Muck Man #31

As you can see, it's time for another episode of Muck Man. For this strip I tried a different header. It gives me a little more room, but I'm still not sure of it. What do you think? Does it work better than the old one in the upper left corner?

And don't forget to listen to the Muck Man theme song by Chris Quigley. If you haven't heard it yet, you should. It's really neato.

Wizard World Chicago Recap, Part Two

Here are a few more pics from my weekend in Rosemont, IL at Wizard World Chicago.

My buddy Scott who was at the show getting autographs and such picked up this beaut of a commission from Dave Dorman.  That's one damn awesome Yoda painting!

 While we were in town I had to drop in to see my long time bud and Muck Man theme song musician, Chris Quigley. The last time I swept through town we couldn't hook up, so we went over to Schaumburg to see his buddy and their band play. They are called Space Was Cool and they rocked the place and even gave us a shout out. from L to R: Chris, Scott Toth, Bill Pulkovski and moi. Rockstars.

 As the show wound down I just had to get a sketch from the mighty George Perez, Drawer of Super-People and Super Nice Guy.

 And here is George with the Scarlett Witch that he just finished up for me. I was his last sketch of the weekend. Whew.

This is what happens when you cross a couple of artists. You wake up with a beheaded Yoda. Scott trembled in fear when he opened his eyes to this horrendous sight.

And to top off an already great weekend, on the way home we saw this guy with his tattoo of a band-aid on his arm. He was cool and he wanted you to know it.

In my next post I will show the artwork that I picked up or was given at the show.

Muck Man Theme Song!

My Chicago based uber talented musician buddy Chris Quigley has honored me by writing and recording a theme song for my Muck Man character. When he approached me a few months back about doing something like this I thought that I would keep an open mind and be gracious for whatever he came up with. I didn't think that this would be too difficult a task to accomplish since I'm a fan of his music anyways. But, when he sent the link with the demo, I have to admit that just before playing it I had a secondary flash of anxiety that it wouldn't capture the 'essence' that is the Man of Muck. I then reminded myself that I would probably like what I heard. All doubts (which were pretty much nil, anyways) were immediately cast aside when the first guitar licks festooned from my speakers. To say that I was pleasantly pleased would have been an understatement. It does have an infectious guitar riff that I seem to be humming all weekend. Come on! Muck Man has a theme song! How cool is that?

Chris and I go way back to high school and as he has said that I liked him even when his music sucked, I can say the same that he stuck around me even when my art sucked! I fondly remember him giving me flack about my dreamy big-eyed self-portraits. Good times. So, go and check out his site for witty remarks and even better tunes. I believe that he is currently tearing up the Chicago night club scene, so if you live in the Chicago area, check him out!

Check out the Muck Man Theme here.

And here is the instrumental version.

So, make sure that you go to the Quigman's site and tell him just how cool the Muck Man Theme is! I command you.

And for your veiwing pleasure, a toon of Muck Solo, as seen above.

Husker Du

My buddy Chris Quigley has recorded another song and he asked me to do the artwork to accompany the tune, which is called Husker Du. He wanted a take on the Clash's London Calling album cover, but instead of a guitar Chris would be smashing a sax as the good 'ole sax hater that he is. It really has nothing to do with the song, but not going off on a tangent just wouldn't be our style. 

So, go to his blog and have a listen.

CD Designs, Part 2

Here is the next batch of CD designs that I experimented with over the past few months. I have a buddy down in Columbus who is one hellava sax player and a teacher and if he had a website I'd link it. One day when he gets time in his busy schedule to record a CD I'll take a stab at doing the cover. So, I tried out a couple of images. Why the octopus? Why not. It's my favorite cephalopod mollusk if you need to know. Jeez.

And the other design is an early concept for The Good Leads (with sax-hater Chris Quigley I might add) with a title that they were considering.

Lots of stuff going on around here that I'm more than happy to pass along. I'm currently in the midst of my work on the Upper Deck/Marvel sketch cards, working on some unique greeting cards, as well as some commission work. Plus, I will be the new cartoonist for a Seattle health care newspaper, so I'm looking forward to that challenge. And today, I received an invite to be on a new sketch card set, but I've been down that road before, so we'll see. Busy, busy, busy.

CD Designs, Part 1

Prior to doing the artwork for The Good Leads single "Dead To Me Now," I did a few CD designs to experiment with a more graphic black and white look. I mixed and matched band names (The Good Leads, Chris Quigley, The Pseudo Strata Orchestra, [in which I have spelled that wrong on the artwork and apparently am far too lazy to fix right now] and James Miglia) with certain images just to see what would work. I will have another batch in the next post.

These were done in ink with a brush and pen and then tweaked in photoshop.

(Top photo right side image based loosely on a photo by A. Claeys)

Dead To Me Now

My buddy and Chicago musician Chris Quigley asked me to do some artwork for a song that he just finished recording. The song is called Dead To Me Now and is a mighty fine tune and you can listen to it by clicking the link. I remember about 20 years ago sitting in Chris's living room watching him playing Prince songs on his guitar with no amp or anything as we were as poor as hobos. I would sketch and he would twang and we were both bad. Now Chris is a bad ass rocker and still doin' what he loves and that, my friends is all that matters. And I couldn't be more thrilled to be a part of all that than to do some artwork and hopefully you'll see more from this collaboration. A while back, I was fooling around with some CD designs for his band, The Good Leads, so I will post some of those soon.