This week's post is a bit of a hodgepodge. After doing 5 signings in the last 7 weeks, I only have unrelated bits & bobs to share

New York Highlights:

While in New York for the Big Apple Con I had two major highlights.

1) Tour of 30 Rock studios.

Scott Adsit who plays Pete Hornberger on the show is a comics fan. We met at Heroes this year and I did a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen piece for him (which I don't have a scan of unfortunately) He, in turn, invited Julia and I to visit the set while they were shooting. We met Tina and Alec, and watched them all film a scene with Scott. Later we sat in on a table read where the entire cast was there. It was great! Thanks Scott! I owe you another LoEG piece!

(Photo: me sitting in Liz's chair in her office on-set)

2) Meeting Carol Cleveland

I'm a big Monty Python fan. Holy Grail ends up on my top 5 movies list fairly consistently. And at the Big Apple Con I was able to meet Carol "the female python". I always appreciated that besides her fitting the bill and looking sexy and cute in their skits, she completely got the sense of humor and had great comedic timing. She signed a "Zoot" photo for me and took time out to talk to me all three days of the con. I love that in this photo we took together, Carol still looks like herself (and not a victim of vain plastic surgery) and I still have the look on my face from when I was 11 and giggled all the way through the Castle Anthrax scene in Holy Grail)

The Old Guard:

While searching through old sketchbooks, portfolios, and file cabinets I found a bunch of Mouse Guard work from '02/'03. This would have been about one to two years before starting on 'Belly of the Beast', but I think shows a very close connection to the art from that first issue.

Saxon, Kenzie, & Abe: In this incarnation Saxon had studded armor but his trademark ear-notch and longsword were there from the start. Kenzie had a long tunic and coat-style cloak. My goal for his longer and more coarse fur is evident near his cheeks. Abagail was 'Abe' at this point. Healers had hoods as a trademark in my mind, but male or female, I knew this character was up to no good.

Sadie, Quiggly, & Lieam: You can see Sadie's dagger was part of her early history as was Quiggly's hat and squinty gaze. Lieam's cloak was more like a coat here and the 'triangle sword' looked more like a traditional short sword. This drawing of Lieam I did at a family function and I remember after all the stippling thinking 'I could keep up this style of work forever'

Aubrey, Gwendolyn, & Rand: Aubrey has only been seen in a few panels of the comics so far, but it looks like I borrowed her skirt and belt design for the current incarnation of Gwendolyn's costume. Gwendolyn always had a polearm as a weapon. Rand's shield design started as something based on crusade shields, but has now taken on new meaning I will explore in later series .

Celanawe & Midnight: My goal for Celanawe was to show him as an amazing old grizzled mentor who can still hold his own, but has a backstory where he was even more impressive in his prime. I think this may be the first drawings of Celanawe. Midnight was a good character at this point. He had a backstory made up by a pal of mine where he was a former circus performer turned swords-mouse. I kept the name and look, but changed most else about him.

Fan Art:

At Dragon Con I had my first experience with Mouse Guard costumes aka Cosplay. The female trio reminded me of the drawing Nate Pride did for me a while back of a more booth-babe geared Mouse Guard. Thanks ladies for your dedication!!

Ireland:

For the next two weeks, I'll be in Ireland and will be unable to type up new blogposts. I plan on using the time to do a bit of research for later Mouse guard stories and to see fans in the UK. So, as I have done in the past, I'll pre-type some posts for Blogger to auto-update for me. The subject matter will be Artists whose work I collect.