Catching Up

Sooo... been a while since we've posted here and just wanted to make a quick update with a few things:

• Our New Years was fun. Had some friends over and actually had two "New Years" - one on New Years Eve proper and one the previous weekend due to work schedule conflicts. Good times.

• Then, just post New Years, we had some oh-so-fun issues with the shower leaking and the drain in the basement backing up... Thankfully the owner of the house we're renting got that taken care of relatively quickly. Just not fun while it lasted.

• Around the same time we both got super-sick - first Jenny and then me. There's been a couple of nasty bugs circulating the area, and undoubtedly she picked up what we had from work. Took some time to fully recover, and greatly diminished productivity for a while, but at least we didn't get the actual flu that was also going around...

• The Emerald City ComiCon is very soon (March 1-3) and we'll be headed there for a mini-vacation. We haven't been the last 2 years, and the last time we were there I was tabling in Artist Alley and barely saw the rest of the show. So this time we're looking forward to just being free to be fans and see as much as possible, and also catch up with a lot of people we haven't seen in a long time. While I'm not exhibiting this year, a lot of my friends from this area are - check out the list over on the Comicsmiths' Guild site: CSG at ECCC!

• However we will be exhibiting at the Spokane ComiCon, which this year falls on June 1st (my birthday!). We're splitting an Artist Alley table, so I can show off my art and comic stuff and Jenny can sell her crafty stuff. We've even got some ideas for collaborating on a project, but we'll keep mum on the specifics 'til we're a bit further along with that...

• Recently I did a guest strip for my buddy Matt Nelson's webcomic Catbeard the Pirate, while he was taking a short break after finishing up a long storyline. Catbeard's a great all-ages comic that's a mix of comedy and adventure - it's been going for nearly 2 years now, with one collected book out so far. You can see my contribution here: Catbeard Guest Strip!

• I'm starting to post more on my Tumblr blog, as it's a good place to quickly throw up sketches and works-in-progress along side finished works and other things. I'd recommend following me there for more frequent updates for now: Peter on Tumblr

• This site probably won't see a lot of updating, as it was originally meant more for personal blogging and updates, and a lot of that is covered by things like Facebook and Twitter now. But we'll try to post when anything relevant or important comes up... I'm planning on sprucing up my personal site relatively soon, as well as get a proper site set up for Jenny, but I don't know how quickly that will actually happen...

• And finally, for any local artist types, this coming Saturday (the 23rd) is the first Spokane Drink & Draw of 2013. It'll be at the Saranac Public House downtown, from 6-10, and is an all-ages event. It's being organized by Nathan O'Brien, who runs the Spokane ComiCon, and he's hoping to make them a regular thing. You can RSVP for the event here: Drink & Draw Social Club February Spectacular!

Thanks for visiting our somewhat neglected blog - hopefully we'll have some more to share with you soon!

De-Con-structing

This last weekend (Saturday the 19th to be precise) was the Spokane ComiCon, and I was there exhibiting in Artist Alley, sharing a table with my buddy Matt Nelson. This was the third year I was there as an artist, though the first that I was there specifically promoting myself. The previous times I had been at the Comicsmiths' Guild table, representing both myself and the local artist group I'm a part of.

Sharing a table with Matt was a lot of fun, and I thought we were a great team, talking up each others' products to whoever was at the table and getting even more sales. This was also the first time Jenny was able to attend while I was exhibiting, since her schedule changed and she now has weekends free. We all had a lot of fun, and it was great seeing all our friends from out of town who were there for the convention.

This certainly felt like the best year of this Con so far to me. It seemed like there were more people this time, and it was just generally busier. I definitely did a lot better sales-wise than last year, and I think better than the year before. I was mainly selling prints and sketch commissions while I was there but I also had mini-comics, sketch-cards and copies of The Stars #1 (which I lettered) available for sale.

In addition, I printed up copies of a 20 page sketchbook (a popular choice for artists at cons) and an 8 page ashcan, which collected my 4 page story from the first Comicsmiths' Guild Anthology with a bonus intro page, plus sketches and pin-ups. I want to do more stories soon with the character (Seamus O'Kyte) from that story, so I made it up as a sort of Preview Book for the upcoming comics.

