Have a good holiday. And don't kill anyone with your big knife.

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO THIS PAST MONTH, AND WHAT I'M DOING NEXT MONDAY

I've been storyboarding. I've gotten so used to working in design, particularly on Genndy Tartakovsky's SYM-BIONIC TITAN (--yes, let's hear a round of applause for that phenomenal show), that it was a joy to be storyboarding again.







And it's kind of funny that I've gotten so much board work recently, as I'm about to teach a storyboarding for animation class at MoCCA! It's an honor, and a hell of a thrill, and I hope some of ya'll reading this will show up for my class. Here's the link to MoCCA's education program...check it out, yeah? They're offering some pretty interesting classes!

http://www.moccany.org/content/education

Please contribute, if you're at all able, to our beloved cat's medical bills.

THE REVIEWS ARE IN (AND ARE MOSTLY GOOD)

LUCKY IN LOVE, the graphic novel with a narrative by George Chieffet and pictures by me, has gotten some high praise. And if you can read Swedish, some moderate praise (but a large part of that is grumbling about the three year wait for Volume Two to be released---hey, I'm drawing as fast as I can, I swear!) Personally, I've been floored by the response of some of my friends and fellow artists. Folks like Bob Fingerman, Jackson Publick, Bill Wray, Shaun McLaughlin, Kevin Langley, Mark Zingerelli, Mark Newgarden and Kim Deitch (KIM DEITCH!) have been generous in their praise and support. Old chum Jamie Rich has been especially vocal about it, and you can read his review amongst the links I'll patch in below. My thanks to Jamie, and to all of the critics for their thoughtful reviews. Take a look, won't you? And if you've read the book, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. And if you haven't read the book, read what these folks have to say, and think about picking it up. Okay?


http://confessions123.blogspot.com/2010/09/lucky-in-love-poor-mans-history-by.html
http://www.comicsreview.co.uk/nowreadthis/2010/10/07/lucky-in-love-book-1-a-poor-man%E2%80%99s-history/
http://serienytt.se/?p=1126
http://joshuamalbin.com/2010/10/lucky-in-love/
http://www.mania.com/lucky-love-review_article_125097.html

ART FOR SALE!

Go to the link provided below. If all goes well, it should bring you to the mdh Fine Arts Gallery page featuring my work. There's still pages of LUCKY IN LOVE for sale, as well as some of my work on BIZARRO, POPEYE THE SAILOR, SPONGEBOB, LOONEY TUNES, REN & STIMPY, DEXTER'S LAB and JOHNNY BRAVO.
The show ends today, if you're in the NYC area!

http://www.mdhfinearts.com/mdhfinearts11.asp?collectionID=628&

LOOK AT THIS

I used to draw this character!

GET LUCKY TODAY

LUCKY IN LOVE, VOLUME ONE is on sale at finer comic shops (and hopefully book shops) today. Times being what they are, I understand it's difficult to chose what and what not to purchase. But if you can spare the dough, I do hope you'll consider buying it, and then maybe sharing it with friends and family that can't so much spare the dough. My co-creator George and I would be much obliged, and beyond that, would very much like to hear your thoughts on the book.
Many thanks

THESE ARE NOT MY HANDS

A Fantagraphics Books staffer checks out the interiors of LUCKY IN LOVE, VOLUME ONE.

Finally, the LUCKY IN LOVE promotional short

Hopefully, this'll come across as beautifully over the internet as it was crafted. Directed by MIGUEL MARTINEZ-JOFFRE, with color stylization by CARLY MONARDO, this is our promotional film for the graphic novel co-created by GEORGE CHIEFFET and myself, LUCKY IN LOVE, VOLUME ONE: A POOR MAN'S BIOGRAPHY. The book is due out soon in early September from Fantagraphics, and I think it's pretty good.
Enjoy the cartoon, friends!

David-Wasting-Paper: Stephen DeStefano - Cartoonist Survey #144

I get asked a lot of questions.
Here are some of my answers!

David-Wasting-Paper: Stephen DeStefano - Cartoonist Survey #144

Thanks to David for asking.

