Nick Fury

Not a ton of time to spend doodlin' or bloggin', so here's just a quick Steranko inspired Nick Fury.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

I gotta get back to work.

Bob Oksner

This is old news now, seeing as how it's been just over a year now, but I just found out, that comics great Bob Oksner passed away February 18th 2007 at the age of 90.

Here's a link to an article by Mark Evanier on Oksner if you want to learn more on his career, since the Wikipedia entry on him is seriously lacking.

I could go on and on about how amazing an artist he was, or gush about all the great titles he worked on, like Supergirl, the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Shazam, Adventures of Jerry Lewis, House of Mystery, Lois Lane are but a few of my favorites, but I figured I'd let his art speak for itself. These were all taken from the wonderful comicartfans website.

Every time see his art is puts a smile on my face. Here's to you Mr. Oksner. See ya in the funnybooks.

Kid Stuff

Here are a couple characters I created when I was a young pup, maybe 7 or so.
Both are pretty much in the same outfits, or lack there of, I used to draw 'em in.
I'd give you more info on these guys but I'd just end up embarrassing myself even further.
I mean, they come from the mind of some kid who just sat around in the woods of Missouri in a log cabin readin' waaay too many comics and trying his damnedest not to watch anything that wasn't animated so I'm sure you can imagine how scholarly their origins must be.

Swipe File

Just a couple of quick doodles of Liz Taylor from some photos that were in my morgue.
Yeah, I know with stuff like Google and whatnot artists don't really need to keep all of their reference in a file anymore. I just can't bring myself to get rid of all these things that I've cut out of magazines and newspapers that fill up my filing cabinet. It's taken me years to amass what I have and I just wouldn't feel right to pitching it all out.

If it helps, you might want to read this post aloud in a Andy Rooney voice to get the full effect.

Quick Ugly Penguin

Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot says, "Have a nice weekend. Wauugh!"

Galactic Golem

Anybody else get a chance to see that crazy lookin' moon last night?

Keeping in Practice

Brought out a few pen nibs last night after realizing that it's been quite some time since I'd done any work with much more than a brush. Since I'd rather not get too rusty at using any of the tools I have sitting next to my drawing table I figured I'd give 'em a shot again, and use up a bit of the ink I had sitting out at the same time. Waste not want not, right?

The thin lines here were done with a Hunt 512 bowl point (which is actually intended for ruling and lettering) since I'm afraid I've never actually had any luck with the "industry standard"of the Hunt 102 crow quill. I'm a bit heavy handed I suppose, and always tend to snap 102s on the page. I still have some crow quill nibs in a drawer somewhere, but since I didn't need to angry up my blood before bed it's probably best that I left 'em there.

Doodle

Just a quick value study today, to hopefully help keep a case of the Mondays at bay.

Enemy Ace

Happy Valentine's Day!

Leapin' Lionfish!!

My Aquaman Showcase volume 2 showed up in the mail today, with more Nick Cardy and Ramona Fradon goodness than you can shake a flipper at.

Guess what I've been readin' lately?

Since I've been doodlin' quite a bit of dark stuff lately (and a lot of head shots) here's a real quick Supergirl (full-body no less) to switch things up a bit.

Time to Learn to Draw Again...

I'm breakin' open my Complete Guide to Drawing Illustration Cartooning and Painting again so I figured I'd post a couple of my favorite pages.

This book is looong out of print, my copy is from 1948, but if you happen across a copy on Ebay or something it's a really great book. With contributions by (besides Milt Caniff, Alex Raymond, and Jerry Siegel shown above) there's also work by guys like George Bridgman, Dean Cornwell and Hal Foster.

Not that you can tell from through the intenets but it also has that great old book smell. Not the old ladies basement old book smell, the GOOD kind of old book smell.

Floro

This here is the Floro aka the Floronic Man from the late '80s DC Comic New Guardians but may be better known for appearances in the Atom or from Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.
While New Guardians may not have been a title for everyone I thought it was a really fun read back in the day. Of course there was a good chunk of time there where, after discovering his work on E-Man, I'd pick up anything with Joe Staton's name on it and New Guardians was no exception.

Ms. Tree

Did this last night, since an issue of Max Allen Collins's Ms. Tree is sitting atop a stack of comics waiting to be read near my drawing table and I just had to crank a quick sketch of the the title character.
I picked up a few issues last time I was at a show, still trying to round up all the ones put out by Aardvark-Vanaheim back in the '80s. Really great books, though.
If funnybooks have too many of those blasted pictures in 'em for you though, there's a Hard Case Crime Ms. Tree novel that came out last year by Mr. Collins.

EDIT: I just realized I put the wrong date on this. I said it was from last night (and it is) but late last night, so numbers stopped working in my head I guess.

So much for THAT idea...

Well, as of last week I had planned to start posting mid-day, so as to hopefully have something a little better than my usual "here is art... hope you like" kind of stuff I normally post early in the morning. Of course that wasn't such a good idea since by mid-day I pretty much have my blinders on with work and I'm lucky if I remember to eat lunch, much less think about my blog. So yeah I flaked out on Thursday and Friday. Sorry, kids.

How 'bout we flush out the rest of my pages from my Checkmate sketchbook and we call us even, okay? Or rather, here is art. Hope you like:)