The next convention I'm planning on attending is the Jet City Comic Show in Seattle, on September 22. I'll be there sharing a table in Artist Alley with another buddy, and fellow local artist, Josh Montreuil. I'm intending to have at least one comic featuring Seamus available then, and possibly some more projects started as well.

Unfortunately I fell behind on my "In Geekness..." journal comics, but plan to pick them back up this week. I wanted to be ready for the convention well ahead of time, but that didn't happen - instead I ended up scrambling the past couple of weeks frantically preparing and getting things printed, at the cost of other work I should have been doing. I think time management is my worst weakness and the one I really need to fix this year if I want to be any sort of success as a professional artist.

I also got very little sleep the last week or so, and was generally stressed out from getting ready and worrying about the con, and I was completely exhausted by the time we got home Saturday night (after spending a few hours at an awesome post-Con BBQ party hosted by our friends Heidi & Levi), so Sunday I did virtually nothing beyond rest and running a lot of laundry and dishes.

But now it will be back to work, though. I've got a lot of real work to play catch-up with this week and, exhausting or not, the whole Con experience is a great boost to wanting to make comics!

Hey Look, Comics!

I did another journal-type comic a while back - it was fun to do, and got a pretty good reaction from people, so I thought I'd try to do some more along the same lines. I'll be posting these, along with some commentary, over at my website, which I'm hoping to change into a sort of hub for any comic-related content I produce.

I’m tentatively calling these strips “In Geekness and In Health”, and you’ll find them at the In Geekness link on the main menu of the site.

Not sure, but think I'll shoot for at least a couple of these a week - I figure it'll make a good compliment/replacement to real day-to-day blogging and mean some regular comic content on the site.

 A few other important reminders/notes:

 - I'll be at Lightning Comics in Coeur d'Alene this Saturday, from 10:30 to 3, drawing free sketches for customers for Free Comic Book Day.

- The Catbeard Indie-GoGo campaign is still going; this is the fundraising/pre-order campaign for the first print collection of the Catbeard webcomic. You can read all about it here: Catbeard Book One is Go!

 - I'll be at the upcoming Spokane ComiCon (May 19), along side my buddy Matt Nelson, the creator of the aforementioned Catbeard.

 - And I just got confirmation that I'll also be at the Jet City Comic Show in September, sharing a spot in Artist Alley with another friend and local artist Josh Montreuil.

Catbeard of the Caribbean

So, my good buddy Matt Nelson has had this awesome weekly webcomic going for a while now, called Catbeard the Pirate, about the adventures of a pirate cursed to have a living cat as a beard. It's hilarious, and I highly recommend checking it out. And the current story even has dinosaurs!

I've been meaning to do some fan-art for it, so when this idea popped into my head I had to put it down on paper. Only pencils so far - I'll post an updated version whenever I get a chance to finish it.

Spokane ComiCon!

I'll be at the Spokane ComiCon this Saturday (the 21st), in artist alley with my friends in the Comicsmiths' Guild. We'll have copies of the Guild Anthology book for sale, along with a whole mess of prints and original art available, as well as taking sketch commissions. Hope to see everyone there!

Also, there will be a Drink and Draw with special guests Dan Panosian and Dave Johnson on Friday Night (7-11 pm) at Cyrus O'Leary's. To RSVP and get more information, you can check out the Facebook event page here: Drink & Draw Spokane!

Comicsmiths' Guild Update!

The Spokane Comicsmiths' Guild (our local artist/writer group) has recently put out our first anthology comic, which is now available for purchase!

It's a 40 page book, with 10 short stories in a varieties of genres from local creators. My contribution is a 4 page action-horror short featuring a character I have many more plans for - and this is the only place to see his first published adventure.


You can order it on-line at Indy Planet (Order it Here!), and also find it at these fine local retailers:

The Comic Book Shop

Merlyns

Boo Radleys

Also a reminder - the Guild's next regular meeting is this coming Sunday (Feb. 20) at Merlyns, 3 pm!

24 Hour Comic Book Day!

This last weekend was the annual 24 Hour Comic Book Challenge, where creators around the world attempt to write and draw a 24 page comic, from scratch, in 24 straight hours. This was my 3rd year participating and the 4th year for the event here in Spokane.

