I Like Drawing Alien Kittens

Bad at Blogger

2011-11-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've found that Blogger is obviously tremendously hard for me to update. It's not really difficult, just I always forget about it and now it's gone by the wayside, neglected and forlorn.

So please Either follow my Helix Tumblr (WAAAAAY more cool stuff to be seen there)

Or Twitter

or deviantart

New things and old things!

2010-09-17T23:53:00.000-07:00

So much good news to report! First off, just yesterday I got these badboy's in the mail, fresh off the presses:

It's called Dangerous Friends, and it's the first little self-published sketchbook I've ever done. It's got kind of a mix between my drawings for stuff I'm developing and then sketches and stuff from Nemo, FraggleRock and Darkwing Duck.
I'll be selling it at JetCity Comic Show next weekend! Five Bucks!

Here's some more pics!

Also I'll be selling this random T-shirt of Yeti-sparkles!

Okay now, so even more news...

UNDERTOWN VOLUME 2 IS AVALIABLE IN PRINTED FORM!

Unfortunatly you need to order it directly from the website, but at least you can get a real copy if you want and they take paypal. Get it now right here!

Undertown Volume 2 OUT NOW!!!

2010-07-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

!!!! NEWSFLASH !!!! Undertown V2 is finally out! I just found out that it's availiable for digital download here!!!

It's not available to buy as a physical copy, but if theres enough people that buy it Tokyopop might publish it for bookstores.
Please download and support the book that I spent a year of my life creating! It's been in limbo for 2 years and finally after all this time it's out!

Henry Selik, Director for Nightmare before Christmas said it's a "Dark Fun, Bittersweet display of Incredible Imagination"

Please get it now!

Fraggle adventure

2010-06-03T22:56:00.000-07:00

So for now it seems my Fraggle adventure is at a close. In the last few months, it's been all Fraggle all the time. I did a cover for Issue #2 and one for the Free Comic book day.

And then 20 pages of Fraggle-goodness for Issue #2!

It's really been work that I've been incredibly proud of. It's also got me thinking seriously about this whole alien kitten thing (from which this blog is named). Ideas are a brewin'

Internet wise theres a few reviews and interviews:

Quoted in USA Today

Interview with Leigh Dragoon and myself on ToughPigs

Interview at Comic Book Resources with Leigh and myself

Interview with Nichol Ashworth and myself about FCBD

Review at Fandomania

Review at Toughpigs

First Look MTV Splashpage at FCBD Fragglerock

Sweet Poster was made

ComicsAlliance surprised me by noticing I've been working on Fraggles and Darkwing

Fave review of FCBD "I don't know who the FUCK Jake Myler is" at Digital Kontent

Muppet Mindset Review

Major Spoiler Preview

This summer I can't wait for the hardcover edition of the collected first 3 issues. It's gonna be pretty sweet.

Fraggle's and more

2010-02-06T19:24:00.001-08:00

Towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year, I've been suddenly doing a ton of work for Boom! Studios and Archaia Comics. It's actually some of the most exciting stuff I've done in my life because it's for things that I grew up with, like for example the Fraggle Rock Comic with Archaia. A story about it just went up on MTV splashpage.

I'll be doing the Free Comic Book Day Mousegaurd/Fraggle Flipbook issue that'll be out May 1st- and I'll be signing at Zanadu Comics (the downtown branch) in Seattle if you're in the area.

Also, I'll be doing the 2nd Issue story for Fraggle Rock, so there'll be a more hefty serving of Fraggle in my near future.

With Boom Studios, I've been working on a ton of covers for them for Monster's inc, Disney's Ultraheroes, Finding Nemo, Mickey and Friends, along with a few secret projects that might blow the minds of anyone who is a fan of cartoons in the 90's! (stay tuned).
So even though I seem to be on kid's projects only, I'm not complaining, because they're properties that I loved as a kid.

Monsters inc. Cover

2009-09-27T02:09:00.001-07:00

I got a bunch of copies of the Monsters Inc Issue #1 with the cover I drew!! Take a look at it's immense beauty! ^__^.
Earlier I didn't think that they were being published because I couldn't find any copies in stores or even on the internet. But later I found out that they were in fact published, but not many places will ever get them because they are limited to only stores that order 10 or more of the first issue of Monster Inc.

