This past month I’ve had the pleasure of creating art with Scott Kurtz for a new tabletop card game by the world-famous game designer Jason Bulmahn! Pirate Loot is a quick-to-learn, devilish-to-play game of skull-duggery, high adventure, and competitive treasure-hoarding for up to 4 players.
The game is suit-based, which means that with each card you draw, you’ll be building a hand – er, crew – of pirates from different factions. Each faction has a different in-game behavior, enabling you to grab more treasure, steal crew from your opponents, backstab, or weasel your way out of discards!
We started out with just one pirate image per faction, but since the game has cruised past its initial $20k printing budget, these will only be the first of dozens of unique crewmembers!
Brutal faction pirate.
Greedy faction pirate.
Lazy faction pirate.
Clever faction pirate.
It’s always a blast to illustrate using Scott’s concepts and style, so I’ve been enjoying myself thoroughly. I can’t wait to illustrate the rest! You can see more at Pirate Loot’s Kickstarter page, or pledge to receive updates and get in on exclusive cards that won’t appear in the commercially sold version of the game.
New in the Illustration gallery: six images selected from Au Pays d’en Haut, a 14-piece educational serial set in 19th century French Canada! This series was a fun research challenge, and I enjoyed the excuse to test out some techniques for getting a real-media look to the fabulous digital illustration tools included in the MangaStudio software.
A few news items from the spring!
It’s a great honor to announce that my online graphic novel Family Man has been nominated for a Reuben Award in the Online Comics – Long Form category. This is an especial pleasure since it was just this past winter that I was able to attend the extended NCS conference opening the new Billy Ireland library and museum at Ohio State University.
I met dozens of incredibly talented, deeply experienced, and extremely generous NCS members, many of them responsible for the comic strips that inspired me in the first place. This gives the nomination added impact, and I’m so touched. Family Man is a long, slow burn of a passion project, and this is a wonderful boost of validation. Thank you to the nominating committee for considering me; and, if you’re a voting member of NCS…give the comic a read! Winners will be announced in May. I’m in some great company!
My dear friends Dave Kellett and Fred Schroeder have labored for years to create this wonderful documentary. They interviewed dozens of cartoonists about their work and their perspective on an industry that’s in the midst of some radical change, and assembled images from more than a hundred years of North American comics history. They not only interviewed li’l guppies like myself – they also nabbed luminaries like Bill Watterson and Jim Davis. The movie is now available through iTunes, Google Play, VHX.tv, and for sale on DVD. You can also download individual full-length interviews from over 16 creators. I can’t recommend it enough.
I’ve been a fan of journalist Glenn Fleishman’s work at the Magazine (where I’ve provided illustrations) and his podcast The New Disruptors. TND focuses on in-depth interviews with people working independently in creative industries and new media.
The archives are a blessed hit-list of great folks answering smart questions (including Dave and Fred in the previous episode, talking about Stripped!), so it was a delight to be included on his guest list. Give us a listen!
This year I had the honor of being included in the wee funny pages booklet that was part of Cards Against Humanity‘s Advent calendar package. A dozen cartoonists were asked to submit a standalone, one-page comic, possibly Christmas-themed. My editor was the lovely Rich Stevens.
Rich suggested I do something with the little skeletons from Danse Macabre 2.0! I liked the idea of combining wee rotting corpses with a warm holiday message. Here’s my contribution. (Click it to see it full-size.)
