November 30 - Our kitty, Danny Boy, is still recovering from his illness. Today he did at least a tiny bit of each thing that a healthy cat should be able to do (except catch a mouse), so that was a big positive step (or series of them). He is still quite weak, but he seems to be a lot more comfortable. I did some more inking on the Kole character study. I ink the elements of a drawing based on how "close" they are to us, the viewers. That's why I started with the logo, which, in theory, floats in front of the rest of the image. Usually the next step is the most difficult because I then move on to faces. This time, I was able to start on other elements (Kole creates...OOPS...created crystal-like structures, some of which are in front of just about everything in the picture). Today I also inked the smaller of two faces in the study. Thankfully, it turned out great! I also have a new, very cool, art assignment coming up. Oh, and I'm laying out the prelims for The Adventures of Monkey #5! Look for all of that on the soon to be launched "What I'm Working On Now" page here on the WOMP-Site (OK, I will try to come up with a better name for it). See ya!

November 29-30 - Well, I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I'm sorry that I haven't written anything for awhile. It's been a bad couple of days for us here at WOMP Central. As some of you may know, my wife and I have four cats and a rabbit. One kitty, Danny Boy (yes, he's named after Dan from The Adventures of Monkey), became very sick Wednesday. We thought he'd just eaten too much or something and we didn't worry about him too much until very late at night. The next day was Thanksgiving, and, although we could now tell that he was ill, no vets' offices were open due to the holiday. We stayed at home with him all day. He didn't improve at all. In fact, he got much worse. Friday morning, I took Danny to the vet that is just a few blocks from our house. He was very weak, but he was a good boy and he made it through a series of tests. The doctor ruled out the big scary things, like cancer and leukemia. She deduced that he had a kidney and liver infection. She gave him some antibiotics and some fluids (he hadn't eaten for days and the fluids also helped reduce his fever). She gave me a bottle of medicine to administer to him over the next few days. She was very kind to Danny, and told me carefully that he had about a 50-50 chance of pulling through. Later that night, Danny came home. He rested a lot, and we cried a lot, too. Finally, at about 12:30am Saturday, he got up, drank a liitle water, and had a little teeny tiny bite of food. Slowly, over the course of Saturday, he has been improving. He has meowed to us, purred, and even performed a slow shaky version of his trademark "Danny Roll" somersault! His fever has gone down, but he is still very sick. His weight is down from 12 pounds to 8. Right now we are letting Danny sleep. Hopefully, he is on the road to recovery. We'll watch him closely over Sunday and hope for the best. Now, for those out there who don't have a pet, this may seem like no big deal. As for people like me, who are lucky enough to have had a cat adopt them, it's easy to imagine why I haven't been able to do much of anything else for a few days. I did ink a bit of the Kole artwork, but, after only about a couple of hours, I gave up before I messed it up. I'm sorry to burden you, reader, with the details of Danny's health, but I've come to feel that it is important for me to share with you the ins and outs of being a no-name cartoonist so that you may understand what a cartoonist's life is really like. I know that some of you are aspiring artists, so I hope that this Blog dealio gives you a preview of what you can expect. More updates tomorrow. See ya!

November 26-27 - Happy Thanksgiving, U.S. reader! I've been a little under the weather today, so not much art work. I inked the logo on the Kole character study, but nothing else. I've learned (the hard way) over the years not to do any detail work when sick if I can help it. I did load a page with some Year-End Special Deals that you might want to check out. I guess that's about it for now! Have a great Turkey Day!

