Comic-Con-A-Palooza!

Although Comic-Con ended a few weeks ago, I'm still geeking out over it. I saw so many cool things, bought a truckload of cool books & most importantly, met with a plethora of really awesome people. Friends, colleagues & major inspirations all together under one gigantic roof.

I entered with a full wallet & left with:

- Gag cartoon books by Bill Plympton & Ethan Nicolle

- Ted Mathot's Rose & Isabel & Cora books

- Derek Thompson's 2 DerekMonster sketchbooks

- Eric Goldberg's new sketchbook, Enjoy it While You Can, Kid.

- The Art of Bone (snagged it for only $10!!!)

- 3 copies of What is Torch Tiger? (1 for myself, the other 2 are for friends)

- Steve Purcell's Sam & Max: Surfin' the Highway book

- Stephen Silver's new book: Passion for Life

- First 3 volumes of Val Hochberg's comic Kick Girl

- Doug TenNapel's Monster Zoo

- Chris Sander's 3rd Sketchbook & 2 posters (& a crapload of pins)

- A recycled Happy Beaver t-shirt (self-silkscreened by Jeff Pidgeon)

- Enrico Casarosa's Eisner-award nominated The Venice Chronicles

- And there you are & Paper Biscuit 2 by Ronnie Del Carmen

- A Fone Bone plush & T-shirt

- Jeff Smith's new children's book Little Mouse Gets Ready

- The Cartoonist Jeff Smith Documentary DVD

& a truckload of buttons, rub-on tattoos, business cards, sketches & autographs

I also snagged a set of tiny PVC Bone figures, but sadly I lost them. They weren't costly, but it's still a real bummer. I was really looking forward to having the Bone Cousins sitting on my Animation desk.

Since I really have nothing to say besides things you've probably heard a million times before from other Con goers, I'm just gonna leave you with my "best of" slideshow of pictures. Later on (when my scanner isn't being stupid), I'll post some pages from my Comic-Con sketchbook.

Long story short, it was fun, exciting & expensive. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Con Coverage Coming Soon!

Off to San Diego!

Well, it's that time again! I'm heading off to the San Diego Comic-Con tomorrow. But even though I still gotta pack up my bags, I wanted to update here one more time before I shoved off.

There's millions of things to look forward to this year & probably just as many people I want to meet & greet with. Old friends, colleagues & plenty of inspirational folks will be around & I'm fired up & ready to go. & I can't possibly imagine the number of neat books I want to snag a copy of too!

Like last year, I should be taking plenty of pictures, so expect a barrage of 'em once I return. I don't know if my hotel has free internet service in the rooms, but if I do I may just pop in for some daily updates, that is if I'm not to busy or tired to do that.

By the way, if anybody else is heading to the convention, drop me a line & let me know. Post over at my Twitter page (yeah, that's right, I have a Twitter too) If you want to find me, I look exactly like the picture above. I can't be THAT hard to spot in a crowd of 300,000.

Well, until I return, you all have a nice 'end of July' week. I'll see you next time around.

Business Cards

It was pretty embarrassing giving out those stupid, cheap 'flyer' things at Comic-Con last year. So this year I made sure to get myself some decent business cards.

No more pointy crescent-moon heads for me! I've upgraded to tin cans now.

& I think this is the first time I've drawn anyone with 5 fingers. Took me 15 years to do so...

I think I'll incorporate this into my next banner. It's better than 'Scraggles McGee" up there now.

& here's the final card image:

If you're goin' to Comic-Con & you run into me, don't be afraid if I suddenly force one of these suckers into your pocket. Or maybe I'll tape it to the back of your shirt/dress/Darth Vader costume when you're not looking. Ooh, I got it!... every time you say a certain word, I'll throw one right at your face! Perfect strategy!

Oh, & apparently I'm 20 now. I forgot it was my birthday. You have to be a pretty preoccupied person to forget your own birthday.

Damn...

Hey, I'm on TV!

Well, techically it's online... but who cares, I'm in it!

At the Newgrounds booth, Tom Fulp & Dan Paladin were being interviewed to promote the Castle Crashers video game. While they were being interviewed, myself along with some of my friends/collegues: Chris Zito, Chris "Kirbopher" Niosi, Rina-Chan & a slew of others, are in the background chatting away with eachother. Don't believe me?... See for yourself (courtesy of Gametrailers.com, of course):

To add to the Comic-Con video goodness, here's a video shot & narrated by Chris Zito while at the Newgrounds booth. Watch 'til the very end (you'll find out why):

No, I'm not that scary in real life, although I do eat cameras on occasion.

