Long Tail Kitty in Nickelodean Magazine!

yo ho ho! LONG TAIL KITTY makes his first printed appearance in a magazine... ever!




LTK and Tony span the base of 8 pages in the comics section of August's Nickelodean magazine, a good read for kids and even for some adults. i particularily love the comics section, edited by chris duffy and david roman. these boys do a knockout job. i mean, like, better reads than comics anthologies even.



Nickelodean magazines can be found in libraries and stores. and if you can't find it, here's where to order


there are short comic stories (like mine) each month, and one-shot gags too. here's my favorite from this issue:

reference for BK

this is reference for dylan, brian, ted etc. for Orchid 2.




taiyo matsuomoto hardback book - cover illustration wraps around to back



illustration in back is black and white - i like this idea, to contrast with the color






title imposed on top of illustration - i would prefer something like this



isbn on wrap of book, not on book itself (but we probably won't do this, since we already have a dust jacket)




peanuts collection by fantagraphics - company name on back of book, no isbn



isbn on the inside flap of the dust jacket! woooohoooooo!!!



haruki murakami's wind up bird chronicle, general photo



looking straight on, the raised line art is barely visible...



spine of book - i really like the abstract swish here, and also the saturation of color. the title is easy to read up close, but from far away the book takes on a more aesthetic appeal.



dust jacket - i like the simplicity of the image, and the layers of information that emerges from it.



at an angle, the line art becomes more pronounced





chris ware's illustration on inside cover

close up detail - see the title inset into the design. also, this drawing is the actual mechanism inside the wind-up bird.


i like the colors in this pic - maybe a brighter orange like the one you have in your mockups.

san diego comic convention

comic-con ran from wednesday evening to sunday evening. i set up my table on thursday, next to fun-loving neighbors ha-eun and friend ben of planet tokki. i had paintings comics and art. planet tokki had fuzzy tokki creatures.


thien helped me set up and sell a great deal. but still i didn't see much of the convention myself. we need at least one more person to help at the table next year....



some paintings. i forgot to scan them all in before leaving for this show.



most of the paintings and many books sold. a lot of people from previous years came back to say hi. i was happy.


even though i didn't walk around much, i still got to see a few people in costume. like this scooby doo. though, why anyone would want to dress up in this heat just stumps me good.


this is an okay picture depicting the view from my table. this is not a crowded picture, but it could really get that way.


debby huey creator of bumperboy, at her table. this is a rare moment when debbie and i could actually see one another across the aisle. we chatted with one another via our nintendo DS systems. wireless exquisite corpse was especially fun.


this was debbie's space after the show. kind of a bummer.


people packed their things on sunday and shipped it all out of the hall.


the organizers turned all the lights off to get everyone out of the halls more quickly. i watched folks take down displays and the convention crew roll up the carpet.


our friends who live in town made us a home-cooked dinner.



and in the morning we met up with others for a hang-out and casual conversation.



on monday i went to the zoo. did some sketching and was particularily happy to see the binturongs, pandas, okapis, and tapirs.

getting there

my posters




paintings are almost done

new comic for san diego comic-con

i've been publishing minis for nearly 10 years now. frickafrack!

this will be my first comic in color. why didn't i do it sooner...

it will be 14 pages about 5" square. i'll have 50 ready for san diego.
here are a few of the pages...



my table'll be as last year's... at a corner in the P section (?). the placement letter is somewhere in a pile which is threatening to do a face plant onto my desk. well, if the pile has a face, that's what it's going to do.

ug. work work work.
my toys are all a mess.


tomorrow's project: silk-screening posters. things to look at when you are tired. yes, that's the actual name of the series.

SHOW - San Diego Comic-Con next week!

welp, getting ready for another show!

some nice people (you know who you are!) have asked what all i'll be bringing this year. well, i say, A LOT! but of course, none of it is ready just yet.

but...here are some in progress shots. if you'd like to see a painting in more detail, send an email note and i'll try to answer as soon as i can. the colors you see in the pictures are totally so not the colors of the final pieces, so... yeah. just know that.

[aside: paintings from the STUDIO gallery show are coming down on the 16th too, so some pieces from there will join the San Diego crew. also, Supers and Albert and Mae have sold, so sorry, not available anymore. see previous blog entry for pictures - june 24th]


4x4 paintings from top left to bottom right -
civil war comic - not mine!!!
1st row: turtle with head of lettuce, tragic deer, monkey, bossy big dog with bummed little dog, big turtle shoving a little turtle
2nd row: bunny eating carrots, tony who cheers, foxes, and a gazing puppy, spotted dog who just can't take anymore
3rd row: fat head rabbit "blah, blah, blah", bunny in profile, hedgehog
4th row: sleep monster "sleep, take a break", purple bear


5x5 paintings from left to right:
1st row: two dogs and a kid, hippo in a pulli
2nd row: two squids and a cat (redoing the cat because it was UGLY), swooping bat (background color finished, bat just has a base coat)
lower right: spotted dog dancing badly



6x6 paintings, top to bottom:
tough racoons, cat and dog barely reaching above a table, lizard and frog are friends (almost done), lion and bear are friends


a canvas prep shot. armando and racoon above just penciled out. rabbit and hamster with the beginings of the 1st layer of paint. i will get to these tomorrow.


close-up of armando sketch on the canvas (he is a strong-man character in LTK-Full Moon Night)

okay, so i will have probably more paintings than what is posted here - but i probably won't post them until thursday. thanks for stopping in.