November 25-26 - OK, OK - So I'm a dork! I just got an e-note from my friend, Brent, who politely pointed out to me that A) on the 13th I wrote that his Grandmother had passed away, but it was his Great-Aunt (I blame my Mom! She mis-heard the radio announcement.....of course, I could have checked it out before putting it on the Internet); B)
Charles Shultz never drew any of the Peanuts comic strips, as I had mentioned in my "This Week in The Adventures of Monkey" feature. The real cartoonist of Charlie Brown was named Charles SHULZ; and C) I never write to him any more (but, to be fair, it's only because I'm a lazy, inconsiderate jerk). You see, folks, that's why Brent is an editor,
and I am just pretending to be smart. Hey! I'm a free-spirited artist! I have a wandering soul that can not be shackled as it searches for truth and beauty! I can not be bothered with the mundane, minor things like facts or friendships!
PHAH! Oh, well. This all brings up some important lessons for any cartoonists in training out there. One lesson to be gleaned from the above is that you might want someone beyond yourself to review your work before you call it "done." Another lesson, and it's a biggie, is to keep in touch with the people who helped make you the person you are. This means friends, family, even teachers. On that note, I want to say"Hello" to all of you! Oh, and on another note, I will be adding some sort of "What I've Been Working On" page to this site, but I think that it is only fair to show you folks the artwork only after the person who commissioned it has seen it, meaning no Kole for now, but the Pete's Hamburgers artwork goes to the printer later today (Wednesday), so look for that soon! See ya!

November 24-25 - Hiya! Lots of work done today! I finished the Pete's Hamburgers postcard art painting. It looks OK, but not exactly what I had hoped for. I'm never really happy with anything I do, I guess. I think that may be part of being an "artist." There is something to be said for always trying to be better than you have been before, always improving some part of what you do, never resting on what you've accomplished. I got some good advice from comics legend Joe Kubert, who said "A comic book artist is only as good as his last drawing." While this may seem obvious, what he was really saying was that an artist shouldn't just crank something out just because it's for Mom, or in a sketchbook. Every drawing, every one, will be a representative of the direction of your future, both to yourself, and to others. Joe put his money where his mouth was, too. Here he was, an important figure of the Golden Age of comics, a monumental element of the Silver Age, and the founder of the only cartoonist school in the world, and yet he drew "Say 'NO' to Drugs" poster artwork for his hometown high school that was as accomplished as his work on Sgt. Rock! Joe is still producing great work, and he has to be around 75 years old now!! Anyhoo, I finished the Pete's work, put some stuff on eBay, and began the inking of the Kole character study that I've been working on. I've got a lot of other exciting projects coming up, including (gasp!) Monkey comics stuff, so stay tuned!

November 23-24 - It's only 12:30am on the 24th, and I'm taking a quick break from painting the Pete's Hamburgers postcard art that I've been working on. I also updated our eBay "About Me" page while I had a moment. Anyhoo, I really like doing these painted pieces. So much of what I do is black ink line-work, meant for reproduction, so I don't get much call for, or even practice with, painting. In any given year, I probably do only four or five painted pieces! I'm thinking of running a special for painted commissions just to get more experience. Oh, and, before I forget, could you please sign our guest book when you have a moment! Bye!

November 22-23 - Well, more "nothing" tonight. I guess it's not that bad if ONE day goes by without getting any art done. I hate it, though! You see, I foolishly thought that I'd be back from the Wisconsin/Iowa game around 6pm. Instead, I got home at around 10pm!! I hadn't eaten anything all day, so my first thought was to EAT, not draw. It was then that I realized that I had gotten sorta sick from screaming like an idiot in the damp cold Madison Camp Randall Stadium (by the way, Wisconsin lost, 27 - 21, but my Dad, who came with us, is from Iowa, so it's OK, I guess). Anyhoo, long story short, I'm calling it a day. Hopefully I will be more productive tomorrow. Not all was lost, though...I just remembered that I did get some arrangements made regarding the Pete's Hamburgers postcard that I've been working on, AND I submitted a bill to the folks who had me draw the "emergency" artwork to welcome the Grand Excursion representatives. I guess that's something.