I made another cover for Boom, but it'll be on a upcoming issue, and I don't know the issue # as of yet.
Altogether doing covers is just about the most fun thing that I think I've done in comics and I hope to continue making them.

Oh yeah my website!

2009-04-12T13:44:00.001-07:00

I have a new website! I almost forgot to mention it on my neglected blogger.
It's been quite a long time, but finally after several years the old website is updated!
Sorry to you folks who watch me at multiple locations because I'm cross-posting this like crazy since it was a lot of effort for seemingly not that much payoff, just a series of images.

This entry will probably languish for years but at least the site has links to more updated locations for me on the web (i.e. deviantart, twitter, myspace, Livejournal)!

Anyhow, check out my Uniform Resource Locator (URL): www.jakemyler.com
Or else hit up the embedded hyperlink above!

Twitter Account Aquired!!!!

2009-01-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

Okay so I got on the Twitter bandwagon now! All because I'm a big fan of the 1-up show and all the various podcast things associated with it. So when Ziff Davis was sold and everyone on all those pod-casts were fired, I wanted to keep up with them and listen to any podcasts that they might migrate to. Luckily they all had those twitter things and so through that I found they were putting up another podcast: RebelFM. But keep seeing those twitter things on peoples blogs and now on Deviantart. So I guess in the end I found that it might be easier to just keep things up to date with something more manageable like 1 sentance updates. (Instead of monthly posts). Well, I'll still update LJ and Blogspot etc but this will fill the huge gaps. hahaha.

Please add me if you have a twitter account too! I have no friends on there.

December 2008 Japan

2008-12-25T17:56:00.000-08:00

Boo!! I've been so Internet lazy this whole past year, perhaps a new year resolution to myself and the internet is in store. But yeah Kristen and I got back from japan honeymoon, and it was both very fun and a blur. In the end I think I was in relax mode and couldn't distinguish one Tokyo-day from the next. And that was the purpose of it all, to get away from the everyday life of Seattle.

Since I think pictures do the trip better justice then my rambling writing will, and who likes reading anyway?

(this ones clickable)

When we got back, it really made me realize what a different city we had been in. Whereas we were running around in cool high 50 temperatures, walking around in huge crowds of people, in Seattle we're snowed in and probably wont be able to venture outside for days and won't see another living soul. I think already want to go back!

Legend Of Sama

2008-10-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

I heard about this just now from Tony Salvaggio who had the same thing happen to his book Psy-Com. But it seems like perhaps all the Tokyopop OGM properties have been translated into Japanese and have been put up for sale as digital manga including my own Undertown:

http://www.ebookjapan.jp/shop/title.asp?titleid=9498

Even though it's weird that we didn't hear about this from our actual editors and stuff, this is pretty awesome just the same.

One funny thing is they retitled it "Undertown - Legend of Sama" which I have to admit makes it sound a little more epic then simply "undertown".

If any of you guys are successful in actually purchasing one of these ebooks from japan then please tell me! I got as far as downloading the software and registering an account. But I hit a roadblock when I go to purchase a book. It might be that part of their site is down at the moment though.

Starwars

2008-10-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

After much whining I was able to get my 8 cards back from Topps this morning! I'm just glad because now I can really get started on some Indy cards I have a week or less to do.

Take a look! Some of these should be appearing on Ebay when ebay fixes itself (it's search function was broken earlier this morning)

This and that

2008-10-03T22:25:00.001-07:00

I probably should use this journal more often because I tend to forget what I did week to week as it is.

My parents came to town, it was lots of fun although very short. I forget that I don't see them very often until suddenly they're here. I'm pretty bad about keeping connected with anyone as it is, so I can go for weeks and weeks without touching base with my family. For the future I want to be better about that.

Also while they were up they mentioned that they had ordered a hardcover of my book from Amazon. I was like "What are you talking about?" But apparently it does exist! So of course, I had to order one just out of curiosity...