Last year I did pretty well, coming up with a 17 page finished story in the 24 hours. I was hoping to do better this time, but I got a slow start and never really figured out what I wanted to do. I got 7 pages pencilled, with parts of them inked, when I hit a creative wall and never got re-started. After setting the pages aside and taking a break, I sat back down and did some writing and design work on another story idea I've had kicking around for a while but hadn't really started on yet.

So, while I didn't succeed at my 24 hour comic, I still made some progress on something else, and more importantly the event itself was a huge success. We had more participants this year than any previous, and also more people successfully finishing the Challenge. Great time, all around.

We even had a Spider-Man pinata this year - you can see a video of it getting smashed open over at the Comicsmiths' Guild website: ComicsmithsGuild.com

What's Happening....

Lately, I've been doing some lettering work for a couple of comic pitches, and also working on an original comic short for an anthology the Spokane Comicsmiths Guild is putting together. It'll be a collection of several stories, most around 4 pages long, showcasing the skills and diverse styles of our little group. We're hoping to have it printed up and ready to distribute by the end of September, in time for the Jet City Comic Show in Seattle (which a few Guild members will be attending) and the next 24 Hour Comic Book Challenge at the start of October.

Last month we had another fun event - members of the Guild taught a class on making comics at a week long day camp for kids. It was a superhero themed camp, and over the course of the week the kids created their own characters and made a comic featuring them. They also had classes in costuming, pop art, and even culinary arts. It wrapped up with them putting on a stage presentation, with the kids dressed up as their characters. It was an awesome experience, a lot of fun, and hopefully we'll get to do something similar in the future. You can see more about it on the Guild's website, including video of the presentation and pics of the comics the kids made.

Jenny's been crocheting a whole bunch - she's made a few larger tote bags and just made me a new hat. She also recently got back to work on her superhero novel she started writing some time ago. Otherwise she's mostly been working - while her job at the law firm ended a few weeks ago, she has been able to pick up a few extra hours here and there at the library. But she's still happy to have two actual days off per week again.

It's also been ridiculously hot here recently. It's still about 80 today, but there's a tiny bit of a breeze and it's overcast with a slight chance of rain, so it's relatively comfortable. We'll take what we can get, I guess.

Wednesday Stuff

Jenny has a mandatory library "Staff Day" on Friday (her usual day off), so she took today off from the law firm, which worked out well. We both had haircut appointments this morning, and then headed over to The Comic Book Shop to buy some comics.

We actually didn't get this week's comics, as we got to the shop before they officially opened and they were still sorting through the new books out today. But we left our subscriptions pile up for almost 2 months, so we had quite the sizable stack waiting for us. Maybe we should get back into the habit of actually picking up our comics each week again....

After some time at The Comic Book Shop, it was off to lunch, and then some much needed grocery shopping. Then back to the apartment so we could meet with the office and sign our new lease. We're locked in for another full year - so we've got 12 months to get some more income coming in and find a better place to live, so we don't have to stay here any more.

We eventually got a hold of our friend Jamie, picked him up, grabbed some dinner, and came back here to watch a couple of movies. We saw Meet the Robinsons, which was hilarious and highly recommended; and Illegal, a classic Edward G. Robinson courtroom drama, which was also quite good!

What's Happening...

Yesterday was Jenny's father's birthday, and we spent most of the day over in Coeur d'Alene with her parents. We went to see the Surrogates with him - which was a pretty awesome sci-fi flick (based on an equally cool indy comic). Glad we got to see it in the theatre, though I think it could've been a bit longer.

Then after the movie the four of us went out for Thai food at the local Thai Bamboo (which was, of course, delicious), and then caught up on a bunch of recorded TV from the past week. A very fun and relaxing day!

The library is doing sort of an "employee exchange" program, where they're moving some people to different branches so they can see how things might be run differently and meet other co-workers. So now Jenny is working up at the North Spokane branch once a month. Her first day was this last Thursday, and she really enjoyed it, although it does mean a much longer commute (like 45 minutes instead of 15).

Otherwise things are going OK. Jenny had her year review at the library, which went well and got her a raise (yay!). The temperature is dropping, and even dipping to freezing occasionally, but the apartment seems to be holding the heat pretty well. Maybe those new energy-efficient windows they installed actually work.

I've been working on some commissions and tinkering with one of my comic ideas. Doing the 24 Hour Comic Challenge has definitely been an inspiration to get back to work on it - hopefully I'll have more concrete news on that relatively soon...

