Judge Jasper in Nick Mag!

I received a stack of the latest Nickelodeon Magazine in the mail yesterday, which includes one of my single-panel gags and also a full page comic, called "Judge Jasper." Here is the first panel, to give you some idea what it looks like:As most of you probably know, Nickelodeon Magazine has been canceled and will be ending soon. This issue is pretty light, so I'm not sure how many more are in the pipeline... Maybe it'll go until the end of the year? Anyway, this issue is in bookstores and magazine racks right now if you want to pick up a copy while you still can!

A Lone Tone Album Covers

When I was a freshman in college, I met this remarkable guy named Mark S. Williams. A few years ago he changed his name to "Sudara" and started the incredible music site A Lone Tone. A Lone Tone makes it super easy for anyone to post their own music online, and to share it with the world. Users can upload their recordings and then create digital albums by grouping the songs.

Well, I used to record a lot of music, and I'm trying to get back into it a bit (for a SUPER TOP SECRET PROJECT which I probably won't really talk about for another year or so). So I decided to set up my own A Lone Tone account as a place to archive my old music and hopefully a place to put up NEW music as it starts happening. A Lone Tone allows you to upload an image, which acts as the album cover, so I decided to quickly whip up some cover images for my two albums "The Curtain Tapes" and "My Adventure Soundtrack." I thought I'd post them here for people to see.


Since both recordings were made at very specific times in my life, I decided to adapt single panels from my minicomic Phase 7, which visually describe what the music is also trying to convey. The Curtain Tapes was recorded in Los Angeles, in my room with three walls and a curtain. And My Adventure Soundtrack was recorded while five years of hard work and dreams were crumbling down around me in Sydney, Australia. I chose to depict each of these depressing scenes with just one additional color (besides black) to try and keep it simple.

I'm slowly lining up a few small illustration projects which I will get to as soon as the next issue of Phase 7 drops in early October. So hopefully this blog will see some more action in the last few months of 2009!

An Anaconda Ate My Homework!

Not only do I work as an illustrator and cartoonist, I am also a colorist! Well, I just found out that An Anaconda Ate My Homework has finally been released! This children's book was illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators working today (and my good friend) Aaron Renier, and I did all of the coloring. Every single page of this book is jam packed with tons of detail and some really beautiful page layouts by Aaron. It's definitely worth picking up! It's available from Amazon.com and should be in books stores soon. Ask for it!

What Would Dumbledore Do?

The Harry Potter Alliance recently started a new campaign, called What Would Dumbledore Do? To help promote the WWDD? campaign, the HPA created a banner using one of my old illustrations of the greatest headmaster that Hogwarts has even known! The banner is posted above and the original watercolor illustration, which I painted for a Harry Potter fan art show at the Padlock Gallery, is below. Dumbledore is far and away my favorite character in the Harry Potter books, so it's a real honor for me to be a part of a campaign honoring his memory! The new Harry Potter movie comes out tonight at midnight, so I hope people have a Wizardly Week!

Custom Bicycle Helmet!

I have a few new illustrations in the works, so until those are ready to post I thought I'd show some photos of a custom bicycle helmet I recently painted for my friend Jon Chad. Jon is a great cartoonist and illustrator who rides his bike a lot, but didn't have a helmet, so I thought I'd try to make one SO COOL that he'd want to wear it. There are some photos below, and you can see more in my Flickr account.