What the hell Tokyopop??? Give me a heads up or something?!?! But it is super weird because on the back it's listed as being published by "Pawprints" And I can tell that it's just an old softcover that has been chopped slightly smaller and rebound. I guess the idea is that it's for use in the Library system.
It's definitely nice to have a more durable copy.

Another thing that I bought not too long ago was one of these:

It's one of the Wacom Cintiq tablets that came out recently that are a lot smaller (and thus slightly more affordable) The one I've been using forever (just a normal wacom tablet) stopped working. So I decided (after a little convincing) that I needed an upgrade since it's my most used piece of equipment right now (besides the computer).
It's pretty awesome, although not as portable as I imagined since you still need to lug around a lot of wires and a separate converter box that takes the video signal and tablet info and syncs it all together. After buying it though, I realize I need to save money now.. hahaha.

New comic endevor

2008-07-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

Just yesterday I went over to my local comicbook shop and picked up a copy of the new compilation graphic novel called "Fat Chunk vol 1 - Robot".

I have a contribution on pages 26 and 27.
(which is also available for viewing up on my DA gallery)

Page 1

Page 2

Even though it's a pretty small amount of work, I know some of you guys were interested and wanted to know when it came out. Also, it's just a fun read and fun to look at with your eyeballs. Pick it up and look at it! It even smells nice!

To get a copy you can do what I did and go to your local comicbook store today, or if they don't have it, the diamond order code is MAR083402 (this is the code to tell your comic book store, so they can order it in).
Also Amazon has a listing but they're sold out at the moment.

In the meantime, Undertown vol 2 is still in the works. I'm going to speed up the process now. I just have to! It's been a year now with no new comic. I feel more then a little ashamed of that.
So since I feel bad all I have to give, is a picture of my desk. A little cluttered I suppose. This picture has some spoilerish things in it, for Undertown and for my life in general, but I think they're too vague for anyone at the moment to decode.

Sakuracon

2008-03-17T23:38:00.001-07:00

So yet another article about Undertown, and this one's super-fantastic.

It's a nice thorough interview with my writer Jim Pascoe with random pages of Undertown sprinkled throughout.

Also since some people have asked: I'm going to be a guest at Sakura Con in Seattle at the end of the month! I'll have MY OWN panel, which I hope isn't completely empty and I'm a little terrified now that I think about it. And I'll also do the "Tokyopop Creators Spotlight" Panel. Both of those events will be on Friday the 28th, I'm not going to stick around the con very long though since I'm catching a flight to Tokyo the following day on Saturday.

Hope to see ya there!

I so rarely post!! gah!!

2008-01-28T01:43:00.001-08:00

So many things have occurred since the last time I posted I think. It was way back in October that I used this bloggery thing.

Anyhow, lets see:

1. I got a side job doing background concept design for a videogame company in Seattle. I can't say who yet, but it's going to come out soon I hope and then I'll spill the beans.

2. It turned into 2008

3. My comic now is running in the Sunday Comics section of more then 50 newspapers across the country (and China perhaps??)

4. I'm way behind on Undertown 2.

5. I'm hoping to go to japan in a few months. (well, I got the plane tickets!)

6. I got a Ipod-touch and it has changed my life

7. I joined a gym so that I don't die from my sedentary lifestyle.

8. I got into the music of Toki Asako, leadsinger from the now defunct 'cymbals'... perhaps so much that I bought Japanese I-tunes gift cards and now have a japanese account.

9. I had my guest-art appear in the back of King of Thorn volume 2, and The Dark Crystal Manga.

10. Did a SUPER SHORT comic in the FAT CHUNK Vol ONE anthology comic about robots. It's a little violent.

11. Uhh... Haircut?

Its already winter???

2007-10-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

A week or two ago I started working at a part-time job. I'm still working on Undertown of course, but those payments are just too few and far between! So 2 days a week shouldn't hurt to bad.
It did feel extremely weird going into an office for the day and then drawing backgrounds. Its something that I do at home all the time, but in an office environment there's a little voice in the back of my mind telling me that something is wrong. That I should be sorting files or calculating profits, but I'm drawing. You're not allowed to draw at work right? haha, but then drawing for work just never feels like work, even if it is deadly hard work. It's still, drawing.

