#sdcc Saturday Love and Capes Deal please RT

This year I've decided to do special deal coupons for Comic-Con International. Each of these coupons is good for one day only. To use the coupon, either print out the attached PDF, or download it to your phone and bring it to my booth.

Today's deal is on con prints. I have the San Diego-exclusive print of the Love and Capes characters at the Kansas City Barbecue (as seen on display at the restaurant right now). Normally, those are $25, but you can get them for $20 with this coupon. I've also started offering the con portfolio, containing all sixteen of the con prints that I've done over the past year. With this coupon, the $200 con portfolio is $25 off. While supplies last.

Remember, we're at Booth 2000!

DOWNLOAD THIS COUPON

#sdcc Friday Love and Capes Deal please RT

This year I've decided to do special deal coupons for Comic-Con International. Each of these coupons is good for one day only. To use the coupon, either print out the attached PDF, or download it to your phone and bring it to my booth.

Today's deal is Buy One, Get One Free on single issues. Get two for the price of one. Get four for the price of two. And so on. Three minor disclaimers: First, if you pick the $6.00 wedding issue, we'll make it $5.00 for two issues. Second, this isn't good with any of the other multi-issue deals I offer. So, you could get three for $10.00, or four for the price of two. And third, this not available for use on the Love and Capes: What to Expect #1 con exclusive.

Remember, we're at Booth 2000!

DOWNLOAD THIS COUPON

Comic-Con, San Diego, and ME!

Hey, Comic-Con in San Diego is next Wednesday! And I'll be there at my usual haunt, Booth 2000 in the Independent Press Pavillion. I'll be set up alongside Ben Thompson of the awesomely-awesome Badass book series (which has even featured a piece or two by me). Together we're the LOVE and HATE tattooed on the knuckles of the hand of the convention. Or something like that.

I'm not doing any panels this year as far as I know, so if you want to hear me blather about Love and Capes, you'll have to come see me. You'll have to come down here, Khan!

Sorry, I thought I was William Shatner for a minute. That happens sometimes.

In addition to talking and chatting and posing for pictures, here's some stuff worth stopping by for:

Thursday, from about 9:30am-12:00pm the lovely and talented Amy Ratcliffe will be cosplaying as a female Crusader. This was inspired by a cover for Love and Capes: What To Expect #5… oh, wait, you haven't seen that yet, have you?

I'll be signing at the IDW booth, Thursday from 3:00pm-4:00pm.

I will have all-new copies of all three Love and Capes collections, including the so-hard-to-find third trade. There are some fixes that have been made in these new printings, including fixing the two pages that were flopped out of order in the second one.

I will also have the first new issue of Love and Capes: What to Expect in glorious con-exclusive form! This cover features Mark and Abby figuring out baby names. You'll notice Abby's notepad has a blank area where I can write your name (or other name of choice) onto the cover. Since I drew it and lettered it, Abby and I do have the same handwriting.

And, thanks to Geekdom War over at booth B-04, I will have some brand-new Love and Capes t-shirts, including this Chibi style shirt that I'm thrilled to see actually produced! Be sure to stop by their booth and see their selection of Love and Capes and other shirts.

I'll be debuting my Rhinos Bowling art book that was started by Kickstarter. If you're already a backer and are attending already, contact me and I'll have it at the booth ready for you. It's available in softcover ($25) and hardcover ($50) and in limited numbers here at the show.

I'll also have some of of my San Diego Con Prints, showing Crusader and Darkblade enjoying some fine ribs at the Kansas City Barbecue.

As usual, I'll also be taking commissions, and feel free to e-mail me and be sure to get on the list! I'll be selling a lot of the pre-drawn con pieces that have been on my site this last month or two, too. And I'll be signing and posing for pictures and all that fun stuff as well.

Comic-Con is a huge show and a massive part of my career. I've often described it as not so much a sprint as a Battaan Death March. And while there's a lot of hurdles to the show, travel and shipping and printing and setup and forms and taxes and booth space, here's the thing: If the worst part of my professional year is the part where I have to spend a week in San Diego and talk and promote the work I'm proudest of and the thing I know without a doubt that I was put on this Earth to do, it's not so bad.

I mean, some people have to wear ties to work.

Con Piece: Brave

Last piece before Heroescon!

Brave comes out this weekend, which I'm very much looking forward to. Pixar consistently knocks their movies out of the park, and it seems like each movie raises the bar on the last. Water's hard to render? Let's do Finding Nemo. Hair is hard? How about Monsters, Inc.? Let's make our protagonist an 80-year old guy. Up. Every one does something new.

