Triumph of the Wil found at the Edmonton Expo

While standing in one of my many line-ups my daughter came up to me and said "you're going to like this" She pulled out her ipod and showed me a picture she had taken of someone at the show wearing the shirt I created for myself and my family (and Wil) for the Calgary Expo when Wil Wheaton came. I had some extras that I gave my brother to give to his friends but I never imagined one would show up at the Expo.

I geeked out a little…okay, a lot.

Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb

The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo has branched out to Edmonton. So this is the inaugural year for the latest venture and I wanted to tap in to my inner Vallejo (that doesn't sound wrong, does it?) with this illustration for the three headlining guests.

We're bringing in some pretty awesome people (I may have to make the trip to Edmonton and get Billy Dee to sign a few of my Star Wars posters), I don't think Nichelle Nichols has ever been to a show in Alberta so that's going to be pretty cool. Plus Mike frickin' Grell and Chris frickin' Claremont are coming to the show, among other comic book talent. So just for fun I wanted to do a fantasy art take off and I really wanted to work with the image from the Batman movie…so here you go.

Say hello to the night…

The disappointment I felt after working on the Spirited Away poster was alleviated once I was told that the movie replacing it was Lost Boys. I loved this movie when it first came out. No cooler vampire on than planet than Keifer Sutherland (How are those maggots?). I had the soundtrack and everything.

In watching it recently I have to say that some of it doesn't hold up that well, but it remains a fun movie. I like Edgar and Allen Frog and Keifer Sutherland is still one of the coolest vampires.

Spoiler! I guess, now that I think of it, the poster itself is a spoiler. But I think screenings like this are for people who have seen the movie a gazillion times. Anyway, the two scenes in the movie I liked the most were the initial reveal of the vampires as they are about to feed and the scene near the end when David is about to attack Michael both of which have David oozing out of the inky shadows. That's why the poster looks like it does. Enjoy.

By the way, this post actually came out ahead of the screening (I'm all caught up now). So if you have to get your fix of the Lost Boys on the big screen go check out the Plaza on September 22nd.

Oh the pressure

This is one of my daughter's favorite Miyazaki flicks (I think the list order is Howl's Moving Castle, My neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service and then Spirited Away), it's certainly the first Miyazaki flick we ever showed her and at the time it was pretty darn magical.

I try to operate on a basic principle when I design any poster I do - would I hang this on my wall? So all the while that I was doing this poster I kept asking myself would my daughter hang this on her wall? That was the unnecessary pressure I applied to myself on this project.

After laboring over it for some time I decided to pick her brain and then get feedback from her as I developed it. In the end I had a couple of versions and of the two versions this won out. She said it was one she would happily hang up once it gets printed. Guess what - that ain't going to happen. As it turns out we couldn't get the rights to show the movie. Too bad, I liked how it turned out.

I may print one off for my daughter anyway and test out whether or not she really would hang it up or if she was just messing with her old man.

You're not Mr. Purple. Some guy on some other job is Mr. Purple. You're Mr. PINK!

This is a rough draft of Reservoir Dogs, it's one of my all time favorite movies and it was to be screened back in August. Unfortunately the pre-sale of tickets (which equaled zero tickets sold) meant that the screening was not going to take place so the poster was scrapped. I have a really rough sketch of this in a sketchbook from a few years ago and I was thrilled to be able to actually start it and I plan on finishing it one day (the dogs are going to be painted using watercolors, to give that full bleed-out look that I want to do).

Atreyu!

The NeverEnding Story was screened in August.

A young hero riding around on a Luck Dragon - what could go wrong.

Never say die!

It's been a while since I've posted…sorry about that. I've been a little busy working on things for the Calgary Expo screening series, the upcoming Edmonton Expo (the Calgary Expo is branching out) materials and my own Fett Noir stuff (going on sale pretty soon here, I'm just figuring a few things out), I'll be posting my newest posters this weekend. So in the meantime I'm playing a little catch-up on some of the work I've been doing.

First up - The Goonies. I did a couple of posters for this screening from back in July. I quite like how the bold red one turned out but we opted for the old time adventure type poster.

