"Weird Al" Yankovic Strings Attached Gilford, NH poster - and an update on the Pittsburgh tour date

In June, I posted some images of the first poster I worked on for "Weird Al" Yankovic's Strings Attached tour, July 7th's Pittsburgh stop. I actually worked on three different posters, the second of which was the July 18th show in Gilford, New Hampshire. For this one, I worked with my pal and frequent collaborator Duane Redhead, artist on The Tick and Teddy and the Yeti. You can see the final image above; let's take some time and look at how it was put together.

"Nature Trail to Hell" is a Weird Al deep cut, but it's also one of my favorites (though I suppose you could say that a lot of Al's songs are my favorites). When I was contacted about doing these posters, I specifically suggested Nature Trail, so I'm pretty thrilled that I was actually able to do it. The song itself is a throwback to both old scary songs and scary movies, so I knew that I wanted the tour poster to reflect that. One really fun aspect of making the poster was just getting to go through images from old 1950s-era sci-fi and horror movie posters. I took some inspiration from a lot of different images, but the above and below images provided some obvious impressions.

The triptych image at the bottom of this one was something I had to try and duplicate, if nothing else than so I could cram more art into an already crowded poster.

I also loved the title cards at the bottom of this one, and I was happy that I could duplicate the "See" font pretty easily in the new poster - and it reflected lyrics from the song, too!

After I had a basic idea down, I contacted Duane about doing some of the heavy lifting, and thankfully, he was up for it.

Duane produced some of the most detailed art of his career, I think, for this poster. He drew a number of the elements on separate pieces of paper, scanned them, and then put them all together digitally.

The three images at the bottom of the poster could easily have been afterthoughts, but Duane put a lot of work into these, based on some pretty obscure references that he and I thought would add something to the poster.

There's a backwards message in the song that says "Satan eats Cheez Whiz", which I think is one of the greatest sentences in human history, so I knew that I wanted to see that somewhere in the poster.

This reference isn't from the song itself, but since it includes both Al and monsters, I thought it'd be appropriate to reference. It's Al as the Cabbage Man from the TV show "Amazing Stories". Duane later added glasses to complete the look.

Jason (later with a tennis racket) was Duane's idea, as he thought the juxtaposition would be funny.

Here's a look at some of the pencils...

...and some early color work.

The jar of Cheez Whiz that Satan is pouring from is taken from a 1950's era glass jar.

This poster was probably the most detailed of any that I worked on, just because it had so many elements coming together in a pretty busy image - but one that I hope evokes the impression of an old drive-in scary movie poster. It also involved the most work on my end, with the title fonts and the credits and just trying to fit everything in in an appropriate manner. I got some good feedback from both Al's team and regular folks who saw it when Al posted the image on Instagram. I hope you all like it, too!

While we're here, let's look at some pictures from the July 7th Pittsburgh show, which I attended!

As mentioned, this is the poster I worked on with Jeff McComsey for that show.

I also took the label I created and made some actual soup cans. I gave these to Al, some band members, and a few fans and tour workers. I also left one outside and posted a picture of it online as an impromptu scavenger hunt...

...and someone actually went and found it!!

One of the more surreal moments of the night was when I actually got to meet Donald Warhola, who is Andy Warhol's nephew and one of the curators of the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Life is strange sometimes.

The show itself was, of course, wonderful. I'll never get tired of seeing Al in concert.

Al played "You Don't Love Me Anymore", after which he smashed his guitar on stage. What happens to those broken guitars after every show??

Sometimes I end up with them, I guess. Also, there's my cat.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise, but I really like Al and his shows. So it was a pretty big deal for me to get to play a small part in these three tour dates. I've got one last poster to show off, which I'll do soon. It was already announced so maybe you've seen it! I'll write again about that one soon.

Pictures from the 2019 Comic-Con International, part 1 (Tuesday, 7/16)

COMIC-CON IS OVER! THERE ARE PICTURES TO SEE! IT'S STILL JULY! LET'S LOOK AT THE PICTURES!

Well, here we are once again. How long will it take me to finish posting this year's set of Comic-Con pictures? If history is any judge, quite a while. But who can say for sure? Let's start out and see where it gets us.

