It's almost July....

Sorry. I've almost gone through the entire month of June without posting!

I recently did some artwork for the first ever Kiyama Awards. The award is for the first Asian American ComiCon that will be happening in NY soon. To see the artwork ( which will be engraved on a glass tablet ), and to find out more about Kiyama, the Kiyama Awards, and the Asian American ComiCon, go here or here

I'm currently trying to get a sketchbook out for San Diego Comic-Con. I know I'm cutting it close. The sketchbook will be called Striking Work and will be available at my artist alley table (EE02). Here is one of the images from the book, which I've colored for the blog ( the sketchbook will be black and white ). More info on the sketchbook, and what I will be doing at the convention coming soon!

Drawing From My Youth

At a recent CAPS ( Comic Art Professional Society ) meeting, we had an interesting assignment--to bring a piece of artwork you created as a kid.  It was fun digging through all that old stuff.  It was interesting to see drawings I hadn't seen in years, and how that work shaped my abilities as an adult.

One of the oldest pieces I found was drawn in the back of one of my first art books. It was a well worn copy of "Drawing the Head and Hands" by Andrew Loomis that was handed down to me from my mother.  There were a bunch of doodles that me and my brother did in the blank back pages of the book.  Of note was this one I did around 1975 ( age 11 ) of some famous celebrities of the time.  I vaguely remember referencing a book of TV stars I got from Scholastic Books to do this.  Clockwise from upper left:  John Shuck, Rock Hudson, Susan St. James ( the cast of MacMillan and Wife ), Elvis Presley, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (from F.B.I ), James Brolin (from Marcus Welby ), and singer John Denver.  

I also found this drawing of Tarzan I did in August of 1979( age 15 ).  I believe it was an art class assignment.  I'm thinking of redoing this drawing for my August 22nd post this year.  It would be a thirty year gap between the two drawings.  Hopefully, I've learned something since then!

Below is one of a series of little quick sketches I did of boxing matches.  I had developed an intense interest in boxing at the time and would try to recall the moves I saw on TV.  This exercise not only taught me a lot about boxing, but drawing and choreographing the figure in action.  I did tons of these little doodles.  Many of these drawings were recreations of big fights of the time, including Sugar Ray Leonard beating local boxer Pete Ranzany, Wilfredo Benitez, as well as some pages with Muhammed Ali.  This drawing was probably done in the late 70's or early 80's.

Below is an X-men mini-comic I wrote and drew called "Attack of the 50 foot Mutant."

This was a project I did in my senior year of high school for my printing class.  It's an 8-page mini-comic I had planned to use as part of my portfolio to get into Marvel Comics upon graduating.  It was quite an ambitious project.  I had to shoot negatives of the art and burn plates, run them on the big Heidelberg offset press, fold and staple everything.  It didn't get me into Marvel, but it taught me a lot about the printing process. 

As a teenager I got involved in the whole fanzine thing.  I was a member of NYAPA ( The New York Amateur Press Alliance ).  Every other month I would write movie reviews, short stories, and comics and staple copies of this xeroxed mini-zine together and send it off to a "central mailer" who collected all the other mini-zines from around the country and distributed the collated piece to the rest of the membership.  We would then comment on each other's little 'zines.  It was really kind of a forerunner to blogging.  I did several comics features this way.  One of note was a romance strip I did.  I was intent to not just focus on superheroes and monsters beating each other up ( although I did plenty of those too ) but to learn how to do drama as well.  Odd thing for a high school aged boy to draw at the time, but it taught me a lot. Below is a page from "Deb", written by fellow NYAPA member Tom Muck.

After seeing this challenge to draw yourself as a teen, I thought of doing one, but realized I already had done one. "The Filler" was a little autobiographical 1-pager I did in my late teens.  There are all kinds of inside jokes in this piece that were specifically geared to the NYAPA membership, so they won't really make much sense to anyone else.  It's a pretty accurate portrait of how I looked back then.  Big hair and glasses, and all of 117 lbs at 5'11"!

