08-03-21 - Did some video experiments last week for an upcoming project. Above you can watch me draw a moody Batman piece, which is up for auction in our eBay store BTW. I know the news has been slow, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t news — we are about to announce a big project so stay tuned.

97-15-21 - Busy knocking out the commissions we have, sorry to anyone who is still waiting, we are hoping to clear all of them by the end of next week. Currently we’re busily doing character designs and a few covers but we’ve signed the contracts for the big project we’ll be starting in September but we still can’t talk about it. When we can you’ll get the announcement right here first.

Convention conversations continue, in addition to the ones listed below we’re in discussions for a show in Singapore!

06-30-21 ORIGINAL ART AVAILABLE IN THE REVAMPED STORE PAGE! Check it out!

06-14-21 TORONTO HERE WE COME! We just agreed to Fan Expo Toronto October 22-23rd. We have a crazy busy schedule for late Summer with four weddings, projects and deadlines to contend with. Since breaking my arm all the way back in February I’m still not able to lift my regular 200lb weights and I’m paying for it, my stamina is nowhere near what it was and travel wipes me out. I’m hoping that changes pretty quickly as the weight restriction has been slowly lifting.
We’re also plotting out next year’s show schedule, and right now it looks like we’ll be in Chicago, Portland Oregon, Boston, Dallas, San Francisco and Calgary as well as potential appearances in Scotland, Tokyo and Moscow!

06-04-21 NEW GRAPHiC NOVEL PROJECT TBA - Veronica and I just signed a contract for a new 200+ page graphic novel that we’ll be starting in July, I can’t announce what it is yet but needless to say it’s one we’re very excited about and we are anxious to really push the envelope on this one. A graphic novel is completely different than a monthly comic book because you generally have 3-4 weeks to draw a 20 page story before the book has to be in the hands of the printer for its release date, with a graphic novel we have a year long deadline so while we’ll still have smaller deadlines inside of that with the art director it still leaves much more room for creativity. Details should be announced soon as the rest of the creative team is assembled.

05-24-21 - COMIC-ART LiVE III WRAPPED! Well that was a whirlwind show. For any fellow creators who might stumble on this bit of NEWS I have to say that COMIC-ART LiVE put on by Bill Cox and his team at ComicArtFans.com is now officially THE BEST SHOW OF THE YEAR- and that is really saying something. We normally do pretty good business at any convention we do, and keep in mind when we do these shows all of our travel and lodging expenses are paid— often our meals and bar tab too (and that can run low four figures), and for the record our two best shows have always been in Chicago and Portland Oregon — but that record was not only broken, it was SMASHED. We projected high for CAL III and we DOUBLED that projection. What is the cost to participate? You need to be a CAF Premium Member; a three month membership is $35 and a twelve month membership is $75. Considering $75 is the cost of one airport meal going to a “real” show that’s a bargain.

The show does it’s best to replicate “real” comic-cons in that they have panels with guest artists and this year they even did a Drink And Draw— that’s an event usually held the night before any show— we’ve done it many times— artists get together in a bar and draw on small pieces of bristol which are then auctioned off for charity. It’s a fun way to ease into the commissions you’re going to do during the show.

SPEAKING OF COMMISSIONS - I’m going to do an upgrade to our Comic Art Fans Account— I’m going to streamline the ART FOR SALE and I’ve already come up with a Commission guideline that will be posted soon. We are closed for commissions right now BTW, but will announce when we open it back up again in the Fall.

I’m considering a revamp of the SHOP here on AndyTFish.com maybe even just move everything over here where I can have a PayPal checkout in a handy dandy form. I’ll take a look at it when we’re back from vacation in June.

05/17/21- COMIC ART LIVE IS THIS WEEKEND! This weekend is COMIC-ART LIVE — I think it’s the THIRD online convention but for some reason they’re calling it II— no matter, we’ll be set up with some cool items and offering original one of a kind commissions too. Watch for the link to our booth this weekend.

05/10/21- NEW GRAPHiC NOVEL - We are currently in negotiations for a 200+ page graphic novel which sounds exciting and has some elements in it that we are really looking forward to. A year long graphic novel would curtail some of the other projects we have in the works but that’s what scheduling is all about. We often have to juggle projects to keep the work coming. Hopefully I can make an announcement here soon.

04/29/21- UPDATES UPDATES UPDATES - I’ve been knee deep in scripts— hard to post anything script wise because unlike art, scripts are proprietary so they have to stay secret until the book deal is done. We’re currently developing a creator owned project and once we have a contract we’ll start promoting it right here as well as on our social media accounts.

If you’re among the folks who have sent well wishes and asked how my broken wrist is going, thank you! Recovery has been slow but typing and drawing helps with the therapy.

Scrolling through the news there are some needed updates; GHOST RIDER HARDCOVER is still in the works. We’ll be doing a whole line of Golden Age reprints with minor restoration. We want them to look like they did when they were printed but in some cases stories are pretty rough so it’s taking a bit longer than usual (plus, broken wrist and needed scripts) but it will eventually come out.

Batman Project: I had posted some character designs for a Batman project I was just about to launch when I first broke my wrist, so that went the way of the dodo. With a broken wrist I was still able to type so that’s the work I focused on and continue to focus on, and the creator owned project takes precedence so Batman will wait.

04/14/21- ABADDON - Too much writing in the news section lately and not enough art. I'm currently fleshing out three different projects but one of them is very simple: What if costumed vigilantes were real? More over- what if they were insanely violent?

That’s the concept of ABADDON— Hebrew for THE DESTROYER. I wanted to do something that had some good insanely violent fun in it as a throwback to the old pulps like THE SHADOW and THE SPIDER. And I’m even working up a little animated promo for it. More soon!

THERAPY NO MORE! - For those of you asking how my wrist is coming along (broke it in February) it’s two months post surgery and while it has not returned to a full range of motion I’m able to type and draw back to a level I’m happy with. The trouble with Physical Therapy would be that I wouldn’t do much work before out of fear of missing the appointment (always in the morning) and then I’d not feel like doing anything afterwards so I’d lose a full work day. Meeting with my surgeon for a follow up she completely understood and was fine with me doing my own therapy.

