“Thom Cat” at San Diego International Children’s Film Fest, Cartoon Art Museum, and NCS Booth at Comic-Con!

The above photos were taken at the San Diego International Children's Film Festival held at the San Diego Comic-con on Sunday July 27th during the 12:30-1:30pm screening of "Thom Cat!" Audience reaction to "Thom Cat" was (thankfully) great, and the Q&A following the screening was a lot of fun! Thanks so much to Dan Bennett who put together the festival, and made it such a wonderful experience for all involved!

After the screening, I was at the NCS (National Cartoonist's Society) booth from 2pm to 3pm signing and doing free sketches for people who saw "Thom Cat," and those who were just walking by and seeing it for the first time on my portable DVD player! I am sitting next to "Archie" artist Craig Boldman (pictured), and on the other side was Nancy Berg, daughter of the Mad Magazine great, Dave Berg (I bought an original page from her of Dave's while I was there, and it is a hilarious comic!). Special thanks to Phil Pyster for setting up my time at the booth, it was great to be a part of NCS at Comic-con and to promote "Thom Cat!"

On Saturday July 26th, from 12 noon to 1pm, my brother Doug and I were doing sketches for donations to the Cartoon Art Museum (pictured at their booth). If you get a chance, and are in SF, you must stop by there! We raised some money for the museum, and was able to promote "Thom Cat" in the process. Special thanks to Andrew Farago and Summerlea Kashar of the Cartoon Art Museum for making it all happen, I can't wait to help out again next year!
--Mike Gray
http://www.pencilforhire.com/

Mike Gray & "Thom Cat" at the San Diego Comic-Con!

I will be at the San Diego Comic-con this week promoting “Thom Cat” for the San Diego International Children’s Film Festival and pitching “Thom Cat” as a series! My schedule so far is Saturday July 26th from noon to 1pm at the Cartoon Art Museum booth (doing sketches for donations to the museum) and Sunday July 27th 12:30pm to 1:30pm in Room 10 for the San Diego International Children’s Film Festival screening of “Thom Cat” followed by a Q&A session with all the filmmakers, and then from 2pm to 3pm also on Sunday the 27th at the NCS (National Cartoonist’s Society) booth doing free sketches and talking about “Thom Cat!” I will also be at the San Diego International Children’s Film Festival booth on the Mezzanine at least one time from Friday to Sunday doing sketches for donations to the festival, time TBD, please stop by the booth to find out when! –Mike Gray

Oppose the Orphan Works Act of 2008!

If you have not heard about the Orphan Works Act of 2008 and how it can affect you and your copyrights as a professional artist, I urge you to go to this informational site produced by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) as fast as you can: http://anti-orphan-works-act.com/
I have already faxed, e-mailed, and called my local legislator, and the rest of the legislators in my home state of California. You can find a sample letter, the names, fax #'s, and everything you need at the site provided by NCS...don't wait, act now before it's too late! --Mike Gray

"Thom Cat" Brooklyn 4th Annual KidsFilmFest Awards Received!

I just received two wonderful awards in the mail from the Brooklyn 4th Annual KidsFilmFest! What a terrific time my wife and I had at that festival, and these beautiful, lamenated awards are just another reason why I in such awe of Lisa King, the kidsfilmfest Director! She not only made us feel like royalty when we were there, but set up a wonderful spot for us to meet with the kid's first hand after the shorts were screened, and then took the time to make these awards for the filmmakers...thanks again Lisa, it was an honor to be a part of your festival!

--Mike Gray

"Thom Cat" Official selection of the 5th Annual San Diego International Children's Film Festival!

I am very proud to announce that ”Thom Cat” has been selected to be shown at the 5th Annual San Diego International Children’s Film Festival, July 27-Aug. 23 at Comic-Con International, the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park and the San Diego Central Library! Thom Cat will screen Sunday July 27 in our the theater in Room 10 at Comic-Con International (an exact screening time for the film will be available by late June/early July, and the Web site http://www.sdchildrensfilm.org/ will be updated at that time). A second screening of the film will be on the weekend of Aug. 9-10 at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park! Thank you again to everyone who worked on the short!! –Mike Gray

"Thom Cat" Official Selection of the Fire Island Golden Wagon Film Festival July 18-20, 2008!