Jenny's been working on a bunch of cool crocheting projects, which we really need to take some pictures of and post up. It would probably help if we had a decent digital camera, since right now we have 3 old ones that all only work about half the time. 

Local Arts & Crafts People: The next Spokane Comicsmiths' Guild is on Sunday the 18th at Merlyns, from 3-6 pm. The next Crafty Club meeting is on Friday the 23rd at the Spokane Valley Library and starts at 7 pm. Feel free to leave a comment if you're interested in more information.

24 Hour Comic Book Day

...was Awesome!

The 24 Hour Comic Book Challenge was held this last Saturday, October 3rd, simultaneously testing artists around the world as they attempted to create a 24 page comic, from scratch, within the span of 24 hours. I made it to 17 pages, which I'm quite happy with - hopefully next year I'll make it all the way to 24!

We had a great turnout at our local venue (Spokane's Merlyns), with lots of prizes, goodies and food donated by local businesses, raffles, and even a coloring contest for kids. There were a lot of participants who showed up for a few hours and had to leave, but I was one of the few die-hards who stayed for the whole 24 hours (in our case the official time was 10:30 am Saturday to 10:30 am Sunday).

The whole experience was a ton of fun, and I'm already looking forward to next year. We've also got our next meeting of the Spokane Comicsmiths' Guild coming up on Sunday the 18th. The meeting will be at Merlyns and runs from 3-6pm. All artists and writers are welcome!

I've posted my comic up at my deviantArt page, here: My 24 Hour Comic!

And I also drew up 4 Star Wars pictures for the kids coloring contest, which you can see here: Star Wars Coloring Pics!

What's Happening....

...around the house:

I finally got my last 2 wisdom teeth out on Tuesday. It was long overdue, and I'm glad they're gone. Of course, that side of my face is totally sore right now, and I'm sticking to a semi-liquid diet for a couple more days. Lots of instant breakfast, ice cream and pudding, which means it's more of a chocolate diet, but I'm not complaining about that. Oh, and we made brownies last night too! :)

We got our notice from the apartment office yesterday that our lease was coming due in the next month. Seems like we just signed the last one.... Well, as much as we'd still like to find a new place to live (as we have for the last couple of years), it's still not really an option with our lack of funds. So we'll probably be signing another year lease, and hopefully our options will look better this time next year.

Oh, and I have been relatively successful getting myself back to a semi-normal sleep schedule. Having to get up for my dentist appointment at 7 am certainly helped, as does currently having to take pain medication to sleep which pretty much knocks me out every night. So I'm back to going to bed around 12-1 am, which is a lot better than the 4-5 am I'd been averaging...

And last, but certainly not least - a few of us artists from the local Spokane Comicsmiths Guild will be headed over to Lightning Comics in Coeur d'Alene again this Saturday. They're having a big Labor day sale this weekend, and we'll be there doing sketches for customers between Noon and 3. Should be fun!

Local Comics & Games News

Sunday was our monthly meeting of the Spokane Comicsmiths Guild. It was a good time, and fairly productive, with some brainstorming done regarding the upcoming 24 Hour Comic Book Day event and discussion of various projects. Not sure on the exact date of the next SCG meeting - we're going to try to meet more often, so the next meeting may not be at Merlyns or on a Sunday.

The Marvel Birthday event we sketched at did make it into the Coeur d'Alene paper, and one member, my friend Matt Nelson, got his picture and name featured on the front page! That was, of course, incredibly cool, but unfortunately there wasn't any actual mention of the SCG group. Here's the full article: The Coeur d'Alene Press

I've been thinking about working on painting miniatures again - I haven't touched any minis or paints in months, but I've been looking through my gaming books and thinking about working on an army again. I'm sure hanging out at Merlyns and being surrounded by games and gamers probably has something to do with it as well.

Not sure when I'll get back into it, but I have been looking at gaming websites for the first time in ages, trying to catch up on new releases. In my internet browsing I also discovered that Gamer's Haven, the awesome game store in Idaho that tragically burned to the ground, is going to re-open in October! The store was originally in Coeur d'Alene (I even briefly worked there), and the new location will be in neighboring Post Falls (in the Outlet Mall along I-90). The new shop is scheduled to open October 1st, and I'm sure I'll swing by and check it out. :)

In other news, I think I might be coming down with something. My head's hurt pretty much all day (slightly less after some DayQuil and Aspirin), and I've just felt cruddy, like I have no energy. Hopefully I'll shake whatever it is quick, 'cause it's annoying...

