Sketch Lottery Gets 'Hare-y' With Last Weeks Entry: Usagi Yojimbo!!!!

I have never hid my love for Stan Sakai and his wondrous contribution to the world of comics, samurai rabbit Usagi Yojimbo. I love the character, and always had a soft spot for his depiction in comics and other mediums as well. Most people know Usagi from his stint as a supporting character in TMNT, but he has a long and detailed publication history in his own books that deserves to be highlighted. Well my good friend (and fellow Usagi enthusiast) Tommy Lombardozzi decided to enter Yojimbo into the pool of entries at Sketch Lottery... and last week he was chosen as the subject! So 27 artists gave it a shot, and the results are amazing!!! I picked out my faves (after the jump), but you should click here and check out all 27. Also make sure you check back to Sketch Lottery every Friday for next weeks subject, and check back in all week as they post all the entries start pouring in. Enjoy the art, these guys did Stan Sakai proud....

Tommy Lombardozzi 

Sally Cips

Joey Armao

Lou Mazzela

Thomas Napolitano

Chris Clarke

Ant Picone

Elgin Braden

Brian Maclean

Jason Baroody

Street Art Meets Super Heroes In Artist Dillon Boy's Work....

There is nothing I enjoy more than finding a cool artists work on Instagram or the Internet, no matter how late to the party I may be. Artist James 'Dillon Boy' Wright has been on the scene for a minute (his Obama 'Hope' poster concoction got him into Time Magazine way back in 2008) and I have seen a few of his pieces over the years. But I just found his Instagram page and was blown away by some of the work he had going on. He has a 'Western Grafitti' series that portrays some of your favorite superheroes in western style get-ups, guns a blazing. Then he has his crazy Disney princess re-creations, or his 'superheros meet real life' mash-ups like 'Nobody Likes The Thing' (my personal fave) which puts these extraordinary characters into real life situations (Thing is getting no likes or comments on Instagram... lol). His shit is dope... and like a typical creative artist he doesn't just stop at the actual artwork. If you look at the contents of his Instagram feed in grid format he takes close ups of his work and makes 6 and 9 square collages that supersize his pieces. A pretty great way to show of the detail of his pieces. So even though I may be a bit late to the party on Dillon Boy's work, it is never to late to give a cat his props when they are due. Check out his Big Cartel store, where you can cop some of his crazy cool art at a relatively cheap price for such a big shot artist. Check out my faves after the jump...



Western Graffiti series faves:

Superheroes with real problems:

Cap, Grid Style:

2008 Time Magazine article about Obama, Dillon's piece is circled....

    

Tom Whalen Gets His 'Twilight Zone' On With His Year Long Subscription Based Poster Series From Dark Hall Mansion...

Tom Whalen is one of the greatest artists working in pop culture art right now. His work is often shown at Gallery 1988, Crazy 4 Cult, and many other shows and galleries around the country. If there is a big pop culture show, it usually features something from Whalen. I met him at Philly Comic Con a few years back, and the dude was super low key and cool despite being so well known in the geek poster community. So when I read that his next project would revolve around one of my favorite TV shows of all time and would take place over the course of the next year, my interests were immediately piqued. Whalen is teaming up with poster company Dark Hall Mansion to complete a subscription based series of posters based on classic Twilight Zone episodes. The series will run over the course of the next 12 months and will feature 10 posters. So a person pays for the full run up front, and then receives the newest entry to the collection via mail. The price seems high ($450 for the full 10 poster regular run or $650 for the 10 poster variant run), but when you consider that it works out to just around $45 - $65 a piece it is a bargain. The best part is that once you buy the run you are locked in... no need to try and snag EVERY release independently and end up missing out on one or two, therefore failing to complete the set. The episodes that will depicted are unknown, but Whalen is a great artistic talent and I am sure whichever ones he picks for the series will be executed to perfection. The posters are all 18 x 24, and will be set runs (230 sets of the regular posters, 70 of the variants) so don't sleep. The prints will be made available on Tuesday, August 19th at some time between 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time on the Dark Hall Mansion website. Which episodes do you hope Whalen takes on? These are going to be great.... check out the first sample poster (based on the classic episode 'Eye of the Beholder') after the jump... 



The Regular version:

The Variant version:

800 Pound Productions Presents: Generation 1 JoeFormers!!!

I was alerted to the excellent art work going on over at 800 Pound Productions Deviant Art page by my good buddy Tommy Lombardozzi. He follows them in Instagram, and they began to post pictures of one of their projects that appeals to my 80s baby sensibilities. The gang are mashing up Generation 1 Transformers and GI Joes.... creating JoeFormers!!! What a great idea... take Transformer characters and re-design them to resemble Joe figures from the 80s. These designs are amazing, even if there are only three so far (Optimus, Soundwave and Grimlock!). They even took it one step further and collaborated with Air Max Animated toy customs to create ACTUAL figures of these concepts, both of which look PHENOMENAL!  You can see these awesome creations in this gallery or by clicking here to go to their Deviant Art page. There is also much more to look at here, so make sure you take it all in. You can see the existing JoeFormers after the jump....

Andy Fairhurst Wants To Show You A Galaxy Far, Far Away... And Feature The Best Characters Of Each Film Of The Trilogy!!!

