Magneto-mouse

I've been slow to update the blog this month, as I've been busy working on comics and enjoying the sun (Summer has finally arrived in Boston), so I thought I'd dig up a game from the archives. Magneto-mouse is a Flash game I helped develop at FableVision for Scott Foresman. It's a "science game" in the same vein as Goldisocks, which I posted a few years ago. We decided up front to try to give it an 8-bit feel. We also had a fun time with the game instructions—where we were able to include a lot of the curriculum.


The science principles at work here are force and motion, with an emphasis on magnetism. Your objective is to guide Magneto-mouse through an obstacle course of friction patches and duck crossings, using a hovering magnet to repel or attract him. You can collect "turbo cheese" for boosts, too. If you make it to the end, there's a cute surprise. I think a few people have cracked the 1:00 mark, so I challenge you to see how fast you can do it.

Click the link below to play the game.

--> Play Magneto-mouse

Have fun!

Strong Thurmond and The Filibuster

Chris Duffy started up a blog called "The July 4th Project" where cartoonists are contributing their notion of the patriotic, all-American superhero—just in time for Independence Day. Chris says to interpret freely, "You can be sarcastic, political, pro-America, anti-America, whimsical, or nerdy (my favorite)!"

I did 2! Here they are, with a write-up to go along with them.


The frail and elderly Senator Strom Thurmond once took to the skies above Capitol Hill as Strong Thurmond, defender of the Southern delegation! Tourists would cry, "What's that up in the sky? A turd? A stain?" just before he smacked head-on into the Washington Monument. Strong Thurmond often joined forces with The Filibuster, known for his uncanny ability to speak at great length. When armed with a phonebook, no legislation could stand in their way (including the Civil Rights Act of 1957—ouch!). They hold the record for a full 24 hours and 18 minutes!



Draw something up and send it to Chris if you have time before the 4th!

Razor

The WTD? word for this week is RAZOR.


Here's the the sketch that got me started. I played around with a couple different color treatments for this one (alternates below).




I went for pure cartoon pop on the later.
Hopefully it glows a bit on your monitor.

You can check out the other contributions over at the FableVision's Creative Juices blog. If we stay on track, look for another WTD? in a couple weeks.

Me at 100

Here's the color version (see previous post) of my illustration for Phil McAndrew's Draw Yourself at 100 contest. Here's what I had to say before:

I see myself as a mostly bald man with a head full of bushy eyebrows, free to wear pit-stained undershirts, shorts, and saggy socks around the house. If I'm still making art, let's just say I'm not sure if I'll be all there—but hopefully just as enthusiastic about my work.

A couple things to add: extensive nose and ear hair, and it goes without say that my nose will grow long and bumpy like a cucumber (this is what cartoons tell me, anyway).

This drawing is probably a good approximation as well: Glee

See you in 2079!

SpongeBob: Belly Button Lint

After reporting somber news about Nickelodeon Magazine a couple weeks ago, I've got something more upbeat to share. I have a SpongeBob comic featured in the July issue of the magazine, which should be available at newsstand near you soon—if not now. I scanned the spread from The Comic Book (pages 34-35) which you can view larger below, because Nick Mag adds the speech balloons after I hand it off to them.


This was an especially fun comic to work on because I was fortunate to collaborate with cartoonist Corey Barba, best known for his kid friendly comic, YAM. Corey came up with the story concept and wrote it, in addition to providing me with a rough layout to work from. Here's a bit of process, including my pencils:


And finally, inks:


I inked it on paper, scanned it, and sent it off to Wes Dzioba for the splash of color that always brings the comic to life.

Knowing that the magazine is soon coming to an end makes the remaining issues extra special. And this is a great one, packed with comics and cartoons by James Kochalka, Emily Flake, Randall Kirby, Martin Cendreda, Alec Longstreth, Jef Czekaj, Travis Nichols, Scott Roberts and a new YAM comic by Corey! Also, plenty of illustrations including the likes of Hal Mayforth, Clayton Hanmer, and John Martz. Not to mention puzzles and gags! Definitely snatch it up when you see it.

