a very feral x-mas

more ink

A bird of paradise, and a griffon. Both freehand.

I heart MMA

So, back in july, Daniel and I went to Vegas to see UFC 86. It was a week before our 2 year anniversary, so why not, eh? Headliners were Forest Griffon and Rampage Jackson, it was very exciting, and LOUD. I’ve never seen so many affliction shirts in my life. We had nosebleed seats, and as much as I tried to watch the actual fights, the giant projection screen just off to the left kept dragging my attention to it. I only remembered to take pics of the fights during the Cote v Almeida match. I wish I had remembered to during Koscheck v Lytle, which was probably the bloodiest fight I’ve ever seen. The lady next to me was covering her eyes, and so was Daniel.
These pics are all of the Cote/Almeida match:













These two I took with my cell phone. The tall guy is fighter Corey Hill.

sacred heart tattoo

Okay, so the idea is to post more often here and not be such a lazy bastard. Hmmmmm…. here’s a pic of a tattoo I did on a client named Yoshio a few months back. Came out pretty nice.

HARD TO SWALLOW RELEASE PARTY AT ISOTOPE!

Please come by for the release party of hard to swallow #4 if you are in SF for folsom street weekend, or are lucky enough to live there. Isotope is a great place to be aware of in any case!

Quoting Justin Hall: “We’re having a big-ass release party at the Isotope Comics Lounge at 326 Fell St. (at Gough) in Hayes Valley on Friday,September 26th from 7-11pm.  Dave Davenport, my Hard To Swallow co-creator, will be there with me from LA, as well as a bevvy of other cartoonists.  There’ll be booze, naughty comics, cartoonists with loose morals, and DJ  bearzbub spinning a saucy collection of tunes.  I know it’s Folsom Street Fair weekend, but swing on by and get your groove on supporting local artists before heading out to whatever fisting party you have planned for that night…”

SD comic-con '08

Hey all, I just returned from working the San Diego Comicon, plying my wares, doing a timeshare table space with Steve MacIsaac. It was pretty fun, sold some prints, t-shirts, and of course some comics. Made some new friends and caught up with some old, and bought a load of comics, mostly some 2000AD stuff which is hard to find these days, so I stock up at their comicon booth each year. This is the first year I’ve worked this convention, I’ve volunteered and done signings at Prism’s booth, but this year Prism got a double-booth and sublet time-shares out to a bunch of us to set up mini-shops. It was a good, busy time, but now I must catch up on some SLEEP!!!

self-portrait

I did this for the creator’s bios page for the upcoming HARD to Swallow comics #4. Just thought I’d share it here…

HTS #3 review on PRISM

Sean McGrath does his Rachael Ray face, reviews Hard to Swallow #3 and interviews myself and Justin Hall at the Prism site.
Check it out, peeps, and thanks to Sean McG.

Oh, and BTW, I did remove my last post about the piece I had just finished for Unzipped, by request of Unzipped. Apologies to all, I will wait until pieces are published before showing them off

My new dogspunk tees are here, with the trendy seppuku motif. Honor, and gore... how could you go wrong?

Click HERE, or the store tooth on the left for more details and ordering info

Hard to swallow #4 back cover

For those who don’t know, Justin Hall and I take turns with the front and back covers of our comic book Hard to Swallow. The issue in production now (#4), Justin is doing the front, so I am doing the back. I just finished this one, and I love it. I’ve had this page from a small newspaper with kids portraying different emotions in a grid, kind of a guide to what feelings look like. I’ve had it on my fridge for years, always wanting to do something with it someday. The current Feral story has the biggest cast I’ve worked with so far, so it seemed like a perfect situation to use this layout for a cover. I tried to switch the emotions up with characters that wouldn’t normally be seen with that particular expression on his face…
Here’s the kids:

Here’s my cover:

tibetan tattoo

Another old one, just making it into the gallery. Sometimes years go by between doing the tattoo and getting a picture of it. I finished this one in 2004, got a pic in 2008 when Hector came in to consult about sleeving the arm out, connecting to this chest piece. Looks good at 4 years. It’s a tibetan deity (Mahakala, I believe), and now he has a Green Tara started next to it on the upper arm.

spirit dancer

This is a backpiece I finished a couple of years ago… and this is the best pic I have of it. Could be a worse photo, I suppose. I love the piece, though: It is an Amerind in wings and eagle head hood, with a buffalo head in the smoke about him.