Comic-Con 2019 was once again a complete and wonderful thrill for me to attend. This year, the convention celebrated its 50th year, and I dare say that it's currently in its prime. I flew into Los Angeles the Monday prior to the show and eased my way into convention mode. I stopped at Manhattan Beach on Monday evening; I needed a jacket; the beach volleyball courts were closed. But I carried on.

The Happy Diner in nearby San Pedro is a wonderful restaurant that I discovered last year; it didn't disappoint in 2019. There's even some cool murals in the surrounding area.

There's even one of Popeye's dad, Pappy!

On Tuesday, I made my way down to San Diego. But first I stopped here. If anyone ever wants to question my fandom, please consider this picture of "Weird Al" Yankovic's childhood home in Lynwood. No, I did not knock on the door, nor did I take a lemon from the tree. But I was there, dammit.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's see downtown San Diego the day before the big show. It surprises me how signs and attractions are being worked on until the last moment. This new Star Trek: Picard banner was draped over the Gaslamp Hilton, right across the tracks from the convention center.

The first thing I did after entering the building was, of course, take the escalator to the Sails Pavilion to get my bag and program.

There was a new rule that had just come down from the mountain as I was entering the main hall: no open-toed shoes were allowed. I was wearing sandals, and the event staff was emphatic. So I might have borrowed a pair of shoes from someone who was already inside just so I could walk in the doors. You do what you have to do to make it in,

The small press section was waiting, the same as always.

Once again, I shared a booth with my friend and collaborator, Jennie Wood. We got everything set up and ready for Wednesday so that there wouldn't be any rush beforehand.

And then it was time to check out the day-before attractions. I was very excited to see the Star Trek: Picard offsite. I peeked in the window for sure.

The Gaslamp was coming together quickly as I walked through. "The Good Place" had a themed restaurant with pancakes!

The signature banners were back for another year. Even though Avengers: Endgame had come and gone by this point, Marvel still used that for the banner images. I was okay with that.

Hey, look, it's a promo for The Boys, the new Amazon show that effectively replaces The Tick. It's not like I'm bitter about that. Okay, I'm bitter about it.

Some last minute preparations leading up to the show.

Everyone who gets a badge on the days before the convention begins wears it around like a medal of honor. I certainly do.

That Star Trek: Discovery banner is almost done!

This is also about the time that I met up with Tick artist Ian Nichols. Hi, everyone! It's almost time for Comic-Con!

Come see me at Comic-Con 50!

I'm getting ready (at the last minute) for this year's 50th Comic-Con International in San Diego! As in the last few years, you can find me at a few different locations at this year's show, with a few new exclusives.

Did you know that the Black Terror: Social Insecurity books are finished? And that I'll have them with me?? Well, both of those things are true. I'm sharing a booth once again with Jennie Wood in the small press section, at booth M06.

I also wrote a new issue of The Tick, and it's a Comic-Con exclusive! I'll be stopping by the New England Comics booth (#1807) to sign copies at different points over the duration of the convention. Similar to last year, this book comes from a Ben Edlund plot, and is drawn by Ian Nichols, who will also be at the show.

There are two covers to the issue, including this blank sketch cover!

Also, Ian drew this cover to IDW's new Usagi Yojimbo series! How neat!

If you're at the show, stop by and say hello. I'm looking forward to kicking off Comic-Con in...a few days?? Okay, back to packing.

Fantastic Four original art - FF #7 inks from John Lucas!

Just a few months ago, I purchased a page of original Aaron Kuder art from Fantastic Four #5, the wedding issue for the Thing and Alicia. Since I had just picked that up, I wasn't really in the market for another page of FF art from the same run, but then a few popped up for a really good price, and what can I say? It was a great deal and I went for it.

The following pages are from Fantastic Four #7 and are not actually by Kuder - John Lucas helped out with some inks in this issue, and these are his inks over the Kuder's blue lines. That is to say, Kuder's penciled pages are still out there. This actually made it more attractive for me, as I had just bought some of Kuder's work, so now I have something a little different.

I got a total of four pages, each in various stages of development. Let's take a look!

This is the only fully inked page in the lot. You can see Lucas's signature at the bottom of the page.

This one has a great shot of the Human Torch going nova in front of Galactus. I finally have some Galactus art! Thank goodness.

And here's how the page was printed in the comic.

