The weekend looms

It's Friday!

And I will dance for the man... no more!
Tonight I celebrate!
By falling asleep on the couch.

Here's sketch number two in the soopahero sketch series:


























Have a great weekend!

The Loop

Today marks the start of a brand new Untrue Tale.

Prepare to be caught in... The Loop!

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/Loop1.html

And to celebrate the loopiness, here's the first in a series of sooper dooper superhero sketcheroos:

























Why do I suddenly have the urge to listen to QUEEN?

Happy Now

Today I am a happy fellow.
The sun is shining.
My man-dancing days are drawing to a close.
Deep-fried turkey burgers are on the lunch menu.
Smoked porkchops and potato salad are lined up for dinner.
I might even go nuts and have a beer. Or three.

Fat and happy.

That is me.

Here's a sketch of another guy who seems vaguely pleased about something:























Have a great day this end of May!

Out, damned spot!

It's Tuesday. Hooray?

Here's some ink spots. Oh, and a couple of ladies unencumbered by cheeseburgers.

Gabriel Done Rose

At long last, the shattering conclusion of GABRIEL RISING has risen!

The epic tale, six weeks in the telling, has finally reached it's apex. Read it now! Read it backwards! Starting here:

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/GabrielRising12.html

We might have a brand new tale of triumph and tragedy premiering on Thursday! Then again we might not! Cloaked in mystery! Shrouded in uncertainty!

UNTRUE TALES!

Sketch!

Rising toward the Top

Gabe has almost completely risen as evidenced by the penultimate page of GABRIEL RISING:

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/GabrielRising11.html

Come back Monday for the thrilling conclusion!

Until then, a sketch to tide you over:























Have a fantabulous weekend!

Zuda Invitational

Howdy friends!

So the July Zuda competition is gonna be an invitational for past competitors. Readers can send a list of their past ten favorites and the ones that get the most votes will be invited back to Zuda for another round.

Needless to day, I'd like to be invited back, so if you feel like throwing a bone to UNTRUE TALES send your vote to: feedback@zudacomics.com

Or you can send in your list of past competitors (including UNTRUE TALES at the top of your list of course) via the feedback function on the Zuda site.

Oh, the deadline for sending in your votes is this Friday, May 23rd. So act fast!

If I'm lucky enough to be one of the July ten, I'll have 8 brand new pages of UNTRUE TALES that have yet to be seen on the site or anywhere else.

Here's a link to more info about the Zuda invitational:

http://www.zudacomics.com/node/508

And here's a delightful sketch:

Rainy Tuesday

It's Tuesday. It's raining. I ain't got much to say. Lookin' forward to an evening on the sofa and a weekend on the horizon.

The daily sketch:























Have a good one, wherever you are!

Twice the Rising

Good Monday!

A super special two-page bonus update today for GABRIEL RISING. This tale has been rather top-loaded with splash pages and we don't want our loyal unbelievers to get the feeling we've been slacking off here at Untrue Tales central.

So here you go:

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/GabrielRising9.html

And, heck, what's a Monday without a page from the ol' sketchbook:
























Have a great week!

I like Friday

Do you like Friday? Of course you do. Who doesn't like Friday? Nobody. That's who.

You know what else I like? Chicken Wings. I don't trust anyone that doesn't like chicken wings.

Once I got a chicken wing that had a feather on it, though. In a diner in Times Square. Poking through the barbecue sauce. It almost made me not like chicken wings. But in the end their savory allure was simply too powerful to be overcome by the mere memory of an extraneous feather.

So I still like them.

That's all I've got to say on the matter.

Here's a sketch:

Yep. Still Rising.

Yello.

It's Thursday, so we've got a brand spanking new page of GABRIEL RISING for you. This one's got three whole panels!

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/GabrielRising8.html

So I got home yesterday after slaving away all day on the nifty new Gallery section of the site and discovered to my infinite horror that the new pages came out all all fucked up in the Safari browser. Half-assed slacker that I am, I only checked 'em out in Firefox. Urgh.

That's what I get for trying to be all mister fancy pants when I don't actually know how to code. Should be fixed now. Do let me know if anyone notices any persistent glitches.

Anyways, here's the sketch o' the day:
























Take 'er easy, owlhoots...

The Gallery is Open

Hello my friends!

It's a excitement city here at Untrue Tales central as we unveil a brand new section of the website - The Gallery.

We've got the beginnings of a Guest Art showcase (send us your Untrue Tales pin-ups folks!), along with a bunch of sketches, banners, and some of young Gabe's superhero output.

Plus, I just figured out how to make animated GIFs, so I threw a few of those up there for your amusement.

Take a look and lemme know what you think:

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/Gallery.html

...and as if that weren't enough awesomeness for one day, here's a dandy sketch:























Be of good cheer, fellows!

May I interest you in some Zuda?