November 21-22 - Hey there! Well, what is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? Due to the strange circumstances of life, I've done nothing today except CLEAN!!! OK, I ate a hamburger and fries at about 5:45pm, and I checked my eBay items, but, other than that, it's been nothing but "Wipe this" and "Pick up that" as we got ready for a spur-of-the-moment get-together of Vickie's co-workers at our house. As I write this, it is 12:35am on the 22nd, and they are all still here! Once the gals started to arrive, I tried to slip away to my little "office," but to no avail. Right now, while everyone is transfixed by ABBA's Dancing Queen on TV, I'm just going to sneak this Blog up-date in. Hey, that's how it goes some nights! This is the main reason why cartoonists shouldn't be procrastinators (but we all are....oh, well). Fun tomorrow as I meet my sister in Madison to attend the Wisconsin/Iowa college football game! Watch for me on TV...I'll be the one in red! Bye!

November 20-21 - It's 3:30am on the 21st, and I think that I am done for the night, friends! Tonight, I made the changes to my Pete's Hamburgers drawing that those folks requested. Tomorrow (or later today, I guess), I will have the drawing photocopied onto a heavy ragstock so that I may paint it. This is kind of a strange way to do everything, but it has two distinct advantages; #1) If I mess up the painting, I still have the original line-work to use to start over again (in fact, I usually make three or more "paintable" copies, just in case); #2) I end up with two different originals that I can sell! Hey, that reminds me....I am saving all preliminary sketches for, and am taking digital pictures of, each step of the Kole drawing that I've been working on. When it is all done, I will make a new page to show you the process that I go through to draw one of my character studies. I don't know exactly why, but I thought that it may be handy for someone out there to see that. Toodles!

November 19-20 - Heavy "art" day today! I got and "emergency" call from folks who are hosting a conference of Mississippi River community representatives Thursday evening. They wanted me to draw a special "Welcome to..." piece to be photocopied and placed in hotel rooms. The conference is for a HUGE event next year called The Grand Excursion. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I do know that it will recreate the days of (if not an actual 100th anniversary of some sort) fleets of classic paddlewheelers traveling in tandem from one end of the river to the other. Historic old river towns, like mine, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, will be on the schedule for stops, so it is a big economic thing as well as just plain neato. It's 2:15am on the 20th, and I am taking a quick break from that assignment to also do the BLOG thing. In case you are curious, I actually finished the pencils for Kole earlier in the day before I got the call (and she is looking good, if I may say so myself). When your hometown needs you, though, you say "yes," so I put Kole aside for a night (sorry, Marcus...I will make it up to you) and drew this "Welcome to..." piece. As I write this, it is about 80% done, but it occurred to me that it may be wise to put contact information on the drawing in case someone of these representatives likes it and wants to hire me! Since I have up-dated the WOMP-Site, I created that John Mundt, Esquire - Cartoonist for Hire page for just such an inquiry, so I have to check the site anyway just to see what the heck that page's e-ddress is! Well, gotta go. More tomorrow!

November 18 - Not much of interest today. I got back the b&w art for the Pete's Hamburgers postcard that I've been working on. The Pete's people reviewed it and came up with a couple of notes (not too many, thank goodness), so, after a few changes, I can begin to paint the final product. Later tonight, I am going to continue work on the Kole drawing. I hope to get the rough layout done, if not also some of the pencils. Wish me luck!

