TRYIN T'CATCH UP...

Yesterday, Amy and I went to Cigars N Stripes, a bar in Berwyn that we love, love, love. The occasion was to help celebrate Poefest, an annual, weeklong event celebrating Edgar Allan, hosted by the Berwyn Arts Council and organized by artist Fran Gregory. Although we missed a few days of the celebration, we did manage to make it to Tuesday's shindig, which consisted of a reading of The Cask of Amontillado", some live music, fortune-telling, and the eerie, soulful sounds of master DJ Joe Black. We had to leave before the showing of The Bride of Frankenstein, but aside from that, it was great fun, and all of it went on inside a tent erected in Stripes' parking lot, a tent that the owner, Ronnie, swears once belonged to none other than P.T. Barnum!

Through the course of the night, I made a lot of connections and brainstormed for a bit with both Ronnie and Joe about doing something in Berwyn early next year. I hope it happens, as it's an event I've longed to do... okay, enough cryptically worded balderdash, it's back to the salt mines for me!

If you've not been to Cigars and Stripes, check out the link on the right there. And if you don't know who Joe Black is, shame on you! He and his Midnight Spookshow can also be found in the links section...

LISTEN TO ME!

Artist Dan Dougherty and I were recently interviewed by those crazy cats at comicgeekspeak.com and the interview just went live!

You can hear it at http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/

It's a pretty free-wheeling interview, but the podcast centers on the new graphic novel THE APOCALYPSE PLAN, available from Diamond in December (page 294 of their catalog, out now, item #OCT091107)

SAINT G AT TINLEY PARK SHOW!

Juan Arevalo and Rafael Nieves will be appearing at the Tinley Park Halloween Comic Book Show this Saturday, October 24th, from 9 am until 4 pm. Copies of the Saint G minicomic, The Order of the Georges, will be available, as will prints and other goodies.

Visit the convention's link here for more info. See you Saturday!

SAINT G, JUAN 'N' ME!

Juan Arevalo and Rafael Nieves willl be appearing at the Black Age expo on Saturday, October 10th, from 9:30 until 4:30. We'll be signing new versions of the SAINT G ashcan, THE ORDER OF THE GEORGES, as well as previewing pages from the next edition. Check out http://dablackage.blogspot.com/ for more info. Hope to see you there!

WINDY CITY WAS A BREEZE!

For those of you who read this blog and are wondering just where the hell I've been, my apologies. The last few months have been spent toiling hard at the day job, writing, and setting up and updating the blogs for THE APOCALYPSE PLAN and SAINT G, two ongoing projects that I'm doing with artists Dan Dougherty and Juan Arevalo, respectively.

THIS update is about Windy City Comic Con, which I attended last Saturday, the 19th. What a great show it was! I met a gentleman from Spain, who actually popped in because he'd heard of the con from... someone... while visiting friends in Michigan. We talked comics for a minute, shared our admiration for ZONA NEGATIVA, the Spanish website devoted to comics, and Spanish publishers. I've long wanted to see my work translated into other languages, so we chatted a bit about that. The man didn't buy anything, but that was okay...

Also spoke with a guy who'd purchased a copy of TAP, and who is a friend of Dan's, who wanted to tell me how much he enjoyed the book, and THAT, my friends, made the show for me! It's really the only reason to appear at these cons; connecting with people who might enjoy your work and tell you so...

Saw some old friends, Andrew Kudelka, Tony Akins, Paul Mounts, Doug Klauba, Alex Wald, Charlie Athanas, Franchesco, and more; made some new ones, Kevin Mellon, Mike Oliveri (who isn't a new friend, necessarily, I've known his work and have met him before, but we got a chance to chat at length), and got a couple of welcome surprises as well: Andrew Dimitt, my close friend and brother in arts, showed up, and we got to talking about some possible collaborative efforts; and Brian Azzarello, who I've known for a number of years, but whom I usually catch at WizardWorld...

