Green Lantern cover for Comix Gone Rogue

Last year I did a cover for the first series of the COMIX GONE ROGUE project, so I was stoked to do one for the 2nd. Having never read a single Green Lantern comic, and growing up with a militant Marvel > DC standpoint, I went into this with an open mind. I had remembered seeing a squirrel looking Green Lantern somewhere at a comic con, so I thought it'd be funny to put him in a more prominent role. With DC revamping their universe with the New 52 gimmick, I figured why not give Ch'p a cover spread.
I sprayed 6 layers with spray paint, then drew in the detail with a paint marker. While painting, I covered the top text with some painters tape. I think it gives it a cut and paste look. A few imperfections aside, it was a real fun piece to do. I'm sure series 2 of CGR will be just as awesome as series 1.

Incredible Hulkster for Comix Gone Rogue

COMIX GONE ROGUE is a project organized by my buddy Edwin Vazquez where artists not associated with the comics do art on the covers of blanks. I got the Incredible Hulk, and I immediately thought of doing him in a classic Hulk Hogan pose. I was a little worried with the detail in the face getting lost, but I think the over-spray almost doubles as shading. Check out the other pieces on the blog too, it'll make for a sick show one day.

NYCC '09- freebies and sweet hauls!

So rather than just taking pictures of the new products or the crowds like everyone else, I decided to highlight the real reason people go to NY Comic Con- FREE STUFF! You can view the pictures on my Flickr site.
FRIDAY

Obviously there's going to be tons of free comics at Comic Con. DC had a reprint of issue 1 of the Watchmen, which is some essential reading. Another table was giving away X-Force #1 and had original art from the comic on display. I actually saw Rob Liefeld at another booth doing sketches, which was unannounced and kinda surprising to see. The Comic Con magazine is a pretty good guide to navigating the massive Javits Center. Most of the rest of the picture are promo post cards. I do want to point out that the Angry Penguin card was a 2 sided screen print, and looks great.

Here's a pile of business cards and stickers. More importantly check out that foam Wolverine hand! These were given out after viewing the video game trailer and some game play of the new Wolverine Origins game. I don't own a video game system, but the game looked ridiculously good. The other foam item is a Dead Like Me toilet seat. I'm a fan of the series, and in the first episode the main character gets killed by a toilet seat that fell from a space station. Kind of an inside reference, but I am interested to see the movie they have coming out.

There were a lot of posters to be had, especially Fox, who had some good promos. I also got an S. Darko shirt free from them, but I gave it away since it was too big for me. Nice shirt though...

While wandering around I swung by the NerdCore table and saw some sweet Jim Mahfood comics. Little did I know that the dude selling me the comics was the man himself. I've been a huge fan of his work for a while, and had I known he was going to be there, I would've brought more stuff for him to sign. He did sign his new Carl book, which is amazing. I also came across a pretty adorable vinyl figure by Jeff Pidgeon, the Happy Beaver. That is one happy little beaver! The McDonald figure is part of the new Ron English blind box series by Secret Base. I thought it was going to be much bigger based on the box size, but it's still pretty cool. The panda is the NYCC Chinese New Year version of the Yoka character, who looks equally good standing or sitting. I picked up a Labbit for a friend who smokes, but when I opened it, it turned out to have a mustache. I was excited for the Ugly Doll action figures, so I made sure to go there early in the day. David Horvath was there, and was nice enough to sign it then, instead of making me wait for signing hours! The red cat is by RealXHead, which i got from Giant Robot. I like the lucky cat, and seeing it w/ one eye makes it much cooler. I was glad to get the Frozen Empire MAD*L and print by Andrew Bell. He was also there to sign the back of him. The MAD*L is made of a translucent light blue vinyl, which makes it look icy. Definitely my favorite of the series!

I also was able to get Mark Texeira to sign the Wolverine comic that i have tattoo'd on my leg. I really wanted to go on Saturday for the Pushead signing, but I'm sure the line was crazy anyway, and I had to work. I decided late Saturday night that I would go on Sunday since I didn't have SPG practice this week.
SUNDAY

Of course there were pretty much the same freebies as Friday on Sunday, butt here were a few things I guess I missed. I got a bunch of comics from DC's Vertigo table, and some cool stickers from My Plastic Heart. The cooler freebie was the Fishing Master video game sweatband. I did miss out on the inflatable He-Man sword from the Mattel booth unfortunately. I forgot to bring my Goon comics, but Eric Powell was cool enough to sign the poster they were giving out for me.

I picked up another MAD*L today after having a day to enjoy the Frozen Empire version. I decided I wanted to customize one, but didn't want to pay the $50 for the blank. I got the abominal snowman since it's mostly white already. The white MiniMate was a freebie, but I took a pic of it with the toys because it was so cool. Lou Pimentel was cool enough to draw on a House of Liu- Di Di figure for me. It looks great! I got the GlyosXSucklord piece, which they apparently just painted that day and was limited to 20. When I went by the UglyDolls booth, David Horvath was doing a signing, so I took the opportunity to get another figure signed. Got a Babo this time, gotta keep trying for an Ox... I also picked up another RealXHead cat figure as a gift for someone, this time in gray.

