A WHOLE LOTTA STUFF I'VE BEEN DOIN'!

Guess what week it is? Seriously, nobody ever asks that. It's not like weeks have names, like days and months do. Makes me kinda feel bad for weeks that way, since they're the second-class citizens of the calendar. Well, I'm here to change that. This week is significant, because it ushers in the return of my Live Sketch Show (which you can catch at this link)! As always, the show broadcasts at 8pm eastern time and runs until 9 or 9:30.

Tonight's theme is Jim Henson creations, a theme I've done twice before to great response. Anything that could possibly fall under the Henson label--Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Sam and Friends, The Land of Gorch, The Storyteller, Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Tales of The Tinkerdee (I did NOT make that last one up)...the list goes on and on. Work up some good ideas, folks, then contact me during the show via Ustream's chat window. You need to log in to Ustream to use the window, but registering is easy. It only takes a username and an email address. Once you've entered that info, you can chat with me and suggest characters to be drawn. Just like always, I'll have loads of useless trivia and my own brand of quirky humor to inject (or infect) into each sketch I create! Hope to see you there!

In other news...

WEBSITE:

I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. My friend, fellow comic artist and letterer and web wizard Nate Pride is building me a brand new website, and it's really something special. It will still be called jayfosgitt.com, but will sport a whole new look. We're looking to unveil it sometime this summer, and I'll let folks know as the time becomes more definite. In the meantime, here's a screenshot of the site's homepage:

CARICATURES AND CLASSROOMS:

I spent a large part of last week in Saginaw County (the mid Michigan pocket where I grew up). I spent my first day at The River Rapids District Library in Chesaning, MI, where I taught a comic workshop to a group of children. It was a definitely one of the best experiences I've had teaching, and the people who both run the library and who attended the workshop were very nice. Here's a photo the local news took from the event:

That night and the following two nights, I drew caricatures for Hemlock Semiconductor's 60th anniversary party (an offshoot of Dow Chemical), which was held on Saginaw Valley State University's campus. It was a well attended event run by some friendly people, and I had no shortage of business over the three night event. The best part for me was that they had me set up in The Malcolm Field Theater, a truly grand and gorgeous performance space. I've had a lot of experience working in theater from high school through college and into community theater (I even have a minor in theater from CMU), so I felt very much at home in that auditorium. The worst part of the three day event (and it was no fault of the clients or the venue) was the crappy weather that hit Saginaw county that week. As I left the gig on that first night, I managed to drive through tornado conditions in wide opened farmland. I may as well have had a "suck me up into a funnel cloud" sign taped to my back. But I survived, and the rest of the event was far more pleasant.

I wound up the week by drawing caricatures for a graduation party in Brownstone, MI--a bit closer to my home in Ann Arbor. It was a nice event, great weather, great people. If all my gigs went as well as that one, I wouldn't complain!

NECRONOMICOMICS:
I've been plugging away at new installments of my horror strip, and can't wait to show everyone the results! For those who don't already know, Necronomicomics is a single panel comic I created that lampoons horror movies. I've already had one cartoon run in the letters column of Rue Morgue Magazine, and as of this August 1st, my comic becomes a regular monthly feature! While I can't blow the surprise of what's to come, I can give you a small peek of some artwork:

I mean c'mon, what's funnier than someone eating bloody guts, I ask you?! Trust me, when you see the full comic (assuming you get the reference), it'll be comedy gold! Just be sure to grab an issue of Rue Morgue on the first of every month starting August 1st with issue #114! And be sure to write the publishers and tell them how much you dig Necronomicomics!

BODIE TROLL:
I'm still hard at work developing my new comic book, Bodie Troll. As I mentioned before, the script for the first issue is written, and now it's just fine-tuning the designs before I begin illustrating pages. I think I've pretty much locked down the looks of the main characters, though changes can and will happen as new ideas pop up. In the meantime, you can view my character chart below for the most current looks of Bodie's cast (from left to right: Stoutheart, Cholly, Gossamer, Miz Bijou and Bodie Troll):

LITTLE GREEN MEN:
Ape Entertainment just released the second volume of "Little Green Men", the comic I write and drawn for them. It should hit stores today, and is available on Amazon as well. You can order it there and see the cover by clicking here.

