LATINO COMICS EXPO this weekend at the Cartoon Art Museum!

This weekend in San Francisco, at the world famous CARTOON ART MUSEUM, the LATINO COMICS EXPO will be in full effect on May 5 & 6!

I'll be exhibiting there all weekend (I'm actually one of the co-founders of the event!), as well as hosting a panel (Saturday from 2:00pm-2:45pm). I also have artwork on display in the exhibit, LA RAZA COMICA: A CELEBRATION OF THE LATINO AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN THE COMIC ARTS.

I'll have a full line of my stuff....comics, DVD, prints, buttons. I'll even be doing sketchcards, right in front of your very eyes!

A new product I'll have at the Expo will be the EL MUERTO COLLECTOR BOX. Packed with the first issue of EL MUERTO, the DVD of the live-action film and a hand-drawn & colored EL MUERTO mini sketch doll!

 
 Also, I'll have my current stock of Poster Comics, including the new one for May, THE BATICALACA! 

As a way to participate in FREE COMIC BOOK DAY (May 5), I'll be giving away FREE copies of the Baticalaca Poster Comic while supplies last!


Hope to see some of you at the EXPO!

I'll be at the San Gabriel Valley Comic Book Festival on Sunday

I'll be exhibiting at the 3rd Annual San Gabriel Valley Comic Book Festival this Sunday, Sept 19.

The Festival is put on by the Nuvein Foundation, for which I serve on the Board of Directors. Three years ago I suggested to the Board that we create our own comic book convention here in the San Gabriel Valley (East of Los Angeles). Now here we are holding our third Festival. We're actually back at our original location, the Cuban Club in El Monte, CA.

This year there are over 2 dozen creators attending, from the world of independent comic books, webcomics, animation, filmmaking and podcasting. There's also some book authors and fine artists exhibiting as well.

Myself, I'll have my catalog of comics, as well as the EL MUERTO DVD and buttons. I'm also busting out my new custom EL MUERTO SKETCH DOLLS! This assortment includes:

l to r: El Vivo (the evil Muerto), El Muerto, El Lobo Muerto (a special 2010 HALLOWEEN MUERTO MONSTER)

I previously sold some early prototypes of the EL MUERTO sketch dolls but these are the new colored versions. These dolls are hand drawn & colored by me, so each one is a unique hand-crafted original. It's like getting a 3 dimensional piece of art from me. 

I've also created some additional sketch dolls based on other comic book characters. In this assortment are character's created by comic artist Steve Ditko:

 l to r: "The !?", Spider-Man & The Creeper

And here's a one-of-a-kind collectible: An El Muerto Sketch Doll Double Pack: EL MUERTO vs. REV. JOHN HENRY UNICORN!

Rev. Unicorn is a character created by my friend Jim Lujan, a filmmaker of animated movies. Among Jim's many great cartoons are two starring John Henry Unicorn, the leader of the Church of the Unicorn! It's a totally wacked out idea, handled expertly by the tremendously talented Mr. Lujan, the Founder of Ghettomation. Jim immediately gave his blessing to this double pack. It was fun making the John Henry doll, and I hope a fan of both Jim and myself will find this worth adding to their collection!


The festival runs from 11am - 5pm, and admission is free. There will be panels on animation and comic book storyboarding, as well as an appearance by LA's freshest food van, FRESH FRIES!

Come out and support our local comic book convention!

JAVCON Saturday Night: El Muerto sketch dolls preview

Over the last couple of months I've shown some pics of my brand-new EL MUERTO SKETCH DOLLS. These are blank dolls that I actually draw onto, creating original sketch dolls each and every time. I started with two sizes, 5" & 8", but now I'v finalized the initial 4 dolls in the collection. I'll be using primarily the 8" dolls, at least for any dolls in color.


The original El MUERTO dolls were made with a 'natural' colored doll, but I looked around and found out I could get white dolls. I want white because then the markers I use aren't affected by color changes. Like drawing on a white sheet of paper versus a tanned one.


I may use the tanned dolls for other series, but for now, here's my first 4 sketch dolls, 8" and in color:


EL MUERTO and DIEGO DE LA MUERTE:

I figure it would be cool to have El Muerto in his 'secret identity' as well. And I like the idea of having a doll wearing a Guayabera!