04/12/21 CRASH AND BURN - That short project for Dark Horse that turned into a long project mentioned below has been cancelled (no fault of ours they assure us) as the scripts weren’t going in the direction they wanted them too. We weren’t writing it so we had no control over that. Oh well, such is the life of the Freelancer. 2020 was probably the most challenging year we’ve had as freelance comic artists— a 5-8 month break in publishing due to the pandemic which resulted in the closing of many comic shops and then an upheaval of the distribution channels has our publishers hesitant on potential projects, so penciled deals we had have evaporated. We’ll be okay, thanks for asking!

04/06/21- After breaking my wrist I didn’t miss a beat with writing scripts, first with one hand (I can normally type about 85 words a minute) and with one hand I was able to maintain about 35 words per minute— far from normal but good enough to get by. After several; weeks of therapy my wrist is still sore but I’m up to around 75. I’ve spent these two months developing scripts, working up pitches and fine tuning— I have no less than TEN potential projects to present to publishers and this week Veronica and I will go through them to see which one(s) we really want to develop.

You’ll certainly find out more right here in the NEWS first.

05/24/21- That short project for Dark Horse has turned into a long project so we had to shuffle some things around, but for the time being we’ll be bogged down with that. Rehab for my broken wrist is going very well, I’m able to type about 120 words a minute (according to my mac) and I am able to draw layouts and do very loose pencils. This week I’ll ink some of the commissions I have to get out of the way as more recovery work. Spring is here! We took a nice walk after driving the convertible, and we are doing some things around the house to clean up after a tough winter.

03/11/21 - We have a short project for Dark Horse coming up next, and SLAM!, The roller derby comic from Boom Studios which was co-created by Veronica, has been optioned as an animated series by HBO MAX! More soon.

02/22/21 - Updated the PORTFOLIO section of the site, that was a long time coming, and I’ve simplified and streamlined it. Take a look by clicking on PORTFOLIO up at the top of the page. Truth be told I hate dead and dilapidated websites, some of my favorite artists haven’t updated since 2014- I get it, work gets in the way, but many of those same folks who can’t find time to update post thirty times a day on Twitter- well that’s where we differ. I think Twitter is nonsense and I think Facebook is worse. You want a break from those toxic sites? Come here, pull up a comfy chair and read some comics.

02/07/21 - In the early 00’s my good friend Michael Warshaw and I developed a BATMAN project that looked at the character’s history while delving deeper into his motivation to devote his life to enacting revenge for the murder of his parents. Starting February 10th I’ll be running the project on WEDNESDAY COMICS on the BLOG. After the series wraps in mid April I’ll build a page here on the blog to celebrate the work, so much of what made it a great idea came from Mike. Sadly, Mike passed away in 2020.

02/03/21 - FILM NOIR FESTIVAL 2021

I’m doing a FILM NOIR Festival for the next few Sundays— there’s the list of what will be featured, feel free to follow along. Might even generate some movie reviews out of these. I love Film Noir— a period of film from the mid 1940s to the late 1950s that often had a darker edge to it compared to what Hollywood had done before.

BATMAN IN PROGRESS TB Posted RIGHT HERE

That Batman project I talked about is starting to come together, check back in the NEWS to see some behind the scenes progress work, which I think you might find interesting.

Stay tuned!

02/01/21- Revisiting some of the archives thanks to a week of cleaning and organizing my studio and my extensive files on my extra hard drives. Here’s a flash back to a gallery show in Seattle featuring a big wall of one of my pieces called CRAZY AM I?

Since 2020 was pretty much a bust event wise and with the aforementioned reorganization I have a lot of images and graphics to go through, so expect some updates in THE NEWS and THE BLOG.

01/29/21

RiP 2020 Convention Season- I can’t believe there were ZERO Comic Conventions — there were a few very small shows that managed to run and they did things like restrict attendance to 25 people at a time or something so we just didn’t feel we’d generate enough money at them to make them worthwhile. It’s time out of our studios so that’s money we’re not making.

This year we’re tentatively invited to a half dozen shows but none of them have officially announced they are running so we’re in a holding pattern to see what that does. I miss hanging out with Veronica, meeting the folks that read our work and most of all experiencing the great restaurants each city has to offer. The West Coast has some really amazing food.

I’ll update here when and if some shows start running.

01/15/21 - BATMAN UPDATE

Character designs for Batman and Dr Death (masked and unmasked) for my upcoming Batman project. Dr Death was a villain first faced by Batman in a 1939 issue of Detective Comics. Like my pervious story which featured Hugo Strange, this one will have a very pulp feel to it as Dr. Death seeks revenge for Batman having destroyed his face in their first encounter.

The project will start soon, it will run here on Wednesdays as well as over on Undercoverfish.com with a new page each and every week. This is a shorter narrative than my previous attempt but I’ve tried a few things differently including fleshing out a full script before starting. My previous endeavor can be read by clicking on BATMAN PROJECT on the links page in my blog.

01/12/21 - UPDATES

Savvy readers will figure out that I’m on deadline with SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH #5 which we hope to wrap up in the next 10 days. The end of a project is always crunch time so there is little time for anything else, least of all news updates. But here are a few things worth noting:

• I’ve gotten asked if there will be a SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH III from Archie Comics, first, thanks for reading. Veronica, Kelly, Jack and I really enjoy working together with the Archie Comics team but this arc was a struggle because of the whole Coronavirus thing causing shutdowns and pushing work up against each other. As of right now, there are no plans for another series and with the Netflix Show coming to an end that might not bode well for more, but I do know Archie has been happy with the sales. I think a lot will depend on how the trade paperback does sales wise.

