This is the cover for a book for Scholastic that I worked on coming out in the fall. I created 17 black and white interior
drawings as well. A fun project to work on even if the bully isn't a zombie.

Heres a couple of more pics from the kids book I illustrated called "The Biggest Girl in the World" about giantess Anna Swan
that I posted the cover of earliar.

Frazetta Road Trip

'ello 'ello,

Long time since a post but the reasons are both wonderful and sad. Sad because my hard drive had a meltdown and I was without a computer for two weeks. I back up most everything so nothing was really lost except bits and pieces but still a big headache and I'm sure missing things will pop up. Anyway it was quite nice getting a break from the computer screen and having just sent off the last piece for a book illustration and having only hand drawn projects on the table it was as ideal as it could have been.
Last weekend me and a couple of friends, Rich and Serge, went on a short little road trip to East Stroudsperg Pennsylvania
to the home and Gallery of Frank Frazetta. I love driving through that neck of the wooks. A few years back I did a road trip to Norman Rockwells House/Museum and NC Wyeths and the Brandywine and that was a fantastic trip.

Apart from "leadfoot Dannys" landing us a speeding ticked and some lousy nachos it went smoothly. Stroudsberg is a nice little town and
the Frazetta Gallery was wonderful. His wife Ellie was in the gallery but no Frank. It was amazing coming face to face with
with all those images I loved growing up as a kid. The Creepy/EErie covers looked waaay better in person. I wish there was more 50's pen and ink and comic stuff since that and the watercolours are my favourite but its a small complaint.
Seeing all those Conan covers lined up was pretty fantastic.
One pen and ink peice from '51 called beaty and the beast was one of my favourites.

My wife tends to be a tad more organized then myself and she was amused by the fact that Rich [who was driving the rental]
had chosen an atlas from 1962 to guide us down. I admit I did my own bit of eye rolling but who am to tell another fella how to drive especially not doing any back up planning myself, So I had to take this picture of a puzzled Rich and Serge, trying to reastablish our spot while taking the "scenic' route
down to the museum







Some pics of the Frazetta grounds and the museum and Leadfoot in front of one of his favourite pieces









I managed to wake up early and do some sketches around town [as well as in the car] heres a couple of them. I'll post some more later.

McCoy Tyner is a great jazz pianist who played and recorded with John Coltranes band in the early 60's.
I was asked to do a poster for an upcoming show in Milwaukee. Heres the image and lettering I created for the poster.

Francesco Francavilla (http://www.francescofrancavilla.com/) is a terrific artist and co-creator of The Black Coat comic. Issue 2 just came out and its a lot of fun and I think you should pick it up.
Francesco asked me to do a pin-up of the Black Coat and it was quite an honour I must say. Heres what I did. I inked over loose
pencils without too much planning.

I remember the first time I saw a Von Dutch baseball cap and was surprised how that name had became a brand.

On Ebay the fantastic Von Dutch's, [originator of hot rod pinstripping], paint box just sold for a whopping $270 000 .00
I wonder if Paris Hilton bought and is going to use it as a purse.

The description



Von Dutch - The Personal Paint and Pin Striping Box


Without question, the all original Paint Box we have the pleasure of offering here is one of the most important personal pieces of Von Dutch memorabilia ever offered for sale to date. This is the actual paint box carried by both Von Dutch and most impressively, his father throughout both their legendary careers. The story begins in the 1930s with Walker Howard, father of Kenneth Howard aka Von Dutch, who was one of the most respected sign painters in all of Los Angeles. The young Kenneth Howard was said to accompany his father on many of his jobs, and legend now relates that Howard could paint and letter at a professional level at the age of 10. Though the paint box first belonged to Wally Howard, it was passed on to his son, Kenneth Howard now known as Von Dutch, who continued to use and treasure his paint box and family heirloom for the rest of his painting career and life.

so heres some pics from Costa Rica
The volcano crater had erupted the week before and when were up there Alison [my wife] was interviewed by a newpaper about why would we come up here if it was still dangerous. We had no idea it still was. It was funny seeing her picture
on front page of the paper the next day tho. Thats her ziplining too which was a blast.
and feeding the white throated capucin monkey the fruit of the cashew nut tree.

So Heres some sketches from a recent trip to Costa Rica.
I loved it, went horseback riding up the hills and zip lining down waterfalls, fed Capucin monkeys in the wild and
saw a volcano that had erupted the previous week.
sadly none of my sketches capture that excitement, mostly these were done lounging around the pool with drink or on the way to somewhere, like the bus taking up us to the volcano.
I'll post some pics of monkeys in a bit.

I had started this originally for the IF topic Spring, but never had the time to finish it .

over at the ward-o-matic (links) Mr. Jenkins posted a little piece about collecting,
Below is a quick stickie sketch based on his post. I didn't go get referance so I'm not promising accuracy
and below that a stickie sketch nothing
do with first

I did this affer dinner while watching the hockey game. A finished version of a sketchbook drawing from a previous
post

I had to whip this one out fast and tho sometimes I like a quickie , in this case speed is definitely not an asset

Finally saw Walk the Line [not that this sketch has anything to do with that directly] Very much enjoyed it. Reese Witherspoon
was terrific.





and since I put the cove of my old sketchbook
I thought I'd post the back of which there was a story inside
of the wacky shenanigans of Thugge



and a nother sketchbook drawing