Casper

I just love this cover. Here's to all the unsung color engravers.

Note: This was drawn by the inimitable Warren Kremer, who also probably colored it.

Edit: After some research, it looks like this was actually drawn by Steve Muffatti, awesome Harvey artist and Fleischer animator.

Turtle

I'm a little short of postable drawings lately.

Robert Papp

While looking through the picture books at the library in search of inspiration, I stumbled across illustrator Robert Papp. His paintings are full of life, character and seem to glow with light. What struck me as much as anything about Papp's work is how each page is a finished painting, something uncommon in realistic picture books. Wonderful stuff.

Superman: Secret Identity

One of the best reads I've had in the past few years was Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Buseik and Stuart Immomen. Buseik brilliantly reinvented the Superman / Clark Kent character by jettisoning all the crazy baggage he's accumulated over the past 70 years. The result is a sympathetic, believable Superman, which arguably hasn't been seen since his first appearances. Buseik also demonstrated that Clark Kent is the "real" person in the stories, not Superman.

The story starts out in the "real world" with the rather silly concept of a normal boy named Clark Kent. Young Clark goes through his childhood handling all the Superman jokes in a good-natured way until one night when he discovers he can fly. He keeps his secret, as hard as that might be for a teen-age boy, when he learns the hard way how others want to profit from the knowledge. In this world, Superman becomes the secret identity, not Clark Kent.

Immomen's sketchy, realistic style and mood-setting coloring pick up where the words are unable to travel. In his own way, Immomen's drawings are more convincingly real than the life-like paintings of Alex Ross. Buseik clearly understands the power of using no words in a powerful sequence of visual storytelling by Immomen. This book is simply the perfect melding of writer and artist.

I find these gems at our awesome public library. I just might hit the comic shops more often, but I like to go with my kids. While things are improving, there's just too small a selection for them. And I just can't physically shield them from stuff like Marvel Zombies. So I discover things late, but the library, while not having much in the way of discriminatory tastes in trade paperback comic books, is enough for me.

We did attend the local, semi-annual comics convention this weekend. The kids walked away happy with several Archie, Richie Rich, Casper, Hot Stuff and Donald Duck comics. But what was sad is that they felt like they needed to keep their eyes down a lot, afraid that they'd see some gross or scary comics. I dunno, maybe we'll have to start up a Kids' Comics Convention, like they've done in New York.

Archie Sunday Comic

Comics

Somebody once told me that Mort Walker liked my comic strip.
Somebody else once told me that Sparky Schulz would have liked my comic strip if he had lived to see it.
One time a guy in Texas sent me home-made beef jerky in exchange for signing a newspaper photo copy of my comic strip.
One of my comic strips appears in The Official Nora Roberts Companion.
I'm pretty sure my comic strip set a record by being with a different syndicate each year it was in newspapers.
Somebody once told me it doesn't matter how good you are.
Writing and drawing a comic strip is pretty hard unless you don't care what anybody thinks.
The only thing worse than being a bad cartoonist is being a stupid cartoonist.
My "beans don't have mommas" strip appeared in a PETA newsletter.
One time I drew a whole month's worth of daily strips in a 48-hour period.

Kid waiter or something like that.

Yummy.

Archie Sunday Comic

Picture Book

I'm working on a proposal for a new picture book, entitled Jump!

I'm painting this one digitally in Photoshop on my Motion tablet pc. It has more undos than my watercolor paper.

The model is my 8-year-old daughter.

Archie Sunday Comic

Stretching drawings

These are some drawings for a recent job. Believe it or not, my wife and I were the models. That leg stretch was surprisingly difficult. I could stand to get a little more exercise in.

First time I uploaded them, everybody's skin was purple. Finally realized I forgot to convert from CMYK to RGB before uploading. Weird.

Tumbleweeds

Original art for T.K. Ryan's Tumbleweeds.

Archie Sunday

Sunday Peanuts 1954

Spidey

Drawn in ArtRage 2.

Inks over Jack Kirby... Kinda

A while back, I found a Captain America cover penciled by Jack Kirby on the web. I thought I'd experiment and try inking it digitally, which I don't do. It turned out kinda so-so. When I got done, I tried to find the actual cover to see what it looked like.

Turns out they didn't use this drawing. And more than that, Jim Steranko apparently redrew Cap below the rib cage. Kirby had the left leg outstretched to the left. (I think he must've had a rule that all characters must have their feet at least four feet apart.)

Anyways, so I inked adulterated Kirby. But the cover they actually used was pretty bad and was created by a committee. I guess it's just a reminder that creativity often takes a back seat.

It was still fun to ink, though... except all those dang buildings. I think that's why I didn't go into the comics field.

Pogo by Walt Kelly

Archie Sunday

Kid with a wrench.

I'm having decent luck transferring sketches to watercolor paper using a light table.  (something I haven't done with my thick watercolor paper before.) The key is for me to ignore how bad the traced image looks once you pull it off the light table and begin to make it your own for however long that takes. 

