BOSTON COMIC CON!!

Happy Friday everyone!!  This weekend is Boston Comic Con, and I got to do a 3-cover variant for the show!!  It’s the Newbury Comics special connecting cover, and it’s chock full ‘o’ Adventure Time and Boston things!  I’ll be selling prints and copies of Primates and doing commissions!  I’ll be at table AA330 and surrounded by awesome New England folks like Joe Quinones, Ming Doyle, Erica Henderson, Randall Trang, Emmy C…so stop by and say hi!

Floating World signing!

Hey internets - just a reminder that I will be signing copies of Primates at Floating World Comics from 4:30 - 6:00 PM in Portland, OR!!  Come by and say "pant HOOT"!

PRIMATES IS OUT!!!

Hi there!

Primates is officially out!  If you like science, or comics (or both), please check it out.  I've been working on this book with Jim Ottaviani and First Second Books for 5 years, so I am very excited to finally welcome it into the word.

All this week, I'll be posting Primate-related things.  So bear with me.  Or rather, "ape" with me.

If you have any questions about the book, feel free to ask!

Here's an excerpt, courtesy of one of my favorite sites BoingBoing.

Free Comic Book Day: Acme Comics-style

Tomorrow (Saturday May 4th) is Free Comic Book Day!  Joe and I (along with a bunch of other cool comics peeps) are celebrating this joyous occasion at Acme Comics in Greensboro, NC.  If you're in the area, stop by anytime between 10 AM and 5 PM for a free sketch!  I'll also have prints for sale, as well as a preview copy of Primates for you to lay your eyeballz on.

If you're not in the area, be sure to pick up the Free Spongebob Comic!  It's got a one-page comic about camouflage (by yours truly).

Primates!!

Happy New Year (a little belated, I know)!

2013 is going to chock full of new and art and doodles...First up: Primates!

Yup, it's the project I've been working on for the past 4 years...written by the amazing Jim Ottaviani, published by the also-amazing First Second Books.  Here's a profile page for the book, and you can pre-order on Amazon.  The official release for Primates is June 11 2013, and I've got a whole lot of fun stuff to post about it.

Oh, and in case you didn't notice, I spruced up the blog with some foliage (and a chimp).

Fionna & Cake!

Hey!  It's a backup cover for Fionna & Cake!  By me!  More here.  I may be paying a little homage to one of my all-time favorite video games...

Fan Art Friday No. 17

The Falcon!!  (drawn for The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: REDUX Edition)

Vacation = over (for now)

Hi internet,

I took a vacation from you (and from working), and now I'm BACK.

Sincerely,
maris

But seriously, I took a much-needed break towards the end of the summer.  And now it's full steam ahead!  I will start by saying that Joe and I are going to be at New York Comic Con.  AND...we will be selling a print that we did together:

First, we worked on a sketch together (which included brainstorming all the animals we wanted in the piece).  Then, Joe penciled Aquaman and I penciled the animals, and we took turns inking sections.  Lastly, we finished it up in Photoshop, taking turns as well.  We'll have this 11 x 17 print (along with an animal-identification guide) at NYCC.

Another commission from Heroes Con 2012!

Commissions...

I know Heroes Con was a few weekends back, but here are some of the super-fun commissions I got to

do there:

Suki, from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Toph, also from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Supergirl, playing volleyball

Iron Fist, doing some martial arts

There were more; I will post them soooooooon.

Bravest Warriors!

This got announced yesterday!  I'm doing one of the covers for issue #1 of Bravest Warriors (along with Jim Rugg and Tyson Hesse).  Learn more about Bravest Warriors here! woot!

Spongebob!! (well, kind of)

Hey everyone, if you're heading to your local comic shop, check out Spongebob Comics #9.  Why, might you ask?  Because I wrote a one-page marine bio comic in it!  Draw by Nate Neal, it examines in the wonderful world of cephalopods!  It's all fact, so no actual Spongebob characters show up in the story (hence the "kind of" in the title of this post).  The issue is chock-full of other great art and stories, so check it out!  You can also look forward to more Maris-written marine bio comics in future Spongebob issues.

Here's a little look at what my process for writing the script looks like (I also include a rough pencil sketch for layout):

This project has been a pleasure to work on, and I can't wait to share more sneak peeks with you soon!

I'm Thoooooooooooooooor!