• SUPERDUCK - For those of you looking for my variant cover to SUPERDUCK #1— sorry I don’t have any. The Archie offices remain closed and they’re all working remotely so comp copies are not coming in. When I get some I’ll let you know.

• COMICLINK AUCTION - The fine folks at Comiclink.com have some of Veronica’s Covers and interior pages up for bid this month, check ‘em out. Original Comic Art is going for crazy money now, and they start all of their auctions at $1 so you can get some real bargains! LINK HERE!

• NEXT PROJECTS ON DECK - 2021 is going to be a busy one. Our next big project is from Dark Horse but it’s not BLACKWOOD this time around, but it’s not far away on the shelf— more details when I can talk about them. I’m doing another take on the Golden Age Batman with a short story that will be posted here and on elsewhere very shortly. I’m doing this one by hand and the original pages will be offered for sale as they post. We also have two creator owned series we are developing right now, we’ll see which one gets to the development stages first.

• HBO MAX - Speaking of creator owned, we both have projects being developed through HBO Max, quite exciting to see your characters brought to life and we’ll be able to announce the who and when soon (I hope).

01/01/21 - BATMAN RETURNS AGAIN

I’ve had a lot of folks asking when I’d be doing a sequel to DEATH RAY OF HUGO STRANGE, well, today I’m starting on prelims which I’ll post right here so stay tuned!

HOLiDAY BREAK! No News is Good News!

12/24/20- Well folks, I’m on a holiday break and you should be too. More to post here next week.

12/08/20 - Golden Age GHOST RIDER Hardcover COMING SOON!

The folks at Canton Press put out the first volume of the great old western comic book series GHOST RIDER in 2015— well we’re taking over at RoboPicto Books and offering Volume 2— should be available online and in stores early 2021— the book features great Dick Ayers artwork and has been lightly restored so that the colors look like they did when they were first published. Beautiful sewn hardcover edition!

DEC 7, 2020 - NEW COLUMN ON SUPERWORLD.COM

My good friends at Superworld Comics have hired me to write a blog for them two times a month covering comics, comics history, just about anything you can think of comic related. I’ll post the days of the month it’ll run here when we’ve worked out the fine details. Meanwhile, check out their SUPERWORLD LIVE show on Tuesdays at 6pm— it’s a highlight for my week.

NOV 25, 2020 - MASTER CLASS PRODUCTiON IS UNDERWAY!

Recording for my MASTER CLASS series is underway— with the expectation that I’ll have the first course ready to go by mid-late December. Each session will feature 8-10 classes and each class will feature a video segment that you watch on your own. Students registered for Level 2 and Level 3 Classes will also receive a PDF Workbook which follows the lessons.
More info available soon!

11/23/20 - STILL MORE WORK DONE TO THE SITE! GALLERIES REVAMPED!

Spent the day revamping the Gallery for the website— I was up late last night trying to figure out how I could have categories for the gallery instead of just a sort of mass image drop. Well, I figured it out and you can check it out back on the GALLERY page. I’m still trying to figure out how to add text descriptors to the pieces because some of them need explanation, but at the same time I tend to be too wordy so maybe it’s a good thing after all.

11/19/20 - ADDITIONAL WORK DONE TO THE SITE

I’ve been working pretty much non-stop on the site— I’ve streamlined the front page— I thought NEWS pretty much summed up both IN THE WORKS and OUT NOW so I combined the two. This page here will be the most updated, I also gave it a fancy new header above. We did extremely well with the COMICART FANS LIVE Virtual Convention so I revamped all of our pages over there. The one complaint I hear about COMICARTFANS is the site is overwhelming— and it is, but give it a few minutes and browse around to find some great artwork.

I’ve added a SHOP which has multiple levels just like the old time department stores; The Third floor is our Original Art For Sale— this will take you to our gallery at Comic Art Fans. We add to the for sale pile several times a week and work ranges in price from $25 or so all the way up to multiple thousands, so check it out.

The Second Floor is our Newstand— here you can find signed copies of our latest published works.

The First Floor takes you to our eBay Store where you’ll find fixed price vintage items we’ve picked up in our travels. We offer a wide variety and very soon I’m planning on off loading about 150 items into it so watch the space.

The Bargain Basement takes you to our low opening price never a reserve auctions on eBay— here is where we clear out, blow out or move out items we’ve had kicking around for some time.

Initially I had an Etsy Store set up but honestly it couldn’t compete with eBay. Two vintage items I put on Etsy sat there for two weeks with no interest, meanwhile I opened an eBay Store and both items sold within seconds of posting it, so I’ll be closing the Etsy Store very shortly.

Over the winter I plan on really emphasizing a lot of things on the site so stay tuned, check back and give it a look see. As always, thank you for your interest.

11/18/20- CLASSES ADDED TO THE MAIN SITE NAVIGATION

I’ve taken a break from classes and many of you have asked when they’d be starting up again, well if you go to the MAIN PAGE you’re going to see one of the three image links is listed as CLASSES— that means something is in the works. My first step was to create a Google Survey Form and send it out to a dozen former students— I chose randomly from “regulars” to “one-timers” and got back eleven results. The first question I asked was should we do these as we did in the past? Meet once a week in a group setting while I deliver a lecture, answer questions and offer an assignment at a particular time or should we switch to a Master Class type of setting which would mean you sign up and get a series of videos that you watch at your own pace and schedule?

> 72.7% MASTER CLASS vs 27.3% TRADITIONAL CLASS - I also allowed for notes to be added, and some of the feedback was interesting, first and foremost MC was the chosen style because of scheduling but there were also comments that they would prefer this so that students wouldn’t have to sit through other student questions that are not relevant to them. I always try and encourage people to ask specific questions after class but it’s sometimes hard to denote what may or may not be of interest to someone else.

