On the other hand, here's Wolverine with his Mickey nose. Humm... I wonder how Wolverine feel's about that. Click on image to read what Wolverine's saying...
Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, Mulan, Jasmine, Belle and the rest of the princesses better run!!!
I have a bunch more that I need to get to. Thankfully, the people who commission me are nicely patient and lets me take my time. The pin-up above is dated 2005. Doesn't mean it took me four years to finish it. The art collector had it since and decided to have me ink it later. I could have dated it "2009" under my name. But that would look funky. Funny thing about the way I sign my name on pin-ups and covers. 
It never looks the same, nor is it fancy or memorable. It's not really even a signature at all. I just print each letter of my name out by hand in capitol letters. I don't even write it on a straight line, it's messy and wobbly. I spend all the time doing the inking making the artwork look nice, but when it comes time to putting my name, I'm just "whatever" with it. It's really just a scribble.
I posted about Superman: Red Son earlier in my blog. This was exciting for me to see because I did a lot of inking on that book. It's nice to know retailers are pumping this. Looking forward to seeing the final product when it's released on November 11th.
He's the guy who started it all with the Star Trek hand gesture/sign language/gang sign which I'm sure every body's seen...
Here's a couple of the inked pages I worked on. Page 20 with the whole team.
And page 21 with Vixen chatting it up.
Every now and then, I'll get a FedEx package that's a little man-handled and the pages inside won't be harmed. After all, the FedEx box itself is much more thicker then a flat piece of art board. But THIS FedEx package was more extreme. Once in a blue moon, I'll get packages like this. So I opened up the box and pulled out the page and here's what I see...
Great...just great... So I take the page and lay it on my drawing table as pictured below. Yeap, that's my drawing table which looks cluttered. It's actually not. I have a plexiglass on top of my table where I'll slip copies of other artists work underneath so I can reference stuff. Those photocopies you see underneath were from when I was working on the HULK. I usually just leave whatever reference materials in there until I need to switch out for other projects that will require references. Besides, I think it makes my table look purdy. Anyway, back to FedEx's mishap. I put the artwork on my table and it's not flat. Creases, bumpy, curly, crappy.
It doesn't look as bad from the picture above. When I flip the page over and all you see is the white bristol board, sans pencils drawings, you can definitely tell how messed up it is.
So now what? I whip out a Black & Decker Iron! Just about any Iron will do. Even the bottom of a very hot pot filled with boiling water can do the trick. I just choose to use a more modern technology than a hot pot fill with scalding hot water.
I put the artwork on top on a big thick cardboard that I had laying around. Before I put the Iron on top to press the artwork flat, I put another piece of paper in between. By doing that, I won't smudge the pencils or worse, burn the artwork with the Iron. Can you imagine? A piece of original comic book art that has a brown burned stain the shape of an triangle on it? Crazy.
After a few hot presses, it gets flatter.I place it on my drawing table to see if it's flat enough. If not, I press it a few times more. The front of the artwork and the back as well. "Left, Right, Press, repeat, flip over, repeat chorus..."
After I did all I can, I placed it back on my drawing board and here's the results from an angle pictured below.
No bad. Not perfect, but much better. There's still some creases on the artwork. As long as the creases are not like mountains and origami, I can still work it. Remember that plexyglass I mentioned earlier...? While I'm inking one of the pages, I'll slip the other in between the glass and the drawing table which I'll continue pressing it more by hand. As I rotate between the two pages, I continue doing the press while I work. Snow White's Seven Dwarfs whistle while they work... I just press flat while I work. Two birds with one stone.
Below is the final inked page. You can hardly see damaged after all the pressing and the inking.
And that's why I like them FLAT!
Just got a comp copy of the TRINITY Vol. 2 trade paperback today. This is a 424 page book and will be out in stores on August 26. Out of 424 pages, I worked on 10 of them and DC Comics still sents me a comp. Coolio! To read more about it, click here.
Anyway, Back to Tom. Then there were these two kids that walked up to his booth. Coincidentally, I found this picture of the same two kids at another website. I kid you not. These were the two kids!!! I recognize them AND their T-Shirts. One kid in a Rainbow shirt and the other in red. So each of them asked if they can get a sketch and autograph from Tom.