It's about time I posted about all the cool stuff I got at the Comic-Con, isn't it?

---When I first went to the Newgrounds booth, I didn't expect there to be so much hype, but my expectations were completely wrong. The booth was large, spacious & jumping! They had four monitors with 4 Xbox's showcasing a demo-version of the new game Castle Crashers. I stepped up to the screen & played a few rounds, enjoying myself (as well as the company) & had a really great time.

On one of my last few visits to the booth, I decided to get myself a little keepsake from Newgrounds, so I bought this little figurine:

It's a small little posable figurine of the Orange Knight. He came with a base, a removable shield & 4 weapons (a sword, an axe, a mace/club & a dead fish) & a cool case to put him in. I would have gotten a Green one (since green is my favorite color) but since the Orange guy was my first character to play as, I chose him instead. Besides, the knights looks better in orange than green anyway.

Luckily, I got my case signed by Dan Paladin, the creator, art director & lead animator of Castle Crashers (as well as his previous game, Alien Hominid) , whom I briefly met at the Newgrounds party a few nights earlier.

Check out the game when it comes out later this month! It's a load of fun!

---One of the few booths I repeatedly headed back to was Jeff Pidgeon's table at the Red Window Inc. Booth. Being an admirer & knowing his work from his blog & his credits from a majority of the Pixar films as a story artist (which is a job I'd love to have someday), I had to at least say hello. He is a very nice & funny guy who was real fun to talk to.

While I was there, I bought a few things from him, including one of his cool "Happy Beaver" vinyl toys...

...whom I had Jeff sign on his bottom...

...as well as this really cool t-shirt he designed. Hey, I like birds & I like jazz. Double win!

Stationed next to him was another Pixar story artist, Bill Presing. I really do admire his work, especially his simple yet elegant sketches of girls (whistles like a fox). I picked up a copy of his book Belle du jour as well as a DVD of Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher. I'm looking forward to checking out the DVD as soon as I can.

Oh, Bill also signed my book, too:

One last thing I got at the Red Window Booth was a copy of Afterworks 2, a good sized comic collab book featuring a lot of artists & animators from all over the animation community. It's a really cool book & it's worth checking out.

--- As I was walking through the aisles with my friend Chris, he spotted this really cool poster. At first I thought it was a map of Middle-Earth or something like that, but upon closer inspection, I discovered it was something that totally blew my mind!

It's called the "Map of Humanity", where it organizes many well-known cities & locations based on it's emotional &/or moral standing. & not only does it pinpoint real cities, but also fictional ones (ex: Babar's Kingdom, Springfield, Mayberry, etc.). It was put together by an illustrator named James Turner, & I definitely have to give the guy credit for putting the time in effort to creating this map. Click on the image to take a gander!

---- I briefly stopped at the Bill Plympton Booth to see what he was up to. While I was there, I picked up the Animation Show DVD boxset, containing both Volumes 1 & 2.

Bill even signed both DVD cases for me!

----

Here's one of the last things I bought on the trip. I was subliminally persuaded into buying the Sam & Max: Freelance Police DVD after taking a peek at my friend Chris' copy of a Sam & Max book. While I am aware of Sam & Max, I have yet to read any of their books or play their games. I'm definitely gonna check out a bit more on Sam & Max, along with a few other comics I've been interesting in checking out as well.

---- While many things I bought at the Con were spur of the moment surprise buys, some things I was looking forward to far in advance. One of them was:

The book, kinda like the Afterworks book, is a comic collaboration between a few animators & artists from Dreamworks. I learned about this book from Jenny Lerew's blog, Blackwing Diaries (link found on right), who wrote & illustrated the story Point & Shoot.

In conjunction with the release of the book, the artists had a signing at the Dark Horse booth. Being an early bird, I was the first on line for the signing. It was a pleasure finally meeting the likes of Jenny, David Pimental & the others in person, who each signed & drew a little sketch in the book:

Simply awesome... Make sure to buy a copy from Amazon.com or your local comic shop or bookstore!

---- Oh God.... where do I start on this one?...

