Transformers, Wheeljack, and Nostalgia

I love Wheeljack, and he doesn't get any respect, so here he is.

Wheeljack is an Autobot Transformer, a living alien robot that transforms into a Lancia Stratos Turbo custom racing car. He is an inventor, who creates a myriad of nutty inventions that usually blow up in his face. His greatest creations are The Dinobots, five Autobot warriors who transform into mechanical dinosaurs, but his machines were the engine behind countless plots of the late (but much-beloved) eighties cartoon The Transformers.

I have been watching The Transformers on TeleToon Retro at night quite a bit lately. When the show is on, it is typically the time when my infant daughter is going down for the night. While rocking my darling little girl to sleep (on my also-late-but-marginally-lamented rocking chair) I bathe myself in the warm glow of Nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a funny thing to me. It's like faith, it is a way of thinking that makes something better or more real than it actually is. My wife despises The Transformers (not just because of Michael Bay!), and rightly so; it's a transparent, poorly-animated show that existed purely to sell toys to kids. But when it was on the air, I was a cereal-eating seven-year-old. To me, a maniacal inventor (who transforms into an Italian muscle car!) and his personal army of mechanical dinosaurs was pretty amazing stuff. And that seven-year-old's intense love for robot brontosauruses and scheming jet planes and alien robots named Bumblebee is exactly why I love watching The Transformers again, as an adult.

Plus, Wheeljack is a genius inventor who is also a butt-kicking fighter and transforms into an Italian muscle car. That flies. That's great! I love you, Wheeljack!

P.S. As always, my weekly webcomic That's So Kraven! is updated right over here.

The Gutters

I drew today's episode of The Gutters. It was written by Ryan Sohmer, colored by Ed Ryzowski, and lettered by Rus Wooton.

Since you can see the final colored artwork at the Gutters site, I thought I'd post the line art from the strip. Here it is:

As always, my own weekly webcomic That's So Kraven! has also been updated. Check it out right over here.

Montreal Comic Con roundup

Fan Expo, then two weeks on the road visiting family, then the Montreal Con! Whew!

Well, growing pains notwithstanding, the 2011 Montreal Comic Con was a fantastic show. I was busy nearly the entire show, and here's a few of the thirty or so sketches I did to show for it.

The Batman

Glob Herman  (on a date)

Venom

 Red Sonja

 Kratos sketchcard

 Red Lantern Hal Jordan (this kid's totally sweet name: Merlin)

 A wedding drawing

 Cheetah (running faster than Horse)

Hellboy (I love drawing Hellboy)

 And a caricature! A lot of people thought 'head sketch' meant 'caricature', and since I worked as a pro caricaturist in Calgary for six years it was not hard for me to get back into the groove.

The show was a lot of fun; I was seated next to the marvelous Tom Fowler so I was never bored, and I had the extreme pleasure of chatting with Sergio Aragones for a few minutes. Sergio is a hero of mine, one of the greatest cartoonists ever and a jolly fellow, and I did my best not to flip out while we spoke.

It was also lovely to see the great Stan Sakai for a moment, and getting to meet the legendary Diana Schutz and chat with her for awhile. Other friends such as Yanick Paquette and Ty Templeton also made things a lot of fun. Geez, I have a good time at this show. Thanks, everyone!

In other news:

• I am teaching a class on comic-book storytelling at Syn Studio here in Montreal. Classes run for ten weeks (Thursdays from 6:30-9:30) and start on September 29th, if you're interested get in touch with the gallery: http://www.galeriesynesthesie.com/

• As always, my weekly webcomic That's So Kraven! updates every Wednesday.

• Green Wake, the fantastic horror series I letter for Image/Shadowline, has a trade paperback coming out this Wednesday! It collects the first five issues and it's gorgeous. I can't wait for you to read it, and keep your eyes peeled for Green Wake #6, coming in October.

Fan Expo roundup

Another year, another Fan Expo done. It's a huge, exhausting show (as Yanick Paquette told me on Sunday, "It's sixteen days next year,") but there's no other show in Canada that is so front-loaded with talent.

I did quite a lot of sketching (particularly on Friday, which was an insane day) and I remembered to take snaps of most of them.

That's So Kraven!

Kermit and Elmo

 Superman

Wolverine doing a line of coke (!!!)

 Spidey (for the baby!)

 Golden Age Sandman

Nightcrawler

 Krieger from Green Wake

She-Ra

It was a good show for me this year, much better than my last in 2009. I invested quite a bit in promotion this year: I had a banner printed and I made sure I had a lot of books on my table (collections of the first five Green Wake issues sold like hotcakes, particularly on Sunday). I had a good seat in Artist's Alley, which served me better than a booth would have due to an increase in foot traffic. The con was better about mixing up the A-listers than they were in 2009; the amazing Bill Sienkiewicz was in our row which kept a constant flow of new people.

Even if it weren't a great con for making money (it was still my third-best show!) it was fantastic for networking and seeing friends. I took my portfolio to the excellent Scott Chantler to show how much I'd improved in the six years since he gave me my very first portfolio review.

