What?! A new post from Jay? I don't believe it...

What do you guys think of my new header? My cartoonist pal from another gal Evan T. Shaner taught me the way to do it, and after a good month of being too stupid to understand his directions, I figured it out anyway. Evan smart + Jay dumb = a new blog header that shoulda been done a month ago.

It's been longer than I'd wanted it to be, kids. I've been so disheartened with the lack of actual, tangible, reportable news on my end that I swore not to post until there was some real news in my life. So I sit here now, typing these words, and ask myself, "Do you really have anything worth sharing?" My answer is: Sure. How 'bout this?















I dig Lord of The Rings, and I dig the McDonaldland characters (ever thought I've been off hamburgers and pop for going on two months now). This is what I do best, drawing simply to entertain myself. Does that pay the bills? Not so much. But it does make for a good sample in my portfolio to show people who might actually wanna pay me to draw. So in that respect, it's potentially profitable.

I've also been trying to keep my hand in caricaturing, even though my art gig docket has been noticably dry for the past two months (maybe it has something to do with my lack of pop and burgers?). Anyway, when I sit down and commit to drawing a celebrity caricature for myself, the results are always far better than if I were plunked down on a folding chair in a gym drawing energy drink-addled teens at their post graduation party at three in the morning. In this case, I wanted to see if I could draw Jessica Biel. The girl is hot. Hot girls don't always equal easy to draw girls. The challenge presented itself. I answered.















I drew the left one first, right outta my head, and was very happy with it. But suggestions to the contrary from my #1 counsel on such matters (love ya, Laura!) compelled me to try again. The version on the right was my do over. I loved this one, too. Hell, I loved 'em both. Why try to pick? So I didn't. Both versions are here for my benefit, for yours, and for the benefit of my ever-growing caricature portfolio.

Having been with Thomas Township Parks and Rec for so long that I still recall when Jesus applied to be our head lifeguard (the guy was good with water, y'see), I've drawn my share of, for lack of a better term, crap over the years. This is no one else's fault but my own. I'm limited in my ability to come up with clever ways of drawing people playing softball, volleyball, floor hockey, soccer and various other activities for thirteen years solid. However, when our annual Haunted Train Ride happens every October, inspiration pours out like so much urine from a beer-engorged bladder. In a good way. I dig Halloween, and the drawings come easy. This year, being our 25th anniversary of said train ride, I decided to go for broke and come up with the mother of all illustrations to emblazen upon our fliers and promotional material. This is the bastard baby I gave birth to.


















Don't know if any of you guys will get the reference, but in the 60's there was a cartoonist called Big Daddy Roth who drew these far out looking mutant characters driving souped up hot rods. He made quite a career out of it, and even after death is still being plagerized by no shortage of gear head cartoonists, taggers and tatters today. So I thought it'd be cool to have my Haunted Train Ride logo be an homage to the master. Hence the tattoo on my beast's bicep.

Just the other day, after having sent out a pleading e-mail to Interlude begging for an assignment after they lost their editor and my biggest supporter on staff and subsequently quit calling me with assignments, I got a message from their art director, an old Delta friend who's been my second biggest supporter at Interlude. She gave me an illustration assignment for a story about sick relatives visiting at Christmas (Look, I don't question 'em. I just draws 'em). Not wanting to waste a moment, I hammered out this, my first paid work for them since last April.


















So by now you're probably saying, "Okay, this is all well and good, but where's the real NEWS?" Well, the pickin's are slim, but here's what I got...

Back in mid August, Laura and I threw together a last minute trip to Chicago, home of the 2nd biggest comic con in the nation, Wizard World. This was meant to be exclusively a business trip with the hopes of my finding some cartooning work via networking with industry pros.

Here we are in the train station in Kalamazoo (Much cheaper and only a little shorter trip than from Flint)...














Here we are in our train car (Despite our posed smiles, we were in a bit of agony, since our car was the only one on the whole train where the air conditioning was on the fritz...














What followed next was a flurry of taxi rides and a brief yet positive pilgrimage to the actual con. However, because all the attendants of the con were asses to elbows packed in and because I was so busy visiting any booth I could find who'd look at my Dead Duck comic book concept, I didn't get to take any pictures. No great loss, though. The Motor City Comic Con looked just as good, and I have plenty pics from that con from over the years.

