Heroes: Supes & Bats and Morbius & Spidey

Hm. I did quite a few more upside down characters than I remembered. Maybe I should start a trading card set:)

Heroes: SnakeEyes Storm Shadow and King Arthur & Guinever

I ended up tweaking the SnakeEyes piece after I scanned in (I added just a bit more snow with a knife) but this is pretty close to the finished product.

The King Arthur one was definitely a challenge, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out. It's a shame it wasn't Arthur and Guinevere from Camelot 3000 though.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Heroes: Hawkeye & Ant-Man and DD & Elektra

The Hawkeye and Ant-Man piece is a riff on the cover of Avengers #223 ,but I pulled back a bit to show all of Hawkeye.

With the DD piece I had originally planned on having Matt and Elektra fighting in a park in the snow but I didn't want to have two pieces of people in snow (there's a SnakeEyes and Stormshadow piece in the snow that I'll stick up here soon) so I just had them tussling on a clothesline in the city.

Heroes: Batman and Black Canary... with a bit o' pimpin'

Here's a few more pre show sketches. Is it wrong that my favorite thing from these two sketches is the bag of money with the dollar sign on it?

Oh, and the volme of Queen & Country: The Definitive Edition, Vol. 3 with has my 4 issue arc, alongside Steve Rolston and Mike Norton's issues, hits stands today.

Heroes: Cyborg and Sasha

Well, we made it back safe and sound from Heroes Con, and another great time was had by Team Samnee (that's me and Laura;). Thanks so much to all the great folks who came by to chat, pick up sketches or have me sign some funnybooks. It was a real pleasure catching up with old friends and making new ones. I'm already looking forward to next time.
Starting today I'll be posting all of the sketches that I worked up before the show. If anyone has a scan of a sketch I did at the show I'd really appreciate you passing it along so I can stick it up here. Thanks again, everybody!

'nother Heroes Con update

If you're one of the folks lucky enough to be heading out to Heroes Con this weekend I wanted to let you all know I WILL still be doing sketches there.
I'm keeping the number of sketches I do each day to a limited amount though, so be sure to stop by early so I can get you on the list.

Dead of Night: Devil Slayer

DEAD OF NIGHT FEATURING DEVIL SLAYER #1 (of 4)

Written by BRIAN KEENE

Pencils & Inks by CHRIS SAMNEE

Cover by KAARE ANDREWS

Abandoned by his fiancée, his family, his church, and his government, Sergeant Dan Sylva returns to Iraq for a third tour of duty -- and a descent into Hell itself. If the demon Belathauzer and the mysterious mercenary group known as Bloodstone have their way, Iraq, the place where civilization began, may also be where civilization ends. The reinvented Devil-Slayer takes Marvel’s DEAD OF NIGHT to terrifying new heights, from award-winning horror novelist Brian Keene (The Rising, Dark Hollow) and artist Chris Samnee (DAREDEVIL: BLOOD OF THE TARANTULA)!

32 PGS./Cardstock Cover/Rated T+ ...$3.99

Baddies

Here a few sketches I just recently got scans of. Here we have Ming the Merciless of Flash Gordon fame and the Iron Man villain Ghost.

BJ on CBR

Hope you all had a nice Father's Day weekend. Here's a link to a piece on our baby at comicbookresources.
By "our" I mean B. Clay Moore, Seth Peck and I, and by "baby" I mean Bluejacket (who's making his debut in the pages of the Josh Medors benefit book Pulp Tales.
Click away, folks!

Hereos Con update

If you were interested in getting a sketch from me at Heroes Con next weekend, and didn't manage to get in on pre-orders a while back, I've got the time to fit in a few more.
These sketches will be done before the show on bristol only. No sketchbooks please.

Prices are as follows:
$40 for a single character in B&W on 9 x 12 bristol
$60 for two characters in B&W on 9 x 12 bristol
All sketches will be personalized.

If you're interested please drop me a line ASAP, my email is in my profile, since I will be taking on no more than five sketches. First come, first serve.

