"Art of Brave" Book Signing and Talk at Gallery Nucleus This Saturday

This Saturday, June 23, Gallery Nucleus  is hosting an "Art of Brave" panel. Present, signing and speaking-and in the case of the two esteemed Pixar artists, showing-will be myself, story artist Emma Coats and visual development artist Paul Abadilla.

Nucleus, by the way, is a great space, and always has interesting art in its constantly changing exhibits and on sale in its store-often by animation artists exercising their creative urges outside of their day jobs. It's well worth a visit when in Southern California.

See you there!

Art of BRAVE Artist Panel & Book Signing

Opening Reception / Saturday, Jun 23 12:00PM - 3:00PM

Gallery Nucleus

210 East Main St, Alhambra CA 91801
Store 626.458.7482 Gallery 626.458.7477

Squid Pro Quo

Growing around my desk this past month is a stack of fine new books I've wanted to write about. One by one they arrived, were pored over, enjoyed...and then the struggle began to find the time to do them blog justice.

Time: there's the rub. As the days go by this colorful group has migrated around my workspace like Kipling's cannons: looming to the left of me, tipping to the right of me, but never sitting quite where I want them--square in the middle. That position is claimed by a Cintiq tablet. Lately I've found that between work and what time remains to home life the blogging wedge finds a very thin edge indeed.

Happily, though, reviewing is a pleasure I still enjoy when possible, and never so much as when writing about new work from talented people. In that spirit I take up the keyboard this week and mark those recent titles, beginning with the first picture book published by my friend David Derrick: Sid the Squid and the Search for the Perfect Job.





Dave has been storyboarding, blogging and sculpting constantly in the five years I've known him. He's one of the most energetic and intrepid artists I've ever seen in action, and he's smart enough to play to his interests when planning a project. When he grabs hold of a subject he goes all the way, and one of his fascinations is sea life. He studies it, photographs it, swims with it and best of all draws it(all these permutations visible on his website), so it's natural that his first stand-alone children's book became a sweet-natured fable about a giant squid. It's a charming, simply written story about an anthropomorphized cephalopod and the little girl who helps him find the best way he can be employed in and around the northern California bay area, winding up at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Droll adventures ensue.


In most picture books it's the 'how' rather than the 'what' that makes it notable. Like virtually all of us in story Dave has been working on a Cintiq for some time and decided it would be interesting to use it for book illustration. While digital, his technique retains a pleasing graphic quality and a neo-impressionistic use of Photoshop paint. As far as Sid himself is concerned, it can't be easy to elicit character from a creature with little more than eyes to act with, but he manages to makes Sid very appealing. My favorite illustration is one of the giant squid dejected after having bombed out of most of his job attempts, spilling over a park bench clutching his appendages to his "chest" like knees.

It may be playing a little fast and loose to offer a legendary predator of the deep as an earnest red-orange character putting out fires, washing windows, or rescuing real-life mortal enemies like whales, but conviction can get you places. Dave clearly believes in Sid and his story and he delivers him-and us-to its end safely and sweetly. Nice job.




A detail from the endpapers for "Sid the Squid". These deep-sea portraits are among my favorite drawings, and were done in ink. The illustrations proper were all drawn digitally, via Cintiq.

John Canemaker signs tonight at the Americana on Brand

I really don't want to remember today as the anniversary of Joe Ranft's death. I understand why many would, as I'm a person who's fascinated by history, the lives of people who've gone before us and marking their passages. I remember very well where and when I heard that Joe had been killed and what I felt at the time, though I didn't write about it here. Later I posted a memory of him that meant something to me. I understand this and I do it myself for people I'm interested in and have cared about, but I don't want to think about Joe dying that way, this year, on this anniversary.

This year there's a much more apropos reason to do a post mentioning Joe. John Canemaker has just published a beautiful book about him and the legendary, longtime-Disney artist and supervisor Joe Grant--a dual celebration and examination of two men whose lives, one way and another, contributed greatly to animation storytelling in films we love: Two Guys Named Joe: Master Animation Storytellers Joe Grant & Joe Ranft.

The book was released August 2nd, and that's the day my copy came from Amazon. I've been waiting for it as eagerly as any in a long time, and it's well worth the wait. I'll publish a thorough review later this week, but suffice to say it's another in the indispensable list of titles from John Canemaker. Anyone interested in, working in or who cares an atom about the art of animation can't afford to miss any book or article Canemaker signs his name to. How he manages to be a filmmaker himself while researching and teaching and writing as well as he does all those things is a mystery to me, but I'm certainly glad he does. We're all in his debt for the scholarship he's done.

