I can’t think of any cartoonist that I admire more than the great RONALD SEARLE. Many others feel the same about this superb satirist and stylist, including the 70 PIXAR artists who recently sent him a 91st BIRTHDAY SKETCHBOOK filled with tributes; a project which I was honored (though intimidated) to be included in.

It was the one and only MATT JONES who had the unenviable task of wrangling 70 flakey cartoonists to fulfill their promises and bring the book to completion, which was achieved somewhat beyond the actual deadline but was very much appreciated by Mister Searle none-the-less. He wrote back to say as much.

You can read his response, as well as see the birthday greetings themselves, on the HAPPY 91ST RONALD blog, established by MATT to house the well-wisher’s artwork. A new tribute will be posted every day for the next few months. Be sure to check back often; i know for a fact there are some BEAUTIES in store!

If you’d prefer to look at a blog that (mostly) posts the AUTHENTIC Searle article, be sure to visit the SEARLE TRIBUTE BLOG (which is also run by Matt.)

Here’s a BIRTHDAY (21st of April!) CARD for Mr Derek Thompson, honoring the fellow who introduced us many years ago; good old FRANKENSTEIN’s monster.

It seems appropriate that my friendship with DEREKMONSTER should have begun on a MONSTER MOVIE. Though that project was never finished, I made many great friends on that crew, Derek being one of them.

Aren’t you a little SHORT for a storm-trooper?

Some quick photoshop tones over a pencil doodle. Needs more work but i will do that later.

For quite some time I’ve wanted to do a PIN-UP book full of heroines; characters that I like, from TV shows, comics or movies. Once, when I was about to get into that idea in earnest, I saw the just recently released BELLE du JOUR by Bill Presing (not to mention his follow-up BOOK PLATE BETTIES) and suddenly, I lost steam on the idea… not just because BILL is one of those despiring (depressingly inspiring) artists who make you want to break all of your pencils, one by one… but also because I realised that it would be hard to bring anything new to a book of cheesecake; there are hundreds of them already out there, and until I can think of something ELSE to bring to the idea it remains on my (now very crowded) back-burner.

Pondering that weighty issue doesn’t stop the doodles accruing in my doodle book, such as this page of of POWERGIRL scribbles.

In an attempt to purge my mind’s eye of images of the BEARDED SLAVE LEIA seen last weekend at Emerald City Comic Con, where he single handedly overwrote the adolescent memories of a thousands of nerds (including myself) here are some quick sketches of the LEIA I would prefer to remember, drawn through bleeding eyes.

Last weekend was beautifully sunny here in Portland, so I went on several long walks throughout the city. I tried doing some sketches of the scenery but none that came out very well. Several half-started scribbles is all. Perhaps they can be made into something decent if I revisit those particular spots again for a follow up session or two… My attempts to draw outside are thwarted by the weather here in Portland; either it starts to rain or it is too beautiful to want to sit still. Anyway, here is a pencil doodle of POWERGIRL that I did in the evening, with some slapdash Photoshop colour added afterward. I may tidy it up a bit later but this is all I have right now.

I came in to work today (Easter Saturday) to catch up… but I wasn’t feeling very well… and nothing meaningful got done by day’s end. So, to cheer myself up, I played around with this Batgirl doodle for a little while. Drawn in pencil and smudge-stick, followed by a quick hue/saturation adjustment in Photoshop. Now I am going to get some rest…

This is a sketch I did during this year’s APE show. Rafael Navarro has been keeping a CAPTAIN AMERICA sketchbook where he asks other people to draw his favourite super-hero, and this was my contribution. In retrospect, I should have drawn Captain America with Barack Obama’s face!

A few years ago I posted my Pin-up of Charles and Edgar, two outrageous characters created by my pal nate Stanton and featured in his contribution to the Afterworks 2 Anthology. This composition here was one of the other ideas I had for that original pin-up and I tidied it up this week as a Birthday present, which I will give him in person, later today.

Happy Birthday, Nate!