You could be Heroes…

…just with one eBay purchase!

It’s–time to support Hero Initiative in their latest round of auctions. As always, the Hero Initiative is a wonderful project all comic fans and creators should support. When comics creators find themselves in dire straits through health issues or other problems, Hero Initiative is there to figure out a way to  best help the creator. In order to do so though, Hero Initiative needs money. To this end they run many auctions throughout the year and ask comics creators to contribute their artwork.

The latest round of auctions is for Hero Initiative X-Men 100 Project. The auctions have been going on for a while, but this time–my cover is on the list! I have so thoughtfully decided to give you the moment you should have had in the latest X-Men movie but did not get–Future Beast and Past Beast beasting all over each other!

Click the image to be taken to the auction link and for your chance to bid:

T

Ty the Guy OUT!!

 

Waking Up and Drawing

Too busy for anything but WorkWorkWork but I wanted to show off what I did for WAKE UP AND DRAW. So I’m going to write this Hemingway style.

Last week for WAKE UP AND DRAW, I woke up and drew. On the wrong sheet of paper.

Here’s my drawing:

Then I drew again on the official Hero Initiative page.

Here’s my drawing:

I was at FanExpo 2013 two weeks ago and gave a lecture on HOW TO PLOT YOUR STORY IN AN HOUR. Matt, of The Broken Couch, recorded it and put it up on YouTube.

Here’s a link to the video:

My WRITING FOR COMICS PART ONE workshop starts next week (I think there’s one space left, so let us know asap if you want it!). Click HERE to read about the class and the other two I will be teaching this fall, DRAWING THE HUMAN FIGURE FROM YOUR HEAD, and COMIC BOOK BOOTCAMP PART ONE.

Today’s Bonus Hemingway Moment:

 

It’s from artist Tom Gauld, but I couldn’t find a link to it on his own site so go check out his Tumblr  YOU’RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK.*

The Walking Dead 100 Project

Hero Initiative has been blasting through it’s collection of one hundred sketch covers of THE WALKING DEAD. The cover I did for them is up for auction this week. Click through, take a look, bid if you can…and check out some of the other covers up this week.

When the auction is finished, there will be a limited edition hardcover book gathering up all one hundred copies–if you don’t win an online auction, consider buying one and helping to support a good and worthwhile organisation. And, as always, you can donate at any time on their homepage, by using PayPal or a credit card. All donations are helpful and welcome.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Shameless Plug Returns!

Look how shameless he is! With the raised hem on those SHORTS?!?

I didn’t get to where I am in the fast moving world of celebrity (with the starlets, the free flowing booze and constant gifts of semi-precious stones) by being a wallflower.  So today I shake my tail feather for a couple of projects that you might not have known I’ve been doing lately.

SKINNY STEVE ROGERS!

First up, is a comic I co-drew for Marvel Comics as a give-away at Kiehl’s Drug Stores in the US, Captain America:  Transformation and Triumph.  I did the flashback sequences in the 40s featuring Skinny Steve – and even got to draw an iconic “transformation sequence” into the super-soldier (who says ya can’t have fun at yer job?), with lots of reference to show how Kiehl’s at 3rd Avenue and 13th Street in New York used to look.

Back in the war, the world was sepia toned. My parents told me.

The script was written by William Harms, with the lion’s share of the art by Angel Unzueta who drew the pages that take place in the 21st Century with modern Cap. Check the USA Today article for details on how you can get a copy. We don’t have any Kiehl’s up here in Canada-land so I’m hoping someone snags me a copy or two and sends them to me!  (That’s a blunt hint, there…)

QUANTUM AND WOODY!

The World’s Worst Super-Hero Team Returns, and ye humble bunny gets to play in the sandbox!  YAY!

For anyone who’s wandered into a comic store in the last few months who has an OUNCE of taste, you may have noticed the return of the best of the old Valiant Universe to the stands.  Well, with the best, must obviously come “the worst”, so the first issue of the all new Quantum and Woody, written by James Asmus and drawn by my buddy Tom Fowler, comes out in July (1oth?), but until then, Valiant Comics and IGN are posting weekly webcomics for the next six weeks featuring the team that’s NOT a couple!  I drew ’em and co-coloured ’em with the missus, James Asmus’ wrote ’em and the internet brings them to you.

