Memories of two Dia de Los Muertos events Pt 2

On Sunday, October 28, I attended the MUERTOMANIA 2 event held by Solidarity Ink, a print shop & gallery in the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles.

The event was held in their parking lot, with an art exhibit, dedicated to deceased wrestlers, taking place inside their gallery space. What made this event extra special was that they had live Lucha Libre, with a group of masked wrestlers performing several matches to an enthusiastic crowd. First time I ever had a booth with live wrestling occurring a few feet away!

 I contributed a piece to the art show, dedicated to one of my favorites, the late, great Macho Man Randy Savage!

This painting of El Rayo de Jalisco, was created by an artist who works at a car wash, and who's trying to organize a union for his fellow workers. It's a beautiful piece created by a true man of the people:

 And of course no Lucha Libre art show would be complete without EL SANTO, the most famous masked Mexican wrestler of all:

Throughout the day I had many great encounters with people . For some reason (but perhaps not surprising considering the demographics), my print and Poster Comic of THE WANDERING JEW & CATHOLIC BOY caught people's attention. One lady mentioned her son was making his First Communion, so that was the appeal for her. (I later realized I could launch a whole line of CATHOLIC BOY products for First Communion celebrants!) And another woman stopped by and bought the BATICALACA Poster Comic. She told me that her and her brother used to watch the BATMAN ANIMATED SERIES when growing up, and the Poster Comic reminded her of those good times with her brother. Later it crossed my mind that I didn't ask her if her brother was alive, but regardless, it's a nice feeling that something I created sparked a positive memory in someone. 

 Like the NUVEIN DIA DE LOS MUERTOS (which I wrote about in Pt 1), this event was free to the public and promoted as an all-ages event. There were plenty of families visiting that day, with parents encouraging their children to celebrate this uniquely Mexican festival. I'm always glad to participate in events like these as I believe an appreciation of one's culture only adds to a person's character and outlook on life.

A rare break in the day for Ernesto Vasquez, whose group, SOLIDARITY INK, organized the entire event. 

I met Ernesto some years ago at a comic book convention, and it's great to see him running this organization in addition to his own work as an artist. We talked about the struggles and rewards of running community arts organizations and also about the work involved in putting on events such as these Dia de Los Muertos festivals.

These friendly gals hosted a table where people could decorate their own sugar skulls:

Me with a group of gents dresses as the trio of legendary luchadores: Mil Mascaras, Blue Demon & El Santo!

 (Photo by Karla Saucedo)

This event, with it's dual focus on Dia de Los Muertos and Lucha Libre, is one of the more unique ones I've had the pleasure of participating in. The staff, the other vendors, and especially the visitors, were all great people to meet. One of the kids (Abraham) who picked up a copy of DEAD DINOSAURIO would stop by once in a while to talk, he even came by to tell me he was leaving. What a class act! Later he came back to the booth, to my surprise. "I thought you were leaving", I told him. He said that he wanted to get another copy of DINOSAURIO, as he wanted to give one to his best friend! Abraham even stopped by once to show me part of his Halloween costume, NERD BOY!

He said that maybe one day I could put that character in one of my comics, and I told him that he should make the comic himself. He liked that idea, and I encouraged him to work on it when he could.

Like I've mentioned, I had a great time at these two events. This coming weekend, November 3 & 4, I'll be at the Long Beach Comic Con. You can find me in the Small Press area at table #1400. And I'll also be conducting a free "Let's Make Comics" workshop on Saturday from 12-12:45 in the Kid's Area. 

Thanks for reading. And if you'd like to buy your own copy of DEAD DINOSAURIO, please visit my Los Comex Web Shop.

A Night in Gotham ART EXHIBIT

Hey Batfans, join me this Friday for a Batman art show!

The exhibit is being held at the Arte Cabalturo Art Studio. The Opening Night Reception takes place on Friday, June 22 from 8pm thru Midnight. The show will be up until July 20.


Come on out to La Puente, CA and support this show, and the folks putting the event together. They're working hard to make this a memorable evening, as well as continuing to grow the arts community in the city. The Art Cabalturo Art Studio is located at 
15815 Main St., La Puente, CA 91744.


