Wednesday, August 31, 2022

BEAUTY FROM THE HEART!!!

Well, another month is in the books, committed to history.  Summer doesn't actually end for a few more weeks but come tomorrow, everybody will be in fall mode, and I'm okay with that.  Halloween stuff is already popping up in stores, so now I can officially get into the spirit of things!  Oddly enough, as kids are going back to school, I'm starting my own little break...

Yup, it's that time of year again over at the Bubble Fox site but it's all good as some dear pals have stepped in with some guest comics to help keep things going while I charge my batteries a bit.  Doing comics is fun, but it takes a lot of energy, especially when you take into account that I work full-time and have other responsibilities as well.  Sometimes we all just gotta step away for a bit and for me, it's always September.  The Blog will still be up and running though as it's a lot easier to maintain weekly art posts than bi-daily comic posts.  Having said that, it's time to jump into today's art!  Scroll down and see what's up!  Enjoy...

Behold!  Vasilisa, the Beautiful?  Never heard of her?  Neither had I until Animal Alphabets really had to start scraping the barrel to find ANY fairy tale character just finish out the last few letters!  I'm a bit of a purest as far as animals are concerned, but she does have a skull lantern, so that's cool, right?  As for the fairy tale itself?  It's basically Cinderella but in Eastern Europe and instead of a fairy godmother, she has a creepy, magical doll.  Also, Vasilisa more or less succeeds on her own in spite of her cruel step family.  The more she endures, the more beautiful she becomes while her step family become more decrepit, proving that real beauty comes from the heart.

And that's a wrap on August of 2022!  Was a fun month and nice to get back into doing some art-related posts.  We'll be back next week with some real blasts from the past as I add inks and colors to some of the few pencil roughs I have left from my Daily Doodle/Sketch Dailies era!  It's been a while so it'll be interesting to update these pieces during inks.  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

THINGS ARE GETTING KINDA UGLY HERE!!!

We are back!  Well, I am anyway and hopefully y'all are too!  Getting close to the end of summer here but we're still finding ways to keep cool before we'll have to start finding ways to keep warm!  But enough about that!  Y'all want art and I happen to have some. so here it is!  Enjoy...

They say real beauty's on the inside, but this crazy quacker is ugly to the bone!  At least, that's what he'd have us believe anyway.  We all know that in the end, the Ugly Duckling was really a swan that had somehow hatched in with some ducklings. Of course that begs the question, is their a baby swan out there rolling with the ducks?!?  Damn these fairy tales leave so many details out while being told!

And that's how things go for this week!  But fear not, we'll be back next time to wrap up August with a real beauty, so be sure to come back and see how things end for the summer!  Until next time, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

THE BIG BAD BLOWHARD!!!

Welcome back!  We are smack dab in the middle of everything right now as we rapidly march towards the coming fall!  But enough about that.  It's still summer and things are really heating up, especially in Fairy Tale Land where it looks like a certain expandable wolf MAY have finally found an edge!  What am I talking about?  Scroll down and see for yourself!  Enjoy...

For centuries now, the Big Bad Wolf has tried numerous times to huff and puff and blow down the brick house of the Three Little Pigs, never once coming close to succeeding.  'Course, in all that time, ol' Big Bad was using common, garden variety oxygen, the same type that you and I breathe.  That huge tank of VERY combustible hydrogen, however, might level the playing field a bit for him.  That or blast everyone to kingdom come!  This was another theme from Animal Alphabets a few years back and a Part 2 of sorts as the Big Bad Wolf was the subject of Letter B while the Three Little Pigs were the theme for Letter T.  This piece got a pretty good reaction from the Twitter folks.  What can I say?  People seem to really like inflated cartoon characters!

That's all she wrote for now, but we'll be back next week with some art that subjectively speaking is kinda pretty!  Until next time, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

ART IS BACK AND ITS A GAS!!!