Click through to be taken to the original link, and check back each week for the next five installments.

HERO INITIATIVE

WALKING DEAD SKETCH COVER

My latest cover for Hero Initiative charity organization was done as part of The Walking Dead 100 Project. One hundred sketchcovers will be going up for auction over the next few weeks. Check out the link to see all the covers, and keep an eye on the Hero Initiative site as to when they put new covers up for auction (I think they do ten at a time).*

I was in the middle of drawing a fun little Walking Dead spoof for Mad Magazine when I drew this, so there’s a “Mad Mag” flavour to the art.  Just so long as there’s SOME kind of flavour, those Zombies look hungry.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN!

Okay.  This is cheating.  You guys already knew about these, because I plug them all the time, but this is the one that’s on sale coming up!

A cover I’ve always wanted to do…just the punching and leaping, and lots of it!

I didn’t draw the insides (yes, I know, people are up in arms about this all over my neighbourhood), but I still get to play on the covers, and the interiors are really quite well done versions of the episodes.  Well worth picking up for Spider-Man fans.

A friend of mine told me he thought this cover looked like pajamas.  Wait…is that a bad thing?

HUGELY COOL NEW PROJECT

FOR DC

I’m CURRENTLY drawing ___________________________

(information redacted by the publisher)

which is probably the MOST FUN I’ve had drawing a comic in years.

Not kidding.

I’ll let you know when I can let you know what it is.

Ty the Guy

And now, a BONUS PLUG moment.

It’s meant for British Lads, so it’s automatically funny.

 

 

Woke up and Drew for the King and for HERO

Jack Kirby, controlling the universe with a pencil.

Back on August 28 (Kirby’s Birthday, and inter-galactic holiday) the fine and dandy folks at Hero Initiative worked with Kirby’s family to make the day about raising money to support comics creators in need. Hero asked artists to “wake up and draw” something to do with Jolly Jack, as a birthday card to the King, and as a piece of quickie artwork that can be auctioned off to raise funds for those creators who need Hero Initiative’s help.

I love to throw my two cents into Hero Initiative whenever I can–and when I heard about the campaign, I jumped in with a Kirby drawing of my own.

Here’s my woke-up-and-drew sketch of Bashful Ben sucking back on his beloved cheroot…’cause if you’re paying tribute to Jack, it should at least smell like Cuba’s on fire.

click here to be taken to the auction

The blurry-eyed morning doodle is up for auction on Comicartfans. There are lots and lots of other sketches by lots of wonderful generous creators who rolled out of bed and drew before they’d even properly woken up! Check ’em all out! The bidding ends on Wednesday October 16. Give money to Hero Inititiave and take home a piece of art drawn by one of us in our underwear before our morning coffee.

Ty the Guy OUT!

And here’s your BONUS Kirby Sketch Moment:

The rarely seen Jack Kirby sketch of what Doctor Doom REALLY looked like under the mask. Stan had other ideas, but Jack believed it was a really teeny scar.

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This week’s award-wishing BUN TOONS featured Mr. Kirby, and some flash in the pan painter from Europe. Click here to read it.

The Continuing Adventures of Bun Toons! YAY!

Look at that cute rabbit...who couldn't love a cute rabbit?

It’s been a bit of a week around here.  Traffic picked up just a tad.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your Comic Book Bunny surrounded by enemies on all sides Bonus!

Who better? My Bunny Hero!

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Click here to read last week's bun toon. But let's be honest. You already read it.

Click here to read every Bun Toon ever. That would be nice.

TO HELP OUT GARY FRIEDRICH:

Steve Niles has a donation page up on his website, DONATE TO GARY FRIEDRICH

Neal Adams has asked pros to donate artwork for an auction to benefit Gary:  A LETTER FROM NEAL ADAMS

And, as always, The Hero Initiative is always in there fighting the good fight to help out comic book creators in need. (Jim McLaughlin explained what’s being done to help in an interview on SCOOP:  Hero Initiative Helping Gary Friedrich).