IF I FIND OUT YOU WENT TO SAN DIEGO AND DIDN'T COME VISIT ME AT THE FANTAGRAPHICS BOOTH, I'LL SOCK YOU IN THE MUSH

That being said, I do hope you'll come out to Comic Con and celebrate the near release of the graphic novel I created (with my friend GEORGE CHIEFFET) at the Fantagraphics booth. Publisher Kim Thompson assures me that there will be copies of our book, LUCKY IN LOVE, BOOK ONE: A POOR MAN'S BIOGRAPHY available , and I'd love to get your initial reaction to it. I'll even do a teeny Post-it note sketch for you, if you ask me nicely.
Here's a link to the Fantagraphics Booth schedule:

http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Your-Fantagraphics-Guide-to-Comic-Con-2010.html&Itemid=113;

Looking forward to seeing you there. I'm including a little sneak peak image for you below, of a color study ace artist CARLY MONARDO did for my LUCKY promotional film (which I designed and the brilliant MIGUEL MARTINEZ-JOFFRE directed and animated). Carly and Miguel are two VENTURE BROTHER stalwarts, and the film is completed and quite brilliant. I hope to announce its appearance on the web sometime soon!

Fulle Circle Productions: A Clean Shaven Man: A Popeye Conversation with Stephen DeStefano

Fulle Circle Productions: A Clean Shaven Man: A Popeye Conversation with Stephen DeStefano

Two Popeyes Punching - Drawings by Stephen DeStefano - eBay (item 200483679854 end time Jun-24-10 19:20:30 PDT)

Two Popeyes Punching - Drawings by Stephen DeStefano - eBay (item 200483679854 end time Jun-24-10 19:20:30 PDT)

It's not often I have POPEYE THE SAILOR original art to sell, but I've many sketches lying around my office, and decided to put one to good use: my
dear friend, animator and activist TOM BAYNE is running several auctions on eBay with all proceeds going to clean up in the Gulf Coast. As Tom is the animatic supervisor and animation editor on Adult Swim's THE VENTURE BROTHERS, you know there's some really choice VB art that he's auctioning off, including ORIGINAL STORYBOARD DRAWINGS by Jackson Publick himself! I've donated some of my original VB art as well, including a sweet sequence of thumbnails from the last episode of season one, featuring Henchmen 21 and 24.
Anyway, give a look on it, won't you?

Buy some of The VENTURE BROS. & HELP CLEAN UP THE GULF COAST

Buy some of The VENTURE BROS. & HELP CLEAN UP THE GULF COAST

Posted by my very good friend, VENTURE BROTHERS animatic supervisor and animation editor, TOM BAYNE. I'm nearly as proud of Tom as I am disgusted with BP. Please buy some VB art, it's for a very, very worthy cause.

LOLA VS. THE LITTLE SH*T

A cat fight film by Siobhan.

LUCKY IN LOVE, THE CARTOON

I dunno if I should show you this, but I'm doing it anyway.

Just a little drawing from a very brief animated cartoon I'm working on to promote my book, which I somehow recruited the shockingly talented MIGUEL MARTINEZ-JOFFRE to direct for me. If you don't know Miguel's work, you should---give a look by going to his website, http://www.atomicshelter.com/, after you check out the boobies on this imaginary dame!

PLASTIC MAN IN WEDNESDAY COMICS

PLASTIC MAN will appear in DC's hardcover collection of their popular WEDNESDAY COMICS, in a strip written by Evan Dorkin and drawn by myself. Editor Mark Chiarello intended to use the strip if one of the regular artists on the project had trouble meeting the weekly deadline, but I'm guessing all of the folks he worked with were punctual, because it wasn't published. Thankfully, this strip is seeing the light of day now, which makes me happy because I think it's good. I got my complimentary copies of the book from DC yesterday, and it's a damned spiffy package.
Here's a little sneak peak of it, with colors by the editor himself, and lettering by Siobhan DeStefano herself----I mucked up the word balloons, I think, they're the only thing I don't like about the strip. Apparently, this should hit stores the first week in June!



