///-- Friday 6.13.08 --///////////////////////////////
Been a busy month for me. We wrapped up the 2008 school year at the Joe Kubert School, I took a trip back home to Illinois to visit family and go to my nephew's birthday party and my faithful iMac special edition (you know, the translucent tv-shaped version with "funtastic" colors) dropped dead on me.

I got almost 8 glorious years out of that thing, which is pretty amazing when you think about it. With only one upgrade to my operating system, it was still getting the job done for me - - all my Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Dreamweaver work. I spent 8 years with 777MHz!! Thankfully now I've upgraded to my beautiful new iMac and yes, I totally have a crush on it.

With my old computer's death, it's taken me a while to get everything up and running again. I'm still missing some programs (including Dreamweaver which I use to update my website) and I haven't got my scanner or printer working yet, but I should be good in a couple weeks. For now, you'll just have to bear with me on the updates.

I did want to give a shout-out and congratulate the JKS class of 2008. They were an awesome bunch of kids, and I think I might actually miss them next year : ) I don't have a website or gallery for all of them yet (email me if you're not listed), but some of the graduates whose work you should check out:

         Helsa Amadi      
         Vimal Bisundial
         George Bough
         Zane DeGaine
         Alex Konat
         Victor Naar
         Barry Verastigue



///-- Monday 5.12.08 --///////////////////////////////
I saw Speed Racer this weekend and it was basically a live action anime film. Like Mario Kart and Marvel vs. Capcom on a double dose of crack. Very stylish directing and cinematography with a hyper-saturated color palette and a really interesting cast (some great European actors I'd never seen before). I thought it was both fun and funny (Spritle had me laughing out loud).

There were a lot of problems with the story. The first third of the movie was very heavy handed. They tried to setup the backstory, how Speed got into Racing, how his brother Rex left home and establish the giant evil conglomerate that controlled racing. It was all setup and crawled along at a glacial pace.

The second third of the movie is where the racing started and consequently where the movie got really fun.  Racing stuff was filled with awesome rival racers (like Vikings!) who try and stop Speed and Racer X, to no avail as Speed bitch slaps them with his "Car Fu". Now, you might not be crazy about the term "Car Fu", but it is a fun idea. Between the racer's driving skills and the gadgets in their cars, they fight, dodge, block and attack each other with their vehicles. I think it's an awesome idea and it was a lot of fun to watch. As Michel Gondry said, "If an idea is any good, it's on the verge of being stupid."

As for comparisons to Iron Man. I guess Iron Man might've been the "better" movie simply because Iron Man's story was handled much better (and I place a HIGH PREMIUM on a good story, well told), but I had a lot more fun at Speed Racer, story problems and all.



///-- Saturday 4.19.08 --///////////////////////////////

The Dynamo 5 Annual got pushed back from a couple of weeks ago to THIS week, May 7th. Grab yourself a copy on Wednesday. Wanted to give a shoutout to my man, Jared Fletcher, on his Eisner nomination this year. Jared is nominated in the Best Lettering category for his work at DC Comics. Basically, Jared has lettered ALL of the coolest books that have come out from them the last few years - Paul Pope's Batman Year 100, Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier and Spirit, Brian Wood's DMZ and tons of others.

Jared and I went to the Joe Kubert School together and he's good people. If you're a professional, you should head over and vote for him at the Eisner Awards site. I did.

Also a new Rock Lee sketch I did for one of my students is up in the gallery.



///-- Saturday 4.26.08 --///////////////////////////////

Robert Kirkman (of Invincible and Walking Dead fame) recently participated in a feature on Entertainment Weekly's website called "The One That Hooked You" - about the first comic that you read.

Curious about what other people's 'first' was, he asked people to post it on his Image Comics message board.

The first comics that got me hooked were the Marvel Comics RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK movie adaptation and Uncanny X-Men #175.

I think Marvel Comics did a four-issue adaptation of Raiders, which they later collected into one super-sized magazine. I picked it up in 1981, when I was 6 years old. It was written by Walt Simonson, penciled by John Buscema and had an awesome Howard Chaykin painted cover. Not a bad bunch of creators to introduce you to comics. I don't remember if I loved it because it was a comic, or because it was related to the movie. I just know I read it a million times.

Two years later, in 1983, I picked up Uncanny X-Men #175. My Grandpa Bridwell owned a grocery store and whenever we would visit, he'd let me pick out something to keep. He didn't have a huge selection of comics, but when I saw that X-Men issue, I knew what I wanted.

It was drawn by Paul Smith and featured the wedding of Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor. The wedding stuff was tacked onto the end, but the entire beginning had to do with Mastermind tricking the X-Men into thinking that Phoenix had returned. Basically Cyclops fought against the other X-Men in all kinds of cool environments in the Danger Room. Perfect first issue for a kid as all of the X-Men were using their powers and kicking ass.  After I read that X-men issue, every time we'd go back to my Grandpa's store, I'd pick a cool Marvel comic to take home.

