popgun in stores today!

page three from my story in Popgun vol. 4. to see the rest of the story pick up a copy of Popgun for your very own in stores today!

here's what the cover, painted by Ben Templesmith, looks like.

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1 day till popgun 4 lands in a comic or book store near you.

here's page two of my 20 page story that appears in popgun vol. 4. Popgun vol. 4 will be out in stores this Wednesday.

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3 days till Popgun vol 4.

this wednesday the image comics anthology Popgun vol. 4 will be in stores. Here's a preview of the first page of my 20 page story in the book.


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Popgun on CBR!

Josh Wigler of Comic Book Resources interviewed me and a bunch of other artists for an article about POPGUN vol. 4, a comic anthology that i have a story in, due out in febuary from image comics.

below are some choice exerpts from the article click the link to read the whole thing.

"Popgun" Takes A Fourth Shot

• by Josh Wigler, Staff Writer

Tue, December 29th, 2009 at 12:58PM (PST)

Ben Templesmith covers the fourth volume of "PopGun"

As comic books become more and more prevalent in popular culture, the mainstream crowd is becoming increasingly aware that comics have more to offer than just superpowers and spandex. Image Comics has certainly done their part to showcase the diversity of the medium, perhaps most prominently through "Popgun," a series of anthology books filled to the brim with short stories of various shapes, sizes and genres.

In February, Image will release the fourth and latest installment of "Popgun," featuring a cover drawn by "Choker" artist Ben Templesmith and stories from illustrator Frank Stockton, "Life of a Fetus" creator Andy Ristiano, "Sulk" creator Jeffrey Brown, "Popgun" veterans and creative duo Amanda Becker and Janet Kim, and many more. CBR News spoke to the aforementioned creators and "Popgun" editor D.J. Kirkbride about what readers can expect from the upcoming volume.

"We wanted to make [the fourth 'Popgun' installment] even more eclectic and exciting and bigger than the previous volumes," Kirkbride told CBR about his goals for the upcoming volume. "In terms of the first two goals, I do think we achieved them, to be honest. There are so many different styles and tones for each story in this collection, it's kind of overwhelming, in the best possible way. We continue to find great and varied talent, which is what makes these books work. We're very lucky that so many excellent creators, new and established, are interested in working with us."

As for Kirkbride's third goal — making "Popgun's" fourth volume bigger than previous editions — that mission was also accomplished. "It's 512 pages compared to 448 for volume one and 472 for volumes two and three, and all at the same price," he said. "That's pretty cool, and we're grateful that Image let us do it, as, well, it's kind of crazy."

Cartoonist Andy Ristiano contributed a humorous 20-page story titled "Night of the Living Vidiots" that posits a spin on the classic zombie tale by turning the flesh-eaters into walking advertisements — literally, single-minded humans with television sets for heads. "'Night of the Living Vidiots' is the first story in the book and a great way to kick off this volume of 'Popgun,'" said Kirkbride of Ristiano's contribution. "'Vidiots' is a hyper, wordy, colorful and amazingly fun 20-page adventure. Though it's very humorous and fast-paced, Andy weaves in some effective commentary on consumerism and the media."

"I didn't want to knock television shows — I end up watching a lot of TV while I'm working and I enjoy a good story no matter what form it takes — I can't, however, stand watching or listening to commercials," Ristiano described of his story. "When I first got out of school, I used to animate on commercials, and doing that made me realize that for every commercial there were people just sitting around in rooms trying to figure out the best way to trick people into wanting their products. When you watch commercials, they seem so insincere and insulting, and while you might think commercials are completely ineffectual, the information in there sneaks in. I can still remember commercial jingles from when I was a kid. It's upsetting to think there is so much space in my brain devoted to remembering things like the theme to a 'Fruit Islands Cereal' commercial when it could be put to better use. There is no escape."

In order to combat the commercial-addled vidiots, Ristiano created a quartet of heroes with various artistic inclinations. "The Bookworm represents the written word, the Painter represents the visual arts, the Martial Artist represents the physical arts and the Rocker represents music," he said. "The main characters are the people who are focused and inspired enough with what they are interested in that popular media does not have control over their lives and how they choose to live them. These artists possess the power to shock the vidiots out of their stupors. I liked the idea of telling a story where the hero saves the world using books or wins through non-violent ways. While I wasn't able to completely pull that off with this story, it's definitely a theme I want to explore more in the future."

"Vidiots" isn't the only action-centric story in the book, as Jeffrey Brown contributed a swords-and-sorcery tale called "The Dark Master's Reign." "It's a fantasy tale of a lone badass kind of warrior who's attempting to infiltrate the castle of an evil overlord," described Brown. "I've always been a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, but diverged from my once intended career path of illustrating [Dungeons & Dragons] and Magic cards. I felt like 'Popgun' was the perfect place to have some fun and have a go at the genre."