If you'd like a sketch, and didn't get in ont this pre-order list, don't worry. I WILL still be drawing at the show, but stop by early to ensure that I can fit you in over the weekend.

Batman

How about one more Batman sketch to end the week?
Have a great Father's Day weekend, folks!

Batman & Joker

Speaking of Summer comic movies...

Iron-Man & the Hulk

Well, I'm probably the last person to write about the Iron-Man movie on their blog but... how great was this movie?!! I don't think, between all of my family and friends, I can remember a movie being more well received.
When, on opening week over at a friend's house, I mentioned that I had seen the movie a round of half a dozen high-fives exploded 'round the room. We must have talked about all of our favorite bits, quoted lines and talked about little nerdy Easter eggs for twenty minutes.
This movie is right up there with the first Superman film for me, and that is saying a LOT since it's not only my favorite comic movies but probably my favorite film of all time.
Here's hoping the new Hulk picture can keep up the momentum Marvel Studios has going.

Bluejacket

Above is just a little taste of the type of art to expect in the Bluejacket story appearing in the Josh Medors benefit book PULP TALES that B. Clay Moore, Seth Peck and I have been working on. While this piece won't appear in the book I am taking the same approach to coloring the sequential pages as you see here.
For this tale everything will be hand colored with Prismacolor markers (and a teeny bit of colored pencil). The reason for this is about 50% because I think slick computer colors would look out of place with a pulp yarn, and 50% because I have yet to find the time to learn how to color in Photoshop;)
It may be a bit time consuming taking this route but I'm actually really glad I did. There have been plenty of happy accidents along the way, but they all add up to a product I couldn't be more proud of, and I had a really fun time working on.
Please be sure to pick up/order yourself a copy. No need to wait for the trade here folks. This is the only place you'll find the debut of Bluejacket.

Daredevil commission:inks / post# 400!!

Whew, those shafts of light were a heck of a lot easier in the pencils!

Thanks so much to all you folk who've been reading this blog and leaving comments. I really do appreciate it. I couldn't have made it up to post 400 without all your support.
Have a great weekend everybody!

Daredevilcommission: thumbs and pencils

Above are the thumbnails and pencils for another Daredevil commission.
Be sure to check back in tomorrow to see the finished inks.

American Splendor

American Splendor season Two #3 is on stands today, which just so happens to have a little three pager written by Harvey Pekar and illustrated by yours truly.

I've posted this cover here before but it's just so cool looking I couldn't help posting it again. Who ever could have ever imagined seeing Kirby dots and Harvey Pekar in the same place?!

As if keeping company in an issue with the likes of Warren Pleece, Rick Geary and Dean Haspiel wasn't enough, having it all under a Darwyn Cooke cover is really an honor.

Also, for you eagle-eyed readers who dig easter eggs, the librarian role is played by the ever-lovely Mrs. Laura Samnee. Thanks, Lu. I couldn't do this withoutcha!

Batman & Daredevil: pencils & inks

Since some of you decided to sneak a peek at the finished piece already (you know who you are;)I figured I'd go ahead and post both the pencils and inks for this commission.

This one turned out almost exactly how I pictured it in my head, which is actually a pretty rare treat for me.

Oddly enough though, my favorite bit is the acid rain pitting and little cracks on the gargoyles that were added in during the ink stage. It's little things like that which make inking over loose pencils the most fun. If this were all neatly rendered I may not have ended up with those types of little happy accidents.

Thanks again, Matt.

Batman & Daredevil: thumbnails

Let's get back to posting some commission art.
Above are the thumbnails for another of my recent commissions with two of my favorite comic heroes EVER!!
Can you guess which layout we went with? No cheatin' by going to comicartfans, okay?

Devil Slayer!

Looks like word is out on my next project, Dead of Night: Devil Slayer.
The two above sketches are making the rounds on the ol' internets, along with Kaare Andrews designs for this new take on the Devil Slayer character, as well as his cover for issue#1.
If you'd like to find out a bit more on this four issue mini-series from Marvel Max straight from the writer Brian Keene and our editor Warren Simons just click on the links below.
comicbookresources.com
ign.com
newsarama.com