STEELERS!

just a simple little shout o' WAHOOOOOOOOOO for the black and gold!

some of you may or may not know that i've been a diehard Steelers fan since i was a little kid.

surrrrre i'm a california boy, but i've always loved the Pittsburgh Steelers.

well, they fought a tough game yesterday against their HUGE rivals the baltimore ravens, and they were able to triumph and earn a trip to the upcoming Superbowl XLIII !! wow what a great game it was! so exciting!

wahoooooooooo!

:)

anyway, the ironic thing is that this weekend i will be going to Arizona as a guest of the Phoenix Comiccon and the Arizona Cardinals are going to the superbowl too, to play the Steelers. congrats to the Cardinals by the way. so i may not wear too much steelers stuff, but i'll certainly be proud 'o my team.

sooooooooooo looking forward to the Superbowl!

:)

take care and all the best,

mike . . .

Merry Christmas !

hey everyone,

i hope you all have a great Christmas and merry New Year!
:)
and, if you get a chance in the midst of your last minute shopping(i know i will be doing that) to visit your local comic store on Christmas Eve(since Wednesday is new comic day still ;) ) then don't forget to check out the latest issue of Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!
i hope you dig it.

and i also hope you had a goood '08 and find yourself heading to an absolutely amaaaazzzzzing '09!

take care and all the best,
mike . . .

Some fun Sketch cards

hey everyone,

so waaaay earlier this year i did some of the Marvel Masterpiece Sketch Cards. it was really fun to draw characters that i've never drawn before. anyway, i guess they are out now, so here are some of the images so you know what your looooooking for.
i really hope you like 'em.
and lemme know if you find any.
:)
enjoy!
take care and all the best,
mike . . .

My friend Jason does coool books . . .

hey everyone,

i just wanted to encourage you all to go visit my friend Jason Lethcoe's new website.
Jason and i have been friends since high school. we've worked with each other at Disney and other studios. we live only about 2 blocks from each other with our families growing up together. aaaaaand we even share an office together. (gosh, it all sounds so "Frank and Ollie-ish", when i describe it. ahahahahaha) ;)
so, i guess essentially i'd say he's a pretty good friend. :)
well, he has been a director and storyboard artist and writer for many years in animation, AND recently he's been writing children's novel series' for Random House Books and Penguin Books. . . .Zoom's Academy, Benjamin Piff, The Mysterious Mr. Spines , just to name few. . .
sooooo, please take the time to go visit his fun lil' new website.
his books are totally all ages and so much great fun. check them out at Amazon or Barnes & Noble or your local book shop.
here's his site . . .www.jasonlethcoe.com

enjoy and send him a hello when you get the chance.

take care and all the best,
m . . .

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam #1

hey everyone,

SHAZAM!
:)
well the fun day is here.
Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam #1 is finally in stores.
whew! i'm so glad to share this new book series with everyone.
DC Comics has been awesome and i'm having the time of my life working on this project.
please go check it out at your local comic shop, and i really hope you all enjoy it.
:)
and if you want any more info on it please visit all the fun Captain Marvel goodness at my official Shazam Blog.

take care and all the very best,
mike . . .

My Gym Partner is a Monkey

well everyone,

as i'm looking at all the stuff i've been working on, i realized i never put up any of the crazy stuff from Cartoon Network when i worked on Gym Partner. so here are some images from the show. some designs are from the ROBO-3000 episode where all the characters became robots and the other is for the SPIFFANO episode where they spoofed the Sapranos.

aaaaaaaaaaaand, please keep your fingers and toes crossssssed because for some crazy reason they've submitted my work for Emmy consideration for the show.
:)
maaaaaaaaybe i'll have good news next month when they announce the nominees.
maybe.
anyway, hope you all like. it was a very fun show to work on.
:)

all the best,
mike . . .