November 17-18 - More Kole drawing tonight. After I got home from "The Real Job," I continued work on a new version of a commissioned character study drawing of Teen Titan, Kole. You may ask (and you'd be right to do so) "why the heck does it take you so long to finish a drawing?" Well, in part it's inexperience. I have had lots of practice drawing my own characters, and a bit of experience drawing more well-known characters (Batman, et al), but an unfamiliar character like Kole requires some research to understand what kind of character I'm working on. I try to make the style of the artwork match the character. Also, I do a lot of little pre-drawings, lay-out thumbnail sketches of the final work. This often includes studies of the character's facial or costume features to get them "just right" in my mind. That's the stage I'm in right now. After that, I layout the drawing with a rough composed of blue-pencil lines (which do not reproduce or photocopy). I then "tighten" that up with a technical pencil, making the drawing more precise in anticipation of the next stage, which is inking. I mentioned yesterday that I use a series of black pens and markers to ink my work. I begin inking with a 1.0 Expresso fine line fiber pen, starting with whatever elements are closest to the viewer (in this case, Kole's logo), then working my way "back" to the next closest thing, then whatever is behind that, and so on until the whole page has a basic outline. I often leave finer details, like facial features or tiny background elements, to be inked then with .01 or even .005 markers. After this basic inking, I erase all underlying pencils as best as is possible. I then begin to apply some of the thicker lines and black areas, using everything from my beloved Expresso bold tip pens, to Sharpies, on up to Sanford Magnums, if needs be. If all goes well with this, the drawing is done. I may have to use a little white-out, but, for commissions where the intent is not necessarly to reproduce the final work, I try not to use white-out as it looks yucky on original art. It generally takes me about 10 hours total to do one of these character studies, but I was all the way through the basic inking phase on a drawing of Kole when I just had to start over because it STUNK! I use past tense because I carefully tore it into several postage stamp sized pieces and the threw it away! The drawing itself was OK, I guess, but there was something about the way I'd characterized her that just didn't seem right. Well, more work tomorrow, I suppose. Bye!

November 16, 2003 - Greetings, all. Exciting day for us. We drove to Portage, Wisconsin, to be the godparents of Liam and Aidan, my sister's twin babies! We made it back home in time to see the exciting end of the last NASCAR race of the season, AND the Green Bay Packers game (where they won!), and now I'm watching The Simpsons. That is a pretty good day for me! Although I'm pretty tired, I've been drawing for a couple of hours now. I'm thinking of adding a page to this site that shows the artwork that I'm working on so that you can sort of follow along with the progress. What do you think? Drop me an e-mail at womp@mhtc.net with your thoughts. See ya!

November 15, 2003 - Hey there! Not a whole lot of action today. Tomorrow is the baptism of my sister's twin boys, Liam and Aidan. My wife, Vickie, and I are going to be their godparents, so we spent a lot of time getting gifts, etc., today. I also FINALLY found the inking pens that I've been looking for for about 6 months!!! You see, I originally (20 years ago) tried to ink my artwork with old-school brushes and dipping-style ink pens, but I am such a slob, that I was always ruining the drawings by spilling ink on them, etc.. I then went through a long, dark period where I tried any number of markers and inking pens. Stuff I drew from that time has now changed from black and white to every fady color under the sun! Seriously, I have some drawings that are now purple, yellow, and green! Eventually, I finally found the pens that I've been using now for about 15 years. They are the Expresso fine line and bold tip pens from Sanford, and they are PERFECT! They provide a really black ink that doesn't smear or lighten when I erase the underlying pencils. They do not fade or bleed over time. I can use the fine line pen to ink like a dipping-style ink pen, and I can use the bold tip pen like a brush. As they "age" from use, they can still be used for other inking tasks, such as drawing the balloon around lettering, or the box around a frame of a comic book page, right down to their last bit of "ink." Any drawing that you see on this sight, in The Adventures of Monkey, or anything else I drew in the last 10 years has been primarily inked with a combination of these pens. Then they stopped making the bold tip. AAAGH!!! So, after I spent considerable energy trying first to gather as many of the bold point pens from every corner of the Earth, then to beg Sanford to please, please, please continue making bold tip pens, I finally realized that I had to look for something else. Now I'm trying the Pigma Graphic 1 pen from Sakura. It has taken me these 6 months just to FIND them. I'll let you know how they do. Peace out!

