Dave Dorman Updates: May the Fourth Be With You

Hi Everyone,

I hope you all took advantage of FREE COMIC BOOK DAY this past weekend. I took my 5-year-old son to a comic book store in Geneva, Illinois where he excitedly picked up  Iron Man and Transformers comics – I picked up the latest B.P.R.D. comic, which never disappoints.

I don’t have a lot of news to report, except to say that I have completed the 7-page comic for Magic: The Gathering’s online sequential art series, and I am hard at work on some art for publisher Howard Feltman.  I am also working on the graphic novel project for SoGoPro, still in its early stages.

This past weekend, my wife and I finalized copy on the new book from IDW/Desperado Publishing on my art career, “Rolling Thunder: The Art of Dave Dorman.” It was a lot of work, but a labor of love. I hope you all enjoy seeing the work in my private collection, much of which has never before been seen by the public. This book is about as “insider” as it gets. You can pre-order it Amazon via this link: http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Thunder-Art-Dave-Dorman/dp/1600106730/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272921491&sr=8

For those of you who didn’t know my background before reading this new book, much of my art will begin to make sense in a new way like  it never has before.

As for our new “Wednesday is Comic Book Day” podcast, we have 3 episodes “in the can,” according to producer Michael Mennenga. Summer Brooks is hard at work pulling together the special Web site just for the podcast, which will be available as a free download via iTunes. If anyone has questions or comments about our podcast, or guest suggestions, please call the podcast hotline at 206.350.6326 or email my wife at denise@writebrainmedia.com.

I offer up a special thanks to fan, attorney Mickey K. Thompson, who created a FaceBook page “Fans of Dave Dorman Art.” I really appreciate his kindness. I also appreciate the kindnesses shown to me by attorney Zane Zielinski and Kalamazoo, Michigan comic book store owner Tom Fleming. It was great to reconnect with these guys again at C2E2. Tom ended up buying an iconic piece from me, and if I can’t own it, I’m glad it’s owned by someone who really loves it as much as I do.

As always, thank you for reading. Your interest in my work is what keeps me going.

May the Fourth Be With You…

Dave.

P.S. Follow me on Twitter: @DaveDorman, friend me on FaceBook, link with me on LinkedIn, or join Fans of Dave Dorman Art on FaceBook.

Like Father, Like Son…?

Hi Everyone,

I hope you all had a great Passover and Easter holiday. We celebrate Easter,  and this year our son was the right age to appreciate it.  It was also my wife Denise’ s birthday, and I’m working on an art deadline, so it was quite the jam-packed weekend. I did manage to  catch “How to Train Your Dragon” with our son and we both give it high marks – be sure to catch it. The animation is wonderful.

I see my quote was posted in BusinessWeek today regarding how the iPad will affect the comic book industry. In my humble view, it will grow our audience for a new set of serialized storytelling fans who are not collectors, so a new audience is always a good thing for our industry. Here’s that BusinessWeek link for you: http://bit.ly/aK3O4k – my quote is on page 2 of 2. A special thanks to Charlie Athanas for finding it for me – our Google Alerts always show up way too late. Of course, special thanks goes to my publicist Denise Dorman at WriteBrain Media for putting it together for me.

For those of you who follow child development, you might have some insight to share with me.  I think that my son may have inherited some creative talent from Denise and me. He has an attention to detail and an ability to draw from memory, rather than copying, that I find remarkable. I just hope that I’m not seeing his artwork through “daddy goggles,” but here it is, and keep in mind, he just turned 5:

Perry the Parrot

Dave Dorman's Son Draws the World of SpongeBob

You can see here where he started to draw Mr. Krabs on the far right, and then bailed at the last moment, losing his confidence. I was particularly impressed with how he drew Squidward and Gary, and even remembered the antenna on Patrick Star’s little rock house.

In other news, if any of you are watching Celebrity Apprentice, like me, you must be left puzzling over how anyone ever voted such a smarmy and witless wonder as Rod Blagojevich into the Governor’s office here in Illinois, where I’m now living.  For the record, I didn’t vote for him. Basic skills, like typing, using a computer and text messaging, should be an assumption, not a struggle for someone in the Governor’s role.  It is frustrating to us watching how far clueless narcissism can go toward convincing people of someone’s competence.  Perhaps the next IL governor’s race should be voted on after watching all of the contenders in a similar reality TV program. At the very least, I want the next governor to know how to use a computer. It’s no wonder our state is bankrupt. I’m sure he couldn’t even open an Excel file, let alone analyze  it. This brings me to my next topic, which is, at some point, I’m going to apply to go on Celebrity Apprentice. This season, there are folks on there who, frankly, are not household names to everyone, yet they’re famous within their own niches. That pretty much sums up my fame, so I think I should qualify. I am an Eisner Award winner, which is the Oscars of the comic book industry – similar to a gold medal in the Olympics.  Like those Olympiads, I committed to my Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 + hours of hardcore training. I would certainly have nailed it as project leader  on any of this season’s creative tasks…

My wife Denise and I did record Episode 1 of our podcast, “Wednesday is Comic Book Day” with special guest Scott Hampton, and once I know when it’s on iTunes and posted on Farpoint Media, I will let you all know here on my blog.  I thank producer Denise Gideon and tech advisor Andrea Smith, two new media experts who do a superb job of leading the reluctant Luddites into the digital age.

There’s a major storm brewing here, so I will sign off now before the power goes out – it’s flickering and I don’t want to lose this post.

Thanks for reading,

Dave.