I didn't end up buying much in the way of books, but I can wholeheartedly recommend Jim Zub and Edwin Huang's Skullkickers and Stuart Immonen's fantastic Centifolia II. No trip to Fan Expo is complete without a meet with Stuart and Kathryn Immonen; they have greater smarts and integrity than almost anyone else in comics, and I always feel very fortunate to speak to them.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the excellent folks from Image. Riley Rossmo has been a great friend for years, but it was fantastic to spend time with Scott Kowalchuk and Kurtis Wiebe and to meet the mighty Jim Zubkavich. Everyone from the Image booth was perfectly marvelous and I'm proud of my association with them, however limited it may be.

Thanks so much to everyone who came by the table, who took the time to chat with me, and especially to the fans that bought books or art. You made a tough show a fun show, and I genuinely appreciate all of you. As always, you can find me elsewhere on Tumblr, deviantArt, or my brand-new website KellyTindall.com.

On to the Montreal Con in just three weeks!

Sherlock Holmes

I've loved Sherlock Holmes my entire life. I love the books, I love Sidney Paget's fantastic illustrations (which these are based loosely on), I love Holmes appearing in other stuff (like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, my favorite comic, or Batman: Brave and the Bold). I love the movies (even the blockbustery new one w/ R. Downey Jr.), and I really really love Jeremy Brett as Holmes.

I don't know if I did the old genius justice, but here he is.

For those who are wondering: I've been working very hard on things I cannot yet show off. I hope to have news very soon. The fifth issue of Green Wake (which I lettered) is coming out next week; I highly recommend it as it's some of the finest work from my good pal Riley Rossmo.

As always, you can check me out elsewhere on the net: my webcomic That's So Kraven! just passed the one year mark and I'm revamping my main website. I will be at Fan Expo in Toronto in about a month; definitely come check out my table, there'll be plenty of new stuff to show.

Babies!

Hey, guess what? My wife had a baby on Saturday! I KNOW

I am super excited! She's the loveliest little creature in the whole wide world and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life fretting about her during every single moment. I love you, Tilly!

Portrait-Dex

Whoa, this year is screaming by at a tremendous click, don't you think?

Nothing particularly new to show right now (news soon!) but here's my contribution to Steve Wolfhard's super-cool Pokemon parody Portrait-Dex. The site hasn't been updated since Scott Kurtz's addition so I'm using my entry for my own sketchblog. I hope Portrait-Dex comes back soon.

Last week's That's So Kraven! has been up for a bit, and I'm very pleased with it. Nice emotional ending to the most recent storyline.

Also, I have been named as letterer for the upcoming Image Comics/Shadowline series Green Wake. It's drawn by my old Proof chum Riley Rossmo (and written by the super Kurtis J. Wiebe) and it's very fantastic work. I think it's Riley's finest work to date. Go add yourself to the Facebook page right here. Check out this great cover:

Green Wake is a five-issue series; the first issue comes out in April. Can't wait for you to read it!

Sexy Kraven

My dear friend Jen turned forty yesterday. She's a fantastic lady and I couldn't be happier to scandalize her with a sexy drawing of a hairy man.

I don't know if this reference will fly over people's heads; it's from the famous Burt Reynolds nude photo from the seventies. Behold!

As always, there's a fresh webisode of That's So Kraven! online. Click here to check it out. Happy New Year's!

A Vampire in Montreal at the Montreal Comic Con

It really does feel like this year has rushed past at a blistering pace, doesn't it?

I will be a guest of The Montreal Comic Con this coming Sunday on December 5th. I will be selling prints and mini-comics as well as doing commissions and head sketches. As a special promotion, the first hundred guests through the door get a free copy of my new mini-comic, A Vampire in Montreal. I will also have copies for sale at my table.

 

Since Christmas is coming, I'll have a bunch of stuff on special so come by the table and see me.

Here's a birthday card I drew for my dear friend Rich. He's like me, a big Venom fan, and he's also got a great collection of artwork called 'The Boy with the Red Umbrella'. I supplied him with a drawing for that collection two years ago. Happy birthday, buddy.

Just like every Wednesday, we've updated That's So Kraven! This one has a bit of a Venom vibe, too. Check it out. That's So Kraven! Webisode Twenty.

Blacksad

What a fun Halloween it was! You can read about my adventures at the That's So Kraven! blog by clicking here. We had a friend dress up as Kraven the Hunter, and I carved Kraven's face into a pumpkin. There's also a new That's So Kraven! strip up, concluding the 'Miss Donna' storyline.

My friends and I also dressed as The Beagle Boys this year (thanks for the idea, Tom Spurgeon!) and we were featured in the Comics Alliance costume roundup. The excellent Chris Sims said we were the best group costume he saw this year; thanks, Chris! We love the Comics Alliance around these parts.

