Slightly inappropriate.

Just look at that little hotdog butt hole!!

M.I.C.E.!

Hey y'all, Liz and I will be at the Massachusetts Indie Comics Expo today! We wil be joined by a whole bunch of talented New England comics peeps. If you're in the Boston area, come down and say "hi" (plus admission is FREE!!). Oh, and we'll have a new mini...the sequel to Four Squares, drawn with Mr. Joe and Mr. Tim. See you there!

Ah, the interwebs...

Hey everyone on the interwebs! If you were at SPX last weekend, thanks for coming down and supporting us nerds. Joe, Liz and I had taken a year off, and we were glad to be back (SPX was my very first comics convention, back in 2002). If you weren't at SPX, thanks for reading this blog!

I apologize for the steady decline in blog postings; this has been a busy year (don't even try and count the number other times I've typed that phrase...). It's not that I haven't had anything to post, I just haven't made the time to post it. (shame,shame)

I know my post last weekend was brief, so here's a little bit more on what's going down in the land of Maris:

-I know I mentioned this before, but "Yes, Let's" is a super-cool kid's book that I did with Galen Longstreth for Tugboat Press. It is full color! Read it to a kid (or to yourself) in the grass! Here's a peak:

cover:



a little peak inside:



-I'm still hard at work on Primates, the graphic novel I'm illustrating for First Seconds Books (written by Jim Ottaviani!); I'll hopefully be posting some sneak peaks soon.

-I have a comic in the anthology "Make: Comics About an Intimate Act", edited by Robyn Chapman. There's a bunch of swell people in this great little collection about my favorite subject...POOP.

-Joe and I moved...1 mile down the road! We're still in Somerville, making this the longest we've lived in the same location. Also, we now live below the talented Liz Prince. OMG comics house. We drew one last night, but we can't really take credit...

-Biggs is obviously still being AWESOME:



-I pretty much cut off all my hair, so get ready for me to look like even more of a boy in my auto-bio strips...

So, yeh. I'm sure there's more. But that's it for now. Joe and I are just barely getting settled into our new place, but once we're set up, I'm planning on drawing comics just for the fun of it again (I haven't drawn a personal comic all summer long!) And the logical conclusion would be to post these comics to this blog (though I don't always do the logical thing.) Just sayin'.

SPX!11!??

Forgive me, Blogger, for it has been 3 months (?!) since I last blogged...


I am at SPX in Bethesda Maryland! With Liz and Joe and Tim!

Come say 'hi' if you are attending!

I have a new book out (written by Galen Longstreth, put out by Tugboat Press)!

I have been working and moving and working; I will blog more soon (like how Joe and I are now Liz's NEIGHBORS!!). Promise.

-m

MECAF!!!

Get ready to be MECAFfeinated!!! Liz and I (and Duddits) will be at MECAF in Portland Maine this Sunday, May 23rd hawking our comic-y wares. Mr. Joe Quinones will be unable to join us do to his being chained to the drawing table...but I'll have stuff of his for sale. Portland, ME is a GREAT town; lots of good food and good peeps. If you're in the Boston area, it's just a hop, skip and a jump up the coast (2 hours). Joe and I did this con last year, and we had blast! So come say "hi".

A comic.

This is a comic that a drew a few sketchbooks back, but it was recently in this neat zine called Little Brother (you can buy a copy here). Here's my submission:


That pretty much sums up how I feel about moving. In reality, I have all my limbs, and I've only ever lived in New England, but finding that sense of "home" takes time and effort (even if you're just moving to the next state over). As of right now, home is where the cat is...

Stumptown.

