can’t wait to draw this thing flying…

i might put a pause on these cleo posts for a little while until i can catch up on some pages. hopefully it won’t be too long of a break- there are some fun scenes coming up!

also- saw the incredible hulk last weekend and thought it was great. a really fun action flick with some essential comic geek out moments.  it’s not perfect but who cares.  HULK SMASH!  plus, i love this whole marvel universe that’s being built on the screen right now.  talk about early avengers movie hype!

my summer movie ranking thus far:

1. speed racer
2. iron man
3. kung fu panda
4. incredible hulk
5. narnia: prince caspian
6. indiana jones: kotcs

you know what this story’s been missing? some heavier exposition…

mocca, as always, was awesome.  it was great seeing friends and colleagues i only get to see once or twice a year- or every two years- or every once in a turquoise, polka dotted, square moon. ryan and trade were great table mates and we couldn’t have asked for a better section right underneath the air conditioner units.  especially right after all the doors in the place were swung open for a half hour while we all waited outside for the firemen to do their jobs.

met and hung out with a lot of old and new friends- and i hate naming names because i’m bound to forget somebody- but you all know who you were (and all of you can also confirm to how “elephant like” my memory can be).  but hanging out saturday was fun.  and dinner sunday night was a blast (kean and andy make a cute couple).  i wish i could have walked around the floors more (i was pretty much confined to my table) so it was nice to be able to chat and stuff after show hours.  how else was i going to enthusiastically promote speed racer? :)

i didn’t really realize it until i got back and tallied up everything, but it was also my most profitable con ever (thanks mostly in part to the art prints i decided to bring with me this year- i’ll need to get a shop set up for those soon).  reason enough to head back up again next year, but i would be planning to anyhow just because of the amount of fun i had. mocca is easily my favorite convention.  the people there are the best, the amount of quality work the exhibitors are selling is astounding and no one really has to tug at my arm very hard for me to have a reason to visit NY.  even if it is for a quick, kinda stressful couple of days.

so yeah- see you all next year!

i’m afraid i’m not as caught up on these as i would like- and i have a lot of other work i need to focus on in the coming months. hopefully i’ll be able to catch up, but realistically i should warn any cleo fans out there that i’m not sure how much longer this weeklyish schedule is going to last.

still- yesterday i went to go see speed racer again (i know- i should be drawing cleo instead…), this time on imax, and loved it just as much the second time as i did the first. maybe even more. i can honestly see this movie becoming one of my all time faves, which is crazy since i almost didn’t even go see it at all. folks- don’t miss it on the big screen while you have the chance! especially the big, big screen. man, imax is cool.

time is just not on my side for drawergeeks lately. but i would have been kicking myself (which i’m sure is awfully difficult but i’d try anyhow) if i missed zombie week! so here is my super kinetically quick colorless submission:

one of my life long goals is to see/create a zombie musical, and i wish i had more time to do better justice to this image i’ve had in my head for a crazy long time now. also, trying some new things. pushing myself to use more solid blacks and be looser with my drawing. didn’t turn out as bad as i thought it might. though it needs a ninja. there will be singing ninjas in my zombie musical too. and david hasselhoff. as maybe a ninja.

also- i drew a guest strip for fellow floridian webcomiker derrick fish this week and forgot to tell you all to go over and read it on tuesday (i was too excited to talk about speed racer). so click HERE to go over and read it. dandy & company is a pretty hilarious webcomic, so you might find yourself lingering there a little longer than you want. but derrick assures me, that’s ‘okay.’

here’s a cleo page for my birthday (29 today- old)!

i saw two movies this past weekend (actually three, but two in the theater)- indiana jones 4 and speed racer. and you know what? speed racer blew indy out of the water in terms of awesomeness. why is this movie not doing better?? i had so much fun and felt like i was watching something really special. the script was great, the characters were super developed, and the car racing was the coolest car racing i’ve ever seen. i don’t think i wanted to go home and play mario kart so badly in my life. there was just so much to love about this movie, all the way from the visuals to the message it was trying to tell.

unfortunately, in contrast, indy fell victim to a really bad script and a super, under-developed story line- and honestly- should never have been made. it was like an indiana jones movie for the sake of an indiana jones movie and just didn’t work on so many levels. i don’t want to go into the details, because they’re fairly obvious and most of you have either seen the movie already or will be seeing it soon. but i think this was a rushed project that was fun only in the sense of nostalgia for how much we all enjoyed its predecessors. i didn’t think it was all bad, but i went in with very low expectations and this movie met those.

the funny thing about the two films is that there are so many “wha–?” moments in both of them. but with speed racer those “wha–?” moments are instantly followed by a “haha! awesome!” while with indy they just leave you with your mouth hanging open wondering how someone thought that was good idea.

so- i know speed racer isn’t for everyone, (believe me- from the trailers, i thought it looked just as horrible as the rest of the world seems to think) but if you go in with an open mind- i think you’ll find something you haven’t really seen before. something fun and unique. something for kids and adults. something for artists and people just wanting to see some great action. something meant to be seen on the big screen. something raiders of the lost ark accomplished 27 years ago.

so, with june fast approaching and more movies on the way, here’s my ranking for favorite summer movies so far:

1. iron man
2. speed racer
3. narnia: prince caspian
4. indiana jones: kotcs

xerx smash!

apparently cleo’s not the only egyptian queen zapping her way through the cosmos. now nefertiti is getting in on the action thanks to fellow tampa drawing buddy, keith patterson. do i detect a team-up?

um… wednesdays instead? :P

sorry, a bit late on this one…

i think it’s time to get this started.