Like most action figure characters, I wanted to have variant versions of El Muerto. So the first one I thought of was when he engages his power of resurrecting the dead ...


GHOST GLOW EL MUERTO:

This lighting in this pic washed out the color on the doll, but you can see still see what I'm going for with the variant.


Then I also thought it would be real neat to introduce some new characters no one has ever seen. Perhaps they'll show up in the comic....


EL VIVO:

I've always loved the idea of the evil/mirror version of the hero. Superman has Bizarro and Flash has Reverse-Flash, to name two. Visually though, El VIVO (Spanish for 'the living') makes a pretty striking sketch doll, with the Muerto colors inverted in a 'positively' wicked version of our hero.


Besides variant version of the main characters, often you see even more limited versions, sometimes tied in to an event. Well, with Halloween coming up, I thought I would make a seasonal special exclusive....


2010 HALLOWEEN MUERTO MONSTER: EL LOBO MUERTO:

Werewolf Muerto, how ya like that?!

I was thinking of a vampire, Frankenstein and then when I thought of the wolfman, that somehow hit the spot. Originally I was thinking of coloring him brown, but then I realized that a white wolf design would be a natural extrapolation from the white of Muerto's skull face, giving more weight to the 'Dead Wolf' angle. Plus it's a lot more rare to see a silver white werewolf (my first exposure to one was this stunning masterpiece, one of the first comic books I ever bought).


I'll be posting prices and ordering info for the sketch dolls shortly. Ideally I'd like to get people to 'pre-order' them online, this way I can create them 'to order'. But I'll have a few of each at the next conventions and appearances I attend. And I'll also post info about when the 2010 HALLOWEEN MUERTO MONSTER will be available to order. 


Thanks, and if you haven't, check out the previous days of the JAVCON, with lots of sneak peeks and images of current and future projects!

GEEKS CON reviewed (hint: Two Thumbs Up!)

GEEKS CON came and conquered, for sure!

Held at GEEKS Comics, the first-ever GEEKS Con took place on Saturday, June 14. Among the many great things I liked about doing the show was that it was about 10 minutes away from home. That comes particularly handy when I'm driving home at about 11pm, exhausted by a full day show!
 
Here's me setting up. To my left is Ted Seko, cartoonist (BILLY COLE & the SUPERMONSTERS franchise) and podcaster:

EL MUERTO comics, movie and sketch dolls taking up one whole corner. It's Signature Character Korner, Kids!



Jim Lujan not only debuted his brand-spanking new GHETTOMATION GARDEN DVD at the show, but he had time to record several interviews throughout the day, alongside the ever-loving creator of CRYING MACHO MAN, Jose Cabrera (in the baseball cap):

Raul Aguirre Jr. setting another young artist on a strict path of discipline and serious Art Fu:

 (photo courtesy Hortencia Aguirre, used with permission)

Raul's an animator, cartoonist and the host of the MAN VS. ART podcast. Once you hear it, you can't unhear it!! If you've ever talked to Mr. Aguirre, you've no doubt been swept over by his gale force windstorm of artistic knowledge, passion and inspiration. The very reason I've christened him '¡El Bombastico!'




This crackerjack of a comic book artist, Rafael Navarro, has a long history with me:

Rafael is both a Xeric Award-winning comic book artist, and an Emmy Award-winning storyboard artist. But mostly he's the guy I can sit and talk with hours about such topics as Frank Robbin's INVADERS comics, Jack Kirby's CAPTAIN AMERICA and Dick Sprang's BATMAN work. When he's not working on his Sonambulo comic book or freelance gigs, he knocks out stunning pieces like this one:

Yep, this wickedly, wonderful drawing is a pin-up of my WEAPON TEX-MEX. This guy Navarro is a real keeper, believe me!