 

I’m breaking a rule and mentioning Rob Granito, but it’s for a good cause.

A few months ago, I swore I’d never mention Granito’s name in public again, mostly as a favor to his wife, who got caught up in the mess against her will, and got vilified by fandom when she didn’t deserve it.  I was a part of that, and have personally apologized to her, because the Bunny is nothing if not willing to admit when he’s wrong.  Also:  Not mentioning Rob helped make him go away.

But today, there’s a good reason to mention the “He Who Is Nameless”, and it’s all for the HERO INITIATIVE.

At a convention a few months back, I was presented with a Granito Hockey Jersey as a gift by Kevin Boyd-convention organizer and all around good guy.  The thought was that I could do what I wanted with it, perhaps as some sort of catharsis or something, as Kevin didn’t want it any more.  My first idea was to put it in a toilet and let convention-goers pee on it for five bucks each and give the money to HERO, but that would have excluded women from participating in the fun, as I wasn’t going to fish it out of one toilet and transport it to another.

But a much better idea was offered up (I think it was my wife’s idea, or Ethan Van Sciver’s, and she’ll correct me if I’m wrong)…”why not let all the guests at this convention do sketches on the shirt, and have them, in true Granito fashion, sign EACH OTHER’S WORK?” and then auction it off on ebay.

Richard Pace. Writer and/or artist for Pitt Crew, New Warriors, and other stuff, sketches on the back and signs on the front. I signed his sketch.

So…the list of illustrations, and signings of work we didn’t do goes as follows…

Scarlet Witch by Khoi Pham (signed by Chris Sprouse)
Hulk by Ethan van Sciver (signed by Khoi Pham)
Wonder Woman by Agnes Garbowska (signed by Leonard Kirk)
Evil Ernie by Dale Keown (signed by Richard Pace)
Spider-Man by Ty Templeton (signed by Agnes Garbowska
Sandman by Richard Pace (signed by Ty Templeton)
Gorilla-Man by Leonard Kirk (signed by Ethan van Sciver)
Tom Strong by Chris Sprouse (signed by Dale Keown)
…and a hearty “Sit the @#?!!@ down!” by Ethan van Sciver (this one properly attributed!)

Ethan (Sit the #$@)(#@ down) Van Sciver does his part for charity.

The shirt was donated to HERO, and the ebay auction started up today.  There’s no better souvenir of the whole meshuga  than this shirt, and you get some pretty cool artists’ work to boot.

Even mine.

Remember, HERO is the organization that aids aging comic book creators in need.  This group helps with medical expenses for the people that made our childhood dreams come true,  and it’s one of my favorite charities, and should be yours.

Pull together and give back to the biz that gave so much to us, toss in a bid, and maybe win one of the more interesting collectibles you’ll ever find.

Ty the Guy OUT!

If you haven’t figured out the links yet…the auction is HERE.

Here now, your BONUS HERO INITIATIVE MOMENT

This hardcover collection (one of ten copies for sale of only five hundred printed) is ALSO on auction for HERO at ebay.  This collection is probably the best set of covers ever done for Hero, and well worth having.  Ignore that I’m here, you HAVE to see the Steve Epting cover, the John Byrne cover, and so many others…

Unseen Spider-Man, and my LARGEST DRAWING EVER!!

A free sketch from a convention a few months back.

I’ve been a bad blogger this week, and haven’t posted anything since last  weekend.  It’s because I’ve been too busy MAKING comics to spend any time yakking about them for the last few days.  Finishing up my little Great Lakes Avengers  short story for an upcoming special and putting the final production together for the Holmes Inc. comic #2 (that went to the printers yesterday, and took WAY more time to get camera ready than anyone expected – follow this link to download #1 for free!) and starting my new semester of teaching at the Cartoonists Workshop, has taking me away from saying hello.  (Plus some secret Hoverboy stuff that will someday be revealed).

BUT, I came across a few unseen Spider-Man things while cleaning up the studio this week, and I got the itch to share ’em.

