Greg Larocque - Black Cat

2015.07.25 Garden State Comic Fest, Mennen Arena, Morristown, NJ

Greg LaRocque is a comic book illustrator best known for his work on the Legion of Super-Heroes and The Flash.

LaRocque began his comics career at DC Comics and his first published work was the story "That Which Conquers All" in Mystery in Space #115 (Jan. 1981). Following this was OMAC back-up stories in The Warlord #42-47 (Feb. 1981-July 1981). His first work for Marvel Comics appeared in Power Man and Iron Fist #73 (Sept. 1981). He drew several issues of Marvel Team-Up including the last issue of the series. He and writer Louise Simonson launched a new Spider-Man title, Web of Spider-Man, in April 1985. Returning to DC Comics, LaRocque became prominent for his work illustrating the Legion of Super-Heroes. He drew The Flash with writer William Messner-Loebs from issue #15 (Aug. 1988) through #79 (Aug. 1993). A career highlight was redesigning the Flash's costume to its current incarnation.

Exiled Studio released LaRocque's creator owned material in the three-issue mini-series The Exiled, followed by CryBaby, Exiled Studio's first color comic book. 

Russ Braun - Where Monsters Dwell

2015.06.06 NY Special Edition, NYC

Russ Braun has been working in comics for over 25 years, including time spent with Disney Feature Animation. Braun has worked on various titles including Batman, Fables, Hellstorm, Animal Man, jack of Fables, Dead Boy Detectives, Battlefields, and The Boys with Garth Ennis...

Currently Braun is working on Where Monsters Dwell, written by Ennis as part of Marvel's Secret Wars.  Phantom Eagle (Karl Kaufmann) and his companion Clementine Franklin-Cox as they fly rustic bi-planes and fight dinosaurs and cannibals...

Braun took the opportunity to draw a pencil sketch of Clementine on this Eddie Rickenbacher first day cover...

Jason Chatfield - Ginger Meggs

2015.10.09 NY Comic Con, NYC

After I left artist alley at NYCC I went to the main floor to wander around. When I saw the National Cartoonist Society booth, I was drawn like a moth to the flame. I found several cartoonists waiting to provide sketches, including, to my surprise, Jason Chatfield current artist on the Australian comic strip Ginger Meggs...

Ginger Meggs, Australia's Favourite Boy, running since 1921 under the guidance of creator Jimmy Banks, follows the escapades of the red-headed mischief-maker. The strip has been passed through several cartoonists - Ron Vivian (1953-1973), Lloyd Piper (1973-1982), James Kemsley (1983-2007) and Jason Chatfield (2007-present)...

Captain Australia  is Ginger's imaginary alter ego, much like Calvin and Hobbes' Spaceman Spiff...

2015.10.07

Jason Chatfield besides drawing the iconic Ginger Meggs is also a stand-up comic and writes for several publications and is a New York Correspondent for ABC News Breakfast on ABC1 / ABCNews24, funny or Die, Nova 100 and The Project (Network 10)...

Chatfield although is drawing the Australian comic currently resides in NYC...

Ginger Meggs was first honored by the Australian Post July 17, 1985 as part of the Australian Classic Children's Book issue, which included Blink Bill, The Magic Pudding, SnugglePot and Cuddlepie and Elves and Fairies...

Ginger Meggs has also appeared on an Australian coin

1952 Ginger Meggs Fan club envelope

Nick Justus - Enemy Ace

2015.10.03 Dewey's Comic City, Madison, NJ

Nick Justus was promoting his newest publication Mantasy, written by Jon Carroll, colors by Juanchoo..during his Nick Justus Does New Jersey Tour...

A graduate of the Kubert School, Nick had a fantastic portrait of Joe Kubert on his DeviantArt page. With this in mind I asked Nick to draw Enemy Ace - Hans von Hammer, created by Kubert and Robert Kanigher in 1965 first appearing in Our Army At War #151. I had the chance to meet Joe Kubert, but he was not doing sketches at the time only signing books. I would have loved to obtain an Enemy Ace sketch, but I was able to have him sign a collected edition of Enemy Ace stories...