It's a madhouse! A MAAAADHOOOUUUSE…

So the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo is now at an end and yes, it was a madhouse. But that did not make it any less awesome for me and my daughter (or my brothers, niece and nephew). We got to meet a lot of incredible people and we got more than our fair share of exercise as we shuffled from one hall to the next (shuffling counts BTW).

The first person I had to meet was Wil Wheaton, I had designed a shirt and I even got a small run silk screened (I gave one each to my daughter, brothers, niece and nephew) and my daughter and I wore ours on Friday when we went to meet Mr. Wheaton and the second he looked up and said "No Way!!" I had my seal of approval. I'm pretty sure that's what he said, my head is still foggy from the awesomeness of the weekend. I told him that I designed it for the show and when it didn't make the cut as an exclusive (I designed a few of the other shirts at the Expo) I had to make them… I just had to. It was seriously cool to talk to him, I asked about a second volume for his Memories of the Future book and he said he has to wait until he can get into the right frame of mind before he tackles the next volume and that he's just been too busy with a lot of other stuff lately. Then, as he finished signing my copy of Memories of the Future, I asked him what size he wore and I pulled out a shirt for him. As I walked away I told him to enjoy the shirt and he said he was going to "enjoy the hell out of it". AWESOME!

We went back to him on Sunday to get one of my extra shirts signed.

David Prowse was also at the show and I had my Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi posters signed, which was outstanding, but when I brought out my Stanley Kubrick book and asked him to sign that he just opened up and started telling me some great Kubrick stories. He told me of the scene in "A Clockwork Orange" where he had to carry Malcolm McDowell down the stairs and Kubrick made him do it over and over again until his arms were sore. Then the next day, he had to do the scene where he carried Patrick Magee down the stairs. Kubrick wanted him to carry Mr. Magee in the wheel chair and Mr. Prowse refused. He told Kubrick that he didn't want that much weight all at once so many times because after all "you are One-Take-Stanley" - he said that TO HIS FACE!! They did the scene anyway but Mr. Prowse got to carry the wheelchair and Mr. Magee separately. Amazing, because from I have read nobody, and I mean NOBODY, ever talked back to Stanley Kubrick. They ended up doing the scene six times.

I also got Adam Baldwin to sign the Stanley Kubrick book, he said that that was one of his favourite movies and he even wrote "you walk the walk" in the book and on the one sheet I brought of Full Metal Jacket to be signed. I think I may have given him writers cramp though, cause I brought a few things (including some Serenity/Firefly stuff of course).

Billy West, John DiMaggio and Tara Strong were there too and my daughter asked them to record greetings to her mom who wasn't able to come to the show (she seemed pretty happy when we showed them to her after we got home).

The entire Next Generation cast was there as well and they were, each and every one of them, a pleasure to meet. I complimented Marina Sirtis on her performance in Crash and she was thrilled to hear it. She even told me how her best friend, upon seeing it for the first time, told Marina that she had to see the movie. When Marina said she was in it, her friend didn't believe her but after much discussion her friend was finally convinced. Even Paul Haggis didn't realize she was in his movie (she had apparently provided him an audition tape in character, and when she she was on the set she was always in character so he never even realized he was working with her), she went up to him at an awards event and congratulated him on his movies' success and when he acted like they had never met before she reminded him of the character she was in his film. She seemed to love the fact that she was able to disappear into the role so well that she fooled everyone. I have to admit that I had to skip back on the dvd because I saw her name in the credits and had to find out who she was in the film. An outstanding performance.

Brent Spiner was a pleasure to meet again. This time I got to tell him how funny Fresh Hell is and that I hope they never reveal "the incident". He said that one day they will because it's just too funny not to. He also commended the people on the show and their commitment to it and the fact that they do it for fun and not for money (because there is none) and I think that fun really comes across on the youtube screen. I then had to meet LeVar Burton and ask him, on behalf of myself and my brother, if he ever got the money back that he lent Mr. Spiner (a reference to the best episode, so far, of Fresh Hell) and he said not yet, then he lode at Mr. Spiner, then he looked at me and said "at least I'm not Brent Spiner".

I told Stan Lee I love his cameos and he said "he loves them too" - funny.

