Family Style is delighted to present the first full-length comic from François Vigneault in over five years, Titan #1! Wowza!

Titan is the story of MNGR João da Silva, a music-loving productivity expert sent from Earth to the moon of Titan, where he finds himself embroiled in the dangerous tensions between the geneticaly-engineered Titan workers and their Terran management, a situation that threatens to boil over at a moment's notice. Is the union representative Phoebe Mackintosh a friend, a foe, or something else entirely? With mysteries and danger lurking at every turn, João must rely on his intellect and his powerful "i" device to protect himself and maybe even turn a profit. The start of a six-issue sci-fi epic that combines action and adventure with a deep look at the best and the worst aspects of human nature.

Titan #1 collects Part 01: Far, Far Away and Part 02: 99 Problems, both of which can be seen on the Study Group Comics website. The print edition features lush, two-color printing on newsprint interiors, and a fully-painted color cover. The entire book has been re-edited, re-designed, and re-lettered for this new edition.

Titan #1 is premiering at the Stumptown Comics Festival on Saturday, April 27th, where it will be available at the Press Gang booth (along with lots of other new items, including the Esiner-nominated It Will All Hurt by Farel Dalrymple and issue #2 of Study Group Magazine).

You can pre-order Titan #1 right now; mail orders will be shipped out immediately after Stumptown! Pre-orders are greatly appreciated, since they help to defray upfront printing costs... All pre-orders will be signed by the artist and will receive some fun bonus goodies!

Titan Part 03: Hard Headed Woman will be starting up on the Study Group Comics site soon, and a new issue of Titan should be out before the end of the year.

· Testing Titan

Some layout experiments for Titan #1... This post will be replaced with the final cover shortly:

· Titan #1 Coming Soon

I'm very excited to announce that the first issue of my sci-fi serial Titan will be coming out this month for the Stumptown Comics Fest!

Titan, which has been running serially on the Study Group Comics site for the last year, is the story of MNGR João da Silva, sent from Earth to Homestead Station on the moon of Titan he finds himself caught in the simmering tensions between the giant, geneticly-engineered Titan workers and the Terran management. Go read it online now to get a preview of the book!

Titan #1 will be my first full-length comic book in many years, and I'm realy excited to get it out there. This story has been brewing in me for a long, long time. Issue #1 will include Part 1: Far, Far Away and Part 2: 99 Problems. The interiors of the book will be 32 pages, printed in luscious two-color on newsprint, and the covers will be fully-painted! They aren't quite done yet (I wanted to get a quick announcement right away), but here is a sneak preview of the front cand back covers (below):

· Ramona Flowers

A piece of fan art for Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim. He's running a Ramona Flowers art contest over on Tumblr, and I was delighted at the chance to tackle a character from one of the best series of the last decade or so. Check out other entrants here.

· New, Perhaps interesting Titan Episode

This week Study Group is running a new page of Titan that's a little bit experimental... A grid-breaking vision of one of the many things Joào's "i" can do. If you haven't read Titan in a while, maybe check back in!

· Winter is Coming Thursday, Hot One Inch Action Friday!

It looks like I will be sneaking in a last-minute piece into Reading Frenzy's Game of Thrones fan-art show, Winter is Coming! I drew my fave doomed lovers, Kahl Drogo and Daenerys Targaryen. 

Winter is Coming • Thursday November 1, 2012, 6pm • Reading Frenzy • 921 SW Oak Street

Aaaaand..... I've got a little button design in the Portland iteration of Hot One Inch Action, a pretty cute-looking show that invites artists to create 1" button badges that are then thrown into random five-packs. If you end up at the show and start trading, keep an eye out for my "Writing" badge!
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Hot One-Inch Action •Friday November 2, 2012, 6-9pm • Hand Eye Supply • 23 NW 4th Ave

· R.I. P. Covered

Today, Robert Goodin announced that Covered blog will be ceasing publication after he runs a few more pieces in the coming weeks. I really enjoyed Covered, and it gave me a chance to do some tribute pieces to a variety of artists who's work I truly enjoy, even tho' it was often quite divergent from my own. Here are the four pieces I did for Covered over the last few years:

Catwoman #46, after Adam Hughes, 2010

Adam Hughes is a huge guilty pleasure of mine... Well, sometimes he's just a straight up pleasure, depending on how self-concious I'm feeling about my love of cheesecake. I love his Audrey Hepburn-inspired Catwoman, tho' as always, I feel a need to ground her super-duper proportions a bit in my own versions. That catsuit had a big influence on the jumpsuits in Titan, too. 

Fables #43, after James Jean, 2011

James Jean is just about the only thing I have ever enjoyed about Fables. There are any number of designs I might have picked out, I chose this one because it was relatively simple and I liked the djinn's rubbery look... it reminded me of Paul Pope's THB, another book that I always wanted to do a Covered version of... Anyways, this is my least favorite of my Covered pieces, but I guess its okay.