I choose the Eddie Rickenbacker cover to compliment Enemy Ace, both World War I aces, representing different side of the battle, although one is fictional...

Currently a penciller/inker at Bluewater Comics, Nick has previously worked Devil's Due...

Brittany Pezzillo - Wolf Spirit

2015.07.26 Garden State Comic Fest, Mennen Arena, Morristown, NJ

Brittany Pezzillo is a Kubert School graduate and an illustrator from Centeral New Jersey specializing in fantasy, sci fi, horror and psychedelic themes. In addition to illustration, Brittany also colors comic books and has developed a variety of concept art.

Brittany's business card which drew me to her table...

Brittany loves to paint and tell stories, to forge new worlds and their inhabitants for all to enjoy

Clients have included AEG, Pelgrane Press, Knighthawk Games and others...

Exhibitions

2015 - Art All Night Exhibit - Trenton, NJ

2014 - 10x10 Show - Artworks Gallery, Trenton, NJ

Ben Caldwell - TMNT

2015.04.12 East Coast Comic Con, Secaucus, NJ

Ben Caldwell has worked in a variety of art and design fields over the years, including toy design, animation development, book illustration and comic book art.

A large portion of his work has been with Toybiz on projects that include The Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, X-Men, World Championship Wrestling and Harry Potter.

His comic work includes All-Action Classics comic: Dracula, Tom Sawyer, The Wizard of Oz, War of the Worlds and The Odyssey and on Justice League Unlimited covers, Wonder Woman children's books and Star Wars art. He is best known for his work with the Action! Cartooning series of how-to books. His work on Dare Detective comics was nominated for the Russ Manning Award for Most Promising New-comer in 2005

Lynne Yoshii - Emma Frost

2015-Jul-25 Garden State Comic Fest, Mennen Arena, Morristown, NJ

Lynne Yoshii  is an Illustrator, Graphic Designer and aspiring Comic Book Artist. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Yoshii graduated from the School of Visual Arts of New York. She has worked as an assistant editor for Marvel and as a Graphic Artist for a toy company.

She is an extremely talented artist whose work and style especially when it comes to strong female characters is simply some of the best there is in our opinion. Based on this description and art shown on her website, her Wonder Woman is fantastic, I asked for a female character on a Marilyn Monroe fdc.. Yoshii chose to draw Emma Frost, in a Monroe pose. 

During the show I overheard several people talking about Yoshii's beautiful work, and I quickly became one of them... 

Favourite style of art: Pre-Raphaelite, Russian Avant Garde, Art Nouveau, Early 20th Century Children's Illustrations

Scott Hanna - Batman

2015.07.26 Garden State Comic Fest, Mennen Arena, Morristown, NJ

A top inker in the graphic novel industry, Scott Hanna has been drawing and inking comic books for over 25 years. His work has been published in well over 100 graphic novels, and he’s inked over 15,000 pages of finished black and white art.

At Marvel Comics, Scott has worked on all the top characters, including the Avengers, Spider-Man, IronMan, the X-Men and the Hulk including a fifteen year run on Spider-man. At DC Comics, he worked on many major titles including Superman, Justice League, Green Lantern and most notably a five year run on Detective Comics starring Batman.

Scott received two 2012 Inkwell awards - “Most Adaptable Inker” and “The Props Award”, two 2011 Inkwell Awards for “Favorite Inker” and “Most Adaptable Inker”, the 2010 Inkwell Award for “Most Adaptable Inker”, the 2005 Wizard Fan Award for “Best Inker” and the 2002 Eisner award for “Best Serialized Story” - Amazing Spider-Man #30-35: “Coming Home”. 

Fernando Ruiz - Predator

2015.06.06 NY Special Event, NYC

Archie has meet several interesting people -KISS, Punisher, Glee, TMNT, the undead and now Predator...

