SPX... man, I'm overwhelmed... It was a really, really great weekend... good friends... new friends... lots of beautiful new books... great new discoveries... good food... late nights of endless conversations about comic books, publishing, and how to survive this crazy artistic pursuit of being a cartoonist... i can't thank you all enough.
The great Gahan Wilson (who was one of the reasons I would steal Playboy Magazines from the flea market when I was a kid) was there to promote his new book from Fantagraphics and he also gave this hilarious presentation at the Ignatz Awards:
(above photo of me is by the great cartoonist, and apparently great photographer Nate Beaty. he has a series of nice portraits of cartoonists here.)
And here are my photos.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
SPX...
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
SPX this weekend
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
I'm on the Covered Blog again...
Another one of my Horror Comic Covers is posted up at the Covered Blog.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
"Tom Neely is one sick puppy"
Another positive review of Your Disease Spread Quick:
"I wish I could say I was more of a Melvins fan, but I’m not. I don’t NOT like them, just haven’t listened to them enough. Regardless, if their music is anything like Tom Neely’s artwork, then they’ve gotta be worth checking out. Neely’s comically macabre illustrations are amazing and the sporadic bubbles of Melvins lyrics are thrown in just the right places. My favorite part by far was the bazooka-joe-esque panel comic on the back where the Melvins defeat Satan himself with the help of some special pastries. Tom Neely is one sick puppy!"
Buy it directly from me here! Buy it from Hydra Head Records here! Order it for your store from Tony Shenton or e-mail me for more info.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Reviews
Here's a couple of nice reviews.
First, a review of The Blot from a blog in Singapore called Power of Pop:
"...Despite not being about anything concrete per se, I felt drawn to Neely’s “hero” to his ups and downs and to his seeming helplessness in the face of cruel and fickle circumstances. There seems so much pain and darkness in these cartoony figures that I found it disturbing and carthatic at the same time. It’s not often that our fiction gives us enough space to insert our own emotions and thoughts into the expression but that’s exactly what The Blot does. And for this reason, I would highly recommend The Blot – its simplicity belies the depth of soul that is plumbed. It will give you endless hours of contemplation…"Read the full review here.
Next is a round-up of mini-comics that includes a short review of my latest mini-comic Self Indulgence that I debuted at San Diego Comic Con.
"This little mini is a wordless bit of body comedy/horror from an artist who combination of bigfoot drawing and naturalism creates an unsettling atmosphere. The concept is simple: a pair of naked twins faces each other and one starts eating the other whole. As he's doing this, his twin is excreted out the other side, until the original image is duplicated as the book's final panel. With Neely, the fun is in the visceral, inky details and exaggerated body language. The way he elongates arms and legs while drawing pubic hair in exacting detail is the sort of thing that creates the old/new tension in his comics, a visual signature of sorts. I believe he customizes the cover for this comic when purchased at conventions (he did a drawing of the wolf from THE BLOT on mine), which is just a bonus for this beautiful comic."Read the full round-up here.
I will have the remaining copies of the limited edition of Self Indulgence available at SPX later this month.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Happy Birthday Jack Kirby!
Today woulda been his 92nd Birthday.
Here's a drawing of The Inhumans I did back in 2004 when I was drawing everything "Fleischer-Popeye Style":
But stop looking at that, and go look at some art by the King!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Inkstuds Mix Tape #666: CORPSEGRINDER
Robin McConnell is asking several cartoonists to put together a playlist of songs for The Inkstuds radio show mixtape series.
My mixtape is #6(66) in the series and I've named it "Corpsegrinder" after my favorite song on Zak Sally's new album.
Making a mixtape is something I've done hundreds of times. I think I probably made my first mix tape around the 3rd grade. I've always taken these things seriously. I dig through stacks of c.d.s and records and listen to hours of music trying to figure out what I want to do. This list started out as a diverse mix of jazz, country, punk, pop and (of course) metal, but the original cut was over 4 hours long. So, I started weeding things out for various reasons. Eventually I decided on a theme that leaned more towards the aggressive side and centered mostly around what I've been listening to the most this summer- grindcore, crust punk and avant garde jazz.
And because I'm a bit OCD with these things, I decided to make this virtual online playlist as an actual mixtape with a carefully selected musical arc on both Side A and Side B. I even timed it all out so that it would be exactly 66 minutes 6 seconds long*. I have always made cover art for my mixtapes, so I did the same here. If you are so inclined, you can print out the cover and dub the mix onto a blank tape and rock it on your walkman.