Fun Kid Stuff

hey everyone,
hope you are allll doing well and getting ready for a fun summer.
we've had a whirlwind of a year at the ol' kunkel homestead. it'll be nice to settle down and try and relax a little bit.
in fact, are some of the things that kept me busy here and there for my kiddos. from school to church to sports, they were images for all sorts o' different activities that they were part of.

anyway, hope you like. don't forget to spend extra time this summer relaxing and enjoying good company.
:)
all the best,
mike . . .

Wizard World LA recap

hey everyone,

well, it was a great weekend. lotsa fun and a lot of great people came by.
thank you to all of you.


i went to the kids area once a day and did sketches for the kids that were at the con and hopefully helped them have an even more good time at the show.
me and my kiddos, my wife and my brother in law all had fun at the booth/table. there was a lot of excitement for my upcoming Captain Marvel series, so it was fun to share some new images with everyone and talk about it with the fans. everyone was super anxious and supportive of it.
thank you all so much! :)
my son got to have fun in the Guitar Hero competition, my daughter did drawings and helped protect the giant Herobear Plush so no one would sneak off with it. ;) we had a number of people wanting our mascot, but he is the guardian of my kiddos so i can't let this particular one go. maybe we'll make some official ones someday. :) all in all, it was a fun time . . .




there was also of course a bunch of amazingly talented artists and writers all around. i'm always in awe of the people around at conventions . . . .some friends and some that i got to meet finally. . . Darwyn Cooke, Dave Bullock, Daniel Bradford, Tim Bradstreet, Cheeks!, Danny Miki, Michael Golden, Jimmy Palmiotti, J. Scott Campell, Jeph Loeb, and plenty more.

i got to know Michael Golden at the Arizona Convention and he's been a great guy, really supporting and enjoying Herobear. i'm tremendously honored that he enjoys it. . .

Danny Miki was there too. he got to enjoy peeking at the Captain Marvel Transpositioning Decodifier . . .

also, friends from DC were there . . . Dan Didio and Bob Wayne( on the ends) and also, the amazingly talented Darwyn Cooke(yellow hat) . . .
finally, what would a convention be without Peter Parker and his girls. this group was walking around the convention saying hi to everyone. i thought it was a brilliant "group" costume. Peter and all his loves . . . aunt may, mary jane, betty brant, black cat, and gwen stacy. turns out they allllll love Herobear. who knew? ;)
anyway. . . all this babbling to say that i had a lot of fun this weekend and i wanted to say thank you to all the fans and new fans that came by. thanks so much!
some fans were wondering if we sell the Herobear and Sokmunster stuff online and i said, "Oh yess! i'll even autograph it for ya. " :)
so if you are looking for anything, please visit the Astonish Store for our books and stuff.
:)

all the best,
mike . . .
p.s. alsoooooooooooodon't forget to check out the Decoder give away from this convention that i'll be posting on the Shazam blog. also some other updates on things and lotsa goodness. :)

Wizard World LA 2008

hey everyone,

just wanted to let you know that i'll be at Wizard World LA this weekend!
hope to see you there. i'll be in artist alley, so here's my table/booth info . . .

ARTIST ALLEY: Mike Kunkel #2590

it should be a lot of fun!
we'll have lotsa Herobear and Sokmunster stuff. you can see the upcoming Lunchbags stuff. and alsooooooo, #3 of the Captain Marvel Decoders will be there and will be presented to a verrrrrry lucky fan.
:)
so please stop by!

take care and all the best,
mike . . .

Land of Sokmunster Magazine AD

hey all,
well, we were treated to a very nice surprise lately.
there is a magazine called COOKIE. it is a very fun family magazine with cool stuff for kids and parents. wellllllllll, they had an ad/article in the latest issue about kids clothes and stuff and in one of the full page pictures, they showed a couple kids in a library . . . and lo, and behold what are they reading???!
que dramatic music here . . . ;) they are reading The Land of Sokmunster.
we were blown away by this awesome surprise and have had a number of people seeing it and it has been really tremendous. we're very thankful for cool press!

more Sokmunster news coming soon. some of it coming from France . . . ;)

take care and all the best,
m . . .