Hulk... shoot?!!?

So our entire studio (along with some friends of the 'family') got tapped by the Paradise Convention people to do badge art for their upcoming show, and since Herb Trimpe is the guest of honour, the order of the day was all things Hulk.

I chose the new red Hulk, and didn't get even the tiniest bit of ridicule from my mates, much to my surprise.

Now it's no secret that one of the things I hate to draw most are guns (right after chains, cars, and hands, in that order) and I quickly realised that that being the case, I chose the wrong Hulk, but there you go.

Still, it was really satisfying to take a piece from start to finish in a matter of a couple of hours. No sketch approval, no elaborate camera angles, just me, my pen, and the Hulk.

And his gun.

Midnights

Or Minuits, if you're French.

The character designs that follow were done while galavanting around Argentina for five weeks in January of this year. The project (See above title, in the language of your choice) is a sci-fi/spy-fi series set in near-future Hong Kong. The creator and writer is the always effervescent Sebastien Latour. The format is Bande Desinee, french-language graphic album. And the mad rush that necessitated drawing in hotels and cabins was in order to get art together for the pitch session in Angouleme.

The project did indeed find a home, but ultimately morphed into a quarterly anthology series. I may still possibly draw a volume next year if all the ducks line up, but at this point someone else will be designing the cast, which, as I understand it, has undergone some major revisions anyway.

Which means you guys get to see art.

Some NYX Press...

IGN has posted a brief roundtable interview with the whole NYX 2.0 gang. Check it here.

No new art there though.

Just sayin'.

For that you're going to have to keep on coming back here.

NYX in NYC

So I'm back from New York in one piece (mostly).

It was announced Friday at the Mondo Marvel panel that there is a new NYX series slated for August release, and that I'm doing it. The preview page above was colored by the magnificent John Rauch, who will be coloring the entire series, and the writer is Marjorie Liu, a paranormal romance author new to comics. You can find out more about these fine folks under the collaborators heading.

I'm a good chunk into issue 1, and I'm finding the nuts and bolts of this project to be satisfying in a way that none of my previous work-for-hire has been. I guess I just find cute, hip teenage girls more fun to draw than angry men punching each other. Who knew?

The whole studio went down, and we even arranged a few days on either side of the show to spend some time in New York. Last year we did the usual con hit-and-run thing, hardly left the vicinity of the Javitz, and came home asking ourselves if we'd even been to New York.

Some highlights of awesome from the trip:

• Porter airlines- Upstart commuter airline flying out of downtown Toronto. We decided to give it a try. No $50 cab ride to the sticks, no line ups, no bullshit, complementary wi-fi and continental breakfast in the lounge, as well as fantastic graphic design. A++
  
• Clement Sauve's Pantheon City Pencils- I could have spent all three days just staring at them.
  
• Drinking with Kwanza- I could elaborate here, but it's very simple really, Dude introduced us to some fantastic people, and some fantastic bars.
• Galaxy Rangers out on DVD- We never got this in Canada, but every visit to the states I made sure to catch an episode. Now I can have them all.
  

The Unkown - Teen Love in Space

I just finished this piece of cover art yesterday, and I thought I'd post it, since that's what blogs are for. It was commissioned by writer Len Kody, it's for his sci-fi/horror/teen-angst project The Unkown. See detail below.

I'm in a maelstrom of angst myself as I desperately try to get half an issue in the can before I head off for the New York Comicon next week. Half an issue of what, you ask? Sorry, I can't tell you. I hate to be a douche, but there it is.

It will be announced at the show though, so at the most you have 7 days of suspense to endure.

I'll give you hint though: It's got mutants in it.

Vampires, Hunters, and Addicts, oh my!

A few months back I was asked to audition for a pencilling job on Marvel's adaptations of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels. Since the series was already underway, they asked me (and the several other artists they approached) to use the existing character designs and even try to emulate the style of the departing series artist.

With my silver tongue, I managed to talk them out of the latter requirement, but could make no headway on the former one. Still, it was a fun couple of days.

I accepted a Countdown-related gender-bender extravaganza for DC shortly after doing these, which put me out of the running. In any case, I don't think my art was to the author's taste.

Ron Lim got the gig.

A little Background

For those of you who don't know me, and have no idea what the last post was all about, please allow me to introduce myself.

I'm a freelance illustrator. I guess I'm best known for my work in comics (Checkmate, ION, Satana, Belle & Sebastian) and role-playing games (Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, D20 Modern), although I've also been known to do editorial illustrations, storyboards, and design work for animation and videogames.

For the last 8 years my main web presence had been under the horhaus.com banner, along with Karl Kerschl, Matt Forsythe, and Brenden Fletcher.

Things, they change. Even though I did finally get to share actual studio space with Karl for about a year there, he's now moved back to Montreal, and I'm here in Toronto kickin' it with the fine people listed over there on the right, under the Studio header. In 2000 having a virtual studio was important. For me atleast it was a lifeline to a world I was struggling to reach for, believe in, and step into fully.

Things, they change.