Black Cat Jug Band

For those of you champing at the bit to roll into October, I've made up a little fall decoration for you: the Black Cat Jug Band!

Get it here:
crogan.bigcartel.com

Black Pearl Reference - Pirates of the Caribbean

BLACK PEARL REFERENCE

The first issue of the new Pirates of the Caribbean comic comes out a week from today (on September 28), so I thought I’d post this reference stuff I made for my pal and collaborator and all-around incredible artist and storyteller Joe Flood (I’m writing, Joe’s doing the art, and Marissa Louise is doing colors).  Though he’s one of the cleverest artists I know and could have figured this stuff out on his own, we had a tight turnaround, and ships can seem random and daunting with the lines and ropes and whatnot, so I thought this might help.

I’ve been a huge pirate buff since I was a toddler, and that enthusiasm has never abated (heck, my first full-length graphic novel was a pirate book).  When I was asked to do Pirates of the Caribbean, I was over the moon, and jumped on an opportunity to crew on one of the ships used in the movies, and went to Disney World and rode the ride multiple times, with me taking notes on elements that might be easter-egged into stories (keep your eyes peeled).

Anyway, I’m a big POTC fan, and I hope you are, too.  I hope you’ll swing out to your local comic shop and pick up a copy next Wednesday.

THE CREEPS: Curse of the Attack-O-Lanterns

My newest CREEPS book comes out a week from today, just in time for October!  I’ve always like fall-centric spooky kid stories, and I’m glad to have gotten to do one.  I hope you’ll pick it up for yourself or a kid in your life.  And the other Creeps books are available, too, of course!

Here’s what some fancy reviewin’ folks have said about the series:

"Schweizer has created a story with just enough icky, spooky action for middle-grade readers who want horror stories but don’t want them too scary...The mixed-gender, multicultural team guarantees that this series opener will appeal to a broad range of readers." Booklist

"An excellent complement to his prose, Schweizer's cleanly paneled art is bright and busy, ever ready with a gag that helps blend the ghastly with the goofy, making his gang's antics reminiscent of Scooby Doo...Silly fun with a smattering of science." Kirkus Reviews

"A wide range of readers will tear through this well-written and zanily-drawn book, and they will be eager to see what wild adventures the four friends will have in the next volume." School Library Journal

CATTLECARS designs

Between watching Mad Max and its sequels/imitators, reading Kamandi, and wanting to work through my actual (though steadily diminishing) fears of a robot uprising, I've had a flurry of subjects swirling around in my head that I'd like to see through to a story but whose elements were so disparate that I could find no narratively credible way to approach including them all.

A week or two ago, though, something clicked: one single narrative reason that made muscle cars, cowboys, trucks, killer robots, and animal people all an intrinsic part of this narrative world.  So I spent a good amount of time this weekend (at the table before setup, on the train, etc) working through these ideas and the first couple of days back sketching them up.  Here are some of those sketches.

Anyway, it's something I could do in very short installments, rather than as one long narrative, so I'll be able to do things with it concurrently with other projects.  And while drawing cars is a pain, it's also a whole lot of fun, and working on the Creeps showed me that it's something I need in my wheelhouse.  So I'll probably start posting up the odd story or design thing here and there in the not-too-far-off future.