Also, be sure to head over to Nicktoons Comics to read tons of comics from previous issues. And if you want more still, Chris Duffy and Dave Roman have a blog all about The Comic Book.

Wrinkles

I've been drawing wrinkly old men in my free time, warming up for a contest of sorts over at Phil McAndrew's LiveJournal blog. The rules: "Draw yourself at the age of 100! Wrinkly saggy old people are probably my favorite thing to draw and I hope you have fun drawing them too!" The reward (as if having an excuse to draw old wrinkly people isn't enough!) is a package stuffed with all sorts of Phil's artwork and goodies. If you haven't read his "Pearly Whites" comic, do so now—you'll quickly see he has old miserable saps down pat.

Now, onto the sketch dump:


This is the one I'll likely ink up and color. I see myself as a mostly bald man with a head full of bushy eyebrows, free to wear pit-stained undershirts, shorts, and saggy socks around the house. If I'm still making art, let's just say I'm not sure if I'll be all there—but hopefully just as enthusiastic about my work.


More wrinkles and eyebrows.


A case of the saggy upper lip.


One thing I look forward to is not having to make excuses about being a grump!



...and a few more wrinkly faces to wrap things up.

Also, I just joined Flickr. I put up some comics and illustrations—kind of a mess because I haven't organized anything. But look me up if you're in the area.

Justification

Here's my contribution for this week's WTD? (What The Doodle?) on FableVision's Creative Juices blog. "Justification" was what the random word generator spit out—one of the trickier words we've gotten so far.

Jog & Lunge

Nickelodeon Magazine (1993-2009)

Word has probably gotten to most of you by now that Nickelodeon Magazine has been canceled after a 16-year run. If not, I'm sorry to bring you the news. The story hit the internet last week via the L.A. Times, and has since been covered well by The Comics Reporter (1, 2). The news came as a shock to me, but apparently it boils down to a shortfall in ad revenue which is hitting everyone hard right now in print media. Viacom simply decided to pull the plug.

The news also hit my personally. I've had the pleasure of contributing illustrations and comics to the magazine for 4 years now. I know only a handful of the dedicated staff who worked so passionately to deliver one of the best magazines that ever existed for kids. I wish I had the chance to get to know more of them, but that group includes Debby Albenda (who first contacted me back in 2005), Chris Duffy, Frank Pittarese, Caitlin Keegan, Catherine Tutrone, and most recently Gordon Whiteside. These folks were the best clients (and are the best friends) a cartoonist could ever have.

My career in cartooning has been relatively short. I considered Nick Mag a home—my work hasn't appeared in too many publications, and I always felt welcome in the pages of the magazine. Few things made me happier than to receive a call or email to draw some goofy, wacky, or gross illustration. And more recently, getting to write and draw SpongeBob comics was nothing short of a dream come true. The illustration and comics communities benefited greatly from the publication. Many a talented cartoonist got their start in the notable comics section of the magazine called "The Comic Book." And it was truly a golden standard of what kid's comics could be.

Which gets to who this will affect the most—the kids. Meg Hunt put it really well in her eulogy of sorts: "They’re going to miss out on a quality magazine that introduced them to great artwork (even if they didn’t know it) and fun content that wasn’t just regurgitating information from their network." Besides Highlights, I can't think of another major magazine that spoke directly to kids.

On a positive note, I would credit those at Nick Mag with being directly responsible for the resurgence and popularity of comics for kids. Talented folks like Corey Barba (creator of YAM) gained a following in the magazine, and now have their comics published in book form. That's great news for kids and creators.

I thought I'd share this comic which appeared in the April 2006 issue of the magazine. It was called "Another Boring day at Nick Mag". I was asked to spice up what was a typical day running the magazine (written by the staff). It features cartoon versions of staffers, but I'm not sure who is who at this point.