Those were the ones that hooked me.



///-- Saturday 4.19.08 --///////////////////////////////

My Dynamo 5 Annual from Image Comics finally hits comic shops this week. Pickup your copy this Wednesday at your local comic shop! It's that time of year where my students at the Joe Kubert School ask me to do something for their sketchbooks. I try and hook them up with something cool. The first couple are up in the gallery now. The New York Comic Con is going on this weekend and with that hundreds of comic book creators descend on New York for a week or two. We can usually get some cool guests to come out and speak to the students at the Joe Kubert School in the days before and after the convention. This year we had Darwyn Cooke and Jimmy Palmiotti.

Darwyn and Jimmy just did a Q & A, answering whatever questions the students and instructors threw at them. Both of them had strong opinions and great insight into every aspect of being professional creators (keep in mind both of them write as well as draw). Darwyn's observation of mass market fans vs direct market fans was really interesting. Using The Family Guy as an example, Darwyn said that Mass Market fans don't really care about draftsmanship, composition or craft. They care about the character, the ideas and the situation. While Direct Market fans care about the craft and the ideas equally. At one point in the Q & A, Darwyn mentioned that he's done a storytelling workshop in the past (which immediately made me envious of anyone who got the chance to attend it ). It was a great experience for everyone at JKS and we're extremely appreciative to Darwyn and Jimmy for their time.



///-- Sunday 4.13.08 --///////////////////////////////
Few things of note this week.  First, I'll be at the New York Comicon this coming week.  I'll be at or around the Joe Kubert School booth on both Friday and Saturday. Not bringing anything to sell this year, but you can still stop by and say "what up".

Second, it's been years in the making, but my roommate and former JKS classmate, Andrew Krahnke, finally has his website up and running! Josh Hehn of Supervillain Design, who did my site, built Andy's too.  Behold Andy's awesomeness.

Finally it's a big week for Jay Faerber's Noble Causes.  The pseudo "relaunch" starts this week with issue #32 (which takes place 5 years after issue #31).   And just to get everyone caught up on what's happened in the past, The Noble Causes Archives Vol. 1 also hits selves this week.   This collects NOBLE CAUSES FIRST IMPRESSIONS, NOBLE CAUSES #1-4, NOBLE CAUSES: FAMILY SECRETS #1-4, NOBLE CAUSES: DISTANT RELATIVES #1-4, and the NOBLE CAUSES ongoing series #1-12.  My fill-in issue on the regular series, #7 is also collected in there.  I think Jay will be at the NYCC too.



///-- Tuesday 4.8.08 --///////////////////////////////
Went to Illinois to visit family a couple weeks back and entertained myself on the 12 hour drive by listening to some comic-related podcasts. Paul Pope (of my man-crush fame) and Chris Staros (co-publisher of Top Shelf Productions) interviews from Comic Geek Speak. Cool Jason Pearson one from SideBar. And a phenomenal one with Brad Bird at Splinecast. I don't know about you, but I could listen to Brad Bird talk for days. I've seen him speak live at comic conventions, listened to podcasts and commentaries, and I am always just enthralled by what he has to say - from his history at Disney with Milt Kahl to his time at CalArts, to all his film projects, it's just endlessly fascinating.

After listening to Chris Staros talk, I felt compelled to order all the Jeffrey Brown comics from Top Shelf that I've had on my list of things to get. I'd only read AEIOU and enjoyed it, so I picked up almost his entire catalog - Clumsy, Unlikely, Feeble Attempts, Miniature Sulk and EGITEOTWFM. Pretty much read them all in one sitting. Good stuff.

Sam Mooney, my old roommate and classmate from the Joe Kubert School, has a new blog up. Sam moved to Japan four years again to teach english and devour manga and he's blogging some of his experiences and new work.  Check it out.

In work related news, I just finished up a monster two and half year long comic project. Wow, it was epic. Proud as hell of the books and of the work I did on it. By far the best stuff I've ever done. It's all background work for another artist, so I don't know when the day will come that I can talk about it or share it with anyone, so for now that's all I can say about it.

To treat myself, I bought Call of Duty 4 for the PS3. Most fun I've had playing video games in years. Hit me up with your PSN id if you want to hook up online : )



///-- Monday 3.10.08 --///////////////////////////////

A final sneak peek of a panel from my story in Jay Faerber's Dynamo 5 annual.  Awesome colors by Ron Riley.  Don't know exactly when the book will ship, but look for it from Image Comics sometime within the next month or so.

