This past weekend I had the privilege and true delight to be a guest at Joe Murray’s Captain Blue Hen’s Free Comic B
ook Day event. Joe’s a great guy, and a big fan of Love and Capes. When he offered to have me out for the day, there was no way I could (or would) say “no.”

It was a top-notch operation, including making sure that I got to see The Avengers before the big day. That was particularly nice, since FCBD is a minefield of spoilers the day after a Marvel movie.

I set up at one of the booths at Joe’s place and did free sketches for kids all day.Later in the day, when the line for the free books got to be about an hour and a half, he asked if I could go out and do quick sketches for the troopers in line. Armed with a drawing board, a Sharpie, and my assistant Maddy,I went out and drew. And drew. And drew.

If I’m counting my stack of backing boards, which I was using to draw on, I did about 80 quick sketches in a little over an hour. I’m a little impressed with that.

Also, here’s a heads-up from your friend Thom. If someone is drawing you stuff with just a bullet-tip Sharpie and he’s trying to go fast, don’t ask for Darth Vader. The Dark Lord of the Sith wears nothing but black, and that’s hard to do with a fine point.

Related, don’t ask for Black Panther either! Yeah, that happened.

Joe got in on the action, too. He has a rack of baseballs with sketches on them, and I broke out the Copics to draw the two Love and Capes couples.

Best of all, I got to to spend time with Joe, his crew, and some fellow pros like Dan Parent, Rich Faber and Jamar Nicholas. A bunch of us went out to a victory dinner, kindly hosted by Joe, as well.

It sounded like Joe had a banner day. I had a phenomenal time myself. I’ve announced elsewhere that I’d like to do a different state every year for FCBD (yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, Alaska) but I am sorely tempted to return to the nation’s first state next year. We’ll see what happens.

Hope you had a great Free Comic Book Day!

Happy Free Comic Book Day! I’m in Delaware for Joe Murray’s event at Captain Blue Hen. I hope you’re doing something great today, too.

FCBD was essential for my success with Love and Capes. I did four issues for the day from 2007-2010. It let me get the book out to a much wider audience, find some new fans, and hopefully helped make the day better. I even did all-new done-in-one issues for each day, something some of the bigger publishers didn’t always do, and I’m very proud of that.

I don’t have a book out this year, unfortunately. It’s just not possible right now for all the best reasons. (Have I mentioned that the new Love and Capes series comes out in August, and is available in the next Previews, from my friends at IDW? Six issues of superhero romantic comedy goodness!) But I can’t not make something available, so here are a couple links to digital content you may have missed.

First up is my 24 page 24 Hour Comic Book Day book, Haunted. the ghosts of the past revisit a young man as he’s about to get serious with his present.

And, I gave away the six-page all-new Love and Capes Valentine’s Day story back on, well, Valentine’s Day. But that was only for three days. Here it is again. This story has never been printed, but will appear with design notes in my Rhinos Bowling artbook, coming out later this summer.

Oh, and before you ask, yes, I saw Avengers and yes, it was two hours of awesome. I can’t believe they pulled it off! And boy, Cleveland blows up really good. (They filmed the Germany scene and a lot of the street level battles there.) I’ll definitely be seeing it again.

Another weekend, another convention. This weekend I’ll be at C2E2 in Chicago. Wait! A new show? A new town? Does that mean a new convention print? Why, yes it does!

You may remember this art from last year when I did it for a charity event. I drew it with having it for C2E2 in mind. So now will be your chance to get it.

I’ll be set up in Artist Alley, table B-20 with Paul Storrie. I’ll be the taller one. I’ll have copies of the second Love and Capes trade and the individual issues, too. If you want any t-shirts or pins, be sure to order them on the Love and Capes store so I bring them.

See you there!