More on this later.

-W.

 

For Charity

I recently created this piece for a silent auction benefiting a kids charity.

Pogo by Walt Kelly

Archie Sunday

Rose is Rose Sunday Strip

This is an actual size (virtually) Rose is Rose Sunday strip by Pat Brady. For me, it's a treat to see the blue pencil lines, details of the ink, and the strip at a size larger than 2" tall like they print the Sunday funnies nowadays. I'm starting to wonder what the point of the Sunday comics is. They're supposed to be BIG!

Bob Montana Original Archie Sundays

Bob Montana is one of my favorite cartoonists. Among Archie artists, it's awful hard to pick a favorite... but when I see Bob Montana's work, it just feels like I'm seeing the way Archie was meant to be. He was Archie's co-creator (which took several decades for Archie Comics to admit, and even then, not until after his death) and did the newspaper strips up through the 1970s.

These are original Montana Sunday strips. The inking is awesome.

Moving Pictures

I love the fluidity of these illustrations.

Arthur Rackham

Richard Sargent

"The 7 Habits of Happy Kids" Event

I will be joining Sean Covey at these presentations.
Sean and I will also be doing presentations for students promoting the new 7 Habits for Happy Kids books that just came out and we'll be doing other presentations and book signings throughout the day on Monday and Tuesday.
I think my role in all of this is to take part in book signings and do some drawing. Sean does all the hard stuff. :-)

I also have a bit of drawings that will be part of a silent auction and a raffle to benefit KidsMatter, a not-for-profit organization, dedicated to building Developmental Assets in youth.

Hopefully, I'll have some photos to share afterwards.

The Lightning Thief

My son has thoroughly enjoyed the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series of middle-grade novels. I picked up the first book, The Lightning Thief, and it was a great read. I'd recommend it to kids and adults alike. Rick Riordan (ryer-den) knows how to write a compelling, fast-moving tale with believable, complex characters... even when they happen to be the likes of Ares, god of war.

Percy Jackson is a troubled 12-year-old with ADHD and dyslexia, who discovers he is a half-blood... his father is one of the deities of ancient Greece. All those mythological creatures are real after all, having moved their residence with the expansion of Western civilization. Something is amiss at Mt. Olympus. The fate of the world is in danger, and it becomes Percy's job to keep the gods from waging World War III.

You can wait for the movie, set for release in February 2010, but I wouldn't. Something always gets lost in motion picture adaptations. Check out the book. And if you get hooked, don't worry... there are four more in the series.

Digital Drawing

This is still unfinished, which means I'm not very happy with it and don't know what else to do to it. Drawn in Photoshop.

New "The 7 Habits of Happy Kids" Series!

The first two books of the new "The 7 Habits of Happy Kids" series hits stores today!


The first two books of the new "The 7 Habits of Happy Kids" series are making their way to store shelves today!

I changed up my style a little bit and illustrated these books in pencil and watercolor.

Written by Sean Covey
Illustrated by Stacy Curtis
Ages 2 - 6
Hardcover, 32 pages
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

You can get them from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

Gnomes and Trolls

John Bauer (1882-1918) was a Swedish painter and illustrator known best for his illustrations of Gnomes and Trolls.

KIRKUS Now Selling Reviews

Kirkus is now offering to write a review of your book for a fee. What do you think about this service?

Has Your Book Been Overlooked?

Do You Need Exposure?

Do You Want to Be Discovered?

• The Kirkus Discoveries program gives independently published authors a chance to obtain an unbiased, professional review of their work, written in the same format as a traditional Kirkus review. This review can be a valuable tool for promoting the book to potential readers, literary agents and major publishing houses.

NOTE: Kirkus Reviews and Kirkus Discoveries are separate book-review services. Kirkus Reviews, an independent book-review journal, does not charge for reviews.

• As with Kirkus Reviews, nonfiction books are reviewed by experienced reviewers who specialize in certain fields; novels and short-story collections are reviewed by experienced fiction reviewers; and children’s and young-adult books are reviewed by children’s librarians and others who are well-versed in children’s literature.

• Though all our reviewers are experienced professionals, not all Discoveries reviews are glowing. Kirkus Discoveries is a caveat emptor service that gives honest, impartial evaluations of the titles we receive. The resulting reviews can be positive, negative or anywhere in between. By upholding Kirkus’ rigorous editorial standards, we ensure that an enthusiastic review is meaningful in the publishing community. Our long-standing editorial policy of anonymous reviews also applies to the Discoveries program.

Kirkus site

Comics Page 1959

Spooner Sans Spooner

I finally got around to getting the Spooner site caught up, and felt compelled to fiddle around with a couple of strips. Inspired by Garfield Minus Garfield:

Spooner Sans Spooner

And an experiment on how to slightly reduce the static element of a comic strip on the web:

(click on the image)

Drawing in Photoshop