Pencil Factory Exhibition in London

The fine folks of Durch Uncle, an illustration agency with offices in London, New York and Tokyo, curated an exhibition of past and present members of The Pencil Factory studios, at the Pan Macmillan Artspace.

The photos of the space and show look amazing and I'm very glad to be part of it with so many talented individuals. Above is a photo of the image I submitted.

You can see most of the framed pieces on their website, and they also prepared a neat press release. Thanks again to Dutch Uncle and Leandro Castelao of making the contact!

Last-But-Not-Least LOLA And The Wild Chicken

The second book of the chapter book series Last-But-Not-Least LOLA, written by Christine Pakkala and published by Boyd Mills, is going to print soon! Amazon has already the listing here.

I've created close to a hundred illustrations for this book and just received the advance reader copy. It's so cool to see it come together. The ARC doesn't have all my illus in it, but it gives a nice preview of things to come and has the entire text, of course.

In this installment, a new girl joins the class which changes the dynamics between the main characters, and the big final is at a farm where they get chased by a big rooster and other animals.

Below are some of my favorites. Many thanks to Christine for her lovely story, and to Rebecca Davis and Robbin Gourley for working with me. Last-But-Not-Least Lola and the Wild Chicken is out this fall!

Cover for 11 Freunde magazine

 A very exciting project I've worked on is no published and I can talk about it: I did the cover for the 150th issue of the German soccer magazine 11 Freunde. The cover story is about the current "super-coaches" in European soccer, and they were inspired by my BEHOLDER comics to draw them in an old-school Marvel way as comic heroes. I also did a few interior illustrations of more coaches.

After some sketching we actually ended up using a direct reference of a picture in Journey Into Misery 5, just replacing my "Mighty Protectors" with the aforementioned super-coaches. The final is printed with two spot-colors which will make the art-work pop nicely, and is also similar to the 2-3 color designs I create for my own comics covers. I can't wait to see it in person!

Thanks so much to Sabine Kornbrust and the entire editorial team of 11 Freunde for a dream project! Get your copy now!

Carlo Ancelotti and Diego Pablo Simeone for the interiors.

The original page from Journey Into Misery 5 that the cover was inspired by.

New York Times Sunday Business: A Friday Night Of Bartending, Without The Lights

 I had a new piece in the New York Times Sunday Business Section, a gripping text written by Nicole C. Kear about her experience bartending at the Village Idiot in NYC while partially blind.

I sent in quite a few sketches and this one made the cut. Right from the beginning I pictured the fuzzy vision / tunnel vision visualized with a water color separation.

After getting the piece approved, I tightened up the drawing with pencil, before going into the final with pen / brush and ink. The watercoloring was separate, and all was assembled on the computer.

Art director on the piece was Minh Uong, who's been a supporter of my work for many years now! Thanks Minh!

MoCCA Fest 2014 Report

MoCCA Fest 2014 was a great one, almost twice as many people came this year, and the Society of Illustrators went all out to make this the best show in a long time!

Just entering the space and seeing the enormous Charlie Brown balloon, on loan from Macy's, you could feel something was different this year.

Saturday was packed, and even Sunday was still very well visited. So many old friends and colleagues came by, and new friends were made. This festival is definitely a big social event for me, as I can catch up with people I haven't seen in a while, or meet others in person for the first time.

The admission was a lot cheaper this year, which probably made a good difference, but I think it's also due to the Society's promotional efforts, in getting the word out. I talked to plenty visitors that were there for the very first time, which is a great sign.

Sales-wise, I made about the same amount as last year (which was the Society's first time of running it). I sold less prints, but many more mini-comics, (which evens it out that way) and all in all I sold more individual items than I have ever sold at a MoCCA Fest.

One of my favorite innovations was the terrific after-hour on Saturday, hosted at the actual Society of Illustrators, where they fed us with delicious food, treated us to complimentary drinks and gave out awards to the best self-published comics. It was great to mingle and chat with the other creators and an overall fine and classy event. We really felt taken care of.

So thanks again to the Society of Illustrators and all the volunteers, all the attendees for making this a success, to all who visited and said Hi, to Dingding Hu for helping me set up, and to Scott C. for being my MoCCA buddy!

See you next year!

MoCCA Fest 2014

MoCCA Fest 2014 is almost here, and I'll have a table again as well as many other artists that will be selling comics, prints and other awesome things. Now that the Society of Illustrators is running it, the fest has been revitalized with fresh energy and is definitely a lot of fun.

I'll have a new maxi-comic out, Tales To Behold 5, continuing my gonzo superheroes series, this time with a 2-color risograph cover!

Also for the first time, my image "Cellphone Girl" will be available as print. Of course I'll also have some of my other prints, my children's books and the graphic novel PEANUT with me, so there will be plenty to choose from! Hope to see you there!

April 5th & 6th, 2014

11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Table C32

The 69th Regiment Armory

68 Lexington Avenue

between E. 25th & E. 26th Street

New York, NY 10010

Admission to the 2014 MoCCA Arts Festival is $5 per day. 

Tickets are available at the door. 

Tales To Behold Book 5 Is Here!

MoCCA Fest 2014 is almost here, and so is Tales To Behold 5!

For those of you unfamiliar with my gonzo-superheroes series, this continues the mis-adventures of the very odd super-team that includes a living skeleton, a griffin, and an immortal knight.

Our heroes are recovering from the earth-shattering developments that happened in Tales To Behold 4 and Journey Into Misery 5. But they don’t have much time for a breather, as their precious off-time gets rudely interrupted by some drug dealers with strange powers. And upon their return to the Big Apple, they get attacked by – their own shadows!

5.25″ x 8.25″, 40 pages. $6
2-color Risograph wraparound cover with b&w interior on cream paper

Debuting at MoCCA Fest this weekend, and some of the great comic stores in NYC such as Desert Island, Forbidden Planet, Bergen Street Comics and Mysterious Island will have it soon after.

Or pre-order it right away online from BirdCageBottom Books!

 

WWUSA Washington for Highlights for Children

I received copies of my latest book for Highlights for Children: It's my fifth book from the Which Way USA series– Washington State.

This series travels virtually through the United States, solving puzzles along the way. For this series I had to learn how to do Hidden Pictures, mazes, What's Wrong© pictures and other visual puzzles that can make your head spin as an illustrator.
WWUSA works like a book club, you can order them directly from Highlights.

Thanks to Highlights and my art director, Michele Weisman for the great continuing collaboration!