Artwork from "Night of the Living Vidiots"

The fourth volume of "Popgun" goes on sale on February 10th, 2010, courtesy of Image Comics.

POPGUN 4

forgot to put this in the news dump.

i am among 80 plus artists appearing in the monstrous 512 paged popgun 4. it's coming out 2/2/2010 here is the line up:

Night of the Living Vidiots by Andy Ristaino
Kill The Legend by Jonathan Silvestre
The Black Decahedron by Adam P. Knave, D.J. Kirkbride, & Jason Ibarra
Reggie 1 by Erik Larsen
7:42 by Stuart Livingston
Thinking Out Cloud by Stephanie Ramirez
The Seneschal by Tom Scioli
Theory of Colors by Jessica Fink
Reggie 2 by Erik Larsen
Agent Orange by Darren Rawlings
Family Reunion pt 1 by Dave Brenion, Joe Flood
Reggie 3 by Erik Larsen
Bastard Road: Elle Hath No Fury by Brian Winkeler, Dave Curd
Sanz Pantz in Tsugaru-Shamurai Showdown! by Chris Moreno, Thomas Mauer
Fables From Fractured Earth by Todd Dezago, Nikos Koutsis, Vassilis Gogtzilas, Mike Toris, Thomas Mauer
The Jewel of Kurvi Tasch by Andrea Kalfas
Revenge of the Kraken by Alison Acton, Jim Charalampidis
Chasing The Goldfish by JM Ken Niimura
Jacket by Amanda Becker, Janet Kim
Untangled by JEIK, Dominique Carrier
Stay For Breakfast (Or The Lonely Ghost) by Michael Dialynas
Love in the Time of Plenty by Angie Wang
Hamburgers For One by Frank Stockton
Intermission by Jock
Sisterhood of the Armageddon by Anthony Wu
He Floated Away by Elton Pruitt, Manoel Magalhaes, Osmarco Valladao, Brandon Seifert
Bacon And Tulula by Stephen Reedy, Adam Lucas
Quiet Explosions by Adam P. Knave, Wayne Nichols
Queen of Cups by Elizabeth Genco, John Bivens
The Curse of Neph by Lars Brown, MJ
The Dark Master's Reign by Jefferey Brown, Bill Crabtree
Queasy by John Malloy
Harshing The Mellow by Derek McCulloch, Anthony Peruzzo
Acid Sunset by Anna Wieszczyk
Reggie 4 by Erik Larsen
The Eye by Jeremy Tinder
The Orb by Nils Hamm
Honolulu Lorie's Lava Love Lounge by Salgood Sam
Bloom by Fernanda Jaber, Fellipe Martins
Reggie 5 by Erik Larsen
Family Reunion pt 2 by Dave Brenion, Joe Flood, Shana Brenion
Bastard Road: This Bludz For You by Brian Winkeler, Dave Curd, Eric Sandhop
Agents of the WTF in Blue Light Special by D.J. Kirkbride, Adam P. Knave, Matteo Scalera, Paolo Ferrante, Antonio
Campo, Thomas Mauer
Endangered by Michael Woods, Michael Meier
Bullets for the Poor by Mark Andrew Smith, Dave Collinsun
Rusted - Fading Signal by Nick Tapalansky, Alex Eckman-Lawn, & Thomas Mauer
Mekano Turbo by Alexis Ziritt, Elliot Blake, Mike Houlihan
The Hellbender by Maximo V. Lorenzo
The Mad Mauler by Robert Love, David Walker
The Golden Mantis of Chinatown by Vito Delsante, Attila Adorjany
Hate League by Alice Hung, Meg Hunt
Mr. Universe - Broken Hearts by Vassilis Gogtzilas, Nikos Koutsis, Thomas Mauer
Ruby Red Tomato by Becky Dreistadt, Frank Gibson
Sasquatch by Nick Edwards
Reggie 6 by Erik Larsen

night of the living vidiots...

i just finished my 20 page story "Night of the Living Vidiots" for vol. 4 of popgun. phew! man, it was the longest color story i've done to date. i'm glad to be done with it! i can start thinking about other things. the 400 page behemoth should be in store's
late late 2009 or early 2010!




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popgun post its

here are the four main characters from the new comic i'm working on for popgun. drawn on post-it's for my other blog, the post-it project.

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vidiots are back!

sorry about the lack of art posts recently. here's a glimpse of what i've working on lately. this is a page from an 18 page story i've been working on for vol. 4 of images anthology Popgun. i'm about halfway done with penciling the story, i don't want to give away to much but if you've been following the blog for a while you should recognize these characters from earlier posts.



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