Below is a detail of how the right wing/arm wraps over the left shoulder:

Blog3.51887

So I downloaded Wordpress and integrated it into my website DOGSPUNK. New blog entries will be there... please visit, pretty please?

polynesian tattoo

This is a few months old, I did this chest piece on a really sweet guy named Craig. I’ve been doing A LOT of this kind of stuff in recent years…

Cinco de Mayo

My client Patrick sent me this... he was the poster boy for the Eagle LA's cinco de mayo. I did all of the ink you can see here.

seppuku

It's 2008 and been 4 years since the last DOGSPUNK tee shirt. Well I finally took a break from drawing everything I should have been drawing instead and did up a new design, and sent it off to jakprints (whom I highly recommend for apparel printing). White and blood red on black 100% cotton American Apparel tees. Should be available in 2 weeks! I'll post when they are available.

hot list

Another old piece, this one was a 2 page spread for OUT magazine. I like the piece, but conceptually a nightmare. The art director wanted a "summer fun" scene in hell, and specifically wanted a devil evocative of my character the Grey Otter. The piece originally had this devil driving the dune buggy, and the surfer on the wave of flame was a devil as well. The magazine editor saw the original sketch and freaked out; the magazine in no way wanted to appear to promote Satan. So, demonic reference was erased, and there we have the piece as it is now, which makes little sense.
I still like it though. I rarely do a piece only in illustrator these days.
BTW, the devil sign (being made by the passenger in the buggy) slipped past the editor :)

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service

File under "comics I am reading". The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a Japanese series, released in the US by Dark Horse Manga. I picked it up out of curiosity when the first book came out, and was interested enough to pick up the second. This is good, because the book really starts to hit it's stride in the second book. It has quickly become one of my favorites, probably my favorite current Japanese title. The story line involves a group of Buddhist students with unusual powers or skills that band together in a business venture to carry out the wishes of the recently deceased so that they may rest in peace. The central character Karatsu is a medium of sorts, who has the ability to speak with the recently dead. He also seems to be haunted by a powerful ghost whose intentions are a mystery... thus far it seems to be a benefactor, but clues are pointing to possible nefarious origins to this spirit.

Anyhow, the group finds early on that working for dead people is a failing business model, and are constantly trying to find ways to make it work. Stories have involved an Iraqi civilian whose body was accidentally shipped to Japan, a "bodyworlds" type scheme, a mummification scheme, an alien scheme, stolen kidneys speaking to Karatsu, a guest appearance from the lead character from Housui Yamazaki's book Mail, and unusual competing services. The writing is topical and savvy, and avoids temptations of cliche, such as the hacker/computer whiz character. She is very absent most of the time, which is good. Over-use of the wild-card is bad. The art style has grown on me. At first I was jarred by the juxtaposition of cutsey manga and horror imagery, but it works, and has improved over the run.

I hear there is a U.S. film being made based on these books. Hopefully if this is so it will be worthy of the comic.

big dicks on the net?

Heaven forfend!
Another spot for [2] magazine. I am digging the wacom tablet.

piece from the past

This is one of the pieces I did for instigator magazine. I did some work I am really proud of for that magazine, but to say work with them was a nightmare would be an understatement. I'll get into it more in another post.


This piece accompanied an article about an Afghani warlord on trial. Many witnesses testifying against him made mention of the "human attack dog" the warlord kept in a hole in the ground. True story, supposedly.

spots for [2]

Here's 2 spots for a story in [2] magazine

Ultimate Product Placement

I am a big fan of UFC and The Ultimate Fighter reality show. It really tickles me that this super hot ju jitsu fighter (Pete Sell) has among his sponsors a condom company. And just look at that ad placement!

Best Erotic Comics 2008

An anthology from Last Gasp was just released, planning on being the first in an annual series of the Best Erotic Comics. My piece "GIGANTIC" made it in, as did pieces by Steve MacIsaac and Justin Hall. The three of us attended the release event at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. Other artists in attendance were Trina Robbins and Daphne Gottlieb, as well as the editor Greta Christina and several big wigs from Last Gasp. It was the first panel I've been on, and a good time was had by all. The book is available on AMAZON. Or ask for it at your favorite book or comics shop! Or better yet, from Last Gasp themselves. They also carry Hard to Swallow comics!

Hard to Swallow plugged on Joe Gage's blog

Joe Gage, famous classic porn director, plugs us on his blog...

Wacom and Dogspunk #1 second printing

I some months ago took the plunge and got a wacom tablet. I've been using a mouse for most of my life, so I suppose there will be some sort of learning curve, but so far I like it. It is weird, cuz I had developed a style that makes use of the weaknesses of the mouse, and now it is a moot point. Using the stylus with the tablet is a lot like painting, or pastels. So as a practice piece, I colored a new back cover to Dogspunk#1 using the tablet. Dogspunk #1 is getting orders from shops that require a bar code, so I had to get more printed anyhow, and decided to do some things like give it a better back cover, make some changes to the contents, editorial, and letters areas, and ditch the ka-blam ad in favor of some marginalized publications ads. Maybe the new back could sell as a poster too (minus the bar code, of course!)?

Scarab Tattoo

Recent tattoo work I like. The symbols and the black armband were already there, but I think this incorporates them well. Scott (pictured) loves it too. Now we are on to a "portrait" of Ra on his thigh.

HTS #1 on sale again

The interesting thing about selling comics through a magazine/book distributor is that after a while you get some back. This was a welcome surprise, because now we have a pile of HARD to Swallow #1 to sell... our stock had sold out some months ago. The bad thing about it is that some of these are damaged from all the shipping to and fro. These will be available at a discount, I suppose!
Happy New Year, Droogies!