2010 Goals - Scorecard

Around this time last year, I went public with my goals for 2010. I think it’s only fair that I publicly acknowledge whether or not I met those goals. So, here goes.

Some of them were accomplished and some of them were not. But I can say with all honesty that the reason I wasn’t successful with some were do to my success with others. I was amazingly (thankfully) busy this year. As you can tell from my blog posts alone. In 2009, I had 84 post, as of right now I have 123. So, I was crunched for time, but I did try. Here we go…

Redesign my website. Started out big at the beginning of the year and then fizzled out. Lately I’ve just been directing people here since it’s more up-to-date.

Spookytown. Yikes, this is my biggest disappointment. I didn’t even finish drawing it much less scanning, coloring and lettering. I did take them to set up the lettering for every page, so there’s that.

Sketch Cards. My biggest success. I started the year never having been on a sketch card set. I finished the year having been on eight. Dead@17, Empire Strikes Back, P’ups, The Pro, Mixtape, Hack/Slash, Clone Wars, and Domino Lady / The Spider. And already in the works for 2011 is Lady Death, Bettie Page, Thor, Captain America and Marvel Beginnings. Part of that goal was to get in sets for DC, Marvel and Star Wars. Two down, now to get DC.

I’ve done so much of them that I have to cut back. I already reluctantly turned down Sheena for 5finity because f time restraints. So, I think this year you might see less of them from me.

Publish a sketchbook. Done and done. I was very pleased with myself for this one. I had wanted to do it for some time. It was a lot of work to compile and I think the end result is pretty nice. Hey, you can buy it online you know.

The Complete Shades of Blue. Goal un-achieved. I thought Jim had the lettered files from all the issues, but it turned out that he didn’t. But, he’s actually having them re-lettered (and colored) to put them online. So maybe you’ll hear something about that later.

So there you have it. Two for five. But I can proudly say that the failed ones weren’t failed to due to laziness. And like I said I a year ago, even if none of these silly things got accomplished and my family was still healthy and happy and was able to support them, the year would be a success. Unfortunately, we lost a family member this year, my cousin Aggie, who we all miss. We also lost our 12 year old cat Frankie. But mostly 2010 was kind to us and we appreciate. Look for my 2011 goals coming soon.

Back in Town Again

Spookytown that is. It’s been many, many moons and a plethora (would you say I had a plethora?) of posts since I’ve given any update on Spookytown, the graphic novel I’m working on. Why the delay? The just-mentioned plethora of posts of course. Too many other things have taken priority over the book. Many of those things are paying things and they will always outrank my pet comic book projects. I wish I had an extra four hours a day. That’s all I ask for, I’m not greedy. Just four.

But I am making a conscience effort to work on it every day, even if it’s just drawing face. Anything to move it forward. So if you’re interested in the book and it’s progress, I am working it. It’s not dead. Undead, maybe, but not dead.

If you’re unfamiliar with Spookytown, just visit the website.

Brent Schoonover on Spookytown

The awesome Brent Schoonover whipped up this incredible Spookytown pin-up for me. I haven't seen the actual piece yet, just this jpeg. Can't want to have this bad boy in my hands. I haven't done my image for him yet, he's holding off until later. I believe he's going to be doing a new porject of his own and wants me to do something with it. Looking forward to it. Thanks Brent!

Spookytown Pin-up by Brock Rizy

"Holy Crap!"

I believe that's what I said when I opened my email and saw this piece. Brock Rizy of "Emily Edison" and "¡Bike_Gang!" fame agreed to a Spookytown pin-up swap with me and sent this to me tonight. Man, oh, man, oh, man is it awesome. He does his finished work in Illustrator (I believe) but he does pencils first, which I've also attached below. To quote Brock's email...

"I got a little carried away with this, and it turned into one of the best things I've ever illustrated."

And that is saying a LOT. If you aren't familiar with his work, do yourself a favor. Brock, thanks again man.