So Master Class it is. I need to make money doing this but I don’t want it to be so cost prohibitive that someone that wants to take a class can’t. In the past I’ve always done scholarships, that means that some students get reduced tuition or even minimal tradition but I make them pay it off in a variety of other ways like acting as the classroom TA or at the very least making sure they attend every class and maintain a 3.5 grade average— I’m not going to let slackers get a break. So for Master Class I thought what about a tier system? I put this in the survey as well and here was the response;

> 9.1% Said they would take a Level One Class. In this version you would just get the video, no feedback from me other than a final review of your project in the form of a grade and a minor critique. The tuition for this class would be $125/USD

> 27.3% Said they’d take a Level Two Class. In this version you get the video plus a PDF Workbook and you send in each assignment to me as you complete them and you get per assignments written critique an in-depth written review at the end of the session. The tuition for this class would be $225/USD

> 63.6% Said they’d take a Level Three Class which would get you the workbook, private in depth critiques and two live one on one sessions one in the middle of the course and one at the end of the course. The tuition for this class would be $325/USD

I’d also suspect that a big portion of those choosing Master Class owes to ZOOM burnout. I think we are all sick of ZOOM Meetings. So watch this space and the class area for updates soon.

11/17/20 - THE GREEN GHOST!

Get ready for The Green Ghost! Based on the pulp character from the 1930s (sort of) The Green Ghost is going to be comics to surprise a lot of people. It’ll be part of a bigger project that Veronica and I are working on. More details soon!

11/16/20 - COMICART FANS LIVE WRAP UP! Wowie wow zow thanks to everyone who swung by our booth and placed and order— you do not know what a year we’ve had and the returns on this show really helped us out— so thank you— the next one is in May, look for notices here and on the blog!

11/14/20 - COMICART FANS LIVE! In a year where there were few conventions we have to contend with virtual events to do what we can to make up for them. Stepping up to the plate, we are guests at COMIC ART FANS LIVE this weekend; Nov 14-15th so CLICK HERE to check out all they’re offering!

11/01/20 - #INKTOBER SUMMARY October 2020

What a long strange trip #INKTOBER has been. Next year I think I’m going to break it into four sessions with themes for each session. Who knows, but here’s how this year worked out and what the current status is;

• 01 - KARLOFF FRANKENSTEIN - SOLD

• 02- CLAUDE RAINS INVISIBLE MAN -SOLD

• 03- LEWIS WILSON THE BATMAN -SOLD

• 04- GLENN STRANGE FRANKENSTEIN -SOLD

• 05- BARNABAS COLLINS -SOLD

• 06- 1ST APPEARANCE BAT MAN -SOLD

• 07- ADAM WEST BATMAN -SOLD

• 08- GRIM REAPER LAST CALL -SOLD

• 09- DRACULA FASHION SKETCH -SOLD

• 10- FRANKENSTEIN FASHION -SOLD

• 11- WOLFMAN FASHION SKETCH -SOLD

• 12- CLASSIC 60s BATMAN -SOLD

• 13- LEWIS WILSON BATMAN 2 -SOLD

• 14- BRONZE AGE BATMAN -SOLD

• 15- MAD MONSTER PARTY -SOLD

• 16- CAPTAIN AMERICA -SOLD

• 17- WILL EISNER’S SPIRIT PRELIM -SOLD

• 18- DR PHIBES -SOLD

• 19- LEWIS WILSON BATMAN 3 -SOLD

• 20- WEREWOLF BY NIGHT -SOLD

• 21- MICHAEL MYERS HALLOWEEN -SOLD

• 22- BATMAN’S SCARECROW -SOLD

• 23- BATMAN DARK KNIGHT -SOLD

• 24- INCREDIBLE HULK -SOLD

• 25- MARS MAGNO -SOLD

• 26- LIVING DEAD ZOMBIE -SOLD

• 27- THE MAD MONK -SOLD

• 28- THE SPIRIT -PRiVATE COMMiSSiON

• 29- FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER -SOLD

• 30- DOCTOR JACK KIRBY -SOLD

• 31- NOSFERATU -SOLD

OCTOBER 2020 - BLACKWOOD #4 (and SABRINA) IN STORES NOW

We interrupt INKTOBER for published work that’s out in stores now!

OCTOBER 2020 / INKTOBER

#INKTOBER is upon us all thru October so I’ll be posting an original sketch everyday here on the blog at 8:15PM- and there will be a link to each piece in a NO RESERVE low opening bid eBay auction too. CLICK THE LINK HERE TO SEE THEM ALL! This is a real bargain chance to get a piece of original art — one of a kind had drawn— cheap. There will be a big mix of styles and characters in these listings, check back on THE BLOG everyday for the latest one.

Here are some highlights:

Sept 10, 2020 - MASTERING PERSPECTIVE is OUT - The book I did for Walter Foster Books is finally out— this book on perspective is for artists who are not looking for calculus level perspective but want something more than basic without forcing you to down a bottle of aspirin while you’re trying to understand it. You can find it in bookstores and on Amazon.com right now.

Oct 1, 2020 - BEHIND THE SCENES of BLACKWOOD

The pandemic has shipping schedules all over the place, but BLACKWOOD II; MOURNING AFTER #3 is out in stores now (see the review below) and SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH #2 came out last week. Both will be in collected editions after the series are published so don’t worry if you have to find an issue here or there.

Jun 24, 2020 - A NICE REVIEW OF BLACKWOOD II #3;

By Kevin Rossi from Comic Watch

Recap

The students learn about the Dark Wisdom conspiracy, but can they warn everyone else about the planned attack on Dean Ogden's midnight funeral? Probably not, because we still have an issue to go! Also: Chimp Ho Tep's second escape attempt, an occult heist scheme, scrying, dying, corpse dumping, a dead art student, and the meat from space that eats your face. WTF?

Review

Something that I have continuously loved about Blackwood: The Mourning After is the art. Veronica and Andy Fish have gained a lifetime fan. The eyes are immediately drawn to every page and don’t want to leave it until every detail is taken in. The majority of issue #3 takes place at night, yet there is so much color. When I think of the dark of night, I don’t immediately think of pink or purple. The Fish’s somehow executed colors in a way that makes me question what color the night really is. Blackwood: The Mourning After #3, or any issue, could be completely textless and still be incredible. Evan Dorkin’s writing is too good to be left out, though.