My fantastic friend Nick had a birthday last week. I love to draw birthday cards for my friends, so for Nick I selected a mutual favorite; John Blacksad and his sidekick Weekly. John is the star of Blacksad (by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido), an absolutely fantastic French bande dessinee about a black cat who works as a private investigator in the forties. The anthropomorphic animals are a joy to read, with oily reptiles substituting gangsters and polar mammals standing in the for the Ku Klux Klan. I highly recommend Dark Horse's trade paperback of the first three Blacksad stories (available at Amazon); it's a respectful and beautifully-produced collection.

Happy Halloween!

Have a good Halloween, everybody! I've got sweet plans; tonight is The Rocky Horror Picture Show and tomorrow is our semi-annual Lowered Expectations Halloween party. It's going to be a fun weekend.

You may or may not of heard of the amazing story of Machine of Death. Twitter went crazy this week when the book (filled with stories about a machine that tells you how you'll die) was released, as the marketing team of David Malki ! and Ryan North used their powers for good and helped their little book reach #1 on Amazon!

I bring this up for a very good reason; I illustrated one of the stories in the book! The story I illustrated is called "Friendly Fire" by Douglas J. Lane and it's a cracking read. I hope you have a chance to pick up the book. I'm honored to have taken part and I'm thrilled that I'm part of a #1 seller. If the I Saw You movie ever gets made, who knows how swollen my ego will become?

Plus, the book beat Glenn Beck's retarded little white-privilege screed for a day. How sweet is that? Sweet like honey, son.

As always, That's So Kraven! is updated this week. In this webisode, Spiderman and Donna decide Kraven's fate but it's not what you'll expect.

Motörhead

"We are Motörhead, and we play rock and roll!"

For over thirty years, the gravel-throated warthog of rock known as Lemmy has fronted the heavy metal band Motörhead. He's bedded thousands of women, drank a bottle of Jack Daniel's every day, and written some of the greatest metal of all time. The band is known best for "Ace of Spades" (the fantastic rock classic you should go check out immediately) but they've got dozens of fantastic songs that have influenced artists in subgenres ranging from heavy to speed and thrash metal. Personal favorites include "Runaround Man", "Tear Ya Down", "Bomber", "Marching Off to War", and "We Are the Road Crew".

Motörhead's 20th album, The World is Yours, is coming out this year. Hopefully, that means a stop in Montreal for the band. It's where I first saw them, and I can't wait until Motörhead deafens me again.

The twelfth webisode of That's So Kraven! is online now; will Kraven be able to work both design jobs?

Abe Sapien and Archie Snow

Two guys with the initials "A.S.", and animals at their core.

Here's a drawing of Abe I drew originally as a commisson: I was happy with how it turned out and I decided to color it up and add it to the blog. Are you reading BPRD? It is the best comic.

I also received some rad fan art last week! Here's Archie Snow, as drawn by Stephen Morrow. You can find out more about Morrow at his deviantArt page.

The tenth webisode of That's So Kraven! went live last week. It's good to see that numbers are solid and that people are digging the strip. Thanks, everyone!

Montreal Comic Con roundup

What a show!

I was busy for nearly the whole show doing sketches and shooting the breeze with fans and pros alike. Thanks to each and every one of you for coming out. I took cell phone pictures of many of the sketches I did; here's a few of them.

Apocalypse

Archie Snow

Clayface (for Ryan, my second-best customer)

Dino Girl

Steele (from my friend Kim's upcoming graphic novella)

Commissioner Gordon (you should see the Kate Beaton sketch she has in this book)

Soldier from Halo (from memory)

Qi the Ink Monkey (from Proof)

Proof from Proof (battling a Hellhound)

Kraven Baxter and Spiderman (from That's So Kraven!)

Darth Vader (the adorableness is strong in this one)

Zombie on a tricycle

Death from Sandman (for Pat, my best customer)

Thanks for coming out, everyone. Big thanks to Oscar and Kevin for being our go-to guys at the show, and big thanks to Tim and Yanick for breaking bread with Trina and myself. (And Stone for sending fans our way, and Kim and Rebecca and Ari for everything.)

There's a new That's So Kraven! online. ==>Click here for the whim!<== Apparently, Spider-Man actually says the line in the new Shattered Dimensions game, so you know we've got to do something with that. Stay posted.

That's So Kraven! @ Montreal Comic Con

Whoa, busy busy busy.

It's Wednesday (Odin's day!) so that means two things: a new webisode of That's So Kraven! ==>Click here for Kravenventure!<== and a new sketchblog update from me. I have been busy so let's get to it.

The Montreal Comic Con is this coming weekend, and I will be there. I'm bringing along my usual mini-comics (as well as a brand-new one I will reveal on Friday, hopefully) but this year Trina and I will have Kraven merch. We're bringing the print "Kraven in Repose" and two full-size 14x18 paintings of Kraven Baxter and Mr. Spiderman. Check them out:

The original plan was to bring these three with us to Fan Expo last month, but now's your chance to snatch 'em up. If you're not going to be in Montreal send me an email and I'll see what I can do.

That's it! Gotta go, much to do and not much time to do it.

P.S. Here's three quickie commissions that were finished this week. TMNT!