Spookytown Pin-up by Mark Murphy

Here's Mark Murphy's contribution to my Spookytown pin-up collection. Mark is the creator of Tiki Joe Mysteries and I love this great retro paperback book cover style. Here's the piece I did in trade for this one. Thanks again Mark!

Two More Spookytown Pin-ups

Two great pieces I traded for that I picked up at the convention. First up is Paul Milligan. I really dig the monster a lot in this one.Secondly is the great Todd Nauck. He even gave me the pencil sketch he did first. Emma looks particularly cute in this piece. You can the pieces I did for them several posts back. Thanks again guys.

Fred Hembeck Spookytown Pin-up

Here's another awesome Spookytown piece. This one is courtesy of the great Fred Hembeck! It came in the mail today. I love this one. I've been a Hembeck fan for years. Dang, I guess over 20 years. Man, I'm getting old. Anyway, as a kid I never thought I would one day see characters that I created translated into the unmistakable Hembeck style. And now, they have. And it's too cool. Even his personalized note is cool. Thanks Fred! I mean, Mr. Hembeck sir.

2010 Goals

This year I hadn’t planned on having any resolutions, but then I thought that maybe I should. Help keep me in check, you know? But maybe they should just be “goals” instead of resolutions”. I always have a ton of things I’d like to accomplish in my daily life, whether big or small, and getting them done usually falls down to how much time I have. Spare time is a remarkably foreign thing to me. I never have nothing to do. Ever. I can’t recall the last time I twiddled my thumbs or tapped my fingers on a desktop.

So here are five things I’d like to do in my professional life in 2010. By the way, we are calling it “Twenty Ten”, right? Just want to make sure I’m down with the cool kids.

Redesign my website. Ugh. Most of the content on there is 3 or 4 years old. Except for the comic book page, which I updated it in 2008 (Go me!). Good grief, in my bio I don’t even have a kid and we still have 3 cats. Currently, I have an illustration site as well as a design site and my plan is to merge them back together. The good news is that I’ve already started on this project and my hope is to have the new site up by the end of the month. Side note, did I just use two Charlie Brown phrases in this paragraph? Ugh and Good Grief? I ‘m pretty sure I did.

Spookytown. This year: Finish drawing it. Scan it. Color it. Letter it. Publish it or get someone else to. Not too lofty, right? I should mention that I have Ideas for other books pinballing around in my noggin. A monster story based in WWII, a crime drama, a 60s era space program story mixed with a love triangle, and series based on characters I’ve had since the late 90s. And I can’t even start any those until I get Spookytown out.

Sketch Cards. I started doing sketch cards recently and I found that enjoyed it. I want to get involved in that community and get into some actual card sets. I can tell you that I’m participating in an upcoming one, but can’t say who it’s for just yet. Stay tuned. But I also want to get into a set put out by big players. Marvel, DC or Star Wars. To have my work in an officially licensed product from any one of them would be a dream. I have some contacts; I just need to work on more samples. If anyone reading this would like me in one of their sets, let me know.

Publish a sketchbook. With on-demand printing sites, what’s stopping me? Only time, as mentioned above. I would love to have a book to sell at shows. Draw a bunch of new pin-ups, gather up past ones and put ‘em in a book man! Sounds simple enough.

The Complete Shades of Blue. This is something Jim Harris and I have talked about doing for a while now. Putting everything Shades of Blue into one big book. Every issue, the DWP shorts, the unpublished Devil’s Due short, the mini-comic, pin-ups, web strips, ads, everything. And we’ve toyed with the idea of a new story to go in it as a bonus.

Of course, there are also personal and family goals. Keep providing for my wife and kid is pretty major. Getting back to the gym is cliché at best, but since Junior came along it’s been hard for us. Also, little things like organizing and developing the hundreds and hundreds of photos we’ve taken since, oh I don’t know, MAY of last year. Man, when you have a kid, the camera is always clicking. Going to Colorado didn’t help either. Reorganize my studio. And in area of low-budget films, my buddies over at Dog Food Productions and I want to participate in the 24 Hour Video Race again, get our past stuff on dvd and produce at least one other film.

