Teddy and the Yeti pinup by Danny Cruz!

Take a peek at this awesome new Teddy and the Yeti artwork from Danny Cruz!  Danny's a rising star in the gaming and comic industry, recently working on titles like G.I. Joe for IDW...but c'mon, folks, we all know him better as the guy who sat at the Wagon Wheel Comics booth at the 2010 New York Comic Con, right?  Right?!?  I have photographic evidence of this, Danny.

Danny was nice enough to put this together for T&Y and I'm thrilled to have it.  If you haven't seen more of his work, you can check out his deviantART page here: http://dannycruz4.deviantart.com/.

Visit Ken Hunt at the Wagon Wheel Comics booth this weekend!

The Baltimore Comic-Con is just hours away (and I should really get to bed and not worry about Blogger...BUT I MUST CARRY ON), and here's a last minute announcement for anyone attending: artist Ken Hunt will be at the Wagon Wheel Comics booth (A213) both Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 until 3:00.  If you're in town and at the show, stop by, say hello and get a free quick sketch from Ken - that's practically what I made the Teddy and the Yeti sketch cards for, so get to it!

Check out Ken's great deviantART site here: http://kenhunt.deviantart.com/
Ken tells me that he's going to bring some original art as well as prints of his work, including the great Joker piece you see above.  The Baltimore Comic-Con is here!  It should be fun.

Teddy and the Yeti card by Antonio Crespo

Last year, when I printed out the 18-card set of Teddy and the Yeti trading cards, I made sure to get a greater amount of card #1 so I could hand them out at conventions.  It so happens that I have run out of those extra cards, and rather than get more printed, I decided to do something a little different and print out one new card that will serve as a promotional item for future conventions.

I like this idea for a couple reasons - first...dammit I just like to see new Teddy and the Yeti art.  Second, while the first card of the trading card set certainly has some introductory elements to it, it didn't do much to give people an outlet to learn more about the series.  If someone picked up the card at a convention and didn't look at it until he or she got home afterwards, that person might be stuck without enough reason to check out the series online.  On the back of this new card I'll have information about the book, the trading card set, and perhaps most importantly, where they can go online to find more stuff about the characters.  I think it'll serve me well in the future - starting with the quickly approaching Baltimore Comic-Con.

The very talented Antonio Crespo is responsible for the great new art that will be gracing the card.  I asked him to create an 'iconic' image of the two main characters, as is befitting a promotional item like this, and he didn't fail to impress.  The Yeti is much more beastly than she's been portrayed before, and Ted is sporting some fancy new goggles, but I'm happy with the interpretation and I'm sure it'll make some people look twice at the book.

The card is being printed by Versicolor Productions, the same company that produced the first card set, so I'm confident that the quality will be high when I get these back in a little while.  If you're coming to the Baltimore Comic-Con on August 20th and/or 21st, stop by and grab one of these cards!

Here's a fun fact about Antonio: we both went to Youngstown State University, though he left the place the year before I started.  We had a fun conversation about all of the porno shops and liquor stores in the surrounding area.  Check out his deviantART page here: http://tonytorrid.deviantart.com/!

"Accordion Theory" with "Weird Al" Yankovic

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of "Weird Al" Yankovic.  In addition to being a fantastic talent and the artist most associated with pop culture parody for the last 30 years, he also seems to be a genuinely good-natured, easy going and conscientious human being, which makes him all the more likable.  Since 2009 he's had a rather impressive run of success in a number of fields: he's released albums, directed films, written a best-selling children's book, gone on tour on three continents...it doesn't seem like he ever slows down.  His newest song just debuted and his 13th studio album, "Alpocalypse", is set to be released on June 21st.

A few weeks ago, it was announced that a coffee table book containing "an illustrated history of Al's life an career" was going to be published in late 2012.  The publisher is currently looking for photos and artwork pertaining to Al and his band to include in the book - when I heard this, I knew I had to create something to submit, and the above comic strip is what I came up with.  I realize that the chances of me getting anything - let alone a long-form comic strip - published when the powers that be are probably looking for, say, pictures of Al at the UHF premiere in 1989 are probably pretty slim, but I nevertheless had to give it a shot.

I, hopefully obviously, was going for the look of a Sunday comic strip with this piece, and at least visually I wanted to recreate the feel of some of my favorite comic strips such as Calvin & Hobbes and Robotman (back when it was called Robotman).  Those strips were always unafraid to do something new and creative, and that's what I attempted to accomplish with this.  If nothing else, I realized just how difficult it is to create an entire beginning, middle and end of a story in seven short panels...and comic strip artists have to do more with less six days a week!