///-- Tuesday 2.12.08 --///////////////////////////////
Shocking news today as we learned that artist Stephane Peru has passed away of a heart attack at 26. Stephane was my friend and I feel proud and privileged to be able to say that. I met Stephane a couple years ago at the San Diego convention. He and his brother Olivier were visiting from France and sharing a studio in Montreal with my friends Serge LaPointe and Yanick Paquette.

You meet a lot of new people at any convention you go to and some are memorable, and some you forget instantly. Stephane and Olivier were so cool and down to earth that we immediately hit it off. Even though we came from different parts of the world and spoke different languages, I felt like I'd known them forever. We were all artists, extremely passionate about our craft. Hanging out with Stephane, Olivier and all my friends from Montreal was by far the my favorite memory from that convention. They were such great guys they made a huge impression on me.

Now, I wasn't best friends with Stephane or Olivier. I haven't seen them since San Diego, but I always knew the moment I ran into them again, that they'd greet me like a great friend they hadn't seen in years. I'm saddened to know that day will never come with Stephane.

It's not often you can say only spent a handful of days with someone, but that you'll remember them the rest of your life. I'm thankful I could call Stephane a friend.

Thoughts and prayers to Stephane's family, his brother Olivier and to his close friends in Montreal.



///-- Tuesday 1.29.08 --///////////////////////////////

Another panel from my story in the Dynamo 5 annual. Also added a link to my fellow Kubert School classmate and all around bad ass Ed Herrera's blog.

///-- Monday 1.21.08 --///////////////////////////////

I want to thank Sean Murphy for being such an awesome guy. Last week, Sean came in to talk to my third year students at the Joe Kubert School. Sean didn't just come in and show his portfolio and answer a couple questions, he basically taught my class for the afternoon.

He went over some important basic drawing skills he thought were often overlooked, talked about composition and how he lays out pages, went over some of the books on writing he recommended, gave a ton of business advice, and did an inking demo where he basically took requests - "How do you do that dry brush technique? How about stubble/beards? What about those one trees you draw? How did you do the jeeps in Off Road so cool?" Oh, and he showed his amazing portfolio (pages from a possible upcoming Vertigo project, some from his OGN "Punk Rock Jesus", and some from an upcoming Star Trek issue - you can see a lot of that stuff here). After all that, Sean stuck around after school to review portfolios from the students and even have dinner with a few of them. It was a amazing experience for the students (and me too) - almost a "Make-A-Wish Foundation" type of dream (meet, spend the day with, get taught by, a portfolio review from and have dinner with one of your favorite artists). Everyone felt energized and inspired by the whole thing. Sean came in and was just real. Thanks Sean. Thanks for being awesome. [The Image above is another sneak peek from my upcoming story in Jay Faerber's Dynamo 5 Annual. ]

///-- Monday 1.14.08 --///////////////////////////////

Hope everyone had a Happy Holiday season. I worked like a dog, but still found lots of time to spend with my family. Lots of good things happening this year.

I'm penciling and inking a short 10 page story for Jay Faerber's Dynamo 5 Annual. It's a Captain Dynamo story that's related to the Noble Causes #7 fill-in issue I did a couple years back. I get to draw a giant monster fighting dozens of heroes and wrecking a city, so you know it's cool. The book comes out in March from Image Comics. DYNAMO 5 ANNUAL #1 Written by Jay Faerber Art by Fran Bueno, Gabe Bridwell, Jack Lawrence and Matthew Humphreys Cover by Mahmud A. Asrar and Ron Riley The first Dynamo 5 annual features a collection of pivotal "untold tales" from Dynamo 5's past! See Dynamo 5's first adventure as a team! See what happens when a reporter tries to reveal Dynamo 5's connection to Captain Dynamo! See Captain Dynamo team up with other Image heroes for a gigantic slugfest! Plus a pin-up gallery, and a reprinting of Captain Dynamo's first appearance, from the rarely-seen Noble Causes: Extended Family #2. 56 pages, $5.99, in stores on March 12. //--Random things--// //-//The brilliant Massimo Carnevale has a blog you really need to check out. I was massively inspired after looking over his post's for the last year. Staggering talent. //--//Hans Bacher's Dream World's book came out in December. Hans is an amazing animation production designer. He's had a dozen blogs over the last couple years [which all seem to be down now] where he's shared his keen observations on a host of topics from design, creativity, inspiration, staging and composition. I've learned more from him the last few years than you can imagine. Hell, I even made a .pdf of his thoughts on composition and keep it next to my drawing table at all times. This book is fantastic. You need to go buy it NOW. //--//Lettering is among the classes I'm teaching this year at the Joe Kubert School, so as you can imagine, I've spent a considerable amount of time studying Todd Klein's work. I was lucky enough to get one of the "Alphabets of Desire" prints by Todd Klein & Alan Moore prints. These were offered by Todd on his terrific blog which you should really be checking out (be sure and go thru the archives and checkout his analysis of 100s of comic book logos throughout the years). //--//Speaking of lettering, I saw the Helvetica documentary over the Holidays. Thought it was great. Even made my students at the Kubert School watch it. //--//Rockband is awesome.

