First Day Of School

Tomorrow's my first day of school. I'll be teaching "Drawing On Comics" at The School Of The Art Institute, where I got my MFA eight years ago. The usual instructor, Christa Donner, isn't able to teach the class this semester, so when they asked me if I could take over I said why not. I have to admit I'm a bit nervous, never having taught before, but it should be fun and interesting. Fortunately I've received a lot of helpful words from fellow SAIC instructor and Top Shelf cartoonist Jeremy Tinder. Here's the cover to my syllabus, a 16 page zine I'm putting together.

An Interview With Musician David Bazan

Earlier this year I did an interview with former Pedro The Lion frontman David Bazan. I'm about the same age as Bazan, we both have young children, both make a living in the creative arts and we're both preacher's kids who are no longer Christian, so I thought it would be interesting to interview him. I talked to him on the phone and at a concert in Milwaukee, and turned the interview into a short comic that's printed in the new issue of Filter Magazine's Good Music Guide, available at Landmark Theaters, Diesel and Urban Outfitters. Or, you could just download the PDF here. In a way, it was really just a selfish way for me to think about how I want to write my next autobiographical book about religion and fatherhood...

Comicon

I was hoping to have finished Change-Bots Two by now, but after moving and other delays I've still got about a dozen pages to go, so the book will have to wait until after San Diego Comicon to be finished.
I'll be at the Top Shelf booth #1721 most of the time, and will have a schedule posted there with when I'll be signing and where. There'll be a few new books out with my work - volume one of the new Fraggle Rock comics from Archaia, Paul Is Undead (with my interior illustrations) and Chronicle will have the new Cats Are Weird book at their booth. I'll also have some copies of Process, hand drawn sketch trading cards, and original art - including artwork from the new cat book. Head to the Scott Eder Gallery booth for a big selection of artwork at booth #4515.
Thanks to my brother Doug, who made this action figure of me for my birthday.

Paul Is Undead, Chapter One

Here's the initial character sketches for my illustrations to the Beatles/zombie mash-up Paul Is Undead, and the sketch-pencil-finished drawing stages for the illustration to chapter one. Change-Bots Two has been on hold while I've been packing to move, but I'll be taking a short break tonight (Tuesday, June 29) to sign with Paul Is Undead author Alan Goldsher at Quimbys here in Chicago.

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.

Drippy

More zombies, this one is my contribution to the Drippy art show at Pop Cult here in Chicago, opening this Friday.

You, Me, Them, Everybody

Last week I stopped by The Hungry Brain to be a guest on Brandon Wetherbee's podcast You, Me, Them, Everybody. I can't remember what I said exactly, but it seemed like a lot of fun at the time... and since we're talking about hunger and brains, here's me as a zombie.