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Pix Plus…El Deafo!

PIX+ElDeafo

EL DEAFO was a book I heard a lot about before I got to reading it. And yes, I recognize the…irony of hearing about a book which tells the story of a girl (Cece Bell, the author/illustrator) and her experiences growing up after she becomes “severely to profoundly” deaf. But this book was abuzz. At the 2014 ALA conference, EL DEAFO and Raina Telgemeier’s SISTERS were books I kept hearing about or seeing people carrying advance review copies of…and then it started getting rave reviews everywhere…and then people I knew had read it and couldn’t speak highly enough of it. Well, with all that hype there’s a greater chance for disappointment, but EL DEAFO is excellent comics.

Cebe Bell, who draws herself (and everyone else) as rabbit-humans, tells her story honestly and unflinchingly, using the tools of comics super effectively, most especially when it comes to her exploration of sound, something inherently absent from comics. But by manipulating lettering and word balloons and such, she achieves something only comics could do. That there’s a superhero element to it, in that Bell imagines herself a superhero with the “powers” her Phonic Ear provides, adds a layer of charm and whimsy…and gave me an excuse/reason to pair El Deafo with Pix!

Learn more about EL DEAFO here.

 


 

Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

 

Pix Plus…The Intrepid EscapeGoat!

PIX+Escapegoat

 

Brian Smith is one of those people who’s more creative than folks might ever know. His downright common name doesn’t help, but his work is far from common. He’s maybe best known for the NY Times best-selling graphic novel series he co-writes with Mike Raicht called THE STUFF OF LEGEND, but while working on that he wrote an illustrated a series called THE INTREPID ESCAPEGOAT, and it is great. Thomas Fleet is EscapeGoat, a magician and escape artist (hence the name) who, when he’s not performing feats of magic, faces down magical threats around the world, aided by his sidekick, the powerful Princess Isis. It’s worth checking out, as are his other comics, WISHFUL STINKING and THE BASICS, which, stop what you’re doing now and read them all here. It was no easy task choosing which of Brian’s works to team Pix with, but I like drawing animals, even if it’s just their heads!

Learn more at briansmithcomics.com.

I’ve actually drawn EscapeGoat once before, for Brian – a full-color piece that never saw print in the series – so I figured I’d post that image here because…why not?!

EG_Pin-Up_Letters

 


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

Pix Plus…Missile Mouse!

PIX+MissleMouse

MISSILE MOUSE is the creation of Jake Parker, who’s done work in animation, picture books, and comics/graphic novels. He’s an illustrating/cartooning powerhouse, working in different styles and genres…it’s impressive, and each thing he does looks better than the last. MISSILE MOUSE is a graphic novel series he did for Scholastic/Graphix about a space-faring mouse with a jetpack…what else do you need to know? There’s intergalactic strife and aliens and betrayal and stuff, but in the end it’s a cool action adventure story, which isn’t dissimilar from PIX (albeit PIX is what I call a “suburban adventure story”), so why not team these two up in an awesome action shot?! Exactly.

Get the scoop of Missile Mouse and Jake Parker’s other work here.

 


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

Pix Plus…Barbara Thorson (from I KILL GIANTS)

 

 

 

PIX+I Kill Giants

I KILL GIANTS, by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura is a tremendous graphic novel…compelling, intense, dramatic and emotional…and it builds to that, starting as a story about a weird girl, Barbara Thorson, in school obsessed with killing giants, and becoming about facing something metaphorically much bigger. It’s similar in that respect to Todd DeZago and Mike Weiringo’s TELLOS. It’s a different kind of book and character than PIX, but there’s some shared DNA strands there. Barbara talks about giants and a fantasy world no one else sees…Pix talks about being the daughter of the fairy king without any actual proof or evidence…people look a them both a little funny, etc. So here they are, teamed up in a pretty wild action pose, inspired in part by the distinct art of Ken Niimura, who draws in a way that I don’t, but it sure looks awesome.

There’s no website for I KILL GIANTS, per se, but Joe Kelly is part of the Man of Action studios and Ken Niiumura’s online here.

 


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

Pix Plus…The Green Turtle (from THE SHADOW HERO)

PIX+GreenTurtle

Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew’s THE SHADOW HERO tells the untold origin of The Green Turtle, the first ever Asian American superhero from the Golden Age of comic books in the 1940s, created by a Chinese American cartoonist named Chu Hing. It’s a great book, made all the better when, after the last story page, you get to the story BEHIND the book itself. It’s the sort of thing I could explain, but don’t want to take the experience away from you as a potential reader. Gene Luen Yang has wanted to write a superhero story for a long time and got to tell a pretty iconic one here. And the art, by Sonny Lieu, who I first noticed on a terrific book called MY FAITH IN FRANKIE, is so good on the art and storytelling.

In the end, despite the fact that THE SHADOW HERO takes place in the ’40s and Pix has a cell phone, I still wanted to draw them in a team-up situation up just the same! And I think this marks the first of this series of drawings to feature buildings, right?

Get more info on THE SHADOW HERO and Gene Yang’s website.

 


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

Pix Plus…Princess Ugg!