Happy Birthday to the House of Ideas!

Tuesday was the big Marvel Comics 70th Birthday Bash, with comic shops across the country celebrating with store events. A few artists from our local Spokane Comicsmiths Guild were at Lightning Comics in Coeur d'Alene, ID for the event, drawing free sketches of Marvel characters for customers.

There was also raffles and giveaways of exclusive comics, a giant birthday cake, and Spiderman and Captain America showed up as well. :)

The whole thing was a lot of fun. My friends and I were there from 6-10 and were drawing pretty much the whole time. Unfortunately, I only got photos of a few of my sketches (there was a Shadowcat I was really happy with - wish I'd got a shot of that). I posted the few that I did get over on my My deviantArt Page and one of those is posted below.

Participating were myself and:

• Levi Skeen
• Matt Nelson
• Jesse Acosta
• James Bobbitt

Today was Hot

It's been unseasonably hot up here in the Pacific Northwest, with the Seattle area already hitting record breaking temperatures. It's been in the steady 90's over on our side of the state, which is still hotter than normal, but today was rediculous. According to Google it hit 104 and I know the one time I looked at the thermometer outside the apartment it said it was 100 here.

Needless to say, we're hiding inside as much as possible. The A/C is on and our fridge is stocked with lots of iced tea and cold beer. We had a delicious grilled chicken salad for dinner tonight, and are trying to keep from cooking or eating anything hot, although we did turn on the oven to bake cookies. Of course, it was worth it. :)

Otherwise, I spent the day working on commissions and will probably be up late tonight writing, hopefully getting some more of the plot of my superhero comic figured out. The plan is to start serializing it as a webcomic, and eventually collect it in print. I'm still not sure when I'll actually get it on-line (since I'm still writing and haven't started drawing it yet), but I'd like to have the first collection ready by next March to sell at the Emerald City Comic-Con. Something to shoot for, at least...

Con-Current

This week is the big Comic-Con down in San Diego; from what I hear it gets crazier and less about comics each year, but I'd still love to get to see it eventually. Maybe Jenny and I can make it there for an anniversary or something. We still haven't taken a real honeymoon, so that's always a possibility. :)

I do know a few people who will be at the Con, including local artist/writer Lars Brown, who's the creator of Northworld and is a member of our Spokane Comicsmiths Guild group. Apparently he'll be splitting his time between the Image and Oni Press booths, so if you're at SDCC take some time to swing by, say hi, and pick up one of his books!

Possibly the coolest event at SDCC is one not listed on the website - for the first time, two comic artists will actually be getting married at the convention on Sunday! Renae De Liz and Ray Dillon met in person at SDCC five years ago and decided to tie the knot at the same place. The two initially met through the Digital Webbing comics community - a website I probably spend entirely too much time on, but through which I've met some really great people.

Also, my photographer friend Tigger (aka AlX) will have a booth at the 100 Years of Motorcycles festival at the Spokane Fairgrounds this weekend, where she'll be selling her prints. Jenny and I have been helping her get ready and matting her prints the past few days. Any locals who are going to the be at the show, be sure to check out her photos (and buy something!).

Weekend Update + Comic Stuff

Things have been going well enough, if not particularly exciting. But then, I guess that's nothing to complain about.

Jenny had her dentist appointment on Friday; she hadn't gone quite as long as I since her last check up, but it'd still been about 10 years. But she had nothing to worry about, as her teeth were in fine shape - no cavities or problems.

It's back to feeling like summer, with temperatures in the 80's and up to 90. Looks like more of the same this week, so I'm thinking we'll be breaking down soon and turning on the A/C. Which means higher electric bills. Yay.

Sunday was our monthly meeting of the Spokane Comicsmiths Guild, the group of local artists and writers that was formed after last year's 24 Hour Comicbook Day. We've begun planning for the next 24HCBD, which this year falls on October 3rd and will again be hosted by local shop Merlyns. We also discussed some other possible plans for this coming year which unfortunately are only in the discussion stage, so I won't go into details yet.