I thanked Sir Patrick Stewart for coming to the show and he said he was having a wonderful time in Calgary (I think he would have had a wonderful time no matter what, as long as he got to spend it with his old cast mates, they have a report that really showed a great deal of love. I know that sounds corny, but it's true, they looked like they could just hang out anywhere and have a blast as long as they were together.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Robert Englund. When I placed a poster in front of him to be signed he said he thought it was a great poster and then when I told him I designed it we had a fantastic conversation  about the textures used in the graphic as well as the use of negative space. He even signed it and wrote "Great Work".  I considered my ego sufficiently fed.

My daughter decided to take part in the costume contest this year. She went as Kiki, from Kiki's Delivery Service (one of her favorite movies) and she did great! Originally she wanted to go in the big costume contest held on Saturday, but we discovered too late that we had to pre-book her. Luckily we found that she was still eligible to participate in the kids 14 and under competition which was awesome because kids still had to pre-book but they could do it the day of the competition. There were a lot of entries that were awesome and she was just happy to be there, she didn't care if she won or not. But you know what - SHE WON! In the category of Best Teen Costume and she now proudly displays her ribbon and certificate on her bulletin board in her room. I was very proud of her. Especially proud because she went to the show in costume. And every time someone recognized her as Kiki (and it happened a lot) she would be asked if she minded having her picture taken, which she didn't (which is funny because she usually does). I had asked her at one point if she felt self conscious at all about being in costume and she just said that after a while she didn't even think about it. She's my hero. I'm one of those types who would walk around wondering what people were thinking about me (yeah, it's all about me) and my costume, and I just need to get over that. Maybe next year. If they get any kind of Star Wars cast reunion going (which is the rumour - oh hell one of the spokespeople actually mentioned it and it's on the interweb that that's what they want to do) then maybe I'll go as Obi Wan (from the original Star Wars). I always wanted to be a jedi.

The artists I had to meet didn't disappoint either. Bernie Wrightson was fantastic and he signed a few books I brought, including Frankenstein, the Stand (not a lightweight book) and my Swamp Thing collected volume, Mark Texiera drew a head sketch in the books I brought. Every time he was told "just a signature" he would shoot me a sly grin and then draw a head sketch - sweeeeet! Geoff Darrow did a sketch in every book I gave him too, he did a fantastic sketch in my Art of the Matrix book which my blurry photo does not do justice to. We started talking about movies because I was carrying my Stanley Kubrick book and he asked if I take it everywhere I go, I said I take it anywhere that hosts people who were in Kubrick movies, then we started talking about Full Metal Jacket and Clockwork Orange. I may start carrying the book everywhere anyway, it seems to make people open up about their favorite Kubrick flick.

The last person I HAD to meet was George Perez (he was actually one of the first I wanted to meet but his line was always HUGE!), the guy is a legend and I remember picking up the original DC Universe "Let's Clean Up This Mess" series Crisis on Infinite Earths as they came out (yeah, I'm that old). The line ups for George were excruciatingly long and they took a long time to move because he was super kind enough to draw a sketch for anyone who asked. On Sunday I decided to try one more time. As my daughter and I walked by his table at 4:15 there were only 3 people in line - THREE PEOPLE! The volunteer standing at the end of the line pointed out that George had to leave right at 5. I immediately asked my daughter to hold a place for me, I ran out to the car, got my books, ran back in and relived my daughter of the responsibility of holding a place. Anther guy joined the ranks, then one more and then we were told that was it. I had my absolute edition of Crisis there and asked him to draw Supergirl on the first page. I am a happy camper.

Triumph of the Wil

I've been asked to produce some shirt designs for the upcoming Expo (mark you calendars people - April 27-29, 2012), this is one that didn't make the cut but I love it anyway and I will probably make up a couple for myself and my daughter (if she'll wear it).

One of the things that will be awesome this year is that Wil Wheaton is coming to the show (yeah there are 8 other guys from the first season of Star Trek the Next Generation, but who can keep track of them all). This design is based on the first appearance of "Evil Wil Wheaton" on The Big Bang Theory, and his clever manipulation of the naive Sheldon Cooper to obtain his victory in the game of Mystic Warlords of Ka'a. I call it Triumph of the Wil. You propaganda fans out there will get the reference.