The next page, and the subsequent ones, too, were all partially inked. I don't know if Kuder inked the other parts on his own, or if Lucas did the whole page in different stages, but what's not inked is printed blue line. Here we have the middle three panels of the page, where Reed tries to fool Galactus into thinking that he has the Ultimate Nullifier once again.

And here's the page in its completed form!

The next page has inks on the top two panels, with some really nice shots of Reed and Galactus, with Sue and Ben at the bottom.

Here's the page as it was printed.

Lastly, here's a page that has an un-inked Galactus crashing into some Latverian mountains.

This page also has the best shots of the Thing, and we also see Johnny, Sue and Dr. Doom, too. So this page has the full team and Doom! That's great!

Here's what the final page looked like in the comic.

This is actually not the first artwork from John Lucas that I've got in the collection. A full fifteen years ago (!) I got a sketch of Ben Grimm in my much-ballyhooed Thing sketchbook. The above image is from Wizard World Philadelphia way back in 2004. Nice to see John still at it!

"Weird Al" Yankovic Strings Attached Tour Pittsburgh poster - some process pieces

Here's some fun and interesting (funteresting?) news: I worked on a poster for "Weird Al" Yankovic's current "Strings Attached" Tour! It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Al's, so it has been quite exciting for me to work on an official poster for the legendary artist. Since the poster has been formally announced, I thought I'd show a few process pieces and give a little commentary of how we got to the final image.

The short version of how I got involved with this project is that one of Al's tour managers contacted me and we talked about a few different ideas. Since Pittsburgh is my hometown, I asked to take on the poster for the July 7th stop at the Benedum Center in the downtown cultural district. Al played there in 2017 and it's a nice venue. Anyway, Pittsburgh is known for being the hometown of icon Andy Warhol, so we wanted to do something in that vein.

The first draft I put together combined a Warhol-esque grid that is reminiscent of a number of his prints, such as the Marylin Monroe grid below:

The poster was going to have Kuni, Gedde Watanabe's character in "UHF", leaping outward from the grid background, like so:

For this part, I called on my friend and frequent collaborator Jeff McComsey, and he came up with this image, which I really like. The text at the top and bottom of the poster were based on this promotional poster:

Once I found the font in question, I was able to duplicate it and create all kinds of images, such as...

I still like this one. Perhaps it'll still see some use? Anyway, the first draft got scrapped for a simpler, more iconic Warhol image of the Campbell's soup can. Warhol's original was made in 1962, so I found a few different labels from around that time:

And then I went about recreating the image as below. The final version only shows the relatively simplistic front of the label, but there is actually a full back as well.

Jeff then took the label and added it to his rough of R2D2 - that is to say, a version that is legally distinct from R2D2, or perhaps a parody (yes, that's it). Al is known for a number of things, including his two Star Wars-themed songs, so it doesn't take much to complete the reference, or at least I don't think it does. We were asked to remove the dome on top of the Droid's body to highlight the soup can part of it.

For obvious reasons, one of my favorite Warhol creations is this Superman print:

I really wanted to do something similar for the poster and pay homage to that particular image, but it wasn't to be - they wanted the simpler, more evocative image that ended up being the final version.

They were probably right to make that change, but I still like the Superman reference. Al posted the image of the final poster on his Instagram page on June 23rd:

View this post on Instagram

🎨: @jeffrey.mcclelland

A post shared by Al Yankovic (@alfredyankovic) on Jun 23, 2019 at 11:41am PDT

And I think people like it so far! The poster is part of the VIP package for the concert, so everyone with those particular tickets will get a print on the night of the show. I'll get a few copies for myself, too!

Al is also selling t-shirts for every single print, including this one.

I believe that these are made-to-order, so they should be available until at least the end of the tour! They come in different colors and both men's and women's sizes! You can order some here: https://www.jsrdirect.com/bands/weirdal/pittsburg-pa-july-7

As you might expect, this whole experience has been one of the highlights of my year so far. I've got tickets to the July 7th show, so I'll be there, nervously eavesdropping on VIP conversations to see if I can hear what people have to say about the posters. Maybe I'll grab them from angry and perplexed passers-by and sign them while they chase and beat me in an attempt to get them back! And then I will explain the whole thing and we'll all have a good laugh. It's possible.