curiosities

I went to my previous apartment today and my old roommate told me that a package had arrived for me. I had no idea what it was, but it was from my publisher and it was slightly heavy. I opened up the package and there were two of my HALLOWEEN KID books inside. This confused me. They had already sent me a few advanced copies and here they were sending me two more. I then opened one of the books and there was this little green index card-sized note inside.

I could not believe my eyes! THE HALLOWEEN KID, a month away from even coming out, was getting a second print run! What great surprising news! I couldn’t believe it. This has never happened to me before! My first kids book, CLOUD BOY did get a second printing, but it was months and months after it had come out, but here with THE HALLOWEEN KID getting reprinted before it even comes out, was the craziest news! My heart was racing when I read that little note, it’s the smallest note, but I read it over a few times to make sure I wasn’t reading it wrong and constructing things in my head. All I can say is THANK YOU SO MUCH, if you pre-ordered the book, YOU DID WONDERS! Thank you friends, librarians, book sellers, parents and children, for taking a chance with the book! I enjoyed the heck out of writing and drawing the story. It wasn’t ’till later that I worried about how the book might do. It was a seasonal book after all and would only have a small window of a few months to sell from August to October, but I guess I got lucky. If you are a book dork like me and look for a first printing of a book, there is almost always a small printing history number line on the inside copyright page of a book. It’s usually a row of numbers like 1 2 3 4 5 6… or 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2, so if its a first printing, it will have the  number ‘1′ in the number line and in later reprints the lowest number is removed. So these same numbers, say in a third print run, will look like this: 3 4 5 6… or 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4. Too much information??? Anyway, back to it- thanks again for everyone who picked up a book!

Now, onto some San Diego Comic Con news! Its just a few days away. My buddy Jamie Baker and I are at the same booth we have been for that last few years- we love that spot! Please visit booth #1329, if you attend the show, it would be great to see everyone. Again, the dates ar July 22-25. Jamie Baker will have his first full color book: Sephilina and here’s a peek at some of the new things I’ll have at the booth this year. I printed up a new SKELETOWN print, once again with the mighty Bloom Press in Oakland, California, by the powerful Nat. Nat is a perfectionist and it shows in all of his work. If you ever need something printed, this is the guy for the job! This is a very limited screen print run of only 100 made. Each print is two colors and printed on a 16X20 heavy stock paper. It depicts little Skully reading a book and his imagination running wild. Here’s a peek at the image (not actual print):

I was also able to print a small run of THE HALLOWEEN KID posters! Full color offset print run of 500 made on glossy stock paper. Measures 12 X 18. Here’s a peek:

Finally, I printed a small set of postcards. Each set comes with 5 individual spooky images(+1 free) and are mail-ready. Here’s a peek:

We’ll have more things at the show! I hope to see you there and if it’s your first time going to the show, take it steady and slow and enjoy the ride!

~Rhode

I’m so happy to announce my upcoming children’s book, THE HALLOWEEN KID! This will be my second children’s book that will be published and it’s a big dream come true! THE HALLOWEEN KID is about a mysterious masked boy who wrangles Halloween hoodlums to keep the night safe for trick-or-treaters. All is well for years, that is, until a band of greedy goodie goblins gallop onto the scene - then even the Halloween Kid can use a helpin’ hand. This book is 32 pages and will be published this Fall (August 10th) through Simon & Schuster. I’m hoping, however, to have some super advanced copies to sell for the San Diego Comic Con on July 22-25 (will confirm soon!) 

For a peek at the book, here’s a small book movie trailer: (click image to play or click here)

You can also flip and read through the first five pages here:

Simon & Schuster Browse Inside

Growing up and to present day, I love me some Halloween. I LOVE everything about it!

With children’s books, I love going to the Halloween section every year and seeing what’s new and I’m happy THE HALLOWEEN KID will be a part of that batch this year.

The book itself was inspired by newspaper articles from my hometown where I read that some kids were no longer allowed to dress up in schools on Halloween and were getting discouraged from trick-or-treating because of fear. I really felt Halloween was in danger, more so than being dangerous. The inspiration for the look of the book came from vintage Halloween decorations that I love and which tend to have limited colors. Most times, the colors off-registered a bit, and some of the vintage decorations are worn and distressed, so I tried to emulate that here. It was also fun writing the whole book in a Western drawl, dropping g’s and even using a double negative in a sentence, something that normally publishers will try and correct, but my publisher embraced. I hope it makes for a fun read-aloud book. I really owe the printing of the book to my editor, Kevin Lewis. I feel lucky to have illustrated a few books, but since day one, he believed in my writing and it’s because of him that CLOUD BOY and THE HALLOWEEN KID came to life. Thank you Kevin. Now, here’s a peek at some of the book’s process:

This was the cover to the book mock-up (the whole book quickly sketched in it’s entirety with pencilled in story) that I used to shop around the idea to publishers. ( you’ll see later that the final cover was pretty close to this):

Here’s an interior page sketch:

Here’s the same page finalized and in color:

Another interior illustration:

This is a peek at the cover process. Initially I just had the Halloween Kid on the cover, but the publisher felt it should reflect the trick-or-treating part of Halloween as well, which I didn’t mind at all. The first cover sketch revision showed a trick-or-treating scenario, with houses and all, but it just felt too busy. We knew we wanted to use black as the cover, but the silhouetted houses were getting lost against that.

