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What if cupcakes fell out of the sky into your bathtub? What if your spouse left you and bought you a pet monkey to make up for the loss? What if Saddam Hussein made you pancakes in bed? The answers to these and many other burning questions are covered in this important, nutritious collection of weird, bizarro tales that is Hot Donut Salad.

Worcester Magazine Comic

I took some time out from other projects to do this piece for Worcester Mag's "Year in Review" top stories of 2012 comics issue. I was assigned the opening of Worcester's public skating rink, the Common Oval, so named because it's on the city common, but an odd choice, no? It sounds vaguely medical. 

Project Update

I'm finishing up a piece featuring Sexy Vegetable(TM), the delicious and nutritious Caressa Carrot. These photos are of one corner of the pencil sketch before inking. 

Caressa's hangin' out under an ivy-covered arbor.

Inking the ivy was a little tedious...  

 

Caressa has a little rabbit friend!

DC's Love Stories

I picked up a copy of DC's Love Stories (100-page Super Spectacular). It's a 2000 reprint of the original 1971 edition. I love the super cheesy, crazy melodramatic stories and the artwork is fantastic, featuring Ric Estrada, Wally Wood, Jay Scott Pike, Bob Oksner, Mort Drucker, Tony Abruzzo, Art Saaf, and Vince Colletta, to name a bunch!

Also, it's a REALLY handy 'ready-reference' if you are trying to figure out how to draw people kissing. 

 

Hot Donut Salad - Spotlight on Gina!

Are you ready for fun with Gina? In Hot Donut Salad, madcap fun ensues when Gina reverts to a feral state and has to be captured. I've always been fascinated with the idea of feral people. So 'Please Help Gina' is a chance to play with that. It's basically a parody of a public service announcement / cautionary tale of a woman's downfall. People are so titillated by such stories in popular culture, which is just so gross, so I thought it would be fun and funny to create this disturbing story of Gina's downfall into a feral state and then just have it take a completely wacky turn from tragedy to absurd silliness.  

Hot Donut Salad - Spotlight on Bruce the Monkey!

What would Hot Donut Salad be without a generous helping of Bruce the Monkey? Bruce came to be during a very difficult time in my life, at the end of a relationship. Going through a break-up brings out all kinds of emotions. The mere exhaustion of it can sometimes oddly make you (or at least me) a little punchy. You get tired from all the struggle and sadness and then out of nowhere comes a burst of silliness. Well, Bruce was in one such burst.

I suddenly had this thought of how funny it would be if someone pitched a show to Lifetime TV in which a woman's husband leaves her, but to make up for the loss he buys her a pet monkey. The show would have all the schmaltzy-ness typical of Lifetime, but with a totally psychotic twist. And then I thought to myself, this is actually an interesting story idea that I want to bring to life in a comic.

It's funny because drawing Bruce and writing these stories actually brought me a lot of comfort during my difficult time. He really is a cherished friend, and I plan to continue his story!

Hot Donut Salad - Saddam Hussein Made Me Pancakes

These uncolored, unlettered pages are from my comic about Saddam Hussein making me pancakes. This comic is based on an actual dream that I had. It was around the time that Saddam Hussein was captured, so my subconscious brain was probably processing the media images just as my nose was catching a whiff of a neighbor making breakfast...

Whatever it was, after awaking and thinking about it some more, I thought maybe my psyche was trying to reconcile the disparity between Saddam's outward appearance with the actual person that he was. The dream made me realize that he does in fact kind of look like someone's bumbly, grandpa and/or a short-order cook, which kind of works against his whole 'I'm-the-embodiment-of-evil' schtick. 

Hot Donut Salad - Spotlight on Timmy!

By now you might be asking, what IS Hot Donut Salad? What are the ingredients that make this 90-page comic concoction so tasty and delicious? WELL, one of the main ingredients is the characters. Each has a different story line. Although not connected by plot, each story combines absurd silliness with a level of sadness. The wackiness of the characters is what makes this combination work. 

So I thought I'd tell you all a little about each of them. Today the spotlight is on Timmy!  

Timmy is a boy-man character who, for some unexplained reason, is always in his underpants. He's one of those people that you can't tell whether their 'joie de vivre' comes from some kind of enlightenment or were they just dropped on their head early in life.  

Timmy has a lot of bizarre adventures in Hot Donut Salad, usually involving (but not limited to) cupcakes that are either floating in or falling from the sky. His weirdness and naivete are what make him endearing and vulnerable, and are what make you empathize with his whimsical plights.

