Project Revealed: Kitty Ditties and Pretty Ladies

I can now tell you that I'm one of the the artists for comics powerhouse Katie Cook's new sketchcard set, Kitty Ditties and Pretty Ladies from 5Finity. I'll have some cards in the set, and will be getting some artist cards that I'll have with me at shows later this year. The cards are scheduled to come out June 15. Each card features cats and pin-up girls, and I contributed eighteen of them.

I'm thrilled Katie asked me to be part of this, and hopefully it'll be the first of many sketchcard sets.

And this totally justifies me buying those Copics!

Triple Shots: Wonder Woman and Harry, Hermione & Ron

My travel schedule hasn't let me finish these Triple Shots until now. I drew Wonder Woman and a set of the three main Harry Potter characters, Harry, Ron and Hermione. Since those were for the same person, I tried to give them a common feel. Click any to embiggenate!

Huh. It feels like it's been a while since I did these? Maybe it's about time to do it again?

I'm Coming to Seattle for Emerald City Comicon

I'll be in Seattle this weekend for the awesome Emerald City Comicon. I'll be at booth B-04 in Artist Alley, set up with my friend Ben Thompson of Badass of the Week fame. He and I will also be hosting a panel, So Much Cooler Online, Sunday at 11:00am, dealing with maintaining a digital profile, promoting yourself online, and not tweeting stupid tweets. More panelists to be announced. And, as I've been doing for a while now, a new con means a new con print. Here's my Seattle image, available at the show and through pre-order.

Kickstarter Bonus: The Muppets

Today is the last day of my Kickstarter project. It's completely funded, but I'd like to overfund and add some other benefits. As bonuses, I'm offering some art that's never been seen and won't be in the final art book. In 2008, I was pitching Boom Studios on working on the Muppets. Plots were submitted, some even approved, but for a bunch of reasons, nothing ever went forward. That's the nature of the game, especially when working on a licensed property, so there are no hard feelings.

But, I still like to share them as I think they came out pretty well and show a different style and capability. And, since we've hit our 101st backer, this is the first reward.

(Depending on amount hit, I'll be showing off sample pages for The Incredibles, Up, and maybe even some stories.)

These pages weren't from an actual story, but a quick sample script I wrote to show how I could handle characters, environments and more. Click on any thumbnail to embiggenate!

Sunday Sketch- Adam Strange and Alanna

Today's super couple sketch is Adam Strange and Alanna. I always thought this was ripe to be one of those syndicated or SyFy type shows. Exotic locations, CGI villians, and a cool love story between a disappearing hero and his girlfriend. Would have worked better than Flash Gordon. The plan is to have four more of these done before WonderCon. We'll see how I do.

The Element Maaaaaaaan!

I did another in my sketch-a-day super couple project in preparation for WonderCon. This time I did Metamorpho and Sapphire Stagg. I've been wanting to draw him for a while. I think he's perfect for my style. The problem with shape-shifting characters is that you really want to draw them using their power, but you also want to draw them recognizable. Part of the fun of Metamorpho is all the textures on him, so I didn't want to go too crazy.

Man, if DC were still doing the Johnny DC line, I think he'd be perfect for it. With me writing and drawing, of course.

Also, I love his theme song. What? You didn't know he had a theme song? Well, check it out here, but your brain will never be the same again. (And, as always, click for biggimization!)

Couple of Things About Me and WonderCon

One of my goals for Con Season 2012 (which continues next week at WonderCon, by the way) is to do more commissions. I've had previous commissions on display, but nothing fresh that I could sell. So I've received the wise counsel to do a series of pieces to show off what I can do as well as have more products. I was trying to think of a unifying theme, something that would make it easier to choose who to do. With Love and Capes being what I'm best known for, I hit upon the idea of super-couples.

I'm trying to do one a day up until WonderCon, so I'll have about a dozen by the time the show hits. Here are the first five. These will all be for sale at WonderCon (except for the Black Bolt/Medusa which has already sold). And, as usual, click on any to embiggen!

We Did It!

With seventeen days left, my Kickstarter project is funded! I'm astounded by your support and how fast it happened. Thank you all so much. There are still some overfunding bonuses that I hope to hit in the next two and a half weeks, including extra pages in the book at $5000 (including a page by page breakdown of the Love and Capes Valentine's story), unique bookplates for backers at $6000, and at the highest level, a new Love and Capes t-shirt. All of which is to say that, while we've hit the funding goal, I'll still be promoting the heck out of it for a bit.

For those of you who funded on or before Leap Day for the $29+ event, I'll be making and designing the original artwork and it'll go out in the next month or so.

Also, I'll be posting some of the finished pages here in the next few days on the Kickstarter site. I reserve the right to be an irritating perfectionist and tweak them after they appear here, but you'll get to see a closer look inside the finished product either way.

Thank you all again!

Leap Day Means Superman's Birthday!

So today is Leap Day. It's your Once Every Four Years Day to mangle a song from The Pajama Game. And, it's also Superman's birthday.

Well, technically it's Kal-El's birthday. Krypton rotates slower around it's red giant sun than Earth does, so their year is four of ours. The man who would be Superman was conveniently born on February 29th, even though Clark Kent celebrates his on June 18th, the date his rocket landed on Earth.

Interestingly, Kyrptonian birthdays were not a celebratory event, instead one of great sadness… okay, maybe that's just interesting to me and to Joe Murray of Captain Blue Hen Comics in Delaware. Joe, you see, is celebrating The Man of Steel's Birthday in style today, complete with an auction by one of his guests for this year's Free Comic Book Day, Thom Zahler.

Hey, that's me!

Yeah, that's right, I did a new Superman piece for Joe's auction. You'll have to find out from him what you can to do bid on it, but he told me I could share it. Hope you like it!

And as always, click the image to super-size it.

Last Week's Triple Shots

The MegaCon to WonderCon work schedule is kind of whipping me around, so I haven't been posting as much. But I have been drawing. Like the wind.

I've done Triple Shots of Green Lantern John Stewart, Superman, Dr. Crusher, Deanna Troi, and Leia in Endor dress. Click on any image below to be take to the full Triple Shot.

The Triple Shots are going to go on hiatus for a couple weeks, too (aside from the couple that are still available). Work is stacking up, and I know you all want me to make sure I get some of this Love and Capes book done. But, we'll be back by the end of March. And, there might be some other commission projects that pop up in the meantime.I'll certainly be taking commissions for my first appearance at WonderCon, so be sure to give me a shout at tz (squiggly at) thomz.com