The Los Angeles area is hosting John Canemaker for signings of Two Guys Named Joe: one tonight In Glendale and tomorrow at the Happiest Place On Earth. He is not only one of the most talented but one of the most generous and affable authors you'll ever meet, and I hope many of you get the chance--and get a book signed.

Barnes & Noble Tuesday, August 17, 7:00 pm
Glendale Americana
210 Americana Way, Glendale, CA

Disneyland Resort Wednesday, August 18, 9:00-11:00 am
Disney Gallery, Main Street USA
Anaheim, CA

Toby Shelton

Toby Shelton's cintiq sketch revisiting his design for the title character in the Disney series "Darkwing Duck" and his story panels from "How To Train Your Dragon" and "Princess and the Frog" from his blog. CLICK to enlarge.

In an industry full of talented people and myriad styles the work of story artist Toby Shelton remains unique.

His facility with line is something else--form, weight and gesture beautifully employed. The guy can draw. But to leave it at his technical skill would be missing more than half the picture. It's the sincere appeal of his characters, their acting and his cinematic staging that give his stuff its impact, as well as an intangible something that's just terrifically likeable. Recent credits of his include "Megamind", "Princess and the Frog" and "How To Train Your Dragon".

In another life (as he puts it in his blog's profile) Toby worked for Disney feature animation as an animator, and in 1985 was one of the first to work at Disney's new Television Animation division, where his superb designs for "Rescue Rangers" and "Darkwing Duck" became well known and were traded freely, even by artists who'd never met him. He's posted some of that original character design work on his blog. For the requirements of this era in television in particular, sheets like these leap off the quality meter.





Everywhere he's worked has benefited immensely from his skill, and the influence and inspiration he provides to other artists is palpable. He's a thoughtful artist and a generous one.

Toby Shelton: Stuff I Did--be sure to visit it often.



A Toby Shelton rough story panel from Disney's "Princess and the Frog"-borrowed from a post by the great Paul Briggs on Paul's blog.

Toby's exploratory sketch of Mama Odie from Princess and the Frog. His design remained through the story process and animation.

Torch Tiger tales

Cover painting by Paul Felix

Last year the story department at Walt Disney Feature Animation put together an amazing book, "Who Is Rocket Johnson?" just in time for the San Diego Comic Con. It sold out in very short order, and remains a bright gem of a compilation. Utterly unique and as representative of the talents at work at Disney as anything could be. One should never miss the chance to see--and own--the personal work of men and women like this-mostly story, a couple of directors and animators in there too-who are at the top of their game.

No sooner had he pulled the first copies of Rocket Johnson out of the box than the chief instigator of the project, Paul Briggs, laid plans for this year's book: "What Is Torch Tiger?"

Well, the books have arrived and as was done last year, Briggs and the gang are kicking off its official debut with an Ebay auction for a special copy of this beautiful book-signed by all the participating artists, as follows:

Steve Anderson
Aaron Blaise
Paul Briggs
Kevin Deters
Rob Edwards
Mike Gabriel
Nathan Greno
Don Hall
Byron Howard
Trevor Jimenez
Mark Kennedy
Joe Mateo
Nicole Mitchell
John Musker
Jeff Ranjo
Aurian Redson
Jeremy Spears
Lissa Treiman
Josie Trinidad
Chris Ure
Mark Walton
Dean Wellins
Stevie Wermers
Chris Williams

And as if that lineup isn't enough, there are also some pin-ups by:

Andreas Deja
Andy Harkness
Jeff Turley
Jin Kim
Shiyoon Kim

Remember, all these artists have signed the special copy now on auction at Ebay. The actual book itself doesn't otherwise go on sale until Comic Con opens next week, so if you can't make it to the Con and would like to both snag a lovely, brilliantly produced book and have every penny of your bid go to a worthy charity--the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, click on this link and give it a go. I did last year--and was outbid. Well, try, try again. You won't be sorry and you can write off your winning bid, both feeling good and having something rare and good to read at hand.

Torch Tiger Signed edition plus extra goodies Ebay Auction

I haven't seen all the stories, but since I did see this one and I can't help embarrassing him I want to add that it'd be worth it for Jeremy Spears' story alone. He did a wonderfully atmospheric tale with appealing characters and fantastic staging, completely lovable.
Now multiply that times 30 and that's Torch Tiger. They've each put their hearts and souls into their own versions of the theme and always, of course, had to navigate their day jobs at the same time, with the redoubtable Briggs cracking the whip and wrangling the printers on top of everything else. What's that bit that Bud Plant always adds? "Highest Recommendation"

Comic Con 2008 wrap up

this year's haul

Well.

