D.E.A.D : With A Little Help From My Friends...

I'd done a self-portrait "with characters" some time ago... but had been wanting to update the idea for some time - and marking the end of the D.E.A.D. month seemed a good time to at least TRY the mock up. I'm not 100% sold on this layout, and may change it, but think the "astonishing book" is as good a method as any...

That being said, keep checking back - D.E.A.D. month may be done (I'll probably do it again in the summer) - but updates will be coming, as well as some pages from Lightning Boy in the not so distant future.

Busy, busy... keep checking, I'll keep posting...

D.E.A.D : This is MY Batman or Spider-Man...

For many artits, their eventual goal is to draw Batman, or Spider-Man or Superman or something... my coal is to draw Cleveland's most famour file clerk.


If I could draw any "property" (and it feels weird referring to a real guy as a property), my first choice would quite likely be the opportunity to draw the man made famous for being a curmudgeon... Harvey Pekar. His life is so... mundane... but he presents it with such panache you can't help but become involved. He certainly has his cadre of GREAT cartoonists (from Robert Crumb to current mainstay Dean Haspiel), but I'd love to contribute to an American Splendor collection at some point.

Perchance to dream...

D.E.A.D : Sketch-Cats... HO!

Busy evening - so just a quick sketch tonight... a little Panthro action.

Man, I used to love Thundercats. Think I'll have to try something along these lines a little more involved some time... hehe... Thundercats. Awesome.

D.E.A.D : What I do while sitting in meetings...

So, when I sit in long meetings - I find it helps me pay attention if I keep my hands busy. Almost like I stay focused when I have more than one thing to focus ON... that being said, I had a big meeting yesterday. These were the result. Above is the main character of my FIRST published multi-page comic (ie: post comic strip). I want to do a "modern" take... this was the rough conceptualizing.


Kickin' it old school... In the Bronx, 70's style.


And... this.

I can't believe I've never drawn a zombie before. I'm so behind the times...

D.E.A.D : Future Pop 2 - Heads

The Future Pop project is my first dip into something completely fictional. Even my Spun stories (record-store-set comic) were based, loosely, on my own life. Future Pop is something else entirely.

Obviously, I need a protagonist - enter Elliott. Designing a character I will be happy drawing again and again and again is always a challenge... so sometimes, when I need to kickstart myself, I just draw heads. Essentially a "telling" 3/4 view (ie: it gives the most info on what a person would look like) - and I just knock out as many as I can fathom - adding some ink to refine any I sort of like. Obviously I want my hero to look kinda cool, so a "standard" (read: not bulbous or fat, not long and skinny) everyman sort of look... I'm pretty into the last version (a flip of the bangs and slight shift in the hair from the sketch beside it seemed to do the trick).

Whether this is final, I can't say - but I like how it looks regardless...

D.E.A.D : Future Pop

I've hinted at this project before. I don't know if it'll work out in reality as it seems in my head - I think the idea's pretty cool, but I may be the only one.

That being said, I certainly like the concept and characters enough to keep sketching away - so we'll see what comes of this...

un-D.E.A.D: Blast From The Past - Supplemental

The images that started it all. I think I want to do a NEW redesign on Switchblade - something more in line with how I'd handled these newer pictures - but I thought I may as well post these for anyone that cared...

D.E.A.D : Blast From The Past (Master Of Disaster)

I don't know if anyone reading this is having quite as much fun with these "Blast From The Past" entries as I am - but I'm really digging these...

That being said, this was one of the ones I had the most fun and the greatest challenge with. Clearly the robot hero Master Of Disaster was, um, a little poorly designed. Remaking him took some doing.


Pushing the redesign a little further than the redraw, I think the end result is actually a kind of cool character I'd be alright drawing again...

The only member of the team left undone is Torture Touch... but I did him about a year ago when I first tried this redraw experiment. I may repost him - or I may take another pass... we'll see.

D.E.A.D : Blast From The Past (Flashback)

Flashback was the leader of the Comet Trails - and when I took his mask off at the end of issue 4, I decided he wouldn't be white. So I finished the couple panels and suddenly realized he was white in all the other issues (you could/can see his face) - so I was faced with a dilemma... should I redraw those pages? Should I say he wore a caucasian mouth cover to disguise his identity? I went for option 3 - and went back through every issue and coloured his face to match the unmasked version in issue 4.


