Photos from Bloomington's Rock N Roll Prom 2012!

Here's a link to some band photos I took last weekend at Bloomington's annual Rock N Roll Prom, which raises funds to benefit Boxcar Books and the Midwest Pages To Prisoners Project.



Fleetwood Mac, Devo, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, and No Doubt were all finely represented. I gotta say Fleetwood Wac was truly transcendent. You all make me proud to live in this town, surrounded by such talented and beautiful friends. (Now let me sneak up in your cover band next year.)

Signing in Little Rock AR, April 14th!

I'll be doing a signing at The Comic Book Store (9307 Treasure Hill Rd.) in my hometown of Little Rock AR on Saturday, April 14th from 12-2pm. In addition to tons of books, I'll also have original artwork for sale.

This year marks 30 years of business for Collector's Edition/The Comic Book Store, and also marks 20 years since owner Michael Tierney was kind enough to offer shelf space for my first comic, D.O.A. #1, with co-creators Mike Lierly and Nathan Wilson in 1992. It's great to bring it all back home again!

The Facebook event page is here.

And if you haven't, please check out the info on my exhibit the evening prior at the Historic Arkansas Museum (200 E. 3rd St.), April 13th from 5-8 pm.

CROSS SECTIONS exhibit opens in Little Rock AR, 4/13!

I have an exhibit of comics and illustration work from 1998 to present, focusing on the graphic novel work of the last five years (The Year Of The Beasts, The Silence Of Our Friends, Any Empire, Swallow Me Whole), coming to the Historic Arkansas Museum (200 E. 3rd St.) in Little Rock, AR from April 13th to June 1st!

The exhibit, entitled Cross Sections, will have an opening reception on Friday, April 13th from 5-8pm. All pieces are for sale, and graphic novels will be available in the bookstore as well.

The opening will have musical accompaniment by Little Rock's own Isaac Alexander (Boondogs, The Easys, Big Silver), drinks aplenty, and food and soup tasting from Sharea Soup.

The Facebook event page is here.

If you're around town, I'll be signing at The Comic Book Store (9307 Treasure Hill Rd.) on Saturday, April 14th from 12-2pm. More original artwork will be available there as well.

Here's my artist statement for the show:


Cross Sections.

These are slices of much longer narratives developed from 1998 to the present. Viewing long-form comic book work in a gallery setting has its difficulties—each story or graphic novel I create sits as a single body of work, but is also made of 200-300 individual pieces, each then comprised of 5 or 6 panels, all of which are intended to be absorbed as part of the larger body, but which must also hold their own, free of sequential context.

With this exhibition, I present core samples from more than a dozen different projects over 14 years. The first period of work, from 1998 to about 2005, is defined by focus on failed communication, guilt, transience, and thinly-veiled desire. The second era, lasting until about 2008, is more focused on unassuming depictions of highly subjective experiences and characters, finally exploring dread, menace, selfishness, and loss of control. Works from 2009 to 2012 condense these questions, reintroducing them as more pointed narratives about Southern culture, shifting notions of identity, questionable legacies, and the threat of violence.

Many of my narratives are ambiguous or open-ended, and some readers are uncomfortable with the absence of a clearly established viewpoint. I’m personally drawn most to stories that demand multiple visits, those that contain the strong possibility of multiple true perspectives, and those that respect an audience’s ability to explore those questions themselves. My work is increasingly defined by questions that invite (and require) the reader to meet me halfway, invest some of their own lives into the narrative, and emerge from a unique and immersive reading experience with questions and dialogue of their own.



Drawing Rick Riordan's THE LOST HERO graphic novel!

I'm pleased to announce I'll be drawing a graphic novel adaptation of best-selling author Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero, which is a spinoff title of his hugely successful Percy Jackson & The Olympians series and feature film.

The graphic novel is the first adaptation in Riordan's Heroes Of Olympus series, and will be adapted to the medium by fellow Top Shelf creator and New York Times best-selling author Robert Venditti (X-O Manowar, The Surrogates, The Homeland Directive, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief). I'm excited and honored to be working together with Rob on this project.

The graphic novel is scheduled to be released in Fall 2014 from Hyperion Books. 

More info as it rolls in!

(obviously, this image does not feature my art-- it's just the novel.)

SWEET TOOTH #34 cover!

Here's the cover to Sweet Tooth #34, which is a collaboration between Jeff Lemire and me entitled "The Ballad Of Johnny And Abbot". Vertigo just solicited the issue to be released in early June.

I'm finished with the interior inks, and am halfway through the coloring process. Challenging and a bit nerve-wracking to color directly on the inks with permanent acrylic dyes, but so much fun.