24 Hour Zine Challenge

This past weekend I took part in the 24 Hour Zine Challenge to help promote the Portland Zine Symposium. The challenge was to create from conception to final work a 24 page zine or comic in 24 hours. There were 9 people that signed up, but only 5 of us finished by the deadline. I'll put up a link when I get multiple copies printed out.

It was a real challenge. I spent the first few hours coming up with a story and then penciled and inked 96 panels in about 20 hours. Whew!! To put it in perspective, it usually takes me about 8 to 10 hours to pencil 1 page and about 5 hours to ink. One thing this showed me was how much you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. Having said that, I better get back to drawing. 8)

Picnic With SU

This last Sunday I went out to Skidmore Bluffs here in Portland on a lil picnic with the Stumptown Underground editors. I really enjoy hanging with the SU crew. I got to meet Kirsten, another editor who is moving to Korea to teach English. I'm glad I got to meet her before she took off for her Asian excursions. I hope the best for her. We also witnessed Blue's amazing tree climbing skills. Impressive.

I once wanted to move to Japan to teach English after I graduated, but moved to Portland instead. Who knows what adventures I would have had in The Land of the Rising Sun! I still hope to make it there some day. I love Japanese history and culture. Japanophile!!

Skidmore Bluffs is a great place to sit and watch the Sunset. It is at the west end of Skidmore Terr. in North Portland, sitting just above the industrial area, overlooking the Willamette River. Here are some pictures of the amazing view and the bike ride back home.

This is the view over the industrial area. I'm not too keen on industrial areas. They tend to bring up feelings of pollution, waste, and big corporations making way too much money. But I have always had a soft spot for trains. I used to sit and watch them all the time when I was young.



The Sun had just gone over the ridge.

This is the Steel Bridge and Downtown on the way home with the Moon to guide me.

Promotional Piece For My Next Comic With Progress Pics

Here is the latest piece I did to help promote my next comic, ZFW. I felt as though we needed something to show people to get them interested in the comic since we can't show any actual pages yet. Suffice it to say, some veterans are gonna lay some smack down on some filthy undead!!


I started off sketching a drawing that was about 6"x7".


I then scanned it in and made a few adjustments. I noticed the zombie head was a bit small for the perspective. Barely as big as his cowboy boot!! So I cut out the head and blew it up, I blew up the left arm since it was so close and I angled both arms to focus on Butch's head, making the composition more solid.


I then blew it up to 11"x12" and threw it on my fancy schmancy light box and transferred the image to an illustration board. (picture may differ from actual subject) 8)


I then went to town inking the entire thing with a #3 Windsor Newton Red Sable brush. I hope this helps some of the people reading this blog that are interested in techniques to improve your work.


Here is a separate image of the logo. If you guys could use this image to link to this page that would do wonders to get the word out there to the masses. And I would so super appreciate it!!

Prepping for the Cardboard Show

I am preparing for the KND Cardboard show to benefit my buddies, Jay Are & Rachel. All proceeds are going to help pay for their hospital bills. Anything I can do to help is a pleasure and a half for me. Nothing but Love up in here!!

Those that have seen my work before know that this is just the beginning stages of my work. There are going to be layers and layers added. At this stage I like to work on many pieces at a time, assembly line style, sharing colors on each and building up layers across the... board.

I thought the Dead Guy Ale, while also mighty tasty, would be fitting since Jay Are almost joined the little fella. Thankfully he is feeling better and isn't part of the club yet. 8)

Stumptown Underground

I don't remember how I discovered it. I think I was just looking for people on Twitter from Portland to get a feel for the town. I started following a few locals and this helped solidify the fact that Portland is the town for creativity! Not only does Chuck Palahniuk, the writer of Fight Club, Survivor and Choke, etc. live near here so does Brian Michael Bendis, one of the biggest names in comics and Gus Van Sant, the director of Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. And that's just the tip of the creative iceberg. This town is chock full of creative individuals!!

One of the people I came across was Christina "Blue" Crow or lovemotionstory on Twitter. She was part of a collective that was self-publishing a local zine spotlighting creative individuals in all mediums; comics, poetry, illustration, prose and even recipes. I loved this idea. It seems like a great outlet for all the people who may not be able to get their work noticed. Any one of which could be the next Van Sant, Bendis or Palahniuk.

I decided I wanted to do more than just submit. I wanted to be a part of the creative force behind this anthology. I got to hang out with some of the editors that make up the Stumptown Underground collective and see how they put these zines together. It was an amazing time that took me back to art school and The KND, the collective I am a part of back home in Oklahoma. It felt good to be in a room with fellow creative types and to help build every copy of this anthology by hand. The smell of the glue, the sound of the printer, the cutting of the paper. Everyone working together to make it all come together: lining up pages, folding signatures, sewing seams, creating fliers, gluing covers, updating the web page. I loved it.

And then there is the marketing and tabling. They have the zine in most of the comic shops around town and set up tables at most local conventions. You can find them all over if you look hard enough. They have recently started setting up at Last Thursdays on Alberta as well. I love that they are working to get the zine out there and I want to do anything I can to help the creative people of Portland be recognized. I have recently started learning about marketing with my own comic book and I am hoping I can help apply this to this zine as well. It feels good to be a part of the creative community. It was nice meeting the editors and the people who submitted.

And if you haven't yet, you should submit something to the zine!! It is a great way to start getting your work out there and it just feels good to hold something you created in your hands. Do it!! 8)

Feel The Power!!

Here is my latest sketch of Jinko, the main character in the webcomic I am developing. I was wanting to explore how the power he has access to is going to look. It is going to look different for each character that has access to it depending on their personality. This was all done in straight ink with a Zebra F-301 ball point pen, my favorite sketching tool!!

Father Phil

My best buddy in all of infinite time and space, Jay Are Connaughton, aka Father Phil of the Killer Next Door, was in a motorcycle accident this last weekend. He struck a curb while on his way home from a music show at the KND studios. He suffered from broken ribs, a punctured lung and a fractured face. He was unconscious for the first few days and the doctors didn't know if he was going to make it. He is stable now and on the road to healing. He has come down with a case of pneumonia from all the liquid in his lungs and he is going to have surgery to reconstruct his eye socket, but things are looking a lot better. He is awake, talking and laughing. Which probably hurts, but good to hear. 8)


He is one of the original members of the KND, the art collective I have been a part of for the past 10 years or so. We have helped build a pretty solid art community back home in Oklahoma. A ton of our friends have put together a music and art benefit show to help pay the hospital bills. I am working on a couple pieces for the show myself. I have probably painted Jay Are more than anyone else and his house if full of my art.

Here's a collaborative piece we did. Father Phil did the background and I painted his beautiful mug.

Here are ink drawings of his wife, Rachel, and him.
Here are some paintings I have done of them. The first one is of Father Phil with a glass of wine, Dasha and his lil teddy bear he put in all his paintings. The one of Rachel was my thanks for her getting me out of my one and only trip to the big house. She Rules!! The next one is of them having a cupcake spaceship battle of love!!


This is the first one I did of Doug and him, two of the original members of the KND.

And here's the one I did for Doug with most of the original KND members. KND Forever!!


And here he is in my first comic, The Anti-War museum. I had to put my best buddy in there!! Here's hoping that he makes a quick recovery so I can go kick his ass for scaring me!!