So that about doe it for now. I hope to see some of you on the show tonight! And for those I don't, I hope to catch up with you soon!

Big hugs, folks!

--Jay

HOME FOR NOW, BUT WITH ONE FOOT OUT THE DOOR...

So hopefully by now, everyone's grasped my "every other week" scheduling of my Live Sketch Show. This one happens to be my "off" week, which is ideal, because I'm going to be out of town for the bulk of it. I'm teaching a comic workshop tomorrow, then drawing caricatures for a big corporate event that will run for three consecutive nights. I'll be heading home after the gig late Thursday night, and will probably spend Friday trying to catch up with commissions, development on a new comic I'm doing for Ape Entertainment, and a submission for a kinda big project that Ape is considering me for, but that I can't talk about yet. Then come Saturday, I have yet another caricaturing gig--closer to home this time, thankfully. So this will be a whirlwind weekend, which was already begun with the Summit City Comic Con in Fort Wayne, Indiana this past weekend. Really nice con, really well run, and put on by extremely nice people. Here's a pic from my table in artist alley:

That's my pal and "Gapo the Clown" creator Tony Miello to my left. Tony has really played a huge role in getting me to attend most of the cons I've hit in the past year, and the effect it's had on my career is certainly indebted to his help. As usual, Tony is all smiles and enthusiasm, while I look burnt out yet slightly amused despite my exhaustion.

I do want to give notice to the arrival of Father's Day this past week. I wasn't able to do much, since my dad lives up in northern Michigan and I'm way down here at the other end of the mitten. But I managed to send him a card before the day came, and we had a really nice phone call on the day of. One of my favorite childhood memories of my dad was sharing his appreciation of Stephen King with him. My dad got me into many of King's stories, with IT being our personal  favorite. He'd spend the night before reading a chapter from the book, then go into gory descriptions the following day (the clown eating the guy's heart through his armpit was especially striking the way my dad told it). When the TV mini-series of IT came out, we both eagerly anticipated it, enjoyed the first episode, and later lamented the cheesy "giant" rubber spider at the end, which could never be as cool as Tim Curry in a clown suit. But we had that experience together, and it forever shaped my appreciation of horror stories and of my dad.

So that's it for this week.  I'll close this out with two recent commissions from my $10 commission drive that I occasionally do on Deviantart.com. In these samples, I was commissioned to draw the DC Comics character Black Canary (top) and Marvel Comics character Ms. Marvel (bottom), two of my favorites. Hope you dig 'em.

See you kids next time!

--Jay

SHOW AND TELL

Y'see, because I'm here to TELL you about this week's SHOW. Get it? Hey, if this were kindergarten, I'd look pretty damn clever right now. Ahem. Anyway, my Live Sketch Show goes live again tomorrow night at 8 pm eastern time, and I hope to see as many of you guys there as can manage. I appreciate any viewers I can get, and like they say, the more the merrier (no clue who "they" are, or why they're using an antiquated word like "merrier", but what the hell--they've got a good point). This week's theme is comic strip characters, so brush up on your comic strip knowledge and catch me as always at this link. And as ever, I encourage you to contact me during the show via Ustream's chat window! You need to log in to Ustream to use the window, but registering is easy. It only takes a username and an email address. Once you've entered that info, you can chat with me and suggest characters to be drawn. Just like always, I'll have loads of useless trivia and my own brand of quirky humor to inject (or infect) into each sketch I create! Hope to see you there!

In other news...