Redd Skull Comics

I just finished a new ad for the upcoming Expo program guide for Redd Skull Comics. I'm still awaiting feedback but I was really happy with everything and decided to post it (by the way, the text is from his ad from last year and the booth number is not confirmed just so you know). I wanted it to have that overall feel of an old German propaganda poster that I saw plus it is a painted version of the store logo (sans the Iron Cross background). I'm pretty happy with the end result, I'll just wait and find out what the final feedback is. It may be a little frightening, although it is no worse than a lot of comic book covers I've seen out there in the wild.

Anyway, enjoy. I had fun making it, and really, isn't that all that matters.

Don't go to sleep

The latest in the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo screening series posters.
Friday, April 13th (oooooohhhhh) the Expo will be presenting this awesome flick in honour of Robert Englund coming to the show. Lots of fun, awesome hair, great 80's fashions and it introduces some guy named Johnny Depp to the world at large.

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth

And I mean that.

The new campaign for the upcoming Calgary Expo will be out and about very soon and I'm pretty happy with how they all turned out.

For the billboards I started off with something that was not guest specific, this one went unused as far as the billboards go but you can find it on a series of postcards and a few ads. I then used some guest images in the ads. My favorite right now is the Walking Dead billboard. I think it's a fun play off of the other three.

I'm going to put all the copyright info here because I don't want to get sued. So here it is: ® & © 2012 CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. Images from AMC’s The Walking Dead © Matthew Welch/AMC.  FUTURAMA TM and © 2012 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Illustration of Spider-Man Meets Stan Lee © Olivier Coipel (Penciller), Mark Morales (Inker). All images are copyright their respective creators.

Make it so!

Well here we have a new poster I just finished for the next Expo screening in February. We will be presenting the best of the TNG movies Star Trek: First Contact.

On a side note, in June 2011 Jonathan Frakes was at the Expo and I got the opportunity to have my First Contact one sheet poster signed by him and I told him I thought his was the best film of the bunch. He gave me that roguish Riker smile (twinkle in the eye included) and said "I know". If it wasn't for the fact that it's Trek I would have labeled it an Empire Strikes Back kind of moment.

He was a real pleasure to meet by the by.

SERENITY NOW!

I have been very remiss in keeping up my blog as of late (six months goes by pretty fast) so I am going to try and update it over the course of the next week so that people don't assume I was lost in the Bermuda Triangle or something.

I've been busy with a lot of things lately but I had to blog about this poster I just finished for an upcoming Calgary Expo screening of one of my favorite movies: Serenity. This movie made me feel like my 11 year old self staring up at the silver screen as a Star Destroyer gave pursuit to a Rebel Blockade Runner.

Serenity is fun. It's smart. It's awesome. And if you haven't seen it all I can say is -shame on you.

If you're in Calgary on December 18th go to the Plaza Theatre and check it out on the big screen, tickets are available through the Expo website or at the doors prior to showtime. If you can't wait to see it, and I don't blame you, then go buy it now. And while you're at it if you don't have the series Firefly then you should buy that too because awesomeness begets awesomeness.

Expo Billboards

The new billboards are here! The new billboards are here!!

I haven't seen the Elvira board but I did see the Shatner and it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. We ended up going with only two board this year, the Tia Carrere image that worked best was too low a resolution for a billboard and Katee Sackhoff had to postpone her visit (she will be here next year). so we opted for just the two boards.

Shatner's board is the one that changed. The headline used is one that was brought to the table by the event organizer early on. It's pretty funny.

Now I have to drive around and check them out - ROADTRIP!

The final Heroes vs Zombies

 

Nothing has really changed on the poster except that it now has the official time and date. 

I decided to donate the image to the Calgary Roller Derby Association (CRDA) so they can sell some posters and raise funds for the association. So if you're at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in June don't forget to pick up a poster and support the CRDA.

Shatner vs Superman…FIGHT!

Well I just finished the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo program guide. The fun thing about it this year was I did an illustration for the cover. I'm still playing with the whole painting in Photoshop thing but overall I am pretty happy with the end result.