YOU CAN READ THE REST HERE

How about some behind the scenes of BLACKWOOD? Well, above, the Mirror Guy is our doing, Evan wrote him into the script but we came up with the look of the old hippie.

REVIEW OF BLACKWOOD FROM COMICSBEAT: Evan Dorkin, Veronica Fish, and Andy Fish‘s first Blackwood miniseries arrived last year, and it made quite an impression. The story of four under-achievers who receive scholarships to a school for the occult is at times wickedly funny, at others gruesomely horrific, and full of wild ideas and genuine heart throughout. The arrival of a sequel series, Blackwood: The Mourning After, is welcome given both the number of lingering mysteries at the end of the first volume, and the complexity and relatability of the characters and the world Dorkin and the Fishes have created.

The new series finds the remaining leads (one of the students was killed in the first series), who have been bound to Blackwood College following a curse from the school’s now-deceased former dean, trying to pick up the pieces in the immediate aftermath of the previous story. The school sees the arrival of dozens of visiting faculty members in town for the dean’s funeral—but could one of them also secretly a killer? And who or what is the mysterious apparition that’s trying to contact the three scholarship students?

With Blackwood: The Mourning After #1 due in stores and digitally next month, Dark Horse Comics has provided The Beat with an exclusive look at some behind-the-scenes process art by Veronica & Andy Fish for the forthcoming series. On returning to the series, the Fishes had this to say:

“We are so pumped to get back into the Blackwood world.  Evan’s scripts are so exciting to read and even more so to draw, the story just keeps getting deeper and more intense.  We hope our love of the characters and the environment comes through in the art.”

The trade paperback collection for the first Blackwood series includes a fair amount of process art like this, and it’s great to see this part of the process from a team of creators at the top of their game. Check out some character sketches, as well as a look at prelim pencils and finished inks for a panel from the first issue, below. You can also see a few preview pages from the issue alongside our interview from last month with the full creative team.

Blackwood: The Mourning After #1 is out digitally and in stores on February 12th. The first Blackwood series is available in a collected edition in stores and digitally now.

Here’s a look at the process for BLACKWOOD- my pencils on the left and Veronica’s inks on the right— you can see that she does so MUCH more than just tracing lines— she makes the right decisions on this.

Sept 3, 2020 - UPCOMING UCF PROJECT

Upcoming over on UnderCoverFish.com — a fun little project I’m doing with some fellow artists— not much to reveal yet, but you will be the first to know when there is.

August 31,2020 - SABRINA

Well after a pretty long delay (March actually) we got the word that we’re starting back up on SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH for Archie. We really love this series because I read Sabrina as a kid, Veronica watched the TV series from the 90s and it combines great elements of comedy and horror. Check this panel;

That’s comedy gold.

August 17, 2020 - OPEN FOR COMMISSIONS

Veronica and I are open for a limited number of commissions— click on SHOP up above if you’d like to find out how you can get a piece of original art that you curate.

August 6, 2020 SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH II

We’re deep into SABRINA #3 right now— here’s a peek at a scene in the school— there is an art show going on behind Sabrina as she has a conversation with another character and I loaded this with Easter Eggs— Bob Montana originals, a picture of Veronica and me, a whole lot of stuff that you’ll get a look at when the book comes out (and I’ll outline here).

Equally fun is the collaboration with Kelly Thompson— she’s a really great writer and the three of us are really in sync. Today she shot us an email with a couple of ideas to “goose up” a scene she had written, and amazingly we’d already thought of it and worked it into the art. Kelly had this nice thing to say;

“I can't state enough how much you guys bring to this book. Sometimes when I finish scripts I'm like "Eh. It's okay, but it's not my favorite." but by the time you guys are done with it I'm like "wow, what a great script!" ;D

So thank you both for making me look so good! <3”

No thanks needed, it’s a great collaboration and we enjoy working with Kelly very much!

BATMAN 1943 Blu Ray Box Art

August 6, 2020 - I’ll get a little further into what it is exactly, but the headline pretty much says it all right? Final image here soon.

UN-NAMED PROJECT in the works Aug 2020

Well it’s not un-named to me but it’s a secret— so SHHHH. Veronica and I are wrapping up our contract for SABRINA II: SOMETHING WICKED and are going to take the opportunity to work on our own project— which we’ve been developing over the past few weeks.

More info, sketches, etc— very soon— watch the space.

INSOMNiA Jul 2020

Insomnia is going to be a vertical graphic novel anthology with all the work by me (and occasionally maybe Veronica). It’ll vary from time to time, mostly just bits and pieces of ideas I have for longer narratives— it might be hard boiled crime, straight up horror or even a comedy drama. I’ve got a lot of short stories I’d like to work out and this’ll be the place to get a feel for them. STAY TUNED.

VAMPIRE PROJECT

You can see the page link to INSOMNIA above but I can give you regular readers a hint that it will be a horror project featuring vampires. Are vampires played out? Nah.

Some character designs;

More this week!

JUL 6, 2020 BATMAN vs DR DEATH

Detective Comics #29 featured the first ever notable super villain in Batman-lore— Dr Death— I wanted to do an adaption of the story for some time so I’ll be posting updated pages HERE.

Also IN THE WORKS;

Insomnia - A Vertical Comic Story completely original I’ll be running here on the website— you’ll see a link to it up above once it starts. Vertical comics are fun because you just scroll down the page to keep reading the next installment.

SPOOK CASA- aka GHOST HOUSE— get ready for something really fun coming soon!

MAY 18, 2020 SGT ROCK COMMISSION SKETCH and STuDIO TOUR

It’s kind of nuts that we haven’t worked since I posted the BLACKWOOD Cover on March 13th— right after that the lockdown happened with this Coronavirus and the world lost it’s mind. If I were to have really shown you what has been in the works for the past two months it would be the cleaning and reorganizing of my studio. We moved in here four years ago and while I’ve certainly cleaned it between then and now, or had it cleaned in most cases, I’d not really gone through it top to bottom so it was overdue. How about a tour?

