Tall ceilings, strange objects, and kind words.

Here's a set of drawings I did while I was thinking about a new comic. Not what sure what it will involve other than cozy rooms with tall ceilings and mysterious objects crashing to the earth, but I have to start somewhere. 

Meanwhile over at Shannon Smith's "File Under Other" comics blog, he selected Big Deal Comics & Stories #12: A Weekend at the Atwood for his "The Best New Single Print Comic I Read This Week" and had some very kind words for it. Don't believe him? Order a copy for yourself at my store!

A Million Years Ago: Part 1

Here's a comic I did way back in 1998 that originally appeared in Flagpole Magazine. Even back then I liked drawing scenes of people wandering around the woods at night with lanterns searching for monsters.

Renaming the Constellations Sketch

Plans for my next comic.

Napping and Pouring

Thinking about some ideas for my next comic. They start off vague and gain a little weight eventually. There will be a story, I promise, and not just panels of people sleeping or downpours. Well, if I go with either of these concepts.

I've also been reading some short stories that exhibit a mundane environment as a surreal horror element. An empty neighborhood by the sea, a set of houses in the middle of a field, a sandy island covered in willows; all of them brought up some anxious feelings of dread as I read about them. If I can apply some this to my next comic, it would at least be a good exercise at drawing better backgrounds, trees, houses, etc.

Book search squats.

Whenever I go to a thrift store, I make a bee line to the book section. Training my eyes to spot certain names and looks of book spines, I do this squat where I pop up and down through the aisles trying to find that missing Donald Westlake novel, that Mad paperback, old comic strip collection, horror short story anthology, Golden Nature Guide, Jim Flora children's book, etc.

It's raining here in Georgia.

A Weekend at the Atwood cover

Here's the completed cover for Big Deal Comics & Stories #12, featuring a 33 page feature length story, "A Weekend at the Atwood". The comic follows a small town ghost convention that meets at an abandoned motel on a lonely stretch of road one weekend, hosted by the motel's two inhabitants. I should have copies run off and added to the store by early next week. 

More panels from a comic in progress!

Jack Davis Exhibit Opening & Signing

The Georgia Museum of Art hosted a really pleasant opening reception for its exhibit "Jack Davis: Beyond the Bulldog" last Sunday, November 4th. It opened its doors to visitors at 1:00pm, finding a small crowd waiting outside to meet Jack Davis himself, who made an appearance for the show. Davis was signing books starting at 1:30, but he went ahead a few minutes after 1:00 and sat at a table outside the gift shop once a long line formed.

Reassuring to see such a large crowd turn out for this show. I had several friends from the Athens and Atlanta area show up, including several of the generous people who loaned out original artwork for the show. 

The Georgia Museum of Art staff did a great job with making the exhibit look sharp. There's two full EC war stories lined up on walls across each other, "Tin Can" from Frontline Combat #3 and "Vengeful Sioux!" from Frontline Combat #15. Also featured in the show is the original cover for the spectacular Mad #27, the cover to Yak-Yak #1, several EC pages, some personal Civil War soldiers Davis did on his own, and several stand alone illustrations. It's really something to see these pieces in person. 

As the curator, I gave a talk to a pretty full auditorium of visitors, including Jack Davis and his family. It's one thing to give a speech in front of a crowd of people, it's another if the subject of the speech is sitting in the audience. I was approached to curate this show as a member of the Jack Davis Foundation and my standing as a comics person in Athens, but talking about Davis's career and technique was from that of a giddy fan. After the speech, there was a Q&A that went on for awhile, with Davis happily answering questions about his life. 

After the talk, he went upstairs to see the exhibit after signing books all afternoon. Davis grinned at the EC pages, which he probably hadn't seen since he handed them over to Bill Gaines for a check in the early 50's. Looking at the pages for "Tin Can", he told me Harvey Kurtzman, who did the layouts for the war titles, made him redraw the sailors caps since they were cut a very specific way. He and his family toured the exhibit, chatting about each piece. As he left, he said he really appreciated the show and that it looked classy. That meant a lot to me. 