In the end we just simplified, dropped the homes, and lined the trick-or-treaters at the bottom with no perspective.

Here is the final cover with THE HALLOWEEN KID logo designed by Laurent Linn, who outdid himself with the design of this book!

Here’s a group shot of characters in the book that I just did for fun. This image is not in the book, but maybe I’ll make a print or a poster in the future.

For More Rootin Tootin’ HALLOWEEN KID fun and information please visit:

rhodemontijo.com

I will be posting new information, activities and images, as they become available, on that site. There will be free goodies like this HALLOWEEN KID coloring page and maze! (click on the images to enlarge and just hit ‘print’ on your printer!)

Thanks for reading. More news as the publishing date nears. If you are interested in this book and want to pre-order THE HALLOWEEN KID, you can do so by clicking the link below (if you complete the process through here or at rhodemontijo.com,it would be greatly appreciated!) or look out for the book when it hits bookshelves on August 10th.

 More HALLOWEEN KID goodies are coming. Please visit again soon!

Thank you kindly, pardners!
~Rhode
 

After wrapping up on the last project, I couldn’t wait to get started on making new things. This is a Skeletown sculpture that I made for my booth display at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. It’s only a month away! The sculpture was based on a T-shirt design that I made a few years back that showed Skully flying a kite. The image was also on my first Skeletown print.

This is made out of Super Sculpey Clay and painted with acrylics, adding a wire and tissue for the kite. I painted the whole thing over with brown paint and then wiped it away to give it an aged look. It felt good seeing this little guy in 3-D. Maybe some day I can make multiple castings of it!

Thanks for visiting,

~Rhode

Just a quick post… I was going through my sketchbook and saw that this little guy has been popping up for years. I found one of the bigger sketches that I had and did a quick color job in Photoshop.

Now that the last project is finished, I just started getting ready for this July’s San Diego Comic Con. I hope to share some of the things that I’m working on with the following posts. More soon!

~Rhode

Friends,

It’s been a long moment of silence on this blog, but I haven’t forgotten about you! While things have been quiet here, there have been a few things in the works.

Like this, for example: Here’s a super advanced sneak peek at the children’s book that I’m just finishing illustrating. It probably won’t come out ’till 2012, so I thought I’d share a look. More details on it WAY later, but for now here’s a look at two interior pages:

I recently switched my children’s book site to here:

http://rhodemontijo.blogspot.com/

please bookmark it and check it for more news on my children’s books. Thanks for visiting. More soon!

~Rhode

Here are the first two SKELETOWN originals to go up on ebay.

Each image is on embossed bristol paper measuring 7X7 inches and rendered in ink and colored pencil. To see the auction listings click HERE. This is my first time doing this so we’ll see how it goes… Auction closes March 21.

I just wanted to share some more recent sketches that I did. These were colored in Photoshop.

The black and white original for this first one is also up on ebay. Click HERE.

This next sketch was a really small in my sketch book with light pencils that I colored quickly in Photoshop.

{-click on image below for full picture-}

And finally, here’s a new inked sketch that I did and is also up for grabs. Click HERE.

Thanks for visiting!

~Rhode

Hello everyone,

I thought I’d use the power of the people and the web in hopes of finding two things.

First up, might anyone out there have one of these?:

This was a promo piece made by Simon & Schuster to help promote my first children’s book, CLOUD BOY. It was a two sided cut out that was supposed to hang from the ceilings of book stores. They were given out to retailers a few years ago, so I think this might be tough to locate, but if you have any or any leads it would be greatly appreciated. 

Next up, does anyone know what this hat is called?:

I’ve been calling it the ‘Jughead hat’ as worn by the character Jughead from the old ARCHIE comics (right). I drew one on my character and would love to learn the correct name so that I can stop calling it ‘the Jughead hat’. I came across this great read on the internet from someone pondering the same thing (maybe whoopee caps or button beanies???), but there was no conclusive answer. Any help would be appreciated!

Lastly, in roughly a week I will be selling two original pieces of SKELETOWN drawings on ebay. I will send out a reminder here before I put them up, along with more details. This is my first time trying this so we’ll see how it goes! Here’s a sneak peek:

Thanks for reading!

~Rhode

I got up this morning, looked out the window and saw that the latest snow storm had sprinkled more magical goodness on the streets. The storm had just started yesterday and overnight had covered the streets twice to transform the town into a winter wonderland. 