I am happy and honored to announce that “Thom Cat” has been an official selection of Fire Island Golden Wagon July 18-20, 2008 http://www.goldenwagonfilmfest.com/main.asp?id=Festival-2008! The screening will be on Sunday, July 20th at approx. 11am as part of the Red Wagon Family Festival portion of the program. –Mike Gray

Thom Cat: Brooklyn 4th Annual KidsFilmFest Success + New York Times Article!

Left: (Creators in attendance: left to right): Thy Than, Mike Gray, Kelly Shon, Tom Eaton.
My wife Melissa and I were greatly honored to attend the Brooklyn 4th Annual KidsFilmFest this past Sunday (June 01), where “Thom Cat” was shown two times: at the 1pm and the 2:30pm showings (the “world premiere”/ first time seen by kids outside of Nickelodeon and Frederator Studios)! After each showing, kids were sent upstairs to “meet the creators” of the cartoons, ask us questions, etc, which was a fabulous time for me! It was great to hear which parts of “Thom Cat” was their personal favorites, and I was very grateful to have the opportunity to do drawings of favorite Thom Cat characters for the kids (and give them free copies of my comic where he first appeared)! The festival, run by the terrific Lisa King, was extremely gracious to provide us with wonderful accomodations at the Hotel Chandler. I just found out today that “Thom Cat” was also mentioned in the New York Times on Friday, May 30th and was named “among the stars of the short films in this festival,” for which I am so honored that I am speechless! In the show’s program, I was incorrectly identified as the short’s director (instead of creator/writer/co-producer), who is actually the extremely talented Jeff Degrandis (by no means do I mean this as a complaint, the festival did a terrific job on everything, I just like to make sure to give credit where it is due)! It was our first time to New York, and it was a stunning, wonderous city to visit, and Melissa and I had the pleasure of having breakfast with Fred (Seibert) on Monday morning (his treat since we were in his city!), which was a great ending to a wonderful trip! –Mike Gray

Dick Ayers Thing Pin-Up

Dick Ayers, the great early Marvel artist and inker, still does commissioned pieces! I just received this Thing pin-up recreation I ordered (from Strange Tales 127), and it is amazing!! You can order a drawing from this classic artist through Catskill Comics, I highly recommend it! --Mike

Wondercon 2008

I made it to Wondercon in San Francisco last weekend with my niece and nephew, and it was great! I always leave inspired to do my own work. The best part was getting to meet a Marvel Comics great, Herb Trimpe, who did a terrific headshot of the Hulk for me! --Mike

Space Pussy Vinyl Toy Prototype

Here is the protoype in progess of the "Space Pussy" vinyl toy as sculpted by the talented Brannon Wright. Please write and let me know what you think, especially if this is something you would buy! The Kitty will have a movable head and tail, and the helmut will be attached, a clear plastic fitted shape like the original drawing. If I go ahead and make it myself (I would rather have another company do it, but we will see what happens), it would be a run of a 1000 total, though some of that would be short exclusive runs of 50-100 (like glow in the dark, or different colorways). --Mike Gray

Digital Painting Class on Schoolism.com!

I recently finished "Digital Painting Techniques with Bobby Chiu" on http://www.schoolism.com/ and it was a terrific class! For my final project I did a painted version of my Fluff#01 cover featuring Thom Cat who will soon be appearing in 2008's Random Cartoon series on Nickelodeon (my painting is above, the original book cover for comparison is below), and I was very happy with how it came out (especially since I know I can still do a lot more to it that he taught that I did not have a chance to implement for this piece! I highly recommend this class to anyone who is interested in painting digitally, it was well worth it! --Mike Gray