Two weekends ago, Joe, Liz and myself spent the weekend hawking our wares at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, OR. I absolutely LOVE this convention, plus it's a great way to hang out with comics friends that we see just a few times a year. Here are some tidbits from our trip:

O.K. so not particularly pertaining to Portland...but as soon as we flew in, I started to experience some serious gastro-intestinal trouble. Our first full day in Portland had me searching high and low for public restrooms as we walked around downtown (you didn't expect me to stay in my hotel room and poop all day, did you?).

from top left: our table at Stumptown (courtesy of Joshin Yamada ); Star Trek pinball at the Hawthorne theater (Max is watching the trainwreck that is my pinball skills); Liz, Joe and me photobombing...ourselves?; t-rex on the floor at Denver airport

When we weren't in comics-mode, we pretty much spent our time walking around, eating (mostly donuts), and playing pinball/arcade games with awesome comics people (Alec, Claire, Greg, Max, Lucy, John, Jon Chad, Colleen...thanks! I probably forgot some people too...sorry)

Liz and I did a bunch of convention sketches; here are a few of mine:



One last doodle: the plane ride home:

I inked this with a nib and ink (supplies I haven't touched since college, luckily Joe has a fancy nib that he uses for detail work that I could borrow); I was totally inspired by Max's comics. Plus my shaky inking skills perfectly matched the turbulence of the plane ride (note: I did NOT ink on the plane).

We're home now for a while. Our last comics engagement of the spring season will be at MECAF. Yay Maine! (I'll post more about that when it's sooner.)

-m

p.s. Oh yeah, and the Superpooperman drawing can be blamed on the request of this man (look for pooping Supergirl and Spiderwoman!). heh heh. poop

So much has happened over the past three months...

...but what's really awesome is that WE NOW HAVE A CAT!!!!1!!


Intertubes, meet Biggs "Bear" Darklighter. He is a formidable 16 pounds of feline. And we love him so much. Do not worry; he is on a diet.

I have drawn him a bunch (we've had him for almost a month):
Biggs already has some "fan art" that I'll be posting soon.

I have so much to catch up on, I'm going to update every day (or every other day) for the next week or so. So this is all you get (for right now). Cattitude!!

-m

Happy New Year...

It's still January, so I'm allowed to say that, right? So far 2010 has seen a lot of drawing things I can't post quite yet...though I have been able to crank out some doodles and comics. One of my goals this year is to do more life drawing, so this past Monday I (along with drawing buddy Erica and my sis) doodled out at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. If you live in the Boston area and like seeing copious amounts of taxidermied animals, glass flowers and meteors, you should definitely check it out. I'm kind of in love with the coelacanth they have:

I brought my itty bitty watercolor set and a pencil.

Some of my other doodling endeavors have lead me to draw some pixel-y art:

Yeah, that's supposed to me. I've been loving me some graph paper.

Lastly, I was linked by the kind gentleman over at Marvel Smartass for all my interpretations of Marvel characters! Thanks! I should draw more superheroes...

ZOMG 2010...

...PLEASE GIVE ME A FEW MORE MONTHS, OK? I know it really shouldn't matter, but the New Year always puts me in a funk (kind of in the same way birthdays do...that uneasy half exciting/half nauseating feeling). Did I do enough this year? Could I have done more? Better? Ah, self doubt. Whatever. 2009 was what it was. I tend to only remember the good (I'm such a bloody optimist), so I actually feel like it was a pretty good year (please don't prove me wrong by pointing out my foibles in the comments). I'll end my "deep thoughts" session by wishing everyone a wonderful New Year (and a blue moon to boot)!

cheers,
maris

oh yeah, I drew a family portrait of the Joker for my local comic shop Batman Gallery show:

That's right, I actually used a non-digital medium to color it!! WATERCOLORS in da HOOOOOUSE!! (or to be more accurate, watercolors in the apartment)

It's beginning to look a lot like...

SUPERHEROES!!




That's right folks. There's some superheroes up on my Etsy site. Just thought you might want to know.

Sketchy McSketchertons...

...from Sketchville.

Lots of work-related drawing lately, so here's a little recreational sketching. Most of these were done last night our local coffee shop Bloc 11, and they had a live music night (for the first time ever). All I can say is that I definitely need more accordion in my life.









And no, there were no slugs performing live. I just felt like drawing slugs (because they are AWESOME).

On the topic of farts...

This was an editorial piece I did a few months back for Discovery Girls magazine (it was in their "Embarassing Moments" section). I don't do editorial illustrations very often, so this was a fun job (plus I got to draw FARTING and use the "poot" sound effect).

Even more Super...

VILLAINS!?