Mock up versions of movie posters are pretty common... shit, 3/4 of ALL Internet content consists of fake movie posters and cat captioned photos (I see you Cal... I see you!). And the most oft posterized film seems to be the original trilogy, the only trilogy.... Star Wars. It is an amazing set of films, and a touchstone for multiple generations of people, it makes sense that it is the one picked the most. But they usually tend to skew towards pedestrian. Not Andy Fairhurst, UK artist extraordinaire. He decides to go minimalist, but in a very cool way. He takes certain vehicles from each film and makes them the focal points of the posters, but he also subtly inserts the coolest characters of each film embedded into the whole background of the poster. The result is amazing. Upon a deeper review of Andy's website you find even more cool posters for classics like Jaws, Back To The Future and Rocky... as well as new movies such as Batman v Superman & Transformers. You can see all 3 of the Star Wars posters after the jump...

Sean Hamilton Unleashes 'The Uncanny', His Latest Artistic Creation...

I have featured the work of my man Sean Hamilton here on CCD a few times before. My man is super talented, and Tommy Lombardozzi and I have met Sean on numerous occasions at Cons... and the truth of the matter is that he is just a genuine, down ass dude. A kindred spirit due to our geeky natures and sneakerhead ways, Sean and I still regularly keep in touch via the Intrawebs. He is always churning out awesome art, but his latest piece really blew me away and I needed to share it ASAP. Titled "The Uncanny", Sean pays tribute to his love for his favorite X-Men of the 80's and 90's with this mash-up piece. But unlike other mash-ups, he literally takes specific characteristics of each X-Man and uses them to create one face. The results are AMAZING... oh wait, that's Spidey's shtick. Anyway, you can click here to see more of Sean's art and order a print by clicking on his Big Cartel page. The Uncanny will be available for sale soon, so make sure you jump on it if you love the X-Men like me. Check out the full image after the jump...

You can also enjoy Sean on The League of Geekz podcast, which is pretty awesome and he is a part of. Videos games, movies, comics... these guys talk it all. Check em out, and tell em CCD sent ya!!! 

X-Men, Wu-Tang and Wrestlers... Oh MY! The Eclectic Artwork Of Erle Tompkins

You know that saying "never judge a book by its cover" that is always thrown around so willy nilly? Yeah, I never really subscribe to that theory. I tend to be very observant of people on purpose... and I can usually figure out people pretty well. I have an especially keen 'bullshit detector' sense as well... one that very rarely fails me. I had made the acquaintance of a very talented artist, Erle Tompkins, a few years back and I must say that in this case I was completely off in my judgement. His cousin Frank introduced us, and we hit it off right away with geek talk galore (mostly about comic book movies). He told me he did some art, and I told him to email me. He never did... and I assumed that he must not be very talented. I would see him from time to time, and always it was pleasant to see him. But every time we chatted, still no email and still no artwork. So I just chalked it up to him being not all that good and getting cold feet sending it to me. This weekend I ran into Erle, and he pulled up an X-Men movie universe piece he had just finished working on. Although I was looking at it on a 5 inch I Phone screen, I instantly realized that my man Erle had something... and I couldn't wait to see more. I told him that he needed to email me this instantly, and that I wanted to see more immediately. I made him do it right in front of me so he didn't "forget" to do it later. I forced his hand... and I am able to write this article about his awesome art because of it.

See more after the jump...

Erle has a Tumblr that highlights his unique style of art, but it his interesting array of subjects that make his blog so appealing. He jumps flawlessly from the world of comics to the world of Wu Tang Clan. But he makes his most important contributions in the world he loves the most: Professional Wrestling. He re-creates old matches, particular poses and scenes, and iconic images from WWF, WWE, WCW and NWA fame. He hits on all the regulars, and even digs deeper to include lesser popular stars. And his trademark, at least in my opinion, has to be his "bloody" stuff... the pieces where he highlights the destruction of the human body in the ring. These pieces transport me back to the days of a child watching Saturday Night's Main Event, playing with my WWF Wrestling Superstar rubber figures. Man, these are great. 

So in closing, sometime you really can't judge a book by it's cover. Er;e Tompkins is a soft spoken and nice kid, but I certainly didn't think he had the talent he actually possess. I am glad he finally shared it with me, and I am happy to share it with all of you. Make sure you hit him up at his AMA page, his Society 6 page, and check his Tumblr often for his newest works. Order up kids... and tell 'em CCD sent ya!!!!        

Marvel Characters and Their DC Countreparts Get The Team-Up Treatment From Darren Rawlings

Everyone knows that although they are two completely different companies that are highly successful in the comic industry, Marvel and DC share a lot of similarities. It may be the fact that a lot of the creative talents through the years have bounced between both companies. It may also be due to the fact that when the lion share of the characters were conceived back in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s there was not Internet for people to call out creators for being copycats... imagine if you tried to put out a comic today featuring a band of survivors of a zombie attack lead by a rural sheriff? You would be crucified as a Walking Dead thief, and your comic would never get off the ground. But it was a-ok for Marvel to launch Dedapool in 1991 even though Deathstroke was around since 1980? I mean, forget their powers... even their real names are copies! Wade Wilson isn't a direct copy of Slade Wilson? What... huh???? Anyway, artist Darren Rawlings decided to highlight some of these comparable characters in his Little Friends series. Some are obvious (like Deadpool and Deathstroke above), but others require a bit of background knowledge of the characters to see the comparison. Either way, the characters are all cool and you gotta love the way they all co-exist in our little comic book nerd world! You can find a ton of them by clicking here and checking out his Deviant Art gallery, or you can see my personal faves after the jump...