Our house is three floors— Veronica’s studio is on the second floor— you access mine through a sort of hidden door (the house inspector missed it when he did the initial pass), which leads to this area here and a very steep ladder that takes you up into the attic. The full size Shawshank Redemption poster is a personal thing for me, the times when my life has taken a dark turn this movie got me through. My darkest period, which was way back around 2003-2004 this film embodied my life and the choice to escape. The scene on the poster is the second Andy has escaped the prison and a quick burst of rain rebirths him as a sort of baptism. No matter how bad things get, you will get through it and the other side is a beach in Mexico with your best friend.

Next to Shawshank is a signed Bob Kane lithograph and above that is a one of my favorite Godzilla illustrations ever...

It’s not dated but I think #3 son Adam made this around age 7 or 8— he is following in the art field and that link over to the right, Robo Picto— is his site. Recently he’s expressed an interest in trying to do his own comics, and I can’t wait to see the results.

Heading up the stairs, Charlie Brown gives you a hello— along with a framed vintage Beretta (my favorite firearm) ad given to me by Veronica— under the stairs is a full size target I shot up at the range- 90 shots at thirty feet and I never missed once. Go ahead, make my day.

At the top of the stairs and to the left is my digital work area— you can see the chair to the left and the edge of my desk which sits like a cockpit in the roof dormer. Behind that is a chair for me to sit and occasionally read, the red pillow in the foreground is Austin’s spot. He comes up in a basket because he’s afraid of the stairs.

Here’s the digital work area— I use an iMac and a Wacom Tablet. The shelf on the right holds 16 volumes of vintage comic books and the shelf above that more comic work that I use for reference material. That phone that is on an arm up above my tablet plays movies while I work on a home based network that I’ve built. You can’t see it, but to the left of this is a small desk which usually houses my iPad Pro which I often use as a third monitor.

Looking back the other way past the stairs which are in front of the chimney is the second half of my studio— on the bottom left you’ll notice a bunch of books, that’s a long narrow bookshelf that i built to fit into the angled area where the roof and floor intersect.

We’ll look at this half next time.

March 13, 2020 BLACKWOOD #4 Variant Cover Final

The Design team at Dark Horse really killed it on this one— I love what they did with the cover logo. They sent four variations but I really liked this one with the black and white logo.

March 7, 2020 - BLACKWOOD PROMO POSTER

This year we’re only scheduled for two shows after having cancelled Collective Con in Florida— but both shows also feature Evan Dorkin so we’ll have ¾’s of the creative team assembled for signings and our publisher Dark Horse Comics sponsors the first show and is the big dog in the room at the other so we thought we’d do something special and worked up these 8x10 mini posters which we’ll give away for FREE at these signings— they’ll only be a limited number available— and what’s cool is we’ve added a glow in the dark element to them.

After creating the image for the poster we then selected the portions of it to glow, we decided we’d try the main logo, the ghost and the white masks and the Dark Horse Logo— so we created a negative of those areas;

Adding the glow ink will involve burning a screen and then using a silk screen stencil method to apply it to the printed posters. We’ll be back next week with step by steps and how it went. Sometimes the best laid plans don’t always lay out correctly!

February 24, 2020 - FRANKENSTEIN GOOD TO THE LAST DROP

Playing with some new brushes and working up a new print I’ll post more progress soon.

February 20, 2020 - BLACKWOOD #4 Variant Cover

We’ve had some great variant covers with this latest run, Evan Dorkin, Andy MaClean, Peach Momoko and for the last issue of this run I did one. DH has posted it elsewhere so I can talk about it now;

The first step is the idea.

I wanted to do something cartoony with a sort of throwback to Saturday Morning Cartoons, big bold colors— lots of black. Something spooky but in a world of an eight year old kind of way.

This was the first one through. I thought it was OK, I didn’t love the dark figures in the windows and the kids didn’t look right to me so I wanted to tweak it a bit more.

Added a few bats, played with some colors, brightened up the ghosts a bit, changed the gate color to something brighter but I still didn’t like the kids. I also didn’t like that of the four protagonists only three of them are making a run for it here. Where’s Jamar? Well, to be honest when I started this we were barely on Issue #2 of the series and I had a feeling Jamar wasn’t going to make it. I still didn’t feel right about leaving him off, so I worked up another one;

I liked this one better and I dropped out the light in the windows so the only light source is the moon and the front walk and I sent this in. I ended up revising it late so we’ll see if this is the one that makes the cover or the other one does. I’m pretty even on both of them so we’ll all find out when it hits shelves on May 12th.

February 17, 2020 - SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH: SOMETHING WICKED PROCESS

We just wrapped up the first issue of the new SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH Mini Series, in stores April 1st or so— here’s the process which we used to work on this issue;

1- First up, Kelly Thompson’s script— she sends us a pretty detailed account of what she wants on the page, but she gives us room to extend things, she’s also great at listening to any visual suggestions we might have.

2- Veronica and I sit down together and rough out the script— we act out parts, we read the dialogue and we try to get a clear image of what we want the reader to see and feel.

Roughs are done small— I did these in a sketchbook about 3x5 or so— a little bigger than I usually do.

3- Once the two of us have approved the rough, sometimes doing 2-3 drafts of a sequence before settling on one, we tighten the roughs to pencil stage.

4- Veronica inks over my pencils here, tightening things up and keeping things consistent.

5- After inking she sends the pages back over to me and I put in the color flats. Flats are simple colors but not finals. They basically fill in the area so doing final color becomes faster since you can grab colors using the magic wand tool in Photoshop.

6- Using the color flats as a base Veronica does the final colors— and she knocked it out of the park with this one.

7- I upload all the finished files into the Archie FTP so that Jack Morelli can letter them.

