The Silver Snail brought the party again for Free Comic Book Day.  That’s when the whole comic book industry goes in on giving away specialty ‘Free Comic Book Day’ editions of whatever comic books the publishers are trying to showcase.  The whole industry uses it as an excuse to have a party with costumes, guest artists, freebies & prizes.

I’ve been a guest artist at the Silver Snail for Free Comic Book Day regularly and it’s become an annual tradition here on my blog to post my Free Comic Book Day drawings for the fans.

Perhaps my favorite drawing of the day, this person wanted Deadpool:

Always happy to do the superheroes:

Mother’s Day played into a lot of people’s requests.

It was this kid’s birthday…

…and here’s what he got!

Two takes on The Green Lantern:

Another satisfied customer!

Star Wars is always a popular theme:

This girl’s name is Mandi.  She has been coming around stuff I’m doing since she was a little teenager.  When she fell in love with her dude, she brought him to me to have me draw their portrait.  And now it’s a tradition they do every year!

Here is the 2011 edition…

This minimalist Batman was a big hit…

This was a request from a cool kid who wanted “something Modest Mouse…”

To see even more of my drawings from Free Comic Book Day at the Silver Snail plus some of the costumes worn by the staff, see the gallery on my Facebook art page: facebook.com/SeanWardSuperParty

And to see last year’s Free Comic Book Day drawings, click here!

Warming up, learning how to draw Super Party characters again…

Follow me on Twitter to get the link in your stream when I post to my Sketchbook Tumblr

After watching the documentary film DEEP WATER, I was compelled to create my own artistic retelling of the 1968 race to be the first man to perform a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe by sea.

Watch the video above for the story, and then enjoy a closer look at the drawings from the video below…

Harvey Pekar was an influential underground comic book creator who paved the way for a lot of what I was able to do with comics from 2002-2007.  His stories were taken straight from real life.  He looked at the comic book as the finished work of art, not any one page or story in it.  He didn’t want to do strips in the newspaper, nor was he able to give you anything less than the ugly truth about everything.

When I was making semi-autobiographical comic books and trying to get a publisher to distribute them, one of the comments I got from them was “we want to see more than just stories about your life”.  I would ask “what about what Harvey Pekar does?”

Maybe I just wasn’t as good as him.

The movie based on Pekar’s art and life – American Splendor, named for the title of his comic book series – is a modern classic and a groundbreaking work that chops up the boundaries between comics and movies in ways that no other comics adaptation has yet attempted.

A couple of days ago, I went on my daily vlog and said that if you could guess the song I was singing, you would win a prize.

Well the song was the SUPER MARIO BROTHERS 2 music…

…And here are the prizes! If you are a winner, you can save your prize from here and use it for your Facebook profile pic or whatever you want.

Saturday, May 1 was Free Comic Book Day.  For the third year in a row, I was invited to be one of the guest artists at the Silver Snail, drawing sketches for the crowd.

Star Wars is always a popular theme.

And this year Star Trek started to catch up in popularity.

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This was the one I was asked to draw by David and Satro, of Count Dracula and Robin from Batman eating spaghetti like the famous scene from Lady and the Tramp. The Ninja Turtle sort of elbowed his way in without anyone really catching what had happened until it had already happened.

Princess Leia Lady Gaga.

I was asked for Princess Leia as Lady Gaga.  I have her part Episode Four with the hair, the rest Jabba’s slave girl for a performance of Telephone.

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This one was really simple. I asked what the dude wanted a drawing of, and he said “Cars”. “As in the Pixar movie?”, says I. “Just… cars.”, he says.

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This guy went down the row and asked every artist to do something with Ninja Turtles.

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This one I did just to Tweet it from the table.

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Late in the day, I ran right through tired and into delirious. And that’s when I was asked for “Catwoman”. Yes, that is a hook for a hand. And a pizza cutter for an other hand.

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Spock’s second appearance of the day. Sometime between then and now he’s won himself a wrestling championship.

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And then to finish the day off with a sandwich called The Big Ham. It wasn’t that big.

Hey dudes!  Enjoy another peek into the pages of my sketchbooks.  This is where the magic starts to happen…

If you are not yet familiar with General Larry Platt and his blockbuster hit Pants on the Ground, you either do not live on the internet or you have been living in a cave for the last week or so. Here is the ultimate guide to the Pants on the Ground phenomenon.

General Larry Platt was the final entrant auditioning for American Idol last week in Atlanta, performing an original number called Pants on the Ground. Have a look:

Over the weekend, General Larry Platt became potentially the fastest-growing Internet sensation ever as his appearance on American Idol was viewed tens of millions of times, and tribute videos sprouted up faster than one could keep track of them. These Pants on the Ground tributes and remixes run the gamut from brilliant to bad.

Even Jimmy Fallon joined the fun with a delightfully authentic Neil Young impression:

And then the General went mainstream with a performance on The View. Which is a good thing because on Idol, you only got a piece of the song. Now you get the whole thing.

And then just for a treat, I found this footage of the General from someone’s camcorder, before he even got in the audition room!

I was a little too late to do a cover of my own on video, but I hope that you enjoy my Gen. Platt tribute portrait at the top of this post!

I would love to see the data on this.  Is Pants on the Ground the fastest-growing internet phenomenon ever?  It has certainly spread more quickly and seemingly bigger than Lazy Sunday.

What do you think?

I just found a treasure trove of recent drawings that I put away and haven’t seen since I drew them.

Have you checked out my 2010 manifesto? Click here to check it out, and tell me what you’re excited about for 2010 in the comments!