Cool stuff online!

Sorry that I’ve been neglecting my blog lately, but I’ll make amends with that over the next couple of weeks with what’s been keeping my away. For now, however, I want to mention a couple of new projects that have caught my eye.

The Plague Doctor’s Sanctuary

The Plague Doctor is a new story concept that’s being developed by my friend and frequent collaborator Ben Avery and Tim Baron. Ben’s told me a bit of the background for this project and I was instantly hooked.

Here’s an excerpt from Ben’s welcome to The Plague Doctor’s Sanctuary:

This is the home of the Plague Doctor, one of the sole survivors of the world-wide Lotus Plague. Here you will find images, notes, manuscript fragments, and other information about this enigmatic man who changed the course of history for an entire world in the face of absolute devastation. The archaeologists for The Plague Doctor Project are constantly unearthing new artifacts about this man and his world. It must be some sort of elaborate hoax, for these events never happened. And yet, the glimpses into his terrifying world are fascinating. And the evidence seems so authentic . . .

It’s interesting to see how this world is developing and how the story is taking shape.

The Plague Doctor is (c) 2008 Ben Avery artwork is (c) 2008 Tim Baron

Prayer Pups
by Jeffrey Smith

Click on Image or HERE to see a larger version of the comic

Prayer Pups is (c) 2008 Jeffry Smith

According to its website Prayer Pups is an exclusive comic strip aimed at churches and Christian organizations to provide a fun and exciting new way to spread the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. Each episode of the comic strip leads our four-legged friends to a lesson in God’s ways, to a study of Scripture or to a conclusion based on Christian principles. And it’s always done with humor.

I stumbled across this charming and clever strip a few months ago and quickly added it to my daily list of sites to check out. It reminds me of classic Peanuts in tone. The fact that one of the lead characters is a Pug doesn’t hurt either - those little critters are my weakness.

Art by Bud!

I usually work behind the scenes on the various projects I’m involved in, but between my editing, emails, and phone calls -- not to mention my regular, full-time job -- I’m able to squeeze in a little bit of freelance cartooning and comic art.

One of my clients is a marketing firm and they’ve brought me on to provide a handful of cartoons and humorous illustrations for one of their newsletters. Every month they send me about 3 pages worth of jokes and I pick 4 of them to draw. They also throw in a zinger for me in the form of a two word phrase for me to illustrate.

A good amount of my training in this field centered around magazine cartooning. I like the simple and direct style of communicating ideas. And since my art veers more toward the cartoony than realistic, I really enjoy having this opportunity to get some India ink all over my fingers again.

Here are some of the cartoons I did for October. I’ll try to get November’s up during November.

Click on each cartoon if you'd like to pull up a larger version to read.