It's at the point where if Pixar said they were going to do a black-and-white movie about paint drying, I'd be there opening night. Their track record is so solid that I just assume every movie is going to work until they prove me wrong.

So, I've drawn Merida from Brave, as well as her brothers. It was a challenge, since I don't know the characters or the movie yet. But it was fun, especially drawing her hair. And I tried to make the archery accurate.

And you know where I'll be Friday night. No, HeroesCon. I won't see Brave until Tuesday when I get back. But that's because I put my fans and convention appearances over even my movie schedule. The things I do for you.

Gettysburg!

Author, friend, and San Diego and Seattle boothmate Ben Thompson is a the author of the awesome Badass history books. The third one will be coming out sometime soon, and he was kind (or, arguably, drunk) enough to ask me to illustrate one of the sections for him. I pulled The Battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg.

I got to tweak my style and do a very different subject than I normally do. I'm pretty happy with it, too. I'll be sure to let you know when the book is on the stands.

And be sure to read more of Ben's Awesome Writings at his site.

Con Piece: MJ and Gwen's Tug of War

When I was at FanExpo last year someone commissioned me to do a Mary Jane vs. Black Cat piece of them fighting over Spider-Man's uniform.

I liked it a lot and decided to revisit it for my portolio piece. I thought Gwen was a more natural foil, especially since she's prominent in the new movie.

I guess I have a running theme of Redheads vs. Blondes going. Tomorrow's post won't be that, I assure you.

Again, there's some nice body language here. They both look like they're really yanking on that uniform, and they've both got different poses. I scanned the pencils, too, so you can see what it started out as.

This, too, will be in my portfolio at HeroesCon and available for purchase at table AA230. It's the standard 9x12 brstol, colored with Copics.

And I'm not doing FanExpo this year, but its never far from my list. Hopefully next year they'll bring me out.

Con Piece: Queens Black and White, in Color

The newest piece in my con portfolio is this duel of wills between the Black Queen and White Queen from X-Men's Hellfire Club. Originally, it was going to be a Scott and Jean piece, and then it became Scott, Jean and Emma, and then I decided Cyclops was superfulous. I love Cyclops, and I'm still bothered that he ever dated the White Queen, but I thought he got in the way of the duel of wills here.

I think drawing one of these nearly every day, along with drawing a page of Love and Capes close to every day, is helping push my drawing again. I love the poses here, particularly the White Queen's body language and the Black Queen's hands. It's nice to see things start to click. That doesn't always happen, so I'm riding that wave.

I scanned the pencils so I could reduce them to transfer them to board. Pencils always have a little more life to them, so I wanted to share them, too.

The final piece is 9x12 on bristol with Copic color and will be for sale at my table, AA230, at this weekend's HeroesCon.

Avengers Auction Piece for Heroescon

I finished my auction piece for HeroesCon! Avengers were on my mind because, you know, there was a movie and stuff, so I thought they might make a good subject. I decided to marry that with my Child of the Eighties heritage and do the movie lineup as they looked back then. I was really tempted to give Thor a beard, because I do like that look, but it would have placed it outside the era I was going for.

The original is brush and pen on bristol, 11x17, and there will be a full color digital print along with it that will be donated to the auction. I also took the original pencils, moved some figures around and made a 9x12 version that I will have for sale at my table.

I'm still aiming at getting another couple of commissions done before Heroes. I'm thinking of doing The Marvel Family, because I'm such a fan of them. Maybe one more super couple.

And, if you want to get on my commission list, be sure to e-mail me and make sure you have a spot!

Commission: Stopping a War With Love

Here's todays available-for-purchase piece: Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. I think this couple would be really interesting to write, and it's one of the things that's been lost in the repeated reboots of the Amazon Princess.

I also like the dynamic that Wonder Woman is taller than the Colonel. Obviously, since I try to make sure Amazonia is taller than Darkblade in Love and Capes.

Click for the biggity-big.

Clearing Out the Commission List (2 of 2)

Here's the second of commissionpalooza! In this set, we've got a friend of mine (and big Kings fan, yay Kings!) getting beaten up by his kids' three favorite characters (Pikachu, Rapunzel and Katniss), Han and Leia having a moment on the Millenium Falcon, Captain Kirk taking on the Gorn, and Kitty Pryde and Colossus.

The Kitty/Colossus piece is an original colored with Copics and is available for sale at HeroesCon. I'm trying to do some original art for the show, kind of a pret-á-porter of sketches. So it will be available for sale in Charlotte. The Han and Leia, done in my standard black and white original with digitally colored print, will also be for sale there.