My first real grapple with race: solved in a more conscientious manner than I realized at the time... the race didn't matter, just a logical explanation.

D.E.A.D : "And I Thought *I* Was Hardcore..."

So - before everyone I know asks to be turned into a cartoon, some history. Chris (owner of the fine establishment "Cadence" in Kitchener) Reid and I go WAY back... we first met when we were in our early-mid teens. Years later, when we wound up working together, it was a revelation that we'd known each other from before - and when we started hanging out together - well - our social circles were a little different (to say the least).


A party with Chris inspired my first auto-bio comic some years later (Read it here) - so when he jokingly suggested I revive "another old character" I found myself curious to see how they'd differ (my old interpretation and my new). It makes for a somewhat different comparison to my 20+ year old work... and I'm glad I did it... shoulda pimped him out a little more - but I settled for him just looking hard.

D.E.A.D : Did I Really Dress Like This?

So, I've done a few test sketches of myself as I re-kickstart my auto-bio project - slowly breathing life back into it's heaving corpse. One of the things I'd started, but not finished (until now) is today's D.E.A.D. - ME! I know this all seems a little egomaniacal at times - but there's method to it all - I *WILL* have something to show for all of this... I hope.

Regardless - I present: Me. In high school. This is how I met my wife. Looking like this. Seriously. And it lasted.

The 90s were weird.

D.E.A.D : Blast From The Past (Trail Blaster)

Another Blast From The Past... this time, from the same comic series, we have Trail Blaster... I know he jumped, he climbed - but I actually don't think he had any powers to speak of. Strange for a kid to create a powerless superhero...



The 10 year old me is freaking out at Trail Blaster WITH SHADING! An skin that resembles skin and EVERYTHING. Cool.

D.E.A.D : Original Lyricist (Part 2: Opio Boogaloo)

Compare away... did it get better? Worse? Did I take a mediocre picture and improve it? A good one and ruin it?

For those who missed it - the pencils are a couple posts back. I'm happy with how this turned out, and will still colour it at some point... but not tonight. Tonight - you get inks. Enjoy!

(And check out Op's music - Vulture's Wisdom 2 should be out soon and if it's anything like Volume 1, it'll be AMAZING! Check his MySpace here...)

D.E.A.D : Raoul Duke

Certain subjects, to my mind, belong to certain types of artists... I don't know that I'm 100% qualified to be drawing Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - but watching the brilliant documentary Gonzo tonight, I was sorta compelled. Or something.

Roughed in with a ballpoint, the sketchiness was accidental, but seemed to fit the subject. Doesn't hold a candle, obviously, to Steadman's depictions - but it was fun and fitting.

D.E.A.D : Original Lyricist

I've done numerous hip hop musicians in the past, but never felt like I really caught the full essence (with a few exceptions) - that being said, I'm pretty happy with how this Opio turned out.

On top of that, I'm posting the pencils/blue lines because I'll do a second D.E.A.D. on this and ink and colour it in a few days - should be interesting to see the contrast (since I'm usually the only one who gets to see them in this state).

D.E.A.D : My Better Half

Another day, another D.E.A.D.


So - I realize that I tend to draw myself a lot... which is why it's strange that I seem to draw my partner-in-crime less often. Not sure why that is - I guess most of my sad (read: interesting) stories tend to have happened before we were a permanent item... alas... I do draw her. Different styles, different haircuts and all that - so today's D.E.A.D - Sarah.

D.E.A.D : Blast From The Past (Fast Fist)

What is D.E.A.D. exactly? "Drawing Every Alternate Day."

I'm trying to keep my output up - even just ensuring I scan some of my sketches and post them here - so for March I'm going to try to get a sketch, a doodle, a strip or SOMETHING up here every second day...


First up is a Blast From The Past... this is something I did a year or so ago - I tried re-drawing one of the characters I created when I was 9. He may or may not bear any resemblance to a character from a major publisher... but his hands shoot off (connected to cables)... yeah. I was 9. Let's make sure that's clear. So, here he is - in his "new" armour (on the left in the old-skool page)... make of it what you will.