When the well runs dry...

WHOA, that title looks way more depressing than it is supposed to be!  What it is referring to is something I brought up a week ago; the first printing of Leo Geo is gone, kaput, sold out.  I'm not sure as to how big the first print run was, but I'm still pretty pumped.  As we speak, the second printing is being drawn out of the inter-dimensional space between the science fact dimension and the science fiction dimension (to editor: that's where books come from, right?).  In the meantime, I've been working hard on Leo Geo 2 as well as some Leo Geo sketches!

 

I'm going to come clean and say that I have no idea where this came from.  I mean, I'm pretty tapped into what goes on here at the institute, but even I have no idea why you'd put a perfectly good burger and fries in a radioactive container...UNLESS, this was something that the boys down at the Nutrition Augmentation Program put together to make a GIANT version of burger and fries.  Okay, that makes sense.  I can totally get behind a giant b&f.

T Minus 5 Days?!

This is getting tense you guys!  Well, I promised treats for all my little science beasties, and here at the Fizzmont Institute, we keep our word (or else the Secrets and Secretions Division sends us grumpy notes)!  As some of you might know, I post illustrations on the blog for Stern Pinball (the only manufacturers of pinball in the world)!  Well, in celebration of Leo Geo being released NEXT TUESDAY, I decided to try my hand at designing a Leo Geo pinball machine.  I love the science, physics, and electronics behind pinball.  If I had my druthers, I would do a book about THAT someday, but I'll have to talk to the boys at the Applied-Physics-are-Phun Department.  I wouldn't be surprised if they already had a machine!  Without further ado, Leo Geo pinball:

Phew, that's a lot of pinball!  You can read the entire post on the Stern Blog HERE to get a little explanation of the game, and another image!  Yay Pinball!

Let the Games Begin

Things are starting to pick up steam here at the Fizzmont Auxiliary Imaging Division.  In LESS THAN A MONTH, the first official fully-illustrated Fizzmont experiment is going to be released in Leo Geo and His Miraculous Journey Through the Center of the Earth.  I can't tell you how excited I am.  I'm serious, I CAN'T.  The Fizzmont Secrets Squad is watching me super duper closely!

Also, I'm pleased to announce that I will be doing an artist talk as part of my show that I have up at the Center for Cartoon Studies with CCS alumni and all-around great guy, Joe Lambert.  There will be open gallery hours FRIDAY, MARCH 2nd from 5-8pm with a talk from yours truly at 6pm.  NERVOUS!!  I anticipate that I am going to be trying to do as many events and whatnot as possible in the upcoming month, so I'll be sure to keep you all

In the midst of all this brouhaha, you can imagine how surprised I was when Hank Handy, one of Dr. Leo Geo's assistants came into my office and sheepishly pushed a box onto my desk with an old IBM Aptiva computer and a handful of games on floppy disc.  He said that Dr. Geo wanted me to take the afternoon off and try out these old games.  There was a copy of Word Muncher in the box, along with Ski Free and Chip's challenge, just to name a few.  WHAT A TREAT!  I eagerly agreed and hooked the computer right up and booted up the games.  It wasn't like I remember...

 

I should have known!  Leo and Matt Data were experimenting with some sort of Tron-you-go-into-the-computer-type-setup.  Leo always keeps me on my feet!

010110101 - Cover Blueprints

Hello and well come to the Fizzmont Institute for Rad Science.  I am FizzMAC, the super computer in charge of run-ning all of the a-maze-ing x-periments here at the Institute.  Jon Chad has asked me to search through my sizable archives for a sample of art from when the cover of Leo Geo nd his Miraculous Journey Through the Center of the Earth was being designed.  I have complied with this easy request and have found too pages of sketches of possible cover ideas.

Ah, human art!  So lush yet so...unrefined.  I should give Jon Chad credit, though; these are only meant to be sketches.  I don't see the final cover amongst them, so there must be more sketches and ideas.  It is not uncommon for an artist to go thru dozens of sketches before settling on a final design.

That is all for now.  Be nice to your computer!

Fresh from Quarentine

Despite a brush with disease here at the Auxiliary Imaging Division, the Fizzmont Contagion Control Team has cleared us to release images of a new piece printed right here in White River Junction.  Behold, the Fizzmont Institute bookmark:

 

One side of these immaculate literary placeholders was letterpressed at the Dartmouth Letterpress Studio in Hanover, NH.  The open sessions are run by Bob Metzler, and he has always been super rad and welcoming!  Each bookmark was handstamped at the bottom to mark their number in the edition.  The reverse side was printed with a two-color screenprint.  Both passes incorporated half-toning.  That's why there appears to be a fade with the yellow pass, and varying degrees of density with the blue pass.  Last month I printed some cats for some non-Fizzmont related projects, and ever since I've been interested in doing half-tone printing.  My goal is to eventually work my way up to full-blown 4-color process printing.  Keep well everyone!

Also, I got a nice little mention in a Beat article about the Library Association Mid-Winter Meeting in Dallas, Texas.  You can read it HERE.

