From a dream, 1995.

This was the cover to RARE BIT FIENDS #12, documenting a big dream I’d had a dozen years earlier. It came at a time when my dreaming had become suddenly lucid; with me fully aware I was dreaming, floating outside my sleeping body or traveling across the landscape at superhuman speeds. The sense I got of this vision, was that whatever I was seeing was multidimensional and alive. Dyes, inks, colored pencil and guache, 1994.

Building on yesterday’s announcement of the upcoming 300+ page limited edition hardcover INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH BRAT PACK from King Hell, here’s the painting I’ll be using on the cover. Feel free to splash this all over the web, if you wish. Just be sure to let everyone know that the book will be solicited in FEB 2009 PREVIEWS for April ship.

When the fifth printing of my BRAT PACK tpb sold out a few months back, I promised I’d have big news about the next edition and here it is! King Hell Press will release INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH BRAT PACK, a 300+ page limited hardcover collection of all things Slumbergian, in Spring of 2009. The book will include the completely remastered original graphic novel (I’ve been able to rescan all the original art thanks to good guy art dealer Albert Moy), all the various color covers, over fifty pages of sketches, unused pages and promotional art along with the never before seen original proposal that I presented DC Comics with back in 1998. On top of that I’ll be writing a behind the scenes history of Tundra, King Hell and the whole furshlugginer comics scene circa 1991 when BRAT PACK became the #1 best selling independent comic and was nominated for an Eisner Award as best new series. And as icing on the cake, Steve Bissette has written an enlightening historical and cultural appreciation of the sidekick phenomena in comics and film titled TEEN ANGELS.

So if your old trade paperback of BRAT PACK is worn out, pass it on to a worthy friend who enjoys current series like THE BOYS, KICK ASS and THE AUTHORITY. And make space on your bookshelf for the ultimate omnibus edition of the great grandaddy of all twisted superheroes. INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH BRAT PACK will be solicited in FEBRUARY 2009 PREVIEWS for April shipping.

Tattoo design. Pen and ink, 1993.

When I did this portrait of myself as RAT FINK for the cover of the COMICS JOURNAL #176, I meant it as a tip of the hat to BIG DADDY ROTH and how he’d helped and inspired me in my youth. In the full length interview I tell the story of how I entered one of his “Draw The Monster” contests and got a runner up prize and my name printed in BIG DADDY’s magazine. This came at a pivotal time in my young life (I was probably 12 or so) when my parents and teachers were all working on me to give up doing art for a sensible career choice. Getting that sort of small recognition from one of my heroes gave me an inner certitude that the authority figures in my life were wrong and I was on the right track.

When doing the illustration in 1995, I finally intuited what BIG DADDY had hit on with his trademark style of cartooning, too. There’s a deep existential truth in what it means to be a 20th century human consciousness inhabiting the flesh in ROTH’s work. I can’t look at it anymore without smiling and thinking to myself, “Yeah. He gets it!”

Would you believe this is the last of the Alan Moore character designs I drew for Awesome? Suppose I should have tagged them as such so you could call them all up with a click, but I was a neophyte blogger when I started this thing (and besides, there’s lots of other lovely eye candy you’ll find if you decide to go looking for them). This guy is the archetypal psychic detective with a buttoned down sixties look. I have no idea if he ever saw print in any actual stories.

Going hell-bent for leather to finish ARMY@LOVE: THE ART OF WAR #5. Here’s a page that I just shot off to Gary Erskine for his ink wizardry. Just got my comps for #3 too, so that should be hitting shops any day now.