I think I can speak for everyone that we'll all miss you, Nickelodeon Magazine. My sympathies and wishes go out to all those involved. And thank you.

Wild!

The Wild Things are being unleashed over at Cory Godbey's blog tribute to Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. It's called Terrible Yellow Eyes and Cory was nice enough to invite me to contribute some original artwork.


I started in Flash, and ended in Photoshop where I added some watercolor textures to the background. I definitely wanted to show a wilder side of Max.


Here's my line art.


And this is the sketch I worked from. I actually did a lot of other drawings, which I may post at some point. I may contribute another piece if I get around to it, too. It was great to delve into the story again and explore the illustrations—I hadn't done that since I was a kid!

Today's a fun day because Cory is posting a total of 20 illustrations! One every half hour until this evening! So hop on over a have a look at the amazing talent (and tribute) on display.

Tired, Huddled...

I like the colored and inked versions, but the simplicity of the pencil sketch is sadder somehow. Mainly in the eye, I think. He's a bit more grumpy now. Inked in Flash, in case you were curious.

How to Clear Out a Movie Theater

(click for full image)

This is a fun illustration I did for Nickelodeon Magazine, currently featured in the June 2009 issue. It's purpose: to give you all sorts of weird ways to creep out the person sitting next to you at the movies. I hadn't done a group shot like this in awhile, and of course it was a great opportunity to come up with some interesting characters. The above image is the file they sent back after they added text to the speech balloons (though it says pages 8 - 9, it now appears on pages 4 - 5). It has great placement in the magazine, too—spanning a full spread!


Here's a close-up of my two favorites of the bunch, only because I love that grin.

In other news, you should hop over to the Creative Juices blog to see what the crew came up with for this week's WTD? (What the Doodle?) The word was "PLOT." Here's my contribution:


What d'ya know?...another deranged kid. I'm sensing a pattern.

Inking with a brush pen

This may come as a surprise to those of you who've been following my Flash tutorials, but I really enjoy inking the traditional way as well—the ole dip the pen in the bottle of ink approach (maybe you've heard of it). I talked about my process in an earlier post (My Little Corner of the World) and how I use various pen nibs to ink my comics. I can get a varying-width with my nibs by applying pressure and it works perfectly for the level of detail I want in my comics, but the line width is limited to the size of the nib. This makes is harder to ink at a larger scale.

I recently purchased one of those Pentel Pocket Brush Pens (if you're interested, check out Jet Pens), which unlike felt-tip brush pens (markers, really) has actual bristles. It's known in cartooning circles as one of the best brush pens around. When you first get it the bristles are completely white until you load the cartridge and the ink flows in. As long as you keep the cap on, it never dries out.

I've been playing with it a bit, but it's a little hard to control as I'm not used to inking with a brush, period. But I'm beginning to get the hang of it, and I'm hoping that with a little more practice the transition to inking with a true brush will be easier.

I just finished a couple drawings for an art trade with my talented blog buddies Chris Houghton and David DeGrand. And I inked them with the brush pen, which I am wielding here in this photo.


My end goal is to be able to create the same cartoony line I get out Flash, but on paper with real ink. I learned digital before analog, as odd as that seems. The biggest downside to inking in Flash is that you're not using real ink (INK is so much fun to work with) and you don't have a physical piece to hold in your hand when you're done. The computer is amazing, but it sure does a good job of trapping your original artwork in binary code.




I had a blast inking these drawings. Soon, I'm going to buy some brushes and give the real deal a try. Until then, the brush pen is doing the trick.

Brainy

A little brain dude in early development.


Might work him into a comic, or a game.
I have a possible story in mind. Cute, huh?

In other news, I'll be heading up to the first Maine Comics Arts Festival in Portland, Maine this Sunday. Seems like a fun event! Mike Lynch has a list of the cartoonists and writers who will be attending.

Also, another reminder that I'm on Twitter these days (@bobjinx).
So look me up!