The 1st Joplin Area Sketch Night!

Well, this was pretty dang cool... and something we've been wanting to do for awhile. Last night, a bunch of area artists interested in comics gathered at our house for a sketch night. This was sort of inspired by the CCN group in KC. It was great to get everyone together, as I knew almost everyone there, but many of them had not met. We stayed up until 2am showing each other what we'd been working on, comparing favorite drawing tools, and sketching like crazy. Eventually we started inking/coloring over each others pencil sketches, which produced some crazy cool results.

Anyway, I think this is going to be the start of something really cool. Who knows what kind of collaborations are going to spring out of this? We're going to try to meet every month like this and see what happens.

The Phoenix drawing up top is by Randy Rustin, who is a drawing MACHINE... cranks 'em out like no one's business. This was one he did for Laura (Phoenix is her favorite character). I'm helping him put together a sketchbook of his stuff for print.

This one is a portrait of our dog, Zoe, by the super-talented Amber Stone:



This is one of the guys from Evil Ain't Easy, pencilled by me and inked by Matt:



And the Rebuker, of course, pencilled by me and inked by Brad Shipp (check out his deviantART page here... amazing!)


This is just a small sampling of the art produced last night. Most of it we gave away to each other. Hopefully, this is the first of many of these sketch nights!

Read 'em and weep!

Last night, we had a little Three Trees sketch session at my house. Elton, Dusty, and Matt all came over. We got to show each other what we were working on, which was cool. All three of those guys are cranking out some great stuff you'll get to see in the coming months! This was the first time all four of us were together, and it was quite awesome.

We decided to make some jam comics, so Elton came up with some story seed words to get us started. We all picked some out of the pile, and then got started on the top third of a page. Then we would pass it to the next guy, draw the middle section, and then pass it again and finish it. I got a lot of grief for taking too long on the first two sections. Dusty was really hardcore... straight to ink, no pencils.

Be warned... these are really loose, quickly-drawn, and crazy!

This one was done (in order) by: me, Dusty, and Matt:


This one was Matt, me, then Dusty:


This one was Dusty, Matt, then me:

Revamping the sketches

Just so you all know, we've redone how we are organizing our sketches for this site. From now on, we'll be using our deviantART galleries to display our work. For those of you that don't know, deviantART is the largest collection of art and artists on the web. They make it simple for us to display, sort, and even sell our artwork in a really easy, streamlined way. Dusty was the first to sign up, and then he finally kicked my butt and got me to do the same. You should definitely check it out!

We'll still mention new sketches we put up on this blog. For instance, here's a couple of scratchboard pieces I finally scanned in:

DUEL #1 released!

Here's yet another new issue for your viewing pleasure... DUEL #1!

What is Duel about? Well, two young boys with overactive imaginations are hanging out and drawing one day. When one of them sketches the image of a mighty warrior...the challenge is on. Before long there is an all-out artist's duel raging to see who can create the toughest character. We are soon sucked into the world of their imagination, a world filled with tremendous battles between cybernetic cowboys, secret snake ninjas, huge gelatanous creatures, and much more! Who will emerge victorious? You can preview some of the pages HERE.

This book started out as a 24 Hour Comic (24 pages created in 24 hours) I tried to do at the end of last summer. I tried to come up with something fun and loose that would be a lot of fun to draw. I only got a few hours into it before I failed the 24 Hour challenge (should've remembered I was a new dad), but I liked the idea so much that I wanted to finish it. So here it is!

You can order it now from our Indy Planet store and have an actual print copy for yourself! But, just like Rook City #1, you can download the entire issue for FREE through WOWIO in electronic format. Remember, it's free to sign-up on WOWIO and a great way to support us.

By the way, Random Ink #1 is also now available for free download through WOWIO! For those of you who might now know, this was our first published book. It's an anthology that features some of the Rook City stories along with a wide variety of other tales about everything from blues musicians to martians to time travel. You can check out a PREVIEW, if you want.

This will be our last release for a little while (although several are in the pipeline right now), but it's nice to have three finished comics available. I hope you all at least download some copies, check them out, and let us know what you think!

Rook City bonus stuff!

This terrific image was done by Brad Heath, one of the regulars on the CCN message board. He downloaded a copy of Rook City and said the Rebuker is his new hero. It's always awesome to see another artist's take on my characters. Brad definitely got the attitude right!

Some of you might have noticed the "Suggested Soundtrack" in the back of Rook City #1. Well, here's a music player that features all of the songs on that soundtrack! And then you can read along with the music. How awesome.

Track 1- Johnny Cash "Folsom Prison Blues" (for the "Bullets and Bedpans" story):
This song seemed to capture some of the Rebuker's attitude as he tries to escape the nursing home. It's easy to imagine his voice sounding an aweful lot like Johnny's (although I doubt the Rebuker does much singing). "I shot a man in Reno... just to watch him die."

