DC has just released the cover image for ARMY@LOVE: THE ART OF WAR #1, which will kick off season two of the series in August. This is a preproduction version for the solicitation. We’ve got to go in and make Mona’s face merge a little better with the rest of the image for the final.

Watch for it in the next PREVIEWS!

The photo is old and a little blurry but, yes, that is a real DOCTOR BLASPHEMY entertaining a group of children. Actually it’s a guy dressed up in a DOCTOR BLASPHEMY costume doing a meet and greet promotion at the Angouleme Comics Festival in 1992; an appearance that made the national television and newspaper news.

The big news right now is that the fifth printing of BRAT PACK has officially SOLD OUT at Diamond. You might be still able to score a copy at Amazon or your local retailer, but after that this book will be unavailable.

But bigger news about BRAT PACK is on the way. Stay tuned.

This is a pin-up done for my old Kubert School bud, Tim Truman, that ran in the back of his SCOUT title. The character is “Doody”, a blind mystic journeying across post apocalyptic America. I was inspired by a couple old engravings I’d seen of Arab sorcerers with their ears to the lips of the half buried Sphinx, and applied the idea to Mount Rushmore. Pen and ink, 1986.

This doodle seems to come from someplace other than the Id. Maybe the placid waters of the unconscious Self?

A few days back I posted a note about my original illustration of Joliet Jake Blues being accepted for a show at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. Here’s another shot of Belushi, this time as Captain Wild Bill Kelso from the graphic novel adaption of Steven Spielberg’s 1941. This one, like the whole book, is a collaboration between myself and Steve Bissette with Steve roughing in the shapes and colors and me detailing on top. Watercolor and colored pencil, 1979.

Frome the Road Bit sketchbook. 1995.

Another taste of the pencils to ARMY@LOVE Vol 2: GENERATION PWNED. Amazon.com has dropped their pre-order discount offer, but you can still reserve your copy for $10.39 or, better yet, order Volume 1 at the same time and get both THE HOT ZONE CLUB and GENERATION PWNED for $20 and change.

Here’s another forgotten odd-ball from the back of the flat files. Don’t remember much about this except that I somehow hooked up with a guy who worked for a winery out in California. When he heard I was an artist he suggested I sketch up some ideas for marketing their new Zinfandel, promising me some free samples if I sent something in. So I whipped up this sketch based on the venerable old FLYING A logo since, I think, the name of the winery started with a V. Still waiting for those samples, darn it.

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One of the fun things about doing this blog is rummaging through the back of the flat files and finding stuff I did that I’d completely forgotten about. Here’s a character sketch for a story pitch I did for TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES that nothing ever came of. What the hell, let’s run the pitch too. As pounded out on a typewriter (remember those?) and hand edited.

I think if I was going to do the story today, I’d have the Turtles trying to save the dog from WHIZ-BANG, rather than eating it.