Return to Java Town

About a year ago I started working on a web comic based on Java Town, a comic book series of mine published by SLG years ago. Originally, I had intended to create a dedicated website for Java Town but when SLG asked me to be a part of their up-coming collection of web comics I joined up. Unfortunately, I was sick at the time (and getting sicker) and finally, had to give up my efforts. That was six months ago. Well, I'm well again and, not wanting to leave a project unfinished if I can help it, I've decided to give Java Town another go. And as is my way, I've made some changes. Here is one of the new pages:




And here is one of the original pages from roughly the same spot in the story:




I've gone back and forth over the pros and cons of hand-drawn versus computer-drawn comics. The bottom-line is that the new pages were an awful lot of fun to draw. Hopefully, a bit of that fun shows through.

Java Town is a work in progress and will be updated irregularly. I'll post page updates on Twitter.

REMIXED: Covered and Re-covered

I'm currently designing Beachbum Berry Remixed, the lastest SLG book from noted tiki cocktail historian and drink inventor Jeff Berry. I had a little more trouble than usual coming up with an acceptable type treatment for the cover and produced way more "sketches" than normal:


And that wasn't even all of them. My final attempt yielded the winner:


Look for Beachbum Berry Remixed to come out later this year.

Rejects: VICE Magazine

VICE Magazine is producing a comic book special give-away for the upcoming Comic-Con. SLG will have an ad (which I designed and wrote). Above is an early -- rejected by the Home Office -- version. It was deemed too sweet so my next attempt ramped it up in the opposite direction (while saving as much of my earlier work as possible):


This one got the axe as well (aside from Bad Language issues "super heroes" is a joint trademark owned by Marvel and DC so we'd probably get in trouble for using the term).

BitchTeen T-Shirt

A recent design for SLG.

Lipstick on a Pig Logo

Here's a logo I designed for a new local business. I went for a very cute, clean look to help diffuse any lingering bad feelings about the use of the expression "Lipstick on a Pig" during the last U.S. Presidential campaign. I nailed the pig's head right away. Getting the lips right took a few attempts:

Punk Rock and Trailer Parks and Wet Pants

For the last few years I've designed most of the ads SLG Publishing runs each month in the big Diamond Distributing catalog that goes out to billions of comic book fans and retailers. Usually, I have the materials I need to produce the ad but once in awhile I find myself with a deadline and only a teeny tiny piece of art to work with. That's when I go with a type-heavy design (written by me as well). This ad didn't go over too well at the front office but it made me laugh. We ended up going with a more subdued approach which was so underwhelming that I'm not bothering to show it here.