My Bloom County

This is my C.L.A.W. Open Swim submission for tonight of a comic strip that really influenced me as a kid. I miss you Bloom County. (tied for second with Ryan Anderson. Mark Brill came in first.) This is a vector illustration done in Adobe Illustrator.

This is my winning entry in this month' CLAW Open Swim. The theme... The Alternate Lifestyles of the Super Fabulous (What if your favorite super hero was gay). You can learn more about it here: http://www.cartoonistsleague.org/june-open-swim-announcement/ I decided to take the high road and recreate an icon Spider-Man Annual with a small twist. I decided early on with this assignment that to me the hero wouldn't or shouldn't visually change just because their sexual orientation does. I kept the heroes and villains the same. I just turned Mary Jane into Marty James. Total time to complete: 1 1/2 hours.

April Open Swim!

The Cartoonist's League of Absurd Washingtonians (a group I am proud to be a founding member of) is presenting a lecture series as part of our popular Open Swim drawing sessions. Later this month I will be leading a class that will provide tips and tricks for how to create web comics and illustrations using Adobe Illustrator. The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited so get there early. 

CLAW's Open Swim Lecture Series #1

Learn Tips For Making Comics With Adobe Illustrator by James Stowe (me)

Hosted by Comic Book Ink

2510 S. 84th St. Suite 15A-B

Lakewood, WA

Wednesday, April 25th

7:30PM

Literal Literary Book Title

This was my entry in tonight's CLAW Open Swim. The contest was to create literal interpretations of book titles. Can you guess the title. I will give you a hint: The BLANK BLANK of BLANK

The figure behind the bear is the main character in my fellow CLAW brother's Feed>>Tacoma comic: Thorax O'Tool's Beantown

Wayzgoose Print Design

Last night the Cartoonist's League of Absurd Washingtonians (https://www.facebook.com/groups/97715012866/ ) voted on my design for the upcoming print festival here in Tacoma... Wayzgoose! (http://www.kingsbookstore.com/wayzgoose ) Enjoy the flying monkey glory.

DND for Dads Commission: Adam and Arrayah

Another DNDforDads commission standee... this one for my fellow CLAW brother Adam Botsford. He wanted a portrait of him and his dog. I inadvertantly went all He-Man and Battlecat with it.

Derby Dames Drawing Jam!

This event bears repeating here on my art blog... This Thursday, as part of the Tacoma Art Walk, the The Cartoonist's League of Absurd Washingtonians will join up with the Dockyard Derby Dames to present the Derby Dames Drawing Jam! An evening of life drawing where the subjects will be local roller derby stars! http://www.cartoonistsleague.o​rg/july-open-swim-derby-dames-​drawing-jam/

event poster created by Anique Zimmer, CLAW member number X!

Today's BE A HERO event

Today I was lucky enough to be part of the BE A HERO fundrasing event for my friend's comic book shop... COMIC BOOK INK. I was one of nine artist donating time and artwork to patrons that donated whatever they can to help the Cartoonists League of Absurd Washingtonians raise money to help out the shop. Halfway through the event a very generous patron donated over $200.00 for 9 Team Fortress 2 watercolor sketches. I was happy to make them. I am posting some, if not all of them here.

CLAW's June Open Swim entry

POOH WARS! 

(not what you think)

June Meaties Poster

Father's Day will never be the same again...

My winning entries for April's CLAW Open Swim

Duh, Winning.

Imperial March Commission: Darth Loath

Here is another Imperial march Commission... this one for my friend and fellow CLAW member Mark Monlux. This month he is Darth Loath. Half dead and half droid... Darth Loath welcomes his new cyborg Sith overlords.

24 HOUR COMIC BOOK DAY!

So it is that time of year again. It is 24 Hour Comic Book Day this Saturday the 2nd of October. And again this year I am stepping up to the challenge. I will join four other esteemed CLAW artists (as well as comic artists and cartoonists from across the country) in attempting to create 24 comic book pages in 24 hours. This year in Tacoma the challenge will be held at Comic Book Ink's new location at 2510 S. 84th, Suites 15A-B Lakewood, WA. I will be there from 8:30 am on the 2nd for 24 straight hours until 8:30am on the 3rd (or until I am finished, throw in the towel or pass out from exhaustion).

This year, like last year, I am also requesting your help. Last year I unofficially asked for people to bring me food and caffeine to keep me going for the 24 hours and offered to literally draw them into the comic if they did so. Word spread around and the amount of edible donations was quite surprising. Now I'd like to officially harness that enthusiasm and good will for a higher purpose.