THE CHALLENGE: It was fun  going through this old stuff.  It's a bit embarrassing to show this old stuff, but it was also kind of enlightening as well.  It really showed me where I've come and gone as an artist.  I'd love to see some of the childhood drawings of some of you out there, especially some of you high-fallootin' professionals out there.  It would also be nice to see you redo a piece and put it side by side with your original childhood drawing.  I will do the same and I will collect all the links here.  C'mon artists!  Lets see it!  Don't be shy!

Secret Identities Revealed to the Public TODAY!

Secret Identities: The Asian-American Superhero Anthology is out in stores today!

If you can't find it in your local comics store, request it!  Apparently, it's been hard to find in some areas, so if you find it in a store, please let me know so I can post those locations here.

Above is a drawing I did featuring characters from the 8 page story I did for the anthology called DRIVING STEEL. Written by Jeff Yang, it's kind of a supernatural western taking place during the building of the transcontinental railroad. Apparently, pages from the anthology will be auctioned off for charity at some point .  As my pages were done digitally, there were no "originals" to speak of, so I did this original pin-up separately for the auction.  I did this with real pen/brush and ink on standard comic paper.  It's the first time in a while that I've done something non-digitally and at that size ( if I do any real pencilling these days, it has to fit in my 8.5"x 12" scanner ). Boy it was hard going back to analog... I kept wanting to "undo"!  I added color in Photoshop for the blog, but the black and white original can be yours at a future date. Stay tuned for details!

DRIVING STEEL:Character Sketches

Here are a few sketches I did for Jeff Yang's "Driving Steel" story in the upcoming anthology Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology.  Out in stores April 15!

Why Is This Man Angry?

Here's a color pinup I did for SECRET IDENTITIES:The Asian American Superhero Anthology.

SECRET IDENTITIES is an anthology book featuring Asian-American superheroes by Asian-American creators.  It is the brainchild of editor-in-chief Jeff Yang ( who wrote the books Eastern Standard Time, and I Am Jackie Chan:My Life In Action ), editor Keith Chow, managing editor Parry Shen ( lead actor in Better Luck Tomorrow ), art director Jerry Ma, and 

senior artist Jef Castro.

The character pictured is named "Jimson", from a short story written by Jeff Yang and drawn by me called DRIVING STEEL. DRIVING STEEL is a supernatural western that takes place during the construction of the transcontinental railroad.

I had originally submitted a story of my own that took place during that same period, but it was rejected. Fortunately, Jeff ( who is the editor-in-chief of the book ) had written DRIVING STEEL, but there was no artist assigned to it, so I was able to step in. I had already done quite a bit of research on that time and setting, so I'm glad it was not wasted. 

I'm still planning to do my own Chinese western at some later date. I always thought it would be a great idea to do something akin to Bruce Lee's original television concept The Warrior, ( a whitewashed version of which would later become Kung Fu ) in comic book form.

And speaking of whitewashing,  there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the casting of M. Night Shylaman's The Last Airbender.  Based on the animated series, this film screams "asian-ness" , but they have decided to cast all caucasian actors in the lead roles. We've seen this type of thing throughout the history of film, whether it's white actors dressed in yellowface, or a blatant disregard of the character's Asian ancestry.  

We're nearly a decade into the 21st century, we've just elected the first African-American president, yet the makers of this film still believe that audiences can't handle the idea of actual Asian actors portraying Asians and would rather see caucasians playing Asians.  It's based on the mistaken belief that people won't buy tickets with Asian faces in the lead roles. This is complete and blatant discrimination against actors of Asian ancestry.  In no other profession would this complete and blatant discrimination against actors of Asian ancestry be tolerated. 

The filmmakers can try to hide behind a claim of artistic interpretation, but if you look at the source material, the race of the characters is obvious.  It's hard to believe that there were absolutely no qualified Asian actors for the roles.  We always hear Asian actors talk about the lack of roles for Asians, and when there are roles, they are given to caucasians or the roles are altered to accommodate caucasian actors.  This type of casting discrimination needs  to end. Write a letter to the makers of this film to show your disapproval.  More on this subject can be found here, here, here and here.

