L.A., HERE I COME!

For almost a year, I've been scheming and dreaming of moving back to Los Angeles, California. And now my beautiful dream is about to become science-fact. Because in January 2011, I'm packing up my Oakland studio and moving the entire Hiredmeat operation down to The City of Angels!

Even though leases have been signed and notices have been given, there's still tons of logistical hoopla for me to deal with. The upcoming move - combined with Holiday travel - has me pressed like a childhood memory in Jack Donaghy's mind vice (for any 30 Rock fans out there). And with the Herculean tasks at hand, I'm doubly in need of support from my fans, friends and collectors.

There are several ways you (Yes, you!) can help me make all this happen; including: investing in original artwork from my "Pick Up The Pieces" online art sale, pre-ordering my new sketchbook LIONSEATYOU, and/or purchasing various items from my online store.

- View and purchase original works from the "PICK UP THE PIECES" Online Art Sale!

- Pre-order your copy of LIONSEATYOU, complete with free rubber block print!

- Purchase "Booty & The Beast" art print and/or graphic novels in The Meatshop!

I've had a fine time providing you folks with all sorts of weird eye candy, during my years in The Bay Area. And I'm excited to reach whole new levels of visual vibrancy in sunny SoCal.

I do hope you'll stick with me for this next chapter of the grand adventure that has been my career!

With ink stained fingers,
- Dave "King Gum" Crosland

Chicago Comic Con THIS WEEKEND!

After nearly 5 years away, yours truly is finally returning to Chicago, the city that launched my comics career! I'll be setting up this weekend (Fri, Sat & Sun) at the Chicago Comics & Entertainment Expo, in Artists Alley with Jim "Food One" Mahfood. Come visit us at table #11D, where we'll be slinging books, original art, and commissioned drawings & paintings!

For more on the show, visit: www.c2e2.com

Looking forward to my first Midwest convention in a long, looong while!
- King Gum Crosland

California Teachers Association Comics

A few months ago, I started doing a monthly comic for The Educator, a trade magazine put out by The California Teachers Association. Each episode of the strip is based around one of the many woes that are constantly torpedoing the teaching industry all across the state -- everything from budget cuts to expanding class sizes.

It's a pretty fun gig. I don't write the concepts or gag lines, but the editors I'm working with are great and give me all the visual freedom a guy could ask for. Also, I've got a few friends out here who are teachers, so the comic's topics usually hit pretty close to home.

Anyway, if you aren't a teacher in California and you don't live with one, then you'll probably never see an actual copy of The Educator. So I thought I'd start making them available online. Enjoy!

"See you later - I'm up in the nosebleeds."

"In my day,'cutting classes' was known as something very different."

"I miss the days when they would ask for a pony."

-Bunker, out.

"Doughboy" minicomic in the works...

With so much drama in the world today -- the presidential primaries, a frigid winter in China, Britney Spears being hospitalized -- I'm sure tons of you are wondering, "What's Dave Crosland up to right now?" Luckily, you restless hordes can ease your curious nerves with this little show and tell.

For the past month, I've been getting ready to work on a new minicomic called "Soft Coeur." The short story in this book follows the trials and tribulations of a young, female doughboy trying to rescue the soul of a little drowned girl from the perils of the afterlife. The story is aptly titled "Doughboy," and features odd creatures, hidden dangers, mystical power-ups, and lots and lots of candles. I actually got the spark for this short after seeing a sidewalk memorial to two folks who were killed in a pretty awful car wreck up the street from The Bunker. Chilling stuff....

As you can see in the sketches above, my doughboy is a young, black girl with her standard issue doughboy helmet (circa World War I, yo). She'll also have a satchel loaded with tools and potions that help her do her job. And I dunno who that weird, fish-fin-headed dude is behind her on the right. I think it might be Abe Sapien from the Hellboy books. Who knows... I was drinking a lot of coffee, that night. Oh, and on the right is the drowned girl. She's the centerpiece of the tale, which is funny, because she basically "sleeps" through the entire thing.

Soft Coeur is gonna be self-published and ready just in time for WonderCon, in San Francisco, February 22nd through the 24th. I'll be posting with more info on that convention in the next week, so stay tuned.

Get back... get on back... get back to where you once belonged.
-Bunker, out.

"Everybody's DEAD" page process

Hey, peoples! It's been a hot Friday in The Bunker. I'm fighting off a cold, but the lines were flowing like crazy today. I knocked out a whole page of "Everybody's DEAD" #3. Keep on reading, and I'll walk you through the process! *click the pics for a larger view*

1. The Pencils -- Okay, so I was up by 8am. I put on some tea, went through my morning routine, and was at my desk working on the page by 9:30. I started with a pathetic little sketch of the page done in the margins of the script. And between 9:30 and noon, I was able to turn it into this:


It's rough, it's dirty, a little scribbly, but all the main points are there. Certain artists pencil to varying degrees of "tightness." Luckily, I'm my own inker. So I can be loose with some of my pencils, and just pick up the slack when I go to ink. It's almost like I'm being an asshole for myself to work with. Hmm....

2. Inks, Mofo -- With the pencils done, I took a moment to make some more tea and toast (zang!). Then it was back to work! After an hour or so of zen-magic wrist-action, the page looked somethin' like this:

That's what I'm talkin' about, people. Oodles, and oodles of linework. At this point, everything was outlined. My solid-black fills were mapped out (with those little "x's"). And I had erased all the pencils. All I had to do now was handle those fills. Oh and, as tightly drawn as the page was at this point, there were still errors and small fixes that needed attention.

*Some artists will actually use a light-table to do the inks on a separate piece of paper. It spares them the erasing step, prevents them messing up the inks with an eraser, and allows for a freer interpretation of the pencil drawing into an ink drawing. Me, I'm a heathen. I just like to do the majority of my drawing and decision-making right there on the final board.*

3. Inked Up And Ready To Go! -- Step 3 is all about the nitty-gritty. It's filling in blacks. It's making outlines bolder. It's fixes and cleanup. And after some fine tuning with pens and brushes (plus, some TLC from my delicious Bic Wite-Out pen), I bent my knee to the scanner gods. And, thus, my worship brought forth a newborn comic page!



At last, the page was finished. I had it scanned and sent in a little before 5pm. Not a bad day's work, eh?

I hope you've enjoyed this, the first of many "looks-under-the-hood" to come. I'm off to some late-night treats and "Dragon Wars." Oh yes.

-Bunker, Out.

"Everybody's DEAD"!!!

After a short break from comics last year, following my work on "Scarface: Scarred For Life," I'M BACK! This time, it's with the motley fraternity vs. messy monsters epic, "Everybody's DEAD"!

Written by Brian Lynch (writer on "Angel: After The Fall", the comic continuation of Joss Whedon's Angel), this book follows the post-apocalyptic adventures of "... the last people on Earth you'd want to be the last people on Earth." It's a 5-issue miniseries. I'm working on the third issue now, and it's a blast. I'm talking, like, the Tunguska Blast of 1908! Simply put, it's a handful of dorky fratters and one badass kick-boxing chica, against the undead hordes. It's classic cult stuff. But there IS a twist to these undead hellions. For that, you'll just have to pick up the book.

This series has me drawing all sorts of fun items -- muscle cars, gore, sexy costumes, MORE gore, fraternity brawls, and did I mention the gore?

I'll be dropping plenty of updates on this blog, as I progress thru the books. For now, you can click the issue 1 cover to the right. Enjoy!

ps-- Len O'Grady (the colorist on Scarface) is also coloring this series. The man's a demigod of chroma.