PIX+Ugg

PRINCESS UGG is a relatively new series by Ted Naifeh (Courtney Crumrin, Polly and the Pirates) about Ulga, a different kind of princess, a barbarian princess well-versed in battle and warfare. She’s on a mission to learn a different path; one of diplomacy and less…barbaric actions – something more “traditional” when talking princesses. It’s a really great series and Ulga, AKA Princess Ugg, is a great character. And as a non-traditional princess it seemed fair to team up Pix, who claims to be a (fairy) princess herself, with her (and at this point I hope you’re all okay with me playing fast and loose with time and place (given prior team-ups in the series and more yet to come).

Get the scoop on PRINCESS UGG and Ted Naifeh’s other works here.

 


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

Pix Plus…Rapunzel (from Rapunzel’s Revenge)

PIX+RapunzelsRevenge

I met Nathan Hale this year at the ALA conference in Las Vegas (we talked a lot about Disney’s animated movies). Then I read one of his HAZARDOUS TALES books, which was excellent, and I look forward to reading the rest of them. But when I thought about a drawing of Pix with Nathan Hale (the spy, not the author), the Hangman and the Redcoat, it wasn’t QUITE lining up in my mind’s eye. But, luckily, Hale’s done other good work, in particular the graphic novel RAPUNZEL’S REVENGE, with Shannon and Dean Hale (a lot of Hales, not all of them related).

I like fairy tales and good re-telling/re-purposing of fairy tales (there are some nods to fairy tales in PIX for sure), and RAPUNZEL’S REVENGE is that kind of thing, putting Rapunzel in the wild west, teaming her with Jack and his golden goose, and having her use her hair as lassos and whips. It’s pretty cool all around, and the hair’s such a cool visual I wanted to take a stab at it myself.

More on RAPUNZEL’S REVENGE here, and more on Nathan Hale’s HAZARDOUS TALES here.

 


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

Pix Plus…Grandma Ben vs. Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures (from the Bone series)

PIX+Bone

It seems BONE is the universal answer to “what’s a good comic for kids?”. For all intents and purposes, it’s the granddaddy and monolith the rest of us all orbit. Even Raina Telgemeier, who’s books, plural, have spent years, plural, on the NY Times bestseller list, doesn’t seem to pop into people’s minds – especially in comic book circles – the way BONE does. And, without belaboring the point: Jeff Smith’s BONE is an amazing series.

And in a series of drawings teaming my character, Pix, with notable characters in kids comics, ignoring BONE would be the oversight of all oversights. Though, leave it to me to not draw the titular Bone or his cousins…or even Thorn. Nope, I opted to draw Pix kicking stupid, stupid rat creature butt alongside the totally awesome Grandma Ben.

More on BONE here, and more on Jeff Smith here.

 


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

Pix Plus…Abigail and the Snowman!

PIX+AbigailAndTheSnowman

This is a first in the Pix Plus series: Pix teamed-up with characters from a comic I’ve not yet read! So what makes these characters so special? Truth be told, I don’t know. Maybe they won’t be so special. But I know ABIGAIL AND THE SNOWMAN’s a series by Roger Langridge, who did SNARKED and Muppets comics for Boom studios, wrote THOR: THE MIGHTY AVENGER among others for Marvel Comics, and has made all kinds of terrific short stories and mini-comics over the years, and of course his character Fred the Clown. And that’s almost all I need to know to want to read it.

Roger is a top-notch cartoonist (and an incredibly nice man) and I knew I wanted to do a Pix Plus with something of his. How serendipitous, then, that ABIGAIL AND THE SNOWMAN #1 comes out exactly three weeks from today. on 12/31/2014! Knowing next to nothing about it and based on the cover image I worked up this piece, Abigail, the Yeti and Pix looking like they’re having a blast.

Visit Roger’s website right here.

 


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546

Pix Plus…Secret Science Alliance!

 

PIX+SecretScienceAlliance

I first saw Eleanor Davis’s work in NURSERY RHYME COMICS and FAIRY TALE COMICS, and was so impressed by those short stories I looked for more, which is how I learned about her graphic novel THE SECRET SCIENCE ALLIANCE AND THE COPYCAT CROOK. It’s great. It’s a fun story about kids who defy cliche and stereotype using their brains and teamwork to stop a bad guy. What more could you want? Well, the art and storytelling are top notch. Rich and detailed, but still lively and cartoony. She also wrote the book STINKY, from Toon Books, for younger readers still. And with all that, she does non-kids work as well. A very talented creative person, indeed.

It would take me ages to come up with the kind of cool, Rube Goldberg-ian tech in the book, so I went with something simpler but playing to my wheelhouse: a big, brassy shot of Pix with the Secret Science Alliance team leaping into action!

Here are sample pages from Eleanor Davis’s website.


Pix Plus is a series of drawings presenting Pix in team-ups with notable characters from kid-friendly comics and graphic novels. The series will run Monday-Friday, from November 17-December 24. Please do share and let people know about Pix and Pix Plus!

Ask your local comic shop to order PIX: ONE WEIRDEST WEEKEND, in the December catalog, item #DEC141546