The Blog that Jack Built

Captain Cognoodle and his Marvelous Time-Ship... in color!!!

2009-06-21T21:31:00.003-05:00

Boomerangs - June 26

2009-06-21T00:07:00.002-05:00

This is a sneak peek at next Friday's Boomerangs, hosted by gocomics.com. I am now officially updating Boomerangs three times a week (instead of just once). I'm happy with the response the strip is getting and I think updating it more often will help me develop my writing and story-telling skills, so I'm excited about that.

Captain Cognoodle and his Marvelous Time-Ship

2009-06-21T00:01:00.003-05:00

This is three pages of a story I created recently just for fun. I plan on coloring it in and will post it again then.

My Wall - May 5

2009-05-13T17:10:00.002-05:00

Another installment from my mural on my basement wall.

Boomerangs - April 6

2009-04-12T20:04:00.001-05:00

The final installment of the "reunion" storyline...

Scary Campfire Story

2009-04-12T20:02:00.000-05:00

Dragon Tea Party

2009-04-08T19:49:00.000-05:00

The All-Robot Morning

2009-03-28T14:12:00.002-05:00

I'm starting to put together a black-and-white linework portfolio together...this is my first one.

Boomerangs - March 30

2009-03-28T14:11:00.000-05:00

The continuation of last week's installment of Boomerangs.

My Wall

2009-03-22T20:44:00.001-05:00

So far I have posted several pictures of updates to my wall in my basement. I thought I would add a picture of how my mural is coming and how it looks from a distance.

Boomerangs - March 23

2009-03-22T17:58:00.003-05:00

Here is this week's Boomerangs comic...it's the first of a series in which Jane, the main character, receives her invitation to her 20th high school reunion. I'll do at least three strips about this story, hopefully more.

The Aliens Next Door - Final

2009-03-09T21:01:00.005-05:00

This one is finally done...took a little over a week. It actually took longer than I thought it would, it turned out to be a little more detailed than I anticpated. Still fun to do! The house in the distance is actually my house (before I took the shutters off). The posters on the wall are from the awesome Kansas City indie girl rock band Softee... visit them at myspace.com/softeerocks

The Aliens Next Door - Sketch

2009-03-01T14:01:00.001-06:00

A sketch for a new illustration I'm about to start...

Tommy O'Toole's Flying Circus

2009-02-26T19:42:00.005-06:00

Finished at last! Look below for an earlier sketch of this illustration.

Flying Circus Sketch, Part II

2009-02-17T20:39:00.002-06:00

Here's another sketch of the Flying Circus, this time it's pointed upward and more dramatic. I put a tinted aerial photo of farmland behind it to show the perspective I want to achieve.

My Wall

2009-02-17T19:15:00.000-06:00

Flying Circus Sketch

2009-02-16T20:49:00.001-06:00

Okay, this sketch is going to take some imagination on your part, but you can tell where I'm going with it. It's an illustration of a little boy with a flying circus...literally. Basically it's a circus train with an engine with wings and propellers and the cars are held up with balloons. Lots of little characters on this one, and I'm sure there will be character tweaks as I go along, but I just wanted to block everything in. There's a trained dog (holding on to the top of the cab, a giraffe, lion, seal (probably will have him with one of the balloons instead of a ball), monkey, juggling bear, elephant, toucan, and a freaked-out migrating duck. And a kid. Not sure how long this one will take but I think this one will be fun to do.

My website

2009-02-14T21:55:00.003-06:00

I recently revamped my website and added new art that I had never posted before. It was badly needing it (I hadn't updated it since 2005!!!) so I'm glad I finally made the time to do that. You can see it at www.jackcartoons.com.

Boomerangs - February 16

2009-02-14T21:52:00.003-06:00

This is my latest entry for my comic strip Boomerangs...it's available to see at www.gocomics.com/boomerangs as well.

Monster Dot Com

2009-01-30T21:57:00.003-06:00

Yet another piece of children's illustration. This one took a little longer than I had expected because of all the fur and fabric.

Darcy Wippincott, Chairman of the Board

2009-01-19T20:17:00.004-06:00

Another piece of children's book illustration I've recently done.

Homeroom Dinosaur

2009-01-15T22:17:00.005-06:00

Another example of children's book illustration. I really like the way this one plays with light.

Snowball Fight

2009-01-09T21:09:00.003-06:00

Another children's book-style illustration I did recently.

The Fish That Hated Water

2009-01-04T10:24:00.004-06:00

This is an illustration I recently did in the style of a children's book. I've been researching a lot of vintage Golden Books lately and I think this illustration reflects that a little.

Boomerangs

2008-12-08T07:07:00.004-06:00

Last summer I signed on with uclick.com to distribute my comic strip "Boomerangs" online. You can see it at http://www.gocomics.com/boomerangs. It's a strip about a single mother of two who is forced (for financial reasons) to move back in with her baby boomer parents. In any case, I'll occasionally upload comics from that site here. This week's holiday-themed strip is a parody of "The Christmas Shoes."

Hungry Girl 2...hundred! :-)

2008-12-03T16:41:00.003-06:00

I just wanted to give a shout-out to my favorite author Lisa Lillien and her new book Hungry Girl: 200 Under 200. This is the second book I've illustrated for Lisa and wanted to give her a quick plug...the book is already available for pre-order on Amazon.com and comes out in April. To do the proverbial "judge a book by its cover," it looks like there will be plenty of cupcake recipes...Suh-weet!

Mini-Millie

2008-12-02T17:55:00.004-06:00

Huge shout-out and special thanks to my friend, co-worker and neighbor Jen Rarey for immortalizing my labrador Millie...in plush! I can't tell you how super-stoked I am about this. My plush Millie has already found a new home in my studio. To check out more of Jen's awesome plush visit www.studio-rama.com.

My Wall

2008-09-12T20:08:00.001-05:00

I have a wall at home in my second living room that I use to draw on. It's about 15 feet long and seven feet high. Every day I try to draw a four-by-four inch cartoon about something that happened to me that day. I'm hoping in a few years the wall will be completely full. Anyway, every so often I'll take a picture of what I drew and post it here (for those of you who can't make it over to my house every day :-)

Sarah's Invitation

2008-09-12T19:29:00.000-05:00

I recently designed an invitation for my friend Sarah's bachelorette party. I illustrated it in the style of an old Avon catalog I had. The fonts are fontdinercom and pink martini. I gave so much attention to the artwork, the lettering and the writing that I completely forgot to put the date of the party on it. Whoops! It went out in the mail like that, believe it or not. Lesson learned. (I blocked out the name, phone number and e-mail address of the RSVP contact for obvious reasons)

Art Unleashed

2008-09-12T10:52:00.001-05:00

Welcome to my blog! I'll be updating this fairly regularly with artwork I do in my spare time. I've decided to kick it off with a piece I did for Art Unleashed. Art Unleashed is a silent art auction that benefits the Humane Society in Kansas City. Anyway, this is my first year doing it and I used my friend Stephanie's screen-printing equipment to create this two-color print of my dog Millie. This is called "Millie's Happy Day" and I created a run of 15 prints. I was happy with how it turned out considering it was my first attempt at screen printing. I've been doing a lot of research on vintage and retro children's illustration recently and I think that influenced the style of it.