Sketchcard mini mini-comic 3 & 4

I did some more of these little guys. They’re fun. We’ll see how they sell. I like doing them, any way.

Upcoming Comics 2024

This month into April, I’ll be finishing up the year long commission story I’ve been working on, as well completing “Maynard and Grimm” and “Boy Wizards”. I just finished up “Barcrawl of the Damned”, recently, as well. All these projects dragged on far too long, due to my car accident and also dealing with my depression and anxiety. I apologize for that.

Once these loose ends are all tied up, I’ll be starting on 2 new projects, both collaborations with friends of mine.

The regular ongoing story will be “Queen of the Cold Night”, written by Brian Babyok and art by me. This will post MWF on the main site, starting in May.

The bonus story will be “The Midnight Isle/ isla de medianoche” a collaboration with Shawn Atkins and is a crossover of Phineus and his Explorers of the Unknown. He’s written a treatment, I’ll be drawing the story and Shawn will color and dialog. Updates will post jointly on both of our Patreons. This should also start in May.

So, that’s our plan. I want back to multiple pages a week, and regularity in making.

Wish me luck.

Old Art in the Wild

I was sent his pic of some old art someone of Facebook sent to me with questions of where they were used.

The black and white one was the line art for the first edition of The Complete Phineus Volume 1. The color one in the middle was going to be the cover for Issue #6, if I remember correctly ( I ended up using a Photo of myself from photo class as Rotwang).

The third one, I completely forgot about. I believe I did some color pics for when John Burris and I ran Backwaters RPG at gaming conventions. It was a blast from the past!

I still get freaked out by art I’d forgotten I’d drawn, even 30 years ago!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

The Complete Phineus Volume 2 second edition cover

After finishing up the bonus Phineus story, “The Lake Erie Horror “, I got the cover done for the next Trade Paperback. The Complete Phineus Volume 2 second edition will be up for sale at Amazon, soon. I have some design work to do before I send it off.

Once this goes up, I still have stories and new covers to do for Trades Complete Phineus 3, 4 & 5, and Maynard and Grimm.

All my books can be purchased at my Amazon store.

Barcrawl of the Damned 18

The priestess is in fact an elf. My elves are all from Atlantis, which now resides in the Hollow Earth.

Drawing Every Damn Day

Drawing every day isn’t always easy. Seems easy. Just draw. Stuff can get in the way. You’re tired. You’re busy. You’re sick. I get it.

I used to draw every day. For years. Decades, even. There a few years, back in the early 10s where I almost did 200 pages a year. I slowed down, as stuff happened.

My daughter was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease and we spent a lot of time in Children’s Hospital for a good 6 years. Still, I drew, if not every day, most days.

Then, the Car accident happened and I lost a lot of mobility and strength in both hands, most in my drawing hand. Months of physical therapy and I taught my hand to draw again. Since then, I’ve had fits and starts. I deal with pain and arthritis from the injury, and PTSD from the roll-over crash.

But, ironically, the best medicine, for my mental health is drawing. Without art, I become depressed, anxious and miserable. So, I fight through it. I fight through the pain, the doubt, the self loathing, the fear and the desperation, because I know art is my salvation.

I usually, these days, draw digitally. I miss the tactile feel of pen and pencil on paper, so I’m doing a lot more sketching and doing stories on paper to mix it up. Drawing is drawing.

Draw or die is a very real thing. Researchers discovered that people who engaged in artistic activities, such as painting, drawing and sculpting, in both middle and old age were 73% less likely to have memory and thinking problems, such as mild cognitive Impairment, that lead to dementia.

Right now I am in a stretch of about a month and a half of drawing every day. It feels so good!

I know I’ll go through bouts of doubt and art block. I’ll fight through it and draw.

Draw Together 3

On Tuesday, we had the 3rd Draw or Die Draw Together in Pittsburgh.

It was loads of fun and got to chat, draw and hang out with friends, new and old. Great fun, inspiring and very motivating!

Of you’re not already subscribed to Draw or Die, head over and do so for inspiration, drawing prompts and more from DJ Coffman!

https://drawordie.co/

New Stuff is On the Way

I’ve been working on new pages and fleshing out story ideas. A lot of my time, recently has been spent working on a commission story. This has been financially helpful, as well as a good kick in my creativity! I haven’t felt this good about art and art making since before the car accident that ruined my drawing thumb. I’m so excited!

The plan is to work on the commission AND my comic at the same time. Now that I’ve unstuck myself, should be doable!

I have been working out some kinks in the two current stories, buy sketching them out in my sketchbook. God, I missed sketchbooking. So, more of sketchbooking to come, as well. Helps me think out loud.

I should have a new page of “Barcrawl” out this week. Above are what I’ve been drawing in the last few days!

Phineus Animatic test

Did this a while back. Still want to animate a Phineus trailer at some point and actually use the animation part of my B.S. Degree.

Anniversary

Its a major anniversay! Now, I do celebrate two, there’s the one of the creation of my first issue (1991- we’re at 32 for that), but this is for the start of it all and the creation of Phineus and Sara, themselves. And the creation of my studio, Piffle Productions, my own personal studio moniker.

The characters were created my senior year of high school. Little did i know that these two would still be kicking around 36 years later. Ill be posting more sketches from my old sketchbooks and posting the original first takes on the characters in story form on my Patreon page.

I meant to be doing all this much earlier this year, but better late than never.

Holidaze

Work and the holidays have overwhelmed me, sorry for the lack of art. Been too busy to art! I hate that. Happy holidays and I’ll see you soon with new stuff! #100daysofcomics #drawordieclub

Main Site Fixed!

After a long, long week of my main site issues, my host escalated the problem and got it all fixed up. They ended up changing the url and screwing up my image links. All fixed, now.

Because of all this, i spent way too much time fixing what i could on this main site, but also preparing my backup WordPress site, just in case they couldn’t fix it.

Now, with that all out of the way, i can get back to drawing! Sorry for the delay!

Sites

Ok. They got most if the main site back up, still a few things to tweak, but this managed to take up the while weekend, so I didn’t get to draw. Stupid websites….

Last round of pencils going down…

New schedule!

So, the new schedule for the foreseeable future will be as follows:

New free comics go live every Monday around midnight. These comics are posted, along with progress shots, on my Patreon $1 tier, weeks in advance. The current storyline has 2 chapters to conclude, before “Barcrawl of the Damned” & “Boy Wizard” resume.

New Bonus stories are about to resume. These Appear on my Patreon $2 tier as I complete steps. When the full page is finished, it will be published here for Patrons to read, as well.

Hope this all makes sense. Please considering becoming a Patron, or as little as $1-$2 a month. It really means a lot to me, and you get all kinds of expanded or exclusive content. It’s a win-win.

Grandma Evelyn’s strip

Here’s an very weird, old strip I did for the tag team stream of consciousness webcomic, Gran’ma evelyn’s old-fashioned pudding treats wrestling theatre.

http://grabbagcomics.com/wrestling_theatre/wt_characters.htm

Update

So, my recovery is coming along. My hands are starting to heal, and the pain is manageable much of the time.

That said, I have three projects I am working on, right now. Phineus, Maynard and Grimm and Magician for Hire, so there’s not a lot of time for Teen Wizard, right now. That said, I do intend to get back to our story, do some exclusive stories for Patrons and move onward with it. In time. Thanks for all your patience and do check out all the other Phineus Universe comics I am working on!