Testing

Happy Wednesday from all of us here in the Fizzmont Imaging Division!  Things have been really busy both here at the institute, but also at my day job teaching at the Center for Cartoon Studies.  We are one week into our spring semester, and my students are neck deep into their first project; the Silver Age Project.  The basis is this: the students break off into groups of 7 and create a comics with the look, feel, and coloring limitations of 1967, but with the narrative know-how of today!  I was asked to be an editor for the Swords and Sorcery group and nearly fell out of my chair to accept.  My students are really kicking butt, and the book is shaping up really well.  Did I mention that it's a full-color, 36-page book?  And that they have 2 weeks to do it?  Hardcore.

This sort of comics chrono-displacement has gotten a lot of traction here at the institute, and has sparked a committee for Visual Narratives Historical Studies and Recreation.  It's basically an excuse for me, Leo, and Dr. Wurada to read some old comics and compare them to comics today.

ANYWHO, in the midst of this tomfoolery, there has been a glut of testing going on here at the institute.  Dr. Leo Geo wanted me to draw up an illustration of one of his more recent tests so that he could better explain it to his mom.  I like how it turned out.

Envelope

Yesterday was my Birthday!  I got a couple cards in the mail, which is always nice.  Usually, I'm the one mailing out stuff.  Whenever there's a lull here in the Imaging Department, Leo Geo will come down and ask me to work up some new letterhead or correspondence material.  I hit one of these lulls last week, and, like clockwork, Leo poked his head in and asked if I could make an envelope that he could use to send out some reports.  Here's the original art:

 

Obviously, I was trying to keep with the geology motif.  Those stray marks that you see around the return address were test strokes that I made with my Hunt 102 Crow Quill while I was drawing.  Although I was happy with the outcome, I still needed to bring the art into Photoshop and clean it up before I could screen-print the envelopes.  Here's the end result:

This is a one-color screen-print.  The light tan is the printed color, and the brown is the color of the paper.  In some instances, like the lines where you write the sender address, you can see that the paper color actually serves as lineart.

Fizzmont Notepads

One of my least favorite times of the month is when Greg from the Fizzmont Immaculation Systems and Solutions Division comes down with one of his mandated cleaning days, and all of us here in the Imaging Division have to spend the day straightening up.  Right after the holidays, too!  Well, bad luck turned into good luck and I stumbled upon a couple of notepads I've made for various departments here at the institute.  Here's an image of some of my stationary for memos as well as a form for (what amounts to) employee complaints.

 

In my own personal illustration work, I'm really drawn (no pun intended) to dense, expressive, and textural drawings, but I've found that in my design work, I'm more inspired by a more sparse, Swiss-type style.  I'm also inspired by diagram-type layouts as exhibited in these artist books.

(Running a Secret Society by Jackie Batey)

(Office Orchestra by Andrea Chappell)

(Tide:Edit by David Faithful)

I'm really in love with handmade objects, and those memo pads are great little art pieces, as well as really useful.  If anyone is curious; the back of the notepads is chipboard from the back of my paper pads.  Also, each of those sheets were perforated so that they could be torn off easily.  The perforation was done by hand with my handheld perforator:

Well, that's all that I have for now.  I hope that you all had a nice holiday weekend!  According to an article on Wigan Today, the average person consumes 6000 Calories on Chirstmas day.  That's a lot!  That's 25104000 Joules of energy! 

Leo Geo Bag No. 1

I've just been cleared by the Fizzmont Packaging and Props Department to release some archive photos of the original packaging for Leo Geo and His Miraculous Journey Through the Center of the Earth.  As I might have mentioned before, Leo Geo was originally a handmade minicomic.  There were some cool bells and whistles (some of which I'll show later) as well as some special packaging.  I discovered mostly by chance that the dimensions of Leo Geo would fit PERFECTLY into a kraft quart liquor bag!  Here is the art for the first bag design:

And here is the finished bag with the screenprint:

I had a real problem with putting the price of the book on the actual book itself, so having a bag allowed for a bit more real estate that I could put a price on.

In other news, Slate magazine released THIS really fun article online about robots.  That last spherical one is bonkers.  Thinking about robots has gotten me thinking about Big Dog, my favorite robot in recent memory.

Fizzmont Fotos 1

Hello!  Today Dr. Leo Geo gave me a box seemingly filled with clutter and asked if I wanted it.  Not being one to want to accumulate junk, I kindly asked him what was inside.  Leo told me that the box was filled with photos from his time here at the Fizzmont Institute.  They were duplicates that he had no need for, but if I wanted to poke through them, I could.  Yes, please!!  First, there's this gem:

Leo and his brothers have always been very close.  His brother Alan Aqua is a deep sea specialist, but it looks like he's having a pretty OK time at this land-locked dig site.

Also, I came across a video yesterday about how globes are made.  It's pretty interesting.  You can watch it HERE.

Leo Geo Poster

(click to enlarge)

One of my favorite things about working with Dr. Geo is that he is always coming up with new ideas.  The guy never sits still.  I walked over to his lab the other day and I saw him pouring over all sorts of diagrams, formulas, and blueprints.  I was so inspired that I drew this poster of him.  He's really excited to have the visual account of his experiment to the center of the earth see the light of day!  I can't blame him!

In other news, have you guys heard about the diamond planet!?  I know this is back from August, but it's just now crossing my desk.  Pretty amazing stuff.