Thing sketchbook, part 22 (plus some new Thing toys!)

It's Leap Day! It's the Thing sketchbook! Here are five more entries!

Christine Larsen - 2017

Christine Larsen is a criminally underrated artist; she's one of my favorites and I grab some artwork from her whenever I can. This sketch is officially the last one where I was willing to mail the book to the artist, but hey, it was good while it lasted. Check out this full-color Thing bust! Yippee!

Luke McGarry - Comic-Con International 2017

In 2017, I took the sketchbook to Comic-Con in San Diego for the first time, and I have to say, I managed to get some great artwork on this trip. On Preview Night, I found Luke McGarry, who was selling a poster for a music festival that he drew. Included on the poster was Weird Al, so I grabbed that and managed to get a Seussian Thing sketch as well. Here's a look at the poster, too!

You can see Al in the top right corner!

Billy Tucci - Comic-Con International 2017

The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, the industry standard for price guides, releases an update every year, and like many comics, they now come with different cover art for different versions. 2017's oversized edition came with a Tick cover by Billy Tucci. Naturally, I grabbed one at the show. Tucci was offering up quick sketches with every price guide purchase (his booth was near the New England Comics booth, too), so I managed to talk him into drawing the Thing in my sketchbook.

Heck, let's look at the price guide, too!

Lots of Easter Eggs in this cover.

Douglas Paszkiewicz - Comic-Con International 2017

Douglas Paszkiewicz is probably best known for his Arsenic Lullaby comic, but I became familiar with him after her drew and issue of The Tick that came out in the fall of 2017. I got a chance to meet Douglas at Comic-Con and, of course, I had my trusty Thing sketchbook with me at the time. I really love this one.

Travis Sengaus - Comic-Con International 2017

Last up is a sketch I never thought I'd get. I've known Travis Sengaus for a while and we've worked together on a few projects, but I had never met him until we bumped into each other at Comic-Con. He wasn't at any booth or table, but he still found some time to hide away for a few minutes and draw this great cigar-chompin' Thing. 

One more item for today! With Disney's recent acquisition of Fox's media properties, Marvel is back to admitting that they own and publish the Fantastic Four, and that means that there has been quite a bit of FF merchandise on the shelves lately. My friend (and yours) Larry found these giant Funko Pop! Thing toys at Target and picked up two for me. There's also a new Fantastic Four Marvel Legends series out there, including this really impressive Thing figure. Both are now mine, and I'm happy to have 'em!

Let's look at some Tick original art!

I've managed to get a few pages of Tick original art this year, so the time has finally come to post some images. 

First up is an inked page from The Tick Local Comic Shop Day 2016 Special #1, which came out last November. Jeff McComsey helped ink the first few pages of the book, and I grabbed the first one from him.

This might be my favorite panel from any of the Tick stories I've worked on.

Jeff inked over a blue line printout of Duane Redhead's pencils. I think they look really good together.

The next page is, I think, pretty impressive - it's from the second issue of Tick: Karma Tornado, the Tick's second series.

This page was written by Jackson Publick of Venture Bros. fame, and it features a whole lotta characters. It was pencilled by Bill Neville and inked by Dave Garcia. I was surprised to see that the word balloons weren't hand lettered, as the previous series had been.

The first post-Edlund story had The Tick being whisked away to participate in some intergalactic games with other Earth luminaries.

These included, naturally, a tyrannosaurus rex.

Next up is a page from the new Tick series, with art by Douglas Paszkiewicz! I met Douglas this year at Comic-Con in San Diego, and I was lucky enough to purchase my favorite page from the new series.

The Tick and Arthur are on this page a total of six times each! A Tick for every season!

The page is slightly smaller than a regular comic art board. And I enjoy the ink around the border, too! Douglas obviously spent a lot of time with this page.

Next are two pages from Bob Polio, long-time art director on The Tick. Bob drew a two-page backup story for the 2017 Comic-Con Special, and I was able to talk him out of both pages.

Bob created these characters, "The Tick and Artie", a while ago. This is the first story of theirs in quite some time.

Bob also painted this lovely piece for me, featuring the whole Tick and Artie cast. It really came out well.

Lastly, I grabbed this page from Ian Chase Nichols at the end of the show. This is one of my favorite Tick pages from any story I've drawn. It appeared in the 2016 Free Comic Book Day Special.

This is the first page of a three-page story, "Tick, P.I.". For anyone taking notes, this is the first appearance of about a dozen characters.

I have a special place in my heart for See-Through Tick.

This poster doesn't really fit into the original art category, but what the heck - I'm posting a picture of it anyway. This is the poster I got at the Tick cast signing right before the panel at Comic-Con. Everyone signed it! How neat!

A lot of people at the show were asking about buying some original Ben Edlund Tick pages. Get in line, folks. Maybe one day.