Dia de Los Muertos events: Whittier, Los Angeles & EL Monte

Okay, so starting tomorrow, my 5th Season for 2012 starts!

What's my '5th Season'? It's what I call the various Dia de Los Muertos events that I'll be exhibiting at this year. With a comic book character like EL MUERTO, and my brand new DEAD DINOSAURIO, I'm able to get completely unique outlets for my comics in addition to the comic conventions and other events I do all year!

Sunday, October 14: I'll be at the Nuvein Foundation booth at the Uptown Whittier Dia de Los Muertos Art & Music Festival. Since our booth is a non-profit site, I won't be selling anything, but I will be doing free sketches for kids. I'll be there from 10am-2pm.

Saturday, October 27: Come visit me at the Nuvein Foundation Dia De Los Muertos Festival in El Monte. It' the 3rd annual one we've put on, and it's getting bigger each time. I'm one of the Foundation Directors, and I also designed the poster, but don't let that stop you! We'll have vendors, lots of entertainment with singers, musicians, poets and dancers, as well as an art show. It's the City of El Monte's Centennial Celebration this year, so it's great to be a part of the celebrations. I'll have a booth with all my comics, DVD and lots of other art I've created. The event is free to attend, so bring your friends and family.

Sunday, October 28: Really excited to be participating in my first MUERTOMANIA event! Organized by Solidarity Ink, a print shop and gallery located in Los Angeles. This event boasts an art show, vendors and, get this, live wrestling featuring local luchadores! Calacas and wrestlers... Ya can't beat that! This all-ages promises to go for the gold. Come on down and visit me for some special exclusives made just for this event! Watcha' gonna do when MUERTOMANIA 2 runs wild on you?!

As if all these cultural festivals weren't enough, I'll even be able to squeeze in one last comic book convention for the year: 

Saturday & Sunday, November 3 & 4: Since this falls on the weekend of Day of the Dead (November 2) this ties in perfectly with my previous appearances. They even call this show the 'Long Beach Horror and Comic Con'.  I'll be sharing a booth, #1400, with cartoonist Ted Seko. Hopefully I'll have merchandise left over from the other events! I'll post more details about this event as we get closer.


Comics and Cultura, my 5th Season! Hope to see you at a few of these events.

DEAD DINOSAURIO sketch cards

The Pre-order campaign for DEAD DINOSAURIO has ended, so thanks to everyone who participated. The comic is currently at the printer, and they should be shipping out to me by the end of this week. Once I get the books, I'll start putting together the various sets and shipping those out to customers.

As a 'thank you' to the folks who pre-ordered, I'm including one of these hand-drawn sketch cards in each order.  

And another trio I finished last night:

These sketch cards measure 2.5" x 3.5", about the same size as trading cards. Kind of makes me want to include a stick of bubble gum with each order!

Read the first 5 pages of DEAD DINOSAURIO

I'm in the middle of running my Pre-Order campaign for DEAD DINOSAURIO, so I'd like to share the first five pages of the comic here. Page 2 & 3 are a double-page spread, the first I've ever done in a comic, believe it or not. It just seemed like the perfect scene to do it in. Click on the first image to see slightly larger, more readable versions...

You can read my previous post about the Pre-Order campaign here, or just scroll down one post. Lots more preview art on display. And thanks for your support, it's very much appreciated!

Taking Pre-Orders for DEAD DINOSAURIO

Today I'm launching my Pre-Order campaign for the DEAD DINOSAURIO comic book! Here's a look at the full color wraparound cover: 

As the Aztec Empire is besieged by the Spanish Conquistadors, Eztli, a young Aztec boy, heads into the surrounding hillsides. Desperately seeking help, he miraculously finds it in the form of a reanimated Tyrannosaurus Rex from 65,000,000 B.C.! 

DEAD DINOSAURIO is a 28 page comic, published at magazine size, 8" x 10.5". The wraparound cover is full-color, printed on card stock. The interior pages are colored in gray tones and feature a guest artist gallery as well as a behind-the-scenes portfolio containing early character designs, thumbnails to the original draft and creator commentary. 

 The DEAD DINOSAURIO PRE-HISTORIC EDITION.

Previously, a 5.25" x 7.5" digest size version was published (the PRE-HISTORIC EDITION). This was a signed & numbered, 16 page, b&w preview edition, and made exclusively for the Hispanic Literacy Day Event at the South Chula Vista Library on Sept. 15. For the new magazine size edition, I've added two additional story pages, redrew one panel and added gray tones to the entire story. Below are some samples, without the dialog:

If you pre-order the special sets I've put together, you're not only supporting the publishing of original creator-owned comics, but you'll be able to pick up some extras.