One of the biggest things I was looking forward to at Comic-Con was Chris Sanders' Kiskaloo booth. It had to be one of my favorite booths at the entire Con! I came back almost twice a day!

I ended up buying one of everything from Chris' booth. I left with a Kiskaloo book, a large "Hammock Girl" poster, a limited-edition Kiskaloo pin, Chris' 2nd Sketchbook, a bunch of free pins & tattoos & finally, the piece de resistance: Chris' "Maile" vinyl figurine (that baby's goin' on top of my animation desk in my studio)!

He also signed my sketchbook!

I wish I had more time to talk with Chris, but he was a very busy guy, not only managing the booth, but working on some new sketches as well. Luckily, he had some really great help helping him keep the booth in order. It's a shame I didn't get any of their names.

---Like Scrambled Ink, this next book was one I was looking forward too getting at the convention:

Who is Rocket Johnson? is another comic collab book made up by Disney artists, with each "story" in the book being each artist's own idea & interpretation of who Rocket Johnson is. Is he/she a superhero... a fighter pilot... an airplane, the list goes on!

While they had a limited-edition copy signed by ALL the artists, it was about $250! Besides, even if I DID wanna ante up to get it, I'd be afraid to even read the damn thing. Luckily, I got he next best thing, a standard copy signed by three of the book's contributors: Steve Anderson, Sam Levine & Chris Ure!

While I was checking out the Rocket Johnson booth, I turned to saw none other than FLOYD NORMAN standin' right next to me!!! I spoke to him for a few minutes & I told him that I definitely wanted to check out his panel that he was having later that day. Unfortunately, I lost complete track of time that day & realized that I missed the panel right when it became too late. It's a crying shame I didn't get to see his panel (in fact, I didn't go to ANY panels this year). It was probably one of my biggest regrets of the entire trip.

----

Another event I was eagerly awaiting to see was to pick up a copy of Ben Balistreri's new book: SEAWEED. I discovered his blog less than two weeks before the Con & I glad I found it when I did! His appealing designs for SEAWEED are the kind of things I really yearn to see in comics, as well as animation. The style of the book is very much like that of many well-known French comics & graphic novels, simply beautiful stuff!

On Sunday, I went to his book signing right before I left the Con. I'm glad I was one of his first visitors to his first ever book signing. I would assume it was a very surreal moment for him. He even sketched out a perfect picture of Poisson the fish in record time!

Make sure to check out SEAWEED! I'm eagerly awaiting for his next SEAWEED book, hopefully coming out soon!

Oh, & while I was at the Stuart NG booth where he was signing at, I also snagged a couple old copies of Animation Blast!

---- What can I saw about Stephen Silver that nobody else has said before? He's one of the best character designers around & I got a chance to meet him & pick up two of his books: Stephen Silver's Sketchbook & The Art of Silver.

The coolest part was he also did a caricature of ME in one of the books! DEAD-ON EXACTLY! Thanks, Steve!

---- To me, there's only really 2 good shows I still watch Cartoon Network for: The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack & Chowder. & luckily, they were both having signings at Comic-Con this year! Lucky me!

While waiting in line for each signing, they gave out a mouse pad promoting Fusion Fall, a new online game on Cartoon Network.com & some neat keychains.

Here's a closer look at the charms:

The signings were a real blast, & I got really cool drawings from the artists & actors:

Capt. K'nuckles drawn & signed by J.G. Quintel

Flapjack drawn & signed by creator Thurop van Orman

Chowder drawn & signed by creator C.H. Greenblatt, Tara Strong (voice of "Truffles) & Dwight Schultz (voice of "Mung-Daal")

"ADVENTURE!"

--- Another big event for me was the book signing of Eric Goldberg's new book: Character Animation Crash Course!

To me, Eric Goldberg has got to be my favorite animator of all time. Just look at his work on the Genie in Aladdin & the 'Rhapsody in Blue'/'Carnival of the Animals' sequences in Fantasia 2000 to see why! He's one of the main reasons I wanted to be an animator in the first place! So I was definitely bustin' out all over knowing that I was finally gonna meet this guy face to face!

I patiently waited in line to buy a copy & again on line to meet Eric. While I was waiting on the signing line, since I was one of the first few people on line, the nice people at the booth gave me a free T-Shirt! SCORE!

