Wheels fall off

Some time last year, I was asked to draw the cover for our local alternative newsweekly, the Pittsburgh City Paper. It was a great experience, so I was thrilled when art director Lisa Cunningham approached me again last week and asked if I'd be interested in doing another.

The paper comes out each week on Wednesday, and since Monday was a holiday, the deadline was a little tighter than usual. Still, I think I turned around a pretty cute little illustration on a subject I care a great deal about: marriage equality in Pennsylvania. Anyway, here's the finished product, with all the headlines and text in place:

It begins!

 Just a quick note to let you know that the first page of my new webcomic, "Muscles Diablo in: Where Terror Lurks!" is now up. Visit patnlewis.tumblr.com and check it often for new pages!

Coming soon!

I've been wanting to launch a webcomic for some time now, so I'm proud to announce that I’m hard at work on one right now! It is entitled “Muscles Diablo in: Where Terror Lurks” and I can’t wait to show it to you.

Basically it is about a tough guy with a shady past who punches a lot of things. There’s a missing baby and a mysterious mob boss and probably some sort of redemption or something. Oh, and a whole lot of crazy monsters and stuff. I promise it’ll be ready real soon, so keep your eyes glued to patnlewis.tumblr.com for the first exciting installment.

The comic will appear there exclusively for a while before showing up in its permanent home on my website. If there's any big news with the comic, I'll be sure to report it here, but mainly this blog will still be used for general illustration/cartooning stuff.

In the meantime, here's a sneak preview of some "Muscles Diablo" stuff I compiled from my sketchbooks. There are some early character designs, page thumbnails, unused (as of now) ideas, and just general inspiration-type drawings. Are you excited yet?

Correspondence, part II

As I mentioned earlier, when I was in Junior High, pre-internet, I got this great idea to write letters to a bunch of different cartoonists. I would ask them stuff about their work and how to "break in" to the business, despite the fact that I was years away from making any kind of actual attempt at submitting my own comic strips to the syndicates. Anyway, here to blow your mind is a response I received in 1990 from "Drabble" cartoonist Kevin Fagan. Say, remember typewriters?