Mugs ahoy! September 21, 2012 10:40

Good morning!  Well, a lot's been happening since I last posted.  Croods is zooming along (more on that later) but on the home front the interesting thing is that our mugs have been selling well, and all have been arriving at their destinations in good time.  Meanwhile, I've been scouring the country buying up as many of the Indian Red Polychromos pencils that I can, because I discovered during Dragons that I like drawing with them.  The brick color is easy on the eyes and I think it blends nicely with the colors I might wash on afterwards.  Unfortunately I ran out and after trips to three art supply stores I came up with only five pencils.  So I began searching the internet and found that they seemed to be missing from the planet in general.  There didn't seem to be a lack of green or blue pencils, leading me to wonder where Indian Red ones were coming from.  I have several theories, ranging from dried reddish lemur dung to a deep mine in Mojave run by a smallish tribe of night dwelling trolls.  The latter theory would explain the sporadic supply, as trolls are lazy and only trade their precious red minerals for bags of uncooked black beans and lengths of the manilla rope that they favor.  It must be especially harrowing for the art-supply employee, elected by the choosing of a short straw, to drive into the desert at night and sit by the entrance of an open shaft with his bags of beans and coils of rope to listen for the scrabbling and scratching of troll claws as they come out of their terrible holes, offering handfuls of red mineral by moonlight.  The skittish pencil salesman would allow his pockets to be filled with the precious red dirt and endure the occasional exploratory bite on his hands, then bid farewell to the monsters as they drag their rope and beans underground, chuckling and burping.

Thanks to the bold and adventurous men and women of the art supply industry I'm happy to report I received several boxes of the rare Indian Red pencils yesterday.  So now I'm drawing again, and will be for many months before my stock is gone.

I've been writing Kiskaloo, preparing to start drawing again in late December.  I always try to have a backlog of comics written before I draw, as my greatest anxiety is the writing.  Once that's done, the drawing and inking is fun.

Girl with coffee

Mug alert! July 17, 2012 10:31

Okay, so I tweeted about this yesterday, but I wanted to get this out on my Blog and DA as well.  There were two batches of the Ogo mugs made before the Con.  The first one had some rather large defects, and so a second run was ordered.  This was the first, defective version.

Yikes!

The second batch was perfect, and it promptly sold out in San Diego.

I was surprised then, when an Ebay seller suddenly had more than ten Ogo mugs for sale.  On closer examination of the sellers photo we saw that it was in fact, a mug from that bad batch.  Note the similarity.  The easiest way to tell is that the eye patch is solid black.

I had considered destroying that batch, and now, in retrospect, I really should have spent an afternoon in my driveway with a beer hat and a hammer.  But now those defective mugs are out there.  About a hundred of them.  Curiously, in the description, this seller decided these mugs were originally sold at the 2007 Con.  Why they chose that one is a mystery, as I would have to have been so bumbling that I would sell badly made mugs of my own character, but I would also have to be so clever that I could build a time machine and instead of going back to Dallas so I could wait at Dealey Plaza and yell to JFK that his shoe was untied, causing him to lean over and thus saving his life, I instead opted to travel back to San Diego to distribute coffee mugs.

Anyway, I Tweeted about the bad mugs, and magically the Ebay picture updated itself with this one -

Now, I guess it's possible this seller got busy last night and fixed the mugs with White-Out and a really small brush and then went to my kitchen and shot a new picture.   But I think if you buy this mug you're still gonna get the other one.   I'm not mentioning the seller or their location because, you know, finders keepers.  They can sell the mugs if they want to, and anyone can buy them.  Especially people who like cats with solid eye patches and black tails.

So this whole thing has prompted us to order another run of the correct mugs, and get them up on the net as soon as possible.  The run will take about two to four weeks, and as soon as they arrive I'll offer them for sale.  Until then, beware the Ogo mug - there may be good ones for sale that came from the San Diego Con, but batches of over ten are unlikely as we sold no more than three to any one person.  So, note the picture on this Ebay page - it's the same one I shot and posted on this blog.  If someone is selling the genuine article it's likely they'll shoot a picture of their own mug sitting on their own desk.

Enough about that.  On to other things - have a great day!

Booth 5534 continued... July 10, 2012 10:32

More merchandise pictures!

I've always wanted to bring mugs to the Con, and this year that dream comes true!  These are heavy, so I'll not bring a lot.  But I'll bring about a hundred and see what happens.

That's the Morgan mug on the left.  Morgan is a character I'll add to Kiskaloo this year.  And yes, he runs a diner.

Ogo buttons.  They glow in the dark.  As all buttons should.

See?  I always have the urge to hold them against the end of my nose.  But that's just me.

Dream Catcher print, color by Christina Strain.

Party Witches print, color by Christina as well!

Finally, all the free buttons available at my booth.  I'll have some free Ogo tattoos as well, and I'll post them tonight.  One button is offered every day.  The little square one is for preview night.

Comic Con Booth 5534 July 9, 2012 11:52

Okay, so the first thing you need to know is that I've moved.  I'll be in a new place on the floor this year, hopefully easier to find than in the past.  I liked the neighborhood I was in, which was very near Stuart Ng, but my visibility was about zero, so I'm giving this new location a try.  I'm pretty sure I'm against the front wall, but check your maps just to make sure.  Here's the stuff I'll have.

To my surprise, as I was signing sketchbooks, I found a very few copies of sketchbook 2 and 3, which I was sure were gone for good.  If you're looking to pick them up, I think I'll have enough for Wednesday night, but I'm sure they'll be gone by Thursday sometime.

As I was nearing the printing deadline for the new sketchbook, I realized it was going to be another last-minute dash to get everything in.  This would have meant leaving some drawings unfinished, uncolored, or leaving them out entirely.  So I opted to do something I'd been thinking about for years - reprint the very first sketchbook from seven years ago.  If you weren't at that Con you had no chance of getting that sketchbook, and since then I've answered many questions as to whether it would be made available again.  You could argue that it was never really printed in the first place, since it was run off on a high-end Xerox machine.  That process printed the images in a rather low-res dot pattern, and several sepia colored drawings were reproduced in grey.  This edition restores all the drawings to their original appearance, upgrades their resolution, and moves the original cover to a fold-out in the center.  I've re-drawn that girl in two different versions for the new cover (that's the original book in her hand) - choose whichever one you like best!  As always, every sketchbook is only 10 dollars.  Even the rare ones.

Now this is important.  As a little promo for The Croods, which I am currently finishing for a spring release, I'll be giving away this poster in the amount of 600 per day.  Free, to anyone that comes by.  It's a collaboration between myself and Aurthur Fong, and features two of the characters from the film.  They're set against a background of story sketches from the making of the movie.  It's 20 x 24, and printed on heavy textured stock.  This is a Con exclusive, and will never be available any other place, ever.  So come by, bring a friend, and we can chat about the movie.  You might meet Aurthur, who will be stopping by, and he can tell you how to paint like this, although it may take a few days.  Oh, those little colored squares won't be on yours.  This was the untrimmed proof.  Which is the one I'll be keeping.

Free poster featuring artwork from the new "Croods" movie from Dream Works.  (Ogo mug included for size comparison.)

24 oz. aluminum water bottle with wrap-around Chris Sanders artwork.  This will keep you hydrated while you wander the floor.

Another bottle, if you prefer your water in a mango-colored container.  These will sell for 20 dollars.  The lid is a new type that snaps shut.  Very satisfying.

I'll post more photos of the other stuff tonight.