Planet Comicon 2013!

The table info is in and the map has been released. Make sure to stop by my table. I'll be under the Flying Fortress banner this year. It's the one with the giant B-17 falling out of the sky, you can't miss it. (also it's pictured to the left). I'll have tons of stuff for sale this year. New books and prints. I'll also have a ton of original art for sale both Flying Fortress pages and random sketches and drawings from the year.

Along with Flying Fortress, I'll be unveiling my new book "Thumbson and Mort" I recently had a tiny successful Kickstarter and was able to get my 24 hour comic from 2012 printed into a full sized comic book, complete with fan art and sketches. It's the first in a new side project that will have it's HQ at www.ThubmsonAndMort.com All sales made go to making sure these two fools get a good home with some proper hosting.

I'll also have books by the co-creator of Flying Fortress, Mr. Andy Moore. He's just printed a 15 year anthology of his comic strip Don't Panic and he'll have that at the table for all to enjoy. It's over 200 pages of full unadulterated madness. I urge you to check that book out too!

Hey look at that, I was able to write more than once sentence... I think this deserves a little celebration. Not sure how, but for now I'll just eat a little more Easter candy.

Restriction and Creativity

Over the past few months I've spent a lot of time pondering whether or not digital drawing is really all it's cracked up to be. I dabbled with it for 2 years on different projects. I've even drawn a complete 22 page issue entirely digital. And I color Flying Fortress digitally 100% of the time. But I think there is a romance with pencil and paper that can never be reproduced. Even if it could be someday, is that really what I want? A reproduction of the real thing?

This idea of me dropping digital has even go so far as to thinking about coloring a comic using water colors instead of Photoshop. If nothing else it would allow me to expand my artistic tool-set in something that is useful outside of comics. Should we as artists just jump in to digital work because it makes it easier? Should we follow the rest of the world just because everything is digital these days? There's something to be said for a fully penciled and inked drawing on Bristol board that you can never experience on a screen. It's a tangible thing that isn't going anywhere. It's not tied behind DRM or only best viewed on a high definition display. If the power goes out you can still hold it and look at it. For that matter, if the power goes out you can still work with traditional tools.

I recently found out that Jack White doesn't allow cell phones at his shows. After digging deeper I learned that he holds some very similar ideas about tech that I've been pondering not a few months prior. Below are a couple videos of him describing it and I think they help sum up what I'm feeling about the subject.

If you'll indulge me in a 'P.S.'

I'm not saying that all technology is bad or if you draw using a Wacom that you aren't a real artist. I'm also not saying that I'll never use it again. I Just think that if you allowed yourself some more restriction that you'd find more creative ways of doing things. That is all!

Digital pencils

Over the past several weeks I've been working on a different project than Flying Fortress. Writer Scott McCauliffe hired me one to do the pencils for his book We Ourselves. Along with my fellow collaborator Andy Moore, we've been turning out the pages for this story. Me on pencils, Andy on inks. I'm currently about 2/3 of the way done with the first issue. There have been some challenges along the way. I think I've tried a different drawing technique on each page. From straight up traditional to fully digital and everywhere in between. The page above is the 15th and I must say it's my favorite so far. It's drawn completely digitally with a Wacom Bamboo Pen. I'm getting more comfortable in my digital skin and I think I'm going to be making the leap to nearly 100% capacity.