The art for this strip is by the extremely talented Bago (check out his deviantART gallery here), who pencilled, inked, colored and lettered the entire thing in a fantastically short amount of time.  He did such a nice job of taking something as incongruous as Weird Al and a bikini model on a space ship in the future and made it seem like no big deal.  I'm grateful for everything he did to make this look as nice as it could.

I'm going to a Weird Al concert in Pittsburgh next week, at which time I hope to get a chance to talk to him for a little while afterwards so I can give him a copy of the above comic strip.  Of course, my goal is to get it printed in the book, but just getting it in front of the man would make me feel pretty good for a lot of reasons.

Judging from his Twitter feed and other outside observations, I'd say that, at the very least, Al has the Google set up to make him aware of when he's mentioned online, so there's a chance that he's reading the strip himself...which would be pretty neat.  In that case, let me state in no unclear terms that I give permission to include this in the soon-to-be-published book.  Heck, I'd go as far as to say that anyone can publish "Accordion Theory" in this original form anywhere they'd like.  Seriously, show it around.

"Accordion theory", by the way, generally refers to the evolution of retail institutions, but it was too good a phrase to pass up for this strip.  I had a lot of fun doing it and I hope that maybe soon Al will see it (and perhaps even like it) too.

convention sketch by Danny Cruz!

Here are things artist Danny Cruz did at the Wagon Wheel Comics booth during the New York Comic Con:
- ate sandwiches
- heard how much I like the Thing
- drew this awesome sketch of the Yeti!

Okay, he did other stuff, too.  I'm just generalizing.  But check out the sketch!  It's pretty cool and I love it.  That's reason enough to post it here.  So I did!

Check out Danny's deviantART page!

artist alley

The New York Comic Con - the show that I've been staying up late to get ready for every day this week - begins tomorrow, and it promises to be a really fun time.  If I make it out alive with all my wits, I think I'll call it a win...not that I don't have higher hopes about getting Teddy and the Yeti in front of a broader audience if I can.

Duane Redhead, superstar artist on Teddy and the Yeti, will unfortunately not be able to make it to this show (booooo!) - it's on another continent for him, so go easy on the fella.  But take heart!  Today I managed to get in touch with the supremely talented Danny Cruz (his Conan-esque art is above), and I'm happy to say that Danny will be on hand at the Wagon Wheel Comics booth this weekend.  Danny has a broad, epic feel to his work, and I look forward to getting to sit down and chatting with him over the next few days - and I'll be sure to twist his arm a little and try to get him to contribute to my Thing sketch book (which is approaching legendary status).

If anyone reading this blog is making his or her way to the show this weekend, stop by the booth and say hello!  Pick up a copy of Teddy and the Yeti and get a quick sketch from Danny.  There will be snacks.  Oh, there will be snacks.

Check out more of Danny's artwork at his deviantART page!

Q&A with Paul Little, part 2

Here's the second part of my interview with creator Paul Little, Teddy and the Yeti colorist (he also does other stuff as well, I imagine).  In this edition, Paul mentions that he is a secular humanist, and the only thing I can think of is a scene from Seinfeld where George talks about "the human fund!"  Is it anything like that, Paul?  Probably.  Also, I ask Paul, a native of Niagara Falls, about the television show Wonderfalls, which people should totally pick up.  Anyway, back to the interview - if you want to read part one, click here!

JM: Who are some of the colorists you admire - historical and contemporary?

PL: I'm certainly not alone in this, but I think Dave Stewart is the alpha and omega of comic book colorists.  The guy creates some of the most beautiful color schemes I've ever laid eyes on, and he approaches each project with a sense of innovation, know-how and sheer gusto that most of us can only dream of one day possessing.  I love Marte Gracia, who's doing a bunch of Marvel books at present, and who has one of the most vibrant and distinctive approaches to coloring that I've ever seen.  The shapes this guy finds hiding in his artists' lines are as unexpected as they are wonderful.  I like Matthew Wilson for making it look simple and easy especially when it isn't, Christina Strain for making me wonder how anybody could create such intricate detail on such a tight deadline, Moebius for his harmony, Matt Hollingsworth for having colored a single panel in Neil Gaiman's It's Only the End of the World Again that made me realize I had to at least try coloring comics instead of just writing and drawing them in my spare time, and Laura Martin for basically showing everybody how it should be done.

