Paper Pusher

What’s up guys and girlies? I thought I’d go ahead and throw some images up from my newest book Bird Doggin’ It’s a collection of drawings of girls. Some are nude, some are fully clothed. The book is kind of all over the place as far as styles go. Some are realistic drawings done from old playboys, some are figure drawings done from models, and some are just made up. Its 24 pages of black and white drawings with a 8 page color section in the middle. So if you like naked ladies you might want to check it out!

 Here are a few of the highlights:

 Oh and here is the cover in case you didn’t see it in the post below.

  If anyone is interested in buying one I’m selling ‘em for 4 bucks plus shipping. You can drop me a line at: bradmcginty(at)gmail.com and I’ll tell you how to pay me. I know that must seem like a hassle, but pay pal buttons don’t work in my wordpress powered blog unless you have a plug in (which I do not). But if you order one from me I’ll be sure to throw in a free sketch just to show my gratitude!

  I’ll promise to find a more permanent solution to this soon enough kids, as I plan on (finally) putting all the books I have in print up on the site for purchase.

Thanks for stoppin’ by!

-Brad

Welp, I just got back from Heroes Con, and this year I decided to do something I always forget to do. Take pictures! That’s right kids! Not only did I remember to pull the camera out twice during the entire 3 day trip, I also remembered to push the button. Good for me, and super lucky for you (you can thank me later) so sit back loyal blog readers, for I am about to take you on a journey I like to call; Heroes Con 2008: A journey into the hearts and minds of today’s comic reading public!

Okay here we are right out of Josh’s driveway. Bam! I catch Josh in mid steer. Look at that natural lighting. Josh says something like “I always look bad in pictures” So I then bravely turn the camera on myself.

Super Bam! Another great picture! 2 down, countless more thrilling pictures to go.

It’s just after 6 o’clock and we’re on our way to meet up with Athens cartoon legend Patrick Dean at some waffle house off of 85. Of course we go to the wrong Waffle House. Just in case you didn’t know almost every highway exit in Georgia has two waffle houses, one on each side of the ramp. This happens to most Atlantans every so often, so it’s not too big of a deal, or is it?. Is this where our tale ends dear reader?! Could this be the end of Brad and Josh?!

Balls no! Before you know it we’ve got Patrick dean in the car and we’re on well on our way to Charlotte! I and document this achievement with yet another photo. Look at this one. What a shot! It captures everything you need to know about life and cartooning. What’s that saying about pictures being worth a million thousand words? Well, if I were you I’d throw that crap saying away! This photo is worth at least double that! And that’s before you even take into account that these ears belong to Patrick dean (left) And Josh Latta (other one)

Okay at this point I forget to take pictures of the entire first day of the show. But whatever, There is always Saturday right? So Friday went alright. I had about two hours of sleep, and the con was a little sluggish (Friday’s are usually like that) but that’s fine. I don’t want a bunch of people around me begging for my wares while I’m flying at half mast anyway. So after the show on Friday Patrick, Josh and I all go back to our room and proceed to talk about comics and blow through 30 beers. Then we head down to lobby of the Hilton. Run into one of the world’s top notch peeps; Rob Ullman and his gang. Then we’re told that we can’t drink our cans of Bud Light in the hotel lobby, so we get all Avril Lavine on him and kindly throw them away. Which is fine cause we were on our way to the Westin anyway. So we go to the Westin. Drink some more booze. I get to sit at the bar with (seriously) two of my all time most favorite cartoonists ever; Even Dorkin and Xamie Hernandez! I don’t remember much about the conversation, but I do know that Evan Dorkin is really funny. Then we somehow end up sneaking into some krunk ass club that we had to get frisked twice to get into. Patrick and I made it through, but the door men were hip to our game by time Josh got through. So they nabbed us all and we had to leave. Lame.

I think we went home after that. Thanks to Patrick for reminding me about that night club thing because I had totally forgot.

Saturday! Okay here’s where shit gets real. Josh and J Chris start boozing it up and I just bust out my camera and snap this million dolar baby. That’s Josh Front and center, and to his blurry left is J Chris “king of the mini comics” Campbell. That guy can’t stay still for a second. Jus look at this next pic for proof!

