Jan 28, 2011

GUESS THE ARTIST CONTEST!

I'm excited to see if anyone can guess
who did this very uncharacteristic
piece looking toward Frank "Madman"
Einstein's 20th anniversary.  Now,
you can only submit one name at a
time, but whoever is the first to correctly
guess the name of the artist will win a
copy of The Madman Picture Exhibition 
Limited Edition with a bookplate signed
By Laura and myself.  Any guesses?

Jan 21, 2011

GREAT MINDS...

Just got this in today in a package from our dear 
friend and comic book genius, Matt Wagner, for the 
MADMAN 20th Anniversary Monster!

I'm giving a partial sneak peek of this gem today to 
prove that we hadn't seen each others work before 
today.  And he sent the package off before I posted my 
blog of the promo poster I've documented here. I 
love how we unknowingly came up with similar 
designs simultaneously.  I'm jazzed to see Laura 
color this baby up!  But you all are going to have 
to wait for the book to see the whole piece.

Jan 20, 2011

20th Anniversary Monster First Sneak...

Let the guessing games begin as we start to
assemble the 20 guest artists on the cover!

Jan 19, 2011

And now the washes and graphite tones...

Next:  Laura will "fix it" with her colors.

MADMAN 20th ANNIVERSARY MONSTER!

And here are the inks.  Now I'm gonna
go to the movies!

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TOO! YEAH!

In addition to inking I, ZOMBIE pages, I'm spending 
much of my birthday working on the cover to the 
MADMAN 20th ANNIVERSARY MONSTER!
Here are my pencils.  The background will be made 
up of images from the twenty different artists who 
are doing strips for the special.  This will be a HUGE 
book.  We may do two editions, one being 11 x 17 
(like the Wednesday Comics collection) including an 
essay by Adam McGovern on over twenty years of 
creator-owned characters and those who came before 
(with a corresponding art piece by Michel Fiffe and 
myself with many of those characters in one room) &
a new epic story from yours truly. And one which 
would also collect virtually every single Madman 
pin-up ever done.  I think that's close to 200 
artists by now.  So, a tall book, and a thick book.

Jan 18, 2011

MADMAN Giant-Size Super Ginchy Special!

I keep mentioning it, so I should
probably show the cover and try
to get the title right.



Whoap!  This copy got wrecked!





















Look at this gem from our old
pal, Andre Szymanowicz (say his 
name three times fast and you'll 
find yourself in a new dimension)!
http://astrobrain.blogspot.com/

Jan 17, 2011

EMITOWN!

http://emitown.blogspot.com/

Emi Lennox is a talented up and comer who deserves to be celebrated.  Check out her new collection EmiTown and see what I'm talking about.  Then in april check out her charming Madman short in the MADMAN Giant-Size Super Ginchy Special! (I'll eventually get the title right).

I'll be posting some samples from her story in the weeks to come, but in the meantime...BUY HER BOOK!

SO FAR SO GOOD!

Really miss seeing new James Jean 
come out regularly at the comic shop.
Love this piece he did for us.  I think 
this beauty saw print in Madman 
Atomic Comics no.17.  
Here's a full color sneak peek april's
MADMAN Super-Ginchy Giant-Size 
Special!  This is from Daniel Krall 
who is also sorely missed in the 
comic book biz.  He did a short 
story for a Madman special a few 
years ago.  Do more comics daniel!
And another preview.  This time 
from my fellow Vertigo compadre, 
the amazing Raphael Albuquerque!
http://www.rafaelalbuquerque.com/blog/

AND WE'RE OFF! INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY!

I've been wanting to do an artist's blog for years, but me no so quick with new technology so I never made the leap until now.  Besides, our "Webmaster Genius" pal, Brian Huberd, does such an amazing job designing and maintaining our aaapop.com website so brilliantly that I could happily put it off.

But now it's become easy enough for someone even as backwards as me, and sometimes I want to show something off NOW.  And with dozens of new pieces from many of my favorite artists in the pipeline for the MADMAN SUPER-GINCHY GIANT-SIZE SPECIAL! and next year's MADMAN 20th ANNIVERSARY MONSTER!,  I'm going to want to provide sneak peeks so folks get as excited about this stuff as me...so here we go!

But first to warm up, thought I'd just start off posting a 
few images that I have handy and something to say about.
This "Abby Road" image was something I did 
immediately after doing a version of Neil Gaiman's 
"Endless" characaters for a special gallery show print.  
I wanted my crew in the setting of that iconic Beatles 
image, and this was the result.
 My original cover painting for 
I, Zombie no.1 which should be in
 the extras section of the soon-to-be-
released collection.
This was a treat!  I was asked by an editor at Marvel 
Comics to ink an image for the legendary Ramona 
Fradon.  I happily obliged!
Apparently she liked my brush work because 
she then personally asked me to ink her again on 
this "Women of Marvel" piece.
Probably my favorite Ramona Fradon 
comics would be her work on 
Metamorpho.  
Here are scans of the original art on 
two of the most challenging pages 
Neil Gaiman threw at me when we 
worked on Wednesday Comics together.
One of my favorite artists who I can 
never get enough of is Philip Bond.  
Here is a recent pin-up he did for 
april's MADMAN Super-Ginchy 
Giant-Size Special!   Wait'll you 
see Laura's colors on this baby!