"Mary Mary, Quite Contrary"

Behold, above is my contribution to Eat Your Art Out IV. This one-night gallery show -- thrown by those badass Angel City Derby Girls -- blasts off this Saturday night at Meltdown Comics, in Hollywood, CA! The artist roster is monstrous, including Jim Mahfood/Food One, Jason Shawn Alexander, Jose Garibaldi, Love Ablan and many more! For more info on the show, check the Meltdown Comics website.

My piece is titled "Mary Mary, Quite Contrary." Measuring at 18" x 24", it's a portrait of Mary Tudor, the notorious "Bloody Mary" of Old England. As Queen, she got the moniker from the outright glut of executions she employed against Protestant dissenters, while restoring England to Roman Catholicism. Ya gotta love the creepy origins of these old nursery rhymes and fairy tales. So many of these simple poems intended to entertain children are, in fact, cautionary reminders of how brutal the world can be.

I took a heap of process photos of this painting, and will post them ASAP. For now, it's back to work!

"Timing and tiger strength. Strategy will put you past."
- King Gum.

On The Slate - Comics-In-Progress!

For today's On The Slate, I thought I'd share snapshots of a top-secret comic project I'm grinding on. These images are the beginning of a pitch for a project with writer Chris Kirby (The Lost Squad). I can't say much, save that it's a sci-fi/action book and the story is incredibly inventive.

Best of all, Chris has given me carte blanche to throw myself at this thing, visually. I'm getting to go ape-poo with it, bringing more raw power to sequential pages than I think I ever have before. Hope you dig the peekaboo!

"Runnin' from the law, the press and the parents!
'Is your name Michael Diamond?' Naw, my name's Clarence!"
- Gum.

On The Slate: The Quick & The Dead

This is one of a few Wild West-themed paintings that I started awhile ago. I was taking some photos of it for a prospective buyer and thought, "What the hell? I'll post these for On The Slate."

I've got stacks of paintings-in-progress, spread out in my studio space. And I'll invite collectors over to look through them. It's fun and allows me to indulge the "gallery artist" side of myself, I suppose. It's also a nice way to trick people into visiting me in my Fortress of Solitude. Sometimes, art can be an awfully lonely endeavor!

"You get the ankles, and I'll get the wrists! Ya come down ta this!"
- Dave