HEATWAVE!

For those of you in SoCal, you'll recall the massive heatwave we had a couple weeks ago...I have had some killer deadlines as of late and no airconditioning at my place or my studio, which meant strapping on the head and wristbands, stripping down my clothes and MacGyvering a fan to, well...you can see.


Which was okay until the power went out.

FRADON IS A GREAT ONE!

While I'm waiting to see if it's cool for me to post some more freelance I've been doing; I thought I'd share a few glorious items I recently came across on the web. Please behold the masterful, 1970's Plastic Man work by Ramona Fradon. Next to Jack Cole; she was really the only other artist that I felt really had a grip on the slippery Eel O'Brian (Plas' real name, for those uneducated!). She and these pages (in their printed, published form) were actually my first exposure to our pliable paladin way back when. Ramona's work was equally influencial to me as Jack Coles--and as instrumental in the developement of our Warner Bros. PLASTIC MAN pilot that never aired (PLEASE bug Cartoon Network about it!) Stephen DeStefano even snuck "FRADON PARK" into our Plas storyoard (let's see if I can dig that BG up and post it!). Consequently, I feel Stephen DeStefano also has the mastery of skill, line and dark humor to handle Plas--and the ONLY one (myself included as being NOT included--(over me hands down)), qualified to do so, in my opinion, in today's day. Man, I wish I could share with everyone his beautiful, beautiful storyboards...in the meantime, enjoy Ramonas...

DC COMICS/CARTOON NETWORK BLOCKPARTY COMIC

This was a fun gig. I have done character design on a few MY GYM PARTNER IS A MONKEY episodes before; so this was a really sweet dessert, so to speak. As some may recall, I had done a "FLINTSTONES AND JETSONS" over 10 years ago, I think--and was slated to do a bunch of others, before those books collapsed. However; I actually was still in DC Comic's Freelancer's database, and so was my old page rate...which they were marginally able to increase this many years later! hahaha Oh, but it was so much fun; albeit having to work with such a DENSE story. They really like to cram a lot of story into 8 pages. Ughh. I definately have room to improve (it's a different working style than mine and Joe's on CHARLATAN BALL: Joe sends me loose OUTLINES compared to SCRIPTS), it was a tough format to say the least and had to shed a lot of cobwebs. Eek, look at some of that staging...or non-staging, as it were. Many thanks to Haven Alexander, plus the creators, Tim and Julie over there on Gym Partner for recommending me, along with Nancy and Raynard for providing referance! And thank you Joan!

In hindsight; I wish I would've put cargo pants on the rat.

LET THE SUN "SHEEN"...

This past month has been an incredible and incredibly busy one; I've been fortunate enought to work on all sorts of different types of shows, in varying degrees of production. It's always fun for me to come on board in the developement stage of a project. True, sometimes it's easier when there is already a set "style" already established and all you have to do is fill in the blanks, so to speak--but it's also fun to birth something brand new. I suppose it's the equivelant to "throwing shit at a wall". Here was the culmination of 50 or so drawing preceeding these, for a spinoff pilot on Nickelodeon. It's going to be in 3D and I enjoyed the fact that it allowed me to branch away slightly from what's my "comfort" style of drawing, designing and thinking. God only knows if they will use ANY of these.



This one above is my favorite: he IS his own throne!

A CELESTIAL-SIZED HOMAGE

Hey again; thought I'd post some drawings and ideas still in their infancy. This is for CHARLATAN BALL #4, where "The Gang of Four Gods" arrive and wreak havok "on all those who gaze upon them". The idea is that they are like JACK KIRBY'S Celestials from The Eternals. I wanted to add some of my own flair to it and wrestled with so many different variations--but sometimes Jack is just right. This is more or less what I landed on.

UNDER THE BIG TOP

My apologies to any of you that are sick of seeing my "fine art" up on this site. I've found it much easier assemble specific pieces needed to direct people to, rather than hope they are able to sift thru my other websites.

That being said; for the two or so that care, these are various paintings spanning three or so years, save the 1st image, which was done recently as a birthday present for my friend and patron, the beautiful Melora Hardin (Jan on THE OFFICE), her website info (here). She actually owns the one below it as well.

Those who know me also know my fascination with the circus and circus themes is generally constant, as I've bored and recounted endless times of my exposure to the life while traveling the world and under various big tops with The Rudy Coby Show, that many years ago.






Continuing this recent thematic motif of NAME DROPPING; the above piece was purchaced by another friend and patron, TV's Wallace Langham (CSI, Larry Sanders, etc.). Also notice the same idea I used in the first piece, with the "near miss" swinging pair of hands below it. I originally planned that as well in the 2nd piece--but threw out that thought at the last minute.



This piece looks wet...because it was! I submitted this into a group show a few years back--but couldn't decide on the background color...apparently gobs of yellow oil paint at the last minute isn't the most practical decision, but a lady (no name to drop, sorry) bought it nonetheless. She wanted to take it with her that night and had to be instructed to delicately handle the wet paint while in transport. I felt bad when I saw she got a little bit of it on her fingers.

LATE FOR THE BALL II

LATE FOR THE BALL

While I'm hard away at designing characters and roughing out issue #4; Joe (Casey) feels comfortable about Image putting this out by March! In the meantime, here are some miscelanious panels from #3.