The idea for the cover came from a few sources:
1 - The event organizer came up with a video ad that will run in EB Games stores. It was kind of an Ultimate Fighter (I think) battle intro: The Guild vs Zombies…FIGHT!, Shatner vs Superman…FIGHT! and so on.

2 - I found out that DC Comics will be at the show, so this seemed like a natural marriage between our media guests and the comics industry.

3 - Neal-FRICKIN-Adams is coming to the show. I grew up on his books (I had all the Batman books, the Green Arrow/Green Lantern books, and of course his run of Deadman - but student loans and rent payments took care of my comic collection pretty quick) and who can forget the cover of the oversized issue featuring a boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Superman, so I wanted to pay homage to that cover and Mr. Adams.

4 - A recent poster/ad I did for the Calgary Roller Derby match being held at the Expo: Superheroes and Zombies. The reason I say that is not to plug my own work but to mention that to me Wonder Woman is Lynda Carter and by the same token Superman will always be Christopher Reeve and I wanted to keep my superheroes in the same era, - I remember sitting in a movie theatre as a kid believing a man could fly. For the record I think that Brandon Routh did a solid job in the last Superman flick and Kevin Spacey was a pretty good Lex Luthor.

So with all those inspirational sources in mind I began to go to work.

Shatner vs Superman…FIGHT!

One of the main things for me was to make it Calgary Centric, there had to be an element that said this is where it's taking place. I didn't want you to think this was for any other Expo or comic convention. So the Saddledome was chosen for the landmark (that's also where the Expo is being held, so really, it made sense). The other main thing it had to have - Shatner (as Kirk) had to look like the scrapper he always was. The shirt had to be ripped, the face had to be dirty, and the hair had to be mussed. And even though they would probably have their match under some sort of Red Sun device to even the odds, I just thought it would be fun to have Superman unharmed and Kirk roughed up even though I truly believe that Kirk would do one of those flying kicks and flatten Superman.

So there you have it.

Calgary Expo Roller Derby Poster

The upcoming Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo will have a Roller Derby on Father's Day. The theme is Super Heroes vs Zombies. It was a lot of fun to do the poster. I titled it Battle at the Saddle because the Expo takes place on the Calgary Stampede grounds and one of the city's claims to fame is our saddle shaped arena, and Battle at the Saddle has a much better ring to it than Battle at the BMO Centre. It's still awaiting some copy but I wanted to post the image now because I'm pretty happy with it.

I wanted to use a super hero who doesn't wear a cape and I thought Wonder Woman would be pretty cool, and eye catching as well. Nice bright colors to offset the grays and greens of the zombies. Wonder Woman is based on Lynda Carter, of course. And as far as I'm concerned she was, and always will be, Wonder Woman - although I'm not sure I could watch the show now (tastes change), but I remember loving it when I was younger.

Frak Yeah!

I changed the billboard headline on this one (I did it for me, no word yet on if we are going ahead with these concepts). I liked the feel of the headline now, it has more energy and I also added more dimension and texture to the type. As it stands I am pretty happy with the whole series, I would be even happier if we use it, but for now it's a nice addition to my portfolio.

Expo Billboards Round 2

After talking over the original concepts for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo billboards, based on old pulp magazines, I presented the next round. Taking into consideration all the feedback I received - and here they are.

I decided to keep the rough edges because we were still thinking of using the first group in a local magazine as a series, so I wanted them to all tie together as a unit. I wanted to keep the headline simple, a catch phrase or an expletive or a single word that can be associated with the attending celebrity. Kirk got Khaaaaan! (I even did two, the composition using the original series image works best as it leads you into the board, but I like the Wrath of Khan version better), Starbuck got Frak, Tia Carrere got Schwing, and Elvira got Unpleasant Dreams. Everything boiled down to something people can absorb in the 5 or 10 seconds that they look up to see a billboard.

It didn't meet with the level of enthusiasm I was expecting. I certainly wasn't expecting people to name their child after me (although Dean is a hell of a good name, and only the coolest people have it - Dean Martin anyone) but I was expecting a certain level of compliments, or a smattering of applause would have also been nice - I tell you, egos suck. But anyway, it is a work in progress after all. We'll see where it goes from here.