Staz Johnson.com Newsblog

The Wales Comicon

2009-09-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

Coming up at the end of the month is the next event in this years convention calender. The Wales Comicon takes palce on 27th September at Glyndwr University, Wrexham. I'll be there obviously..(why else would I be mentioning it, right?), but along with yours truely, there will be an impressive guest list from the world of fantasy film/TV (LOTR, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Torchwood, Doctor Who etc) & comics.

I'll be doing my usual stint of signing & sketching (sketches, like the one shown here, will be charged at 10 of your Earth pounds).

Hope to see you all there.

Panini Wolverine cover

2009-08-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

I did the cover to a new trade paperback collection of Wolverine stories recently. I'm not sure what the trade was called.. or when it's out.. but I do know that the cover kicks ass.. & here it is..

Also, the original art is currently up for grabs on Ebay.. here's the listing.

The Caped Crusaid & Hero Initiative

2009-08-30T08:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been asked to participate in a couple of events for charity. Namely.. producing sketches to be auctioned off to raise funds.

For the Caped Crusaid (an AIDS charity) I did 2 sketchcards, Supergirl & Wonder Woman.

For The Hero Initiative I did a Wolverine sketch cover, for their Wolverine 100 project. The Hero Initiative raises money for former comic book industry professionals who have fallen on hard times.

Any similarity between Wolverine & Marcus off of Big Brother is entirely coincidental.

Captain Cymru Private Commission

2009-08-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

It's been way too long since I posted anything on here..& there's a lot of stuff to post.. so let's get to it..

First up, here's a private commission I just did for Justin Gillett. The character is Captain Cymru, who is (I imagine) the 'Captain Britain' or maybe 'Captain Wales' from some alternate reality in Marvel's Universe... if I sound a bit vague, it's because I am...

A similar commission will set you back £50 + postage. However, I give no guarentees that I'll do it in color.. I just go with the flow, & do whatever feels right to me at the time..

Old Artwork #4

2009-05-31T05:40:00.000-07:00

Continuing the theme of 'blasts from the past', here's a thing I did back in 1988. At the time I was producing comic strips & short story illustrations for an independant role playing magazine. The editors offered me a half page spot to run a promotional advertisement piece... I think as a 'payment in kind' sorta thing, since they didn't pay that well.

The piece shows a bunch of the characters I had drawn for the magazine, & a couple from another side project I was working up with a writer friend, Paul Hayes.

Amazingly this didn't generate any new commissions whatsoever..lol

The other pieces are various charater 'spot' illustrations I did for fanzines, between '84 & '87

Old Artwork #3

2009-05-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

Back in the late 1980's I did the cover to a record by British heavy metal band Excalibur. Sadly I dont have a copy of this work of genius to show you. However, the fact that this album sleeve featured a painting of a female back side in a thong did mean that a few other bands came to me & asked for 'a cover like the one you did for Excalibur'.

Around 1988-89 I was asked to do a cover for a record by another British heavy metal band, this time called Wraith, & guess what.. they wanted something like the Excalibur thing. I completed a whole series of color roughs, all of which were based on the original premise provided to me by the band, via their record company. The record was to be called either 'Control Yourself' or 'Scarred for Life'. In the end, I didnt do the finished art, & as I understand when the album finally surfaced, the band had opted for a photograph of themselves as the sleeve image. As was typical.. I was never payed for the roughs I did. Here's a few of them, all done in a mixture of ink, colored ink, some colored pencil, conté crayon & gouache.

BTW... like I sad.. it was the 80's.

Old Artwork #2

2009-05-18T04:47:00.000-07:00

Back in the early 80's, when I was 'working' (I use the term losely, because no payment was involved, but it was superb practice) fairly regularly producing strips & illustrations for fanzines, I decided one day that I needed to try to work the way the 'pro's did.... that's to say.. working fast!! So I set myself the task of producing a page of pencils & inks per day.. as an exercise, to see what standard I could ahieve with those time constraints.

