Results of last week's poll: Which summer blockbuster are you most looking forward to?

The Dark Knight 42%

Indiana Jones IV 38%

Iron Man 15%

Speed Racer 5%

Hellboy II 0%

The Incredible Hulk 0%

I drew this a few days ago when Indiana Jones IV had a commanding lead, and planned on posting it with a terrible caption like "Indy gives Batman quite the whipping!" Let this be a lesson to all of us: never underestimate the Batman.

Chades Challenge X: Mossy Hellboy
"Eat fist, you swamp...THING!!"

The Challenge:
Chades Challenge homepage

Other Chades Challengers:
Josh Billings
Steve MacLeod (even though he says they're not ready, I say they're awesome!)
Leo Matsuda
Moro Rogers

Next week: more Hellboys! More moss!

Justin Wright (March 8, 1981-March 18, 2008)

This is the last post I would ever want to make. My best friend (seen above, first Jedi on the left) passed away this week. We went through school together at CalArts, graduated the same year and were hired together at Pixar the same month. Our birthdays are even one day apart. I take a great deal of comfort knowing that he lived an amazing life, accomplished all of his dreams, and had a very strong relationship with God. Justin was one of my favorite people to pitch ideas to. Any time I was working on a serious drawing, Justin is the one I'd show, and he was never afraid to let me know if the drawing really stank. But when he didn't like something, he always offered advice on how to make it better, ways it could be improved. I'm devastated at the notion of having adventures without my buddy, but I'm strengthened by the lessons he taught me and the almost disproportionate amount of laughter we shared. I can't wait to see him again, but until then...to infinity and beyond.

Justin Wright's blog: Charlie, A Deck Hand
Cartoon Brew's tribute
PUC's alumni page

Dear God. The machines have gained the trust of animals. It won't be long now before man's best friend turns against him in the war to come.


In other news, on-set shooting of Pam Walker's short film Trifles was wrapped this weekend. The REAL shooting, however, has just begun.


Photo by Mark Andrews

"We prefer the term FIRST PEOPLE!!!"

Next week, Chades Challenge X: mossy hellboy

It's been a busy week, so I don't have any unhappy totems for the chades challenge, but here's an unhappy fella from my sketchbook. I'll make the Chades post tomorrow along with the new challenge.

Art by Committee, Round 2
Time for round 2 of Art by Committee, a game where a passage from a science fiction manuscript is taken out of context and illustrated. This week's caption was: "I never understood why you were with him in the first place." More excellent submissions at the Gurney Journey.

RIP, Dave Stevens (July 25, 1955-March 10, 2008)

Comic artist and creator of the Rocketeer Dave Stevens passed away yesterday after a long battle with Leukemia. Stevens is my dad's favorite artist, and one of my earliest artistic influences. I think I've sketched scenes and poses from every single issue of Rocketeer, particularly those featuring Betty Page. His death is a real loss to the artistic community, and he will be greatly missed--especially by the Madisons. So long, Dave, and enjoy the skies!

Go, Spielberg, go.

E. Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, levelled up to the big dungeon in the sky last week, so I figured I'd post a monster drawing in his memory.
This is a design from a DnD campaign I'm running. Half of the fun of gaming for me is creating new creatures and cultures for the players to encounter. This guy is a oceanic cliff-dwelling marauder that rides five-foot wide voracious crab-steeds (hence the crab sketch on opposite page). If you need any monster/crab design inspiration, just google 'coconut crabs', they are glorious abominations of nature.

Addendum 3.10.08
Wired magazine came up with their own tribute to Gygax by having folks submit DnD-themed redesigns of their logo.