Inauguration Week

Just got back on Thursday from Washington D.C. where Deana and I attended Barack Obama's swearing in as the 44th President of the United States.

We started our first full day in D.C. on Monday, picking up our will call tickets for the Southern Inaugural Ball at the Washington Convention Center, then getting some breakfast in Chinatown. After a short walk around we headed for the Kennedy Center, where Aretha Franklin was going to give a free concert. On the way out of the subway station we bumped into a group of guys who had created and were selling their own Barack Obama card game . They were cartoonists also, They genuinely seemed like a nice group of guys, and it was nice meeting people who had similar interests. They have a cool website, with a great little blog that chronicles their inaugural experience. Proceeds from the game helps at risk children, and supplies are limited, so order your copy today!

We got to the Kennedy Center at about 1pm. Although tickets weren't supposed to be available til 4pm, we didn't want to miss a chance at those tickets. Unfortunately, people had been lining up since 7:00am that morning and we had already missed our opportunity for live tickets and had to settle for overflow tickets. It was an friendly group of folks and and we got to know the people waiting in line with us. The mood was surprisingly upbeat considering folks had been waiting for hours in the cold ( 27 degrees! ). At one point, some guy literal stood up on a soapbox and started preaching to the crowd with some angry political rhetoric. But the crowd wasn't having it. They wanted this week to be about celebration. There was plenty of time for protest another day, but the crowd wanted to keep the mood upbeat. After a few attempts by some by telling him to "shut up", a group of girls decided to drown him out by singing "This Little Light of Mine". Others joined in, completely drowning him out. He eventually walked away and moved farther down the line. Not surprisingly, he was met with the exact same response and eventually gave up!

The next day we got up at 6am ( with little sleep I might add ) for the swearing-in ceremony. Despite the early hour, the subway was completely packed. By the time we arrived at L'Enfant Station, the people were wall to wall. If you've ever seen L'Enfant Plaza Station, you know that it's a huge station, but we subway riders were packed in from one end of the station to the other like sardines. It was actually a pretty dangerous situation. There really was way too many people in that station, and people could have easily been trampled to death, but the crowd looked out for one another, and there was a pretty positive vibe throughout the place. Spontaneous chants of "OBAMA" and "YES WE CAN!" broke out, lifting the spirit of the crowd. A group of Brazilian girls sang some songs they had made up for the occasion. The mood made a potentially bad situation, a good one. This was a good thing too, as the journey from the subway to the street took an hour and half, where it would normally take 3 minutes to walk across.

Once we got on the street, it was obvious that there was no preparation for a crowd of that size. Things got a bit confused and chaotic at times, but we finally made it to Capitol Mall. We weren't able to get into the closer ticketed section, but all things considered, I think we got a pretty good positioning. We had a good view of one of the big screens, although the actual capitol was tiny from our vantage point. We were pretty much dead center of the mall, a few block lengths in front of the Washington Monument. But it really didn't matter. We were all witnessing history and a new beginning after 8 years of suffering through one of the worst presidencies in recent memory. There was a shared feeling of optimism and patriotism. It was a very moving moment.

Later that night we went to the Southern Inaugural Ball. Neither Deana nor I are from the South, but they were the only tickets still available. We had a great time, as both Joe and Jill Biden, and the President and first Lady made an appearance.

The next day we slept in and later went to the Portrait Gallery to see the original art of Sheperd Fairey's ubiquitous "Hope" poster. We also went to the Hall of Presidents to see portraits of all the U.S. presidents. There was also a show showing portraits of the vice-presidents. I was pleasantly surprised to see the work of Anders Zorn, Norman Rockwell, Pat Oliphant, Jack Davis, and Everett Raymond Kinstler represented.

...More Wolverine:Agent of Atlas pages

This is the last of this for a while, I promise! Here's some more pages from part 2 and part 3 of the Wolverine and the Agents of Atlas story. All free! You can also see the rest in print in Agents of Atlas#1. In comic stores Feb. 4th!