Well, there they are. We’ll see how I do as the year progresses. Oh yeah, I just want to go on record as saying to 2009 was pretty good to us overall. I’m thankful for a happy and healthy family. And if I can still say that at the end of 2010 and not even one of my silly professional things gets done, then this year will have been just fine.

Spookytown 2009 Resolution Report

A year ago I made a resolution. It was to work on Spookytown everyday in 2009. No matter how small. Even if it was just drawing a face, as long as I did something each day to advance the book closer to being done. I even printed out monthly calenders to mark my progress. Well, I think I did pretty good. I had 5 pages done a year ago and now I have 45 pages completed. I failed on 14 days throughout the year. Most of those days I just got too busy with other things (work, freelance, being a dad, being a husband) and forgot to get to it. A few of them I might have actually been sick though. I did allow myself a break when I went on vacation, so those days aren't in there. I figured I deserved them with all the work I do.I'm not doing it again this year, officially at least. But I will attempt to finish the book this year. Just 25 more pages to draw. Then scanning them, coloring them and lettering them. One thing I've already done is set up all the lettering into separate Illustrator files. Each piece of dialogue is broken out, I just need to create the speech balloons and put them in place. So, I think it was a successful resolution. Here is a sneak peek at some miscellaneous panels form the book.

Small Update

Just a quick update for anyone who's interested. I've got a couple of pretty cool things, kinda big things, that I'll be announcing soon. If you run in the same comic book circles I do, you might know about one of them already, but I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch. So, I'll talk about it when it happens. The other thing is I've just completed a cd packaging design and illustration for a fairly big radio program. They're putting out a cd of comedy bits. Can't say who it's for yet, no I'm not kidding, but it should be out in December. So, more on that later. I've had a few people ask me about Spookytown. Admittedly, it's been on the back burner with all the freelance stuff I've been working on, but I have be doing a little something on it each day (which was my New Year's resolution) and here is a photo to prove it. Have fun out there.

Checking In

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted. I've been really busy wrapping up some book illustrations I've been working on. I did 135 illustrations for the interior of the book and designed the front cover as well. Since it's already solicited for pre-orders on Amazon, I guess I can go ahead and say what it is. It's called She's Crazy, He's a Liar-Now What?: A Single Girl's Guide to Understanding the Sexes by Cecily Knobler. And since that's all that's in the public eye right not, that's about all I can share. Once the book comes out and I'll post some of the other images I did. It was a lot of fun to do, but it was also a ton of work. I'm glad to be finishing it up and can't wait to see the finished product.

I've also worked on a few other things here and there but I can't post them until they come out too.

Some of the work I did for Tesar's Modern Steak & Seafood can be seen on a couple of online reviews for the restaurant.

Here...

First taste of Tesar's Modern Steak & Seafood

And here...

Brad's Adventure in Food: First Look: Tesar's, The Woodlands

I've made a collage of the images. Copyright their respective owners.

Lastly, I'm still working on my graphic novel, Spookytown. All the work I did on the book mentioned above slowed me down, but I'm ready to kick back into high gear. Look for updates soon.

Jeff: Okay, maybe the girl on the front of the book looks a little like Heather.

Fanboy Video Interview

Here is an interview I did recently at the Dallas Comic Con. It's with the fine folks at Fanboy Video and Fanboy Radio. Big, big thanks to Oliver Tull for doing the interview and to Luke Hawkins for filming and editing it. These guys and Scott Hinze have always been supportive of me and I really appreciate them taking the time to give me some exposure. Thanks fellas. The goofball on the left is me...

New Emma Pin-up By Jennie Wood

Here is the piece by Jennie Wood, which I mentioned in a previous post. She had sent me an jpeg of a work-in-progress image and promised a actual piece to arrival in the mail. It was worth the wait, I love it. It really makes me wish I do watercolor competently, maybe one day I'll give it a try. Thanks again Jennie!
Jennie Wood's Website.

