The Rosheen Series

From time to time, during particularly painful business meetings at work, I draw downer art. Since I am often sitting next to my colleague Rosheen, I sign them by her and hang them in my office. Everyone knows who the real artist is, of course. The best part is when Rosheen gets riled up, her voice raises about 100 octaves... it's fun to do stuff like this to provoke her. My life doesn't suck, I know that. But we all have our maudlin moments. Even my acquaintance who vehemently claims not to have such moments is victim to his bouts of dramatic self-pity and sour grapes. The sketch here is a bit unique for me... it's in ball-point pen, which I rarely write with, to say nothing of drawing.

Truth and Trust

Happy Armistice Day! Perhaps the best yet, for me—I finished my latest book! "Love is the Reason" is a bit late but should be on shelves early January. Barely finished creating the PDFs for the printer, I couldn't resist starting some work on the next book. Fish-philes recognize the pair to left from "Love is the Reason" as James Michael Chase and Terry as the same guys in my unfinished 2003 OGN (published in part on the Web). I couldn't resist coloring the image, and will likely use as part of my next book, "Truth and Trust." The book will be a collection—first, I will finish the aforementioned full-color OGN as the focus. Next will be the 2009 B&W newspaper strips. Instead of doing a serialized OGN for the paper, I will focus on snipets that form a short story each quarter. This book will include fan favorite Warren in "In Boys We Trust" and the much anticipated "Truth About Gordon." I'm not completely insane—I will be taking some time to rest and think; I haven't worked at this super-aggressive pace as I have been the past 3 months since maybe 4 years ago. I'm tired! I will, however, need to start drawing for the paper again in December.

Wonder Woman vs. The Phantom Nazi

It's that time of year again—the Wonder Woman Day charity auction. Last October, my entry finished 14th, beating out a number of DC and Marvel artists—including a few who have drawn her book! I colored it, added a background, and posted here (search "Wonder Woman Defeats Nazi Germany). Since I love the Golden Age Wonder Woman, I decided again to draw her for this year's auction. I created the line art of an SS officer troused up by our favorite Amazon princess (you can see the evolution process in my prior post). When I began coloring the Nazi, I decided to color his skin a ghaslty grey, and settled on a backstory for the "Phantom Nazi". You might not think he's an actual phantom... but don't forget, her lasso is magic. Keep your eye out for the answer some day. And, keep your eyes on the charity auction in a month or so from now—it's a great cause!

Evolution of a drawing

(1) Thumbnail sketch for the annual "Wonder Woman Day" charity auction.
(2) Full size sketch, partially inked one day while bored.
(3) Second draft full size sketch; I felt first draft didn't fill the space quite right.
(4) Final inked drawing; traced to Bristol board via the light table. Changed face from sketch as she looked too light-hearted for capture of a Nazi SS man.

In (2) you see a pencil sketch of a monkey, which was a bit of a joke. I'd heard the best-selling comic books have either featured Nazis or monkeys on their covers.

The Doctor and Donna with kitty

I started watching Doctor Who for the first time since the late '70s. A while back, I saw an ad for the new series, and thought "that looks like Catherine Tate...haha." Then, I discovered it is Catherine Tate—now the Doctor's companion "Donna Noble" for series 4. Who could not love David Tennant's intense but goofy Doctor? The ultimate sexy dork. I sketched this in Adam's sketchbook, as part of the "____ with kitty" series. It started after we saw The Incredible Hulk. There were a few "Hulk with kitty" drawings (Hulk SMASH kitty!), a "Batman with kitty," "She-Hulk with kitty" (though in that one, kitty is a buff guy wearing a muscle tee that says "kitty" on it), etc., etc. I liked my sketch of the Doctor and Donna very much, so I inked it, colored it, posted it! In hindsight, I really should have added the TARDIS. It could have filled the white space to the right of Donna. Next time—!

No. 12

I was looking for some drawings at the request of a fan looking to purchase some art. sadly, both pieces he was looking for were well integrated into my sketchbooks. But, what fun to discover the drawings I did 3 years ago of this Tomboy. I recall having ideas to do a comic with her, but like so many other projects, this sat idle.

with love

for the she-bitch from last night.