Track 2- Smashing Pumpkins "We Only Come Out at Night" (for the "Transformations" story):
This perfectly matches the Vlad Squad, for obvious reasons. The goofy instrumentation and slight creepiness of this track fits the mood we were kind of going for with these characters. I can see the Squad liking this track quite a bit.

Track 3- Miles Davis "So What" (for the "Sleuth" story):
Well, Toby is a big jazz fan. In fact, if you look closely you'll notice there is a Miles Davis poster on the wall of his room in this story. But more than that, the ultra-cool beginning of this song really nails the film noir feeling I wanted to get across in this "mystery".

Track 4- The Flaming Lips "Waiting for a Superman" (for the "Showtime" story):
Obviously the superhero references in this song match the epic battle between the Captain and Dark Star. And if you want enjoyably cheesy dramatic music, the Flaming Lips are always a good bet. But I also like how the line "Tell everybody waiting for Superman that they should try to hold on as best they can/ He hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything/ it's just too heavy for Superman to lift" matches the reveal at the end of this story.

Track 5- John Lee Hooker "I'm Bad Like Jesse James" (for the "Gratuity" story):
This song just has the proper attitude for Rebuker's incident at the diner. John Lee Hooker's ominous voice sets the mood perfectly. He's singing about justice being served, and that's just what the Rebuker dishes up in this story.

Well, anyway, I hope this is entertaining for someone besides me!

ROOK CITY #1 released!

Finally... here it is! ROOK CITY has finally been collected into print form! It's actually been completed for awhile (as you can tell by our convention posts), but it took awhile to get everything setup for ordering. You can order it now from our Indy Planet store and have an actual print copy for yourself!

But you also have another option! You can download the entire issue for FREE through WOWIO, an e-book company that we will be working with! It's free to join Wowio and free to download books, but each time someone downloads our books we get paid. So, if you like our work and would like to support us, this is a great, free way you can do so!

Anyway... hopefully you've been following our Rook City tales online over the last few years. This issue features the first five stories: In "Bullets & Bedpans", Toby Fox must stop the Rebuker (a 80-year-old vigilante) from devastating his nursing home. "Transformations" shows us the origin of the Vlad Squad, four college kids who think they are vampires. Meanwhile, Toby must solve a mystery involving his professors and an ancient mask in "Sleuth." Rook City's resident superhero, The Captain, battles his arch-rival in "Showtime"...but all is not as it seems.

And finally, the Rebuker reappears and leaves his mark on the locals in "Gratuity." This story has never appeared in other formats, and is available EXCLUSIVELY by downloading or buying a copy of Rook City #1!

This issue also features behind-the-scenes sketches, character info, and pinups. It's 36 pages jam-packed with goodness!

So anyway, it's exciting to finally get this book out there. I hope you all at least download a copy, check it out, and let us know what you think!

More sketchies

Here are some more sketches I did for some of my students that bought some of our books. It's always fun to take a crack at established characters. I slapped some color on the Iron Man. I was feeling inspired after watching the movie (which I highly recommend to all of you)!




These two were requested by a student who really likes cheese and tacos. A boy after my own heart.

Jam comics!

Free Comic Book Day was a blast today. Elton and I hung out with fellow local artists Amber Stone and Randy Rustin, sold some books, did some sketches, and gave away a bunch of mini-comics. It was great hanging out with fellow artists and checking out each other's artwork. Hopefully we can make this a yearly tradition here in Joplin!

Maybe the best part of the day was doing some jam comics with Amber and Randy. The way it worked was that we each drew the first row of a one page comic and then passed it on to the next person, who drew the middle part and passed it onto the next person, who drew the end. The results are pretty loose and fun... check 'em out! (Amber and I must have had zombies on the brain, as the two we started feature the undead.)


Created by (in order): me, Randy, and Amber...



By Randy, Amber, and me...



By Amber, me, and Randy...

Free Comic Book Day

For those of you that don't know, Saturday May 3 is Free Comic Book Day across the country. The day you can walk into any comic book store and demand "Give me my free comics!" Well, as part of the event this year, we will be setup with a table at our local VINTAGE STOCK here in Joplin. We'll be there (along with some other local comics people) selling comics, doing sketches, and giving away some mini-comics. So if you're local... come by and see us!

And now for some new sketches:
This one was for a Beatles sketch challenge. It was inspired by the line "wearing the face that she keeps in the jar by the door... who is it for?" Sorry if it depresses you.



These two I did during Planet Comicon. I like how they turned out... drawin' zombies is dang fun.

You had to be there.

Over the last couple of years, I've been writing down odd sentences that have been said in my high school art classes. Really odd ones. The kind that make you wonder "What was the conversation that led up to that?" Well, here's some of the crazier ones... presented in comic format.

