Author Archives: mcavallaro

Shirts For A Cure

I created this design for the Shirts For A Cure project and will be joining SFAC at their booth at this year’s New York Comic Con, 2011, at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC. From the Shirts For A Cure website:

The Syrentha J. Savio Endowment (SSE) was established by punk-rock photographer Mark Beemer in 2002. SSE provides financial assistance to underprivileged women who cannot afford expensive breast cancer medicine and therapy. The Shirts For A Cure Project (SFAC) was launched by SSE to give voice to the social concerns of punk bands and their many fans as well as to raise awareness about breast cancer prevention.

When a band donates a shirt design to SFAC, the design becomes exclusive to SSE. We sell the shirt and use the proceeds to help women fighting breast cancer. If you would like to support our cause please take a moment to peruse the more then 150 shirts we offer. All shirts are printed on 100% pre-shrunk cotton unless otherwise stated. For a donation of $14 (plus shipping and handling) you will be helping someone who is in need as well as receiving an exclusive shirt from your favorite band.

My design, as well as one by Molly Crabapple will go on sale at this year’s NYCC, October 13 – 16.

Dog Days Update

I hope I’m not tempting the weather gods when I say I’ve known hotter Augusts. Someone told me today that another heat wave is on the way, but otherwise it’s been pretty nice here in Brooklyn, and I’ve had a few good nights in the backyard this year, which goes a long way to counter balance the hours and hours at the drawing table.

I just recently finished penciling 164 pages of CURSES! FOILED AGAIN, the follow-up to the FOILED graphic novel with writer Jane Yolen. Now it’s on to lettering and inking which should take a few months. Here’s a page of pencil roughs:

I’ve also been working on a side project with writer J.M. DeMatteis, my one-time collaborator on The Life And Times of Savior 28. This one’s very different from that, though, and here’s a crazy double-page spread to prove it:

Lastly, Psychic Volt records will be releasing some songs I recorded with a band 15 years ago and never did anything with. It will be an L.P. Show of hands, who still knows what that is? Here’s the front cover for the album artwork:

Now, back to work!

LOVIATHAN!

Just received this wonderful piece from super-talented illustrator/cartoonist Leela Wagner [website], based on my webcomic LOVIATHAN. Thanks, Leela!

Lest we forget …

I just came across these photos that I never downloaded from my camera. I believe this is the day after Christmas, 2011, when we woke to a couple feet of snow.
I’m really glad I bought that shovel the day before.

First, here’s the drift up against our entrance way:

After about an hour of shoveling, it’s safe for Lisa to have coffee outdoors:

As I reach the top of the brownstone’s steps, some nice views of the street before plowing and more shoveling have disturbed the snow too much:

See you in a few months, Winter.

Daredevil #1 Cover by Paolo Rivera

Follow the link to Paolo Rivera’s blog to see his cover for Daredevil #1. Great concept! Great design!

MoCCA weekend

I had a better time at this year’s MoCCA Arts Festival 2011 than I’ve had there in the past couple years, certainly since the Festival’s move from the Puck Building downtown to the 25th Street Armory. I’m not sure what made the difference this time around. It may all come down to my own disposition.

I sketched for an hour each day at the MoCCA gallery table. $25 – $35 per sketch, all proceeds going to the gallery itself. Also there were artists Rick Parker, Simon Fraser, Dean Haspiel, Bob Sikoryak, Bill Plympton, Nick Abadzis, Mo Willems and others.

Mo and I worked together for many years on the Cartoon Network animated series “Codename: Kids Next Door.” Since he launched his juggernaut children’s book career, I haven’t seen much of him, so it was nice to chat for a while. I did a few drawings: a femme fatale, Savior 28, and Ben 10.

Got to talk to the folks at First Second Books, who published my graphic novel with Jane Yolen, “Foiled”, and are publishing the sequel, “Curses, Foiled Again!” (I’m working on it…)

Also met and spoke with Doug Bratton, the NY Metro area chapter head of the National Cartoonists Society.