CONVENTION APPEARANCE:
I'm appearing at my first "Hoosier" con (which would be a far cooler name for it) this weekend at the Summit City Comic Con in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It sounds like a very cool, artist-centric show, and lots of my pals from the cartooning game are gonna rock the con floor with me, such as Tony Miello, Denver Brubaker, Brett Pinson, Jay Jacot, Katie Cook, Kyle Latino, and a whole slew of other talented folks! If you're from Indiana or can make the trip, come on out and see me! I'll have books to sell, prints to push, and will be taking as many commissions as I can fit it the day! Click on this link for more info, and I hope to see you there!

WORKSHOP:
On June 21st, I'm conducting a workshop on how to create comics. It will be held at the River Rapids District Library in Chesaning, Michigan from 1-3 pm. Any teen from the area who'd like to attend should follow this link and see about registering soon!

STUFF I'VE DRAWN:

I don't think I spend enough time here telling and showing folks what I've most recently drawn. It's time to remedy that...

This was a recent commission for me to design some desktop wallpaper for a fan of Batman comics.

I just completed work on some sketch cards for Rittenhouse's "Marvel: Dangerous Divas" set, and this was a commission based off that work. Featured here are Marvel characters Ms. Marvel, Phoenix and Squirrel Girl (a character so weird, you'd think I made her up myself).

For you Dead Duck fans (and if you're reading this blog, you'd BETTER be Dead Duck fans), this was a commission where I was asked to have Dead Duck picking up the soul of Grigori Rasputin. I still think Gonads is one of the funniest words ever spoken.

This is artwork I was commissioned to create for a woman's blog about traveling tips.

Part of a stack of commissions (some of which I'm currently working on) for a client who wanted my rendition of Leatherface from the horror movie "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

And lastly, a piece I originally created for a Muppet-themed t-shirt contest. I've since decided against entering, but I still like this cartoon, and will probably makes prints of it at some point.

That's it for this week, kids. Find me online tomorrow night, and in Indiana this Saturday!

--Jay

THE SHOW IS ON TONIGHT!!!

Kind of last minute, but for anyone still interested, I'll be doing my Live Sketch Show at 8 pm eastern time this evening, and tonight's theme is Hanna Barbera cartoon characters! You can catch it at this link. As always, I encourage you to contact me during the show via Ustream's chat window! You need to log in to Ustream to use the window, but registering is easy. It only takes a username and an email address. Once you've entered that info, you can chat with me and suggest characters to be drawn. Just like always, I'll have loads of useless trivia and my own brand of quirky humor to inject (or infect) into each sketch I create! Hope to see you there!

In other news....

GUEST ARTIST
My pal and fellow Ann Arbor cartoonist, Denver "The Omelet" Brubaker (he doesn't know that's his nickname, but he will when he reads this) allowed me to contribute art to his awesome web comic, TALES OF A CHECKERED MAN. Denver and I met for coffee a couple weeks ago, and I got the itch to draw his characters (once you see his incredible line work, you'll have the itch, too). So he asked me to draw his character Squid Girl, which was all kinds of fun cheesecakery to create! He liked it enough to include it as poster art within the comic.You can view his website by clicking on the link above. And you can view the full Squid Girl art that I created below:

COMMISSIONS
I've had plenty of commissions over the past few months, and I just had a really fun one come from the land down under! Mary Tyler, who owns The Alice Way--a goth clothing and apparel store in Australia--asked me to design her store's logo. From a design perspective, I've always loved the goth look (I regrettably couldn't pull it off myself--I'm too boxy), so it was a blast to create this logo. I also learned that Mary is a fan of Dead Duck and Zombie Chick, so it was an added thrill to meet a fan from one of my favorite countries (don't look at me that way, Canada. You know I still heart you much). Check out the image below to see the finished art, and be sure to visit the store's website, and the store itself if you're able!

 

That's about it for this week, kids! June's gonna be busy as all get out for me, so I may not be broadcasting and blog posting as often as I have lately. But I'll do my best to keep you all up to speed and what's coming down the pipeline!

--Jay