I'll have two paintings in the show including this brand-new piece, BAT 2 FACE:

And this classic, THE BATICALACA:

BATICALACA Poster Comic

My 6th and newest Poster Comic is available for viewing...THE BATICALACA!

(Click on the image to see a larger, readable version on my page at DeviantArt.)  


The Baticalaca is one of the heroes of the CALACAS OF JUSTICE, my Day of the Dead-themed super hero group. A previous Poster Comic featured another hero from the group,  The Spider-Calaca.


This Poster Comic will be available for FREE this coming Saturday, May 5, at the LATINO COMICS EXPO, while supplies last. I'll be exhibiting both days at the Expo, being held again this year at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. Free Comic Book Day is a national event with participating comic book stores giving away free comic books created exclusively for the event. I wanted to have a free giveaway as well and figured the brand-new BATICALACA Poster Comic would be a great way to do it!

SPIDER-CALACA Poster Comic

It's March, so that means it's time for an all-new Poster Comic. Introducing The Spider-Calaca!

Please click HERE to check out a much larger readable version. It'll take you to my DeviantArt page, where you can click on the image to see the larger size. 

Back in 2010, I had come up with the idea of doing a whole series of characters based on the calaca (skeleton) figures seen during the Mexican holiday, Dia de Los Muertos. 

  
Here are some of the superheroes I created. Spider-Calaca, Calaca Americano and BatiCalaca:

With the new Poster Comic, SPIDER-CALACA is the first of the CALACAS OF JUSTICE to appear in a comic. Let's keep our fingers crossed for more Calacas appearing in more comics!


This is my fourth Poster Comic to date, having released one every month since December 2011. If you'll be around Orange County/L.A. County the weekend of March 16-18, I'll be at WonderCon all weekend. Look for me in the Small Press area, table 033. I'll have all my Poster Comics available for purchase (11" x 17" full color prints) as well as all my other comics.

My upcoming comics for 2011 and beyond...

I'm working on my latest comic book right now, I've written a script for another book to be illustrated by another artist, and my research for a 3rd project has begun. Here's a look at what I have coming up in my publishing plans for 2011:

EL MUERTO: DEAD & CONFUSED Pt 2

In the time since Pt 1 was published, we saw the publication of MANGA MUERTO Vol 1, MAN-SWAMP, COMIC POP, The COMIC POP SKETCHBOOK and the limited edition WANTED:WEAPON TEX-MEX (all currently available in my Web Shop!). But now it's time to finally getting back to the continuing adventures of El Muerto!

Here's the first page I've inked. It's not actually the first page of the comic, but I wanted to start off with working on a splash page as a way to hit the ground running. Also, this way I have something to show you with a little extra pizzaz! The page needs just a couple of details finished, then it will be scanned and taken into Photoshop for the inevitable clean-up. 


Here are a couple of shots of my thumbnails, the 'rough drafts' of the actual story:

I plan out the majority of the issue in my head, kind of like running a movie in my brain, where I literally see the visual narrative of the story. Then I scrawl out the story onto paper, often noting the placement of word balloons. Sometimes I'll add the dialogue, but more often than not I keep drawing, as I haven't decided upon the exact words I want the characters to say, although I know what the scene is about, and how they're expressing themselves. Once I'm done doing the thumbnails for the whole book, I'll pencil and ink the entire story, at full size, after which I scan the pages into the computer. I bring the images into Illustrator and create the word balloons, and dialogue the entire story, at this stage.

I'll be posting lots more about the production of DEAD & CONFUSED Pt 2 over the next several months, along with sneak peeks and publishing dates/details. The other comic that I currently have in the works is:

CALACAS OF JUSTICE

 Dead Dinosaurio, Sharpie drawing on canvas board.


This comic is a change of pace from the Muerto story I'm working
on for several reason. One of the things about this comic is that it's conceived and geared to be an All-Ages book, meaning the content is appropriate for younger aged readers. Clean, action-packed, comic book fun, like a Saturday morning cartoon. The other thing that makes this book different is that while I created all the characters, I'm only going to writing this one. I'm working with a fellow comic book creator, John Narcomey, who'll be penciling and inking the book. We're doing a coin toss who see who'll color it!

