a penciller, sent my samples off to Marvel and DC and all the rest. Sometimes I would get a rejection letter, sometimes not even that. Rejection letters are form letters, since the sheer volume of submissions makes individual replies impossible. So imagine my surprise when I got a rejection letter with a hand written note from Dick Giordano himself! He actually took the time to give me some tips and pointers and most of all encourage me. I was floored! I grew up on the man's work, admired him immensely and here he was taking time to write me? He actually inspired me to concentrate on my inking, which I hadn't considered before Dick encouraged me. I broke into comics shortly after that. And I'm not the only one. Apparently Dick did this all the time. Jim Lee even recounted a very similar experience on CBR.

Years later, I got to work with Dick on a project that he pencilled and I inked. The project was never finished, but I got to talk to Dick on the phone and tell him how much his letter meant to me and what a fan of his I was. Some people advise not to meet your heroes because they will only let you down. Dick never let me down. In fact, he picked me up (out of the sea of submissions) dusted me off, and sent me on my way. I'll never forget that.

Thanks again, Dick.

Iron Man 2 Sketch Cards

Time for another round of sketch cards for the fine folks at Upper Deck. These are for the Iron Man 2 set, I got to do all my favorite variations of Iron Man's armor, and of course, M.O.DO.K.! The Beetle and Stingray were always great costume designs, so I threw them in there too!More Iron Man armor variants, The Iron patriot, a couple versions of Titanium Man, Blizzard, the super cool Iron Man Space Ninja Stealth Armor!
Some more villains, Force, Boomerang and Doctor Spectrum! That's right, Doctor Spectrum! With the crystal and the Rainbow Brite rainbow waves! The Mandarin is my favorite Iron Man villain so I did the Acts of Vengeance armored version, the I'm Too Sexy For my Shirt version, The GQ Jim Lee version, a couple of the emperor looks and classic original flavor!Hawkeye, Doctor Doom, The Ghost, Grey, Red and Green Hulks and a whole lotta Hank Pym! Ant Man, Yellow Jacket (loved that goofy costume!) and Giant Man.