Darth Vader and son and son

Oscar has started reading on his own, and I finally remembered to give him a copy of my new book. You can also see some of Oscar's drawings, and some of my own childhood Star Wars drawings, over on the Chronicle Books Blog. And if you're in Chicago this weekend, make sure to come check out CAKE, the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo. I'll be there both days, with a minicomic making talk on Sunday at noon.

Darth Vader and son: The Trailer

Less than a month away, something to watch while you wait for the book. Thanks to Matt Saunders for making my drawings move...

Cats Are Weird

Here's the initial cover sketch for the new cat book. At the time, I was still planning on the book having more of a narrative, with the cat wandering around outside. Chronicle thought it'd be nice for the cover to sync with both the first book (by having the embossed line art) and postcard box (by having die-cut panels). The top of this image shows the cover, while the bottom is the full endsheets, which would be in color.


Here's some more sketching for the cover, trying to figure out how to have the endsheets tell a narrative, but also have the cover work on its own as well.


Here's pencils for the cover, working on a design where the cats only showed through in the color endsheet panels.


Eventually, Chronicle and I decided on the title Cats Are Weird. The book lost the narrative and ended up following the format of the first book. These are the pencils for the cover on the right, and for the right endsheet opposite.


And here's what the printed cover looks like. The book is half in gray like Cat Getting Out of A Bag, and half in color. It just showed up on page the Diamond Previews catalogue today, so you can now have your local comic shop pre-order it.

Cat Process

Just in stores now are the Cat Companion Journal, a blank journal illustrated with some of my cta drawings, and The Cutest Sneeze In The World, a box of 30 postcards mostly taken from Cat Getting out Of The Bag along with 8 all new color postcards. Recently, I've begun work on the sequel to the cat book, currently titled 'Cat Walks,' so I figured I should post on my process for the cat comics. I start out by pencilling the panels, then pencil the insides of the panels. Then using the lightest gray Faber Castell brush pen, I ink the lines, then erase the pencils. The new book is half black and white and half in color, but the next steps are pretty much the same for both. I either add the colors, or whatever gray shading I need, again using the Faber Castell brush pens. Finally, to finish it off I add the final black lines.