Welcome back CRAZIES!!!  After so many weeks of Comic Con pics, it seems really weird getting back into the art part of the blog, but I have quite the backlog to post over the next few... Decades!  So, might as well jump back into it headfirst!  Ready?  I am!  Enjoy...

So THAT'S how they got the title?  If I'm being honest, pretty much all of my knowledge of The Wind In The Willows comes from either the Disney movie or the Disneyland ride, so I didn't even know that there was a character named Otter, or that he has a son named Portly, in the story.  Leave it to Animal Alphabets then to help get an uncouth American like myself up to speed!  I'm sure I made a lot of literary experts very mad by adding a fart joke to a classic piece of literature, but is it really any worse than the guys that added zombies to every Jane Austen novel?  Besides, that wind IN the willows joke is killer!

That's all she wrote today, but be sure to come back next week for some more hand-drawn fun as we continue our trek through fairy tale and literary creatures.  Until next time, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

COMIC CON 2022... A GRAND RETURN!!!

Well, here we are, two weeks removed from Comic Con 2022.  I'm still trying to process it all.  For a few days after, I wasn't even certain if it had actually happened, like maybe it was all just a dream.  But then I look at the gaping hole in my bank account and the bags full of swag that I got and I realize it all really did happen and I even got photographic evidence to prove it!

So, for one last time this summer, let's roll up our sleeves, slap on some GI Joe stick on tattoos, and take a trip to the VERY recent past and enjoy some Comic Con awesome!  Enjoy...
 
I don't think you'd want to build a snowman with him!

This year, my nephew Lucas tagged along for the first couple of days of the show and had the time of his life!  His dad, my cousin Chris, had just moved back to the US after two years of working in the Czech Republic.  I figured a trip to SDCC would be a great welcome home present for my ride bud and boy did we do a lot, including the Dungeons & Dragons Tavern offsite in Downtown!  What initially looked impossible to get into turned out to be the best run offsite at the Con this year!  I don't know anybody who DIDN'T get into it!  The atmosphere was incredible, the dragon attack effects were amazing and the Dragon's Brew they gave us really hit the spot!  This offsite gave anything Disney does at their parks a run for their money even!  Only downer, no swag.  But the experience was incredible!

Another offsite I was able to do was the Abbott Elementary Orientation, where I became the new 3rd Grade Teacher!  They had some great swag, but this site took way longer than it should have, especially considering that I was in line hours before it opened.  A walkthrough attraction shouldn't take more than 15 minutes, tops.

Thankfully, this kid didn't initiate AWESOM-O's fart or smell sequences!

Lo-Pan was there and had a keen eye on women with green eyes!

The Dragonball crew came back again for their third straight SDCC and they delivered big!  Lucas didn't want to leave so soon, so I had to set him straight.  These kids today!

Mega Bloks are back yo!  Part of Mattel now, they're making Masters of the Universe sets in honor of He-Man's (GASP!) 40th Anniversary!  How big of a statement were they making?  They built this life-size Skeletor statue out of Mega Bloks and placed it right NEXT to the Lego booth, which was directly adjacent to Mattel!  Talk about firing a shot?!?

Not surprisingly, American Horror Story got the Hilton Honors this year and FX also came back with an offsite that was a bit different than what they've done in the past, but still fun.  Instead of a giant offsite with numerous activations where people could come and go as they pleased, FX had a giant maze built where fans could stop by numerous photo ops and activations as they made their way through.  They certainly upped the creepy factor by throwing dolls all over the place, but there were some funny bits to be found too, like the vampire dance club!  All in all, it was pretty smoothly run and most fans made it in each day!

HEY HEY!!!  IT'S UNCLE MURPH FROM THE FOX KIDS CLUB!!!  If you weren't a kid in San Diego between 1990 and 1998, then this cosplay is totally gonna be over your head!  Uncle Murph was the mascot for the Fox Kids lineup on local station XETV.  In those days it was our original Fox affiliate, but these days the CW seems to air on it.  Uncle Murph introduced cartoons, held contests and promoted events all over Southern California!  I even saw him host an Irish Jig contest at a San Diego Gulls game on St. Patrick's Day in 1996!  It really is a pity kids today will never get to experience these simple joys.  Was fun while it lasted though!