CAPS Banquet for Stan Lee Nov. 11, 2007

My brother Doug and I were lucky enough to join CAPS after being recommended by our good friend (and legendary artist) Stan Sakai (who is always inspiring to talk too)! A terrific banquet and presentation in honor of Stan Lee (co-creator of Spider-man, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Thor, Iron Man, X-Men, and too many more to list!) took place at the Porter Valley Country Club last night. The event was set-up for CAPS by Stephen Silver and his lovely wife Heidi, who did a fantastic job making a wonderful evening for everyone. Stan Lee was great, talking with everyone, taking photos, signing autographs and just being the incredibly entertaining personality that he is. We also got to meet June Foray, the well-known voice talent behind such classic voices as Granny and Witch Hazel from the Warner Brothers theatrical cartoons, and Rocky the Squirrel and Natasha from the Bullwinkle series! I flew down from Northern California for the event, and it more than exceeded my expectations... I highly recommend joining the CAPS organization if you can no matter where you live, you will be greatly inspired!!

--Mike

Ape Escape & Mike's Unnatural Love of Fedoras

Ape Escape is going great, and the whole team has a lot of fun joking around! Karl Toerge (head of storyboard) and Kevin Kolde (producer/owner Project 51 Studios)especially love to harass me about my love of Fedoras (see two post-its drawings by Karl, one of me, and one of the monkeys dressed as me). I made the fake "Sinatra" album cover (above)to send to them as a prank before heading down for the 2nd recording session. --Mike

Ape Escape Record

I am having a great time working as Head Writer/Story Editor on the new cartoon series,

"Ape Escape!" Last Friday October 5th, we had our first recording session at Salami Studios in North Hollywood, and it went terrific! From left to right in photo: featuring our extremely talented voice talent: Annie Mumulo (voice of Jimmy and Natalie!), Greg Ellis (voice of the villian, Specter!), Mike Gray (myself), Eric Bauza (Monkeys, Professor, and the creepy Hot Cross Bun!).

--Mike Gray

NCS Card Carrying Member!

I am very proud to be a new menber of the great NCS (National Cartoonist Society)! I can't wait to see what local events they have to go to! --Mike

Vinyl Toy Designs: Please Vote for your Favorite!

I have been thinking of making a limited edition vinyl toy to be sold by myself, and hopefully vendors such as my good friends at Cardboard Spaceship (a terrific toy/original art/prints/t-shirts, etc. shop) in Santa Cruz, CA www.cardboardspaceship.net One of the owners, Jamey, was kind enough to post this thread on the Kid Robot discussion forum to help me choose the winning design http://forums.kidrobot.com/viewtopic.php?t=80773 Please leave your comments, either on this blog or through the link provided, I am very interested in everyone's opinions! Thanks! --Mike

O'Malley's Nuns

I love finding old books of cartoonists, especially if I had never heard of them before. This book I found for $5 at the De Anza Flea Market in Cupertino, CA, and it even had an original sketch from the author in it! It is a 1950's collection of nun cartoons that are not as funny today as they probably were back then, but I enjoy the art style of Bill O'Malley and the sketch is great!

--Mike

Stephen Silver Class!

I started a caricature class on August 1st taught by the great Stephen Silver (designer on Kim Possible, Danny Phantom, Clerks) on the website www.schoolism.com! The class is terrific, and the one-on-one critiques are really helpful, I highly recommend this class, and the schoolism classes in general (I've signed up for the Bobby Chiu Digital Painting class in Sept as well). The caricature of me was done by Stephen at Comic-Con 2007 last month in San Diego, he did it in just a few minutes! ---Mike

"King of the Dogs" Amazing Stuffed Toy!

This is a fantastic stuffed toy of my character, "The King of the Dogs," created and hand sewn by the fabulously talented Michelle Ritchie, and who graciously gave it to me as a gift! Check out her work here, you won't be disappointed!: http://alteredboxes.deviantart.com

He now hangs next to my computer and drawing desk, and brings me good fortune!

Thanks again Michelle!

--Mike

"Thom Cat" & "Infinite Goliath" cartoon Clips!

I was finally allowed to upload some clips from the cartoons I did for Nickelodeon & Frederator Studios' new show, "Random Cartoons," which premieres in early 2008! Click on these to see the blog entry where you can find the clips:

"Thom Cat Clips" and "The Infinite Goliath Clips"

--Mike