The DINO DOUBLE contains the brand-new magazine size DEAD DINOSAURIO as well as the limited edition PRE-HISTORIC digest edition.

The deluxe PALEO PACK contains both versions of the comic book, as well as a 1.25" Glow-in-the-Dark button. And you also get one page of the original artwork to the comic., penciled and inked on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of Strathmore Smooth Bristol paper. If you like to collect original comic book art, here's your chance to acquire 1 of 14 pages I'm making available for this pre-order campaign. I'll randomly pick a page, and sign each one. Here are some of the pages available (I'm avoiding showing the 'spoiler pages'):

And here's the design for the Glow-in-the-Dark 1.25" button:

I've created a temporary store, DINO MART, to handle the Pre-Orders. The online store for my other comics and DVD is still available at the LOS COMEX WEBSHOP. The Pre-Order campaign will run until Monday, October 1. The books should be ready to ship out to buyers at the end of October.

Thank you in advance for supporting. Please head on over to DINO MART and start digging up your DEAD DINOSAURIO!

Coming this week: DEAD DINOSAURIO Pre-Order campaign!

I'm finishing up the production of the DEAD DINOSAURIO comic book this week, and I'll be taking pre-orders in a few days. This edition is magazine-sized, 28 pages with color cardstock covers. The pages are all colored in gray tones, and there are extra features such as a behind-the-scenes of creating the comic, my original thumbnails of the story and a guest artist gallery.

Check back in a few days for all the details and lots of preview images. In the meantime, heed Eztli's advice! And yeah, we take Paypal!

CRO-MAN Poster Comic

Okay, so here's a whole new character, this time going way, way back to the past....

To see a much larger, readable version, please visit my page at DeviantArt by clicking here. Once the page opens, click on the image and it will enlarge considerably!

There's actually a whole genre of caveman superheroes, believe it or not. In comics we've had Tor, Anthro and Tragg, to name a few. In cartoons, there's been the Mighty Mightor and Captain Caveman. And in film, probably the most famous example is the notorious 80s flick, YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE. 



So I had wanted to try my own hand at a pre-historic adventure character, and came up with Cro-Man. I can tell you that you'll be seeing Cro-Man in his own full-length comic book in early 2013, so enjoy the Poster Comic and the promo image below. The Age of Cro-Man is upon us!

HISPANIC LITERACY DAY this Saturday in Chula Vista

To my friends in the San Diego area: I'll be participating in the HISPANIC LITERACY DAY event at the South Chula Vista Library this Saturday, September 15. The event is free and perfect for the whole family.

The event runs from 12-5pm, with a full day of authors and illustrators. You can find me in the exhibitor hall, and I'll also be conducting a free Comic Book Workshop for kids from 12-12:45.

And I'll be debuting a new comic book exclusively at this event:

It's a mini-comic version of my upcoming DEAD DINOSAURIO comic book. The mini-comic is printed in black & white, and is signed & numbered. Once this special limited edition is sold out, it'll be extinct as a Tyrannosaurus Rex! 

Check out the CRYING COUGAR PRESS website (the organizers for the event) for the complete schedule of attending authors, panels and readings. The South Chula Vista Library is located at: 

389 Orange Avenue, Chula Vista, CA 91911

TRUE HEROES Art Benefit show

The EVE GALLERY in Pomona, CA is hosting the TRUE HEROES Art Exhibit on Saturday evening. The show is a benefit fundraiser for the PEDIATRIC BRAIN TUMOR ASSOCIATION, which means all monies raised go 100% to the Association.

 

My contribution includes prints of this Spider-Man artwork I created, as well as the original inked artwork!

Be a hero and help us raise awareness and funds for this great cause! The Eve Gallery is located at 280 W. Second St., Pomona, CA 91766

There will lots of great supehero art to purchase, lots of great artists to meet, and some fun to be had by all! Hope to see you there!

Lunosol Book Fest this Friday, August 31 in Uptown Whittier

I'll be signing alongside many other authors and artists this Friday evening in Uptown Whittier.

 Over the years, I've done various events with LunoSol Mexican Vintage bookstore, so it's nice to get back with them for this evening of local creative talent. Besides being available to sign any of our books you wish to purchase, every artist and author will be doing a short presentation of their work.

There will be live music as well as refreshments and snacks available. Come on out and support your local business and art!

