C2E2 2012 Fancy Sketches

Please enjoy these sketches I did for some Fancy Bastards at C2E2 in Chicago last weekend. I would like to eventually collect all my my convention sketches and artist edition books sketches into an eBook and call it “I’m Sorry I Ruined Your Book.” Maybe I’d put it up for a few bucks or a pay-what-you-like type of thing. Just as idea.

Being that I am smack in the taint of convention season (roughly the middle) I feel like I’ve been on tour. I got home from Seattle… yesterday? Last week? I have no idea. I was home for a 8 days or so and then I went to Chicago. I got home from Chicago all of 14 minutes ago and now I’m about to get on an iceplane to Canada for Calgary Entertainment Something Something Expo where I will be entertainingly expo’ing with Blind Ferret next weekend. I really love this job, and I consider doing conventions to be more of a perk than an obligation, but I am certainly ready for a good month or so where I don’t leave Texas… or my house… or my office. I have 150 ideas for things that I need actual, uninterrupted time to accomplish. Comics, shirts, things that are not comics or shirts… IDEAS! FOR THINGS! NEED TIME!

One nice side effect of going to several conventions in a row is that I’m getting to see my comics friends more often than I actually see my local friends. One of the biggest negatives about working alone for me is the lack of creative collaboration. Put me at a bar with 3 other professional funny types and the ideas just start flowing. Convention bars are the Cardiff rift to my creative TARDIS. Yes, I just made that analogy. Just last weekend the boys from Explosm and I outlined a musical (that we might actually make before the end of time), invented Satanic Gospel music, and did about a 100 ragtime, swing and early jazz renditions of 90’s nu-metal songs and/or songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Someone should be recording this stuff and putting on the internet in some sort of downloadable format. Too bad that’s an impossible dream given today’s technological limitations and strict regulation of all media by the Freemasons. Oh well.

COMMENTERS: I am a little spent, so feel free to comment or question based on any of the topics rased in the sketches above.

Emerald City Comicon 2012 Fancy Sketches

HOLY CRAPBASTARDS! ME AND WIL MADE “THE CODE” INTO A SHIRT!!!
Get it now @ Sharksplode! Scan it. It really works!

When a Fancy Bastard at Emerald City Comicon walked up, dropped some delicious monies in my cup and said, “Can you draw Wil Wheaton sitting on a throne of dicks?” he seemed almost puzzled at the speed with which I said, “Yup,” and got to work. It was as if he thought I didn’t have that image fully formed in my mind meer nanoseconds after the words escaped his lips. Everything I had drawn up until that point had prepared me to fully realize the dick throne in two dimensions on paper without the slightest hesitation.

ECCC 2012 was a record convention for sketches. The ones shown above are some of my favorites. I personally drew over 50 commissioned sketches in 3 days. At most shows I do 15 or so max, not including quick book doodles. Of those 50, at least 1/3 if not 1/2 involved Wil Wheaton in some fashion. When he and I are exhibiting at the same show there tends to be this fandom wormhole between our booths. Our mutual fans tend to stop at my booth, get a sketch of Wil doing or saying something questionable, then stand in line for hours to get him to sign it, then return it to me for final approval. It’s pretty awesome to think that there are people in the world that hold us both in a similar regard, or at least consider us both as “people that make neat stuff that I like.”

Last year at Phoenix Comicon, Wil and I had this deal going that I would “sexify” any of his Wesley Crusher headshots. His fans would bring their purchased photos to my booth, and I would essentially ruin them by drawing a beard on Wesley and writing “It’s sexy time!” in a speech bubble. That was one of my favorite things ever.

You can read Wil’s quick write up on the con HERE and see the couple that inspired the Nyan Wheaton drawing HERE.

COMMENTERS: What’s your most prized souvenir, signed item, sketch, etc from a celebrity (internet or otherwise) that you got at a signing or convention?

Baltimore Comic-Con 2011 Fancy Sketches

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made this Three Wheaton Moon shirt. You can buy it! Then you can wear it! Only two steps to total geeky happiness? Sign me up!

Baltimore comic-con was a blast, and not the kind where I get shot in the chest and die in my partner’s arms forcing him to avenge me and clean up the mean streets at the same time. Honestly, I had intended to this to be my last year due to slumping sales from 2009 to 2010 but the Fancy Bastards came out in force and made it one of my best cons of the year. Thanks! Special ultimate thanks go to FB’s Adam and Casey for hosting me all weekend, driving me around, and throwing me a wonderful party/FB Meetup and to FB Alex for being my booth babe at the convention. Additional thanks to all of the FB’s who came the meetup. We had burgers, hotdogs, drinks, shitty movies and good times in excess of the legal limit as stipulated by Maryland municipal code. See you next year for BatliMORE! [get it?] #imsorry #dontshootme #iknowyouhaveguns

HEY LOOK!: You asked for it, so I added a “Winter Is Coming” desktop to The Vault. I’ve also added “Chibi Wolverine” and “Three Wheaton Moon” desktops as well. Just make a donation of any amount, or sign up for a recurring donation subscription and you’ll get access. I’ve also added mobile versions of these desktops HERE.

SDCC 2011 Fancy Sketches

THE HIJINKS ENSUE STORE IS BACK!!!

The newly relaunched HE Store is up and running over at Blind Ferret. Please go check it out and maybe buy a book or a shirt or something. Shirts will begin shipping soon, now that we are all back from Comic-Con.

I am still recovering from San Diego Comic-Con. I have 100 shout outs and thank you’s to dole out over the next week, but for now I will leave you with these (mostly Doctor Who themed) sketches while I continue to deCONpress and process the amazing events of the last week. This week will probably round out with a couple of regular HE comics, a special HE comic of sorts and an SDCC photo comic over the weekend.

Book 2 Fancy Sketches: Browncoat Edition

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made a thing! Check out our Wesley’s Big Adventure Shirt over at Sharksplode.

CONVENTION NEWS: Connecticon is next weekend!!!. Holy crap. Come see me and David and Ryan and Lar and the Explosm quadruplets and much many mores!

I. HAVE. FINISHED. SKETCHING. ULTIMATE FANCY EDITIONS!!!! And only several months later than I had intended! If you are expecting a UFE Book 2, it will be in the mail today, assuming the mail is running today [July 1,2011]. I sketched 16 books today, so instead of making a comic, I have assembled for you some choice selections from those sketches, colored them and even organized them into a theme! I’d say at least a 3rd of my Book 2 sketch requests said, “draw something Firefly related.” This comic was bascially founded on Browncoatishness, and I often regret not having more reasons to draw Captain Mal and his crew of misfit space peoples. I try to keep HE topical and there just isn’t much new Firefly/Serenity type stuff happening these days. What I’m trying to say is I enjoyed drawing these and I hope you enjoy reading them. I also hope the owners of the books these sketches are attached to will enjoy owning them.

The final sketch, “Reverse Dino Betrayal,” was auctioned off for the Toronto Can’t Stop The Serenity event. I might make that idea into a shirt. What do you think?

STORE NEWS: The HijiNKS ENSUE Store is closed for a few weeks so I can make some big, exciting changes. [READ MORE HERE] In the meantime you can still get shirts from Sharksplode and HE Book 2 from this very site.

MUSIC NEWS: My friend Tom Brislin has started a Kickstarter to raise money to record his first solo album. Fans of the HE Podcast will know his music from… the HE Podcast. Tom is a fantastic song writer, a virtuoso piano player and one of my favorite creative people on the planet. Please back his project so that I may hear the wonderful musics that are currently stuck in his brain.