GUESS THE ARTIST CONTEST!

I'm excited to see if anyone can guess
who did this very uncharacteristic
piece looking toward Frank "Madman"
Einstein's 20th anniversary.  Now,
you can only submit one name at a
time, but whoever is the first to correctly
guess the name of the artist will win a
copy of The Madman Picture Exhibition 
Limited Edition with a bookplate signed
By Laura and myself.  Any guesses?

GREAT MINDS...

Just got this in today in a package from our dear 

friend and comic book genius, Matt Wagner, for the 

MADMAN 20th Anniversary Monster!

I'm giving a partial sneak peek of this gem today to 

prove that we hadn't seen each others work before 

today.  And he sent the package off before I posted my 

blog of the promo poster I've documented here. I 

love how we unknowingly came up with similar 

designs simultaneously.  I'm jazzed to see Laura 

color this baby up!  But you all are going to have 

to wait for the book to see the whole piece.

20th Anniversary Monster First Sneak...

Let the guessing games begin as we start to
assemble the 20 guest artists on the cover!

And now the washes and graphite tones...

Next:  Laura will "fix it" with her colors.

MADMAN 20th ANNIVERSARY MONSTER!

And here are the inks.  Now I'm gonna
go to the movies!

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TOO! YEAH!

In addition to inking I, ZOMBIE pages, I'm spending 

much of my birthday working on the cover to the 

MADMAN 20th ANNIVERSARY MONSTER!

Here are my pencils.  The background will be made 

up of images from the twenty different artists who 

are doing strips for the special.  This will be a HUGE 

book.  We may do two editions, one being 11 x 17 

(like the Wednesday Comics collection) including an 

essay by Adam McGovern on over twenty years of 

creator-owned characters and those who came before 

(with a corresponding art piece by Michel Fiffe and 

myself with many of those characters in one room) &

a new epic story from yours truly. And one which 

would also collect virtually every single Madman 

pin-up ever done.  I think that's close to 200 

artists by now.  So, a tall book, and a thick book.

MADMAN Giant-Size Super Ginchy Special!

I keep mentioning it, so I should
probably show the cover and try
to get the title right.

Whoap!  This copy got wrecked!

Look at this gem from our old

pal, Andre Szymanowicz (say his 

name three times fast and you'll 

find yourself in a new dimension)!

http://astrobrain.blogspot.com/

EMITOWN!

http://emitown.blogspot.com/

Emi Lennox is a talented up and comer who deserves to be celebrated.  Check out her new collection EmiTown and see what I'm talking about.  Then in april check out her charming Madman short in the MADMAN Giant-Size Super Ginchy Special! (I'll eventually get the title right).

I'll be posting some samples from her story in the weeks to come, but in the meantime...BUY HER BOOK!

SO FAR SO GOOD!

Really miss seeing new James Jean 

come out regularly at the comic shop.

Love this piece he did for us.  I think 

this beauty saw print in Madman 

Atomic Comics no.17.  

Here's a full color sneak peek april's

MADMAN Super-Ginchy Giant-Size 

Special!  This is from Daniel Krall 

who is also sorely missed in the 

comic book biz.  He did a short 

story for a Madman special a few 

years ago.  Do more comics daniel!

And another preview.  This time 

from my fellow Vertigo compadre, 

the amazing Raphael Albuquerque!
http://www.rafaelalbuquerque.com/blog/

AND WE'RE OFF! INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY!

I've been wanting to do an artist's blog for years, but me no so quick with new technology so I never made the leap until now.  Besides, our "Webmaster Genius" pal, Brian Huberd, does such an amazing job designing and maintaining our aaapop.com website so brilliantly that I could happily put it off.

But now it's become easy enough for someone even as backwards as me, and sometimes I want to show something off NOW.  And with dozens of new pieces from many of my favorite artists in the pipeline for the MADMAN SUPER-GINCHY GIANT-SIZE SPECIAL! and next year's MADMAN 20th ANNIVERSARY MONSTER!,  I'm going to want to provide sneak peeks so folks get as excited about this stuff as me...so here we go!

But first to warm up, thought I'd just start off posting a 

few images that I have handy and something to say about.

This "Abby Road" image was something I did 

immediately after doing a version of Neil Gaiman's 

"Endless" characaters for a special gallery show print.  

I wanted my crew in the setting of that iconic Beatles 

image, and this was the result.

 My original cover painting for 

I, Zombie no.1 which should be in

 the extras section of the soon-to-be-

released collection.

This was a treat!  I was asked by an editor at Marvel 

Comics to ink an image for the legendary Ramona 

Fradon.  I happily obliged!

Apparently she liked my brush work because 

she then personally asked me to ink her again on 

this "Women of Marvel" piece.

Probably my favorite Ramona Fradon 

comics would be her work on 

Metamorpho.  

Here are scans of the original art on 

two of the most challenging pages 

Neil Gaiman threw at me when we 

worked on Wednesday Comics together.

One of my favorite artists who I can 

never get enough of is Philip Bond.  

Here is a recent pin-up he did for 

april's MADMAN Super-Ginchy 

Giant-Size Special!   Wait'll you 

see Laura's colors on this baby!