Jeez J Chris! I see you already, quit waving! I’m trying to take awesome photo’s here! Sheesh. So while I have my camera out. I decide to take a few more “shots” But who to take a picture of? Hmmm. Wait I got it!

Shannon smith and Josh Latta! (next to Shannon) Shannon is an awesome mini comics reviewer and maker. He knows exactly what a good comic should have in it regardless if it’s main stream or a small press book. He just loves comics and it shows. So now that I’ve got my camera out this reminds Shannon, that he should get his camera out too, which leads us to this:

Super Blam! Here is Shannon right in the thick of it, taking a picture of me, while I was taking a picture of him. It’s like breaking the 4^th wall in the real world, which could be kind of dangerous. lets move on.

Why look what’s right here next to us! It’s Jason Horn and Dean Trippe. Dean is hard at work on a (no doubt) great looking sketch, which he produces constantly all day long with out effort. Someone told me he even does con sketches in his kitchen on Tuesday mornings. It just no big deal for him. Get there early though, the list fills up fast! Jason looks kind of grumpy in this photo which is great for me because he never looks like this, so it must be that I’m such a great photographer that I just pull the emotions right out my subjects.

Then suddenly out of no where I hear “Hey Brad! Take a picture of this girl looking at your comics” It was my photographer’s instincts, and they were spot on. I did need to take a half blurry picture of some girl looking at a comic she didn’t buy. Nice work photographer’s instincts, I owe ya one.

Then without a thought I spin around and catch J Chris blowing super realistic fire at a kinda blurry Shannon smith! Holy crap, I better do something to calm him down, before he does in again, but what? Then it hit me.

I’ll get Scott Ellingburg to pay me 5 bucks to draw him as a hot chick! I have a sign to do these sketches up every year, and every year one person takes me up on it. This year it was Scott. What a good sport! I bet his wife will love it. Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if they named their first child: Drawing of Scott as a hot chick. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t either.

Well that’s all the crappy pictures I took this year. I really meant to take a lot more pictures, but this is all I had in my camera when I got back Monday. I did a horrible job. And left my camera in the room most of the time. Oh well. If anyone is interested in a much more interesting and accurate account of the Heroes con experience then check out these links below.

 Shannon’s take

Joshy’s Take

 Rob Ullman’s take

 The rest

  Thanks again for everyone who came out and bought sketches and books from me. It means a lot to me. Mad Props must be issued to Dustin Harbin, for throwing the whole indie island together. It was a great time, and the guests definitely made this year a great success.

 Thanks for reading!

  -B

Another reason I have dropped the “blog ball” the past two months is because I’ve been gearing up for the greatest comic experience around: Heroes Con! This is where I’ll be appearing as a guest on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in the unreal indie island section. This convention is the absolute best. It’s the perfect mix of mainstream and small press. And this year (thanks to the mad pimping skills of the mighty Dustin Harbin) is going to be the biggest and best to date. Yeah, I know people say that kinda thing all the time about every single convention under the sun, but how can you even peek at this guest list and not have your comic boner turned to up to eleven? It’s impossible! Try it!

Now I know a lot of you are asking yourself “sure, Heroes con 2008 at the Charlotte convention center this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday sounds fine and all, but is it really worth me getting in my car(sigh), driving (double sigh), getting out of my car again (big ass sigh), just to have an amazing life changing experience? I mean come on. Gas and stuff man, gas and stuff!” And while I could spend the rest of my life telling you all of the reasons to go to heroes con 08 in painfully crazy-awesome stereophonic detail, I’d much rather let my good pal, J Chris Campbell do the dirty work for me! He’s actually done a nice job of condensing the 1000’s of reasons to go to heroes con (like hanging out with me!), down into 8 readable posts (like #5: getting drunk with me!) for you to peruse at your leisure. That guy is one class act.

Alright no more f’ing around. Here are some of the goods I’ll have with me at heroes this year:

This is the cover to my pin up book. Its 24 pages of girls (some naked, some not) It’s black and white, with an 8 page color section in the middle. It would be a good thing to buy if you like naked chicks, or were… maybe going to jail? I dunno. Just come buy it from me and I’ll tell you how much you like it.

