Comic-Con, Baby!

Well, San Diego Comic Con is coming up! If you plan on being there, come by and visit me at my Artists Alley table EE01. Where is that? Right here:



I'll be selling my new book Show Me the Body as well as my older titles, Saturday Nite #1 & #2, Diddly Squat, Vice, Hand of Fate and Babes In Space. And while you're there, make sure to say hello to my brother, who will be sitting next to me at his table EE02. He will be selling, among other things, his new sketchbook, Striking Work. I will also be selling some original sketches (a couple of samples are below). If you're not going, you can still pick up Show Me the Body by ordering here.

Wolverine, Bub!

Well, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is out and doing strong box office. And on the Nicktoons network, the new X-Men cartoon series, "Wolverine and the X-Men" is well under way. I happened to storyboard on an episode of that series, the one premiering this Friday, called "Code of Conduct". My scenes are basically a warehouse fight involving Wolverine, Rogue, and a bunch of ninjas, with an appearance by the Silver Samurai. The scene required a lot of martial arts and swordplay, so I really had to bone up with a lot of research of old ninja movies, anime (particularly Samurai Champloo), some of my favorite Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, and Kill Bill. From what I understand, this episode was banned in the UK (the entire first season has already had it's run overseas) for it's use of swordplay.

Here's a taste of the episode with a few samples of my storyboards on my Flickr site.

EDIT: I got the airdate based on the episode number (17) and the episodes already aired. When I wrote this, I was unaware that the show had taken a two month hiatus. The episode will air at a later date.

A Goy Named Who?

Yes, Jew is my real last name; the one I was born with. Don't bother with all the Hannukah jokes, I've heard them all. The first name is Anson with an "A", not to be confused with my twin brother Benton (with a "B"), who also has a blog and works in the same profession. His blog is located at http://bentonjewart.blogspot.com.

I am an illustrator based in the Los Angeles area (in the hipster neighborhood of Los Feliz) and primarily work on storyboards and concept art for the entertainment industry. Some of my credits include the movies The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid, Inheritance, The Cat in the Hat, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I also do stuff for TV: commercials, music videos, series and such. I did a little work on a kids' cartoon called Growing Up Creepie and an upcoming X-Men cartoon called Wolverine and the X-Men. Some of you may have seen a series of music videos I worked on for the Black Eyed Peas called Instant Def.
My storyboard portfolio can be found at http://ansonart.tripod.com.

I also do a bit of comics work, primarily self published, although I've worked for other publishers before. Some time back I received a Xeric Foundation Grant for my comic book Saturday Nite. I published two issues with distribution in the US and abroad to a reasonable amount of acclaim from the comic book press, but more recently, most of my comic book activities have been in self-distributed minicomics and anthology titles. I have a website for my comics you can visit: http://www.satnitesite.8k.com.

Hardcore fans of PC adventure games may recognize my name from the nine years I worked as an animator at LucasArts. Some of the titles I worked on there include Full Throttle, Curse of Monkey Island, Herc's Adventures, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine and Force Commander. I continue to work in the gaming industry with recent titles like Midway's Gauntlet:Seven Sorrows and did a little work on the upcoming A Vampyre Story by Autumn Moon Entertainment (http://www.vampyrestory-game.com) and Insecticide by Crackpot Entertainment (http://www.insecticidethegame.com).

I have lots of personal projects in the works at any given time and plan on posting sketches and reports here at least once a week. Feel free to stop on by and check in every once in a while. To start, here's a drawing of Nora Drenalin: Teen Space Ranger, a character I created a while back for the anthology Babes in Space. The plan is to have a new Nora publication ready for the San Diego Comic Book Convention in 2008.

-Anson