Tom Said sure. The younger kid gave Tom his sketchbook first. Tom signs his name on top with a gold pen. Then starts to draw something on the bottom. I thought to myself, "This is cool, I get to see how Tom draws stuff." He starts out with some lines... circles... dots... then gives it back to the first kid. .......?????
At this point... I was confused. Maybe I didn't see it right. So the older kid gives Tom his sketch book and Tom did the same thing. Signs his name on top... Draws lines... dashes... loops... I can't even explain it. See for yourself...
And here's somewhat how our conversation went after he signed those and the kids runs off all happy.... 
I couldn't stop laughing at the "They're just lines" comment. During my trip home, I was still cracking up. As I'm blogging this, it's still too funny! "Just lines." 
The kid is the red shirt is Frankie Jonas. So I quickly did a search online to see who he was. He's the younger brother of the singing group "The Jonas Brothers" as well as an actor who has a recurring role on the Disney Channel sitcom, "Jonas".
I only took it to three conventions. San Diego Comic Con, Wonder Con, and Super Con. I wasn't actively seeing for sketches. I just whipped it out when I saw an artist who was free and available. I didn't request any character, just handed them the pad and said they can do what ever they want. And here are the results.
Dustin Nguyen drew Batman. "I'm BATMAN!"
Geoff Darrow drew a dinosaur. *ROAR* Run Forrest, RUN!
David Mack drew a face with a tear drop. *sniff-sniff*
Ron Lim's Silver Surfer. Bling-Bling!
Ethan Van Scriver's Green Lantern. I've know Ethan ever since his Cyberfrog Days. He wrote down his new phone number on the drawing. I just blocked it out.
Whilce Portacio drew A face with hair? I keep looking at the hair thinking 
Billy Tan drew a female face. I think I took it back before he was able to finish. I had to leave.
Michael Lopez's Wolverine. It was interesting how he drew this. He did all the brown in the background first. Then the darker brown for the eyes and chin. Then pulled out the sharpie to draw the face on top of all that and ended it with white in for highlights. 
J.J. Kirby's Batman. This sketch took him about half an hour. He liked it so much that he took a picture of it for himself.
Dave Finch's Batman. Ball Point pen action! 
Philip Tan's Spider-Man
Paul Smith's Lockheed. I was sitting at he booth next to his at a convention during our run on SPIRIT. While he usualy draws lockheed headshots when asked for sketchs, he drew the whole character for me.
Then on the back of the sketch book, I left a page just for autographs. I didn't ask them for sketches because these guys were busy with people around their booths. Ryan Ottley, Mike Mignola, and Jim Lee.
I got Mike Mignola to sign first and he surprised me by drawing a skull. Then I got Jim Lee to sign next. He just signed his first name and said "That's a cool sketch from Mignola". And finally, I got Ryan Ottley to sign last and he said, "Wow, I'm signing on the same page with Mignola and Lee."
Two Hulk:Red and Green Trade Paperbacks, and three of each Hulk #7, 8, and 9. There were variant covers to these comics. One cover drawn by Arthur Adams and the other by Frank Cho. All the ones I got were by Arthur Adams.
This will be on sale on Auguest 26. To read more about it, click here.
So I opened up the book to look for his signature and what do I see? Not only his signature, but a original sketch of an elephant on the inside front cover. Pencils, pen, whiteout, the works! I dropped that $25 faster than a speeding bullet!
The other items I bought were My Little Ponys. Two of them. These are two of the same. Just painted differently on the flip side. Why two you ask? Well, I have two little daughters and that should be a good enough answer. :)
So the above were the only things I bought at the convention. The following are some stuff that were given to me.
Now on to books. This year at SDCC, he majority of the time, I wanted to meet up with friends who I don't see every day. People I've worked with and friends in the industry. Some of those friends gave me sketchbooks and comics that they had at their table. Here's a picture of them all.
Here we have the Devilish Hardcover sketchbook by Mark Brooks. Lots of sketches, pencils, inks, colors, concept work, completed images. I like how it's in this hardcover format. I wanted to buy this from Mark, but he wouldn't accept my money and said I get a comp because we're doing work together. What a nice guy. You can also order it at his website by clicking here.