It was two years ago that I first blogged about my San Diego Comic Con experiences. I've just reread that old post. It's odd how quickly the time's passed, and how much has changed since then. I'd been writing The Blackwing Diaries for nine months in July of 2006, along the way reaquainting myself with some old friends as well as meeting new ones via comments and cross-postings. It was when the bunch of us doing story on a certain project decided to pool resources and do a single book together in time for the 07 Con.

Two years later:

"Scrambled Ink" creators Ennio Torresan, Dave Pimentel, JJ Villard, Ken Morrissey and me

This year all of us(with the exception of Keith Baxter away in Canada, and David Derrick-on safari in Africa)came together to sign our books at the Dark Horse booth. The Con was the "official" debut of the book and the first time we'd seen it on a retail shelf(I was relieved to see that Amazon too finally has it listed for sale after eternally showing a "pre-order" listing. One thing, though: Amazon mistakenly has the book listed as paperback-that's wrong. It's only been published in hardcover).

I've never done an event like the signing thing before. Very surreal to see a little line of people with books in hand for us to draw in. Dark Horse unfortunately ran out of books to sell midway through our time slot, but we carried on signing and drawing on some cover flyers. Best of all was meeting and chatting with the people who came up to the table.

Actually, finally in print and for sale

It's easy for me to forget that anyone reads this blog--especially when I've let so much time pass without posting as I was wont to do a year ago; to have people tell me they read and enjoy it is more gratifying than I can express.
The time passed in a blip, and we had to make way for Mike Mignola--Mignola! of course I had to shake his hand and tell him how much I admire his work. I think Scott Morse introduced me to Hellboy back in Turner development days--and speaking of Scott--I made a beeline to his Red Window booth, shared with another old friend, Jeff Pidgeon and Bill Presing, with the work of Don Shank, Lou Romano, Emma Coats and a few others also on display and for sale. Emma's done a wonderful sketchbook, Bill has topped himself with the beautiful binding of his bookplate art, "Bookplate Betties", and Jeff had fun new Happy Beaver merchandise--I picked up a watch and tshirt. Ditto Bill's and Emma's books, an 11x17 original by Don of his Kurt character, and not least an assortment of the riches Scott provides every year. This guy keeps busy! How he has time for a life I can't say, but I imagine that it must be a case of each passion fueling the other--work and life.

One of the big debuts this year was undoubtedly the "Who Is Rocket Johnson" booth

These gentlemen and a host of their colleagues did a beautiful job. Next year: "What Is Torch Tiger?" Paul Briggs (the guy in the hat) was a powerhouse for shepherding the project to fruition. A free button to whoever can name the others present here(just kidding).

Every year more artists who work in animation are publishing. For many of us the Comic-con has become a one stop shopping mecca where we drop in on Stuart Ng's booth and those of the individual artists to pick up the riches. There were so many that next year I've got to do two days just to make sure I can visit them all--I missed E-Ville press, JJ's booth and too many others due to a lack of time and the plain old difficulty of hacking and pushing my way across the endless convention floor one more time.
For all its unwieldy size, San Diego is really a must if you care about animation art and the people who produce it. They're not all there, but plenty of them are and it's a rare treat to get their work straight from the source.

Con Again

I've been out of commission the last few days but this week is-finally-the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. I can't remember everyone, so forgive me as this is done on the fly, but off the top of my head here are some booths and people you've got to visit if you don't know them already. Since you're reading this blog, you probably do. But nevertheless a good cast bears repeating, as Universal(or was it RKO?)used to say at the end of their films when they ran the credits.
So here are:

Conduct Happiness: Joe Moshier and Chris Sonnenburg

Red Window: Scott Morse, Don Shank(absent in the flesh, but art will be there!), Lou Romano, Bill Presing and Jeff Pidgeon, Booth 4800.

"Who Is Rocket Johnson?"-the epic book with an incredible array of talent inside--and on--the covers. Front cover: Paul Felix. Back cover: Glen Keane. About 24 guys in between. Think you'll be visiting them? Yeah, I thought so. They're at booth 2302.

Chris Sanders will be there again, I believe.

