Where all the magic happens

I'm trying something a little new here: specifically, a little video action. We're working on a major renovation of the greater Olympiansrule website, with the video component scheduled to play a big part in the revised site. Consider this little treat, a short virtual tour of my drawing desk, to be a kind of teaser for some video goodness to come. I act a little silly, and show off some artwork for the upcoming Olympians Book 5, Poseidon: The Yet to be Subtitled, amongst other things.

Special thanks to my pal Natalie Kim for putting this together, She's one half of the Supertwins, a new comedic web series premiering this October.

Classics and Comics Final Cover Artwork

Remember last week when I wrote about the cover I'm doing for an upcoming book from Oxford University Press called Classic and Comics. The idea was that I drew several pastiches of famous superhero covers with the superheroes replaced by Olympian deities. I showed several such sketches, as well as their inspirations, but we finally went with Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman. Here's the final piece below, but click on over to my Olympiansrule blog for a step by step of its creation.

Classics and Comics cover tryout

A few months back I was approached by the editors of a new book coming out from Oxford University Press called Classics and Comics about doing the cover. Classics and Comics will be an exploration of the influences, both subtle and less subtle, that classical literature and myth have had on comics, something that is pretty much the whole point of a series like Olympians.

We talked about a few cover design ideas, and one of the ideas I came up with was this piece, which references the myth of Athena being born from the head of Zeus (not to mention my self-portrait from the back inside cover of each volume of Olympians)



Ultimately, we went with another idea, of paying homage to some classic comic book cover designs, but replacing the modern superheroes with their Olympian forebears. Please click here to see a gallery of super-hero cover designs on my Olympiansrule blog.

Glory of Hera finished black and white art

Wow, lately this blog has been all about the press Zeus: King of the Gods has been getting. I figured I'd share with you some of the finished black and white art for the third book in Olympians, The Glory of Hera. I've been posting most of my Olympians art stuff over on the Olympians blog, so if you miss this stuff, please head on over and check it out. In the meantime, enjoy this page from the wedding of Zeus and Hera

Book Club Discussion of Zeus at Good Comics 4 Kids!

Six different bloggers weigh in on Zeus: King of the Gods at the Good Comics for Kids website over at SLJ. It's a pretty cool piece, with discussions on the randiness of Zeus, speculation on Hera and Athena, and Greek myth baseball cards. One line to sum it up? "For the most part, this book club meeting has been a love-fest." Well, gawrsh. Please check it out.

Rick Riordan blogs about Olympians!

Well, that's probably not a very enlightening headline since, as the master of all things Olympian, Rick Riordan (author of the Percy Jackson series, the basis for the upcoming film The Lightning Thief) probably blogs about something Olympiany almost every day. But what I was referring to was this post, wherein he says some very nice things about my Olympians website. It's very flattering because, well he's a Titan in the field (oof, sorry), and it's very generous for him to reach down from Olympus (sorry again) to shed some light on my little corner of the mythological world. I'll end this now before I get too corny, but please, check out the rest of his blog. Some very, very cool stuff there.

Run! NOW! Zeus: King of the Gods realeased TODAY!!

It's he--e--ere! The first book in Olympians is now available in all finer bookstores (and starting tomorrow, comic shops as well). And if you haven't already, head on over to Olympiansrule.com and my new Olympians Rule blog and bask in some Olympiany goodness.

Olympians Rule is live!

The long-in-the-works website for my new series Olympians has gone live today. Just click on olympiansrule.com and check out pages of bios of the gods, activities for kids and teachers, a look at how the books are made, and more.

Also be sure to check out my new Olympians Rule! blog, linkable off the site, or accessible directly from here. It will have lots of exclusive info related to the series, as well as much general info about the Greeks and their gods. Hope you enjoy!

This dude looks familiar...

Some more artwork for the Olympiansrule.com website. A self-portrait this time. Either that, or the standards on Mount Olympus are seriously slipping.

BTW, as part of the new site, I'll be running a new blog, the aptly named olympiansrule.blogspot.com. Head on over and check it out.

Hestia

Poor Hestia, the least developed of the Olympians. Despite being extremely important in cult and ancient everyday life, she had virtually no presence in myth or art, which has lead to her being the most overlooked member of the pantheon in the modern day. As a goddess of the hearth and fire, I chose to depict her as a barely humanoid being of living flame, as a nod to her barely-personified role in myth.

As an aside, I drew this whole piece up in about, no lie, 5 minutes. I was actually going to scrap it until a couple of my studio-mates, with no prodding from me, came up and told me how much they liked this drawing, left on my drafting table, in particular. I guess I was too close to see its merits.

Preview of Olympiansrule.com

Masks!




A cool feature on the upcoming Olympiansrule.com-- tons of downloadable masks! With little dramas from the books for classrooms to act out! Or for you and your buddies to reenact the Trojan War with on the front lawn! Pictured are Ares, God of War, and Hephaistos, God of Fire.

Olympians Rule preview

Just a little preview of an image I created for the soon-to-be launched Olympiansrule.com website. Enjoy!

Demeter

I was pretty happy with this portrait I drew of the goddess Demeter for the Olympiansrule.com website, and thought I'd share. Like Aphrodite, it took a little while for my conception of Demeter to congeal-- not until I drew the cover for Hades, in fact. I think I have the hang of her now.

Aphrodite 2.0

Longtime devotees of my blog will remember the problems I had in nailing down the character of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Well, those problems had continued until fairly recently, when I finally drew the above pinup (for the Olympiansrule.com website). It took a lot of back and forth on my part to find the right body type for an ancient goddess of beauty. I think I finally got it. She's only made a couple of cameos in the series so far, but now, fully fleshed out, Aphrodite can take the stage for a more prominent role.

Trickster Tales

Just finished coloring this guy for the Olympiansrule.com website, not to mention the (very far off) upcoming Hermes book in Olympians. Thought it looked pretty nice and so I shared it with you all. Enjoy.

Olympians Rule!

So as part of the promotion for the upcoming series Olympians (first book in January! Second book in April!) First Second and I am working on a website, olympiansrule.com. Here's a preview of an image I created especially for the site.

Athena pin up

A pinup for the back of Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess (and the upcoming Olympiansrule.com website) that I thought came out rather well.