I’m going to be at Marcon in Columbus… Holy Shnikeys, I’ll be there tomorrow! I’ll also be there Saturday as well, so here’s my schedule:

Friday • 4:00 p.m.
Autograph Session
Regency Ballroom Foyer

Friday • 8:30 p.m.
Inspiring Artists
Delaware D

Saturday • 1:00 p.m.
Love and Capes spotlight
Franklin A-D

Saturday • 5:30 p.m.
How to Sell Yourself as an Artist
Madison

I’ll have copies of Love and Capes: Going to the Chapel, the Columbus print that I did, and the Star Trek: Sky’s the Limit book that I worked on with Bob Ingersoll from a couple years back at my autograph session.

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’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.

I promised that if I made $5200, I’d post my pitch documents for Up and Muppets. I cleared that by $6.29, and I’m a man of my word.

There are two Up pitches here, Up: Down Under and a second one, getting into the source of the talking dog collars. Up: Down Under was the clear winner, but Disney had some changes. I made those changes and it became Up: Special Delivery. Honestly, I think it’s better than the original pitch (as much as I love the heck out of the original title).

There are also three Muppets pitches. Boom was doing the Muppet Show, as well as the Muppet adaptation series. These were for the first. I did pitch the latter, including an awesome (and rejected) pitch of The Muppets: Hamlet where Miss Piggy plays Ophelia and, upon finding out she dies in Act IV, goes about rewriting the play Duck Amuck style so that she becomes the hero. Yeah, I found a way to give Hamlet a happy ending.

The three Show pitches were to have them become the House act at a Donald Trump-esque casino, to have them become a reality show where someone got voted off every issue, and one where a big star (a la Tom Cruise circa the couch jumping era) becomes their guest host.

If the stars ever align, I’d love to do any or all of these. But for now, you can enjoy them in this PDF.

One more time, 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.

I completely fell in love with Up when I saw it. It was a heartbreaking, nearly perfect film. Boom had the Pixar license, and they were talking to me about Muppets, and it took all of seven hours for me to write them an e-mail begging to do an Up comic.

At the end of the movie, Carl is clearly living in the zeppelin, and hanging out with Russell and Dug. It was just begging for a sequel. You know why? Because with that setup it’s Uncle Scrooge! Old guy, boy scout tagalong, going off having adventures.

The idea was almost instant, too. Living aboard the zeppelin, Carl finds a never mailed letter from Muntz. And while Muntz was crazy, he was still young Carl’s idol. so he decides to deliver the letter himself. The letter takes him to Australia and gives the book the awesomely awesome title Up: Down Under.

I’m still proud of that, title, pitch, concept and everything.

Here’s the thing: it got approved. The pitch went to Disney where we were told that they didn’t really see Carl traveling much or very far after his adventure in the movie. But they thought the idea had merit.

So, here’s what I did: I realized the end scene of Up takes place at a famous ice cream place near Pixar. That meant the movie took place in Northern California. That meant I could use Southern California. So the trip to Australia following in Multz’s footsteps instead became a trip to glamorous 1930′s Hollywood. My Outback Flying Doctor was replaced by an actress who, Doris Day-style, started an animal shelter/farm.

And you know what? It was better. The dog shelter made Dug even more important, and Hollywood was a better backdrop. I liked it more, even if I had to lose the title.

In my dream world, one day I’ll pitch it to Pixar and we’ll make the thing. It sure would be swell. And it could happen someday. After all, adventure is out there.

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.

So, I, like everyone, wanted to do The Incredibles. I think my Love and Capes artwork style was absolutely perfect for it. So I put together this two page sample page showing how I’d handle the characters.

Compared to the previous Muppets piece, I tried something more standard for the lettering, a more traditional comic style for a comic book family.

This was also a soft pitch for a plot, too. I don’t remember all the details, but basically I wanted to focus on Frozone (because he’s literally and figuratively cool) and give him an ex-girlfriend super villian as a bad girl to mess around with him. It’d also show some great contrast with Mr. Incredible and Elasti-Girl’s marriage, and even Frozone’s own marriage,

Alas, not to be. Maybe someday.

As I type this, you’re $55 from seeing the Up pages. Have at it!