It's funny though, because Timmy started out as a much darker character. Below is one of my earliest sketches of him, which describes some pretty tragic events as the reason for his 'condition.'

Hot Donut Salad in August Diamond Previews!

Hey everybody! Guess what!  Hot Donut Salad is listed with Undercover Fish Books in August Diamond Previews. So now's the time to run to your local comic book store and tell them you want it in stock! 


About the title and cover design:
I came up with 'Hot Donut Salad' as the title because I thought it sounded like a funny, outlandish, gross recipe consisting of donuts, lettuce, mayonnaise, thousand island dressing, cream cheese, pineapple chunks, and pimentos. I thought it would perfectly suit this collection of strange tales. Granted, none of the stories in HDS are gross, but they are outlandish, and I hope, funny.   


Because the characters in HDS each have their own story line and do not interact, I wanted the cover to depict a scene that would unite them (Timmy, Gina, Bruce, Paul, and Chicken). Once I had 'Hot Donut Salad' as the name and concept for the title, I thought it would be fun to show the characters gathered for a picnic in which it's being served in all its pulsating glory.   

Here on the front cover, Timmy is ladeling out hearty helpings of Hot Donut Salad.

Back cover

Occupy

I have a comic in Worcester Magazine's Annual Comics issue covering the top stories of 2011. My comic is about the Occupy movement in Worcester. I thought it would be funny in an ironic sense to use a Monopoly board theme, since Monopoly is the quintessential capitalist game. I decided to morph the policemen into clowns because I love a good creepy clown but also the experience of the Occupy Worcester movement being forced to go from place to place reminded me of a traveling circus.

Current Projects

I'm always juggling multiple projects at the same time. This is a panel from a short piece called, "Waking Up Is Hard To Do," that I'm finishing for the Detour Anthology. I just have to letter it. I'm also in the process of finishing up my book, Hot Donut Salad, which will be coming out March 2012. In addition, I'm making headway in my Sexy Vegetables (TM) trading card project. My goal is to complete 20 cards and then shop them around to publishers. Right now I'm working on Caressa Carrot and Yolanda Eggplant. And last but not least, I'm starting to write my next book! It will be a collection of one page comics, all inter-related by a theme of insights about life and wacked-out silliness.    

Back to Class

I'm taking a comics class with my pal Andy Fish at Worcester Art Museum. It's great to get a break from working in isolation. Longtime colleagues Mark Rozeen and Jim Riel are also in the class, so it's like a homecoming.

In our last class, we worked on model sheets. Top left image is the model sheet for a character I'm developing (Mel).

I've also been struggling with a hand position for one of my Sexy Vegetable characters, Caressa Carrot. So I took some time out for some hand studies. I have a really good book, Basic Figure Drawing Techniques, that's helpful when I encounter these problems.

What's That On My Marble Head?

I had a great time last week in Marblehead, MA doing a presentation on graphic novels with my pals and comic art colleagues Andy Fish, Veronica Fish, and Britt Snyder. A big thank you to Beth Delforge and Patty Rogers for making our visit possible! We spent two days presenting to the entire 7th grade class. They were really fun and asked a lot of great questions. And the four of us artists got a chance to hang, explore the town a little, and stay overnight in a pink house!

Bruce Bruce Bruce Bruce Bruce Bruce Bruce Bruce

My next big project after my book Hot Donut Salad comes out will be a graphic novel about me and Bruce the monkey.

Friday is 'Post a Doodle' Day...

I worked on the piece from last week a bit more. I tried to make the face look more 3-D. I also wanted the spring to look like a spring. But I like the crazy energy of the 'Before' drawing better. Which do you prefer?

After

Before

Friday is 'Post a Doodle' Day...

Work in progress - Clown Jack in the Box

Friday is 'Post a Doodle' Day...

It's Donut Time!

Friday is 'Post a Doodle' Day...

Lamb Man. Fluffy. Soft. Pissed off. 

Progress Update

I've been working like a fiend this week trying to finish things up on my book. I think I am making good progress, approaching the landing soon or at least it's in clearer sight. Here's a little corner of the cover...

A friend shared this article which has some really helpful advice for artists, How to steal like an artist and 9 other things nobody told me. The calendar with check boxes was especially helpful for me.

Friday is 'Post a Doodle' Day...

Fused triplets creature