Written by Alex de Campi and drawn by Fernando Ruiz, this 4-part series has the fiercest hunter in the galaxy using Riverdale for his hunting grounds... (Dark Horse Archie vs Predator signed by Ruiz and de Campi)... I used the Talking Pictures FDC to tie in with Predator's film history

Predator first came to public attention in the 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger leading a special military team on a mission to rescue hostages in Central America. What they find is they are being hunted by a technologically advanced extraterrestrial warrior (played by Kevin Peter Hall). Predator was written by Jim and John Thomas...

Predator would go on to feature in two sequels as well as two cross-over films with the Alien franchise... and a fan film Batman Dead End...

Alex de Campi has authored several comic books, including Smoke (IDW Publishing), Grindhouse Comics (Dark Horse), Wonder Woman (DC), Kat & Mouse (Tokyopop) and No Mercy (Image)

No Mercy promotional button

Toe Tag Riot - Sean Von Gorman

2015.07.26 Garden State Comic Fest, Mennen Arena, Morristown, NJ

Sean Von Gorman is an NYC based comics illustrator & writer, known for Toe Tag Riot, Secret Adventures of Houdini, and Pawn Shop with Joey Esposito.

A hilarious and gory tongue-in-cheek story, Toe Tag Riot is about a punk rock band cursed to become zombies whenever they perform their music! The band goes on a last cross-country tour in search of the cure to their affliction, but being the ethical sometimes-zombie punks that they are, Toe Tag Riot uses their zombie superpowers to rid the world of racists, homophobes, misogynists and all kinds of other nasty people. Read the LGBT-positive book that the Westboro Baptist Church themselves accidentally endorsed and then felt really stupid about doing! Guest appearance by Andy Hurley from Fall Out Boy! - Previews World

Sean drew this image of Toe Tag Riots' lead Dickie Tagz in a retro style to compliment the Richie Valens stamp...

Picked up a copy of the first issue signed by von Gorman and writer Matt Miner...

In addition to his comics work, Sean is also a brilliant guerrilla marketer, who has been known to hand...

Allison Strejlau - Mystical Musician

2015.06.07 Special Edition, NYC

Allison Strejlau is a cartoonist and illustrator based in New York, and is the artist for the Regular Show comic published by Boom!Studios, as well as Senior Digital Editor at ComiXology.

Allison has had exhibitions at the APW Gallery: Small Works, Big Ideas (2009) and Visual Arts Gallery: Myths Transformed (2010).

Kelle Riley - Mystical Musician

2015.06.07 Special Edition, NYC

Kellee Riley attended the Ringling College of Art and Design.. Riley began working at American Greeting on properties such as Strawberry Shortcake, Carebears, Popples and Holly Hobbie. After gaining some experience she struck out to found KelleeArt Design Studios, LTD...

Since then she has gone on to work on may other properties including Barbie, My Little Pony, Spongebob Squarepants, Polly Pocket, Littlest Pet Shop, as has a client list of Mattel, Hasbro, Nickelodeon, Disney, Dreamworks, Random House, Simon and Shuster and others...

Currently she is most well known for being the original illustrator on Mattel's Monster High...

Steven Bowman - Mystical Musician

2015.06.06 NY Special Event, NYC

Steven Bowman is a comic book artist and freelance illustrator from Louisville, Ky. Bowman published his first comic "Astounding Tales Presents: Rooftops" in 2010 featuring his character the Blue Badger...

Bowman was one of those artist I was not looking for when I went to the show. Late Saturday afternoon, when I thought I was done for the day, I was wandering aimlessly and came upon Bowman's table. I stopped to look at his work and was taken by a print of a mystical musician playing an old wooden stringed instrument.  A Beautiful girl at his side and a very large dragon in the background. I enjoy fantasy art but find it difficult to find the right first day cover for this type of art. Then it hit me.. the mystical musician and Jimi Hendrix.  A perfect combination, as could envision him playing in the band...