I’ll have a new run of Tub Flub with me, with an all new, all different extra page! That’s right; if you bought this from me at SPX you got screwed! This edition has a big fat bonus page that I drew and totally forgot to include in the book the first time! You’ll be amazed at what little difference it actually makes to the story. Which is probably forgot it in the first place.

Plus I’ll have a new little mini about a squirrel who wins a car wash.

I’ll also be signing My SOTU comics and doing sketches again this year. So come on down and hang out with Josh Latta and I at the fabulous Heroes con in beautiful Charlotte North Carolina!

Don’t puss out!

Yep you heard it here first folks, I’m not dead. So please quit sending my parents flowers, and stop calling my ex girlfriends to console them. (I mean what do they care anyway, right? I mean if they cared so much why don’t they just tell me? You know what I mean? It’s just crazy that it takes something like a the idea of a fake death for two people who no longer talk to each other, to come together to say “hey man, I heard you thought that someone thought you had died, and that’s crazy. Why would you even think that?”)

(edited note: This is a joke. Seriously. A Joke)

So I just want to clear that up for all the ex ladies out there. Of course by ex ladies I mean post-op trannies who assume someone is dead because you haven’t updated your site in while. Man. This world can be so crazy.

This is totally fine, because I can be Crazy too. Crazy busy that is! I’ve been working on all sorts of cartoon crap. I’ll post a number of them in the coming weeks but right now all I can offer are screen shots from a few of the completed ones. Check em out!

These are from the Tub Flub cartoon (sorry so blurry).

This is a the first episode of a new cartoon (exciting description huh?)

And these last two are from a very real and super crazy serious documentary about organized crime entitled:

Real Life Gangsters For Real.

I’ll post some of the other stuff I’ve been working on tomorrow!

-Brad

And I know the one I’m looking forward too the most is the new Wide Awake Press book Pildown. The WAP book last year was easily my favorite of the bunch (and I’m not saying that just because I was in it!) It was like 40 pages long and had a bunch of seriously good stuff in it. Actually you can still download for free here

But this year’s book is Shrouded in mystery. All I’ve found is this info:

Free comic download: PILTDOWN
Wide Awake Press follows up last year’s successful download comic EATS with an anthology of prehistoric tales. Go to wideawakepress.com on May 3 and download the FREE comic PILTDOWN. Join us on our journey back in time and see what stories surface when artists draw upon their inner cro-magnon. Dinosaurs, Cavemen and all types of prehistoric beasts gather together for you to discover.

DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE ON MAY 3RD FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!

J Chris is keeping tight lipped about who’s going to be in it this year, so he must have some sort of super secret super star up his sleeve or something.

I think I like FCBD more and more each year!

So I’ve been nosing around Flickr a bit lately, due to some pretty choice cartoonists posting their stuff there ( Dustin Harbin for example ) and I stumbled across Paul Pope’s page, and man was I impressed. I’ve kept tabs on his blog for a while now, but his flickr page has even more impressive work than his blog! Check it out!

Boy howdy do I dig people who can draw neat! Wait wasn’t there a point to this post? Oh yeah..

I went out and bought his Batman year 100 the next day, and really enjoyed it. It was the kinda book that makes me sit down and draw pages and pages of embarrassing superheroes in my sketchbook. Which actually doesn’t happen that often, I think the last time that happened was when I got my copy of Rob Venditti’s book the surrogates which prompted me to draw pages and pages of his character Steeplejack.

Paul Pope came up with a really nice design for his Batman, which included A cool split cape, swim trunks, big ass kicking boots, and finally some crazy ass fake teeth.

So yeah, I drew this picture of Batman and used it to practice coloring on my new Wacom (don’t like it yet). The picture turned out fine is guess; I really didn’t spend a lot of time on the coloring or anything. I kinda wished that I didn’t add the fake teeth when I was inking it (they just look sorta jacked up) and I think that orange building I scribbled into the background is caving in like a year old pumpkin, but whatever. Batman just looks cool as shit when he’s beating up a bunch of dudes, regardless of who’s drawing him.