X-Men: Schism #2, after  Frank Cho, 2012

I was an X-MEn junkie during my teenage years, and I still peek my head into the franchise to see how it's doing (most recently with Wolverine and the X-Men, beautifully illustrated by Nick Bradshaw), even if I know I can't maintain any kind of patience with mainstream comics. Frank Cho is another one of these artists whom I adore, if somewhat from afar... I've never owned a comic he did, or one of those "Art of..." books either (I own cover books from bot Adam Hughes and James Jean and love both). Frank Cho can really, truly draw the hell out of stuff... but again, his ladies are maybe too bangin'. I love his cover here, tho', so rad and totally what I remember loving in the X-Men comics of my youth. I quite like my own version here, too.

Love & Rockets #31, after Jaime Hernandez, 2012

Finally, my most recent, and I guess final piece for Covered. Here, I felt like a fin de siecle artist copying one of the Renaissance Masters to help me learn my way. Jaime is just the best, and this cover is, I think, one of the most memorable and lovely of all time...which is remarkable, considering so little is going on here. Why does this speak to so many people?

Anyways, many thanks to Robert Goodin for running Covered, thanks to all the artists who created works for the blog, and finally, thanks to all the original creators who inspired all this work. I'll continue to do these kinds of exercises once in a while, which I will post here and on Tumblr. I hope some of the other Covered artists do, too.

· Ttian Thursday

New Titan episode on Study Group:

· SFZF This Weekend!

This weekend, swing by the SF County Fair BLDG for the 11th annual San Francisco Zine Fest!

Family Style and Press Gang will be represented by the indomitable Jonas Madden Connor, who has a new NSFW zine, "Jelly Fish Boner," debuting at the show!

· Titan + Tumblr

New Titan episode on Study Group:

And I don't think I've mentioned here that I finally have a more robust Tumblr presence, where I will be posting a rolling portfolio of comics, illustrations, and design work. Most recently, I posted this flyer design for Reed College (where I have just started up my final year!). Please follow me for a semi-steady drip of my art on your dashboard.

· Titan Thursday - Now Weekly!

I have a new installment of Titan up on the Study Group site today:

Also, Titan will now be returning to a weekly schedule! The installments will be broken up into two tiers, rather than three, which should allow me to keep to a rigorous weekly timetable... And that ends up being 1/3 more total comics per month! There are a couple of special pages coming up that will be full pages, too.

Thanks for all the kind feedback I have received on this series so far, and thanks for your patience as I juggle drawing Titan along with my other duties. Hope you enjoy it!

· Interview on Gridlords

I was interviewed by cartoonist/writer Suzette Smith for the most recent round of Gridlords, which is a monthly comics reading at the Waypost in N. Portland, put on by Sean Christensen, Emily Nillsen, and others. There are some process drawings for Titan there as well... Click here to read.

· Titan Thursday (A bit late)

A new page of my sci-fi serial Titan is up on the Study Group Comics website.

· The Lesson of the Master

Love and Rockets is celebrating its 30th anniversary this weekend at the San Diego Comic Con. I had been meaning to tackle one of Jamie Hernandez's covers for awhile now, and given the occasion I thought tonight would be a fine time to jump right into it. This was definitely nerve-racking... He really is the best.

I'll post again when the final of this runs, most likely on the Covered blog (or failing that, it can join this fellow attempt on the Rejected by Covered blog! Good company!). I don't usually post my Covered submissions before they run there, but I thought this little preview would be fine... It's not everyday that my favorite comic turns 30!

I will be working on a long-term academic project regarding Jaime Hernandez and his work on Locas in the coming year... Stay tuned for updates on that, too.

· Titan Thursday

A new page of my sci-fi thriller Titan is up today on the Study Group site...check it out!

· Owl Creek Redux - Process

I'm hard at work on some new illustrations for the Good Ink edition of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "Horseman in the Sky" by Ambrose Bierce... Scout Books brought out the first edition as part of the American Shorts box set, and we are reissuing it as a "War Stories" three pack (along with some wonderful stories with two amazing artists I'm delighted to be working with... More info at Scout Books as the titles come closer to fruition!). The book is newly typeset so there's more room for more images. Its great to work from Bierce's ultra-rich prose... Here are some pieces in process.

On the left: 


"The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great garden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance."


On the right:


"He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!"

· Titan Thursday

A new page of my sci-fi thriller Titan is up today on the Study Group site... check it out!

· Titan Thursday

A new page of my ongoing sci-fi serial Titan is up today on Study Group! Check it out!

· Art of Note Taking 6

English Lit. 303: The Death of Satan. An interesting interdisciplinary course on the changing attitudes in American culture towards Evil during the last two centuries. 

· Titan Returns

My sci-fi serial Titan is returning to the Study Group website starting today! Titan will be posting every other Thursday for the rest of the summer. 

· Art Of Note Taking 5

Notes from Russian Literature 372: 19th Century Russian Lit. I basically didn't know anything about the authors we covered (Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekov, Turgenez, Shchedrin, Goncharov, and more), so I think I talked a little less then I usually do in class and thus doodled more.

Back with more notes next week, as well as the return of Titan!