So the Zuda competition for May has been up for a couple of weeks now. A really strong complement of competitors this month, I must say. The overall quality really seems to keep rising month after month.

A few of the May entries have risen to the top for me.















E gets my vote for the top spot this round, due to the absolutely spectacular art by creator Crawdad Jones. I'm usually the kind of guy that prioritizes story over art, but this guy just knocked me out of my socks with an incredibly expressive and dynamic style. Can't make heads or tails of the story thus far, but there's enough there to make me confident of a wild ride ahead. E is currently in third place, so it needs your vote to continue!















Celadore is another favorite. Writer/artist Caanan makes very good use of the initial 8 screens to set up his plot and characters, and has a very cool twist on the vampire-slayer concept. Very slick and appealing animation-style art too. Looks like this one could be a lot of fun, and it's just managed to snatch the number one slot from Action, Ohio this week. It'll be interesting to see if it can hold onto that brass ring.















Rounding out my faves for May is Colonel MacTagart by Steve Steiner. Steve is the first guy to double up on Zuda. His first entry featured the underrated Croc Man, but this one is even funnier, if you ask me. Steve's done some experimenting with background elements on this one and has really come up with a uniquely cool looking style, with cartoony figures set against a lushly gorgeous environment. Plus, y'know, it's funny. The Colonel is hovering in 9th place, though, so it doesn't look like Mister Steiner's going home with the big prize this month.
Get cracking on a new entry, Steve! Third time's the charm!

Congratulations and good luck to the whole May gang!

How high's the water, Momma?

Seven pages high and Gabriel's still Rising:

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/GabrielRising7.html

Now with 75% more tasty babes!

To balance out the chick factor, here's a sketch of some random dude:

Today's a good Monday 'cause I'm not at work. Yay!

Have a good week, y'all.

Gabriel just keeps on Rising

Getting higher and higher here with the latest page of Gabriel Rising:

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/GabrielRising6.html

Gabe's traded in his sketchbook for a tall boy or twelve, so we're back to business as usual here on the ol' sketchblog.

And the usual business? That's sketch business!























Enjoy your day!

Wednesday is Endsday

Today marks our final foray into Gabe's sketchbook as he prepares to put away childish things and embrace...adolescent things.

So here, without further ado, Gabe's tribute in felt-tip pen and magic marker to the man who blew the backs of all our heads off back in the day...Mister Frank Miller:





































The best there is at what he does.

Good Haircuts and Bad Doctors

Say what you will about our intrepid antihero Gabe, but the boy had good taste in comics. Leastways, if you ask me.

Here are a couple of Gabe's "homages" to two giants of the comic book universe:













































As far as I'm concerned, Secret Wars is the pinnacle of old-fashioned superhero comics. It's a love it or hate it series for most, but I stand with both feet planted firmly in the "love" camp. Mike Zeck's art (especially a couple of the covers, like the Doom one that Gabe is referencing) is to die for. I even own a couple of original pages, the crown jewels of my (meager) original art collection. Bob Layton did some solid issues in the middle, but for me Secret Wars is all about Zeck. This is one of those books where just the smell of the pages brings me back to a particular place and time. I can close my eyes and picture the gas station where I bought most of the issues. Damn, but that was a fun series.

And Paul Smith's run on the Uncanny X-Men in the 80's was second only to the legendary Byrne/Claremont run in pure X-Men perfection. Smith's Storm will always be the defining version of the character for me, even moreso than Byrne's. Gabe would appear to agree.

Rise! Rise, foul creature...and live!

Despite my best efforts and delaying tactics, Monday always seem to come roaring back week after week. Curses!

Had a great weekend, though. Lovely weather, roasted garlic and chicken wings, beer and horror flicks, and quality time with the sweetest of hearts.

And, of course, there is a silver lining to each and every cloudy Monday morn 'round these parts... a new page in the latest tale of untruth GABRIEL RISING:

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/GabrielRising5.html

And if that weren't enough to bring joy to the post-weekend doldrums, here's a few more pages from Gabe the younger's sketchpad:










































Kick off the week in style, my friends!

Gabe Gets Busy

Actually, I'm the busy one, but then the alliteration doesn't work. It's my day off and I've got a million billion things to do. Most of which involve beer and cheeseburgers.

Here's the daily glimpse into the sketchbook of Gabe:

Seeya Monday!

Urge to kill, rising...

It's the first of May! Workers of the world unite!

And check out page 4 of Gabriel Rising:

http://www.untruetales.com/Pages/GabrielRising4.html

Speaking of the world of the working man, remember when that scamp Arcade turned a brainwashed Colossus into The Proletarian and sicced him on Cyclops? That was awesome.

Here's little Gabe's rendition of the muscles from Moscow and ol' squinty-eye:

Happy Mayday, my Marxist mateys!