Morloks.

Buggers.  They say if you see one, you have a hundred.  

Brush & Ink; I'm actually quite proud.

Yes, I am Alive.

The one- two of full episodes and the book have made me submerge for a spell, but the goods'll start rising up soon.  Here's a page from the Time Machine before I tweak it with greys and some clean ups.  (Still a bit rickety with brushes and ink!)

THe Time Machine

Hey all, thanks for still dropping by!  It's been a busy year for animation, and the illustration's taken a bit of the ol' backseat!  Things aren't going to change too quickly, but there's some stuff coming down the pipe, starting with this:  The final cover art for the H.G. Wells' anthology that my 40 pg B & W version of the Time Machine is collected in for Graphic Classics.  (With the original sketch for your scrutinizin' comparison.)

      Next up, I'll be a the Vancouver Fan Expo, and Calgary Comic Expo the following weekend, that's the total of my touring this year it seems, I look forward to seeing you there!

CALGARY COMIC EXPO 2013

Dudes, I missed you last year, as I was away hiking the West Highland trail  on this weekend, but am back and looking forward to my favourite con!

It's an interesting year for gigs you can't pas up, though it's cutting my con touring down. This year it looks solely to be Vancouver Fan Expo and Calgary.

That would be all good, but from what I'm hearing, Seattle's going great as I write this, and I actually cancelled my table/flight/hotel on that one.  You can't do everything; I'm getting too mellow and whirly in my old age to let myself get stressed out.

Too the slopes! 

LIT NOIR

Not my favorite image, though it definitely looks cooler with the title on it. 

This is part of a series of classic noir stories for the Kindle market, and they sell for peanuts. Definitely worth a look  here.

In other news, I'll be doing a 40 page B & W adaptation of H.G. Well's "the Time Machine" for the good folks over at Graphic Classics. I'm in that wonderful zone now of rethinking the components and trying to come up with something fresh and cool... Hey, I know! I'll make Jeremy Irons the Uber-Morlock, and make the Eloi smart enough to build cliff hanging dwellings that-- aw, naaahhhh....

BLOODY HELL 2 ON THE WAY...

Believe it or not, I've written a tremendously pithey post about the progress of a concept through it's final execution and how it sometimes gains it's own personality and guides you elsewhere, but lost it twice. This is what you get.

Back to work it seems, there's some interesting projects on the horizon, you'll be the first to know!

Christmas Beatings!

Stupid, stupid Hellfire Club soldiers.

Best to you and yours over the Silly Season!

The Wedding Anniversary

 The wife &and I are back from a month off celebrating our 10th, time to get back into the fray. 

I've just heard that I 'm in the Emerald City Comic Con's Monsters & Dames book again this year, looking forward to seeing you all in Seattle! Above is my own take on one of the Hard Case Crime novels that have been pitting out awesome noir the last couple years. The titles are just hilarious.

Madame Deadline

...You can never cheat her.

Yes, by the way, I've removed comments from the blog. Be it through spammers or what, I don't know, but commenting has become a layrinthian route to frustration that no one seems to bother with anymore. That, and I can't be bothered moving over to tumblr for "likes." Should anyone be interested in a commission piece, you can contact me directly at boardguy1@hotmail.com! 

FREEDOM!!!

Wow, 2 posts in one month, I'm going to fool folks into believing I have a life or something!

Here's a pin up for the the always entertaining Ian Bartolo's book series Brothers, which looks to be coming down the pipe  imminently.

The craziness of an overburdened work schedule loosened with (naturally) the last day of summer. "Course, out here on the northern Pacific coast, winter's kinda the coolest part of the year.

More to come!

Doodle-rific!

SIMPLICITY

A little brush up on the Illustrator; this was a sketch that'd been sitting next to me over my last board, getting a tweak and a revised sketch over the top of it until I completely lost what I'd set out to do. Whatchagonnado? I'm definitely more an impulsive/brainstorm artist than a polisher. I guess that's what years of boarding do.


A man's GOT to know his limitations.

That being said, if you scoot over to the my comics link, you can now have a peek at "Mary Lou," one of my shorts from Bloody Hell.  the reaction on the books' been great, thanks to everyone on the comic con tour for their support.


Things are about to get board crazy around here, but that's what keeps me in the cheezits, after all. 

CONNORSSSsssssssss

AAaaaahhhh summer... So they say, anyway. 

Here comes the new Spidey flick, Andrew Garfield kinda looks like a Romita Parker, or is it just me? The silver runners have me worried, but man, Gwen's perfect and how can you beat the lizard?

Please please please.

A plug for Colin Lorimer; a local (loco?) board guy now juggling comic work with both Dark Horse and Image, for good reason. Have a look, UXB and Harvest are both great.

