Solo sketch warm up-- Bizarro

As far as my warm-up compatriots go, it was just me at the studios today, so I indulged myself by drawing one of my favorite characters, Superman's imperfect duplicate, Bizarro. I call this piece "Hooray, lucky Yorick! Me am no know him at all."

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?

warm up catch up

As previously mentioned, I was sick for the first part of this week, and as such missed out on the warm up drawings that were done around the studio without me. One of the topics, though, was too good for me not to throw in my hat over (?) so hence this catch up warm up session.

The topic was "tongue". Here's T-Money Hamilton's:



and here's mine.





My girlfriend hated this, I should mention.

Warm up: Scott Pilgrim UPDATED!

Firstly, I missed a few days, as I was sick. Back at the studio now, and it was Nathans' choice today. The assignment-- draw a Scott Pilgrim character. This is kind of tricky, if you ask me, as once you take away Bryan Lee O'Malley's very distinctive drawing style, there would be very little to identify the characters. I mean, Scott is by design a kind of everyman, right? Still, we rose to the occasion.

here's mine:



Nothing too new and original here, just a take off of the cover to Scott Pilgrim #1. Still, it's just a warm up, right?

Here's Tim Hamilton's:



Much nicer, with just a touch of that manic Hamiltonianess we all love and cherish. Up next, the lovely and talented Natalie Kim who has been guesting at the Studios lately. She's already very successful in her other careers as an actress and writer, so lord only knows why she would want to be a cartoonist. Doesn't she realize how low down on the food chain we are? We're like kelp. Nice work, though.



Lastly, mad Scotsman Simon Fraser graced us with this very pretty picture of cinematic Scott Pilgrim, Michael "George Michael Bluth" Cera. I like the hearts. The movie, btw, was the best thing ever, and if you didn't see it, well, you're my enemy.



UPDATE! Scott Pilgrim Idea Progenitor Nathan Schreiber got his sketch to us late. We're not sure why, but it probably has something to do with protecting his vital bodily fluids, if his piece is any indication. Pretty nice one, and worth the wait, I'd say.

Warm up post: Bob the Uranian

Didn't get to post this yesterday, it was a crazy day, but here is Friday's warm up sketch. I decided to pay homage to my favorite character from the only Marvel Comic I'm reading these days. Writer Jeff Parker took a mostly obscure bunch of 1950's comic characters and transformed them into the Agents of Atlas, a strange superhero team that is the best thing, IMO, Marvel is publishing. One of the team is Bob Grayson, formerly a bright and shiny superhero called Marvel Boy, now the extraterrestrial Uranian. I won't go into great detail what makes him cool here ( but he has his own UFO! With a meteor Smasher!), but you should go check out some trades of Agents of Atlas, and even grab the current series (just called Atlas) while it's still on the stands. Unfortunately, even with great critical acclaim, the series has struggled to find an audience, and is being canceled with issue 4. boo.

All characters depicted and mentioned trademark and copyright their respective owners, natch.

Warm up of the day: An anime character you've never heard of.

Tim Hamilton got in first, and he threw down the gauntlet with his previously-unheard-of Anime creation, Ninja Stick Kitty. So twisted, yet I don't know why.



I followed up with my invention, er, discovery, "Anime Ecchi Giant Robo Hentai Squad" which is, to say the least, not one of my finest pieces of work. I decided it was a long-lost work of forgotten anime genius Mai Watanamo, which really says it all, I think.

It should be mentioned that Nathan Schreiber, contributor to yesterday's post, initially agreed to draw an anime character you've never heard of as well, yet wisely disappeared, assignment uncompleted, and was not heard of again for the rest of the day.

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!

An Octopus Lady

Continuing my new practice of warm-ups, I sketched out this lovely lady who happens to have an octopus for a head this morning. It's maybe a little detailed for a warm-up, but I had to break in a new nib as I utterly killed my old one the other day. I was pretty happy with it, even though I could not tell you what possessed me to draw such a thing.



As an added bonus, here is warm-up-idea-progenitor Tim Hamilton's attempt at a similarly afflicted woman.



And Nathan Schreiber's Admiral Akbarian attempt. Looks kind of like Dr. Zoidberg.

Warm up Wonder Woman

After a week of painful drawing, I've taken a page from the book of Tim Hamilton and started drawing a "warm-up" picture every day before I start my actual work. Today I drew this picture of DC Comics icon Wonder Woman, a design I've been tinkering with for a few days now. I was so happy with the way it turned out I thought I'd share. I'm also kind of miffed that I didn't leave room for her left foot on the page-- as it was just a warm up, I had no idea it would turn out so nice, and as a result was not very careful with its placement on the page. Oh well.

By the way, Wonder Woman is trademark and copyright her specific owners. Thank you.

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.

I'm teaching comics at the Y!

That's right! Want to learn cartooning and comics from your truly? Starting September 7th, I will be teaching two classes at the Park Slope Armory YMCA (which has to be seen to be believed-- it's awesome sauce), cartooning ( for little kids) and Making a Graphic Novel (for tweens and teens). If you're older and want to take a class, let them know-- we'll add an adult cartooning class if there's demand. Check out here for more info, and how to sign up. Each session will run for eight weeks, and classes will be held on Tuesdays. I hope to see you there!

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.