Here's a pic of (l to r)Rafael, Michael Aushenker, me and Alex Vallejo:

Michael, no stranger to readers of this blog, is, along with Rafael, one of the guys who proceeded my first self-publishing efforts back in 1998. Mikey's the creator of EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER, as well as his current series of comics, CARTOON FLOPHOUSE. He also writes regularly for BACK ISSUE Magazine, and even writes a column for the DITKOMANIA zine (which I occasionaly provide an illustration for). Me, Raf and Mikey were 2/5ths of the 'legendary' LA indie comics group, BIG UMBRELLA! One day, the book will be written on that era (probably by me!) and by Asgard, the tale will be told. Our good friend Alex drove up from San Diego to join us for this show.

Among the other cartoonists joining us at GEEKS CON was Sherm Cohen, the very talented director/storyboard artist from such shows as SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS and  KICK BUTTOWSKI:

Even outside his table, Sherm gets mobbed by young fans!

Between all the hoopla of selling comics and meeting fans and drawing in sketchbooks, we even found time to inaugurate another artist into the Cartoonista fold! Co-founder Jim Lujan and I had discussed this some months ago, but we figured this was as good a time as any to spring this on the unsuspecting artist:

Arvie Villanueva of Agimat Entertainment, newly crowned Cartoonista. He and his lovely wife Adonna have had great success with the brand-new video game that Arvie created based on their webcomic, Shadow Candy: SUGAR RUSH. The game is available through iTunes, and I congratulate Agimat on their successful launch. No mean feat, considering how many applications are submitted to Apple every week!

Among the personal highlights I like to remember: Seeing one of the students from the 4th Grade class I spoke at a few weeks ago show up with his mom and use his own allowance money to buy a comic book from me, the fans who took home my Muerto Sketch Dolls, the friends who came by to say 'Hi', other artists like Will Caulfield (ADVENTURES OF BAT BAT) and Lalo Alcaraz (LA CUCARACHA) stopping by to show some support. 


Also, this young man, Andrew, asking for an El Muerto drawing with half his face peeled away! And he insisted on the eyeball dangling from it's socket!! Remember the good old days when kids would ask for a drawing of a cowboy or a dinosaur?!

 I have to thank all the artists who showed up and helped us pack the room with fans. Thanks to Jim Lujan for gettting the ball rolling on GEEKS CON, and of course to my pal Sal Felix, owner of the shop, for opening his store up to GEEKS CON and all the other shows we've had in his store over the last two years.

Making our comics and cartoons and art is our passion, and we'd do it anyways (or go plum loco). But to be able to have a time and a place to show it, share it and sell it...Well, that's what us artist types want! Thanks everyone who played a part in GEEKS CON!

EL MUERTO Sketch Dolls coming to GEEKS CON!!

You say you never heard of 'sketch dolls'? Well, that's cause I just created them!!

These brand-new, fresh-off-the-assembly-line dolls are made from blank fabric dolls which I literally 'sketched' a Muerto drawing onto. Instead of drawing on a sheet of paper, I drew on a blank doll, thus...a sketch doll. We have sketchbooks and sketch cards, I figure I'm  taking the next step. (If someone's done this before, or if anyone out there can send me a link or a pic to other sketch dolls, I'd like to see 'em.)
 
I've always wanted to produce my own EL MUERTO action figures, and in fact have had friends make me some custom figures over the years:

But when I got the idea to make these sketch dolls, I jumped right on them. They're not too time-consuming to make, and they've gotten some positive responses from some folks who've seen them. I like the fact that these dolls are literally 3D representations of my art, and I also like that each and every one is unique and one-of-a-kind.

The little one on the left is 5", and the other one is 8". I'll have only a very, very limited number of these at the upcoming GEEKS CON this weekend, but I'm definitely going to be making more, including some with color and perhaps a special two-pack version as well. I even created a new toy brand for the dolls:

In addition to more dolls, I'll also be rolling out some other products under the KLONKO label, adding them to my comics, DVD and anything else I can concoct and unleash upon fandom! If I wasn't such a fan and collector of toys, memorabilia and other tsotchkes myself, there probably wouldn't be any Muerto sketch dolls or a KLONKO toy brand. Now wouldn't that be a shame!



Be the first to get your hands on the sketch dolls this Saturday, June 19 at GEEKS CON in Whittier. Info on the show, as well as the full line-up of creators, on my previous blog entry....