I did not get paid for this endorsement in any shape or form of a new toaster.

Okay, the Hulk shook it off, I'm not quite sure where this one came from...or if I even like it. We'll see if it lasts.

Racing Under Fire

An effective sketch if nothing else; there's plenty that drives me crazy here, but some amply nifty stuff, too. (I just know I'll never go back to fix the wing perspective, etc. Dammit Jim, I'm a board artist, not Gustav Freakin' Klimt!)

**BLOODY HELL is now up on Drive Thu Comics for the ebook price of 3 bones! That's a buck per each terrifying tale of torment! Hey, if these stories don't make your flesh crawl, your skin's on too tight!**
My apologies for the lack of posts, the boards are flying fast and furious these days and the conventions are on the way. You'll definitely be seeing me at Seattle's Emerald City, Vancouver's own Fan Expo, Kapow! In London, and the Phoenix Comic Con. I'm still not locked in for Lucca in Tuscany, but have every intent on getting out there too.

I didn't do it last year, but think I might start a from the trenches blog of the tour, I'll let you know when I know/commit!

My Poor Wife...

...She gives and gives, but STILL becomes victim of her guy's twisted sense of tribute. Love it or hate it, she made the horror book's cover AND complete with super swingin' zombie funbags, no less!

Calgary won't be seeing the likes of me and the hard copy of it too soon, unfortunately. I'll be in Scotland on the Highland Trail over those dates. As folks know from the love letter below, Calgary's pretty much my favorite show so far, but we just couldn't get the guys together otherwise....Next year, I guess.

A Horror Fueled Summer

That's the inks done on my horror anthology book; a few pages of color, lettering and a cover, and yours truly is all set for the cons which now apparently include Vancouver itself. See you there!

A Nice Quiet Spot

Aaaaaaaahhh, new digs. No more crazy amplified buskers beat-boxin' it, bongo slapping it, American Pie / Stairway to Heaven (Yeah, STILL!) whining it. Come January 1st I'm moving.... allll the way upstairs in the same building, different side. It ain't much, but it'll sure make a difference to my state of mind. One can never escape the bagpipers, I know...

Here's a spread from across the top of pages 2-3 on Mary Lou. Page 1 splash is down below. Way down below. Funnilly enough, I'm just getting to finishing it the exact week, a year to the week the 1st page was done. It's just about there for my horror anthology, though I still haven't got the name together yet. Tummy Worm Tales? Spew-iri-ffick Stories, Buskers in the Fruit Cellar, what?

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Over...

Heeeeeerrrreeeee's the color updated pub image; a nod to a haunt back in Montreal. I notice now that there's a trunk up by the carriage I missed; I should retitle this the Blog of Never finished Hell! *REVISED, thankyouverymuch.*

Again, this was a sketch floating around in my desk that I thought I'd clear my mind with a bit. The Cool Air last page wasn't working for me, so I thought I'd go come back to it after I finish up my horror short Mary Lou (the 1st page is a few posts down) and fartin' around a bit.

COOL AIR

*UPDATED with groovy color. I'm at a loss between the two title fonts. (See following post.)
Wow, tough crowd.

...Okay, okay, uh...sweat, sweat...how 'bout this one?...wipe forehead... here's page 1 of a Lovecraft story for the great folks at Graphic Classics. (Just the inks. ) this, Creature Converets and Mary Lou, and Reflections of a Werewolf'll all be going into a horror compilation. Any Good Name suggestions?

I'll also want some pin ups to put in it, so think old horror books before the code came in if you're interested!

MONSTERS & DAMES

Hey all, and apologies for the long wait. I'm back from my globe-trotting, and am diving right back in; there'll be posts coming fast and furious the next little while as it turns out I came home to some fun stuff to do!

First off is this guy: Anyone who knows my blog here'll recognize the image, I've revisited it for Emerald City's Monsters & Dames book which accompanies the convention at the end of March. It sure feels odd seeing this image in a vertical composition, but it's an opportunity to get in a volume with the greats, last year's was a rockin' collection of talent! *UPDATE* The image has been accepted for the book out of 250+ submissions; the originals are auctioned off for charity. With mine being kinda cyber art, I've made it into the above limited edition poster.

Post By a Thousand Nibbles.

Here's one I 've been putting together wilth 1/2 hours over the last few days, Illustrator's a great puzzle-piece program anyway...and it forces one to organize.

A Proper Braining

Here's a B&W to color comparison from the Rook short, which is back up in My Comic Stuff!

Board to Death

Crazy lack of posts, but I'm in what I knew would be the thick of it. I have some boards from Wolverine & the X-Men to throw up (Urk!), but honestly don't know how (they're PDFs). I haven't put any of my REAL job up here, so I'll get them going while I don't have time for much more than a sketch!

