so for christmas i made jen a blog. she’s been looking for reasons to be more creative with her photography and this was one of my husbandly ways of helping her out with that. i figured since my blog gives me reason to do more art (otherwise i’d have nothing to post), then her own blog might do the same for her. of course, i’m on the internet about 160x more often then her, but the intention’s there. she only just started posting yesterday, and is pretty new to this whole blogging thing, but if you get a chance this week swing over there and let her know what you think. i know she’ll appreciate it!

i hope everyone has a wonderful christmas (or hanakah or kwanza or winter solstice or just a nice end of the year week….)! this’ll be my last post until the new year. i’ll be celebrating christmas and having fun at disney next week and celebrating the end of 2006 as part of two of my very good friends’ wedding (still at disney!). and i have so many fun things to announce the month i get back!!!

in retrospect, it’s been a very great year. one of my best. :) i’ll retrospect more though when it’s completely over.

oh! and happy birthday, Jesus!

every now and then it’s probably important that i mention the parable anthology on this blog (seeing as how i’m spear-heading it and all). well today, as a special chistmas treat, i’ve posted the first eight pages of james mar’s story on the parable site. the whole story clocks in at 35 pages and is without a doubt the best work to date that i’ve seen james do. go check it out here. and if you get a chance, let him know what you think!

there was a time last month when i wasn’t quite as busy as i am now. because of that i was able draw a guest strip for one of my favorite web comics, pirate and alien. tyson smith’s celebrating his first month with his first child so october is officially guest month over there. my silly strip went up today. check it out!

today is my last day. i’ve been at this job for five (or is it six?) years (i can never keep track of years) and this is my last day. it feels kind of weird since i’ve spent my (so far) entire post college life working here and now i’m finally moving on. i’m excited, a bit nervous, and i really feel like doing some drawing right now.

here’s a silly make-believe landscape in no relation to the above writing:

just got back from an awesome couple of days at disney- hanging out at a resort with jen and my parents and seeing the david crowder band ROCK THE PARK OUT at this year’s night of joy. seriously- my favorite band right now.

because of that, i didn’t get a chance to post my drawing for drawer geeks on friday. this week was sgt rock, a WW1 dc comics military hero. unfortunately, i soon found out i am awful at drawing WW1 military heroes. especially their artillery. so i just drew the sgt as a kid and gave him a super soaker.

sure i cheated, but i least i drew something. :)

and cow & buffalo went up today. i might spin off a little arc out of this one. we’ll see…

i was just informed that my kitty pryde drawing i did a little while back is up on project rooftop. i’m not a costume designer by any means, so it’ll be interesting to see what people think about it strictly from a costume standpoint. dean trippe is also going to be doing a month of guest strips for his awesome butterfly comic in october. i just sent mine off to him so i’ll let everyone know when that’s up.

and here’s a quick drawing, for drawings sake. i’m not really a gun lover. i’m more in the batman mindset of prefering melee weapons when it come to combat. but i just recently finished watching the entire season of firefly and even more recently rewatched silverado again so now i think guns are a little less lame. especially when they’re being held by a female. :)

so, not content to simply set up a myspace, i found a very cool plugin for this blog that crossposts my posts into a livejornal account. now, if it’s easier for you to read my buffalog through your friends page on your livejournal account, just add mr_cow to your friends list. you can even comment on stuff there.

i’m slowly conquering the internet, one online community at a time…

so while recovering yesterday from getting some teeth yanked out, i finally conformed to internet society and set up a myspace account. some of my friends have been bugging me for months now to set one up so i finally did. it’s really sad, but most of my day yesterday was filled up with listing things that i like and searching for people i know (or want to know). and since i really like listing things that i like and finding people that i know, i must say i’m kinda happy that i set the thing up. so if you’re reading this and you have a myspace account, send me a friend request so i can look cool and popular.

i also drew some more pictures of piXie:

tomorrow very early in the morning i’m going to go and get some wisdom teeth removed and a few cavities filled. one of the wisdom teeth is impacted which should be a whole lot of fun. i can’t wait. i’ll likely be in pain for a couple days afterwards which i’m also really looking forward too. it’s the start to a great week! anyhoo, i don’t talk about comics, movies and music enough…

music- i’m really in to sufjan stevens right now. i can’t get his song chicago out of my head. i’ve got to thank my friend jeff denton for introducing me to him.

movies- saw snakes on a plane this weekend and it was every bit as bad as i hoped it would be. i was hysterical. now i’m ready for the fall crop of films, which are usually a big breath of fresh air after the ridiculous and over-the-top summer ones.

comics- my new favorite web comic is zip and li’l bit by trade loeffler. the story is just getting started but i already love it. the art is amazing (love his linework) and there are plenty of sheep. lots of sheep is always a good reason to read a comic.

