My Thoughts on Thanksgiving Weekend

Dear Friends,

I have so much to be thankful for this year, I don’t know where to begin. I’m thankful for those closest to me–my wife, my son, my best friend Steve Smith, my friend Charlie Athanas, my in-laws who have helped me out tremendously this past year, Colin Pritchard of Rocket No. 9, Kevin Sandstrom at Blick Art Supply, the 501st, (especially Chris Spice of top-rated Star Wars site Sandtroopers.com) the great art directors and editors I’ve worked with this past year, and also for all of you who take an interest in my art and are the reason I keep doing what I do. I am thankful for my U.S. military family, for USACares.org and  for The Dennis Miller Radio Show who has been kind enough to have me on to share my projects and my military art passion project, Project 52.

I especially thank all of you who have purchased my new art career retrospective and memoir book, ROLLING THUNDER: THE ART OF DAVE DORMAN, by IDW Publishing/Desperado Publishing, either for yourselves, or for a loved one as a holiday gift. Even if the book wasn’t mine, I would enjoy 4.5 pounds of art in hardcover to peruse over my mulled cider during the holidays.

Today I wanted to share another blog with you, written by my friend and fellow 501st member David Syczylo. David is the Snowtrooper who posed for me for this year’s Star Wars Celebration painting. He did an excellent job of explaining the poses, not to mention providing us all with a brilliant display he has created of my Star Wars Celebration prints:

http://www.djsyczylo.net/chronicles/DormanHoth/DormanHoth.htm

I hope you enjoy David’s blog as much as I did about how the Star Wars Celebration piece came about. The best part of this project? I have been very fortunate to get to know David over the past 6 months and he is a special person to me and my wife. You will never meet a kinder or more giving person. He drove all of the way to my home in northern Illinois from Indianapolis just to pose for me, and refused to take even  gas money. That’s the kind of guy David is. Ask him about his film career when you meet him. He has great stories.

Thanks for reading. More to come. I just did a Captain Marvel this past weekend for the very first time in my career, but I have to check with an editor first to see when I can post it.

Be safe this holiday weekend,

Dave.

P.S. I finally got to see “Walking Dead.” I’m hooked. What do you all think of it? Any of you watching? If not, check it out – let’s compare notes. My friend and fellow judge in the December 6th Chicago 10-minute horror play international competition Death Scribe 2010, Jay Bonansinga, is writing the novelization of the series and he’s an excellent writer.

Dave Dorman Special Guest at SDCC 2010

Hi Everyone,

As always, thanks for reading my posts. I received great news this week that San Diego Comic-Con would like me to be a Special Guest this year. It is a great honor to be recognized by the folks at SDCC, especially since the Con is at its apex in terms of popularity and traffic through the show. To the folks at “Attack of the Show,” I AM available to you for interviews this year. As always, I will have an end cap booth this year, same bat time, same bat channel with WriteBrain Media. I’m kicking around ideas as to who will be with me in the booth this year, and I may have a really fun announcement to make, but I’ll have to wait a while longer to share that news.

The Joe Kubert School has asked their distinguished alumni – and also me – to join in an international gallery exhibit, so I just shipped some fun pieces to them for display in Spain, which officially makes me an “internationally exhibited artist.”

We are still working with Farpoint Media on the logistics of my podcast, and I will keep you all posted on that. I do know it will be available via their site and iTunes. Anyone interested in advertising on our show, please let me know. It will be a weekly show about “insider” news in the comic book industry, interviews with artists, writers, creators, pop culture celebrities and more. I hope you all really like it, because it’s a huge investment in time and energy.

In other news, I will be a featured artist doing a live painting at WildClaw Theatre’s big fund-raising event, “Dance of the Demented” at the Viaduct Theater in Chicago on Saturday, February 20th. My other artist friends painting there will be Charlie Athanas, Tony Akins, Alex Wald, Ray Frenden Anthony Kosar and Jessica Joy. This event is a horror/art mash-up, so be sure to bring your sketch pads or tablets. For details, please visit http://wildclawtheatre.com.

Speaking of horror-meets-art, my best friend’s son is in a band called the Turbo Vamps. This is a punk rock horror band in Chicago, so if you like this kind of music, check them out at http://www.myspace.com/turbovamps.

I want to say a special thank you to Chris Ryall, Editor in Chief at IDW for mentioning me on his blog, and to all others out there who post my stuff and comment on my work. I appreciate it.

Also, a special thanks to Colin Wilson, who just emailed that he saw the Imagine F/X issue featuring me in December. For those of you who don’t know Colin Wilson’s gorgeous art work, I’ve been a fan of his for years and finally got to meet him in person this past year. He is committing to making the 15 hour flight to San Diego again this year, so watch for him there. He’s a great person and it’s an honor to know him.

I don’t want to go buzzkill on you, but I must mention that we are mourning the loss of my wife’s longtime business partner, motorsports legend, Mr. Jan Gabriel, or as gearheads know him, the voice of “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!” He was a mentor to my wife and a steadfast friend to our family. He even filmed our son’s baptism. The loss is huge for us. Keep his family & friends in your prayers, if you’re the praying sort. If you’re New Agey like John Edwards’ mistress, just send good vibes.

I also send a shout out to my brother Jeff, sister-in-law Vicky, niece Stephanie and nephew John who are being snowed in this weekend in greater D.C. Stay safe, Bro & Co. To my sister Nancy in Alexandria, LA and her husband Dave, I have revoked your license to complain about your weather.

To Howard Feltman up in Michigan, I hope you’re staying warm.

Until next time, thanks for reading,

Dave.