"Eat to a New Beat" comic

My old buddy Ezra Claytan Daniels contacted me a few weeks ago about doing some comics for a cool new site he built, for a campaign called Eat to a New Beat. The idea is to get kids and teens to eat more healthfully by making it seem cool through comics, movies and other internet hijinks. You can check out my comic, and comics by my friends Aaron, Nate and Sarah on their Comics page and there are even little mini-interviews with us too!

Also, I've been working on some other small illustrations lately, so hopefully I'll be posting those in the coming weeks. Until then!

Microcosm Catalogs are in Print!

Yesterday I got a whole box full of the new 2010 Microcosm Publishing Catalogs. They look great! I'm really happy with how they turned out. The 2-color printing looks pretty rad on the newsprint. They ended up using the Wolf spot illustration, but not the dragon one, oh well!



Claire sent me this photo, showing a copy she found in her local coffee shop in Oakland, CA. And Nate said he saw some a few weeks ago at the Chicago Zine Fest, so these things are OUT there! You can get one for 1 cent over at Microcosm Publishing or I'm sure they'll throw one in ANY order you place for the rest of this year. I'll also have copies to give away at a bunch of comics shows this year, so check it out!

Nate Beaty Thank-You Painting

I made this little watercolor for my good friend Nate Beaty, who helped me update my personal site when he was visiting a few weeks back. This, hot off the heels of his massive Top Shelf overhaul. Nate spends A LOT of time on the computer and one of the main themes in his comics work is his hatred for the machines, so this image seemed like something he might like.
I'm still focused pretty heavily on comics and teaching right now, but I HAVE done some illustrations recently, so once they are public, I will post them here!

Links!

I finally put some links into the sidebar of this blog. I split them up into three sections: 1) Homies - other friends of mine who are illustrators, including some of my classmates from the Pratt illustration program. Making this list made me realize that I need to create an updated links page on my comics site so that I can list all of the AWESOME cartoonists I know, which would be a list THREE times as long as this one. 2) Leaders - these are contemporary illustrators, whose work I admire the most. 3) The Greats - in my opinion, these are some of the greatest illustrators who ever lived!

If you see some unfamiliar names on there, please follow the links, they are all highly recommended!

2010

Here is an illustration I drew for the archive of 2010 blog posts on my personal site. I create one of these each year, and with each one I try to visually show what is in store for the upcoming year. Well, in 2010 I'm pretty excited about Pinball (though astute followers of the silver ball should immediately notice something wrong with this playfield design) and I'm going to be working pretty hard on my personal life, as well my professional life.
I thought this post was going to be all about how I'm trying to stay focused on comics this year, so I can finish up the next chapter of Basewood. I thought there wouldn't be many illustrations coming out of me this year, but a few 2010 illustration projects have already reared their heads, so I guess I'll be posting some stuff on here after all!