This is just turning into fan art everyday. And I'm totally ok with it.

Aquaman, or rather, Aquamen!

I did a series of Aquaman costume redesigns for the wonderful Project: Rooftop, and they are now up! Here's a teaser:

Catch the full wardrobe (with commentary by me) HERE.

Supah Heroes.

FIRESTORM! A commission for a friend this past winter; more about this character here. (I had never heard of Firestorm, but I loved drawing his costume! Atoms! woot!)

ink and acryla gouache

And BATWOMAN! Did this one for fun. Don't really know why she's holding a cartoon-y bomb...just felt like drawing that.


ink and sharpies

Process: Writing

Prior to this past year, I had either written and drawn all my comics, or drawn comics while working from a script. For the work both written and drawn by me, most were mini comics, or short (2-12 page) stories for anthologies. I had never really given much thought to separating writing and drawing, but a number of opportunities presented themselves...like writing a one-page story for Mike Allred's Madman: 20th Anniversary MONSTER! Actually, he asked both Joe and me, so we worked together (awwww). In this post, I'm going to outline the process that I used to write the script. I'll be doing this with future posts as well, since I've recently written some other comics-y things.

BRAINSTORMING...or IN WHICH MARIS AND JOE TALK ABOUT NERDY THINGS OVER COFFEE



This might be my favorite part. Joe and I spent many walks and coffees discussing what may happen in the story. We do this for each other's respective projects as well; sometimes it's good to just talk stuff out.



FIGURING IT OUT...or IN WHICH I MAKE ILLEGIBLE MARKINGS WITH A WRITING UTENSIL ON A FIBROUS SURFACE


I should mention that I wrote a brief synopsis to send to Mike before we started laying out the panels. Also, I re-read o bunch of Madmen comics to get my head in the story. Research = fun! (Especially when it involves reading comics!)



THE ROUGH PANEL LAYOUT...or IN WHICH I MAKE ILLEGIBLE MARKINGS WITH A WRITING UTENSIL ON A FIBROUS SURFACE (part 2)


I guess this would be the second draft (but who's counting); scrapping things that don't fit, and tweaking the dialogue and settings to make sure it flows.



THE SCRIPT!! or LOOK, MA! I'M USING A COMPOOTER!!




Yup. Looking a bit more...professional? I really like using a pen and paper (stubborn and old-fashioned, I know), but typing it out is nice. I can make those final edits, and even scribble on the script some more. After looking at the final script, Joe combined a few panels/lines of dialogue. When you look at his layout sketch, you can see how ridiculously dense it is (sorry, Joe):


If you'd like to see more about Joe's process (including some very silly reference photos), they can be found here and here and here.

Mike Allred's Madman: 20th Anniversary MONSTER is out now! I'll be posting more about my writing process for other projects, as well as my pencilling/inking/coloring process. Until then...bye bye!

Still life with juggernaut and cats.

Two things: Thanks to everyone who came out at NYCC; it was a blast! I'll be posting some of the commissions I did here (and on my tumblr) over the next few days.

And also, thanks to everyone who donated to The Apocalypse Calendar!! We reached the kickstarter goal, and you can purchase said calendar RIGHT NOW! You can also just buy a print of the underwater illustration I did for the calendar here.

NEW YORK COMIC CON!!

NYC here we come!
(no, we will not be arriving via tractor)

Joe and I will be sharing the magnificent S-2 table, right next to Mr. Paolo Rivera. Saturday we will be in COSTUME...you heard me. IN COSTUME. The identity of my costume will remain a surprise for now.

I will being selling lots of prints, including this one:



Each of those dudes will be available as individual prints too! Also, there will be mini-comics and original art. AND I'll be doing commission sketches. woot! It'll be a fun time!

MODOK!

Teeny tiny MODOK, from Emerald City Comic Con.

Thanks to everyone who came out for M.I.C.E. this past Saturday; it was so nice to see all that support for a local indie con! The next con that I will be at is New York Comic Con. Joe and I will be sharing a table in Artist's Alley; I'll be posting more about those details later.

Also, I am starting a tumblr: mariswicks.tumblr.com (click to see some more superhero silliness) I am going to use this as a motivation to post more often, as well as to get less precious about my posts (less words, more DRAWINGS).

I will still post here, but there will be doodle-y goodness going on in the tumblr. Mmmmmm...doodles.