Hey man! What’s going on? Just chillin’? Well that’s cool… what me? Ahh not much, I’ve just been super balls to wall busy working on that Tub Flub cartoon. What’s that? Yeah it’s looking pretty good, I’m getting close to finishing it. I’ve got some screen shots here if you really wanna see ‘em.

Thanks man! Yeah, I’m pretty happy with how it’s coming out. I still have a few more scenes to do, but it’s moving along pretty fast. I mean there’s just no easy way to do make an entire cartoon you know? Ha yeah, a little bit. SO where are you headin’ man? What?! what the hell are you going there for? Ohhh yeah I guess they do sell it by the case there. Well I hope that stuff clears up man. Give me a call and maybe we can get together this weekend, my boss is throwing some kind of meat party thing at his friends house. Let me know if you wanna check it out. Yeah, okay man. Well maybe I’ll see you then.

This post is a little late since I’ve been out sick, but it’s not to late to go grab a copy of Students of the Unusual Giant-sized Music Special #1 It hit stores on April 9th and is the first issue to feature my work on the Recalcitrant Jones and the Dead Beats! And if that weren’t enough reason to rush out and demand a copy, this issue also comes with a CD of all original music designed by the awesome J Chris Campbell ! Here’s the press release with all the juicy details:

The new Students of the Unusual Giant-sized Music Special #1 will be hitting the comic book stands April 9th! This is the first comic to come with its very own CD music album and we are calling it a comic for your eyes and ears!! The inserted music CD includes 14 tracks from a fabulous musical collection by some of the most talented independent recording artists who entered our music contest. We are certainly appreciative of the good folks at Abyssmal Studios in Orlando, Florida for mastering this incredible CD package and lending their professional seal of approval to this project. This issue’s incredible cover is by Caleb Prochnow who won inclusion in CMYK magazine for his work. The 48-page comic book features the great storytelling and the great art that you have come to expect from our award-winning horror adventure team! Unbelievable Tiki stories by Dove McHargue, Pat Martin, & Rob Granito. The return of Recalcitrant Jones and the Dead Beats with art by Brad McGinty. The Flame of Faith continues with fabulous art by Julia Lichty aka ghostfire and “The Water of Life” features the funeral of Uncle Pat illustrated by the master Jorge Calamato and colored by Gary Scott Beatty! There really is so much more (Like a pin-up of the Zombie Biker by the legendary Chad Hunt!) and still priced at only $2.95! You can’t beat it! So please spread the word!

This is quite an awesome little package for only $2.95 So get out there and show some support people!

P.S. If you live in the Atlanta area Just swing by Criminal Records and pick up a copy.

P.P.S. If you are in or around Athens Ga, I’ll be hanging out at FLUKE on Saturday so stop by and check out tons of awesome comics by tons of awesome people!

(Plus I’ll have a few copies of the Giant Sized Music Special too)

Okay, okay, Enough already…

I recently borrowed my pal Jeanette’s digital camera to take some much needed pictures of artwork for the blog (I really hate scanning, and I hate buying cameras even more) so I can finally post some non digital stuff on here. So to kick off the non digital artwork posts off right, here are some pictures of my work “zone”. That’s right; I have an entire zone to myself, so try not to be too jealous. I’ll also show you the process I’m using on this cartoon.

Alright let’s start off simple. This is my desk. That circle thing on top of my desk is my animator’s desk. And if I had an even smaller desk (for what I’m not sure) then I would put it on top of that one. I like to keep my “zone” pretty dark. It makes feel like I’m up to no good.

This is the wall to my left, and it’s where I keep all my background comps. Why do I print out all my background comps you ask?

It’s so I can rough out my “animation” directly on top of it. I like to draw out all the movements right on top of one another at first. I should say that it helps me figure out all the arcs of the motion, but I just don’t feel like it.