The Petco Park Interactive Zone was back, though greatly diminished.  Hard to say if this was out of COVID fears or companies just not wanting to go all-in anymore.  Probably a mix of both really.  I wound up only doing the Black Adam activation but I'm sure the others were fun too.

Audible had an interesting offsite.  No swag or anything, but there were some very impressive sand castles as well as charging stations that people could use while listening to samples of books on tape!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH WHAT A RUSH!!!
The Road Warriors were in the house!

IT'S A BIRD!!!
IT'S A PLANE!!!
GOOD GOD, WHAT'S THAST SMELL?!?
IT'S FARTMAN!

The House of the Dragon offsite.  This thing ruined more childhoods than divorce that weekend.  Poorly run and executed, many waited entire days without ever getting in.  Sorry, but I can't justify wasting a day at SDCC just see a tent with a few props and actors in costumes in it.  Immersive offsites can be awesome, no doubt about it.  But it shouldn't take THAT long to do!  One of these days, somebody's gonna figure out a steady middle ground.

She's looking for the Queen!

Artie!  Strongest man, in the world!  He kept watch over all the little vikings in the exhibit hall!

The Gaslamp Quarter wasn't quite as busy during SDCC this year, but crowds would eventually show up by the weekend.  We all really missed the SyFy Street Team this year and are hoping they'll be back in 2023.  Fingers crossed!

Would you look at that!  It's Weird Al Yankovic!  Or rather his stunt double!  The real Weird Al always moves in the shadows while his doubles draw away the crowds!

Lastly, we'll end things on the massive Blizzard Entertainment booth, one of the few I've never set up!  These guys had nothing on the booth that Funko set up at the opposite end of the exhibit hall, but it was kinda nice to bookend things with two monstrous booths at SDCC.

And that was Comic Con 2023!  It was a very long three years in between 2019 and 2022, but honestly, it felt like yesterday when I arrived to start loading it in the Friday before it started, like no time had passed at all.  There were a lot of changes though.  Some booths didn't come back, be it for COVID fears or, like in the case of DC/WB, budget cuts.  Others that did come back took a less is more approach, Hasbro being the most obvious example.  On the flip side, a few booths really blew things up, like Funko taking up half of Hall G!  Offsites were a mixed bag, as they usually are.  It's been a common complaint from me for years now, but others seem to be catching on too: Most offsite activations are NOT run very well.  I won't start naming names, especially since I already tagged a couple of them earlier, but there are ways to make it work so that everyone gets to see.  Twelve years ago when the offsites started, crowding issues hardly ever happened.  Maybe it's time to revisit those past experiences and see WHY they worked?  Over all though, I had a wonderful time.  Saw a lot of old pals that I hadn't seen in a good long while and discovered some awesome new books and comics too!  Taking my nephew Lucas with me was awesome.  He's getting older now, so the window of him thinking I'm cool is starting to shrink!  Glad I could show him the ropes a little.  I think more than anything, Comic Con this year, much like last fall's Special Edition, was a test.  Companies and fans are still wary of things, and rightfully so.  As of this writing, numbers have been very low in regards to COVID, which is good.  The overwhelming number of attendees and exhibitors were good about masking up, so hopefully it's a positive sign in terms of next year.  We'll just have to keep are fingers crossed and keep taking proper precautions.

And that is a wrap on the CRAZY Comic Con Countdown!  I can't even believe how fast it went by.  It's gonna be a long ten months before the countdown returns, but with any luck, Long Beach Comic Con and WonderCon will be wetting our appetites soon enough!  Next week, the art returns with a look at characters of the fantasy realm, so be sure to come back if you missed all that!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!