BatiCalaca, acrylic painting on canvas.

John's the creator of GHOST FACE, JUNGLE JIVE and a few other titles. I've know him for some years. A lot of times, artists tell each other "We should work on a project together." Well, the timing, and project, were right, and so John's on board to help me launch the CALACAS OF JUSTICE. I'm finishing up some of the character designs for John, but I'll update you folks here in the coming months on the progress of that book as well, including the first look at John's take on these characters.

 

Spider-Calaca, acrylic painting on canvas.

Who are the Calacas of Justice? A team of superheroes from the afterlife city of Posadaville. 'Calacas' are the skeletal figures which are commonly used in the art of Dia de Los Muertos (The Mexican Day of the Dead). These characters are inspired by the popular superhero archetypes we all know and love. Visually, I wanted to give them a certain design that calls to mind those illegal, knock-off toys you occassionaly see of Superman or X-Men, for example. The colors and details are sometimes off, but they resemble the original characters to a point. But they're often wonderfully garish and bizarre looking.

 Calaca Americano, digital drawing created in Adobe Illustrator.

SECRET MYSTERY COMIC

My final major project I'm working on this year is Top Secret. It's a fictional tale based on a real person. A famous person, for that matter. What's really interesting for me is to actually be researching my subject. I've never really had to do much research for my previous comics, other than the usual visual references (what's a crocodile look like, carnival scenes, taking photographs in my city, etc.).

But due to the fact that this is based on a real person, I wanted to get a pretty good idea how the person thinks, acts, talks, etc, plus accumulate as many relevant biographical anecdotes as possible. This has included purchasing a handful of books (autobiographic & biographic) and DVDs, and even getting a Researcher's ID card at particular local library/museum. Also, doodling the character's likeness, along with other supporting characters, is something I do to help me get familiar with the subjects.

The primary focus about this Top Secret project that I'll be working on, while I produce the new El Muerto and collaborate on the CALACAS, will be to continue taking notes from the various books and films I'll be watching when I'm away from the art table. I won't start drawing any of the actual pages until El Muerto and the CALACAS are done and printed. I'll also be updating you here as I go along into the research, and how it impacts my storytelling. My best estimate is that I'll start drawing this book in the Fall of this year. For now though, I guess we can refer to this mystery comic as:

PROJECT: Z-XOZ

  

One word about another project people have asked me about. Last year I announced that my political/satirical comic, DEMOLITION DOVE, was going to debut as a web comic. Well, it's still going to be my first webcomic, but I'm going to move it to next year. 

What happened was that after the horrific tragedy in Arizona, with the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords and the murder of 6 innocent bystanders, the airwaves were filled with all kinds of emotional and vitriolic talk about violence and the so-called 'targeting of politicians' by political 'hate speech'. Well, I'm not going to turn this post into my own political rant on the subject, but it was because of this climate that I decided to hold off a year on putting my story out in the public arena. Of course, predictably, even as the President himself declared that the shooting was not a direct result of the influence of political speech, the same hysterical feuds between the left and the right have resumed. There really is no hope for the two parties, is there? And to be very honest, having the webcomic run during the 2012 election year is just a way more smarter move, as a publisher!

DEMOLITION DOVE deals with an alternate world, parallel to ours to a point, populated by a different species. Think PLANET OF THE APES with bird people. It's a nightmarish world, told through scorching satire and black humor, where the most extremist elements of the left wing and the right wing are battling for control of the government, the media is an immoral law unto itself, and the world's terrorists have formed a corporation. 

The main protagonist deals with it in the only way that works in this world gone mad:

 (You can read the Demolition Dove preview story online at Webcomics Nation by clicking here)

There will be no shortage of targets and bullseyes and surveyor's symbols in this book! But, and I'm going to have to make sure to repeat this periodically, this is a fictional, satirical story, not a blueprint for political assassination. 

So these are the primary comic book projects that I have on the assembly line. There may be a short story or two that pop up, and of course there are other matters to attend to this year, like conventions, my increasing amount of comic book workshops and any other artistic endeavors that I end up pursuing. But this year, the focus for me will be on producing some new comic books!