Muties, Business Cards, and Pets for Pipers.

Hey all!
Sorry for the silence. I didn't have much to show, so I prefer to wait until I do to jabber to the anonymous intarwebs.
Above is my latest piece for Jon Foster (and the product of a day and night's work including breaks for food, RCB, and a Dentist appointment). It's been a crazy day.
We were assigned to re-do the cover to Marvel's Muties #1, a story in which a picked-on kid (Jared) comes to school to shoot the jocks who have made his life miserable, and ends up finding out that the main jock (Dunk) is a mutant, who he shoots in cold blood. Fun. Then the kid's hailed as a hero for killing a mutant and we're out.
So that fun-filled angst-a-coaster called back all the fun of high school. I went with this option because it was the only one I was a little bit excited about that I could complete under deadline, and it meant I got to make up awkward high school characters :) (all of whom were individually illustrated and inked, even the cropped ones...it was an exercise in baby-killing to crop, shrink, and degrade them to yearbook quality.) It was probably most fun naming them :)
It's pretty specific to the book itself, but I hope you enjoy it. At least you know what I've been doing with my time recently.

I went on a very pleasant Spring Break to see my friend Beth in Virginia, and now I am back to the grind of assignments. This time is going to be intense. I have a LOT of work to do in very little time. It was a little weird coming back to school from what must have amounted to my last Spring Break ever and knowing that this is kind of the last leg. I know I'm likely to depress the crap out of some people out there, so I'll shut up about that for now.
Still, this next bit is going to be HAIRY. I'm looking down the barrel of a massive amount of comic-book work that still needs to be completed (read: polished, pencils are done...it's all inks and colors from here). And to add heat to already tight deadlines, this upcoming week is our Portfolio review (companies coming to chat with juniors and seniors and exchange business cards) and this year, for the first time I've seen, MARVEL STUDIOS is coming to RISD. So, yeah, that's sort of a thing.
In preparation for that, I have some business card designs I've been working on. My favorite of which, that I think I'm gonna send to the printers post-haste, is this:

Let me know what you think!
Other news: I've just been given permission to say so: One of the secret comic projects I've been alluding to is a project for Dark Horse Studios! (yay!) It's just a two-pager, but I'm quite excited about it. It will be published in an upcoming issue of Myspace Dark Horse Presents. Then bound up and published in an anthology of that work that will be available on amazon.com!
Yup: my first legit published gig! I'm excited, and I will be keeping y'all updated as it develops. I can't show much, of course. But I think I can say, it's called "Piper's Pet" and it's about fishing. That's all you get for now :p

Also: Ok. I know everyone's not likely a Counting Crows fan out there...but they are one of my favorite bands. I've recently rediscovered a song they did for none other than the "Mr. Deeds" Soundtrack. They actually exclusively wrote a song for (and about) that film which failed completely to lodge itself in the canon of great American films. However the song rocks, and it's my musical recommendation for today. It's SUPER hard to track down. I don't know this guy, and I'm not recommending watching his slide show, but it's the only place I could find the song:

Counting Crows - Goin' Down to New York Town

God is good. Thanks for reading. More work soonish!
-Nick