If you get a chance to visit Athens, I hope you can make it to this show. It runs from November 3rd, 3012- January 6th, 2013. Free admission, although you'll look like a sport throwing in a few bucks into the donations box. 

Jack Davis show at the Georgia Museum of art!

I'm curating a Jack Davis show at the Georgia Museum of Art that opens today, but will officially kick off tomorrow with an appearance by Davis himself and a little talk about his work by me in the GMOA auditorium.

First off at 1:30 tomorrow, Jack Davis and Alex Murawski will be signing copies of "Jack Davis: Drawing American Popular Culture", which UGA illustration professor Murawski worked on. If you've never met Davis, here's your chance!

http://www.georgiamuseum.org/about/pressroom-item/jack-davis-and-alex-murawski-to-sign-books-at-georgia-museum-of-art

Next up at 3:00, I will be giving a brief talk about Davis's artwork. With such a prolific career, the focus will be mainly on his start at EC Comics and his transition into top-scale commercial art. How many other comic artist of the 50's would go on to do movie posters in a matter of years? Well, besides Frazetta?

http://www.georgiamuseum.org/calendar/event-all/patrick-dean/2012/11/04

If you miss tomorrow's events, the show runs from November 3rd-January 6th, 2013. It's a rare chance to see two full EC original stories by Davis, various other EC pages, the artwork for the cover of Yak-Yak #1, and the most jaw-dropping work of the show; the original of Mad #27. I could stare at this one for hours. Heck, I just might do that between now and the new year!

Ghost Convention comic panels in progress!

Color Pin-up details

Well, the rest of these are NSFW, so here's a few color drawings I did in awkward close-up mode.

Comic story sketches!

Stuff I'll have for sale at HeroesCon.

HeroesCon is this weekend. I'll be there this year in the middle of Indie Island with stuff to sell to all of you good, good people. What kind of stuff, you ask?

Big Deal Comics & Stories #10 and #11, each featuring book length stories, "Knocked 'Em" in issue 10 and "Sometimes I Think About You at Night" in issue 11. Both have hand colored hearts in each issue. Didn't plan for that, but both stories had hearts that needed to be in color.

I still have some copies of earlier issues of Big Deal Comics & Stories. These are mostly made up of comics that originally appeared in Flagpole Magazine years ago.

I'll have monster drawings for sale for $5 each. They're black & white on comic board, each in its own bag. It's like a bag and boarded comic, only without the lousy comic but a drawing of a monster instead. That's a deal. I'll also be doing $5 commissions through the weekend as well. 

FLUKE t-shirts! We have last years' design on the right and the classic brown one on the left.

FLUKE anthologies from past years. All full of good comics by good people. Me and Robert Newsome will be at tables AA-541 and AA-542.

Robert Newsome will have copies of The Atomic Elbow #1 and 2 for sale. They're great. Buy them.


So, please; stop by our tables. We'd love to see you.

New Printing of "Knocked 'Em".

So, I'm reprinting Big Deal Comics & Stories #10, which featured a book length comic entitled "Knocked 'Em". It was originally 11x17", color cover, with a five dollar cover price. I made roughly about thirty of these things. This issue was giant, sure, but it was a novelty. It didn't need to be that size other than for me having the bragging rights of "Hey, I made a mini-comic one time that was 11x17" and wow was it awkward to carry around once you bought it".


On that note, I'm going to do another printing of it, but smaller and cheaper. The new one will be 5.5x8.5" digest size for two bucks. I'm adding a few new elements the giant one didn't have. For one, the back cover will sport this drawing of a banner with my website on it...


...and this illustration for the title page.


With the new cover only being in black & white, it will look a tad fancier than the tall color one, which was influenced by the cover of a 1961 Biology book from Golden Press (the one with Charlie Harper artwork). I'd been looking at early 20th Century fiction magazine covers that predated the 20's pulps. This one was slightly based on The Argosy issues from the early 1900's.


I'll have some information about how to order this and copies of Big Deal Comics & Stories #11, featuring "Sometimes I Think About You At Night".

Ladies of UGA, 1966

Women for the 1966 University of Georgia Pandora yearbook.