Apocalypse Child

Phin and Sara are coping with the aftermath of the battle with Kali and her forces. Phin is given new responsibilities and strange disappearances are occurring around Pittsburgh.

New Kid in Town

This was the debut issue of Cole Beam.

The History of Phineus: The Color Of Magic

I like to use color to indicate a type of magic that is used. The colors equate to a school of magic. It’s an amalgamation of Matt Wagner’s Mage and lightsaber color from Star Wars.

Maynard and Grimm

The very first Maynard and Grimm story. Way before they showed up in the Phineus comics. Just two of my backwaters characters I decided to throw together in a comic.

The Thing in the Basement

This was the first story I did for Teen Wizard when I had launched it on it’s own site. It’s based on the Phineus issues characters from “Zombie Rat Uprising”.

Family Secrets

A good recap of most of the comics up til this point.

Buried History

Sara and the San Diego Goat Sucker Incident

My Mummy Loves Me

Imp

This is the first color Phineus story. I did it initially as bonus content when I was signed with Wevolt. Ah, Wevolt. It had such great potential, then got bought up by Wowio and Platinum studios. My life as a contract webcomic artist was short lived as it all burned to the ground.

Phineus and the Really Big Head

The Contessa first sketch

This is serious old school. Like drew it in middle school in 1985. Got detention because it was stolen and ended up in the hands of my Algebra teacher, old school.

She is the product of watching Tobe Hooper’s “Life Force” at age 15. She is still an active character in my comics, as well. She’s my second oldest , current character next to Howie, who was created a few years earlier.

I was digging through gaming stuff and came up on this. Thought it was loooong gone.

Cheers.

Phin and Sara 1988

A very early pic of Phin and Sara from a high school sketchbook. Phin was still the extra-dimentional hero, Sara the damsel in distress. Way too Highlander meets Mage, at this point.

This picture is SO 80’s I can smell hairspray. It was the start of piecing the characters I’d doodled into a fleshed out story. It was still a ways off til I found our Phineus, though.

I kept starting different stories until in 1991 during a comic drawing class, I forced myself to take, just so I could get this book started.

Cthulhu Cult Magus

Cthulhu Cult Background

Cthulhu Cult Bio

These guys are a cross between Cthulhu Star Children, genestealers and Mind Flayers. They’re fun.

Vermathrax Bio

I love this bad guy. He will be back, again. I love drawing dragons!

Nyarlathotep Bio

Ro Beam Bio

Ro Bio

Cole Beam Bio

Cole Bio

My Mummy Loves Me Color test

This was a color test for Phineus comics. I had avoided colors for a long while, mainly because I didn’t know how to do it. I even had half of “Ruins of a Moonlit Landscape” colored (poorly) up on the old Strumhaus site way back when. I really didn’t learn how to correctly color (I.E. using layers) until I did a few covers and colored all of Weirdlings. I believe I used this page as a test for Phineus. This story is an old favorite of mine. You can read it here: https://phinmagicstudio.wordpress.com/classic-phineus-archive/my-mummy-loves-me/

Agnes Beam

Here’s one that never got off the ground. Agnes Beam, Phineus’ great, great aunt, doing Victorian things in 1880’s Pittsburgh. Glenn Csonka even started work on a story. I may end up doing a time travel crossover with Agnes and Cole, eventually.

Josephat Rotwang

Here is Rotwang in all his glory. This is also me, at 20, in a bald cap in the basement of the house I was living in at the time. My buddy and photography major, John Burris took the pics. I added in the effects by superimposing an areosol spray, lit with a match. The magic of the darkroom!

I did a series of these and made up spell descriptions and how to cast them and made up a bound book! It was fun. If I can find the book, I may scan it and post it. Big if.

Phineus Boy Wizard Sketch

This was an initial sketch idea of Phineus for a solo strip I had planned to do, over 12 years ago. Never go very far into planning, but as you see he has the magic whiffle bat in the new comic, that I promise to get back to really soon!

Phin and Sara 1994 Promo

Here’s a promo I used for conventions and pin ups in the printed books. It was a time I was trying to emulate 90’s comics, at the recommendation of Don Simpson, giving them sort of uniforms. It didn’t stick, thankfully, but here you go.

Unused Cover art

This was going to be Issue 2 cover art, I believe, when Issue 2 was going to be Goblins. I scrapped that idea for years, when I rebooted with “Largo”, after talking with then Editor-in -Chief of Marvel, Tom DeFalco. He instructed me to work ion my inks, and I ended up redoing the story. This one never saw print.