Red Tango is run and designed by an old friend of mine, Cynthia Petrovic. She's a huge Fred Moore fan too. Booth 4201.

Donnachada Daly is a super talented animator from Eire who's at Dreamworks; he'll have his new book at booth B8 of the exhibitor tables.
Incidentally Donnachada(pronounced "Dannika")is also represented in the niftiest art show/auction in a long while, the Totoro Forest Project, which you all must go read, drool and dream about right now.

E-Ville Press manned by Ted Mathot and Derek Thompson from Up North, will have things you won't want to leave without. Booth 1534

Dan Goodsell, he of the inimitable Mr. Toast and an amazing amasser of the most fun stuff ever, will be at booth 4831.

Of course this is far from a complete listing; the above are mostly friends and people whose whereabouts are immediately known to me so I can post their booth locations. I've left out some obvious stops like the great Stuart Ng, Bud Plant, Super 7, Fleet Street Scandal, and Graphic Collectibles...but it's late, so before Hulk smash! and Jenny crash! I'll put this post to bed.

artwork copyright Dan Goodsell 2008
Have fun!

Our Comic Con book signing: Friday 7/25 1-2pm, Dark Horse booth(you can't miss it)

Here's a detail taken off the Dark Horse website:

FRIDAY, JULY 25:

11:00 - 12:00 Matt Wagner: Grendel

11:00 - 12:00 Mike Kennedy: Aliens Vs. Predator

12:00 - 1:00 Jim Hardison: The Helm

12:00 - 1:30 Yoshitaka Amano: Vampire Hunter D; Shinjuku (*ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)

1:00 - 2:00 Scrambled Ink: Dreamworks Animators - Ken Morrissey, JJ Villard, Ennio Torresan, David Pimental, Jenny Lerew

2:00 - 3:00 Mike Mignola: Hellboy
(*ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)

3:00 - 4:30 Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day
(*ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)

5:00 - 6:00 Yasuhiro Nightow: Trigun (*ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)

6:00 - 7:00 David Lloyd: Kickback

David Derrick blogs about drawing from life and plein air sculpting

Story artist Dave Derrick is a guy who inspires me with his talent, energy and determination to constantly seek out and accomplish new things. He's just put up a blog which can be visited here.


I have an especially soft spot for the sort of animal drawing he's adept at. He draws constantly from life, but to my eye his animals always have an extra personality and charm that's probably equal parts what's there--and what's inside the artist himself.

In his brand-new blog he's going to post examples of his studies and the ways he uses them-most recently in sculpting. He's definitely someone to watch and learn from (he's one of the artists included in "Scrambled Ink" as well-that work is pictured in my earlier post). Pay him a call.


all artwork courtesy of David Derrick, from his blog

"Scrambled Ink" starts to spill

The other day an advance copy of Scrambled Ink-the book that I and six of my friends had collaborated on-arrived in my mailbox. It's a weird feeling, to be able to finally hold an actual book. In hardcover, 180 pages and with a gracious foreword by Mike Richardson(owner/publisher of Dark Horse), it's slated to be on shelves in bookstores everywhere in July as well as, of course, online.
Dark Horse did a beautiful job-they're really a class outfit. Diana Schutz(our editor), Dave Marshall and Tina Alessi all went above and beyond with its production.

I'm very proud of my friends who managed to produce beautiful extracurricular work while busy variously animating, doing story and visdev. We're all very different from one another and our stories reflect it, but when I flip through the book I see the personalities of these guys I've come to know and love on the page, and the stories seem to me to go together in much the same congenial way we did sitting under the olive trees at work eating lunch, chatting cross-legged on the floor of one another's offices, crammed into an Amtrak booth bound for San Diego or leaning furiously over the foosball tables. Good times.
I hope it finds readers who enjoy reading it anywhere near as much as we did doing it.


There's plenty more where this came from, but here's a sampling of what's inside the covers:

a page from "Burger Run" by Dave Pimentel

Ken Morrissey's illustration from "Greedy Grizzly"; he wrote and illustrated it, with an assist on the prose from Keith Baxter

a glimpse of J.J. Villard's work

Dave Derrick's is a story set in Africa

Ennio Torresan's roman a clef, highly autobiographical

...and me(plus my inspiration on my mousepad there):



The table of contents; click to enlarge
When the book's more readily available we're probably going to do a couple of shindigs with it(the fun part of publishing!), which I'll post about here as they're scheduled.
Certainly most of us will be lurking in San Diego the week of the Con. Hope to see you there!