Sold a couple books, did an interview (which I'm sure I screwed up), met with organizers of the upcoming Black Age Expo (where Juan and I will be appearing), watched with love and pride at my fellow artists gettin' love from fans and passersby.

I hope to update this blog a bit more frequently again; I've got a couple things cooking that I want desperately to talk about, so hopefully I can make an announcement or two next time.

If you missed Windy City... WHY??? I told you guys about it!

PLAN FOR THE APOCALYPSE!

Hi there! Look over to your right, down by the links... See that one that says THE APOCALYPSE PLAN? Click it. I'll wait...

BY DESIGN

Redesigned a blog site banner for a co-worker who made it for a friend.




Here's the original. The redesign was easy, quick and fun.

And here's the blog's URL http://anointedvesselsministry.blogspot.com/

DAN DOUGHERTY IS ROTTEN!

My friend and partner on the upcoming Graphic Novel THE APOCALYPSE PLAN, artist Dan Dougherty, talks about his latest project, ROTTEN, over at newsarama.com. Here's the link: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/050918-Rotten.html

Sure, the article features the writer of that book, Mark Rahner, but really, who cares about the writers??? Anyway, check it out!

MORE LOGOS

This button design was for our local alderman (alderwoman?) who was running for re-election in our hometown of Berwyn. She won, but I doubt this had anything to do with the design. Although, you never know...

Here's a logo I created for my friend and collaborator Dan Dougherty (AKA the fastest artist in the world!) for a book he's drawing called, appropriately enough, ROTTEN. Go to http://www.moonstonebooks.com/ to see the book (the logo isn't on there yet, but that's okay, the art is purty!). ROTTEN is a zombie/western, the kind men like!

RECENT LOGOS

Just wanted to show off two recent logo designs. The business card at the top is for a woman named Raquel who has an import/export handbag business. She wanted to call it ROCK STAR, but I convinced her that the play on her name might be better. The two-sided biz card will allow her to use the cards as tags, too, simply by punching a hole in the corner of the card and looping a string through it to attach to the bags. I obliterated her personal info for privacy until she's ready to open shop.

The logo at the bottom is for a product that caters to women going through menopause. As I understand it, the product will provide cooling relief from hot flashes that occur in the woman's bosom. I don't pretend to understand any of that; I just make the pretty art. The product was originally called COOL'N YOU, but I convinced the client that the alternate spelling would make the product seem more exotic.

Hope you like 'em. And if you want me to create a logo for you, just let me know! My prices are cheap, but my talent ain't!!!

MR. MOTO AND MORE! NEW RELEASES!

I just found out that the WELCOME BACK, MR. MOTO trade paperback has been released! Beautifully drawn by Tim Hamilton, with a script by moi, MOTO is an original story that features John P. Marquand's Asian spy in a tale of intrigue and deceit. Ken Takashi has just been released from a detention camp at the end of World War II, and is immediately swept up in a web of mystery from which he cannot untangle himself. His only allies seem to be a hotel janitor, a pretty young secretary, and the elusive stranger known as Moto. This trade collects the 3-issue miniseries published by Moonstone in 2007, and is available now!

ALSO: in the same month, KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER ANNUAL #1 has been released! I wrote the script from a story by the very talented Mark Dawidziak, who recounts the incredibly anticipated meeting between Carl Kolchak and Barnabas Collins from DARK SHADOWS. Joe Gentile, Dave Ulanski and others contributed to the book as well, and there are a number of variant covers for you to enjoy and collect!

For more info on these or any of the Moonstone titles I've written, visit the Moonstone site and tell 'em Raf sent ya!

APOCALYPSE SOON

Here is the cover art for the upcoming graphic novel by artist Dan Dougherty and myself called THE APOCALYPSE PLAN. TAP, as we lovingly call it, tells the story of the war between Heaven and Hell, done in what I hope to be a unique fashion.

Dan is already 32 pages into this almost 80 page project, and the art is stunning! We're shopping the book around now, and hope to make an announcement soon. Stay tuned for more info as it happens!