Roger the Scapegoat launched!

Roger the Scapegoat has officially been launched for the iPad by Appfluence LLC. It is available for 99 cents at the Apple's apps store. To purchase a copy, simply follow the link below:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/roger-the-scapegoat/id444064680?mt=8&ls=1#

For more information, visit Appfluence here.

Roger The Scapegoat - an iPad children's book

I'm very excited that Roger The Scapegoat is close to completion. Currently it is in the final stages of coding. This is the first iPad children's book project that I've participated in. Due to the nature of the medium, we're able to turn it into a choose-your-adventure type story, so that the narrative is not straightly linear. I will update with more information when the book is available.

Physics: Why Matter Matters!

I picked up Dan Green and Simon Basher's Physics: Why Matter Matters! during my trip to the Bay area last week. I was leaving the San Jose Tech Museum, walking pass the display window of the store, when Basher's vibrant illustrations literally pulled me back inside. I was ecstatic when I realized they're covers for a series of science books for kids.

Turns out Green and Basher have created a whole bunch of intro science books, including Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, even one dedicated to the periodic table. What makes their books stand out is the way Basher creates these incredibly adorable characters to represent various elements in each topic. For example, for the "old school" chapter of physics, Speed, Force, and Inertia were all represented by different characters (how do you turn something as intangible as INERTIA into a character? it's mind-boggling!), while Green's kid-friendly explanation gives a great introduction of what all these elements do.

I chose Physics: Why Matter Matters! over the others because, as a sci-fi fan, I've always been intrigued by physics. Also there's a whole chapter dedicated to "Wave Gang," which might be useful reference for writing BAIT (as opposed to, say, an hour-long video lecture from a quantum physics professor at MIT O_o). You can pick up a copy of Physics: Why Matter Matters! at amazon.

LA Times Festival of Books

I'll be attending the LA Times Festival of Books this Saturday. Come check out Snowball, LoPM, plus many other cool work at the Literacy Guild booth! There will be live acoustic performances as well.


-->LOCATION:
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 3551 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089

-->DATE
April 30 & May 1, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011 10am-6pm
Sunday, May 1, 2011 10am-5pm

-->EVENT LINK
http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/

-->BOOTH
The Literacy Guild @ Booth 566 McCarthy Quad (Near Target Booth )

-->USC PARKING $10
Best to park in USC structures near Figueroa and Jefferson intersection.
Parking Structure X (PSX)
Parking Structure D (PSD)
Parking Structure 2 (PSD)

--> Authors & Artists
Jacky Zhang
Wing Kwok http://baitcomics.blogspot.com/
Carissa Chen
Ida Shum http://www.flickr.com/photos/idashum/
Calvin Ru
Diana Chen
Melanie Chen
Derek Taylor Kent http://www.scaryschool.com/
Tina Tsai http://tinabot.blogspot.com/

-->ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCES

Saturday
GGFORCE - TBA

Sunday
Gu Zheng - 12-2pm
Random Ninjas - 2pm

new cover for LoPM

I just finished working on a new cover for tinabot's The Legend of Phoenix Mountain. I was very inspired by old Chinese sumi-e painting and the illustrations you often find in old editions of famous wuxia novels. At the same time, tinabot wanted the emphasis to be on the fusion of two cultures - Chinese and American, old and new, etc. So the result became something of a mix between sumi-e landscape paintings and classic fantasy imagery.

We will be promoting LoPM, along with Snowball and many other newly published work, at the Festival of the Books @ USC end of April. Stay tuned for more info!

NDPC got tron-ed

Made this new show flyer for our upcoming gig at the Neon Venus gallery using Tim's awesome NDPC logo. I was trying to play off the word "neon" and somehow it became very "tron" instead. All the image treatment was done in Nuke, because I was lazy and felt that I could achieve this look way faster in Nuke than Photoshop, hehe. XD

DEMO Volume 2

Just ordered my copy of DEMO Volume 2 today! I've read most of it already a few months ago, since my friend owned all the single issues. But for collection I tend to wait until the trade comes out.

Anyway, DEMO is a series of short stories, often told with a touch of sci-fi and mystery, written by Brian Wood with art done by Becky Cloonan. I've been following their work since Channel Zero: Jennie One...needless to say, I'm a huge fan. DEMO Volume 1 is one of my favorite graphic novels of all time, so I'm really looking forward to reading Volume 2 again.