///-- Sunday 10.07.07 --///////////////////////////////

Just sharing a couple things on my drawing table at the moment. The Giant Robo piece is a cleaned up lightbox version of a something I did in one of my students sketchbooks a while back. In the process of inking it now. The other piece is loose pencils for a birthday present for my roommate Andrew Krahnke. It's Sam Totman from Dragonforce riding on a great white shark of course. Finished pieces later.

///-- Monday 10.01.07 --///////////////////////////////
Just going over my calendar for this month and noticed how many amazing shows are going on in New York right now:

The American Illustrator's Gallery has a J.C. Leyendecker exhibition up that features 48 works. On display through November 2007.

The Met just opened "The Age of Rembrandt" a couple weeks back. It features 200+ Dutch paintings, and 20 by Rembrandt himself.

The Society of Illustrators has "Maestros of the Silver Age" - 'Featuring a survey of American Illustration as it existed just after it's Golden Age. This was a time (roughly the 30s through the 50s) that was rife with story magazine like the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Redbook and McCall's. . .'   Hurry this ends on October 13th!

As if their permanent collection featuring Howard Pyle, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Maxfield Parrish, Harvey Dunn, and the Wyeth Family wasn't enough to get you to the Brandywine River Museum, they also are currently showing "Flights Into Fantasy". This collection features work by Arthur Rackham and Kay Nielsen! I just recently learned of Danish artist, Kay Nielsen, on the ASIFA - Hollywood Animation Archive and was absolutely blown away. The images from two of his books - East of the Sun and West of the Moon and Twelve Dancing Princesses will rock your world. So I'm super excited to get down to the Brandywine and see Kay's work in person.

On a side note, the Animation Archives is something you should definitely dive into and check out. They have all kinds of amazing stuff - from Erich Sokol's Playboy Cartoons to Guides on Compositions and everything in between.

And the Neue Galerie will soon open a Gustav Klimt Exhibtion - October 18 - June 30 2008.

I haven't seen any of these shows yet, but I'll be checking them all out in the coming weeks. Should be an amazing month!!


///-- Monday 08.13.07 --///////////////////////////////
I was stunned to hear the news that comic book artist, Mike Wieringo, passed away yesterday at age 44. Mike was a phenomenal talent, and one of the absolute nicest guys I've ever met in my life. His comics were among the work that inspired me to become a comic book artist in the first place. I'm really at a loss for words. The comic book industry and really, the world is a worse place without Mike in it.



///-- Wednesday 08.08.07 --////////////////////////////
One of the reasons I threw up photos of my studio on the site, is because I love to see where other artists work. I find it fascinating to see what they surround themselves with and how they have everything laid out. It's usually an interesting look into both their creative process and their personal taste. Guillotine has a cool look inside Tara McPherson's studio up now.



///-- Sunday 07.29.07 --///////////////////////////////
Welcome to the all-new, superbad GabeBridwell.com! Take a whiff, 'cause right now this place still has that new-car smell. It's been forever since my last update to my old site (April '06 - yikes) and well, that's because I've been working with Josh Hehn of Supervillain Design on this new site since then. It's been a long time in the making, but I couldn't be happier with how it's turned out. Josh and I still have much bigger plans for the site, but we wanted to get this thing up and running, so we'll add other features in on the fly. Take the site for a spin and checkout all the new content. I'll be doing my best to keep this thing updated as often as possible (but hell, that's what everyone says).

So where've I been and what've I been up to?

Well, 2006-07 saw me complete my first full-year of teaching at the Joe Kubert School out here in New Jersey. I taught at the tail end of the '06 school year, but that was a totally different experience than a full-year. I teach the Layout and Design class for the 2nd and 3rd year students, which is basically Photoshop and Illustrator work. I've really enjoyed teaching there. Meeting all the young artists and sharing ideas with them. It almost makes me feel like I'm back in school again, and that I never left. If you know me, you know I love to talk shop, so you can imagine how excited I am to get started in the fall again.

I've also been doing backgrounds for other people's comics, work for my own comics, and trying to get back into painting again. My girlfriend has inspired me to try and paint real big on canvases (like 2'x4' as opposed to the 11"x17" I usually do for comics), so I'm dabbling with that when I get a chance (to mixed results!). I'm really proud and happy of the background work I've been doing the last year or so, but I don't know that there'll be a time when I can share any of that work on this site. Fingers crossed, maybe one day.

Thanks for stopping by and checking everything out!