This year I am asking everyone to stop into Comic Book Ink any time during the 24 hours and donate whatever they can to the Cartoonist League's Young Cartoonist of the Future Scholarship. Anyone that does so will be invited to help me literally write my 24 comic script by filling in deliberate holes I have left in the story MAD LIBS style. You need to be on site during the event to participate and CLAW will accept cash or personal checks (but not credit cards). If you make a donation you can claim one of the options below to make your own and either help create a super awesome story or complicate my challenge to the nth degree (or both). Am I crazy to even attempt to complete 24 comic book pages incorporating elements selected at random by onlookers in 24 hours? yes, I probably am... but the results could be awesome and the effort is for a good cause.

So I hope to see you at Comic Book Ink on Saturday. I'll be there... won't you be there too?

And for all of you planning to bring me food in hopes of appearing in my comic... I hear that Mark Monlux is accepting food donations for his 24 hour comic book attempt and promises to draw you into HIS comic. Who knows, if you still want to bring me food I might try to sneak you into the comic anyway. It is that kind of event!

THE STOWE 24 HOUR COMIC BOOK CHALLENGE MAD LIB DONATION CATEGORY SELECTION TABLE
_________________________________________________
TITLE
1 NUMBER OR LETTER

PAGE ONE
2 TYPE OF ANIMAL

PAGE TWO
3 COMMON SCHOOL CLIQUE STEREOTYPE
4 COMMON SCHOOLYARD PRANK
5 UNCOMMON ARTICLE OF CLOTHING

PAGE THREE
6 FANTASTICAL CREATURE
7 PLANET

PAGE FOUR
8 COMMON TEENAGE ACTIVITY

PAGE FIVE
9 EMBARASSING ITEM TO OWN

PAGE SIX
10 JOB OCCUPATION
11 SITUATION SPECIFIC UNIFORM
12 NONSENSE WORD

PAGE SEVEN
13 ANOTHER TYPE OF ANIMAL

PAGE EIGHT
14 FACIAL EXPRESSION

PAGE NINE
15 DESTRUCTIVE ACTIVITY

PAGE TEN
16 TYPE OF FRUIT

PAGE ELEVEN
17 TYPE OF SUPERPOWER

PAGE TWELVE
18 DANGEROUS PHENOMENON

PAGE THIRTEEN
19 ARTICLE OF WOMAN’S CLOTHING

PAGE FOURTEEN
20 BODY PART OR ORGAN

PAGE FIFTEEN
21 SCIENCE-FICTION ATTACKING DEVICE
22 SCIENCE-FICTION DEFENSIVE DEVICE
23 SCIENCE-FICTION TYPE OF RAY BEAM DEVICE

PAGE SIXTEEN
24 GIANT MOVIE MONSTER

PAGE SEVENTEEN
25 ANOTHER BODY PART OR ORGAN

PAGE EIGHTEEN
26 TYPE OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT

PAGE NINETEEN
27 ANY INANIMATE OBJECT

PAGE TWENTY
28 WHAT YOU HAVE IN YOUR POCKET

PAGE TWENTYONE
29 DEROGATORY SCHOOLYARD NICKNAME

PAGE TWENTYTWO
30 A NONSWEAR WORD SWEAR WORD

PAGE TWENTYTHREE
31 ATTRACTIVE MALE CELEBRITY

PAGE TWENTYFOUR
32 ADJECTIVE

My 24-hour Comic Book Day Poster

John Munn over at COMIC BOOK INK contracted me to draft up a poster for this year's 24hr Comic Book Day festivities over at his shop. Knowing that myself and several CLAW members would be participating I put together the following poster. I hope you dig it.

Hirsute Cartoonist Overtakes TTown

Here is my winning poster from last night's absurdly aweome C.L.A.W. Open Swim... Thanks to Kevin Freitas, Leischen Moore and my lovely wife Courtney for all the help! You can read slightly more about it here: http://www.cartoonistsleague.org/claw-july-open-swim-recap-1/

Stan Shaw in CLAW

Here is a hastily done sticker design made to shame (force) (convince) (muscle) (no... shame) noncommital Tacoma based illustrator and urban hipster Stan Drawstanley.com Shaw to join the esteemed ranks of CLAW. Please join in this campaign by writing Mr. Shaw and expressing how much you think he should, in fact, JOIN CLAW.

His email address is drawstanley@harbornet.com

Fly, my pretties, fly.