C.O.W.L. variant cover art

I will be a part of an exciting book release and signing this coming week end in the southern suburbs of Chicago at Amazing Fantasy Books and Comics. I was asked to create a variant cover for C.O.W.L. #1 by Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel, and Rod Reis from Image Comics and Kyle, Alec, and I will be signing at all four AF stores. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway - I'm beside myself to be a small part of the release of this new series. Especially, because I would have been buying it anyway. The first issue is awesome and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. The Amazing Fantasy variant is limited and available only at the AF stores and site.
Come out and pick up a few copies for yourself:

Amazing Fantasy Books and Comics

Saturday, May 31, Frankfort: Noon - 3 pm, 

and Tinley Park: 5 pm - 7pm.

Sunday, June 1, Lockport: 11am - 1pm, 

and Crown Point, IN: 3pm - 5pm.

Merry Christmas!

Warmest wishes for the holidays. Thank you for visiting my blog and your interest in my artwork. I am grateful to all who have commissioned artwork, purchased a print, my sketchbooks or have sent a message saying how much they enjoy my paintings during the past year. I am proud to present a recent painting of mine that was commissioned for the promotional calendar for the Joffrey Ballet's 25th Anniversary production of The Nutcracker, published by Munro Campagna Artist Representatives in Chicago. My painting of the Joffrey's principal dancers can be found gracing the month of September 2013.

From New Album 1/21/08 10:23 PM

The Howard Wolowitz Wall of Fame

Hey! Can you spot my Stella 7 painting gracing the wall in Wolowitz's bedroom? As a fan of the hit television Big Bang Theory, my family and I were thrilled to learn that there was a poster of her nicely displayed among Howard's Space Girl bedroom decor. There's a lot of really great artwork hanging on all of the sets. So, I am incredibly flattered that someone thought to include a poster that was promoting the comic book Space Doubles from Third World Studios a few years back. The painting was originally commissioned for the Chicago Fantastic Film Festival commemorative poster, featured in a Spectrum art annual and then as the cover for my first Sketchbook. But as my friend Steve Boyd commented: "You know you've made it big when your artwork makes the hallowed Walls of Howard Wolowitz." Thanks to Eric LeFaber for telling me about it before I saw it for myself.

Sketchbook: Entry 2

This art deco inspired cityscape was originally imagined for my calendar illustration of Buck Rogers for The Adler Planetarium and Space Museum in Chicago. I used art deco elements and incorporated them into buildings from old 1930’s – 1940’s photographs and the film, Just Imagine. After working on the study I soon realized that it wasn’t going to work in the futuristic video monitor. The shape wasn’t fitting into the video screen as I had intended (partly because I decided to change the monitor’s shape into a much more “retro-futuristic” design). But, the buildings just weren’t foreboding enough either. So, I filed it away and resurrected it later on into a personal and experimental painting of Batman and named it Gotham City.



The illustration of Buck Rogers was imagined for the Adler’s 2001 calendar. When the project was presented to me, my subject for the given month was “Haley’s Comet”. I soon developed a sketch that represented my thoughts of the museum that I remembered from visiting many times as a young boy. The memories of my visits always filled my super charged imagination with epic space travel, planetary tales, stars and sci-fi heroes. This is what I wanted to illustrate and now I had my concept in mind. I placed my space hero from yesteryear in front of a video monitor (from the film Things To Come), alarmed by the foreboding meteor and ready for adventure with his dome helmet and raygun in his holster. I incorporated my admiration of pulp art and vintage sci-fi into the Haley’s Comet theme. And even more suiting was the tie-in with the Buck Rogers character frozen and awaken some 500 years later into the future world of New Chicago. I thought it was a very well rounded piece for a Chicago institution. The finished illustration was later accepted into the pages of Spectrum 8: The Best In Contemporary Fantastic Art and then re-used as a promotional poster and advertising for CF3: The Chicago Fantastic Film Festival.