New Comic for ARGH! #5

As promised, my 4-page comic:



The orange-red you see here printed as a truer orange in the magazine.

For all the information you'd ever want about ARGH!, go to ArghComic.com...all issues (including this one) are available for purchase.

For more info on issue #5, look at this earlier post.

For some process work on this comic: (1) and (2)

Also, feel free to hop on over to my comics site at Jinx the Monkey to view all the comics from past issues of ARGH! and an assortment of single page comics.

SpongeBob: Say Cheese!

You're gonna have to excuse some of the drama apparent in this post. I just went to CVS to pick up a prescription for my wife, and sneaked over to the magazine section to see if the December issue of NickMag was out yet. I saw a cover with Spongebob wrapped in a bow, drawn by the super talented Sherm Cohen. The issue is wrapped in plastic because it comes with a free poster, so I had to wait until I paid for everything until I could open it. And there it was...my first SpongeBob comic, Say Cheese!


I don't have the final version with the speech balloons and logo, but this is the color file the fine people a NickMag sent me back in August:


I wrote, penciled, and inked the comic, after initially pitching the idea to the editors. Wes Dzioba handled the coloring and did a fabulous job! It was so fun to send out my inked version and have it come back SpongeBob-ified with all the right textures, colors, and flowery patterns in the sky. This is indeed a huge first for me. And surreal! I'm working on pencils for another SpongeBob comic now, featuring Plankton and the bunch.

If you see it at a newsstand near you, snatch up a copy. There are all sorts of great comics in this issue. If you haven't already, hop on over to the Nicktoons Comics site where you can view a huge collection of comics from past issues.

Sunday Morning Warm-up

Getting ready to pencil some comics this morning...

ARGH! #5

This is a special message to all comics fans from Spain. Issue #5 of ARGH! is hot of the presses, and is now available at a comic book store near you. I posted a teaser page from my comic this summer, which you can view --> here. This issue is in orange and blue, and includes comics by Félix Diaz, Jorge Parras, Ferran Esteve, Molg H., Martin López, Nestor F., Brais Rodriguez, Paola Gaviria, Mar Malota, and Jorge Perez-Ruibal. I'm the one American in the bunch, but my comic is translated in Spanish. I'll be putting up all 4 pages eventually, but for now....go out and BUY IT...only 5 euros! The above cover art is by Jorge Parras.

For more info, go to ArghComic.com.

11/08/08: ARGH!#5 is available for purchase online now (along with the previous issues)

UPDATE...

Here are some photos!





For related posts (and COMICS!), here's the tag: ARGH

Final Battle

Me and a bunch of folks at FableVision are wrapping up a 2-year project this week. We collaborated with MIT to create a Flash-based education video game to reinforce math and logic concepts. I posted awhile back (Customized Comics) about the comic that goes along with the game, revealing chapters of a larger story arch as you play.

I've been working with fellow artist Tami Wicinas on the final pages of the comic this week. We teamed up throughout, but the last comic has truly been a team effort as the deadline quickly approaches. Here is the pencil sketch I drew for the beginning of the final encounter with Echidna, the arch-villain of the game.


On to inking (all done in Flash with a tablet). I handled most of the character inking on this page; Tami filled in some of the backgrounds.


And here is the color treatment I'm going for—lots of RED, as you've just set off the alarms. The artists will run with this idea as they color.


Finally, I had a lot of fun melting down Echidna in this series of panels...she turns into a bunny. The comic is kind of in my style (less cartoony than usual). I fleshed out the look and feel with Keith Zulawnik, lead artist on the project, some 2 years ago. It's been awesome to work on.