LunaSol Mexican Vintage is located at:
6711 Bright Ave.
Whittier CA 90601

ESPERANTOS poster comic

This month's Poster Comic introduces Esperantos, the man in the mirror...

Click here for a larger readable version. (Once you open the image, click on it once to enlarge it)

Usually these Poster Comics get posted earlier in the month, but I've had to juggle a lot of projects recently so this comic got bounced around a bit. But I'm glad to finally post it. 

Enjoy!

Old Town La Puente Art Walk this Saturday

I'll be exhibiting at the OLD TOWN LA PUENTE ART WALK this Saturday, August 18 from 2pm-10pm.

  
The event is being held in the city of La Puente, located in the San Gabriel Valley. In addition to art vendors, there will also be a poetry event in the evening as well as music at one of the locations.

I'll be set up next to the Nuvein Foundation booth in the parking lot of the Twin Palms Recovery Center at 218 Glendora Ave. Just look for the parking lot at Glendora Ave. and Workman St., there will be several booths set up.

In addition to my comic books, I'll also have some of these 'Sharpie paintings':

11" x 17" canvas boards drawn with Sharpie markers! I'll have the two above plus several others.

Part of the aim of the Old La Puente Art Walk is to revitalize the area and make it a vibrant center for local community art and culture. I was at the previous Art Walk back in May and for being the first one they held, we had some constant traffic. This one is set to have lots more artists and event sites, so there should be even more people attending. Hope to see you there!

Kids artwork from my comic book workshops

For the last couple of years I've been teaching art classes at Pico Park in Pico Rivera, CA. On Wednesdays I have my Comic Book Workshop and Thursdays it's my Cartooning for Kids class. The comic class runs 5 weeks, and the cartooning class is 4 weeks. Usually I'll have about 2 sessions of each workshop every season, so that's about 16 classes a year at that facility. 

The current comic book workshop ended on Wednesday. Here are some samples of the comics created:

The one above (Moustache Man & Goatee Guy) is by Matt, who's been taking the class for about 2 years now! His parents are really supportive, and Matt's imagination is pretty active. It's really great to see a young artist with such creative ability.

There's always a mix of returning students and new ones, and on average about 30% will be girls, and sometimes almost half. The skill levels vary of course, but the important thing is that all the kids have a desire to tell a story.  Put the paper and pencil in front of the child and they'll think for a second then start drawing the first panel and soon they work out their whole story. I'm still amazed at the innate human desire to tell stories, especially to tell it through words and pictures. And because their stories aren't very dialogue heavy, it's the art of storytelling by picture that shines through. A long and well-loved tradition...

What I do in my class is take the kids through a group storytelling session, where I draw a one-page comic on a wipe board with them providing me the idea for each panel. The main thing I stress to them is that each panel has to progress from the previous panel, no matter how wacky the scenario, because our goal is to tell a story.

One thing I do is that at the end of the fourth week, I collect each student's artwork (3 pages of comics and one cover), then over the weekend I'll make photocopies and on the last class, give each student 3 copies of their printed comic book (an 11x17 paper, printed on both sides & folded in half). While it's a little extra work, I feel it really gives the kids a sense of having created a comic book, not just producing the art for one. 

Once in a while, for the 5th and final class, I'll ask a cartoonist friend of mine to visit the class and talk with the kids about their work or do a project. Once, my friend Ted visited and led the kids into creating a giant comic called ZOMBPOCALYPSE, where two kids at time would draw and color a page of the comic. That was really fun.

In the current class, Jacob, a first time student, created this comic:

He even had time to knock out this 32 panel comic on a sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper:

It was nice to hear him narrate the story while I looked over the page. The blue energy ball generated by the human character was inspired by DRAGON BALL Z, a cartoon that plenty of my students over the years have claimed as a favorite.

Jacob actually gave me that comic, as well as this drawing:

A sunny day, a happy superhero and a giant tank... C'mon, what's not to love about that?!

My next round of classes at Pico Park start up at the end of August. Check out my Comics Workshop page for more info on my classes.  And if you're a librarian, I also do library visits where I conduct comic book workshops as well. Please check out that page as well for my contact info.

Digging up a DEAD DINOSAURIO...

My next comic book project to be published will feature these new characters of mine...

DEAD DINOSAURIO & EZTLI, The First Calaca. (Calacas are the various interpretations of skeletons created for the Day of the Dead). The story takes place during the Conquest of Mexico and features a young Aztec boy named Eztli ('Blood' in the language of the ancient Mexicans). During the brutal invasion, the boy calls upon the gods for help and finds it in the form of a strange and unknown creature.... a Tyrannosaurus Rex!