I was about third or fourth in line, so I didn't have to wait too long. At last, I finally got to meet & shake hands with him! What a feeling! I told him how inspired I was by his work & that I was training to be an animator too. We talked for about 2 minutes about his flamingo animation, how his wife Susan was doing & his upcoming work on The Princess & the Frog coming out next year. I said goodbye & left the booth, feeling like I was floating in mid-air. I opened my copy of his book & read...

BEST DAY EVER, without a doubt! I hope I get to meet him again someday, but 'til then I gotta work on my animation! Got to get in top cartoon shape! So while I read Eric's book cover to cover, you should do so too. Buy the Character Animation Crash Course NOW!!!

**& speaking of Eric Goldberg, Clay Kaytis of the Animation Podcast just posted part one of his interview with Eric! It's over an hour long.... which means over an hour worth of Goldberg goodness!!! Click on the Animation Podcast button on the upper right & lend an ear!**

Well, that's all I got. But after having to carry it all around San Diego, packing it, having it all shipped home & waiting 'til Monday to get my hands on it again, it was all worth it. Now if only I could find places to put all this stuff.... Make sure to check out all the people's websites & blogs I mentioned using the links on the right!

Comic-Con Sketches: Part 2

I'm back from my second trip this week, so let's get back to where I left off, shall we?

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The top part of this page (7/25/08) was done at the Newgrounds Party. The girl who I gave a rebop to (check the photo post 2 posts back) asked my friend Chris if he could draw an owl. I tried drawing one too, just to see what I could do. The Randy-like bird in the middle is a character I designed last Halloween & drew here for old times sake. I might plan on having it appear in a comic or something sometime in the near future.

The lower part of the page (7/27/08) was done when I was beginning to run out of room in my sketchbook & I drew on incomplete pages. That day I happened to attend a signing for Ben Balistreri's new book SEAWEED. I just finished reading my copy of the book & wanted to try drawing Capt. Seaweed myself (which I rushed to draw & failed miserably). I'll go into more detail about SEAWEED in my next post, but while your at it, check out Ben's blog using the link on the right.

I drew this page on he last day of the convention when I was basically wrapping up. I bought a whole lot of books, figures & swag, & the top image basically illustrates what I had to go through the next day when I brought all my crap to the UPS store to ship it home.

The bottom image reflects on what happened a few days prior: On Friday, when I first met up with Chris Zito, he had this 13-16 year old kid following him around. For about 2 hours, this kid followed us like a stalker throughout the whole entire convention center. As far as I know, the kid crossed paths with Chris at the Newgrounds booth earlier that day, overheard who he was & decided to follow him around. He gave off this real creepy vibe, & Chris & I felt really awkward, like he was a vulture circling overhead or something. We finally lost the kid (probably lost our trail through the crowds & shuffle of the Con), but his eerie stalker vibe didn't go away for a little while after. We needed a mental shower to wash off the negative aura he gave off.

During a break at the Con, I took out my sketchbook again & drew to pass the time.

Since everybody (including my family & friends) knows me as the "Bird Guy" or "The Guy Who Draws Birds All the Time", I tried to break away from the birds for a few minutes & tried to draw something else. After drawing a real sloppy beaver (middle of page) I couldn't help sketching at least one bird. I started off with one (the turkey), then another (the Big Bird-esque on on the left) & before I knew it the page was fulla birds again! At least I tried to draw some different looking styled birds, like the two on the top left.

I don't know why, but I can't help drawing birds. For some reason, birds are very interesting & fun to draw, probably because there's such a wide variety of 'em. Size, shape, color... they're all very unique. There seems to be an unlimited amount of bird species to draw or cobble together. Same with fish, too.

When I run out of ideas, I just like to take one drawing & run with it 'til it reaches complete & utter chaos. That's what happened with the John Dilworth looking birds up at the top of this page. At points, I do go a bit nuts with my drawings, & I usually like to take a few liberties & risks in my sketches. This is a perfect example of the aftermath of combining these things & just running with them.

Back in my hotel room, I had another 3 hour drawing session. Out of the 15-20 pages I drew, only a few I considered worthy to put up. Like I said before, after reading SEAWEED, I was compelled to draw stuff based off it, including pelicans, fish & other sea life. The pelican boxer seems to pop up a lot in this sketchbook, & the one devilishly grinning one above it to the left looks a bit too much like a feathery version of ZigZag from the Thief & the Cobbler.