Here we have Arthur Adams Ocho. This is Arthur's eighth sketchbook. He's been making these bounded sketchbook that includes concept sketches, pencils, inks, commission pieces, and more. All in beautiful black and white where you can see every line without it being drowned in color. When I saw Arthur at his booth, he tossed one to me so I could have it. What a nice guy. Just like a lot of comic book professionals, they would say the reason they got into comics is because of Arthur Adams. I also got into comics because of him. Back in the day, Arthur use to run a comic book store where I buy my comics from. One time, I saw him packing his drawings up in a FedEx box and the FedEx guy camed to pick up the package. He used to draw sketches direct on the FedEx box too! So I asked him, what was that for. He told me he drew comics. You mean a real person actually draws comics? Do you get paid for it? Yeap. That's when I decided to go into comics. And here I am today. Then it came full circle when Arthur called me up to ink him on HULK about a year ago. Four issues of fun which ended too quickly. One of these days, I hope to work with Arthur again. I told him I miss inking his pencils. You can also buy the sketchbook here.
Here we have the SpongBob SquarePants magazine with art by Gregg Schigiel. Gregg used to be my editor over at Marvel Comics. He left Marvel to do freelance art. One time, he got me to ink his pencils on a Toy Story gig for Disney Adventures. I even got him to sign the page that he did his work on. SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!
Here we have Ton Nguyens Sketchbook 2. In it, there are pencils, inks, and some paintings and renderings. I love the last page as shown below. Tom and I sorta got to know each other because of Doug Mahnke. Tom inked a lot of Doug's work. A bunch of times, DC Comics would call me to help out on deadlines and I would study some of Tom's inking to see if I could mimic some of his line work. We've meet a few times at conventions and we got to know each other more through blogging. Lots of funny stuff over there. Tom has a website as well as a blog so check it out. Sometimes I laugh out loud because of the stuff he does. He has this crazy old man neighbor that's just too funny. 
Here's Terry Moore's sketchbook. He's worked on a book called 'Strangers in Paradise' and is now working on a book called 'Echo'. One of the nicest guy in comics. Years back, Terry and I worked on a Marvel Team up together. Spider-Man and Black Widow. After we got out art returns back. Terry got his 2/3 and I got my 1/3. We saw each other again at a convention. And he wanted to give me money. I asked him, "Why do you want to give me money?" He said, "I sold some of the art for the project we did together and I want to give you some." I, of course, turned him down and told him that those pieces of art belonged to him and so does the money. This past SDCC, I asked him how many inkers has he ever got to ink his work. Just two, he said. Jimmy Palmiotti and myself. Jimmy on an issue of Strangers in Paradise and me on that Marvel Team-Up issue. 
Here's G-Man learning how to fly by Chris Giarrusso. I've been a fan of his work ever since he's done those little comic strips in all the Marvel comics. I purposely didn't order this when it was first solicited in Previews. I wanted to wait until it's published so I can buy one and get Chris to sign it. So when I saw him, he asked me if I got one of these trade paperbacks. I said not yet, but I'm going to buy one off you right now. He said no, you're just going to get one. He signed one and gave it to me and here it is. What an awesome guy.
Here we have Skullboy's Nemesis Mad Dog by Jacob Chabot. When I was talking to Gregg Schigiel, he sneaked up on me to give me his comic. What's this? It's my comic! Did you sign it? He walks back to his booth, draws a sketch, signs it, and gives it back. And here's what I got from him. Jacob and Gregg has done thing great Marvel project together. They shown me photocopies of the pages and I can't wait until that comes out. Fun stuff in the flavor of Chris Giarrusso.
And that's it. All the swag I got from SDCC. Of course I got some other freebies along the way while I was walking the convention. You can't just walk SDCC without people handing you stuff. Buttons, postcards, comics, and all sorts of freebies. A few times, I was just walking from point A to point B and ended up in a line without knowing it. I found out I was part of a line when a booth babe handed me a T-Shirt towards the end. All I wanted was to get out of that crowd. Happy Mistake.