This one was for a commission. I really heart the Batman cast of heroes and villains, and I was super-excited to draw Poison Ivy. I always found her character (as well as Catwoman's) interesting; I liked that they were both conservationists...(or, at least that was kind of how they were portrayed on the animated series, which was my gateway drug to the Batman universe). Their characters always seemed to have good intentions (Catwoman's theft was very Robin Hood-esque; stealing from the rich to give to the poor), but their good intentions often turned into acts of eco-terrorism (hello, poisonous plant bombs!). Philosophy aside, the villains of the Batman universe are just plain fun to draw!

Superheroes!

Last weekend, I crashed the Big Apple Con with Joe and Paolo. I had a few things to sell, but cons like that aren't really my audience...I did manage one sketch request (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU). Ladies and Gentlemen, Wonder Woman:
I love drawing superheroes...I guess it's because I never really get to. While I was sitting behind the table, I doodled up some other stuff:




Paolo watercolored the Spidey one for me!

I have a feeling 2010 might be the year of the con; Joe and I are planning to go all out (we might even do San Diego con). Who knows? Once we figure out our schedule, I'll be sure to post about way ahead of time. Ok, back to drawing comics!

True Story:

(click to make it BIGGER)

So much to do...

...so little time. Again, I've been neglecting the blog, and even larger, the internets. I feel as though updating the blog is a treat, like a little reward for finishing a project. The trouble is, I've got at least three projects that are in the works, but nowhere near completion. The result? This neglected blog. It seems that more work would provide the exact opposite, resulting in a blog filled with entry after entry. But I can't find the time to justify sitting down and saying, "Here's what I'm doing, but it's just a snip-it...", when I could be using that time to keep working. Perhaps I should view blogging as a task rather than as a reward...
I am also feeling a bit out of touch with the whole comics crowd after my decision not to attend some of my favorite conventions this year. Just this past weekend was SPX, which I haven't missed since 2005. I was sad not to go, but I was able to stay home and finish a little project I'd been working on for Uncle Envelope. Definitely check out the site; it's an awesome thing to subscribe to, especially if you (or your kids) love getting stuff in the mail. Here's a sneak-peek of my mini comic, which will be the mailing item for October:


Yes, those are poops. The comic is all about the human digestive system. I loves me some science!!

And here are some comics from a while ago...I have such a back-log of these, I can't wait until I put them together in a big, fat book (yet another project that might keep me from frequenting the interwebs...)!






The Tetris comic is from last November (before my DS met it's unfortunate fate). Lately, video games have been "off limit" with the exception of a little MarioKart every now and then (you know, to alleviate stress). My favorite vehicle is the Super Blooper. Gee, I wonder why...possibly because it is a car shaped like a squid? But I digress...

I leave you with one of my many job-related comics. This one is about something I'll probably be doing tonight:


I have the best job EVER.

Cheers,
Maris

Summertime...

Ways to beat the heatwave:



1 lemon, squeezed
ice
maple syrup to taste (and none of that fake stuff; I'm looking at you Mrs. Butterworth)
2 slices of lemon, for prettifying

Instant cool off, although I can't promise that you won't break a sweat squeezing the lemon.

But seriously, this is how hot it was last week:


Sorry about all those butts.

In other news, I have finished all my pencils for the book I'm working on!


Yay! I actually performed the happy dance afterwards.

Egads.

Ugh. Has it really been a month since I last posted? Oops. Well, I don't even have anything that spectacular to show...just a lack-luster photo of my shared work space. Joe and I both share our computer and drawing table; we have a back-up laptop and small table for when our respective tasks overlap. Here's what it looks like with my stuff at the drawing table (click for bigness):


Again, not all that interesting. I might also add that I am currently drawing my final pages on 9" x 12" Vellum Bristol (which is VERY soggy at the moment due to three weeks of CONSTANT HUMIDITY).

I'm still drawing little auto-bio comics whenever I can...here's some oldies about work (and work-related mis-speak):




Yay! Scallops! (yes, those little black dots are it's eyes)

And last, but not least:


Ok, so I guess I had a few things to share. I know I've said it before, but I am going to make an effort to post once a week, even if it's just a wee comic. Now, BACK TO WORK FOR ME!!!!

-m

The Great Outdoors

In light of the summer season, I thought I'd share my Project:Rooftop Wolverine redesign:


And I'm proud to say that I smell like squids today.