on the paper side of things, i’m really into the x-men books again after suffering through many, many bad issues (except astonishing of course). mike carey and chris bachalo are a big part of my recovering interest but ed brubaker and billy tan are doing an awesome job as well. and, it’s not really x-men related, but everybody who’s into superhero comics should check out nextwave by warren ellis and stuart immonen. it’s absurdedly awesome.

speaking of x-men, i created a new x-character! she’s got magical mutant pixie powers and there’s even an ‘x’ in her name! i call her piXie! (i’m so lame..)

cow & buffalo resumes regular weekly updates today. today’s strip has an extra twelve panels to make up for the missing weeks as well as being the conclusion to the whole sandwich making/time travel saga i’ve been writing for almost a year. let me know what you all thought of it. next week it’s back to normalcy. well, as normal as a cartoon about a cow, buffalo and their pet dinosaur can get.

hazzah! jen finally offloaded our vacation photos so i snagged a bunch of the ones she took during comic con. i’ve decided that next time i do post something like this, i’m signing up for a flickr account.

the convention center!

(more…)

wow. i feel like i dropped off the face of the planet for week. and if the planet is this overwhelming communication network we call the internet, which can be argued as a very strong yes, then i really did. and i have a lot of catching up to do.

but first.. COMIC CON WAS AMAZING!!!!!! and like this communication network, also very overwhelming. in fact the first night i got there i walked in, stared at everything in awe for fifteen minutes and walked out with an “i’m not ready for this yet”. a couple days later i made it back and my eyes had the time of their life. too much so in fact, as i didn’t really get that much drawing done. most nights i had to force myself to sketch something before i drifted of too sleep in my much too comfortable hotel bed (jen and i were plotting out ways we could steal the mattress). there was a lot of walking, a lot of shopping and a lot of talking. also a lot of sight seeing as the covention center wasn’t my only destination in san diego which is simply put, a gorgeous city.

my dad was awesome enough to pick up and overnight my cow & buffalo postcards to me so i was able to trade, sell, or simply hand out those to a lot of people. i hope they enjoyed them. went through a bunch of seed comics as well. i’ll see if i can set up something on this site for people that might want to get their hands on some. i did a bunch of networking while i was there and safe to say, i’m not very worried about the publishing aspect of parable. there’s a lot of interest in the project which, considering the nature of parable, i found very cool.

the best part of the whole experience was hands down meeting so many wonderful people. of everyone i mentioned in my last post i met all of them and more. joe fenton, part of my parable family, and his wife were a blast to hang out with. christian hill (aka mac mccool) was just a super nice guy and intoduced me to another super nice guy named cliff cramp. doug tennapel is a trip and made jen blush inadvertantly agreeing with the “she’s hot” comment i made in my previous post. i met pretty much the entire flight crew (which was an interesting experience intoducing myself to everyone as “mr cow”) all of who are really great guys (and gals). their both was constantly swarming with people and it was great to see how modestly they handled all their success. i picked up volume three while i was there and the inside cover looks like the inside of yearbook with all the sketches they were all really kind enough to draw. jeff smith is a great guy as usual, jen wang is a sweetheart and sometimes it’s scary to hear how much kazu and i have in common. andy runton, james kochalka, and aaron renier were also all fantastic people to meet over at the top shelf booth. and pascal campion is as nice a guy in person as he is online- proving once again that americans are far too hard on the french.

as soon as jen offloads her camera i’ll post pictures. i haven’t even had a chance to see them yet. for now, i’ll just let this be an “i’m back and i’m ready to delve back into my art” post. i’ve got a lot of drawing to do if i plan on having a table for next year.

oh! one more thing. the night before we left my sister had her second little baby. she’s a very small squishy little thing (or at least she was the night i saw her) and i was able to get a quick sketch in before jen and i rushed home to pack. her name is “maile lei” (pronounced my-lee lay) which is a type of leaf lei or something in hawaii.

bright and early tomorrow morning i’ll be flying out to san diego for my first visit to the san diego comic-con. i can’t wait. since it’s our first trip out to the west coast, jen and i are making a nice summer vaction out of it. we’ll be visiting family and friends and contemplating whether or not we want to return to tampa or not.

while in the past i would really look forward to seeing certain comic professionals from the large comic companies to sign whatever books i happened to have from them, this time around i’m more excited about simply meeting people i only know from the web. i’ve never been more involved in the webcomic world then i have been in the past two years, so putting some faces to some of these people is sure to be the largest amount of fun. at the top of my list is anyone that is involved in parable, since i’ll be working closely with them for the next year or so. the flight crew- just a ton of them are going to be there and i really want to shake hands with each and every one of them. one of which, jen wang, was who first attracted my interest the web comic/art world so she’s a definite must. and of course, i’d love to meet kazu since he just sounds like a great guy. but all those flight artists have inspired me in one form or another. doug tennapel will be there, and for anyone that reads this blog, you know i’ve become a huge fan of him. jeff smith i’d love to meet again. constant inspiration pascal campion should be a joy to meet. all in all, there’s a lot of people i want to see and i hope i can meet them all.