The story is going to debut in a limited run mini-comic. Several copies of the book are going to be traded with a group of artists I've met online as part of a mini-comics 'swap'. The remainder of the copies will be sold at an upcoming event I'll be exhibiting at on September 15, down in the San Diego area. Hispanic Literacy Day at the South Chula Vista Branch Library.

Here's the cover of the mini-comic...

And the back cover:

 A few pages from the book, without the lettering:

This limited run mini-comic, THE PRE-HISTORIC EDITION, is the precursor to what will be the magazine-sized edition, complete with extra features, such as production sketches and the entire thumbnails to the story. For this magazine-sized edition, all the artwork will be colored in gray tones, similar to my WEAPON TEX-MEX Vs EL MUERTO comic book:

 The magazine-sized comic will also feature a wraparound cover, the first one I've ever done for one of my books:

I'll have this image available as an 11x17 poster once I release the mini-comic in a few weeks. I'm currently organizing my Fall schedule, but I will definitely be at the Long Beach Comic Con on November 3 & 4, as well as several Dia de Los Muertos events throughout Los Angeles (dates and times to be announced).

If you've read my Poster Comics featuring Spider-Calaca & BatiCalaca, I can tell you that Dead Dinosaurio fits right in with those two. I have several more Super Calacas to debut, then eventually they'll all get teamed-up together in a new comic book, THE CALACAS OF JUSTICE!

More updates to come. And thanks for reading

PANCAKES & BOOZE Art Show this weekend in LA

So here's a new type of show I'll be exhibiting at this weekend.

Yep, PANCAKES AND BOOZE! (Or click here if you want to see their Facebook Event listing...). An honest-to-gosh Art Show, with live art and live music, art vendors, drinks and...pancakes!


My friend & fellow cartoonist Michael Aushenker, who I'll be spitting a table with, informed me about this show. As it's a local venue, and a different crowd and vibe than the usual comic conventions, I thought it'd be a great idea to try it.


The show is being held in Downtown LA at LOT 613. Address is 613 Imperial Street, Los Angeles, California 90021.
Showtimes are Friday and Saturday, 8pm-2am. 

I'll be bringing along my catalog of comic books and Poster Comics. I'll have some original artwork as well. At any rate, I expect to at least expose my work to a new audience. 

It's $5 at the door, ages 21 and over. Hope to see some of you there!

              Dead Dinosaurio & Etzli © & ™ Javier Hernandez

2 free Comic Book Workshops at local libraries

I'll be conducting a couple of Comics Workshops at two libraries in the area for the next two days.

On Thursday, July 12, I'll be in Santa Monica at the Ocean Park Branch from 2:30-3:15pm. The workshop is free to attend, but call the library to check if you need a reservation. For kids 6-14. Here's the post from their website.


And on Friday, July 13, I'll be at the Los Alamitos/Rossmoor Branch Library in Los Alamitos. The workshop runs from 3:30-4:30 pm, and it's for kids 6-14. Again, this one is free as well, but I know that you do need to reserve a spot. Information for doing so is on this page of their website.

Discovering Spider-Man & my Spider-Man artwork

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Amazing Spider-Man, one of the world's most popular comic book heroes.

Star of 1000s of comic books, cartoon shows, live-action television, video games, blockbuster movies and more merchandise than you can shake a web at, the character debuted back in 1962 in AMAZING FANTASY #15. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Spidey has endured throughout the decades by being the underdog hero who never gives up. And you can't beat that costume!

As a kid, I was a huge fanatic. The earliest comics I had of Spider-Man were given to me by my older brother Albert. Some of these treasures included these gems by John Romita and Gil Kane (issue #88)....

 Through the reprint series MARVEL TALES, I got to experience the earlier stories drawn by Steve Ditko.....

By the time I stared buying my own comics at the local 7-11, I was a bonafide Spider-Fanatic...

 





















I'll be sharing memories about my favorite Spider-Man stories in later posts, and some thoughts about watching Spider-Man on THE ELECTRIC COMPANY children's show, the 1967 SPIDER-MAN cartoon show, the Sam Raimi movies and lots more. Right now though, I'd like to share some artwork I created over the last couple of days. Just some quick sketches capturing different characters from the books. 

First batch includes The Lizard, J. Jonah Jameson, Peter Parker's first genuine crush, Betty Brant, Peter Parker in his wrestler gear from AMAZING FANTASY #15 and a shot of Spidey himself:

 

Like I said, more webslinging action to come in future posts!

Spider-Man © Marvel Characters