Cancellations

One of the worst parts of being hospitalized (and now dealing with the recovery from surgery) is having to either postpone or outright cancel some projects I'd been working on.
The cancellation that hurts the most though is a joint gallery show I was supposed to have this summer in Chicago with Jose Garibaldi. Thankfully the gallery seems like they're still interested in exhibiting us so there might still be a show in the future.
Here are a couple pictures of some paintings in progress.
-Mike

GEN13!

I think my run on Gen13 starts hitting the stands soon, so I thought I'd show some of the preliminary sketches I did of our heroes. They've really changed alot since these initial sketches, but this was my starting point.
-Mike

ps. please ignore the ancient costumes- embarrasingly I hadn't looked at an issue of Gen13 in about ten years. :P

Health Scare!

Hey, I'm back! Partially at least... It's crazy to think that tomorrow morning it'll already be a week since my surgery.
As many of my friends already know I've had some sort of mysterious ailment nagging me for months now. Frustrating in it's inconsistency, I could go for a week at a time without any noticeable problems and then relapse into some pretty scary episodes (ie: coughing up LOTS of blood).
I thought I had maybe shaken it for good around the beginning of May as I went to Dallas for the CAPE, partied, hit some record shops, hung out with some of my favorite artists and friends, and basically had an awesome time.
A couple days after coming back home though I was coughing up blood like a scene from a horror movie. Ugh!
Anyway the situation finally came to a head on May 14 and my doctor had me hospitalized. After a week of tests my doctor, a couple pulmonary doctors, a surgeon, his partner and a surgical resident all decided that I needed to have surgery to remove an infected part of my lung. So on the 20th I had the surgery and then two days later I was home, hopped up on painkillers and antibiotics. Which is basically where I am still a week later.
So all in all, a pretty significant life experience that as cheesy as it sounds has shaken my priorities and made me realize that my approach to life, my work and the people I care about has been pretty backwards. I'm just hoping now that as I get back to work in the next couple of days that I can hold on to this new view on things....
Cheers,
Mike

ps. Not that they're gonna be by here to read this, but I want to thank my Mom, Perry, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Steve for not only cancelling their vacation, but then driving fourteen hours straight just to hang out with me everyday in the hospital. Also huge amounts of thanks and love to my girlfriend Erin who's stuck with me through yet another difficult emotional ordeal. I couldn't have made it though this without you guys. Thank you!!!

pps. Thankfully earlier in the month I bought a new sketchbook as well as sweet Kuretake brush pen (thanks Kristian!) so I had something to do between reruns of Golden Girls in the hospital.