The sketch is actually a few sketches, done on tracing paper, and taped together. I really like it. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a totally different way of working than the way I do things. And, since Chester Brown is so amazing, it makes me wonder if I should be doing things the way he does…

Also, after posting this, I had a little internal debate with myself about whether or not I should have included the dollar amount. Wasn’t sure if it distracted, or if it was relevant to the comic. I decided to leave it. I don’t think it’s an outrageous amount of money to pay for some artwork, so I probably don’t need to be too self-conscious about it.

Played around coloring a drawing I did a few months back for Jim Rugg’s Objet d’Afro contest. I think it came out “Just OK”, not great. The lettering probably looks better. But, I think it shows that it’s better to know you intend on coloring a picture when you’re drawing it, because I think I would have gone easier on the inking if I knew I was going to be bringing it into Photoshop.

OK, so here’s one of The Giants, since I like them too, though, I’m not enjoying watching their games as much. Obviously Eli Manning is a good quarterback – he did win the Superbowl in two of the best games I ever saw – but, in general he seems less athletic than other quarterbacks. More goofy and clumsy.

I love Chris Snee, because anytime he screws up, the announcer always has to point out that he’s married to the coach’s daughter. There’s always a joke about how it’ll be a frosty dinner in that household tonight!

I really need to stop drawing these, I have a book to finish. But, it’s just so much fun to play around in Photoshop. I barely drew this image. I did a quick sketch using a colored pencil on a piece of typing paper, and then just did everything else on the computer.

I really have no idea who this guy is. After I drew him, I looked him up and saw that he’s been injured this whole season, poor guy. But, I wanted to play around coloring in Photoshop some more, so here he is.

I was following a conversation on twitter this afternoon about brush presets for Photoshop. It was really informative. I was embarrassed by how little I knew about actually using Photoshop to draw. I downloaded a couple of presets that people were linking to, and took a second stab at coloring my Mark Sanchez drawing from this past weekend. Some of the brushes that people had created were amazing. Using them and the Wacom tablet, it came close to feeling like painting with the real thing. I want to get better at this.

Hopefully the Jets will beat New England this weekend (an important game!), and if they do, I plan on drawing another picture to celebrate.

I’m deriving a lot of pleasure from watching The Jets this season. Everyone keeps telling me not to get too excited that they’re doing well, because they’re just going to fall flat on their faces in the end. We’ll see…

Another sketchbook page. I think this one is interesting because of what I wrote on the right-hand side. This was back in 2004 or 2005, and I’d just started posting some pages from F&M online, after I’d been working on the book for a long, long, time. Heidi MacDonald linked to me from The Beat, and I was psyched that this sent a bunch of traffic my way, as well as leading to my first real publishing offer (which was from a French publisher who did a lot of US translations).

As you can see, I wrote “Have to remember that not every day is a positive day” underneath. This is a little embarrassing, but it’s was a good thing to remind myself. For me, writing could be tough, and there are definitely days when it seemed like a pointless thing to be doing. I think it’s important to never let those days overwhelm you, just as it’s important to not let the days when you feel like great things are happening go to your head either. Same thing with reviews. Don’t take the good or the bad ones too seriously (except for when I got a really positive review in the London Sunday Telegraph. That one counted!).

Finally, it’s kind of fun to see that I must have been gearing up for the scene in F&M where I imagine myself singing “Somebody to Love” in the cafeteria, judging by the doodles of me wearing Freddie Mercury clothes.