After a cab ride back to the train station we walked a couple blocks to bar and grill where we had a really nice dinner. It was the best part of the trip, in my opinion...














Then it was back on the train, where we enjoyed the spoils of our journey in the form of graphic novels that Laura found for us while I peddled my artistic wares...














And then immediately after, we were dead to the world until our train pulled into Kalamazoo.














Though the bulk of the trip was spent looking out of train and cab windows, I did make at least one solid contact at the con, which is what we were there for and what made the whole trip worth while.

An independent comic publisher called Ape Comics had a neat looking display, mostly focusing on their latest publication, "Teddy Scares", an anthology comic based on a line of creepy toys sold in Hot Topic and other such venues. I showed their co-publisher Dead Duck, and he seemed very interested. He liked the three stories I had written and drawn with the characters, even suggesting how cool they'd look in full color, and gave me the private e-mail address of his co-publisher, encouraging me to send everything in my Dead Duck portfolio to the man and see what he says. I shook the guys hand and left very, very hopeful.

So when I got back home to Midland, I immediately e-mailed my entire stock of Dead Duck work to the man himself, and within a day I got a short but encouraging e-mail. "We're interested in Dead Duck and will be discussing the possibilities. Thanks for your patience and we'll be talking to you soon."

I was pretty stoked from this small but very telling bit of correspondence. And I patiently waited for just shy of a month to hear back from them. By that time, however, my enthusiasm started losing steam, and I began to think this would end up like the failed opportunity to illustrate the card game I'd mentioned in previous posts (if I hadn't already mentioned it, it didn't pan out and now ain't gonna happen).

Then, after a much needed pep talk form Laura about being more aggressive, I sent Ape Comics a follow up e-mail, asking them if they'd had a chance to review my work yet.

I got a reply within hours.

"Hey Jay! We've scheduled a conference call for this afternoon, and we'll be discussing Dead Duck. Talk to you soon!"

Good gravy. A conference call was held this afternoon regarding my creation! What does that mean??? No clue. However, my hope is back up to the highwater mark, and potentially, this may be the first real news I've had to share with you guys in forever, not counting the odd art gig and something I'll be sharing with you at a later time. So fingers crossed for me all around, okay? I need a little spark of luck in my life right now. Real, real bad. So go roll around in the grass and wish on a buttload of stars, chant from the rooftops that you do believe in fairies, and go cash in that favor Don Corleone owes you. This could be the big one. After twenty odd years of hoping and trying, Dead Duck may fly at last. Be here when it happens, kids!

Jay

HARRY POTTER AND OTHER SUCH MAGIC...

This is me, at approximately 12:20 am on Saturday, July 21st, standing outside The Bay City Mall where at FYE I picked up my reserved copy of "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows", the 7th and final book in the Harry Potter series (like you didn't know). If the fact that I dragged my fiancee into the early morning hours just to snap this picture doesn't already prove it, allow me to confess that yes, I am THAT big of a geek. I fell in love with Harry Potter in '98 when I got the first three books as a birthday present, and I've been hooked ever since. I managed to get this last book read in just over two days, with much sleep deprivation as a result. But it was soooo worth it. I refuse to give any spoilers, but suffice to say, I felt it was the best book of the series. My heart swells just thinking about it. And I encourage any fans to not wait until your local library carries it, or to borrow it from a friend, but to go out right now and buy a copy for yourself. This is a book you need to treasure.

As for the other magic, I just pulled this rabbit out of my hat recently.

It's the finished pencil test for my submission to Bongo Comics, publisher of The Simpsons comic books. Basically, I received the first page of a Simpsons script along with some reference illustrations of the major characters and was instructed to draw the page to the best of my ability, with layout and composition left entirely up to me. This was what I came up with. While I followed the model sheets for reference, I couldn't help allowing my own style to sneak into the finished art. This was basically an audition to see if Bongo will want to hire me to draw the comic. Am I optomistic about what could happen? Well, I'm hopeful. Do I think I have a shot? Well, I think anything's possible. Hopefully that will see me through.

Lastly, I wanted to share this long forgotten bit of Foz memoribilia with you. While waiting for midnight to roll around so I could purchase Potter, I walked past The Bay City 8 Theater and saw this.