January 22, 2020 - ANATOMY OF A COVER: SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH

As I mentioned in the previous post- I’m doing a variant cover for our sequel run on SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH for Archie Comics. This is my second variant cover this in the past few months with the first one being SUPERDUCK #1 which is also mentioned below.

After sending in the first sketch, which they liked, Archie asked for a second option. I’d worked up a print idea for Ace Comic Con in Chicago to promote our appearance with the actress who plays Sabrina on the Netflix Show— it’s based on a vintage 1940s Betty Grable pinup— but it’s experimental in it’s color scheme so I wasn’t sure they’d like it— so I did a quick new sketch and sent that in. These preliminary sketches are done 1” x 3” at 300dpi in Photoshop.

And they accepted this one too. I’d sent it in on a Friday and they told me they’d give me their choice after the weekend. Without delay I got the email on Monday morning saying they went for this limited color Halloween one. Very cool because this one is “clearer” in my head. I want to do something with the other one, maybe if we get a third SABRINA series we’ll be able to work it in as a variant.

The next step in the process was to take the Photoshop sketch and “blow it up” to 11x17 at 600dpi— then I tighten the sketch up and work in some of the details, like the spooky tree she’ll be sitting next to. I may have it with a sinister looking owl or some eyes or something in the tree to account for Sabrina and Salem’s surprised look. I pushed for the idea of an infinity cover— meaning Sabrina is reading a copy of the book this cover is on, but my other thought is it should be spooky stories or something, I’ll decide when I get to that point. Once the sketch is reworked it looks like this;

I was careful to make sure Sabrina fit out model sheets for the series so she looks “right”- and Salem on his iPhone is something that makes me laugh. I have a pretty good idea for a Salem one shot that I might pitch next year, we’ll see how it goes. After reworking the sketch this way I then print it out onto paper and then using a Lightbox I transfer it to some nice Bristol board.

Creating the whole image in pencil so that I can then ink it. Why work traditionally? It’s a nice break from working digitally— it’ll still be coloured digitally— and it’ll give me an original of the cover.

More soon.

January 18, 2020 ANATOMY OF A COVER: SABRINA

Archie Comics is having me do a variant cover for our second run on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. A variant cover is a second (or more) cover for the same issue which will have a main cover— in this case all of the main covers are done by Veronica. Companies do variant covers in lower print runs to make them collectible as well as to sell more copies of a book.

Last year DC Comics did something like 40 variant covers for DETECTIVE COMICS #1000 (you can see mine below) making it the biggest selling book of the year so this is a pretty common practice.

Color Rough Sketch done completely in Photoshop on my iPad Pro 12.7” tablet. I’m thinking this might be an infinity cover, so that Salem is reading the Sabrina mini series. That’s all I can show for now.

More soon (see above).

October 26, 2019 ANATOMY OF A COVER: SUPER DUCK

Archie Comics just announced they are bringing back SUPERDUCK so now I can get into this;

Back around Halloween Archie asked Veronica to do a variant for the book and she was buried and despite being buried myself I asked for a shot at it and they were happy to have me. They sent me a basic plot for the book, which is essentially that Superduck is a washed up superhero who now has to resort to doing personal appearances and face his life with a serious drinking problem while the city he loves goes into the quacker thanks to the nefarious dealings of the evil overlord.

Step One is to submit some cover ideas in the form of rough sketches;

My first idea was my favorite;

Super Duck (or Superduck I can’t decide) sitting on a bar stool— a mostly empty drink glass loosely held in his hand, an equally empty Whiskey bottle on the bar as he looks out the window at the garish neon of Dapper Industries all over the place— that’s the villain of the piece. I would have painted this in somber colors inside while the bright neon outside the window would reflect on Duckie.

The next one would show him seated at his vacant table at an appearance show— behind him his prices for autographs have been marked down— I know this feeling all too well. We did an Anime Show last year where NO ONE knew who the heck we were and we spent the weekend working on layouts with little interruptions.

The last one is what I call a good old fashioned slugfest— it might be the least creative but they’re always a lot of fun to do. The idea would be that the bad ducks he’s fighting would all be monochromatic while Duckie himself would stand out with color.

I sent all three ideas into the editors and they chose the last one— I had about three weeks to get it done, and knowing my schedule was packed I decided to start work right away.

The second step in the process is to decide HOW you’re going to work— in this case I took the preliminary sketch, with the suggestion from Archie VP Vinnie to move Duckie up a bit in the fight so he’s more noticeable and blow it up onto a piece of bristol board and decided I would do the original art traditionally using pencils and inks. Sometimes it’s faster to work digitally, sometimes it’s not.

From here I scanned the page in at 600dpi and began the task of coloring in Photoshop— once immersed in color I felt like I’d lost my way from my original thought— shame on me for not doing a color rough (a small thumbnail sized block of color) so I turned to Veronica who made some great suggestions— big thanks to her for putting up with me while I was loosing it.

I whipped up a digital brick wall and dropped the colored artwork onto it, as if we’re looking at a poster of Duckie’s golden days— and sent it in for approval— Archie got back to me and asked me to tweak his face a bit— they felt he looked too angry and his head feathers were off model, so some minor corrections and back to them where they dropped in the logo;

And that’s all there is too it— a fun project and overall I’m happy with it.

October 6, 2019 BLACKWOOD: MOURNING AFTER #2 Dark Horse Comics

My pencils before Veronica inks them;

Funny how these “latest work” updates seldom update because you’re too busy working!

June 2019

SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH for ARCHIE COMICS

We started work on a five issue mini series for Archie and they’ve been happy with it and the sales so maybe there will be another mini— meanwhile we’ve really gotten attached to the cast of characters and we’re having a lot of fun with the series. This is page #2 from issue #4 featuring a crowd of angry parents— my pencils Veronica’s inks.

March 2019

March 8, 2019 DETECTIVE COMICS #1000 Anniversary Print/Comic Cover

Batman turns 80 this year— jeez. In honor of this event DC Comics is doing approximately four million alternate covers for the historic issue. Here’s mine, you’ll be able to buy it right here if you want one next week.

