While I was sitting at CAPE, I did a warm-up drawing of Poison Ivy to help drum up some commission work. Poison Ivy might be the most frequently requested commission I do. She’s tremendously popular, both with men and women.

I did a fairly simple pose on this one, but I colored her much more cooly than I did my first one (which has since sold). It wasn’t until I started coloring it that I realized I basically drew Charlotte from Love and Capes. That’s okay. If Charlotte dressed up for Halloween, I bet she’s pick Poison Ivy.

I do a couple covers a month for HGR Industrial Surplus. Each cover features photos of their employees in various cartoon situations. This month, their buyers get to pop into an Iron Man cover, to tie in with the new movie. (What? An Iron Man movie? Why haven’t I seen this anywhere?)

This one was a lot of fun to do, especially getting to add a couple of the villains. I took some liberties with Iron Monger and War Machine, both of whom wear mostly black armor and wouldn’t be as bright or colorful as is proper for this cover. It was cool getting to put in a MODOK and Cleveland’s own Blacklash in the art.

I’m hoping to do a Batman one when Dark Knight comes out later this summer.

I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise, but the Mystery Game Board piece was done for Scene Magazine, in the issue that comes out today.

They’re running a feature on Cleveland’s screwed up politics, and wanted a CandyLand type game board with several Cleveland incidents on it. So, everything from the sink hole to the Ameritrust Building, to the County Commissioners, to National City Bank’s troubles are illustrated.

Scene Magazine supplied me with a PDF of the finished version, which you can see by clickin’ and embiggenin’.

I’m thrilled with the way this one came out. I think it’s a great piece.

A long time ago, or at least it feels that way, I did the illustrations and designed a book called Women Do and Say the Dumbest Things. I did this for Jimmy and Chip on WMJI, Cleveland’s number one (and certainly my favorite) Lanigan and Malone Morning Show. The good-natured book did okay, but despite our best efforts all around, it wasn’t the runaway hit we’d all hoped for.

Artistically, though, it was a watershed for me. It’s here that I first used what would evolve into my Love and Capes style. I broke out of some of the traditional superhero stuff and did some cartooning that opened up a much larger world.

Now, thanks to Wowio, you can read this book for free. There are about 100 stories, all submitted by listeners to WMJI, as well as one submitted by me. It’s a short, fun little book.

Jimmy, Chip and I always promised to do a sequel, Men Do and Say the Dumbest Things. "Buy this one and we’ll do another," we said. We didn’t get enough to do that, but here’s a second chance for all of us. Download the book and if it does well enough, maybe you’ll see another. And you can submit your stories at the book’s website.

While I was in Orlando for MegaCon, I met a Green Lantern fan who wanted a sketch done. We wound up doing it through the mail for reasons which don’t need exploring at this juncture. He asked which member of the GL Corps I wanted to draw and I gave him three choices: Arisa (I am looking for new pieces for the second sketchbook), Tomar-Re (the example I use for what cool action figures you can get now as opposed to when I was a kid) and a Guardian (the Guardians may have been modeled after Irwin Hasen, who taught me at Kubert). He chose the Guardian Ganthet, so I put this one together.

The customer wanted everything done on green paper, which is all kinds of appropriate for Green Lantern stuff, hence the emerald hue to the illo.

This is the first portfolio post.