JM: What else are you working on right now?

PL: It might actually be faster to mention the books I'm not working on! (laughs)  This summer you can see my colors over Joe Eisma's lines in "Notorious," a back-up feature running in the Image Comics miniseries "Dynamo 5: Sins of the Father."

I had the pleasure of being asked to color a few stories in "Fractured Fables," an oversized hardcover for all ages curated by Jim Valentino that comes out in July from his Silverline books imprint.  Jimmie Robinson's always outrageous "Bomb Queen" returns to Shadowline/Image after a yearlong break this November, and I'm really proud of the work I'm doing on that new mini.  I'm halfway through the third issue as of this writing, so fans can rest assured that this bad boy will ship on time!  Jimmie's back in the saddle again and he aims to stay here.

I just finished coloring a Shrek story for Ape Entertainment, and I'm also inking and coloring the four-issue miniseries "Pocket God" for them at the moment.  It's based on the popular iPhone app and will be out this summer.  For Blackline Comics, I'm doing the forthcoming OGN "Assassin and Son", created by WWE wrestler Shad Gaspard, with some truly amazing art from newcomer Randy Valiente.  There's a lot more in the wings, but I've been sworn to secrecy for now!

JM: I'm currently watching the show "Wonderfalls" on DVD.  It takes place on the American side of Niagara Falls, and it makes the whole town seem like a bustling tourist trap.

PL: Oh geez, I remember that show, short-lived though it was!  Thronging tourism is certainly the name of the game in this town - the government of Ontario owns the parkland surrounding the Falls, and directly adgacent to it are several square blocks of hotels, casinos, restaurants, bars, attractions and the like.  Once you get away from all that, though, we're pretty much the same as every other Scranton-sized burg in North America.  There's no bustle to speak of outside the tourist district, apart from some spillover into a few arterial roads that service that part of town, since tourists need gas and groceries too, I guess (laughs).

JM: How is it living near one of the Natural Wonders of the World?  And how many times have you taken a ride on the Maid of the Mist?

PL: It's easy to lost sight of the majesty of the Falls itself when you've lived here your whole life, so I tend to stray a bit off the beaten path and enjoy the city's lesser-known geographical and historical sites of interest, of which there is a staggering amount.

The Niagara Gorge is a beautiful place to hike and picnic, Queenston Heights is alive with history, and even from my little apartment downtown I'm only a city block away from the historic Drummond Hill Cemetery, which occupies the site of the bloodiest battle of the War of 1812.

Along with much of the rest of the Niagara Region, it's supposedly one of the most haunted sites in the world, if you're into that sort of thing!  Alas, I'm a secular humanist who doesn't believe in the supernatural (THE HUMAN FUND! - JM), so it's kind of lost on me.  This is a pretty interesting town with a sometimes frustrating but never boring dual identity.  Oh, and as for the Maid of the Mist, that tired old girl's got nothin' on the Whirlpool jet boats! (http://www.whirlpooljets.com/)

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My thanks to Paul for taking the time.  Look for more of his work on Teddy and the Yeti soon!  Once again, check out his deviantART page at http://zepsloan.deviantart.com.

Colors! Links! Progress! Exclamation points!!

As I've mentioned before, the third issue of Teddy and the Yeti will feature three different, self-contained stories (the cover serves as a fourth story, as well).  While it's sometimes true that too many cooks spoil the broth, there will be three colorists involved with this issue, and I've just landed number three.

I do this for two reasons - first, it gives Karin, busy in her own right, a reduced workload and more time to spend on the first two issues.  Second, it allows for a little bit in the way of different artistic interpretations of our characters, which I think can only be a good thing.  I mean, Duane is still providing all the artwork and I'm writing all the stories, so it's not like there's THAT much in the way of deviation, but hey, it's a compromise.

Our third and final colorist for this issue's T&Y stories is Omi Remalante, Jr., who hails all the way from the Philippines, thus increasing our impressive global feel (I think we've covered four continents so far...crazy!) and bringing, I hope you'll agree, some great talent to the book.  Above is a sample of his work over the pencils and inks of Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines.  Where have I heard of those two guys before...?

You can also check out more of Omi's colors at http://www.spidey0318.deviantart.com.  As always, it's great to see more progress as we push toward our big release date.