Signing at McNally Jackson! First Second's 5th anniversary!

First Second, publisher of Journey into Mohawk Country, Ball-Peen Hammer, The First Second Nursery Rhyme Book, and the Olympians series is turning 5 years old! Join me in raising a glass to the wonderful people who, for some reason, keep seeing fit to publish me this Tuesday, November 15th at McNally Jackson Bookstore in Soho! I'll be joined by other such First Second luminaries as Dave Roman, Mike Cavallaro, MK Reed, Mark Siegel, Molly Crabapple, Danica Novgorodoff, John Leavitt, Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan, Carla Jablonski, Matt Madden, and  Joe Infurnari!

The fun begins at 7 Pm, see you there!

The Savage Dragon!

As you all know by now, Savage Dragon #171 came out today, with a big jam story written by Joe Keatinge,  illustrated by Erik Larson, Simon Fraser, Mike Cavallaro, Joe Infurnari, Dean Haspiel, Tim Hamilton and myself, and cobbled together by Mr Michel Fiffe. For my portion of the story, I didn't get to draw the familiar version of Mr Dragon doing much but have a conversation with a dead lady (read the story!), but I did get to draw a medieval Savage Dragon in shining armor fighting a fire-breathing Savage Dragon dragon (again,  read the story!). To amend that I did a quickie marker drawing of MR SD, with an even quicker coloring job. It was a lot of fun to get to play, albeit briefly, in Mr Larson's sadnbox, and quite a thrill to see him draw some characters designed by myself and Dean Haspiel (read the story already!)

warm up-- Happy Birthday, Joe!

Today is the birthday of Hypothetical Islander and former contributor to Drawbridge,  Joe "The Towering" Infurnari, so to celebrate I drew this picture of him with one of the characters from his upcoming First Second Graphic Novel, Mush! Sled Dogs with Issues, which will be in stores this time next year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!

Warm up: Dinosaurs!

I got to choose the topic for today's warm-up sketch, and in honor of Simon Fraser joining us yesterday (not to mention my own love for prehistoric beasties) I chose dinosaurs. Here's Simon Fraser's:



Fellow Hypothetical Islander Joe Infurnari entered the fray today with his frankly adorable Uniceralope.



The mighty Tim Hamilton drew his first with his morning coffee, before he even arrived at the studio...



Natalie Kim, who unless I somehow missed her didn't even come in to the studio today proved herself a champ by warming up remotely with her insecure dino.



And finally mine, with my rare wide-screen Tritelevisitops.


Simon rightly asked me why my Tritelevisitops is so knock-kneed-- I didn't know at the time, but now I realize it's because prehistoric tv's were so damned heavy. The technology just wasn't really there yet, you know?

You're on a cruise ship that sinks equidistantly between two identical islands...

...the only food source on one island is human flesh, cooked gourmet style by people you never see, and on the other island you are forced to forage completely for yourself, in competition with a tribe of wild shirtless Dean Haspiels... which do you swim to?



After pushing my studiomate Joe Infurnari to the brink of sanity and beyond with an endless assortment of questions posed by yours truly, just like the one above-- QUESTIONS IN WHICH THERE CAN BE NO SAFE ANSWER, FOR PITY'S SAKE-- we, the good folks at XOXOs (Hugs & Kisses) studios have decided upon a new studio name. We've just come through a tumultuous period which saw the departure of a few comrades and the addition of Mr. Reilly Brown (Cable & Deadpool, The Incredible Hercules, Prince of Power) and as such we have all decided to mark this fresh start with our new name and logo : Hypothetical Island Studios.

Hypothetical Island Studios IS:

The Unsinkable Reilly Brown
The Quixotic Kat Roberts
The Precious Jason Little
The Alleged Becky Cloonan
The Aforementioned Joe Infurnari
and me, Gorgeous George O'Connor

So please join us in a hearty three cheers for Hypothetical Island Studios!