And, of course, we also sat around and drew. I began sketching out designs for another character in my Fight City superhero comic - a super-genius crime boss known as "Brains" McBannon. I think these are the closest so far to what I want:

Quick Weekend Update

Went to the Spokane Comic-Con on Saturday, which was an awesome show and a whole lot of fun. We had planned on getting there when the doors opened, but got off to a slow start and ended up there around Noon, staying till the end.

I'm definately going to have a table there next year, and plan to have at least one of my comics started with some related material to sell. Jenny and I are talking about sharing a table, so she can show off her art as well. Figure that prints of her paintings would sell, and her jewelry should also go over well.

After the Con, we went out to dinner with some friends who were at the show and met a bunch of other cool artist/comic folks as well. All in all, it was a fun day!

I've got a bunch of different projects (mostly art but also writing & other things) to work on right now, so I should have no problem keeping myself busy. Just have to get moving and deal with this heat sapping my energy... I thought I was ready for summer, but I guess not.

Arts & Crafts in Spokane

Anyone who might be in the area this Saturday (May 30) should be sure to check out the 3rd annual Spokane Comic-Con, being held at the Spokane Falls Community College from 10-5.

Jenny normally works on Saturdays, but was able to get the day off, so we plan on spending the whole day there just hanging out and being geeks (next year I hope to have a table there myself...). Several of my friends will be there, however, so be sure to swing by their tables and check out their work. You can find a lot of them on deviantArt:

Ben Hansen
Jesse Acosta
Lars Brown
Levi Skeen
Matt Nelson

More information about the convention can be found here: Spokane Comic-Con 

Also this weekend (Friday through Sunday) is Spokane Art-Fest, the annual arts and music fair, sponsored by Spokane's Museum of Arts & Culture. You can find out more about it here: Spokane Art-Fest

And finally, Jenny also has her Crafty Club meeting on Friday, which she organizes through the library (where she works). Needless to say, we plan on being pretty busy this weekend, but it should be a lot of fun!

Free Comic Book Day!

So as I'd mentioned (more than once), myself and a few other local artists were hanging out at local comic book store Merlyns today, drawing sketches for kids as part of Free Comic Book Day. Though we'd initially intended "kids" to refer to those 10 or younger, we drew pics for basically anyone who asked, which also included quite a few parents and other adults....

And it was a success! A lot more people showed up than I think any of us imagined, and we did a whole lot of drawing. I lost track of time, but I'd say there was an hour or more where we were basically swamped by kids asking for pics. Crazy but very cool.

We were expecting kids to want drawings of superheroes, but it turned out that Star Wars was the all-around favorite, with the video game Halo also making a surprisingly strong showing. I drew at least 7 Star Wars pics myself (that I can remember), and 2 Master Chiefs (from Halo). We did have several superheroes, with some other random requests mixed in as well.

I do have to say though, my absolute favorite request turned out to be the last drawing I did. After a lot of Clone Troopers and Jedi, I really wasn't expecting any surprises. But then a young lad came up with his mom and said he wanted a drawing of Fin Fang Foom! He knew who he was (I'm still not sure how), and I had to oblige such an awesome and unique request. It took me some searching to find a reference pic, but it really made my day. It was also the only one I did in color, and I really wish I'd got a photo of it....

In addition to us, there were a few people there in Star Wars costumes so people could get pictures taken with them (and which might have subconsciously influenced the requested subject choices somewhat...). They were also making the rounds to the different comic stores around the area over the course of the day.

There are 2 major comic stores in town, Merlyns and The Comic Book Shop, the latter actually having 3 different location. In addition, there's another shop, Lightning Comics, just across the border in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. All of the shops participated in FCBD, as did the CdA libraries, and in addition Lightning Comics scored a coup by having writer Chris Claremont in the store signing comics!

John, the owner of Merlyns, seemed pleased with how we did, and was talking about having the group come in more often for similar events. We were able to spread the word about the local artist group and 24 Hour Comic Book Day, and hopefully helped to inspire some kids to keep or start drawing. All in all, it was a heck of a lot of fun!

In addition to myself, the following artists participated. We've all got pages on deviantArt, so take a minute and click on over to check out samples of their work!

• Jesse Acosta


• Lars Brown


• Levi Skeen


• Matt Nelson


• Mike Lail