DAVE DORMAN’s PODCAST IS AVAILABLE TO YOU NOW!

Hi Everyone,

I hope you’re all having a great week. I remembered to take the garbage out on time, so our garage stench won’t be knocking over the buzzards this week.

My big news of the week: Our FREE podcast chronicling comic book industry, art, and pop culture news, reviews & interviews is finally up on iTunes for all of you to subscribe to or download at your convenience.  The Web site that takes you right there to subscribe or download episodes is here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id373866909. The Web site describing the shows, etc. is http://www.itscomicbookday.com. Our production company is Farpoint Media out of Arizona, and we offer up a huge thanks to our audio engineer/producer Michael Mennenga for all of his technical support. If you have any comments, questions or guest requests for our show, please call our podcast hotline at 206.350.6326. We’d love your feedback.

The shows we’ve recorded thus far include Charlie Athanas (the artist for the first digital comic, “Shatter,” from First Comics), Scott Hampton (comic book artist, Simon Dark, Batman), Steve Smith (Editor in Chief, MonsterScene magazine, author and my best friend) Michael W. Kaluta (illustrator, Starstruck, Shadow) and Craig Elliott (illustrator/animator, Bee Movie, The Enchanted, Princess and the Frog).  If you are interested in advertising opportunities on our show, please contact my wife through email – denise@writebrainmedia.com and she will brief you on the various plans.

Movie Review: I just saw “Robin Hood” and if you, like me, are into visuals, go see it. The film is gorgeous. The story? Not so much. I was sorely disappointed in the writing, but the visuals made up for it.

The Oil Spill: This Gulf oil spill reminds me of the time I lived in Fort Lauderdale as a kid. We always had to check first before going to the beach to see if the beach and water were clear of the tar balls naturally forming from leaks in the ocean floor.  I wonder if it’s still that way.  Anybody know?

As an adult, I lived in Shalimar, Florida (greater Fort Walton Beach, in the Florida Panhandle) for more than 25 years.  I’m told by our videographer friend Steve Baker (of SB Video Productions) that so far, the beaches are still pristine and there’s no oil in the water there, so do vacation there if you can. It’s an incredibly beautiful part of the U.S. and I hope it stays that way. I know my environmentalist friend and author of many of my books, Del Stone Jr., will be the first one volunteering for beach clean up duty.  If you like great horror or sci-fi, do check out his work. He’s a wonderful writer and a great friend to me and my family.  He won a Bram Stoker Award for writing my book “Dead Heat,” about my character Hitch, a motorcycle zombie. Del and I were always ahead of our time. If only we had waited until this century to publish that book…

Cool Blog Alert: If you’re interested in reading comic book industry blogs, check out Chris Ryall’s blog: http://ryalltime.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/30-days-of-x/. He’s the Editor in Chief of IDW Publishing and quite an interesting guy.

Appearances: I will be at the “Drink and Draw” event at the Lucky Number Bar & Grill in Chicago this Friday at 7 p.m., doing live drawing.  The first weekend in June I will be at HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. Please come by & say hello!

Stephen Perry Update: In other news, I read that two people have been arrested for allegedly being involved in the disappearance of my colleague, comic book writer Stephen Perry. If I hear more, I will let you know. I’m told his son is safe with his mother, and that was a relief to hear.

How to Connect with Me Online: As always, thanks for reading. Your feedback and comments are always welcome. I’m on FaceBook, and please follow me on Twitter: @DaveDorman. If you’re on LinkedIn, connect with me and my wife (Denise McDonald Dorman).  Neither of us will “IDK” anyone.

Dave.

Dave Dorman at C2E2 This Weekend in Chicago!

Dear Readers,

This weekend I will be exhibiting, signing autographs and doing sketches at C2E2 in Chicago at McCormick Place; I will be located in Row F, Table #6 in ARTISTS ALLEY. As you can imagine, since I’ve made Chicago my new hometown, we have high hopes and expectations for this inaugural comic book convention. From the artists’ perspective, this show has gotten great buzz for the past year.  I respect the people who are behind it, and that makes a world of difference.

Today is my best friend Steve Smith’s birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEVE!

Since I’m based here in Chicago, I do catch wind of some wild rumors. One of the more recent rumors is that the Obama Administration had hidden in the recently passed debacle of a healthcare bill the multi-million dollar funding subsidy for a feather pillow factory here in the Midwest.  Their master plan is to replace the now worthless nuclear warheads (thank you, Mr. Obama) with the “Deadly Snuggly Missiles of Comfort” (DSMoC)–the lighter & fluffier, the better–to defend against our enemies in the event of biological or chemical attacks. Their hope is that these pillow missiles will create great allergic sneezing attacks amongst our enemies.  I sure do hope they’re successful in this innovative, new defense maneuver. My beloved and sorely missed parents, USAF  Lieutenant Colonel Jack Dorman and Phyllis Dorman, are spinning in their graves over this news, I can assure you.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the many people who helped us with our new home logistics: Platinum Plumbing in Elburn, IL, Glenn & Marge McDonald, Tom Turner & Eddie Caceres, Nancy Reilly, Coralina Bouvier & Randi, Darlene Nauman, Christina Bouvier, Mary Lawson, Jan, Ben, Daria, Kathy Drommerhausen, Bill Domenz, Amber Edwards & Marco Frigini & Celia Kruse de la Rosa. For those of you in our inner circle who have always been there for us with a supportive and willing heart, please know that we appreciate you.

I thank you all for reading, as always, and I hope to see many of you this weekend at C2E2 in Chicago.

Dave.

Dave Dorman – New Art, Updates and A Special Thanks

Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of creating a fresh piece of art at WildClaw Theatre’s fund-raiser, “Dance of the Demented” at Chicago’s Viaduct Theatre. Event organizer Charlie Athanas of The Devil’s Candy Store and creator of all great art for WildClaw Theatre as their board member, put together a cool event with 3 live deejays, women posing, a burlesque show and more. I met some very nice people there, including someone named Steve – here are links to his site and his blog:

http://www.seaillustration.com
http://drawntoday.blogspot.com/

I was also impressed by the sketches of tattoo artist Jeff Paetzold, whom you can find on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/scorpionnipples. If you happened to be there, he was the guy accompanied by the Dita Von Teese look-alike. It was also great to hang out with his dad Bill Paetzold, a gifted creative who owns http://www.paetzolddesign.com. As always, it was great fun to see Anthony Kosar do his stuff, as well as Ray Frenden, Tony Akins and Joe Lester.

During “Dance of the Demented,” I started a painting of a woman in a straight jacket about to stab a young woman with a giant scissors.

Painting from Dance of the Demented WildClaw Fundraiser

A special thanks to Steve Smith for his photography.

I will post the finished art piece on this blog when it’s complete. I hope you all like it. I worked in a dark, moody color palette of greens, rust colors and black.

This last week TURBO VAMPS, the Chicago punk horror band I mentioned previously, launched their New Order tribute song on iTunes, so be sure to check them out if punk horror is your genre.

In other news, be sure to check out this blog on March 1st. On that day, I will have a MAJOR announcement to make, that will hopefully personally affect some of you reading this blog. I can’t say more than this, but it is HUGE news.

Until then, thank you for reading.

Dave.