To me, octopi are also really fun to draw, but the 8 tentacles do get out of hand after a while. Sure, squids have 2 less tentacles, but they never seem as fun to draw as an octopus. It's all it the head too. An octopus looks like it's wearing an X-tra large Rastafarian hat.

Ah... another doodle page. God these make me smile....

Another thing I like about jumbled doodle pages like this is that it's almost like a game of I Spy. What & where is this drawing, & why is it here? Where else will you find a demented cat, a Bloody Mary, woman's bare lower half, a dripping chicken tongue & a duck punching the daylights out of something all in one place?

Don't try looking for Waldo though. I've checked, he ain't here.

On my last full day of the trip, when the Comic-Con was finally over & everyone was gone, I took a little ride over to Balboa Park to visit the San Diego Zoo. What a place! I wish I brought a small folding chair so I could sit & draw the animals all day!

While I tried to draw these animals as realistically as possible, they all ended up looking like crap to me. It could be because I find it hard & uncomfortable to draw while standing up.... it could be the heat of the sun bearing down, making me rush to go into the shade.....it could be the people crossing my path or crowding around my immediate area.... I don't know for sure.

While a few drawings came out alright, like the peacocks, the horn bill & the panther, the rest of them are junkie to me. Hopefully next time I go there I'll have studied up & improved to the point where those things don't affect me anymore. 'Til then, practice, practice, practice.

After I got back from the zoo, I ordered a pizza & drew for a few more hours again. I've been practicing on posing & exaggerating poses. There's noting worse than really weak posing, especially in comics. While I usually sketch (& sometimes ink) very sketchy & sloppy, I always try to put energy & "oomph" into my work.

Since I didn't have "free" access to the internet, I later sat down for about 10 minutes at one of the pay-computers in the hotel lobby. After checking my mail & looking over my main site stops, I checked John Sanford's Chippy & Loopus to see if there was anything new. In his newest comic, he snuck Ogo & Mr. Stuffings from Chris Sanders' Kiskaloo in the background of one of he panels. Later on, when I went back up to my room, I drew my own interpretation of that scene, but with not only Kiskaloo characters, but also from SEAWEED. You can spot them on the left near the middle of the page.

When I fill up a page, I usually only ink the drawings I think are "inkable" or good enough to be inked. Some drawings look really good in pencil, so I keep them that way & don't mess with them anymore. One small yet permanent black line can ruin a whole drawing, so I try to avoid it when I feel I need to.

On the last day before I left my hotel for the airport, I went down to breakfast & drew while I waited for my eggs & toast to come out. Like many diners or restaurants, they had a muted flat-screen TV over the counter, playing ESPN, NASCAR or Fox News. After watching the sports highlights, I drew the trio performing various sports. The boxing & golf ones came out alright, but the soccer & basketball ones I feel are a bit too weak. My food came out halfway through the hockey drawing, so I never finished it.

After a quick taxi ride & a long spiel through security at the airport, I finally settled down at my gate & took out my sketchbook again. Like I did at JFK, I drew the people sitting around me at the terminal, only this time I also tried to caricature the people a bit too. I only saw the balding man with the glasses from the back, so when I caricatured him I winged his face.

While I was drawing, the Chino Hills quake occurred. While the shock supposedly could be felt as far south as I was at the time, I didn't feel even the slightest bump or vibration. The most frequently-asked question I got when I got back to New York was if I felt it or not.

Once I got on the plane, I only had about 3-4 pages left in the book, so I drew sparingly throughout the 4 hour flight. When I did draw, I tried to time things out right & take a bit more time in my drawing. The dragons took me about 5-6 minutes to draw & ink each, while the sailor pelican took about 10 because of the complexity of the wheel.

By that time, my last Size 1 Ink Pen was nearly dried out, so I switched to the Brush pen, which unfortunately had a frayed edge. I hate it when the pen tips become frayed, it makes double lines & prevents me from drawing smooth, thin lines. I gotta practice pulling my lines down & not inking them upward. It's like brushing a dog or cat the wrong way, it's just not good.

Eitherway, I dealt with what I had. My last few drawings were quickly drawn, but retained the spontaneity I really like to keep.

My last drawing on the trip was done when I was really in the mood for some ice cream. I love Steve-O's expression at the bottom. That chocolate's never gonna come out.

Well, that's that.

Coming up soon: My Comic-Con Swagtacular!!!!

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Some drawings from my camping trip.