Anyway... I spent way too much time working on this, but it was a lot of fun. I don't really expect anyone to enjoy it (I can think of only a handful of friends who might also enjoy this mix), but maybe you will. Check it out.
*don't worry mom, I'm not really a Satanist, I just like the music.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
a couple more convention sketches...
I know these are all kinda violent, but your mind goes to strange places while sitting at a booth for several days selling comics.
Groo:
See more of Matthew Brady's Groo sketchbook here.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Don't miss Levon Jihanian's turtles and more of Jacob Covey's ninja turtle sketchbook here.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
sketches...
At conventions, people often ask me to do a sketch in their artist sketchbooks. These are sketchbooks you take to conventions with you and have all the artists do sketches in them. It's a great way to collect art by your favorite artists, and usually they don't charge you anything for it. Sometimes the sketchbooks have a theme like "eating" or "moon knight." I prefer when someone gives me a theme, because it pulls me out of my own head and forces me to draw something in a different way.
Here are a few of my sketches that have been posted to flickr:
Nancy:
(see more Nancys by many great artists at Matthew Seidan's flickr)
and a very disturbing Yoda:
(see more Yodas at Mike Baehr's flickr)
Monday, August 17, 2009
Inkwads review
The Willamette Week has a short, but nice write-up of the INKWADS show at Grass Hut Gallery.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Inkwads opening at Grass Hut
Here are pictures of the Inkwads Opening posted on my Flickr.
UPDATE: whoops, i had the wrong link posted for purchasing the artwork... it's fixed now. Go here to purchase art from this show.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Horror Show Tonight!
Horrific #3 and Creepy #46 are 18 x 24 inches and $500 each
The other 8 are 11 x 14 inches and $300 each
They are all watercolor, gouache and ink on paper and framed.
contact Grass Hut at 503-445-9924
or grasshut.corp@gmail.com
Also- Check out Hellen Joe's pieces for the show.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Horror covers...
Another one of my horror covers is up over at the Covered blog.
Check out my Adventures Into Terror #21!
Monday, August 03, 2009
Grass Hut show in Portland!
I'm in a group show opening this Friday at Grass Hut in Portland.
I'm showing 10 reimagined classic horror comic book covers. Above is my Forbidden Worlds #24. See the original by Ken bald here. You can see another one here. And here.
INKWADS
Hellen Joe, Kiyoshi Nakazawa, Brent Wick, John Black
and ME- Tom Neely!
at Grass Hut
811 East Burnside
Portland, OR 97214
Opens Friday, August 7th from 6-10 pm
The show will be up all month.
I'll be there. If you're in Portland, come by and check it out.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Only 6 Moby Dick prints left!
I still have 6 Moby Dick prints left after Comicon.
These are the last of the edition of 30 giclée prints.
Order them now from the iwilldestroyyou store.
$200 includes shipping.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
"...why isn't this Neely guy a superstar?"
Somehow my Google alerts missed Tucker Stone's nice review of two of my comics.
Nothing against any of the people at MoCCA, but why isn't this Neely guy a superstar? Some of the stuff that you get at MoCCA showcases this amazing level of talent obscured only by youth and inexperience, but Brilliantly Ham-Fisted is only recognizable to me as what's called a "mini-comic" because I'm buying it from Neely himself. Maybe it's because he doesn't have enough out there yet, or maybe it's because not enough people have checked out The Blot--whatever it is, it's always a great opportunity to see a cartoonist jack around with the format and release "23 comic strip poems", all of which are presented in the sort of four panel layouts you might see in a newspaper that had wider margins. Similar in tone to the idea that Yoshihiro Tatsumi described at the PEN World Voices event earlier this year (honest work in gag strip panels dealing with emotion), each of these "poems" is a scattershot attack on moment, dealing out a random Ziggy-like joke before watching a little cartoon man slam his head repeatedly against the panels that contain him. On his way out of frame, a voice calls out "I thought he'd never leave." His response? "That hurt".
I think that's the first time I've been compared to Ziggy.
He also reviews Your Disease Spread Quick. Read the whole article here.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tattoos?
I'm curious if anyone else out there has any tattoos based on my artwork. I'd love to see them. Please send me pictures.
This guy has a tattoo of a drawing I did of Ahab from Moby Dick.
Thanks for putting my artwork on your body forever!
It's always nice to meet another Moby Dick fanatic.
Here's the original drawing and a close-up of the tattoo. 
I have more photos from the con on my flickr.