So I took an episode of Rogue Trooper, & reverse engineered it to come to a reasonable approximation of what the working script may have been, then gave myself a week.. Monday to Friday, to produce the five pages of art... just like I knew my primary artistic influence (Dave Gibbons) could do & did.

Truth is, I didn't complete the full five pages. There was bits & peices on all that needed finishing up. A backgound that needed inking here... a face that needed redrawing there etc. But despite that it was a useful exercise, & a good learning experience.

Here's one of the pages from that experiment.

Old Artwork

2009-05-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

I havn't posted anything in a while, so I've decided to show you a bunch of old stuff. From the 80's & early 90's. Starting with this piece.

This was a character design thing I did for a RPG back in '92-ish. Painted in acrylics. If I remember rightly, I was turned into a lifesize standee for store displays... not that I ever saw one.

Big Ebay sale

2009-04-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

Just letting you guys know that theres a massivesale of my work on Ebay currently.
Below is a selection of some of the pages on offer.

More stuff on Ebay

2009-03-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

Hiya,

In a break from all the private commission nonsense, here's a heads up that I have a bunch more material available on Ebay again. Including this unusual piece. When I drew part of the Spiderman 2 movie adaption a few years ago I was asked to do a rendering to show how the 'movie version' of the Sidey costume could be represented in comic art. This is what I came up with.

Rogue Trooper Private Commission

2009-03-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah ok, I know what you're thinking.."doesn't he do anything other than private commissions??"

Well, I do, but these are currently the only things I can show you.

So, Rogue Trooper marker sketch commission. Done in an attempt to evoke all those terrific Dave Gibbons black & white strips in 2000AD, hence the lack of colour, unlike my other marker sketch commissions. Something similar will set you back £50- plus p+p. Drop me a line if you're interested.

PSI Judge Private Commission

2009-03-02T16:57:00.000-08:00

Another new post..& another new private commission... getting to be a habit, this.

Anyway, as you can see, the subject for this latest piece is a lady PSI Judge, from Judge Dredd. However, there is more to this than meets the eye... no, she's not a Transformer.. although that would be cool, but no, this is a representation of the client's (Johns Burdin) wife as one of Mega City 1's finest.

John is a huge Dredd fan, & is very active online with all kinds of Dredd related 'stuff'.

The rate for private commisions of this type, is £50- +p&p, email me if you're interested.

Winona Ryder Private Commission

2009-02-17T03:29:00.000-08:00

Here's a look at another private commission I completed recently. The subject is Winona Ryder.

This piece was commissioned by Wynn Ryder (made up name?) and this is what he had to say about the finished thing..

"Staz, you are a genius! Thank you so much! I absolutely adore it. I'm completely in love with your style and this piece is one of the very best in my collection. I hope you enjoyed drawing her."

Wynn is obviosly a nice guy, who had been on the wakky bakky when he wrote that.

If you'd like to have a similar (marker sketch) piece, the price is £50- + postage & packaging.

Punisher Private Commission

2009-02-11T01:12:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share this with you guys. Graham Clements (who is on my MySpace friends list.. add me if you haven't already) recently commissioned me to do this (A4)Punisher 'marker sketch' piece for his girlfriend's birthday.

If any of you would like something similar, the price is £50- + p&p.

Beat the credit crunch with Ebay!!

2009-01-16T07:07:00.000-08:00

That's right, you heard it here first. My ebay sale this week includes pages for sale at credit crunch beating super low prices. Batches of three pages for sale at £12-... thats £4- per page!!

Also on offer is a mixture of Batman, Catwoman & Captain America pages.. among others.

Click on the pic of The Joker to see all the pages for sale.

First Ebay sale of 2009

2009-01-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

That's right, the year is only 4 days old, yet first Staz ebay sale of this 'circuit around the sun' is already upon you!!

The artwork listed features a whole host of America's favorite crime fighters (Batman, Robin, Spiderman, X-Men, Captain America etc ).. plus one British one Judge Dredd.. although, he's American too, strictly speaking. Aaaaaaaanyway.........

