O Death, Hello Operator & Breaking the Ice

First off, here's a drawing of the terrible car wreck that almost swallowed me up whole:

I also did a couple design/illustration jobs for The Bold Italic in the past few weeks (click on the images to link to the stories):

The first was "Hello Operator," a piece about the bizarro calls 411 operators get in San Francisco

The second was "Breaking the Ice," a really hilarious story about a guy conquering his fear of ice skating

It was really fun to do because I got to draw that little guy in red in all kinds of ridiculous situations. Here's the cream of the crop:

Behind the Stars

Fwed, Romance and Living Statues

Diary comic from this week is about Fred, the cat I grew up with. I realized that when you're drawing comics all the time, writing diary comics can become a feedback cycle from hell. So I turned to that gold mine that every artist delves into at some point: dead family pets.

This will be the first in a pretty long series (we had a lot of animals), hence the title of "1. Fwed." I'm still working out a title for the whole thing.

Next up is a fun assignment we had doing mock romance covers.

I came up with the title "Teenage Tears" and had a blast. The original artists working in romance comics in that era just didn't know what the heck those kids were up to, but sales were slumping and they were desperate to appeal to the youth culture. The results were hilarious.

I also did design for a neat little story on living statues that the Bold Italic published last week:

Evocation

Here's the project I've been working on for a little while: Evocation! It's actually got jokes and not just sadness and death. But still demons. I had a lot of fun with this one. It's really the first time I've brought spot blacks into the faces and figures in my comics. It took some learning, but I think it's a good direction for me. Click on the pictures for larger images and enjoy it!

Monsters!

Diary comic from last week (click for bigger size):

And some sketches for demons in a comic that's due next Thursday.
Both of these were so fun! I should just draw monsters all the time, I think.

Masked!

New diary comic: Masked! I spent my Halloween being touched by children. Click on the image for the bigger version (when I've got a bit of time over Christmas break, I'll redesign the blog to post bigger images, I promise!).

A Real Nailbiter, Poster & Pirate Radio

Here's my diary comic from last week on the uplifting topic of compulsive nail biting. Click for a bigger version:

And an assignment from Publication Workshop where we created a poster for an imaginary show of a band we liked. Click for a bigger version:

I also did the design and illustration for a great Bold Italic article that ran last week about San Francisco pirate radio. It's called Pirate Code, check it out!

FAILED STATE

The Long Road Home

I forgot to post this diary comic from two weeks ago. Hitler cat actually exists! Click for a bigger version.

I'll be putting up the 8 pager that's critically ruined my sleep cycle in a few days.

Collect them all!

From an exercise last week in drawing different characters and ethnicities.

Also, I had a gig last month doing a comic explaining how a neat new political start-up, Circle Voting works. Here's the link.

Aping Trudeau

The assignment last week was to copy the style, pacing, layout and feel of a comic strip. I was assigned Doonesbury. Little did they know that I committed the Reagan years to memory by the time I hit puberty.

Fried Chicken

I designed an article for The Bold Italic that ran two days ago on finding the best fried chicken in San Francisco. I learned the hard way not to do that on an empty stomach. Here's the piece, "Wing Man."

The Mountain and Me

Diary comic from this week. Click to enlarge.

Chair People

From a gag cartoon assignment last week in cartooning workshop.

Owls in the Family

I did a really fun design for The Bold Italic on insane window displays in the Mission. It's called "Collect Them All' - check it out!

What's he Building in There?

A diary comic from last week about my unfortunate habit of collecting vast amounts of beautiful, useless junk. Click for the enlargement!

Witch Doctor Pika

For a class assignment to draw something with three random elements. I drew exasperated witch-doctor pika. Someone actually guessed it, too.

It's the Pits

Diary comic for 9/12/10. Click through for the larger, legible page.

Spice Flowed

I designed and illustrated an article for The Bold Italic two weeks ago, but I forgot to post it. No slight meant, it's awesome and about Japanese curry. I got to draw lots of vegetables for it. I like sketching vegetables almost, almost as much as I like eating vegetables.

Stay healthy, kids!

Frown Town Swag

Finished up some swag for our Frown Town funders over at Kickstarter. Above is the first official Frown Town poster, featuring our cast of lovable little misfits.
And a two color t-shirt print. Longer blog post on the process over at Frown Town's website.