Category: Art

Jim & Mike & Cartoons I Liked

One of my highlight’s from MegaCon was getting to spend a bit of time with two old friends. That’s Jim Ivey on the left and Mike Kott on the right. I’ve known these guys for over 30 years. Jim is an award-winning political cartoonist and founder of the original Cartoon Museum. Mike is the founder and co-owner of The Intergalactic Trading Company. Together they [along with Bill Black] put on OrlandoCon, one of the best comic book conventions you’d find anywhere. I knew them because of their respective business enterprises, but we became friends over countless hands and hours playing cards. I only get to see these guys about once a year now. But when we do see each other, it’s like the years melt away.It’s hard to believe that I’m almost the age that Jim Ivey was when we first met! And speaking of Jim Ivey, he has a new book out called Cartoons That I Liked. It features some of his favorite cartoons from the thousands that he did over the years. It’s available as a or $3.00 pdf download or $9.95 for the actual book. You can even order one from Jim which will come autographed and with a sketch for $20.00. If you’re at all interested in political cartoons, then I’d appeciate it if you’d order a copy. The pdf is a steal at three bucks and getting the autographed copy at $20 is a bargain. If you order a copy from Jim, please tell him I sent you his way. Who knows, I may need some goodwill from him should we ever get into another poker game.

Dave Stevens – RIP

Dave Stevens, illustrator/comic book artist, died yesterday. Probably best known for creating The Rocketeer, Stevens was also known for his “good girl” art and love for Bettie Page. Stevens didn’t have a prolific output, but each piece he created was a beauty. Mark Evanier explains why and writes a worthy remembrance.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Dave Stevens‘ family, friends and fans.

MegaCon

Friday and Saturday I was at MegaCon in Orlando. Florida. I had a good time seeing some old friends and meeting a few new ones. The crowd seemed much larger this year and the number of fans in costumes, especially good costumes was the biggest ever. As you can see Wonder Woman and Superman also made the trip to the show.

 

Dave Johnson signed and sketched in my copy of Drink and Draw. That’s Rev. Dave in the photo above. Darwyn Cooke signed my copy of his classic take on DC Heroes in The New Frontier. I was able to get a few sketches for my Stallone theme collectionRon Salas did a Rocky and Joe Peaker worked up a Deke from “Nighthawks.” I’ll post photos once I get them scanned. Chris Moreno was finishing up a humorous take on Freddy from “Cop Land” and Jason Walker still needed to add color to his very cool “Rambo” at the close of day two, so my buddy The James is going to pick them up for me today.

I’ll be back later to tell you more about the show.

MegaCon Bound

One more day and I’m MegaCon bound. I’ll be there on Friday and Saturday if all goes as planned. I’m really looking forward to hanging out with my bro, John Beatty and friends I don’t get to see nearly enough. My goal will be to have a great time, take some photos, discover some new artists, meet some old favorites, and get a few sketches. It’ll be a fun weekend… hope some of you can make it!

Sketch Society

Yesterday, the February Sketch Society meeting was held. Although I’m not an artist, I enjoy hanging out with friends who are. Big John Beatty [in the corner] was there working on a really nice Doctor Strange commission. He also showed me progress on a Modok piece for a fan that really rocks. Rob Smith drove over and brought work with him. Rob travels the state, seems to know everyone and is always fun to hang with.

Sean Shaw [left] and Mark Dail [right] made the meeting. Both guys live in Daytona. It was a blast hanging out with everyone. There were a lot of laughs as the discussion ranged from art to politics to movies to… well, just about everything. The next meeting is scheduled for March 29th. More details will be posted as we get closer to the date. Hope you can make it!

Beatty Speaks

My buddy, John Beatty has posted up a pretty nice little interview with him from nearly 20 years ago. If you click over you’ll read about his artistic influences, how he got to meet his idol Mike Zeck, his plans for the future and his $100 John Byrne haircut. It’s worth reading and I’d say that even if he didn’t drop my name in the interview.

Sketch Society

The first Sketch Society meeting for 2008 was held last Saturday. As luck would have it, the date conflicted with the FX convention and several Sketch Society members were committed to it and couldn’t make the meeting. So it ended up being Big Beatty and myself hanging out and shooting the bull as he sketched [sans reference] the Rambo piece above.

The next meeting is scheduled for February 23rd at the Java Junction. The fun kicks off at around noon. Hope to see you there!

Maybe It’s the Poster

Unfortunately these days it’s rare that a movie uses actual artwork to attract viewers. Perhaps that’s why I have an interest in “Hellride.”

Then again maybe it’s because it’s about a biker gang out to avenge the murder of one of their own. Maybe it’s because it’s got a mix of horror thrown in. Or maybe it’s because it stars Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones and Dennis Hopper and is “presented by” Quentin Tarantino.

Then again, it could be simply because I like the poster.

Sketch Society

My buddy, John Beatty started up Sketch Society a while back. Sketch Society is a group of artists [amateur and professional] who would get together for informal sketching sessions. Although not an artist, I would go just to hang out and shoot the breeze [and occasionally live blog]. The meetings were irregularly scheduled but always a blast.

This year John has decided to have regularly scheduled meetings with the same informal “let’s get together to shoot the breeze, sketch, laugh and have a good time” atmosphere. The first is scheduled for January 26th. You can read more about the whole shebang HERE. Hope to see you there!

One For the Ages

One of the benefits of cleaning is finding things you haven’t seen in a while. That’s the case with the drawing above. It was penciled and inked by the great Neal Adams. I had a stat made of it and my best bud, John Beatty colored the stat. This was done in the early 80’s. Over twenty years later and I’m still diggin’ it.