I decided to base my cover design on the very first appearance of Batman, or The Bat-Man as he was called back in May of 1939. In the pages of Detective Comics #27— so after his cover appearance and a brief headshot in Detective Comics #26 this is the first time we ever see Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s creation in action. There is considerable debate among those of us who also argue things like “Can Underdog beat The Incredible Hulk?” and “Could Superman actually change the course of time by spinning the world backwards?” as to whether or not Batman’s tiny gloves in this first appearance are purple or blue. I know what you’re saying— well there they are— they’re blue! Not so fast. In other printings they’re purple. That’s going to matter later.

My first go through of the cover design was pretty simple; figure out Batman’s stance;

Using what Kane or whoever helped him draw the original piece did, I figured on this pretty straightforward shot. Now the only thing I don’t like about this is I’m going to be the only one to get that I’m going for the original appearance because we can’t see the two hoods Batman kills in this first sequence.

Veronica and I teamed up for this one (which actually turned out to be two covers— they asked us back for another). Here are the preliminary designs I came up with for the first one;

Now you may notice for this one I used almost identical styles and looks for the two hoods as Kane had originally done. I kind of liked their grotesque and crude nature. But as I started inking this one they’re ugliness and stiffness just didn’t work for me. I also wasn’t too happy with Bats pose— he’s a little too “hey fellas” in the head tilt.

So that took me to this one, I completely redrew everything— now the hoods are a little more stylized and Batman is coming for them. I like this, but now it’s a “moment after” that first appearance. Because in the Det 27 shot he’s just standing there. So it’s back to the drawing board again.

Now using a lightbox I combine the original first idea with the new hoods and I’m happier with this, I get the hoods pretty much inked and then realize I still have that tilted Batman head which I had scrapped the last time around, so I rework the head and this is the final result;

I added the tenements in the background even though in the scene they’ve just left a wealthy dude’s house— I figure everything in Gotham is tenement level living— from here I’ll go on to color and some final tweaks, but this is about 90% of the way done.

The finished piece will be available as a variant cover for Detective Comics #1000 and as a Limited Edition Print available right here and at fine retailers near you.

NOV 2018

BLOODSHOT VARIANTS for Valiant Comics.

Option 1 - I wanted to play with some lighting on this one and create a very dramatic composition by having the smoke/fog rising up at his feet.

Option 2- Sort of the same theme but this time with a handgun and the loss of his jacket.

Option 3- More of an action cover.

Option 4- More of an action/pulp type cover- I returned the long jacket and I thought we could play with the light coming from the muzzle fire as well as give it some dramatic lighting. This is the version they asked us to finish, and it should be out very soon. Check Valiant’s social media.

GEEKS and GREEKS Cover…

New Slipcover for GEEKS & GREEKS— available at fine book sellers everywhere.

JUN 1st 2017: BATMAN DEATH RAY OF HUGO STRANGE

Latest page of the Batman Strip, I'm out of lead time on this and now it's a case of doing it before it publishes next Wednesday, wish me luck.

APR 19th 2017

Thought you might like to see my pencil roughs for the latest BATMAN strip-- I work pretty loosely as I'm going, preferring to add the details in the inking stage.

APR 15th 2017

FNC SPACEMAN IMAGE

Last year I did a design for Friendly Comics in Bellingham for my good buddy Ernie to use on his bags.  He gave me free reign and I decided to do a version of Mars Magno 2.0 which I'm re-envisioning as a kid friendly adventure strip to help them learn not to be afraid of things.  The only thing he asked for was Krypto the Super Dog as part of the illustration.

A few days ago they asked for a higher res image that they could use for other things and when I opened the file I realized it was intentionally a bit crude because it was designed to be seen small.   A larger image required some cleanup and some elements redrawn so I ended up doing the whole thing over again while still keeping the original spirit of the first one.

Above is the new clean version, swing by Friendly Comics to see what the old one looked like!

APR 14th 2017

ST GEORGE SLAYS THE DRAGON...

Or at least we have the dragon.  My local church asked if I would do a quick sketch for their website to advertise a large scale art project Veronica and I are going to do with the kids in the parish.

Since this was a volunteer assignment, I opted to do the piece "live" during an online class I'm running.  That way the students in the class could see the step by step process and I could accomplish the piece without pay.

First step is the pencils, they didn't ask for step by step approvals so this was just for me.   It's easier to figure out the piece if I have a solid pencil drawing first.  This took a few revisions, initially I had the whole dragon sitting on all four, but he looked a little too much like a dog so doing this cropped version seemed more interesting.

Step Two is to "ink" the piece.  I'm doing this whole thing digitally in Photoshop using layers and a brush tool. The inking gives it a finished look and something to base the colors on top of.  Veronica had suggested I do it as a sort of silkscreen look with "no blacks" so I'll take care of that in the process.

Step Three I add in a simple layer of gray for shadow-- reasoning that the flame is casting light I have that shadow up on his back.  I'm trying to not make him too frightening so I opt to hold the shadows off the top of the head and face.

Step Four is to add scales to the Dragon.  I do this by creating ONE scale in Photoshop and then copying and duplicating it until I create rows, the whole process takes about five minutes to make enough scales to cover the dragon where I want his scales.  I drop them on top of the ink drawing and change the layer style to MULTIPLY which allows me to see through it to the ink drawing of the dragon.  I use the ERASER tool to remove the scales where I don't want them.

Step Five is to color the piece.   Working in Photoshop I drop the colors on top of the ink drawing and change the color to multiply.  I also reduce the opacity of the colors so that they aren't crazy bright, bringing them down to a more subtle hue.

Step Six-- Remember Veronica's suggestion of no blacks-- well here it is in action.   I drop a layer of blue over the whole image and then adjust the layer style using diffuse so that the blue replaces the black on the dragon.  I left the black around the flame to make it pop.  And there you have it!