Inks!!!

Eric Talbot emailed me his scan of his inking of the TMNT group shot drawing I did for the print to be offered for the first time at Steve Lavigne's "Shellback Artworks" store on May 7 for Free Comic Book Day...





... and as I suspected, I was not disappointed. Great job, Eric! Now we look forward to Steve working his color magic on this piece! -- PL

Free Comic Book Day at Shellback Artworks, May 7, 2016!

I had a nice lunch with Eric Talbot today, and afterwards handed over to him two drawings I did recently, both of which he had agreed to apply his amazing inking talents to. One of them -- this group shot of the Turtles --

-- is intended to be used as the basis for an 11" by 17" color print (with Steve Lavigne colors!) which will be offered for sale at Steve's Shellback Artworks store in Wells, Maine on Free Comic Book Day, which is on May 7 this year (less than a month away!). Eric has also agreed to appear along with me and Steve at Shellback on that day. Yahoo!

If all goes well, and the ink flows readily, we might even have a second 11" by 17" color print available that day -- based on this drawing:

... featuring Leonardo in a life-and death struggle with a malevolent tree spirit! I don't know who will be doing the colors for this piece, but I think it will likely be Eric. I can't wait to see what he does with the inks on these two drawings! -- PL

Shellback Artworks group signing August 11, 2012

I had fun with the Mirage Studios crew -- Dan Berger, Mike Dooney, Jim Lawson, Eric Talbot, and Steve Lavigne -- this past weekend. We all travelled up from Massachusetts to do a signing at Steve's store "Shellback Artworks" in Wells, ME.

Here's a sampling of photographs from the event. (Of course, I followed my usual bad habit of not getting the names of most of the people I took photos of. Sorry!)

There was one gentleman who drove a LONG way to come to the signing -- I can't remember which midwest state he was from, but I think he easily took the prize for "most miles driven to get to Shellback Artworks". He brought with him a nifty vintage VW van toy, which we all took turns signing. Mike even did some "Turtleizing" of it, adding some shell texture to certain areas.

I think this next person's name is David, and after talking with us for a while and getting some things signed, we posed for a photo with him. Then he went to the local Wal-Mart and got it printed in a large format, brought it back, and we all signed it. 

Cool idea! I had no clue that you could get prints done like that at Wal-Mart.

Here's Eric signing the photo.

Chris Parlon and his girlfriend Katie, who were also at the grand opening signing, showed up for this one as well.

We signed this dude's yellow shoulder bag…

… and the back of this pizza box (which had previously held some of our lunch).

I have to draw particular attention to the thing Jim Lawson sketched on this box -- something that, in all the years of the TMNT, with all the references to pizza and surfing, has NEVER been done before (as far as I know): a Turtle surfing on a piece of pizza.

Genius! Jim, you're too much.

Here's Jim in the act of creation -- I was fortunate enough to be sitting next to him at the signing, and thus caught this moment for posterity.

Mike took it upon himself to, um, enhance the image of infant April on the cover of this fan's copy of TMNT Volume 4 #22.

Here's Steve posing with one of his store t-shirts which we all signed. I don't know where the shirt ended up.

It was great to have Eric with us -- I hadn't seen him in months. He brought with him some blank stickers with the die-cut shape of a skull and crossbones (the result of a printing error) and invited us all to draw something on them. Here's a photo of Eric working on one…

… and here are five COMPLETELY different approaches to using that space. Can you guess who did which?

All in all, a fun time! -- PL

On the road to FCBD...

I was originally planning to ride a motorcycle -- probably my Gold Wing -- to New Hampshire for Free Comic Book Day, along with Jim Lawson and Steve Lavigne. Unfortunately, the predicted weather for today and Saturday was just too iffy, and that plan got shelved.

So today Mike, Jim, Dan and I drove up to Portsmouth (where we're staying overnight) in my car. Here's a photo taken by Eric Talbot (who can't come with us, sob, weep, wail!) just before we took off from Mirage early this afternoon:



I drove, and I like to take some non-highway roads to get to Portsmouth. One of these led us close to "Madame Sherri's Castle" (which I have blogged about before), and I aksed the guys if they'd like to check it out. They were interested, so I took them there. Here's a photo I took of Jim bravely climbing to the top of the ruined staircase:



... and here's a photo of Jim, Mike and Dan with that same staircase:



This little digression, plus a stop at the Vermont Deli in Brattleboro (where Mike bought a cookie that was almost as big as his head), and a later one to a Toys 'R' Us for a bathroom break, may have led to our being a little bit late in meeting up with Steve Lavigne in Portsmouth. Okay, it was also my missing the entrance to Route 95, which led us to travel some miles up the coastal road to Portsmouth -- nice views of the ocean, but definitely not as quick.

But Steve forgave us, and we all had a nice dinner at the Rusty Hammer in the center of Portsmouth. Being a little tired after dinner, I bid adieu to the dudes, who were going out on the town, and headed back to the hotel. I hope they had a lot of fun. Not TOO much fun, though... we have to work tomorrow! -- PL

Raphael, Rabbit Hunter

While cleaning up my Mirage office a bit (okay, a LOT) today in anticipation of the return of the TMNT fan documentary dudes, I ran across a couple of cool pieces of art I'd forgotten that I had. Here's one of them, a nifty rendering of Raphael by the inimitable Eric Talbot, from back in 1991 (if I'm reading that date correctly). The other one is by Steve Bissette -- I'll probably post that tomorrow. -- PL

One of a kind! Act now!!! BUY THIS SHIRT!!!

Mike Dooney asked me to put up a blog notice about this cool t-shirt which
he is offering on eBay RIGHT NOW!!! (Until Saturday.)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=280328713230#ht_500wt_924

Here's
what Mike put in the listing description.

" One of a kind Ninja Turtle shirt! Up for auction is a new unworn Large (it's oversized so I'd say it's more like an XL) long sleeve tee shirt hand signed and drawn on by the TMNT Mirage Studios crew of artists. The studio gang and myself thought that it would be fun to draw on this shirt and then go out for a beer with whatever we get for selling it here....so thanks in advance ;)

Artists who signed the shirt are; Peter Laird (TMNT Co-creator), Jim Lawson, Dan Berger,Steve Murphy, Eric Talbot, Steve Lavigne and Michael Dooney."

Here's the photo of the shirt Mike sent me:



Act now, and it could be yours! -- PL

Blast from the Past #31 repost: TMNT with dimensional gateway

This is kind of fun -- another drawing whose purpose I can’t recall, though I was clearly having a good time drawing it. I think I drew this one sometime in the early 1990's. I like the "homage" to one of Jack Kirby's many concepts from his "Fourth World" series at DC -- the "Boom Tube".



Curiously, the day after I scanned the pencils, I found hanging on the wall of my ofice at Mirage Studios this cool inked version. Jim Lawson inked Leo, Eric Talbot inked Don, Mike Dooney inked Mike, and Dan Berger inked Raph. -- PL