Of course, I picked up a few gems. Please pardon the lousy Mac camera photos.

From the Abrams table, the single-volume collection of Brian Walker’s “The Comics”, one of the most exhaustive written histories available on the subject of newspaper comic strips in America.

From the NBM table, Nicolas De Crecy’s “Salvatore”.

I didn’t actually get this at the con, but the enormous “The Mighty Thor” Omnibus arrived yesterday. It collects all the Walter Simonson Thor comics from the 80’s. It’s huge. The recoloring, by the way, is a great improvement over previous editions and collections of this material.

Giving it away

Jim Amash: How did copyrighting CAPTAIN AMERICA occur to you?

Joe Simon: “At 24 years old, I was just trying to make a living. I was a product of the times… it was the Depression and I was just happy to make a living. We all were. All of us were like homeless people, happy for anything we got. People say, “Well the Shusters and the Siegels, and the Simons and the Kirbys were stupid. They gave away everything.” But we never even thought about it that way.

Timely’s chief accountant was Maurice Coyne, a guy who promoted that for me; he didn’t like them very much… It was his idea that we arrange some kind of a 25% royalty for me. I gave Kirby part of it, but it was hardly anything. Maurice took me aside on day and told me they were putting all the office expenses, all the salaries and everything, on Captain America.”

-Alter Ego #76

MoCCA Comic Arts Festival 2011

Just wanted to mention that the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art festival 2011 is this weekend, April 9 – 10, at the Lexington Avenue Armory, 68 Lexington Ave (Between 25th & 26th Streets), New York City. More info HERE.

The “festival” is really a comic book convention which acts as a fundraiser for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Hours: Saturday April 9th and Sunday April 10th 11am-6pm.

I don’t have my own table this year, but I’ll be sketching at the MoCCA table from 12 – 1 pm both Saturday and Sunday. All proceeds go to the MoCCA gallery.

Too Organized

From 1957 to 1965, John Romita worked for DC Comics. Although he dreamed of working on any of their more recognizable adventure titles, he found himself stuck in DC’s romance comic department. Years later, of course, he would become the architect of the “Marvel style” and go on to have some 35 successful years, working on characters like Daredevil and Spider-Man.

Editors at DC were very territorial. They had their own stable of creators whom they never shared with other editors. A freelancer could lose their job if their editor found out they were working with someone else.

Freelancers who needed more money, or who wanted to work on different types of books, took to using fake names to avoid the backlash. A lot of these, like Romita, were artists languishing in DC’s romance department. They all began to quietly seek work from Stan Lee.

Says writer and former Marvel Comics EIC, Roy Thomas:

“Gil Kane was “Scott Edward,” and Werner Roth was “Jay Gavin,” both named for their kids. “Mickey Demeo” was Mike Esposito, and Frank Giacoia was “Frankie Ray.” Stan [Lee] and I would chuckle about how DC had had all these great hero artists buried in their romance department. It wasn’t that DC was disorganized. It’s more like they were too organized to utilize their artists well.”

Joe Maneely

“[My first story for Stan Lee] had some weaknesses, especially in the inking – Stan calls up [Timely artist] Joe Maneely and tells him, “I’m going to send this guy out to spend a day with you. Give him as many pointers as possible.” And the next day, I think, I went out to Flushing, probably from 10:30 in the morning until about 4:30 in the afternoon. I watched Maneely; and while he’s talking to me, giving me pointers, he turned out like two or three pages, one double-spread with an entire pioneer fort in Indian country with Indians attacking from the outside, and guys shooting from the inside.

“He didn’t need reference, he didn’t need anything. He just sat there, and between 10:30 and, say, 12:30, he had penciled this double-spread in, very roughly. After lunch – I think I just went out and got a hot dog – I come back and he’s starting to ink it, and he finished the damn double-spread before we finished the afternoon session! He was just a staggering talent!

“[He] died when he was 38 years old, I think. I jokingly said once that, if Joe Maneely had lived, half of us would have been out of work!”

-John Romita
from an interview with Roy Thomas