Here it is off the animator’s desk. So after I get done with a couple of scenes like this, I will ink these drawing on another piece of paper breaking all the bits apart even further then they are. So do you wanna know what I ink the drawing with? C’mon just play along…

… Ink and a Brush! Now that I look at this pic I realize that It’s not a very good picture of my brush or the ink, but it is a very good picture of my 3 favorite co workers, Coffee, Beer and water. I ink with a Raphael #2 water color brush. They are by far and away my most favorite brush. I know most cartoonists use the Windsor Newton 7 series, but I hate those things. They cost to much and don’t last nearly as long. Plus they’re too fat.

After I get done inking a few pages worth of disjointed arms, legs, eyelids, and little tail balls. I go ahead and scan them into illustrator and spend quite a while coloring and grouping the individual pieces. This is the longest and most boring part of the entire process. Holy crap I wish there was a faster way to do this, but I also wish I could just video tape my thoughts and then I wouldn’t have to mess with any of this crap, but I guess we all have wishes huh?

So after all that Illustrator noise, I start importing all the objects into flash and making symbols out of them. This part is also pretty tedious, but very important. If you don’t organize these things carefully then you will never find them again. I learned this after spending a few hours looking for a missing beard in my bee gees cartoon. After that I just sit in a chair and stare at something like the picture above for about a million hours. Then at some point all those drawings, sounds, and hours of computer work turn into a cartoon! How it happens I have no idea. All I know is you can’t even enjoy it until weeks later, because every time you watch it all you see are all the things you screwed up. 

Don’t worry though, it’s totally worth it. 

-B 

One of the benefits of working at a small animation company is getting to do most things yourself. Sometimes that works in your favor, sometimes it makes you feel incompetent. Sound makes me feel incompetent. I hate it. I hate listening to myself in my headphones for hours on end, I hate having to pick the best takes, and I hate being limited by my own voice. So right about now you might be asking yourself “Jeez, why the hell is Brad being such a little bitch about all this?” (This is a good question) A lot of it has to with the fact that I realize how important sound is, and how the most well written and best looking cartoon around will just be a total mess with bad sound. So I’m always super nervous. The other thing is that I don’t know anything about sound. Add that to the fact that I have pretty horrible hearing and it’s pretty easy to see why I hate sound. The real kicker is that I have plenty of people who are willing to help me with the sound, who totally know their stuff, and let me ask them an insane amount of questions. So why don’t I let them do it for me? Why don’t I have the best of the best rockin’ the mike for me? Because I want to be the best, well, not the real best, but more like fake best. So I really don’t mind kicking my own ass extra hard, and getting less than perfect results, because I’ll figure it out soon enough, and then I’ll be unstoppable times a thousand.

So how did the Tub Flub recording session go? And how can you recreate the experience at home? Well read on Bradophiles and find out!

This me standing around talking to John about the mike or something, I don’t remember exactly, but a lot of time in the studio is spent like this, so it’s important to document it.

This is John. He did all the sound engineering for me. A lot of people think that sound engineering is just pushing the record button, but there it actually much more to it than that (Like pushing the stop button for example).

This is why it’s good to have a friend do the sound engineering. Can you imagine having to make this face in front of a stranger for like four hours? If you can then maybe voice over work is for you. Another good tip to know is that the worse you look, the better you sound. It’s just the facts. That’s why people always say “You have a face for radio” Now this doesn’t necessary mean you’re ugly, It just means that if you want to sound good you better make your face as ugly and jacked up as possible.

Here’s John again. He’s probably going back and erasing about 300 awful takes. Finding the right amount of takes is something that takes some practice. I found that the third take usually sounds the best. Anything over that just sounds like a crappy version of the third take and anything before the third take sounds like you’re trying too hard. I think you have to try and get that balance of freshness and annoyance in your voice in order for it to sound good. And what happens if we still don’t get it in three takes? We move on and go back and do three more takes later on. I wish there was a way around this rule, but there isn’t. Three really is the magic number. Oh yeah, See those cords on the wall back there? Those help make our basement look more like a real recording studio. Those are super important.

And this is my dog Bailey. He sits in this chair and looks out that window a lot. He had to stay upstairs during the recording session because his whining kept getting picked up by the mike. Thanks Bailey, I owe you one.

Welp, That’s all I know about recording! I hope you picked up some awesome pointers and crap. So until next time…

…Try and be the fakest best you can be!

-B