I know – it’s not even Christmas yet – but things are going to speed by the next couple of weeks, so I thought I’d go ahead and write this now.
So it’s the end of another year, and what a great one it has been! I wrote a post last December on the brownpaperbag blog looking back on 2009 and setting some goals for 2010. I thought that it would be nice to use it as a frame of reference when doing my year-in-review post this year.
If you’re interested, keep reading! [Warning: It’s looooooong.]
I just wanted to point out that one of my favorite scenes that I drew in Americus is being serialized this week. It starts with this panel:
Oh, and you know, if you haven’t been reading Americus, you should be! New pages every M-W-F. Commentary & blogging by MK & myself.
Be there!
Whew! I just finished out the super-long, incredibly thorough creator questionnaire for the Marketing & Promotions over at First Second.
Now I like talking about myself as much as the next self-obsessed, egotistical artist, but man… after PAGES & PAGES, it just isn’t any fun anymore.
Anyhow, I had to bust out a self-portrait to go along with it.
I had put off the questionnaire for a long time because I wasn’t sure what to draw for my self-portrait. You want it to be an image that sums you up because it’s going to be THE ONE IMAGE that will be your face to the public. It’s like your profile picture, only you can’t keep changing it.
Anyhow, even though I had been wracking my brain over it for a month or two, this final image I came up with wasn’t really planned. I was doodling on a scrap piece of bristol board and it just sort of came out. It doesn’t really say anything about me, except it makes me look a lot tougher than I am, but I like it.
In other news – the back cover of Americus got approved, so all I need to do now is the endpapers, which hopefully I’ll be able to finish tomorrow. I’m checking with the powers that be to see if I can post anything about the cover because I thought it would be cool to write something up about the experience of the whole process behind it all.
I’m sure I’ll be able to write about it all eventually, it’s just a matter of if I can do it now, or if I have to wait until it’s all said and done.
Did some work for the WW this week for an article by a guy that likes to movie hop. 
You can read the article online here.
I’m finishing up the back cover of Americus today & drawing the illustrations for the endpapers. We’re so close to finishing. Wish me luck!
Oh, and happy December.
My good friend, BPB pal, hetero-lifemate & all-around great cartoonist Jason Rainey & the equally awesome Jeremy Massie launched the website for their new comic, the Amateurs, today. They plan on serializing new pages every Tuesday and Thursday.
Check it out at AmateurstheComic.com.
Hey-oh! Hope you all survived Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Just wanted to make a quick post to mention that the esteemed Mr. Richard Thompson, cartoonist of the best comic strip in print*, Cul de Sac, mentions me and the illustration for Powell’s store map I did for Fan Art Friday over at his blog. The map got published in October, so it’s a bit of old news if you’ve kept up with me at bpb-art.com or the internet or whatever. Hidden in the illustration among many other fine literary figures are Petey and Alice from Cul de Sac. Still, I’m so honored to have him like the piece and tell me that I did right by his characters.
*Actually, Cul de Sac is my favorite comic strip of all time. Below is my favorite Cul de Sac, which I guess makes this strip my absolute favorite comic strip of all time.
Have a good weekend!
Merry Thanksgiving! Hope you don’t have to travel!
Jason, Meghan & myself will be spending an orphan Thanksgiving with the devilishly charming, super handsome and incredibly bad-ass Dwayne Johnson.
Besides eating a lot and spending time with friends & family, do yourself a Thanksgiving favor and head over to Ted Stearn’s website and read his comic, The First Thanksgiving. If you follow that link and then scroll down a bit, it’s the fourth one down. It’s my favorite Thanksgiving story EVAR.
Hey-oh! oneofthejohns.com 2.0 is up and running! Thanks for stopping by.
The biggest difference is that I’ve finally stepped into the 21st Century & have based 2.0 in WordPress, so that I can have my own blog and be posting & updating the site regularly with relative ease. I’ve also made small changes to the way the website is structured, breaking my portfolio up into different section. I’ve also included little blurbs by most of the art for some context if that interests anyone. I’ve also updated some new illustrations and some older comics that you might not have seen [including the beginning of the quickly derailed One of the Johns graphic novel].
And as always, thanks to Jason for all the websmithing help.
Things are at about 95% [the Misc Artstuff & Projects are unfinished], but if you see anything you notice that isn’t working or have any suggestions, please let me know. And keep checking back! I’ll be posting here regularly.
So I got the itch to redo the website and have it WordPress based to make it a bit easier to update and what not [Ideally. We’ll see how that goes…]. Anyhow, things are still getting cleaned up and set up [mainly the galleries], so pardon the lack of content at the moment. Should have it up and running by the end of the week.
UPDATE [Nov 17th]: The Illustration section is finished, and the Comics section is being worked on.