This little bastard's name is Kernal Corn. For those who don't know the story, back in 2003 I was sought out by Goodrich Theaters (owners of The Bay City 8)to create a mascot for them. Their only instructions (at the time) were that he be a talking tub of popcorn and his name be "Pop" Corn. My first design was actually pretty far removed from what you see here, and I greatly preferred it to what you now see. But Goodrich was insistent and required several revisions (including a name change, which they also came up with), gradually making the character blander and blander until he lost all character (in my opinion). Anyway, I was paid for my efforts, and my work is seen in theaters across the mid west, so that's cool at least. I think he's behind the glass because, from what I heard, little kids found his to be an ideal punching bag, hence the scuffs on his face. Kinda symbolic, after the figurative beating I took from Goodrich, not long after Kernal's creation, regarding other non-paying work I produced for them.

So that's my news for now. More stuff from me on the horizon, so keep looking to the sunrise. Tomorrow's a brand new day.

What's new with me? Glad you asked…

It has been a wild summer so far, in a pretty positive sense. I've had a major influx of art gigs come my way, to the tune of one caricaturing gig per Saturday for virtually the entire month of June (I'm still holding out for June 30th) with plenty more coming for the remaining summer and beyond. I've also had several commissions for various family portraits, which, along with the caricaturing, has helped out my income greatly.

I've also sent out (finally) those greeting cards that I created months ago to Recycled Paper Greetings in Chicago. They tend to take a month or two to reply so I anticipate hearing from them before summer's end.

I've also decided to accept the offer made to me by the previously and currently unnamed super-secret project shareholders to do some long-term illustration work for them. It will be a gamble, but if their product is a hit, I could stand to make out pretty well.

Lastly, my old pal and fellow cartoonist Adam Talley (creator of the comic book "Pleasant Hymns", currently re-titled "Pleasant Life") has brought me aboard to illustrate an entire Halloween special issue he's writing. I'm already three pages into it, and it's gonna be pretty cool. It will be available in October, and I'll have a limited supply that I'll be selling both here on my website as well as on Deviantart.com. So when the time comes, buy soon and buy often!

This may well be my shortest blog ever. But taking the advice of the fairy godmother from the animated film "Twice Upon A Time", "Call me FGM. I hate excess verbiage." So I'll leave it at that. Take care, and stay close to your computer. More news is heading down the pipeline as we speak.

I just never take enough pictures…

I just spent the best weekend with the love of my life and a handful of my childhood heroes, and I only have a couple pictures to show for it, most of which were taken after the fact. You can stop scratching your heads, I’ll explain.

This past weekend marked the 25th birthday of my best friend and fiancée Laura Tanner. To commemorate, headed down to Novi, MI to the Motor City Comic Con, bi-annual Mecca of comic books, bootleg movies, sci fi toys, anime and manga surplus and plenty of celebrities from movies, television and the cartooning field.

In preparation of meeting my pop culture heroes, I had drawn caricatures of some of the celebrities, one copy as a gift for the celeb and one to get autographed for myself. Amongst those I drew and met were:

Legendary character actor Robert Picardo!

Picardo has starred in some of my favorite sci fi and horror films, such as The Howling (as Eddie Quist), and Legend (as Meg Mucklebones), so I drew his caricature below with him flanked by some of his screen personas.

Picardo was a nice enough guy, but it was obvious that he was there for his Star Trek fans more than he was for us old school guys who knew him before he joined Star Trek Voyager. Our brief encounter felt really rushed, so I didn’t try to get my photo taken with him. Still, he genuinely seemed to enjoy the caricature and autographed it for me. That’s still pretty cool.

I also met veteran voice actor Billy West, seen below in a great photo with Laura and I at the con!

In Billy’s caricature, I drew the man with three of his most famous characters, Stimpy, Doug and Fry. But I also tried to make a statement about how A list celebrities (such as Bruce Willis and others) are stealing work away from professional cartoon voice actors because studios can bank on a celeb’s name to sell their cartoon. I knew West shared my disdain for “Movie star” voice casting, so I figured he’d enjoy this piece. I was right.