Also, I started to listen to a bunch of William Gibson books on tape while I work - I've read almost all his books, but I want to read them again and I can read them this time with my ears.
I think perhaps because of this, I suddenly got a need for electronics made from natural materials. I think in his book Virtual Light, someone gets a laptop made out of precious stones made by Native Americans. It sounds crazy, but I think there's going to be a slow movement toward getting electronics that aren't encased in cold looking plastic.
I know I can't afford the good stuff, but I thought to look at the price of wooden keyboards. I found one surprisingly on Ebay for under 20. So the other day this thing arrived and now sits atop my cluttered desk!

For some reason high tech stuff that is made out or surrounded by materials from an older world just makes the technology more magical somehow. And I sound like a spacecase for saying this, but it also makes the technology seem more real. Perhaps I need that anchor to something now that I'm getting older.

SDCC

2007-08-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

OKAY, now for the Comic con recap!

This convention was by far the best one I've attended in a while. This might be because I wasn't having to sit behind an artist alley table or in the dealers hall this time around, so it really felt like I was there to just have fun.
That's not entirely true however, I did have some Undertown obligations to attend to.
Anyway I can't do a play by play or anything, I'm too old and absentminded to remember exactly when things happened and in what order. Here are the highlights.

Hotel: TP was kind enough to provide me with a room at the Marriot attached to the convention center. That rocked most of all. Plus it was one floor from the top, which meant it had an amazing view. But also, being so close to the convention, all the old famous comic book creators were there (i.e. Stan Lee whom I walked past when I got off the elevator one Saturday morning).
There was another point where an elderly couple were sharing the ride down on the elevator, I could sense that the guy was an old artist just by his quiet, friendly, demeanor- and sure enough he was! The thing was, I felt so bad because I had no idea who he was (I need to catch up on my comic book history!!) They both were really understanding of my ignorance though.

panels and signings: It was also a great experience to do a 'how to create manga' panel and a group signing for tokyopop and for Scholastic as well. The people at Scholastic were exceedingly nice, and it was great to get feedback from people who didn't ordinarily read a lot of comics. There were a few very excited kids there too which was cool. I also got to see Brianne and Monica there, two people I knew from when I attended CSSSA at CAlArts, back when I was a little highschooler.
Anyway, I only had to do things on Thursday and Friday and then I had the rest of the weekend to do whatever I wanted.

Friends: As mentioned, I saw Brianne and Monica, but I also ran into a few more unexpected and cool people: Aska, Emomo, Shilane! Most of the time however I was hanging out with a whole bunch of awesome people that I expected to be there: Kristen, Patrick, Adrianna, Fawn, Eriku, and shared a room (and hung out a lot) with Jim my writer. Everyone made it super-enjoyable.

Famous People: I saw a few famous people, as I'm sure everyone who attended the con did as well. It's such a multimedia extravaganza these days right? I randomly saw that scary guy from Candyman, saw Adriana get a signature from Brian Posehn, There was that driveby sighting of Stan Lee I mentioned earlier. I also got to meet a ton of comic book artists! One that I thought there might be a remote possibility that I could meet was Paul Pope, an artist that I've been a big fan of since highschool, and I knew he'd be at the con. Incidentally, I ended up (thanks to Jim) getting to go join him for drinks up at the top of the Hotel. I met Paul's family and got to talk with him for an hour or so. It was crazy and I was flipping out, but I tried to stay calm on the outside at least (to limited success). Paul pope is a really intense guy! But we talked about Manga, about styles of artwork, about comic book history, about how Jim won an Emmy, how to pull an elaborite award show prank, and small cramped apartments. Anyway it was crazy that somehow through creating this comic, I was able to meet my own comic hero.

buying stuff: I bought too much stuff. But haven't unpacked hardly any of it, it's hopeless!

regrets: I think the only 2 things I regret from the convention was not thinking to get to the Hero's panel early enough to get in. I didn't realize that ballroom 20 would be so full! The other thing was that I didn't get to the Topps booth in the dealers hall to try and track down the guy that solicited me to work on Halo cards. I wanted to remind him that I'm around. But everytime I passed by that area it was too insanely packed with bodies.