I got a crazy idea. It all started with WOOLY WILLY. WOOLY WILLY (below) is a retro game where magnetic shavings can be moved with a magnetic wand to add ‘hair’ to a bald character. I didn’t want it anymore and had thought, days prior, to just strategically place it out on the streets for someone to find and enjoy it-to give WOOLY WILLY a second life. I had thought about just placing it outside, but hadn’t, and WOOLY WILLY was just laying on the floor… Then, I saw the snowscape in the morning and that’s where inspiration struck! The view outside looked like a well-staged Christmas scene. I knew that I had a roll of Christmas wrapping paper still left over from the Holidays, along with tags, ribbon, etc. I thought it would be neat to build little snowmen through the city streets with gifts like WOOLY WILLY, because it’s so much more fun to unwrap something that to just find it-I feel. So it began. 

 A small trip to the store and a couple of bucks later I had, Bunny Paratroopers, Spiderman and Dora bubble-making kits, a movie trivia game, all of which were each around the price of a dollar. The only thing I ’splurged’ on was SCULPTURADES (blue box above $4.99)- the supplemental game piece for the game CRANIUM, where players get a card with a word and then have to try to sculpt what is on the card; for other players to guess. I tried to keep the costs of this mission low and make it more about the experience, but I’m a sucker for things that encourage creativity! On top of those gifts, I added a little inked doodle to the gift batch along with a 98 cent frame.

My roommate was home because his work at the neighborhood school had been cancelled because of the snow. He heard the sound of tape whirring and wrapping paper crinkling coming from my room and asked what I was up to. I told him what I was planning and he wanted to come along. 

photo by Chris Robinson

Originally a solo mission, it helped that he came along because at one point, when I was making a snowman, I was attacked by snowball snipers from a high-rise building and hadn’t even noticed. My roommate saved my life! I guess the kids home from school had some inspiration of their own.

This was the first small snowman set up. It was near our place by this walkway where the trees and the weight of the snow had formed an icy cavernous path. I set up the first little guy there. I was hoping for someone to stumble along and notice the little snowman if they were paying attention, but could just as easily pass it up.

I didn’t have much for decorating other that twigs and pieces from an abandoned, trashed, purple umbrella, which I cut to make scarf pieces out of.

Some snowmen sported a straw hat (my roommate’s idea, after I ran out of head wear!)

Some snowmen even had fashionable bottle cap hats…

And towards the end, some hardly had anything at all. I had ran out of props!

photo by Chris Robinson

photo by Chris Robinson

We had fun doing the mission and I just hope people have fun finding them!

~Rhode

Hello friends!

As you can see with the lack of posts, I’ve been a bit swamped, but hopefully soon I will be able to share some good news about the things that I’m working on… But, first up, as mentioned in the previous post, I printed a small run of new SKELETOWN t-shirts, 33 of them to be exact. There was a bit of a printing problem with the pink on these, which may not be noticeable to anyone else, but because I know what it’s supposed to look like, I’m letting these go for a reduced price of $10 (reg.$18)- while supplies last!

These Photoshopped images will best explain what happened. This is what they were supposed to look like:

But they turned out more like this:

And here’s the sizing and placement:

    

Sizes:

Small Medium Large

   

So if you are interested, you can pick them up here or at skeletown.com. As always, I thank you for your support!

Okay, not too much else to share for now aside from that, but here’s a recent try at doing some watercolors, something I haven’t done in awhile, but hope to do more:

and below, is a quick ‘thank you’ sketch for my friend Daniel of Steamcrow, who recently went above the call of duty and assisted me with some tech support. This is one of his wonderful creations, a vending machine robot, that I destroyed in doodle form!

More soon, thanks for visiting!

~Rhode

Hello all,

It’s been a busy time, but here’s a peek at the goings on:

First, this is a painting (unfinished?) that I recently uncovered while going through my storage. All I know is that it was painted around Halloween time, two years ago, maybe…

Here’s a peek at a pin up I did for an upcoming MONSTER COMMUTE comic collection by my friends over at Steam Crow. Colors provided by the mighty Jenny Hansen!

Most of my time recently has been working on Melvin Beederman #8, the last book in the series. It’s a bittersweet end to a series that I had so much fun working on and I can’t believe it’s over. I just turned the inked pages yesterday to my publisher and I’m going to miss working on this series. I remember when my editor called excited to offer me the book which was submitted by then, first time author, Greg Trine and pulled from the feared “SLUSH PILE”- where manuscripts go to die! Unsolicited manuscripts are piled at the publisher’s waiting to be read. I had always heard rumors of these mysterious manuscript piles where stories float in Limbo or go missing, but here, 8 books later is proof that it is possible to be selected from the pile! There is hope for first time authors! Anyway, here’s a peek of the Melvin Beederman #8 cover without the logos. It’s been a fun ride!

Books are available here!

Here are two miscellaneous doodles:

Finally, available next week, this new Skeletown, two-color T shirt design. Please go to SKELETOWN.COM for updates! Update: The Skeletown Preview book is just about sold out. There are only a handful left!

That’s it for now. More soon…

Thank you for visiting!

-Rhode