Sunday, December 11, 2011

Cowabunga!!!

I've been drawing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since 1987...I was 11. I discovered the green teens when I was home sick from school with strep throat. I found out that there were cartoons on TV even after I went to school andthe original TMNT cartoon mini-series was being run at 9:30am. I was instantly hooked. The concept blew my mind. Once I was feeling well enough to go back to school I tried to spread the word on this new phenominal cartoon series I discovered....But...it was the 6th grade. My peers were all just way too cool to be caught dead watching "kid's stuff". After all, they had Guess Jeans, Hair Spray and Mtv and Motley Crue. Mutant Turtles? Pssshhh. So childish. But that didn't stop me from geeking out some. I drew them in my school notebooks occasionally but didn't see that cartoon again until 2 years later when the Turtle phenomenon hit full stride. By then My friend Pat and I became obsessed. Posters, bed sheets, toys, fruit pies, stuffed animals, and comics. We immersed ourselves in it for a few years. Anyway....all that is to say that even today, I still love the TMNT's and I really love to draw them from time to time. I drew the above Raphael and Casey Jones drawing and liked it so much I scanned it at threw it up on Facebook with an inquiry. "What would you pay for a sketch like this from me?" You see, I was seeing alot of artists posting ebay auctions of artwork they were trying to sell. Most were trying to sell original sketches. I figured that maybe I could get in on that. Sell sketches on ebay and who knows...maybe get someone to notice me. Maybe even Mirage Studios or Nickelodeon would spot my work and give me paid gigs drawing a TMNT comic book. Oh to dream. Anyway, inspired by the Raph/Casey drawing I decided to do a set. Pair a Turtle up with one of their allys. I still have yet to do a Leonardo one but I figured, I could, at least, share what I've done so far. Donatello and the Fugitiod and Michelangelo and AprilO'Neil.




THE VOID: 20th Anniversary Special

Yep! It was 20 years ago in 1991 that I created my favorite character. The short, odd-shaped vigilante known as THE VOID. Long story short...I used to draw comics of this guy in high-school and up through college. Eventually revamped him and put out some zine style mini-comics in the early 2000's. After a few years of trying out different comic ideas and even doing some pro-work, I had the itch to draw my favorite odd-shaped vigilante once again. The original intent was to have a full bore graphic nove

l of about 100 pages worth of awesome Void action but time got away from me, I had a long, serious bout with artist depression, and my own laziness sorta made that dream a distant one. I still felt I needed to do something special. It's not often one's favorite creation turns 20. So I forced myself to sit at my art table and came up with a 1-shot Anniversary Special. 10 pages of story and another 14 or so of archived drawing and sketches and preview pages of the actual graphic novel. My goal was to have it printed in time for the Minnesota Fallcon in October because that would have been around the 20 year mark.
So heres a glimpse of the glorious cover.