Check the date, I saw Tropic Thunder on Tues afternoon. I liked it!  My friend CJ had an extra pass to see a preview of the movie. I saw a little trailer a few days earlier and I knew Ben Stiller was in it. It is pretty dark, but they left a light on. Everyone in the cast was great. I think my favorite was Tom Cruise. Since I really laughed hard through a lot of the movie, it probably won’t do well. My parents don’t go to movies and if they saw this one I think they’d swear off on seeing a movie ever again. They tend to be more in touch with the rest of humanity than I.

Just to get things out of the way. I was in San Diego for the comic convention. It was nice. The after parties were fun. I still did an illustration for Sports Illustrated, and still have a few bugs to work out when illustrating while traveling. My buddy Patrick and his best friend Chris put me and my girlfriend up the last night. They acted as tour guide and couldn’t have been better hosts. They let us drag them to expensive bars and finally to the Dark Night movie. It was pretty darn good! We then hauled ass over to the airport and just made our flight. So the entire flight I had Batman movie scenes going through my head as I half slept on the plane

Here is last week’s Sports Illustrated. Barry Bonds (The current home run king) waiting for the call at the baseball All-Star break.

I think I’m almost completely mobile. I’ve drawn out sketches in coffee shops. I’ve actually painted finals in coffee shops. Painting outside is cool on a nice day in a park. Intersections might be a problem. I just bought a small Wacom tablet that fits in a book bag easily. I have a big digital camera. My only technical difficulty is lighting. I’m hoping for nice sunny weather and shooting in the shade. Carrying lights would be a pain. I’m off to San Diego this weekend for the big comic convention. I told Sports Illustrated I’d be out this weekend almost 2 months ago. They seemed reluctant to hire someone else for this week. I got the impression it would be bad for me to take off, so I figured I’d try and make it work. Now I’m mainly concerned about flight delays since I’m coming back Sunday night while the final is due Monday. I hope to have the final done before I go home.

Three covers for The Week and a portrait of Felix Dennis, the fellow who owns The Week. I really like the diversity I get to paint for them. It’s a great challenge to produce images that have been done a zillion times and try and stay fresh for it.

Sports Illustrated took the week off, so I think I have a bit of leisure time coming, nope. Wall Street Journal called me up Fri about 2 hours before I was to attend a party for my art director at The Week. Brett is moving on from The Week and taking a new position as editor-in-chief/creative director for Islanders Hockey magazine. I think his codename for it is paradise. He’s a huge Mets and Islanders fan, which is good since they both use the same garrish orange and blue colors. This is where I wish Brett the best and say what a pleasure it’s been working with him for the last 7 years at the magazine. Hopefully he doesn’t somehow lose my number while moving to his new digs! So with that I post a WSJ illustration done for Dan, another art director whom I’ve worked with for at least 10 years now.

“Loaded for Bear” of Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson for Wall Street Journal (Mon. July 14th)