November 14, 2003 - Well, it's been a pretty slow day today, art-wise. Between other little projects around the house, and loading the final elements of the new and improved WOMP-Site (well, at least it is new, if not really improved), I haven't had time to draw much of anything. I did a little more work on the character study of Kole that I've been hired to draw, and it is only 11:30pm right now, so maybe I will still be able to get even more done yet today. Another note for any aspiring cartoonists out there; try to draw SOMETHING every day!! You might not think that you would ever need to be reminded to draw, but there are only a lucky few people who can devote their entire day to artwork. The rest of us have to work another job (or two), put gas in the car, get a haircut, put a cover on the central air unit in the back yard, take out the garbage, feed cats, write in a WOMP-Blog that no-one will ever read, and any number of other common distractions. If you can find a way to make sure that you draw even a little thing each day, it will help you greatly!

November 13, 2003 - Just a note for followers of comics and comics journalism. I've learned this morning that our friend, Brent Frankenhoff, has just lost his Grandmother. Some of you may recognize Brent as the co-editor of The Comics Buyer's Guide, but he and his wife have also been good friends of ours for years. Vickie and I would like to extend our sympathy to Brent and his family.

November 12-13, 2003 - Another long day...almost TWO! It's now 4:00am on the 13th. A little of everything today. My meeting with the Pete's Hamburgers owner was postponed until Wednesday, so I dropped off the black line work of the artwork that I've done for their postcard. Once approved, I will paint it using the same dyes that old-school comic book colorists use. It's a sort of ink/watercolor medium, and the colors are very vivid and bright (especially when reproduced). I also am working on the last of a series of commissions for Teen Titans mega-fan, Marcus Mebes. It's a sort of character study of little known, but oddly beloved, Kole. Last night, I finally scrapped my pathetic first attempt, and began a second, already better, version. When I get it done, and deliver it and the others from the series, I will post a couple somewhere on the WOMP-Site (heck, I'll even put the Pete's Hamburgers art there, too). I also created the page on this site about my comic book lecture and workshop presentations, which I call The Adventures of COMICS! Oh, and I worked a little on T.A.O.M. #5! My schedule for #5 may seem a little soft, but it's a real schedule, with deadlines and goals and everything. If I haven't said it anywhere else, I should let you know here that I intend to "debut" #5 at WizardWorld Chicago, August 13-15, 2004, and I hope to have at least a
true preview version of #6 ready for the Minneapolis FallCon, which will probably be on or around October 2nd and 3rd. If funds allow, I hope to have #6 ready for Christmas of 2004. After that, I have no specific plans, only general plans. More on all that some other time. Now, it's 4:43am and my bed is calling me!

November 11-12, 2003 - OK, so I've already hit a wall with this "blog" thingee. It's 2:26am on the 12th, and it has been a long work day, with me painfully hunched over my drawing table with only a short break to get McDonald's food and run out to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things. Here is a piece of advice for any aspiring cartoonists; get yourself a comfortable chair....you will be spending a lot of time in it! Arg! Maybe tomorrow I will stop complaining (doubtful) and I'll actually have something to say. Tune in and find out!

November 10, 2003 - Well, I just watched the Green Bay Packers lose at home to the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football. Darn it! What does this have to do with Monkey comic books? Not much, except that both the Pack and Monkey comics are from Wisconsin. Of course, so are Harley Davidson motorcycles and Orson Welles, so that's not much of a similarity. You know, I guess there are some similarities between playing football &
creating comics. Both require years of learning, lots of dedication, and a fundamental love and respect for those who have gone before you. Let's try these comparisons; Warren Sapp = Rob Liefeld, Dick Butkis = Carmine Infantino, Walter Peyton = Don Newton, Brett Favre = Todd McFarlane, Vince Lombardi = Stan Lee, Johnny Unitas = Jack Kirby. Hmm... NAH. I like the Vince-Stan and Johnny-Jack match-ups, but the others are just off somehow. Maybe you have some thoughts in this area? Drop a line in the chat room, or by e-mail. Anyhoo, tomorrow is a heavy artwork day for me. I have another meeting with the folks of Pete's Hamburgers, after which, if all goes well, I will begin the final painting of the artwork that I have done for a postcard for them. It is looking pretty cool! See ya!