Click the pic of Spidey to see the pages on offer..

Last Ebay sale before Christmas

2008-12-15T04:23:00.000-08:00

Currently on ebay, are the last pages I will have on offer before Christmas, the sale finishes on the 16th, so any purchases will hopefully reach you intime for those last minute gifts.

Included in the sale is an Avengers cover done for Panini, detail at right.

Thought Bubble:The Aftermath 3

2008-11-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

Just one last (unless you know different) postscript to the Thought Bubble event. Simon James was kind enough to send me a very good quality scan of the Batman sketch I did for him at the show. And incase you're wondering.. yes, the paper in Simon's sketchbook really is yellow!!

On Ebay This Week.

2008-11-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

This weeks ebay sale consists of mostly Marvel work. Including Spiderman (pictured at right) a couple of Deadpool double page spreads, some Avengers stuff (actually drawn for Panini) & Excalibur... among others.

Click here to see whats on offer.

Thought Bubble:The Aftermath 2

2008-11-21T01:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick addendum to the overview of last weekend's Thought Bubble festival. This is the Spiderman sketch that can be seen in last post's video. And was sent to me by the the video maker Russ Entwistle, so thaks to Russ for both.

Thought Bubble:The Aftermath

2008-11-18T13:42:00.000-08:00

So the Leeds Thought Bubble convention was a few days ago, & very succesful it was too. It was (at a rough estimate) around twice the size of last years event, & attracted some very notable names.

I was kept busy all day, sketching for the punters, sadly however, I kept forgetting to take pics of both the people & the sketches.... Fortunately, some enterprising soul thought to take their video camera along, & subsequently upload the result to YouTube, so presenting here, my single solitary photo from the day, & said video in which I can be seen completing a Spidey sketch... can you dig it??

[Edit] Adam McGechan has been kind enough to send me a scan of the Judge Dredd sketch I did for him.

Robin The Boy Hostage on ebay..

2008-11-18T01:12:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's right. A whole bunch of pages from my 3 year run on the book dedicated to Batman's annoying, er I mean endearing sidekick are currently on offer on ebay.

For me, working on one of the core Batman titles was a dream come true, & I'm very proud of the work Chuck Dixon (who was, I believe the best writer when it came to crafting tightly plotted action stories) & I did.

Anyway, enuff of the trip down memory lane, click this link to see the pages on offer, & if a 14 year old boy in green tights isn't your thing, there's pages from Catwoman & Spiderman for sale too.

Thought Bubble: Leeds Comic Convention

2008-11-12T14:33:00.000-08:00

Hi kids..

Just a quickie note to let all you crazy cats that I'll be appearing at the Thought Bubble Comic Convention in Leeds this coming Saturday. In addition to yours truely, there's an excellent line-up of comics professionals attending the event, including Mark Millar, Alex Maleev, Liam Sharp & many more.

This is the second year of this event, & is being held at the Royal Armouries. I'll be doing the whole signing & sketching thing, but if you're wanting something particulary obscure, either bring reference, or shoot me an email before hand to tip me off. Hope to see you down there.

Anyway, here's a Nazi-Werewolf preparatory sketch I did a couple of years ago (complete with spilled coffee stains..oh, the glamour!!) for a project that never came to fruition .

HUGE Ebay sale.

2008-11-02T16:37:00.000-08:00

Following last weeks return of the ebay sales, this week sees the biggest collection of material I've posted on Ebay in one go so far. Over 50 pages of artwork. With some stuff which dates from the very begining of my DC career, through to more recent work on the Spiderman 2 movie adaption.
And pages priced from as little as £8-.

Pages on Ebay.

2008-10-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Just a quick heads up to let you know there's another bunch of pages on Ebay this week. It's been a while since I had anything on there, & the pages this week include Wolverine, X-Men, Spiderman, Punisher & Batman. Some of the 13 pages on offer are shown here.

If you have any questions regarding the sale, message me here, or email me here