You make me smile..

April got our pal and super-artist among mere mortals, Joe Quinones to do yet another Superman riding Devil Dinosaur for my birthday!
I cannot believe it's taken me this long to post this as it is unbelievably awesome.

Champion of the sun..

Someone has come to my blog by Googling the phrase "every single thing in the solar system".

This is awesome to me.

You know what else is awesome?


JEMMA!
Artist extraordinaire and SuperFriend, Jemma Salume drew this for me for my birthday.
If you're having a hard time even processing all of the awesome that's taking place, what you are seeing is me (chrishaley) riding on the back of a dragon in my rock 'n roll star-powered sparkle pants with my best friends Scott Pilgrim and All Star Superman after having just defeated God in a game of checkers.

I am certainly one of the luckiest people around to have friends like this.
Friends who are able to fully grasp my awesomeness.
Jemma is the best.

I can't make out any of the faces..

Continuing my "one-man-meme" of Superman Riding Devil Dinosaur!

This one was given to me by the guy with not only the best name in comics, but possibly the best name in history ever, Zander Cannon!

Oh, look!

The Spirit, Superman, and Scott Pilgrim by Jon Morris!

These are currently on their merry way to me!
I could not be more excited!
Look at all these exclamation marks!!!
And, as a bonus, I'm responsible for one of my favorite artists checking out (and subsequently loving) SCOTT PILGRIM!
I am the champions, my friends!
Hit the link (up there) for Jon's commentary on the matter.
Also, we are now officially even for my mistakingly attributing something Corey Lewis said as something you said, Bryan Lee O'Malley!

You crack me up..

Adam Chamberlain from American Virgin by Becky Cloonan ... for me.

Curt and I met Becky Cloonan for the first time at SDCC last year.

I'll spare you the details of how this meeting led to Curt's undying love of Ms. Cloonan, but the point is she was very cool.

As luck would have it, we ended up with a table right across from her table at MoCCA and got to talk to her again. Mostly I let Curt talk to her about the PS3.

I'm rambling.

Look, all I'm trying to say is she drew this for me and it's completely awesome.

We're halfway through...

Evan Dorkin drew this for me at MoCCA... even after we made a murderous monster of him in our comic.

He was very funny to talk to even though I was incredibly nervous that he would hate us... and, you know, kill us.

It's like a disease, son..

Speaking of Final Crisis, Orion is a pretty crucial character in that series, and thanks to Joel, I am the proud owner of the original art from this awesome Michael Cho pin-up.
I'm a very lucky dude.

I don't know if you got a man or not..

SUPERMAN RIDES AGAIN!

I am incredibly grateful for how often I find myself blessed with awesomeness.

This particular bit of excellence was drawn for me by the amazing Joel Carroll.

Art I'm proud to own.

Aquaman Vol. 6 #25
Page 17.
Pencils : Patrick Gleason
Inks : Mick Gray

I bought this from Patrick Gleason himself at San Diego Comic-Con last year.
He didn't believe me when I told him, but he was one of the people I was most excited to meet... and I also met Darth Vader and Power Girl. So, you know, that says something.
Anyway, he was cool to Curt and I as we talked to him about whatever goofy comic business we talked to him about, and he's even dropped by this blog a time or two (which I, of course, completely geeked out about in private).
I think his run on Aquaman (though not nearly long enough) was the best the character has probably ever looked and this incredibly dynamic page is a perfect example.

You're invincible!

Who knew Superman riding a red dinosaur would someday be declared so universally awesome?


I did.
That's why when the incredible Jon Morris says he will draw something for you, you have to swing for the fences and ask him to draw Superman riding Jack Kirby's Devil Dinosaur.
And that's just what I did last year.

So, on Monday I told you about this awesome post that Thomas at Say It Backwards had put up about the greatest thing ever purchased for $3.
Well, apparently the person responsible for a blog I love, Super Punch, stopped by in time to catch it.
I'm to understand it started making it's way around to other blogs as well as making a monumentous appearance on another site I love, Neatorama.
Then thanks to Neatorama, it managed to find it's way to Newsarama's blog!
Even though the Newsarama one didn't link back here or anything, it was still really exciting to think that I helped something get to that point.
And I've had a ton of new traffic here today thanks to the ones that did "via" Hip Today.
Maybe some of them will even visit again someday!

See Thomas, I told you SIB was awesome. Aren't you glad you came back to us?
Impossibles continue to be conquered!

Cosmic Boy by Mike Wieringo!

This is a sketch of Cosmic Boy as drawn by Mike Wieringo that I am very proud to own.
It is completely awesome.

Watch your six..

One of the best things I brought back from San Diego was this great sketch of Superboy by Joel.
I see Joel all the time here at home (we had dinner last night as a matter of fact), but within the confines of the Comic-Con it seemed okay to force him to draw something for me.

There are 3 notes on this picture.
I even made a point of taking a fanboy picture with him.

The kind I'd like to meet...

Here's another Guy Smith I got at Comic-Con.
This one is by Scott Kurtz of PVP fame.
As you should be able to tell from the sketch, Scott was well acquainted with the character, which equals to awesomeness.
I had originally asked him to draw Superman because I'd been having such poor luck with people knowing who Guy was. Fortunately, Scott seemed to be having a hard time coming up with something Superman-y, so I thought, "Why not ask if he read X-Statix?"
He lit up at the prospect of drawing The Orphan instead of the Man of Steel.
Lesson learned.

Just when you get on a roll..

Here's one of the great pieces of art I got while I was at Comic-Con.
This is The Orphan/Mr. Sensitive/Guy Smith from X-Force/X-Statix as drawn for me by Ryan Ottley.
He wasn't familiar with the character, but after flipping really quickly through an issue I had with me, Mr. Ottley was able to come up with a pose and expression that was so appropriate for Guy.
Ryan Ottley is an incredible artist.. who has no idea who Deathstroke is.
Well, that's what Scott Kurtz told me.

It's so dark.

So here's one of the Flashes Jason Latour drew for me that I have now colored.
Below are 3 alternate versions of the same coloring job.. the backgrounds are different.

Feel free to tell me which of the 4 you prefer.

Is it because I'm very young?

So, how'd you like to hear about something that's made me really mad at myself?
Good, because I'm in a mood to talk about it.
Check out these two pictures of The Flash by Jason Latour..




Awesome, right?
Well, here's the deal, Jason did both of those for me. This was 2-4 years ago. He mailed them to me along with a great mini-comic he'd done. You can imagine how excited I was to have these.
Somehow I've managed to have no idea where they are.
I mean, I know they have to be in the house somewhere, but I can't find them for the life of me.
This makes me literally angry with rage.