PARENTAL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED

It's been a mixed bag of a week, but with no shortage of artwork being produced. And, like an old saying went that I'm probably misquoting, a bad day fishing is still a bad day fishing. Replace day with week and fishing with drawing, and who am I to complain?

COMICS

 Last week I mentioned how I'm working on a new book for Ape Entertainment (still not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about), and I showed some of the roughs I drew before beginning the completed art. Since last Wednesday, I finished roughing out all 48 pages, and as of this typing, I've penciled and inked the first four finished pages. So far I'm very happy with the results. I'm hoping to get one more drawn today, then shift gears to other projects. But one pile at a time...

COMMISSIONS

 I've been fortunate to have had a good amount of commissions on my drawing board lately. Here is a small sampling of some of my favorites. Oh, and here is where the "parental guidance suggested" bit comes into play. Nothing too outrageous, but I'm certainly treading on PG-13 territory with this last one.

This first piece was a pin-up I drew for cartoonist Danny Limor's "Neutron City Comix" web comic, which he's compiling into a collection and is taking pre-orders on his website right now. The characters on the left are Danny's, and as per his request, I paired them up with my own Dead Duck and Zombie Chick.

You may recall this drawing of Medusa, drawn by animator Tom Bancroft, which I showed you a couple weeks ago. This was a team-up drawing Tom and I planned, where he'd draw Marvel's long haired heroine and I'd draw her cloven-hoofed cousin, Gorgon. Here's the finished piece with my artwork included. Lots of fun, and I hope to do more of these down the road with Tom and other artists!

This was a commission where I was asked to draw Marvel's Enchantress turning Spider-Man's girlfriend's, Mary Jane, Black Cat and Gwen Stacy, into frogs. The biggest challenge was to have the frogs bear any resemblance to the women they represent. I think putting a domino mask on the middle frog would have helped.

This was a commission where I was simply asked to draw Zombie Chick playing pinball. I love pinball, but have always noticed that most pinball machine themes are taken from pop culture icons that are as far removed from pinball as can be. In keeping with that, I went with one of my favorite books and movies in designing my pinball machine that, while weird, fits Zombie Chick's backwards persona to a T.

And lastly, this was another Dead Duck-themed commission. I was asked to draw my character Dead Duck bumping into the Morrigan, an Irish goddess who makes love to fallen soldiers on the battlefield in order to see them off to the afterlife. Those familiar my character Dead Duck know he also delivers the recently deceased to the afterlife, but in a decidedly non-coital fashion. This piece really sparked my imagination, and may serve as the seed for a future Dead Duck story.

That does it for this week. Be sure to catch up with DEAD DUCK when a new comic posts tomorrow morning. And see you here next Wednesday for more news and updates!

--Jay