I finally managed to do some long-overdue updates on the Phase Seven Comics website. After something like twenty years of embedding PayPal buttons on a webpage using HTML, I'm throwing in the towel and just using my Ko-Fi shop to sell Phase 7 minicomics from now on. As a result, the minicomics page now has buttons that link over to Ko-fi.
Phase 7 #027 is finally available for ordering (it was sent out to subscribers five months ago). This issue covers my experiences with Star Wars through elementary and middle school, as well as my 2025 Hourly Comics Day comics. You can read a six-page sample on this page.
You can also order both of these titles through Radiator Comics which has the added benefit of supporting a wide swath of the small press comics community which also uses this great indie distributor.
The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) is in the process of renovating The Old Telegraph Building in White River Junction, Vermont. They are currently running a campaign to raise the last $500,000 needed to get this project across the finish line. As part of the campaign, CCS hired alum Mitra Farmand '13 to make a drawing of the renovated building based on the architectural plans.
The idea then came up to have me animate Mitra's drawing, showing the building being used throughout a year. This process was art directed by my coworkers Michelle Ollie and Jarad Greene.
I started by recoloring the original illustration for different times of day/night and various seasons. I then overlaid various animated elements: geese flying south in the late fall, snow in the winter, rain in the spring, and a spinning sun in the summer. Lastly I added some simple stick-figure characters inspired by the "Make A World" book by Ed Emberley which we use each year for an early assignment at CCS. These are colored-coded to show their roles: first year students, second year students, faculty and staff members, and folks from the local community. It's subtle, but if you watch the video above, there is a little narrative that quickly unfolds!
There were so many fun ideas for this project, probably the hardest part was paring it down to a simple form that kept the focus on the building. Perhaps we'll return to this idea later on and explore more of those concepts in some future videos!
On weezer's 34th anniversary as a band they announced a vinyl boxed set of all their color albums, which doubles as a giant coloring book. I illustrated this project! The whole thing was the brainchild of Joe Spinelli, who art directed the whole thing from start to finish, and we had a lot of help from Karl Koch, who helped us load this thing up with as many weezer easter eggs as humanly possible!
As you can see above, the box set is like a giant hardcover book. In the back there is an inset pack of custom weezer markers, one for each of the color albums (blue, green, red, white, teal, and black). The white marker uses "magic" to reveal hidden illustrations that are otherwise invisible. I made a giant 12" x 12" full-page illustration for each song, which also includes the lyrics (not including the teal album songs, which weezer did not write). I also re-drew each album's cover in my style, and custom illustrations highlighting some aspect of that album's release for each track list. On the track list illustrations below you can see little symbols popping up in the negative space around the illustration. Those were revealed with the magic marker!
I also created a small "icon" illustration for all 60 songs in this collection. These are hidden in a few places in the box set, but are also featured on the labels of the vinyl itself to act as a visual track list for each side. As you can see, the vinyl is colored to match each item. It's also worth noting I did all of the layout and graphic design work for this project as well.
I started on this project in 2023 and finished it up in late 2025. There was a bit of time between finishing the project and its release, so I quickly made an animation that transitions from each album illustration to the next one (this was used in the promotional roll out of this project). I was also able to figure out how to print a physical flip book of this animation (the secret is to drop your frame rate to 8fps!). On the b-side is my dog animation from the Indie Rock Roadtrip Stage Visuals. Both in black and white so that someone could conceivably color this too, if they felt so inclined. Only 300 of these were printed and they sold out on launch day.
Also sold out in the first 15 minutes of launch day was a Deluxe Edition of this box set, which includes a custom-made weezer backpack to hold everything in, and a print of the cover signed by the entire band. I didn't have anything to do with this, except for helping to prep a few files, but it's pretty cool! While these are sold out, the standard edition is still currently available and will be shipping out to folks in April. There are also some cool other items in this "module" like additional weezer markers (one color for each album), guitar picks, some apparel designs, etc.
It's hard to express how cool it was to work on this project. We went above and beyond to try and make this as cool as it could possibly be for the hard core fans. I hope folks have fun re-listening to these albums while looking at a bunch of art I drew to go with it. Or maybe even while coloring it! Life is so rad.
Today is also the 🌟TENTH ANNIVERSARY🌟 of Isle of Elsi! Special thanks to Nate Beaty who not only built the website back in 2015, but implemented a ton of new updates recently.
Head over to the site for a new-and-improved reading experience, fun easter eggs, etc! www.isleofelsi.com
This storyline is 39 pages! If I can stay on schedule it will wrap up by the end of September. If you would like to receive the pages in your inbox, I send them out each week on Patreon as free posts, along with some behind the scenes insights.
Before the year is through I thought it would be fun to put together a new reel to collect my recent animation efforts. It's a combination of class assignments, client work, and personal projects. Everything was animated in Toon Boom Harmony. No AI was used on anything. It's all 100% human-made by me!
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