Wollaton Hall

A cool bit of news; Batman 3's shooting at Wollaton Hall in Nottingham, UK.

I can't possibly express what a presence this building has in my life. Notts is my heritage; I spent a lot of my youth there, and lots of time in and around this site, enjoying the huge deer filled park that surrounds it, the caves that run under it, and art classes held within it's Elizabethan walls. Heck, My wedding pictures are in front of the thing! It's a beautiful, looming personality that feels like it's in some way partly mine, or at least we know each other a bit better than most. ( Could be this relationship that makes me love the original the Haunting so much.) I can only assume it'll be the new Wayne Manor. Go figure. I guess it's more his, then. Nice to see the old girl getting some screen time, anyway.

I'm there in 8 weeks as I start a bit of a tour that goes Notts>Helsinki>Moscow>New York. It's a big trip, and I'm just hitting silly season for doniroes, so when the posts (if they happen) get sloppy, do not adjust your set.

Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo

Wow.

I almost sluffed this one off with "I'm too busy," (the usual).

My last con was a disappointment that made me woefully unprepared for this amazing show. Apparently over 5,000 people came through on the preview night in 5 hours, leaving my small amount of stuff pretty scoured. I've jumped right in this year, doing my first show at APE in San Fran, KAPOW! in London UK, BIG WOW in San Jose a bunch of others, and this thing was just astounding. Calgarians, Edmonton... toinians?... tians... ites.... Edmenintights.... Folks from Edmonton.... The amount of costumes, talent, buyers, and flatout spirit sent it WAY over the top. I HIGHLY recommending anyone planning on doing the circuit to join this party. I mean, look at this kid. How awesome is that? Wait, it gets better; that's her parents also in the shot. ( Yes, the mom's Harlequin, wierdos.)

His Brain Is In a FREAKIN' JAR!

God, I enjoyed this short story. I actually caught myself giggling at times. For those of you that got a look at it, thanks for the input, and I'll pass on info of when the book's out when I hear! In the meantime, I'll be at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo this June 17-19, come on by if you're in the area! There's some great guests at this one; I'm looking forward to bending George A. Romereo's ear and getting some shade under Elvira!

Well, back to the BOARDCAVE.

RAIN WANK!

Good timing!

I had a window between my last show and BIG WOW! in San Jose, and managed to get this 8 page short done for the swell folks over at Airship 27. They've got some great old characters they're playing with, including some noir vintage '40s stuff like the Shadow and this guy, the Rook. There's a rockin' sequence coming up here, and an even groovier bad guy.

I've also just committed to a couple exciting series so between comics and cartoons, it looks to be another rockin' summer for yours truly!

Time to scramble together some mattes for my prints, and get ready for the weekend. If you're in the San Jose area, drop by, I'll be in Artist's Alley with our pal Jimmy Ricochet!

SHRIEK!!!

I managed to bit & piece this one together over the last couple days ... I'm just getting rolling into a few episodes of a new gig, and getting ready for KAPOW! Comic Con in London, s0 I don't plum reckon I'll be heard of for a couple weeks...Spoke too soon; I'll be at Heritage Hall THIS weekend-March 20th. I've got some new stuff, bigger prints, and I'm considering drugging the wife and dressing her up like that lizard guy Captain Kirk fought!
* Wow. What other gig do you do for a living that comes with a letter that says THIS in it?:
"Your table is number 112 located in Artist Alley, the island of tables to the left of the Tardis and Darlek."
I'm so pumped I could PLOTZ!

GRAPHIC CLASSICS' GOLD KEY

I was taking a break when Graphic Classics approached me with a short Edgar Allen Poe story "The Oval Portrait." No, I hadn't heard of it either. Cool enough though was it's premise of artistic wanking killing it's subject. You gotta love that; it's been my mantra forever (though I fall prey to the brass polish more than most.)

Anyway, they sent me a couple examples of other books in the series, and it's really great stuff. There's a great eclectic force of styles in the books, suited to the classic titles. Have a look at the website here. Personally, it takes me back to Ivanhoe days with Gold Key Classics.
Great stuff.

Our Girl Friday

Just getting around to putting Jimmy packages together for prospective publishers: here's a pen & ink / color comparison from my bios. This was actually done with a brush, as I just can't ever be happy with sketchbook pro inks.

Something of interest, there's now a photoshop knock-off that you can use for free on your browser. Give it a try, it's pretty great! It doesn't have touch sensitivity, but hell, it's free and available to everyone, everywhere!

Just Another Day Out West...

I don't quite know where this one came from; kind've an amalgamation of a few things, I guess. .

UPDATED THING

There we go. A funny Thing (sorry) happened on the way to finalizing this one, I found leaving the pencils over top helped rough it up a bit, suiting ol' blue eyes' rocks. Cool, no? Apologies for not putting up inks before colour, but honestly, they looked crappy. (And after last week's post, we all know what happens if I'm not happy with something.)