(The really odd thing about this is the lady in the last panel. I drew her and then realized I had just drawn the exact likeness of my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Coulter. )

Planet Comicon 2008

These conventions are getting addictive! We had a dang good time up in Kansas City this weekend at Planet Comicon. That's Matt and Elton there behind me. Matt is a new member of Three Trees. He is busy working on his own anthology, which should be completed pretty soon. I think you all are going to love his work!

Anyway, we were able to sell a good amount of books again. I drew a bunch of sketches for people (they were free with any purchase)... everything from our characters to Superboy to fairies to Yoda. Drawing some for a bunch of little kids was the best!

My wife Laura went around and got a ton of great pictures for us. I think she enjoyed her first con.

One of the highlights of the con for all of us was getting to meet other creators. I was able to talk to Eric Powell (The Goon) and discuss exciting things like scanning artwork. There were several KC area creators there that I've corresponded with online and just now got to meet, including Bill Hook, Lee Leslie, Kevin Gritzke, Hector Casanova, Kyle Strahm, and P.R. Sholtz. It was great swapping books with them and seeing what they are up to.

There was also a fellow teacher there, Chris Wilson, who is exploring ways to incorporate comics in the school classroom. He runs a blog on that subject, and he's from Springfield so we'll definitely be keeping in touch. He was very interested in the different ways that I've had my student make comics.

ROOK CITY #1... approved by the Empire!

Kenny Baker AKA R2-D2!

Adam Rebottaro and his girlfriend, Courtney, who had a table next to us. Adam was doing some awesome sketching for people.
Unfortunately, Courtney was later killed by Darth Vader...
Jimmy and Kelli Jarmin, who will be running the Defcon 7 convention in Tulsa. It looks like we'll probably be going to this one, too.

I went to college with Amber Stone. She had some great sketches for sale and is preparing to launch a new webcomic soon that looks very cool.

That about does it. Can't wait for the next con!

SKETCHINGS #1...and another convention!

Here is the first of our three new books... SKETCHINGS will be a series of collections of some of our better sketches. Some of them probably shouldn't even be called sketches, as they are pretty developed pieces that took quite awhile. But there is also a lot of just quick, fun stuff in there.

This first issue only features my work, but future issues will display the talents of Dusty (and possibly others). Most of the sketches you have seen here on the blog (or on our sketches page), but there are some new ones in there as well. It mainly consists of realistic drawings of real people and looser images of various characters. Several people have asked me if I was going to put some of my extra drawings in print form... so here ya go. It's 32+ sketches all in one book. I hope you all enjoy it. You can order Sketchings #1 from the Indy Planet Store.

If you're in the Kansas City area, another way you can get Sketchings (along with all our other books) is to stop by and see us at Planet Comicon on April 5 and 6! We'll have a table there for the first time. It'll be great to hang out with a bunch of the KC creators that we interact with on message boards with all the time!

Two conventions in under a month... didn't see that coming. They sure are dang fun.

Being productive and Devious!

There are new images up on my art blog at:

http://ink-xercise.blogspot.com/

In other news I decided to become Devious, check out my Deviant Art page also:

http://noodlephish.deviantart.com/

Both these will be home to new images and are a source of networking, please feel free to comment and connect.

HurleyCon 2008

Elton and I had a great time at the inaugeral HurleyCon here in Joplin on Sunday. Turnout was really good... which is a great sign since this is the first real con in Joplin for many years. We were busy pretty much the whole time... selling books, talking to conventioners, doing sketches. A lot of my current and former students stopped by, which was great. (I had been spreading con propoganda to them all week.)

You'll probably notice some new books on the table there with me. There is Rook City #1, which collects the first several stories from that series. Also, we had Sketchings #1, which is a collection of some of my best sketches (most of which you have seen here). And then there is Duel #1, a brand new book I just finished, about two overly competive artistic kids. I will post more on all of these later, including ordering info. It was great to have multiple books to talk to people about this time. People really seemed to dig all of them.

That last picture is of Randy Rustin, a friend of mine who works at the local comic store. He is one of the fastest artists I know and a great guy.

Jason and Nathan Hurley (of Hurley's Heroes) put this all together, and they said that turnout was good enough that they'll probably do this again next year or maybe in 6 months. I'm hoping this con leads to the start of some sort of comics community here in Joplin. There are quite a few of us that love comics, and it'd be nice if we could get together and encourage each other to do more.

Con Men

I thought it would be awhile before we hit a convention again. But it seems that a pretty cool one is coming to Joplin. Like the poster says, this will be the biggest one Joplin's ever had.

We are going to be there with a table. And we should have four books for sale. That's right... four. More on that later... It'll be fun to hang out, sell some books, do some sketches for people, and meet some more Joplin area artists. Hopefully there's a decent turnout and we can have more of these.

So if you're in the area on March 9, stop by (it's free!) and say hi. We promise to try to be friendly.