76 - Happy 250th!
🇺🇸 USA 🇺🇸
Happy 250th Birthday, United States of America!
I am so thrilled to call this nation home. The freedom to pursue my artistic career, to raise a family in safety, and to have hope in a secure future is a true joy.
Since I have little kids, I’ll likely miss most of the excessive fireworks displays, but here’s a toast to this great country I call home.
HEROESCON RECAP
Here is my haul from the show.
Convention Program
Power Puff Girls: got to meet the cover artist
Sunder by P.A. Comtois: He is a fantastic illustrator; he loves to hatch!
Underwinter by Ray Fawkes: I was sitting next to him. His watercolors are amazing! He actually wrote the Fantomah book that I colored that will probably never see the light of day because the publisher stiffed us all. (I’m not bitter)
UltraMega by James Harren: I already had these books, but I got to meet James Harren and get them signed. He was so kind. And we got to hang out and chat at the afterparty for a bit.
CMYK: this is an anthology by some recent SCAD grads. I particularly liked the Yolk story by Abimael Hernandez.
The Lone Ranger, Last Ride: this is by my friend Jon Pinto. I was inspired by his art on Facebook back in the days before Instagram. He is an incredible character designer, and he’s making his own comic now!
Lightspeed Delivery, written by Colby McHugh: I worked on a zine with him a year ago, and we have kept in touch. Cool guy and silly comic.
Original art drawing by Tommy Lee Edwards: I was eyeing this piece all weekend, and when I was ready to buy, it was already gone. I was disappointed, but as I was leaving, James Harren handed it to me. My jaw was on the floor. Turns out my other buddy Keith bought it and knew my mind would blow if my idol, Harren, handed it to me.
Here are the commissions I did at the show
Including this one I had to ship afterwards to Newell. He collects exclusively Stringray commissions. You can watch his live unboxing reaction on his YouTube.
FAMILY WEDDING
I had a family wedding in D.C. last weekend, and we had the pleasure of being hosted at the Supreme Court of the United States for the rehearsal dinner! They said we couldn’t share pictures, but they didn’t say anything about drawings… Here is a sketch of a bust of John Jay, our first Chief Justice.
And the record of it in my sketch journal. My wife and I standing in front of the courtroom itself.
Politics aside. It was an honor to walk the halls where our nation argues its most important debates. Especially in the 250th year. Truly an incredible experience.
PROJECT: Revolution
Pencils are locked! That means that I can jump right into painting it. I have wanted to paint this book for three reasons.
I feel that the grunge of the watercolors will add to the story itself, which is dirty and messy.
I think it will actually be faster because I won’t have to scan inks and then mull over the colors digitally. It’s just right there, and it’s done.
I want to push myself. I haven’t done something “new” for a comic besides various rendering techniques, and I think this will help me grow tremendously.
With all that in mind, I am terrified to start. I’m sure I’m going to mess it up and have to redraw pages, but I have to just start. Here is a spread in progress.
Peek Behind the Curtain:
I started with page 4 because pages 1-3 are a dream sequence and I want those to be the best, so I’m going to paint those last once I have made all my mistakes and learned my lessons.
Last thing on this project: Cover thumbnails!
Which is your favorite?
I want to include the Stars and Stripes in the design, and I am heavily inspired by this painting by the great American landscape painter, Frederic Edwin Church:
SKETCHBOOK
I’m starting to get back into a rhythm with my sketchbook. A buddy of mine at Heroes told me that he’s planning to draw for the first hour of his day before touching his phone. I took him up, and we text each other sketches after that hour to hold each other accountable. It’s been really helpful and inspiring to see his work too.
SAN DIEGO COMIC CON INTERNATIONAL!
I’m going to the biggest comic convention in the nation. The OG, SDCC! 247 Comics is publishing Cyber League Baseball this Fall in their 247 Comics Presents/Spotlight anthology, and we are launching the book at SDCC with exclusive covers by several awesome, heavy-hitting artists.
The show is July 23-26 at the San Diego Convention Center, and we will be at Booth 1837. The show hasn’t released a floor map yet, so stay tuned for more details. I’ll put out a special newsletter with a full schedule and exclusives in the next week or so.
Additionally, you can follow the publisher on their Substack here.
I also got a cool write-up in Arts Atlanta. The interviewer, Sally, came over, toured my studio, and asked questions about my process and work ethic. It was a fun time!
WATCH: World Cup 2026
USA is in it to win it! I’ve really been loving following the World Cup. I used to say that I don’t care to watch soccer, but after sitting through several games, man, this is a beautiful game.
READ: The Thirty-First of June by J.B. Priestley
Welp, it’s happened again; I’m behind and haven’t finished this book. But I am loving it! I keep wanting to save the book, and then lo and behold the month is gone. I’ll finish soon I swear!
LISTEN: Des Rocs
Used to the Darkness is a banger. Bonus: the Let the Vultures In album artwork is done by the incredibly talented Nick Pyle
PLAY: Pass the Pigs
This is a classic “Push your Luck” style game. Different pig positions have different points. Do y’all have any house rules for this one? For me, if they stack nose to nose vertically, you win, plain and simple.
Who stirs you?
What inspires you?
Where do you find that spark?
When do you feel most energized?
How did you come up with that?
I get these questions constantly from friends and fans at shows. But never colleagues. Because they already know the answer. So, here it is, free for all:
We don’t know.
No one knows. The ancient Greeks told stories of the muses, goddesses who touched mortals with higher knowledge. Christianity teaches of the Holy Spirit delivering divine inspiration to the saints. Freud cornered it in the inner psyche of the Artist’s mind. Locke described it as a hall with ideas resonating and associating till they bring forth creativity.
A 2016 Study by Takeshi Okada and Kentaro Ishibashi published in Cognitive Science conducted studies on creative ideation and inspiration. In brief, what they found was that exposure to alternative art styles was most conducive to future creativity.
This makes sense to me. Imagine you lived in a world where the only art that existed was paintings my Marc Rothko.
If all art everywhere were mere blocks of color. You would never consider the detail and grandiosity of the School of Athens as an artistic possibility.
This was why ancient art all looks the same only and slowly, slowly fanned out into different styles. The diversity of thought, ideology, and technique grew.
Herein lies the error of Generative A.I. It is taught to create something that is most like the prompt. But as a human, it is our freedom, our liberty, our great pleasure, to be able to think outside of that box and to create something different.
This leads to my conclusion: Diversity is the key to inspiration.
My challenge to you this month is to experience something that you are categorically not interested in. I’m not saying do drugs or go skydiving. I’m saying read fantasy even though you prefer self-help. Watch soccer even though you prefer baseball. Listen to Jazz even if you prefer Rock. Play Scrabble even though you prefer Catan. You might just get inspired.
Cheers,
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