I feel like every time I post something on here, I have to apologize for not posting in a real long time. I'm pretty active on my other socials so it's hard to juggle so many plates. That being said I'll try to frequent this space more often. I've also just been very busy.
It was announced last Friday, May 24, that Printed in Blood is working with DelRey Books to curate and produce a new art book called Visions From The Upside Down: Stranger Things Artbook.
What is even more exciting is that this massive 240 page hard cover features over 200 artists AND I AM ONE OF THEM! I could not be more excited for this collection which drops on October 15th of 2019!
Take a look at the cover and a sneak piece of the inks on my piece which features my favorite character, Mr. Clarke:
You can pre-order a copy of Visions From The Upside Down: Stranger Things Artbook here!
I know I have been away for a while. I try to stay pretty active on social media, mostly Instagram and Twitter. If you follow me on there, then you know how busy I was working on my latest project, The Murder Balloon. For about 10 months, I was penciling, inking, and coloring over 75 pages. I launched the kickstarter in October of 2018 and during the months of January and February 2019, I was shipping out orders.
In reality this project has been with me since 2011 and after a few well received Inktober Concept books, I was able to finish the thing last year, raise the money to get it funded, and I even had a launch party on the 23rd of this month at Aw Yeah Comics.
I. AM. EXHAUSTED. I am also very happy with how it turned out and extremely proud of the reactions it's getting. So while this isn't a book for kids, I felt it was worth sharing on my book blog as it has become a great milestone in my artistic career/journey. I hope you can check it out at a con or once the online store is up. I'll keep y'all posted.
I attended Free Comic Book Day at Aw Yeah Comics-Skokie on the first Saturday of May. I had a great time drawing along side comic buddies, Art Baltazar and Alejandro Rosado!
Check out some photos and a behind the scenes video I shot on the day! Hope everyone had a wonderful Free Comic Book Day.
Earlier in December, I was invited along with 7 Chicago artists to participate in the first ever DemocraTee. In the simplest terms, the artists come together, make art, and then Threadless sells the art as products on their new DemocraTee artists shop.
The best part is that 100% of the money earned goes to The Simple Good, an organization whose mission is to connect the meaning of "good" from around the world to empower at-risk youth to bring positivity into communities through art and discussion.
For more info on DemocraTee, the 7 Chicago artists, and The Simple Good click the following links below. Don't forget to visit the shop and buy some of that sweet swag:
NOVEMBER 4 - My next show after Grand Rapids was the Mini Comic Conat the Vernon Library in Lincolnshire, IL. This was a smaller show but it had a great turn out of families. Afterward Wesley Sun and I grabbed some coffee and talked about the shows we had during the last few months. NOVEMBER 20 - I received my check from The Upper Deck Company which meant I was finally able to break my silence! I got to work on a special Alien sketch card set for 20th Century Fox, which I started way back in March. I've been posting them periodically on my Instagram.
NOVEMBER 29 - Back in September, I did an interview and photo shoot for the upstart, Urban Matrix Magazine. I had such a wonderful time talking about the creative process and on this day, they compiled all the footage and released a video.
DECEMBER 1 - As the holiday shopping season began, I decided it was a good time to finally open up my Threadless Artist Shop. I had my older brother John, help me design some images that I wanted to put on to t-shirts. If you check out the link, I have 5 designs right now and will be adding some periodically throughout 2018. I'm so excited that I can put Thump on a Tee! Visit art2heart.threadless.com!
DECEMBER 3 - I was invited by Pop Culture Classroom and Barnes And Noble Orland Park for a book signing and appearance. I was joined by fellow creatives: Jim McClain, Sean Dove, Gene Ha, and Zach Lehner. It went from 12pm-4pm and I had a wonderful time. So many shoppers came up to the tables and picked up signed copies of our books as holiday presents. I think the best part of the setup was that they were able to take a book, get it signed, and continue with their shopping experience. I felt like that took off a lot of the pressure on my end when it came time to pitch it to the potential buyers. The group of us also got to take a photo with Elsa so it was a pretty magical afternoon and SO CLOSE to home!
DECEMBER 16 - My very last show of 2017 was Pocket Con. Taking place at the historic Chicago Cultural Center, Pocket Con celebrates diversity in comics. From 12pm-6pm crowds were treated to live music, comics, and games. Pocket Con also featured works from underrepresented groups, such as women, Latinos, LGBTQ, and other minorities. I had a great time and even traded some art with young aspiring artists. Afterwards, our comics group got together for a post-con dinner at the wonderful Elephant And Castle.
OCTOBER 5-8 - This was my first time attending New York Comic Con. It was also my first time visiting this city and I wanted to share this experience with my lovely wife. The convention itself took up a majority of our time there. We only had a few hours on each day to really site see.
The convention was absolutely insane. So many people piled into the Javits Center wanting to experience the fun of comics and pop culture. I did not have a whole lot of time to walk the show floor but that was a good problem to have as the Artist Alley felt like a convention of it's own.
I was table neighbors with the wonderful Sara Richard who was the absolute best. It was great to see her work up close. Truly astounding. Behind me sat the always hilarious Kurt Wood Dot Com, the fastest "drawer" in comics, Scoot McMahon, and the Aw Yeah Comics crew of Art Baltazar and Franco. It felt like being at C2E2 which was great since I missed that show earlier this year.
I was able to shoot some behind-the-scenes while at the show and even snuck in an art drop on the third day.
OCTOBER 20-22 - Towards the end of the month, I did the Grand Rapids Comic Con. I was actually pretty disappointed in the turn out for this show. Coming off of a huge success that was NYCC, I was hoping to ride a momentum into GRCC, which has always been profitable in years prior. One of the best things about GRCC, was visiting with the fan base I've built over the past four years I've attended.
Another truly great thing that I did at the show was film an episode of Art 2 Heart with the insanely talented, Angel Onofre.
OCTOBER 1-31 - Also all-month long, I was doing the daily drawing challenge, INKTOBER. Created by Jake Parker, Inktober is a way to challenge yourself by drawing one ink drawing a day for the entire month as a way to improve your skills and develop positive drawing habits.
My project for this year was to do a follow-up to last year's concept, The Murder Balloon. So I decided to take this year's prompt list and do a drawing of The Murder Balloon killing a character based on the word of the day. I plan on collecting the images into a book for next year's convention season. Here are a few of the images I did:
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