ZOMBIE TERRORS is bringing in some great reviews here & here. You can get your copy at Asylum Press!

More Warm Holiday Wishes....

I expect this'll be my last post before the New Year / Apocalypse, so best wishes to all...and I TOLD YOU SO!

Jimmy Ricochet #1 is now available here as a web comic for the super groovy price of 3 bucks for all you international types I haven't got it out to yet! ( I plan on doing some travelling with the book this year, I'll let you know where and when.) Thanks to everyone for the support, I'm glad it seems to be connecting with folks!
Secondly, as stated in the post below, Zombie Terrors is also out and looking great, you can order it in it's horrific hard copiness at Asylum Press here!
Their next compilation is HillBilly Horrors, to which you're looking at my pen & ink splash page now!

As for next year, may you all have the physical tenacity of Keith Richards, and the luck of...well, YOU, I hope!

West is the New East!

Holy Crap, is it freakin' COLD in Vancouver these days.

Don't get me wrong; this is nothing compared to the minus 30's of la Belle Province, but one gets used to a certain type of winter out here. Apparently, it's the fault of El Nina/Ninia/N-n-nn-NeeaAAGHHH!!! I better get some good skiing out've all this, is all I've got to say!

ZOMBIE ALERT! Asylum Press' anthology "Zombie Terrors" is out now! It's been bumped up to 184 pages of brain sucking goodness, including "Creature Converts," my cat -zombie tale, and STILL priced at the chained-down-in-the-bargain-basement price of $14.95!

Heritage Hall Nov 14

Just a quickie to let any local yokals that might be interested know I've squeezed into this weekend's Heritage Hall ComicConvention. I'll be equipped with prints as well as Jimmy Ricochet #1! (This rockin' review was pointed out to me last week at Giant Fire Breathing Robot .com)


Come on by, just don't feed the monkey!

I Can Get You a Toe, Believe Me.

Just a cut-in/elaboration of the last sketch posted ( I have my last board on the desk, but for the life of me, just can't get rolling...)

Hum dee dee dum dumm... Must concentrate...Stay focused...think of the schedule...

*Meanwhile, inside Craig's Brain:

"What's up, Dude?"

" It's not happening, Walter. I'm diggin' and diggin, but it's not happening. I'm lethargic, man.

"Who's lethargic, Dude?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, DONNIE!"

"Walter! Jesus, man!"

"Fuck it, Dude. Let's Bowl."

Diggin' for Crude...

After a few false starts, I am actually, positively back. I did in fact post a couple times, but was so unhappy with what I put (brought) up, I came back and removed them. Now I find myself with the worst of challenges, the blank page. My book's done & at the printers, (more on that later) the two shows I was juggling are wrapped, and the summer guests have gone. Just me, time, and a fresh slate to come up with something.

Damn.

It's the first of 4 firework nights here in Vancouver, and everybody goes absolutely batshit, a mystery to me. Every other province just sorta shrugs in a "been there done that" way of indifference. Of course, I'm just a grumpy fucker these days...

Zombie Terrors!

The home of my Zombie Cats short story "Creature Converts" is coming out for Hallowe'en...(It's kinda hard to get too excited, I did the thing last May) Interesting cover though, I can't wait to show Mom...
What's that zombie got on his (exposed) mind, anyway? Our lovely heroine doesn't look as worried about the stretched out sinews of flesh she's losing as much as the fact this creep's ripping here favorite dress.
You can see a preview at the Previews site, or right here at Asylum Press.

ALMOST THERE....STAY ON TARGET....

As well as overdoing it like most of us "Post-Recession-Survivors" with the multiple show work juggling, I've also passed a milestone with Jimmy #1. The color's now done; I just need to do the Illustrator characters and cut in the dialogue. It'll be nice to get back into relaxin'....

It's sure been a while since I posted anything. I suppose at this point no one's left out there? (Hopefully I'll be meeting new & old friends at APE in San Fran come October!)

PLANET HULK!

No posts due to being "Board to Death." Hopefully all's well with you, my fellow space travellers. Here's an item of interest: PLANET HULK DTV. I would've loved these Marvel videos in the day. Of course, I might be the only one. Does anyone else remember Timothy Dalton doing a turn as Dr. Strange in what must be a horrible MOW? (Though MY memories are fond...)
Anyway, I did boards on this one, it has it's moments (not necessarily mine) check it out!

Beta Ray Bill

An Ode to Walt Simonson's tenure on Thor...For those that don't know Kenneth Branagh's directing ol' winghead's feature, we're well on our way to an Avengers flick!

Boarding in the Belly of the Beast...