Welcome to this, the final day of MONSTER MONTH here on the blog. It has been a fun 31 days of monsters, and I thought I’d cap it off with a doozy for Halloween!
If you are at all familiar with the story of Frankenstein, you would know that the monster has a fear of fire. But what truly caused that fear? I mean, at some point, he must have been okay with it, right? Something had to set him off. Oh, there may be some paltry explanation in the pages of Mary Shelley’s tome, but I believe that the true moment when the monster’s fear was born came in the laboratory one fateful day.
I suppose that along with fire, one might fear Dr. Frankenstein after this incident. Igor only approaches him from the front these days.
Thank you for joining me this month. I had a blast drawing MONSTERS of all shapes and sizes. If you enjoyed it as much as I did, feel free to leave a comment here on the blog!
I love classic TV shows. Probably because I love the innocence in them. Of course, I had to go and mess around with the innocence of Andy Griffith‘s iconic Mayberry show to include it here for Monster Month! Now whistle the theme song in a minor key when viewing today’s post to completely set the ominous monster mood!
If you think THIS is disturbing, you don’t even want to know what Aunt Bee looks like! (Yes, that is spelled incorrectly on purpose!)
Today is the grand unveiling of the winner of the Cartoon Caption Contest that has been taking place over on the Chad Frye • Illustration Guy Fan Page on Facebook over the past two weeks. Many folks submitted their ideas for what this illustration could be saying, I chose 5 of the best, and then left it up to the fans to vote for which one should win!
Congratulations to Charlie Eldred for his winning caption! To the other four finalists, Robert Bowman, Edward Murphy, Preston Jones and Matthew Schnittker, thank you for your great contributions!
Charlie has won a nice print of this drawing with his own caption that includes a sketch on it by me, along with a signed copy of my children’s book Jonah and the Very Big Fish.
Thank you to all who participated. Come join the Fan Page where other contests will be held in the future!
Congratulations to Charlie Eldred for his clever winning caption!
It is not uncommon for colleagues to get together for lunch now and then to discuss business and maintain relationships within the professional field. These get-togethers can be invaluable for future dealings in one’s business, and they build trust. At the end of lunch, there can be little that is more embarrassing than returning to the office with a little food visibly stuck in your teeth. It is a trustworthy colleague indeed, who won’t let you leave the table without letting you know you need a toothpick.
If King Kong and Godzilla did go out on a business lunch, I wanna know who picked up the check!
You know, whether scaring or eating little children, most monsters use their teeth quite often. And whether it’s a crooked snarl, or just a bad overbite, the sensible monster realizes he really needs to take care of his pearly whites. After all, one must think of the children in such situations – this is all for them.
When a gurgling, belching beast has need of such care, he turns to the trusty ORTHODONTIST. To take on a job such as this, the medical professional needs to be a person of quiet temperament and not easily intimidated. Their skill with odd-shaped teeth and the ability to withstand unfathomable stench is paramount. And they need to make sure the patient is well-stocked with the proper insurance.
This patient is the easy one. The last one had two heads and an attitude.
And if you aren’t aware, TODAY is the last day to enter the monster themed Comic Caption Contest being held on the Chad Frye * Illustration Guy Fan Page on Facebook. The contest is completely FREE, and the deadline to enter is 11:59pm TONIGHT! (That’s California time, by the way!) So, come to the Fan Page and get your funny captions in so you can have a try at winning the prize!
Here’s today’s Monster-O-the-Day! Actually, you get two for the price of one today! This image started as a sketch in my sketchbook, then moved into a quick drawing with some watercolor splashed onto it. Enjoy!
The villagers are probably wishing BOTH monsters were vegetarians about now.
My friend, Stan Sakai, has been drawing his terrific comic book Usagi Yojimbo for the past twenty five years. Two weeks ago, the San Diego Comic Con paid tribute to Stan and his creation with a panel and by featuring it in this year’s program book.
I belong to an LA based professional comics writer and cartoonist organization known as CAPS (Comic Art Professional Society), even having served as it’s president for four years or so. Stan Sakai is one of the founding members of the 30+ year old organization. Somehow, without Stan knowing, we all got together and did drawings of his famous character for a special tribute page in the Comic Con program book.
This is my interpretation of Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo created for the CAPS tribute.
Compiled by fellow member Jim MacQuarrie, many of the guys participated with their version of Usagi. In case you can’t read their signatures in the image below, beginning with the top row, here are the names of the contributing artists: Mell Lazarus, Stan Lee, Jim Wheelock, Chad Frye, Dan Spiegle, Dean Yeagle; 2nd row: Gary Goldstein, Nat Gertler, Bob Foster, Scott Shaw!, Mike Gray, Jim MacQuarrie, Tim Burgard; 3rd row: Andy Mitchell, Steve Greenberg, Randy Reynaldo, Benton Jew, Michael Aushenker, Rubèn Procopio, Sergio Aragonès; 4th row: Kazu Kibuishi, Bill Morrison, Doug Gray, Anson Jew, Mike Kazaleh, and Floyd Norman.
This is the tribute page by members of CAPS as seen in the 2009 San Diego Comic Con program book.
If you are a professional in the cartooning biz, and are interested in learning more about CAPS, please visit their website at CAPScentral.org.
Welcome to the last of my “Haiku Ewe” posts. If you haven’t been following along, “Haiku Ewe” is a web comic by Big Al the gal on GoComics.com. She asked me to fill in for a week when she injured her drawing hand. It was fun illustrating Al’s sweet, little lamb by putting her into scenes of impending doom all while set to contemplative haiku poetry.
Today, you will see the lamb intrigued by some berries, despite a fierce bear about to get all naturey on her. Below are the various steps from sketch to final comic. Enjoy!
This is the rough pencil drawing submitted to Big Al the gal for approval.Here’s the colored pencil line that was drawn onto some nice watercolor paper.The uncropped watercolored piece. Details to be finessed in the next stage!And here’s the final with Big Al’s haiku. I have worked quite a bit for Disney, and am a Disney guy at heart. Only one friend noticed the hidden Mickey in this piece. I even used to hide Mickey in still life oil paintings back in art school.
Well, thanks for following along with these “Haiku Ewe” posts. If you missed any, please CLICK HERE to see a list of them here on the blog, and enjoy! Next week I shall return to thoughts and art of a different nature. Perhaps I’ll share with you some photos of my experience at this year’s San Diego Comic Con!