Thanks to everyone who I met at SDCC!

Undertown is Finished!

2007-04-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

Hey Undertown volume 1 is finally finally completed and done! It took drawing, inking and toning more then 60 pages in one month to get it in on time (so procrastination really isn't a good idea when you're doing comics - Doh!)

Anyway I just realized that it's on the Tokyopop website finally Here

Also you can pre-order it Here

But you might as well wait for it because it may have a special release, or I might offer signed copies, or something else... I'll know more as the summer gets nearer.

cupping?

2007-03-16T22:29:00.000-07:00

Okay so today was kind of unexpectedly eventful - and this continues the saga of my overwhelming, coffee-nerdism.
I dropped off kristen at work and she was just gonna go in for a meeting for a few hours so I just was going to hang out downtown Seattle instead of driving all the way home and all the way back. I effectively killed some time at the Japanese market in the international district, ate some super-yummy Thai fast food in the food court, but the truely coolness happened when I left for my usual cafe Victrola.
Well I drew for a while, sipping some coffee and a small Macchiatto down, when a lady came out asking everyone if anyone would be interested in coming to a cupping session in the other room. Everyone else just looked bewildered, but I actually knew what she was talking about so I raised my hand and followed her to a special room they had set up.
Basically, what we did was smell, and taste all the single origin coffee's that they had (and some that they never sell to the public) one after the other so that you get an understanding of how they differ.

It was friggen amazing (not to mention a completely random thing to find myself doing). It was also just myself, 3 coffee roaster people and a photographer from the Capitol hill times (and I guess I might be in the paper this wednesday).
This might not seem like such a big deal but I don't get out much, what can I say?! It was fun to me.

NEW WEBSITE!!!!

2007-03-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

haha I didn't do any of the work, it was all the amazing talented okashichan who organized and set it up for me so that we'd have matching sites. Anyway please check out : www.jakemyler.com
Theres lots of oldish stuff since I cant really make anything new when I'm working on Undertown. Well no, I lie, because there are a few new tidbits to look at. So please take a looksie!

BAckgrounds

2006-11-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

I think I complain to myself that I hate to draw backgrounds because they take a long time, figuring out all the details. But when I have to do a spread like this building exploding!I realize that I actually enjoy backgrounds a lot- perhaps more then drawing the actual characters! I just completed this one the other day and I was pretty proud that all the real perspective and all the parts where I faked the perspective meshed together and it actually looks believable.
Because of the way my writer changes location in the story every other page, Undertown has a ton of background drawing to establish things. So its like...slow to draw, probably overly dense, but I think it should look pretty. Maybe I should pitch a manga to TP where it's just backgrouds and no dialogue or characters!

undertown cover

2006-09-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here's the cover for undertown... well preliminary anyway.
The problem I think with covers is that it's like the most important drawing that I'll do for the book, so I never feel like it's good enough. And even now I'm severely iching to redraw the main characters , it drives me insane!
Other then that I'm drawing close to the 60page mark. That means I'll only be 1/3 of the way done though! Faster faster!!

First public mentionings of Undertown

2006-07-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

So today was my first introduction thing for Undertown. And since this is my first post to the Blogger-thingymabob, I probably should mention that Undertown is a comic that I'm creating with Jim Pascoe and it will be published by Tokyopop hopefully next summer. It was at a Library in downtown Los Angeles, and even though it was filled with mostly little kids that aren't old enough to read it when it comes out, it was encouraging since they were all really excited about the idea of creating comics. I think to a lot of kids, comics just exsist, and they don't realize that actual normal people are sitting down and creating these books, and that kind of occupation is something that anyone can attain with enough perserverance. I'm sure they don't realize just how much tenacity is involved, but it's still possible!
I signed this new print

and another one that was a little less scary, although I was suprised that a lot of tiny little children wanted the scary insect head! One kid was like: "you gotta pick the monster, it's the juicyist!" - I laughed.
So I feel much more confident now about the whole thing.