The Killing Girl

This is a piece I did a while ago, for the upcoming Image comic, The Killing Girl. Written by Glen Brunswick and illustrated by Frank Espinosa, its a high-action comic featuring the adventures of a mafia assassin with, shall we say, major memory issues. When Glen Brunswick asked me months ago if I wanted to contribute a piece for the back cover, of course I jumped at the opportunity. Not only is Glen a heck of a nice guy and talented writer, but Frank Espinosa is one of my favourite artists of recent years. To be associated with anything that the two of them have collaborated on was a huge honour for me!

Anyway, the book ships in august, and you should definitely check it out when it hits the shelves. The pages I've seen so far look fantastic. But don't take my word for it, check out the previews on the Killing Girl blog.

Now, in keeping with my recent habit of posting the preliminary process work for my paintings and drawings, you can see for yourself the various roughs, pencils and colour-studies I did for this pin-up below:

Max Finder Mystery: Collected Casebook 2

Hurrays! The 2nd volume of the Max Finder Mystery: Collected Casebook is out, featuring artwork by yours truely. Now, I've posted about Max Finder before (you can check out my post about volume 1 here), but for those who don't know, Max is a 7th grade detective who solves mysteries in and around his hometown with the aid of his trusty sidekick, Alison Santos. Written in a you-solve-it format, his adventures were originally featured in the excellent canadian children's magazine Owl. This 2nd volume collects another 10 mystery comic stories, mostly from the 2nd year of the series' run, along with a bonus section featuring puzzles and an artists sketchbook. Its available at fine bookstores everywhere but you can also order it online from the publisher Owlkids, or from online retailers like Amazon.com or Chapters.ca. It makes a great gift for readers aged 9 to 13.

Actually, Volume 2 has been out since late March, but I thought I'd make a post here, as I'll be appearing at a special signing at the Toronto comic shop the Beguiling on Saturday June 9th, from 2pm along with Max's writer and creator Liam O'Donnell. So if you're in the Toronto area, come on by and say hello -- I'll even draw you a sketch for attending!

And since this is a sketchblog, you can check out my sketches and the evolution of the cover of Casebook 2 below:

Sketchbook gags

These are the kind of gag cartoons I'll doodle in my sketchbook, which probably goes a long way to explaining why I could never be a gag cartoonist. Most of these are pretty old, and were printed in my old zine, Papercut.

Supergirl

I actually don't have much interest in Supergirl as a comic-book character, but after seeing all the excellent redesigns of her that other artists have posted on the drawingboard.org, I thought I'd doodle up one my own. I drew up and painted this one fairly quickly, so its a bit looser and sketchier than some of my other two-tone paintings. And thinking about it, I really don't think its so much a painting of Supergirl as it is a of a girl wearing a Supergirl outfit -- at least, that's how I saw it my head while I was working on it.

In keeping with some of my other posts lately, you can compare the final marker painting to my original pencil rough below. Personally, I think the pencil drawing was a bit more successful than the painting but, hey -- you can't win 'em all!

Free Comic Book Day...

...has come and gone! Yup, for those who missed it, it was Saturday, May 5th. For my part, I spent it at the fine Toronto comicshop The Beguiling, signing books and doing free sketches for anyone who wanted one (Spider-man and Venom seemed the most popular requests). The weather was great, the turnout was even better and I had such a good time drawing in the sun that I got a farmer's tan. Thanks to everyone who came out and looked for me (hey, Doodlers!) -- I hope you all had a good time and got some nice comics to take home.

Below is my contribution to one of the fine books being offered for FCBD, the excellent Comics Festival comic. Its a one-pager, written by Brian Mclachlan, pencilled by me and inked by Darwyn Cooke. I've posted it here in black and white, but its printed in full colour in the free comic -- maybe that will make you hunt down a copy!

Incidentally, this is the 2nd year that the three of us have collaborated on a page for the Comics Festival book. You can check out our previous effort in an older post from my blog here.

More Portraits

This one's an illustration I did for a wedding invitation. The happy couple in the drawing are friends of mine, and they asked my wife and I to design their invites. Naturally, we couldn't refuse!