things i will have:

a handful of seed comics, chapters one & two. just picked them up from ups today and it’s neat to see those chapters all printed and bound.

things i won’t have:

i was going to have these cool cow & buffalo postcards but it looks like they won’t arrive until tomorrow in which case i’ll be gone. even more dissapointing is that same package contained some parable business cards i was looking forward to passing out. i’ll supose i’ll have to promote without them.

i won’t have a table, but i’ll be wearing a captain cow shirt one of the days i’m going to be there- likely on saturday. plus, i think my wife is hot, so if you see some geek walking around with someone he probably shouldn’t belong with, well.. that might be me. :)

for those that don’t know, cow & buffalo will be taking a break for the next couple of weeks. they will return on august 8th for the stunning conclusion to a story arc that just got way too far out of hand.

and i’d hate to leave you all empty handed while i’m gone so here’s a slew of old sketches (of girls) i haven’t had the chance to blog yet. i’ll be back in a couple of weeks with pictures and even more likely, more drawings.

moO!

   

   

  

  

there’s a cow & buffalo drive by review on the gigcast. this was the first time i’ve ever just sat and listened to two strangers talk about my work, so it was kinda fun to listen to. plus they had some nice things to say. :)

here’s the direct link.

well, that was fun couple of weeks. :)

in case anyone is curious, here’s the very, very short version of what happened:
apparantly there was a security update done on my sqlserver which caused everything in my database with single quotations to become unreadable. well, not only was there a lot of code in my database with single quotations but it just so happened the night they were performing the update i was writing a post with, yup, single quotations. it all became a big mess and it’s taken me about a week and a half to get everything back to normal again. luckly i had backed up all of my previous posts and pages so nothing got lost. for anyone that doesn’t regularly update their databases, i recommend it. i could have lost a bunch of stuff.

so, since my server was completely useless at this point, i finally decided to change hosting providers (which i’ve been contemplating doing for a while now). i was happy with brinkster, my previous service, but the windows servers they use just weren’t happy with this linux based wordpress application i’ve started using. now that i’ve moved to bluehost, everything on this blog just works better. i finally can have a contact form, my permalinks work without any fanagaling, and there’s a lot of behind the scenes stuff that works better now making it easier and less time consuming for me to post. so, yes, all is now good in buffalog land. the only major change is that the extension for my cow & buffalo pages needed to change. so instead of cowshell.com/cow&buffalo/current.asp it is now cowshell.com/cow&buffalo/current.php (anyone that knows windows vs. linux servers will understand this change). you can also use a variety of redirects like cowshell.com/cow&buffalo or cowshell.com/cowandbuffalo or simply just cowandbuffalo.com. i’ve made real easy on people. :)

okay, so this has got to be a pretty boring new post for my return here, but i promise tomorrow i’ll be back with some fun new art and whatever else crosses my mind. for now i’m just happy to have my blog back again.

ack! my database got corrupted so i will be buffalogless until further notice. :(

cow & buffalo will still be updated every sunday.

cow & buffalo is up, this time with more cow & buffalo!

i’m going to try to post a sketch a day this week. old sketches, sure, but at least some of me own art to show on me own blog. since c&b went up today, i thought i’d start by posting this silly little page out of my last sketchbook. this’ll be the oldest sketch i’ll show. it was done waaaay back on the second of january, the day after i decided i was going to draw everyday this year.

earlier this week i also updated my illustration page. mostly drawer geek stuff, so if you’ve been regularly visiting this blog then you’ve probably seen most of the stuff in there already. but there might be some stuff in there that you’ve missed if you want to check it out.

cow and buffalo is up. i think this is the first episode that neither of the title characters show up in. but i suppose a hundred episodes is long enough without giving someone else some [computer] screen time.

watching catscratch the other day made me think of my own kitties. we have two siamese cats that in this humble artist’s opinion are just the cutest cats in the world. ash is a couple of months older and we had him for a year before rescuing misty. he’s kinda like a rag cat- you can just walk next to him and scoop him up with one arm and he doesn’t care. we even have a nine year old that’ll come over every now and then and pick him up with her two hands and he doesn’t even flinch. he’s also shown up in a couple cow and buffalos. misty on the other hand is a permanent kitten. she’ll play with anything, meow sixty percent of the day, and hide under the table from passers by. all you need to do is hold your hand out though and her little head is under it as she purrrrrs away. since jen and i don’t have any kids (yet) they’re pretty much our babies, and we really do find ourselves comparing them to things our one and half year old neice does on occasion.

here’s some quick pen doodles i scribbled a while ago of them. the drawing above is probably the most accurate representation of them and done in rare zen fashion. i’ll see if i can track down some of the 900+ photos that jen has taken and post a few of those when i get a chance.