well, the story broke on this last week so i assume it’s okay to post this here:

this is a page from a story i’m contributing to for Comic Book Tattoo- an upcoming anthology inspired by the music of one of my favorite songwriters, tori amos. you can read the cbr article to read more, but basically we were all asked to choose a song but draw a comic that doesn’t just narrate said song. so what you end up with is a massive 500 page book full of comics that even a non tori fan can enjoy. smart thinking!

i choose the song caught a lite sneeze because, for mysterious reasons unknown even to me, i immediately thought of a story involving two faeries. and you all know it doesn’t take a whole lot to get me drawing pixies. hopefully my little story will hold back the legions of people clamoring for me to get back to drawing more seed (one day! i promise!).

anyhoo- i’m actually still working on this, but i anticipate being done within the next day or so. and then maybe i can get back to some regular blogging. or some cleopatra in spaaaace!

drawergeeks‘ theme this week was galactus so i drew this little comic. :)

i identify with galactus a little bit right now. not the whole “devouring of worlds” part, but the “not eating what you want” part. i’m trying to lose a little bit of weight right now and it’s tough to go for that bag of carrots when what you really want is that tub of carmel de luce ice cream in the freezer. mmmm… ice cream…

once again, february 1st was hourly comic day- and armed only with a moleskine, a micron and a lack of better judgment, i decided to participate in it again. the result is 25 pages (in 18 hours!) of really, really bad drawings. but hey! i did it!

both my awesome wife, jen, and my co-worker andrew participated in the day’s comic festivities as well. after reading mine, make sure you check out theirs HERE and HERE respectively. it’s funny to see how our days collide. also, in case you missed it last year, my first hourly comic can be read HERE.

without further ado…

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i’m currently working on five different comic projects at once, which is kind of crazy for me since i’m used to only working on one or two at a time. here’s a sneak peek at some panels from three of them:

the first one of these i can’t really tell you anything about at all. the middle one i’ll hopefully be able to start posting some pages on this blog soon. and the last one you’ll be able to read in person if you make it out to megacon in march. i’m also prepping my story for parable 2 which i think i’m just going to keep in the prep stage until i finish one or two of these. this is all in addition to to me trying to keep up with cow & buffalo every week and the various other things that pop up from time to time. it looks like 2008 is really shaping up to be the year of comics for me!

one of my favorite illustrators, chris sanders, just started a webcomic starring the adorable yet irate kitty above. there’s only two strips so far and i already love it. so does ryan estrada who’s celebrating sanders’ venture into webcomics territory by starting a kiskaloo meme. i was sitting at a presentation today for work and, since i had a paper and pen in front of me, decided to sketch the above for said meme. then quickly threw some color on it because color is pretty.

i just posted this on cow & buffalo, but i know some of you might not see it there. and i didn’t want you all to think i wasn’t wishing you a very, dairy christmas as well (you might have to click on it to read everything). :)

i hope everyone enjoys their egg nog and fruit cakes and other “delicious” holiday treats. i’ll see you next year!

drawergeeks’ topic last week was elves. this is another one for my giant pink heart series. ;)

also, most of you (i hope) know i do a weekly comic called cow & buffalo. well, today i just put up the quindrupel-sized ending to a story arc that’s been going on since september of 2006. now that we know the story actually has an end, it might be fun to go back and read the whole thing from the beginning. it’s sixty-four strips in total, not counting all the places cow teleported off to over the last month. here’s where it all began!

and, i’ve said this elsewhere- but a HUGE THANKS to all the artists that put up with cow as he invaded your comics and/or websites. you totally helped make journey cow more awesome than i ever intended. in case you missed the event, the full list of all the comics cow zapped himself into can be viewed here.

…i sat at home depressed i was sitting at home. :(

well, not entirely. i did stay pretty busy. first off, me and all of the lunchbox funnies guys were asked to provide some guest strips for scott kurtz of pvp fame. and because we at lunchbox all think scott is a super great guy, most of us said yes (that and the promise of increased traffic to our sites is always a good bribe). click here to read mine!

also- i worked on the parable site a bit. the book is completely done, so i thought a little revamp of the site would be nice while we scout for publishers. especially since i won’t have much to update on it till we actually have one.

also- i added my current seed blog comic panels to comicspace in an effort to get more use out of a great community that i rarely ever visit (but should!). once i get around to drawing more of those, i’ll update them on there as well as here.

also- i started playing zelda: twilight princess on wii finally! and it was so worth the wait.

also- i saw the simpsons on friday and thought it was hillarious. and before going to the theater i simpsonized myself!

jen and i are seeing travis tonight in orlando. before the concert we’re going to try to visit one of those 7-elevens they turned into kwik-e-marts. :)

i did it! twenty pages in seventeen hours. this was also my first foray into doing a journal comic. pretty fun! and a good challenge. jen, being the cool wife that she is, also decide to do one yesterday. it might be fun to compare hers with mine since we cross paths throughout the day. anyhoo, here’s my first hour yesterday. click on the “more” tag (or for my live journal readers, the “cut” tag) to read my whole day.

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so dean “how on earth does he keep up with everything” trippe let me know of this thing called hourly comic day that takes place tomorrow. pretty much, you draw a little journal comic every hour you are awake and compile them together the next day to show people how your day went in super quick sketchbook form. not one to shy away from a challenge (at least on thursdays), i’m going to try my hand at this. this is my “quick” test comic that i drew today.

yeah. i’m freaking out.

in my excitement over lunchbox funnies on wednesday (see below), i totally forgot to mention that the guest strip i did for dean trippe’s awesome butterfly comic is up this week. go check it out! i actually drew it quite a while ago and i still like it. which is a rare thing for me.

and speaking of lunchbox funnies. a big thanks to everyone that’s taken the time to link or comment over there this week. we’re all very appreciative of the big support we’ve gotten for an all-ages collective, especially in today’s market. keep an eye on the site. we’re going to continue updating it with fun and goodies!