Billy was the nicest and most real celeb I’ve ever met. He really took the time to talk with Laura and I, answered our questions, asked questions of us. And he gave me some great advice. After receiving the caricature, he says to me, “Are you humble about your work?” To which I shrugged and nodded. He told me that, essentially, you can't be afraid to have an ego. If you come across as loud and confident you may inspire others who look up to you and your work. His own story of overcoming adversity and accomplishing his dreams is tragic and inspiring, and I feel very lucky to have shared a moment with such an incredible guy.

Possibly the greatest experience I had at the con, though, was meeting cartoonist Sergio Aragones (NOTE: This photo is from another con Sergio attended. I regret not getting my photo with him when I had the chance. But I will correct this one day…).

In my youth, the man entertained and inspired me with his cartoons in Mad Magazine and with his comic book barbarian Groo the Wanderer. Through Groo in particular, Sergio taught me how to fill my drawings with minute detail, how to create simple yet hilarious cartoon characters, and how to tell stories with such visual punch and appeal that they transcend all cultural and language barriers.

When I approached Sergio’s table, at best I’d hoped to get him to autograph my original 1987 print edition of “Death of Groo.” That would have been plenty cool. But I decided to go for broke and asked him if he’d be willing to do a sketch of two of my characters, Dead Duck and Zombie Chick. As I asked, I pulled out my Dead Duck portfolio featuring the duo in full color on the cover. Sergio, in the kindest and gentlest way possible, explained that he really didn’t do that sort of thing anymore, which I totally understood (Rumor had it his sketches were being hawked on E-bay rather than treasured as they should have been. I’d be hesitant to do sketches, too). However, he said he really wanted to look at my Dead Duck portfolio. As he slowly turned the pages, he began to laugh quite a bit, and couldn’t stop saying how much he liked my artwork, and also how cute he thought Zombie Chick was. He just loved her! He even did his impression of what he thought she would sound like if she actually spoke! We talked a bit about how there really isn’t a good outlet for humor in comic books these days, what sorts of pens he used (I touched the pen he draws with!!!), he threw in some advice about drawing backgrounds, and said how he thought Dead Duck and Zombie Chick would work best in color. All these things I took in as best as my fevered mind could manage. It was equivalent to a film student getting praise and advice from Orson Welles! Through it all, Sergio was warm, friendly, quick with a hearty laugh, and ended it all with the warmest two-fisted handshake I’ve ever had. It was like a hug, I swear to god. I want this man to be my godfather. Anyway, that was the all time greatest con moment I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot. Oh, and I should mention that as he autographed my comic book, Sergio still managed to draw me a quick sketch of Groo on the title page, which is just precious.

Much love, Sergio.

Another neat connection I made at the con was with Nathan Kane, the art director of Bongo Comics. Bongo is the comic book publishing house of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons (and named after Groening’s one-eared bunny character from his Life In Hell comic strip). Bongo publishes comics about the Simpsons, as well as their second-tier characters, and Groening’s other major creation, Futurama. I showed Kane some of my artwork and asked him what I guy had to do to get work with Bongo. Kane immediately gave me his contact info and instructed me to send him my mailing address, and he’d send me a pencil test. What this is essentially is a hand-drawn audition to see if you’re good enough to draw the Simpsons. If I did well, I may land a gig drawing Groening’s brainchildren for Bongo comics. As of this writing, I’ve hastily sent off an e-mail to Kane to set the ball rolling and get the pencil test as soon as possible. If anything comes of it, you can bet you’ll read about it here.

The rest of the weekend was just a luxury, with Laura and I basking in the warm glow of comic books, expansive (and expensive) shopping malls and great fast food restaurants that you can’t find here in the tri-cities. It was a much-needed vacation that provided a richer bounty than I could have possibly imagined. I just had to share these wonderful moments with you guys because they were that special to me.

