New web site!!!

Hey all:

I created a new web site for myself, check it out: The Portfolio of Mark D. Geyer

I'll be closing and transferring this blog soon.

Take care.

Art Jumble revamp

This is not new, but I haven't blogged about it so here it goes:
The brief history in Art Jumble designs
(I couldn't find a screen shot of what AJ looked like when we first started it (from Week 1-7), but I'll keep searching for it though.)
(First design > 8-28-2006)
The first design of Art Jumble was a very dark green color, as in you were posting images and text on a dark background with white text. It was truly very boring, bland, and looked like any other Blogger.com blog. It was hard of the eyes too.

(Redesign #1 > date: 10-22-2006)
Redesign #1 was much needed and was created for Week 8 of Art Jumble. This design or lack there of really set the tone of AJ as it looks today. Posting on white was a cleaner look (and easier to read obviously) also to make it more fun looking, a doodle was created by Gary Ham and AT-Eagle font headers were created. We stayed with this design until mid-2007.

(Redesign #2 > created: 6-18-2007)
Redesign #2 made the blog wider to give it some breathing room. I even experimented having a 3 column layout for a couple of days (no one liked that though, ha). A Flash top banner was introduced with this design, showing a blue character Greg Ham created called Arthur (anyone who's been with AJ for a while knows who I'm talking about). The basics of Redesign #1 followed through, just with a little more dynamics. This design stuck for a while though only adjusting the side column information at most.

(Redesign #3 > date: 2-9-2009)
Redesign #3 was updated earlier this year. Again with the dynamics of Flash, I souped up the header to have three modules - Artist spotlight, Submit a Topic, and introduced comic jumble (a Flash comic reader). Hopefully it looks a little better and people like it. Overall, Art Jumble started with less than 10 folks that all worked at the same place of employment, since then AJ has grown to have over 350+ members from people all over the world. AJ hosts some great posts, artists, illustrators, and designers. For all those involved in posting show some amazing skills. I'm thrilled to have been involved with AJ from the very beginning - I hope people share the same love I have for community blogs. Thanks for reading - now visit and be amazed: http://artjumble.blogspot.com

Booty sauce!

Molly (my daughter - 2.5) out of the blue said booty sauce and she thought it was hilarious - it was so funny! I know she knows what a booty is and what a sauce is - but the fact that she put the words together and knew that it sounded funny is awesome. Apparently, it's her way of saying bullshit, ha.
(Source: Urban dictionary)

New look...

Well, I'm working on a new look and it's under construction for the most part. But please stay tuned, I got some neat things planned. Also, I've used this blog primarily in the past as an illustration blog - but now I'm going to be using it as a news / design / family / photo / illustration / thought blog (an everything blog or in short, just a normal blog, ha). Plus I promise to post to it more, when I have time and all. K, stay tuned...

comic jumble™

comic jumble
comic jumble™ is a base for everyone to view Art Jumble anthologies, self-published comics, and web comics for FREE! You can join in on the fun too! If you have a comic or graphic novel created, what better way to get the word out, than to display it here! This is what I worked from to create CJ. Just figuring out the flow of things from screen to screen, checking things off as I went. I have other checklists and thumbnail drawings but this is where it all started. Enjoy!

CAKE v1 amp.az Article...

Here's a local article from amp.az about CAKE v1, check it out: http://amp.az/home/ViewPost/1997 Also, this story was run in the Saturday (7-5-08) in the Arizona Republic.

CAKE at Red Hot Robot!

If your in the Phoenix, AZ area - stop by and pickup CAKE volume one. All the artists will be there, so we'll all be a signing copies and just hanging out. Red Hot Robot - http://www.redhotrobot.net 14 W. Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ

CAKE, Volume One

(advanced copies)

2007-2008; anthologies & graphic novels...

I haven't posted here in since September 2007, sweet! I'll try to keep this so called "blog" updated whenever possible. There's actually a good reason for me not updating. Let's turn back time - through my work last year, our entire department got a free ride and hotel stay to attend San Diego for Comic-Con 2007, sweet huh? During lunch one of those days, my friend Robert Islas and I we're discussing how easy it would be to create a book with everyone in our department in it - we'd all create some illustrated stories & put it all together - get a booth at Comic-con next year - it'd be fun, right? Well... we did and it's done! It's in China being printed right now. It's called CAKE Volume 1 and it's an anthology of 176 pages, 10 artists and 11 stories presented by Art Jumble. I went in on this not knowing where to even start; I've never made a book before. Everything was approached logically from creating a project schedule to creating templates for the book format, meetings, yadda, yadda... All in all, it was made in a little over 5 months. It'll be here in mid-May and we also have a booth at Comic-Con 2008! Please check out everything here: http://the-cake-anthology.com. I'm currently planning CAKE, Volume 2 with Greg Ham. It's probably going to be twice as big as the first volume because we've invited several artists from Art Jumble that live all around the world to join in on the fun. It should be neat, please stay tuned for that!
Anthologies of 2007-2008 Because of CAKE, Volume 1 - I've done a lot of research about everything you need to know when making a book. Obviously, we are not the first people to create an anthology - so here's a list of anthologies that ROCK and/or are going to ROCK around Comic-Con 2008 week:
Flight, Volume 5 coming out July 22nd (Comic-Con week)
Flight Explorer, Volume 1
Out of Picture, Volume 1
Blue Sky Studios artists
Out of Picture, Volume 2 coming out June 3rd
Popgun, Volume 1
Popgun, Volume 2
Graphic Novels of 2007-2008 These are just a few well known graphic novels, there are a lot of them out there. These two come to mind because of their moods they set, action and just good old storytelling:
Bone, Volumes 1-7 (9 part series; volumes 8 & 9 are come out later this year)
I'm very excited that BONE is being turned into a movie (Warner Brothers). Jeff creates some great work and his paced story telling and inking skills are awesome!
Amulet, Volume 1 (5 part series; volume 2 comes out later this year)
I think Kazu is a robot - I'm not sure if he sleeps. Amulet got picked up by Warner Brothers too - these are very exciting times for Kazu. He has a deal with Scholastic for the first two books of Amulet, if they sell (which they will), Kazu will get to make the other three.

robber guy...

I don't know - I wouldn't trust this guy...

My Mona Lisa...

Typical Goth guy...

In school I was afraid of guys like this; long hair, black makeup around the eyes not sure if they ate flies but I wasn't willing to find out - very weird = yes...

My imaginary friend Wilbert the peli-can't...?

This is Wilbert, he's one of many imaginary friends.

bunnies...

Anna and Sasha...

Anna and Sasha are some of the main (lady) characters from a story I'm making for a new anthology book series coming out next year. Sasha is a lhasa apso with modified hair, in case you were wondering.

Greg's Beef & Raw-bite...

If this had a 'b' card, it would be called 'Slim Jim'.
Robert is my friend, lol...

Begging for food, again?

But you just ate...

DINO-HAUL®

A 'U-Haul' for cavemen AND cave women...

Aliens and Robots...

"Me love to eat robots..." 1 of 5 (Monday)
"Hello..." 2 of 5 (Tuesday)
"Ah yeah, over here..." 3 of 5 (Wednesday)
"..." 4 of 5 (Thursday)
"These aliens are quite scrumptious..." 5 of 5 (Saturday)
Finally done... :) May I suggest to never create/post 5 Art Jumble pieces in a week - you'll go crazy, like me (no sleep). Looking back at this series as a whole - it could use some beautifying, more mountainous background elements, clouds, more dead robots (for #1), etc. (I was focusing in on the characters a lot). But overall I'm happy with it - it tells a story and that's the main thing.