HAPPY

So here's my finished pin-up for "Proof" # 25 (I think). It's gonna be an awesome issue! And then I'll be doing all the artwork in issue #26! I won't be drawing the main characters from the book as it focuses on a side character, so this was the only chance I had to draw them. 

DEADLINES & MEATSHAKES & PROOF, OH MY!!

So, here's a quick update for anyone who needs some updating on the chris grine front. Meatshakes came SO close to having a home a home but sadly failed. Not because it wasn't well received, but bcause it's a hard sell and the publishers felt like it was too risky in the current market. SO what does that mean? Well, it means that much like Chickenhare V3 in the fall, it's heading for webcomics! I promise you it's awesome and it's gonna find a publisher, but for now you get to read it for free!! Whoo Hoo! Next up I have some crazy deadlines that just cropped up. Alex Grecian (Proof) and I had pitched this story idea to Image silverline, and they jumped on it and all was good. Alex had some stuff to wrap up as did I, and then Yesterday, I get an email telling me they need the cover by Wednesday! The cover? Alex hasn't even finished the story. We never discussed a schedule but apparently Image discussed it for us! HA! So Im busy now. Speaking of busy, and Alex Grecian. Guess who is doing issue #26 of Proof? ME!
That's right, friends, Little ol' Chris Grine is hitting the big-time if only for a moment. Let's hope I don't blow it.

SOME NEWS!

I have some news finally. But I cant talk about much of it yet, sorry. I will say that it looks like my free time is over for most of the rest of this year if all goes as planned. None of this has anything to do with Chickenhare so there's that. Looks like we may have an interested party in Meatshakes though! Woo Hoo!! Im also working on a little thing with Mr. Alex Grecian author of "Proof" over at Image. Have you read "Proof"? If your answer is no you should be ashamed of yourself. It's awesome!
Anyways, more news to come as I can talk about it and as it becomes more finalized.

SOMEDAY

Lately I've been feeling kinda jazzed about the next Chickenhare story being in color and since I don't have any of those pages done yet, I decided to go back and start coloring the original book. WOW! As much as I enjoy a good B/W book, I can see why color sells so much better. If I should get anothe chance to get these first two books on iPhone sometme in the future, look for them in COLOR! Seriously, all I want to do is color more pages. It of course takes MUCH longer to work in full color but I think the results speak for themselves.

PLANET COMICON!!

Last weekend was the annual PLANET COMICON in Kansas City. This was my first year to actually get a table though I'd attended every year prior since high school. This year was the BEST. Not only was the turnout great, but the number of creators in attendance was HUGE! For someone like me who is a very small fish it's so fun to get to meet and hang out with other artists and writers whom I admire. This time It was Mr. Alex Grecian (writer of Proof for Image). That guy is awesome. I also got to finally meet Jai Nitz in person as opposed to the email dialogue we usually have. Some other great guys there were Dennis Hopeless, Kerry Callen, Kevin Mellon, Matt Hawkins, and mamy many more. I really underestimated the amount of interest Chickenhare would get and I sold out of all 25 books I took on Saturday at 3pm leaving 3 hours to go. Sunday I took more and only sold about 5. Hmm. The people I met were so nice and best of all, talkative. It can get lonely sometimes if everyone is walking past you for hours on end. I took some printouts of the "165 bots with sttuff" I've been working on for shoebox and those went over really well too. 

Regardless, Chris Jackson who runs the thing has got one terrific show on his hands and if it keeps growing in the same direction we're likely to have a strong rival to HeroesCon right her in the midwest in a few years. Seriously, It was that good.. and I'm not just saying that so I get invited back next year but I hope it helps! Great Show!

ITS FINAL! FINALLY!

Hey people . So I know I've been quiet about stuff lately and so now I want to talk about it. A few months back I was approached to put Chickenhare on the iPhone! Cool right? I thought so too. Turns out Dark Horse wasn't interested and since my contract says we BOTH have to agree to stuff it fell through... as usual. Next I find out that Dark Horse wants to reconsider doing another book even after they turned it down back in November. So I agreed to let them talk it over even though (to myself) I wasn't really too excited about doing any more books with them. It was clear from the get-go that Chickenhare wasn't the best fit over there but I tried anyway. Long, long, very long story short, today I got word that they have officially said no to more books and to be honest I'm pretty darn thrilled. Crazy, you say? No, just happy to have it over with. You see, for the last month its been hanging over my head like an angry storm cloud, completely crushing my creative mojo and making it hard to work on other stuff. So now, it's over.
But it's the beginning of something I'm SUPER excited about. It's the beginning of Chickenhare: The web comic. I've taken these past few weeks while I was creatively distracted and focused on researching the web comics world, wordpress, I've taken several CSS and HTML courses to get up to speed, and talked to a bunch of folks who already do it. My tentative plan right now is this...
Next fall, maybe October-ish, I'll launch the new site. It will feature a brief synopsis of the first two books to get newbies up to speed and then I start in with the NEW BOOK! Chickenhare: Fish-n-grymps as a Mon-Wed-Fri web comic. That's 3 pages a week fover a year, Hopefully in COLOR and have stuff for sale as I go. Some examples of that stuff would for sure be shirts, prints of whatever pages someone may like on nice paper and signed, I thought I might look into a way to make some replic Banjo teeth on a leather string, and a few other ideas Im keeping to myself.
Then after it's wrapped up in about a years time, Ill just roll right in to the next book. It will be easy because Im planning on starting now and with some luck be almost finished with the book before the launch even happens. That way while everyone is enjoying the ongoing tale, I'm taking a break and than starting on the next book and maybe finding a publisher for the last one. Unfortunately DH retains publishing rights for the first two books for another 3 and 4 years respectively. No big deal, by the time I finish book 5, I should be out of their grasp and could then pursue a giant sized one-shot of all five books.
Ambitious? Maybe. I think I can handle it though. Will it be successful? Hopefully. I'll never know until I try though.

GO CHICKENHARE!

MY FAVORITE SO FAR

Being a huge back to the future fan, this was inevitable.