Am I truly back? It feels like I never left…

This has been my expression of angst lately. Thanks to a crudded-up computer, I’ve been out of online commission for roughly two weeks, which for me is a very big deal. A stinky little virus kept me from e-mailing, blogging and accessing such programs as Photoshop and my Kodak program used to download pictures off my digital camera. Had it not been for a conveniently-timed dry spell in my art gigs, the loss of these programs alone would have been devastating to my income. Fortunately, Laura knows computers and made it all better at the zero hour, when a gig came my way for which Photoshop was a must have. So long story longer, all was fixed, I’m back on track and bursting at the seams with a new blog to share. So here we go…

Laura just finished up a two-week run in the show CATS at the Bay City Players. I cannot speak highly enough about this production, due to the remarkable quality of the show itself, as well as the wonderful experiences that both Laura and I had during the course of this show. During the multi-month rehearsal schedule, as I’d drop Laura off at the theater, I was brought in sporadically to create scenery artwork. I also spent a lot of time sitting in the back of the theater or backstage getting to know the cast and crew. Towards the end of rehearsals, when it was still up in the air as to how the makeup for the cats themselves would be created, I offered my limited experience in stage makeup application and design. As it turned out, the show ended up using two extremely talented airbrush artists, respectfully known as The Airbrush Cowboy (known to all of us as just Cowboy) and Greg (seen in this photo, Cowboy in the hat and Greg with the beard), to apply the makeup since they’d already airbrushed color on the costumes (Dig the photos of Laura in mid-airbrush mode, mid-makeup mode and the great end result of each).














































































But I was still brought aboard to do more intricate makeup touch-ups after they applied the main blocks of color (such as on Laura's eyes, my best makeup work probably). These photos show Danielle as the cat Cassandra, whose eye makeup I did with the points going off into her temples...

















Andres as Mr. Mistoffalees, whose mouth, whiskers and eyes I created...

















...and Alyssa, whose whiskers I created.

















This proved to be an incredible experience for me, as it allowed for close working environment with the artists, actors and techies, and I made some very good friends in the process.(These are photos of Rayechel as the cat Jemima, and without her makeup at our after-show party)





























During the run of the show, I drew some colored pencil and marker caricatures of Laura and I couple of the actors from the show. These proved popular enough that a couple cast members had me draw them without their makeup when the show was through. These photos show dancers/singers Danielle and April, sans makeup, in the flesh and in the ink.


































































Being even as small a part of this show as I was made me feel incredible, like I haven’t felt since doing Christmas Story last December and in my days in CMU’s theater dept. So I’ve decided that I’m going to audition for my first show in about three years, “Duck Hunter Shoots Angel”, a play by Mitch Albom being produced at The Bay City Players. That place has really grown on me, like a second home, and to do a show there again would be such a thrill, so I’m going to take steps to hopefully make that happen.

I mentioned in my last blog how my Florida friend and puppet builder Michele had commissioned me to create artwork for her Ebay page. As a sort of barter for my services, she built a puppet of my Children’s book character, Pillow Billy. Which turned out just wonderful. Here’s a couple photos showing the result. I intend to use the second pic (and the puppet itself) as publicity for my Pillow Billy children’s book whenever the time comes.



























On the art front, I’ve had a lot of gigs and commissions in the past couple months. My latest have been pretty unique. A woman and her husband from Bullock Creek (just south of Midland) are starting a pet care business called “The Poo Patrol”, and they hired me to design the logo for their business. When they contacted me to do it, my computer was still all ganked up, but right after I drew it all out, Laura brought my system back to life, and I was able to color it in Photoshop. Here’s the end result.

















Another commission came from a client of my birth mom. The lady wanted a caricature of her friend who was turning fifty. She game me a photo for reference and made some suggestions to incorporate into the drawing. I pulled it off pretty quickly, and I’m happy with how it turned out. See for yourself.


















I’ve got a bunch more gigs coming my way in the next month or so, which is always good news. I’m currently in deep negotiations for a project I’d mentioned before. It’s all very hush hush, but I can say that my potential clients chose me above other artists for the project, and we’re currently hashing out a fair pay scheme. Once that’s figured out, I’ll probably begin creating the art. This has the potential to be the biggest project of my career, with good odds of future work and potentially a steady position with the company if this project becomes successful. So crossed fingers, knock on wood and all the hoohah. I need every bit of good luck hokum I can round up.

Next time I post, I’m hoping to have some pages from my recently completed Dead Duck origin story to showcase, if not the entire story (we’ll see if I’m feeling “saucy” enough). There will be other stuff to share as well, and lots more verbal rambling from yours truly. Until then, thanks for hanging in there with me. I appreciate your audience and friendship.

Jay