First up:  Some unseen Spider-Man Unlimited stuff!  YIKES!

This was promotional material from that not-well-remembered SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED animated series from a decade ago.  This was supposed to be a Wizard cover, but even Wizard couldn’t promote that series with a straight face and the art was shrunk down and used at postage stamp size on an interior page instead of the cover.

I still have the rejected cover sketches, and rather like one or two of the other ones.

I find it interesting that the 4th cover looks very much like the composition I used years later for my HERO 100 Spider-Man entry.

It’s not the same drawing, but the idea of crawling onto the ground from a wall is the same.  I probably did it subconsciously…

Here’s something else kind of cool I found when cleaning up a bit of the studio.  (If you wonder why I’m always “cleaning up” and finding things…I’m a hoarder, and my studio spaces are giant piles of photos, paper and mess).  It’s the largest piece of artwork I’ve ever been a part of…THREE STORIES HIGH!

The 10 year old boy making a face in front of the billboard is my son Kellam, who is now taller than I am.    There were a few of these giant billboards in different cities in Canada at the turn of the century, with only two in my town of Toronto.  Oddly enough, the building this one was attached to was literally next door to the building my studio was in, at the time, though  I couldn’t see it from my window as it was on the other side.   The Spider-Man figure was made of eight huge pieces of plastic, and I very much wanted to see if YTV was willing to let me have them after the promotion was finished, but my wife talked me out of it, saying “They’d end up in our garage taking up space for no reason.”

The art is grabbed from a much more crowded piece of art, originally done for a TV guide spot ad:

Over the years I’ve been in this biz, I’ve done far more Batman, Justice League, Avengers that Spider-Man, but because of that billboard, Spider-Man was always the BIGGEST project I ever worked on!

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your BONUS Spider-Man moment…a little one page story I did with Dan Slott last year:

I always like the colours for this story, one of four one-pagers Dan and I did for the mini-series, AGE OF HEROES

Roy Thomas and the Avengers raise money for Hero Initiative! YAY!

I’ve mentioned this a few times in the last weeks…Roy Thomas penciled a cover for an issue of Avengers, and I got to ink it, and we auctioned off the artwork to raise money for THE HERO INITIATIVE, a very worthy cause.

…and as the auction ended, the cover raised $635 for retired cartoonists with medical bills and no way to pay ’em (which is a big part of what HERO does).   What a lovely way to end the alarmingly busy, but pleasant month of May.  Tra la!

There’s plenty of covers left to auction off from this AVENGERS 100 set…here’s a few on the block right now!

The always lovely and talented TERRY DODSON

Click on the image to be taken to the auction

and the lovely and very Canadian Stuart Immonen.

Click on the image to be taken to the auction

It’s always a great cause, and some of these Avengers covers are the best sketches I’ve ever seen….(see below)

Ty the Guy

Here now, your BONUS Hero Avengers cover moment:

Click on the image and be taken to Steve Epting's Sketchblog!

Isn’t THAT pretty?

Oh, we could be Heroes…Just for one bid.

Well, that opening David Bowie pun gives away my age, doesn’t it? (For you youngsters in the crowd, David Bowie was in a band called Tin Machine, go ask your mom.)

Now this:

A couple of weeks back, I was showing off a delightful gig I’d gotten, where I got to ink a cover for the Hero Initiative Avengers 100 project, inking over pencils by….ROY THOMAS.

Roy Thomas?

Yes, Roy Thomas.  The legendary Marvel editor, Conan writer, Avengers creator, and perpetual fanboy penciled his first ever Marvel cover for this project and I got to ink it, and it’s finally up for auction on eBay HERE.

Go bid on the cover, please and thank you.  The proceeds go to help out comic creators in desperate time, such as Gene Colan, Russ Heath and other living legends who need a hero in their lives when they run into disastrous health problems and  medical bills.

Forget about my participation, you could be the first fan on Earth to have an original Roy Thomas Avengers cover.  Talk about unique!  Rare!  One-of-a-kind!  Other synonyms for singular objects!

Ty the Guy OUT!

Click on the image to be taken to the eBay auction page, and throw your money onto a good cause.