**Actually, now that I think of it, I should give some credit to Andy Suriano as well---that's his design of Plas I'm using there. I vowed never again to try and draw like Jack Cole, cuz it's stupid to follow in the tracks of a genius, because your work will always end up looking second rate. I used to swear that one day I'd draw Plas in his 1960's/Jack Sparling/Gil Kane/Win Mortimer style, but I may have given up on that dream, I dunno.

so onto LUCKY IN LOVE, BOOK TWO

Book one of LUCKY IN LOVE is with Kim and his designers at Fantagraphics. They're good people. They're nice to me.
Looks like the book will be out in time for San Diego. If you're going to the convention, check in at the FB booth at some point. Likely I'll be there, either on Friday or Saturday. (Also, I may be on a Cartoon Network panel, for the show I'm currently working on, although I'm not sure I'm allowed to speak too much about that right now.)
I've started drawing book two, LUCKY IN LOVE: LUCKY FOR LIFE. I've done a dozen or so pages of layouts, but took a break from storytelling today to do a little character designing. Check it out, yo.



Book two may not have drawings as dynamic looking as the ones in book one, but that's because George and I will be telling a different kind of story in the second volume. But it'll be just as good, if not better.

LUCKY STARTS

LUCKY IN LOVE, my graphic novel with writer George Chieffet, is coming along quite nicely, thank you. I've only a few pages left to draw of the final chapter in volume 1 before I deliver to our publisher, Fantagraphics, at the beginning of next month. I got a fairly huge chunk of it done this past month, with much thanks to my employers at Cartoon Network for giving me the time off. A month makes a huge difference when inking 35 pages.
LUCKY is actually a book that's been years in the making, though.
And LUCKY wasn't always LUCKY. Originally he was named "Cholly Potatoes". A year or two after that, he was named "Lefty".
I thought it'd be fun to share some sketches and strips I'd done over the years developing the character---I've tons of this stuff, but here's a little of it to start with.



These drawings are cute, if I say so myself, but George wasn't comfortable with them. "How can you tell a serious story with characters that look like Smurfs", he said.





"A serious story"?
I dunno. Clearly, I hadn't thought about how you told a serious story with characters two heads tall. Thankfully, George's question had reminded me of an idea I'd pitched years ago to David Mazzucchelli and Richmond Lewis, which was: What if you told a Faulkner-esque story in comics, drawn in the style of DAGWOOD AND BLONDIE?
George was much more comfortable with BLONDIE than SMURFS, and our pint-size "Cholly" grew a couple of heads to become the still rather petite "Lefty Testatuda".
Which is kind of close to what he is now, but he still had some growing and changing to do.




More to come...

HOLIDAY ART: Background drawings for STIMPY'S FIRST FART

I began my career on the REN AND STIMPY SHOW as a background designer, and one of the earliest episodes I worked on in that position was STIMPY'S FIRST FART (was it actually aired on Nickelodeon as SON OF STIMPY? I forget.) John K. had requested I do a whole slew of drawings that had an old fashioned holiday feeling, based on the storyboard. My attempts are shown above. John wasn't happy with them, and years later, I can understand why. While they're moderately competent cartoon drawings, they have no real direction, or feeling. I recall John, in his inimitably annoyed fashion, telling me, "Look at that tree. It's like you just had a pile of crap in your hands and chucked it at a Christmas tree. There's no design, there's just a load of crap.Whatever stuck to it you let stay that way. Is that how you decorate a tree?"

I'm embarrassed to say that I can't recall who drew this for me, Jim Smith or John K. himself. Either way, it's clearly superior (intended as a BG tutorial) to what I'd been drawing. All elements direct the eye towards the characters in the composition. Shapes are bold, and work (for the most part) according to the rules of perspective. There's a lush, organic feeling to it, indicating a very homey and traditional holiday. And note the pail of water towards the bottom. I do recall Jim Smith telling me to always skew shapes slightly, so that they were not functional, but appearing to be functional. This keeps your drawing interesting, without calling too much attention to your shapes. Although both John and Jim attempted to teach me with this and similar drawings, it took me quite a while to internalize the lesson. For years afterwards, I mainly drew pointy, whacky shapes and tried to pass them off as REN AND STIMPY art.