I wandered past Jacob Chabot's table in Artist's Alley, and his Skullboy character caught my eye, so I picked up one of his mini comics. He was nice enough to sign it and do a little doodle. Bummer he was out of the Skullboy vinyl toys though. I also got The X-Men: Deadly Genesis and X-Men: Fall Of Mutants from a table that had all graphic novels for $5. I really didn't get very many comics at all surprisingly.

This is by far the coolest autograph I got. I got Peter Laird and Steve Lavigne to sign my old TMNT graphic novel, and do little sketches. I heard later that day that Kevin Eastman was at the con also... dang!

more brushes with fame

So I was browsing my local comic shop a few weeks ago and a comic called My Brain Hurts caught my eye. First of all since it's an awesome Screeching Weasel record, and then I saw the Limp Wrist shirt on one of the characters. I flipped it over to look at the back, and saw a collage of flyers. Then I noticed one that looked familiar- a flyer I did for a show I set up. ( this one) Needless to say I was pretty surprised and flattered.



I did wind up purchasing it, and enjoyed the comic by the way.

Comics

I've been real busy with a lot of stuff lately, so I haven't made as many posts as I'd like. I haven't done something not related to hardcore/punk in a while. Before I was into hardcore, I was a comic book nerd. While I still enjoy comics, my main collecting has been through graphic novels. While I was working at a book store, I accumulated a bunch of cool graphic novels. I tracked down the "classics" of the genre (Sin City, V for Vendetta, Watchmen...), and checked out some of the newer hyped books (Exiles, Supreme Power...). I mainly always stick to Marvel titles; New Mutants, X-men and Spider-Man in particular. I also got into stuff like Hellboy, Runaways and Y: the Last Man thanks to my local library heavily stocking their "young adult" section with graphic novels.
So, what sparked my recent resurgence into the world of comics is that every Wednesday, people I work with all go to a comic shop near work. I had previously maybe went to a shop every 6 months or so. Here's what I've been reading lately...

Y: the Last Man- This book I got into through trades. The last issue just came out, and it was probably the best way to end the comic. The story is of a plague that wipes out every man from the earth, leaving only Yorick, his monkey and a planet full of women. The last issue takes place in the future with Yorick telling stories to a clone of himself about what happened after the main storyline ended. An epilogue of sorts. I hear that the book is in the development stages to be made into a series of movies. I'm not really a fan of a lot of the comic movies coming out, but this would be one to look out for.

Madman- I was surprised to see that Madman was back, and it's really good. I've been a fan of Mike Allred's work (Madman, Atomics, X-Force) for a while, and it's good to see Madman back. The latest story revolves around the main character essentially dying, and struggling to find his way back. Madman was a part of the indie comics boom in the 90's, but stood out among a lot of mediocre crap.

Scud- Another great comic from the 90's returns. Scud is probably my favorite comic book ever. It is about a robotic assassin who is supposed to self destruct once it kills its target. This Scud however decides to just cripple his target, and take up freelance assassin gigs to pay the hospital bills. Scud ended in 1998 with a huge cliffhanger, now 10 years later it returns for 4 more issues to wrap up the series. I'm extremely excited, and the first issue back actually progresses the story 10 years. The creator of Scud went on to do some great things in Hollywood (Monster House, Sarah Silverman Show), and thanks to the writers strike was able to finish this. There will be a huge collected trade once all 4 new issues wrap up. I couldn't recommend a comic any more than I can with Scud.

Runaways- Another comic series that I got into through the trades. The story is about a group of children who find out that their children are super villains. Only one of the children in the group have superpowers, though one child has a pet raptor. The kids have to rely on their own resources to outsmart their parents, and strike out to make up for their bad deeds. It has a youthful charm, which reminds me of the New Mutants.

Manchild- This comic only exists in a series of graphic novels. The illustrator/ writer is somewhat known in the HC/Punk community for doing art for some classic records, and playing drums in Double Negative. The comic strips are humorous observations and stories. A lot of the subject matter is HC/Punk related, but is humorous and pokes fun at people without being condescending. The most recent graphic novel comes with a bonus CD of a Melvins demo from 1987.

Exiles- Exiles also just published its last issue, followed by a relaunch soon after. The back story is a cross between X-Men and Quantum Leap, with superheroes traveling to different time periods to fix their own time lines. The series started out strong, then got weak once Chuck Austen took over, then got better later on, then got re-crappy. I think it really suffered when Marvel did the Age of Apocalypse and House of M crossovers. Maybe it was just me who had no interest in it.

Spider-Man- You know Spider-Man, and you know his story. The most recent "One More Day" storyline really fucked up good. Aunt May gets shot, and is going to die (finally!). But in order to save his Aunt, Peter Parker makes a deal w/ Mephisto that if he makes it so Peter and MJ never got together, Aunt May would survive. This basically relaunches all the Spider-Man books, and re-writes history. I'm sorry, but this just doesn't make any sense. Has Marvel forgot the Spider Clone disaster?