More Spookytown pin-ups by other artists

Here are a couple of more nice pin-ups that other artists have done of Spookytown characters for me. Both of them of Emma this time and both international.

First up is a really cute piece by Jennie Wood, an artist from across the pond, south of London, if I remember correctly. I love the style of this one, really quirky and it has a lot of personality. She's said she's also sending a me a another piece made with, as she says, "actual pens and painty stuff!" I'm definitely looking forward to that. You can check out more of her work here.
The second piece is by Steve Coffin, a Canadian comic book writer and artist whose name you might recognize from this blog. I did two pin-ups for him in the past. One for his comic Lutu - Warrior of the North and the other for Kung Fu Engine. I love the atmospheric feel to this one, with the fog effect. I get a great Scooby-Doo vibe off of it. Check out Steve here.

Update

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted, which is lame. I know I get disappointed when I go to the blogs that I regularly haunt and there are no updates. "What? No new post?", I protest in my head. So here's at least a little something about what is going on in my uninteresting (at least to people other than myself) life.

Mainly, I've been busy with freelance stuff. I wish I had time to take a break (as you can see from the "tired eyes" photo), but I do like having work, so I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm thankful for it. I've been doing more things for Tesars Modern Steak and Seafood. Designing labels for different sauce bottles, typesetting some online menus, another illustration, this time of his wife. Bunch of fun stuff. Also, I've been extremely busy doing illustrations for a relationship book that's coming out soon. I did the cover and so far I've done over 60 images and there are still a whole bunch more for me to do. I don't even know what the final count will be. I'm excited to see the finished piece.

I've still been pretty good about working on Spookytown. I did miss a day or two on my "must work daily on Spookytown" New Year's resolution. Hopefully in a month or so I'll post about my progress. Also in comic book related news, I'll be contributing a page to David Hopkins' "One Night Stand" project. It's similar to his "Mine All Mine" anthology that I also participated in. One writer, one broad topic, multiple artists, one page each. This theme is "casual encounters". I eagerly look forward to it.

Also, the big goings-on at the Slayton headquarters is Jackie Bear turning 1 year old. It's hard for me to believe, but it's true. I posted a bunch of photos from his big bash.

That's all I got, later for you.

Other Artists on Spookytown

I've been collecting original art of other artist's take on Spookytown characters. If the artist is a friend of mine, I've been lucky to work out a trade, sketch for sketch. If they're someone I'm not on personal terms with, I've paid for the commission. Any artist that would like to trade, drop me a line. Reference material here.... http://www.spookytown.net

Fred Hembeck:
Todd Nauck:Paul Milligan:
Cat Staggs:

Mark Murphy:

Michael Lagocki:

Ben Dunn:

Chynna Clugston:

Howard Chaykin:

Jim Mahfood:

Richard Dominguez:

Samax Amen:

Steve Erwin:

Brock Rizy:
Brent Schoonover

Drawing on the Table at Macaroni Grill

GIve a kid a crayon...

More Spookytown Freebies

I got the rest of my free stuff in the mail from Vista Print, they came out really great. And Lan, there are no watermarks on these. The only thing I can think of is that maybe if you use one of their business card templates, they might have them on there. I got a second set of the shot of them in the Gum Shoe Investigation office, but added a design to the back. I also got the red graveyard scene on a postcard, also with a back design. And lastly, I made little business card size ones of the swamp scene.Now I have a whole shelf of goodies to use to promote the book once it comes out. I'll mail them out to comic book stores, drop them on freebie tables on cons, and hand them out at my own table.

Belated Spookytown Page Count

I can't believe I forgot to post this. I took this shot a few weeks ago. 37 pages in the can.

New Spookytown Promo Postcards

Every so often, I get these promotions from Overnight Prints and / or Vista Prints for 50 or 100 free postcards. So I try to whip up a new Spookytown and take advantage of the deals. Here is the latest one I created. I should have some more stuff to show in a few weeks. I am still hard at work on the book. I'm doing something each day on it. Lately that hasn't been much, but it's been something, which is better than nothing.