The Tin Lizard Comic Art Archives

Logo I created for the A Reel Education podcast

1 files, last one added on Mar 26, 2013
Album viewed 1 times

Pencils and inks by John Kovalic
Colors by Melissa Kaercher

John did a piece of art for a new video series called Geek Seekers, and asked me to do the colors. I couldn't decide what I liked best, so I did a couple variations.

2 files, last one added on Mar 16, 2012
Album viewed 24 times

Created for the Big Fun Radio Funtime stage show.

1 files, last one added on Feb 04, 2013
Album viewed 0 times

Logo created for the Geeks Without God podcast.

1 files, last one added on Jul 12, 2012
Album viewed 1 times

Pencils and inks by John Kovalic
Colors by Melissa Kaercher

Camden is a market-themed tile-laying game by Gamesmith. I was brought in to color the card and box art.

5 files, last one added on Feb 06, 2013
Album viewed 2 times

Digital sketches made live at the final dress rehearsal for the Minnesota Opera's 2011 production of La Traviata. Images posted online by the Minnesota Opera.

4 files, last one added on Apr 01, 2012
Album viewed 14 times

Logo for The Geek Life podcast

1 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 4 times

Cover art for the Webcomic Beacon podcast

1 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 4 times

Flyer made for The Goondas 2010 tour.

1 files, last one added on Apr 01, 2012
Album viewed 5 times

Created in the women's bathroom of the now-defunct 501 Club, during the opening party for the Minneapolis Indie Xpo.

Artists:
Rhea Ewing
Kimberley Long-Ewing
Stacie Arellano
Lee & Lisa Blauersouth
Melissa Kaercher

4 files, last one added on Apr 01, 2012
Album viewed 13 times

Written by C. E. Murphy
Pencils by Adrian Syaf
Colors/Inks by Jason Embury
Letters by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dabel Brothers

5 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 10 times

Written by C. E. Murphy
Pencils by Adrian Syaf
Colors/Inks by Jason Embury
Letters by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dabel Brothers

6 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 7 times

Written by C. E. Murphy
Pencils by Adrian Syaf
Colors/Inks by Jason Embury
Letters by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dabel Brothers

4 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 5 times

Written by C. E. Murphy
Pencils/Inks by Adrian Syaf, Aleksandar Sotirovski
Inks by Jason Embury, Sinishar
Colors by Jason Embury
Letters by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dabel Brothers

6 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 5 times

Written by C. E. Murphy
Pencils/Inks by Adrian Syaf
Colors by Jason Embury
Letters by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dabel Brothers

5 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 5 times

Written by Christopher Mills
Pencils by Joe Staton
Inks by Horacio Ottolini
Colors by Melissa Kaercher

This is one of those projects that I saw and said, "Wow! I want to work on THAT!" The pencils and inks were gorgeous, and I just looked at the artwork with art-lust in my heart and a WACOM pen in my hand.

9 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 10 times

Written by Christopher Mills
Pencils by Joe Staton
Inks by Horacio Ottolini
Colors by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Ape Entertainment

5 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 5 times

Line art by Adam DeKraker
Colored and by Melissa Kaercher
Appearing in Wild Cards
Published by Green Ronin Publishing

These pieces are illustrative art for a role-playing game adaptation of George R.R. Martin's collaborative chort story series, Wild Cards.

4 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 15 times

Pencils/tones by Mike Zeck
Colored and by Melissa Kaercher
Appearing in Wild Cards
Published by Green Ronin Publishing

These pieces are illustrative art for a role-playing game adaptation of George R.R. Martin's collaborative chort story series, Wild Cards.

10 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 11 times

Pencils and inks by Tom Mandrake
Colored and by Melissa Kaercher
Appearing in Wild Cards
Published by Green Ronin Publishing

These pieces are illustrative art for a role-playing game adaptation of George R.R. Martin's collaborative chort story series, Wild Cards.

14 files, last one added on Mar 29, 2012
Album viewed 31 times

Written by Tim Seeley
Penciled by Becky Laff
Inked by Barbara Schulz
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Troma

This short appeared as part of Troma's Lloyd Kaufman Presents: The Toxic Avenger And Other Tromatic Tales trade paperback.

6 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 16 times

Written by Tim Seeley
Penciled by Becky Laff
Inked by Barbara Schulz
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Troma

This short appeared as part of Troma's Lloyd Kaufman Presents: The Toxic Avenger And Other Tromatic Tales trade paperback.

3 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 9 times

Written by John Kovalic
Penciled and Inked by Christopher Jones
Colored and Lettered by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dork Storm Press

2 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 14 times

Pencils and Inks by Terry Beatty
Colors by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Penguin Books

This book cover was generated for the Max Allen Collins novel, A Killing in Comics.

The specific instructions for this piece were to make it look like a battered Golden Age comic, warts and all. Besides just coloring the piece, I replicated the lithographic dot patterns, paper grain, faded inks, printing errors, and yellowed paper in PhotoShop.

1 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 6 times

Written by Tim Seeley
Penciled by Mike Norton
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Image Comics

Mike Norton and I only worked on half the issue.

7 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 7 times

Written by Trey Wickwire
Penciled by Steven Yarbrough
Inks by Dylan Johnson
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Letters by Richard Nelson
Published by Visionary Comics

Mamluk Rescue is a 6-page launch for a much larger epic, involving human mercenaries, alien races, and space pirates. Visionary published this short online in May 2007, so you can read the finished product here.

6 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 3 times

Penciled by Steve Erwin
Inked by Charles Barnett III
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Capstone Press

Capstone Press produces historical and biographical comics for schoolkids. Their format is a little different from most comics companies, in that the end product is about half the size of a regular comic, and is hardbound. The pages are worked on in side-by-side spreads, rather than individually, which gives us artists the unique opportunity to actually know for sure what pages will face each other in the final book.

3 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 4 times

Written by Kay Melchisedech Olson
Penciled by Richard Dominguez
Inked by Charles Barnett III
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Capstone Press

Capstone Press produces historical and biographical comics for schoolkids. Their format is a little different from most comics companies, in that the end product is about half the size of a regular comic, and is hardbound. The pages are worked on in side-by-side spreads, rather than individually, which gives us artists the unique opportunity to actually know for sure what pages will face each other in the final book.

5 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 7 times

Written by Mary Dodson Wade
Penciled by Rod Whigham
Inked by Charles Barnett III
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Capstone Press

Capstone Press produces historical and biographical comics for schoolkids. Their format is a little different from most comics companies, in that the end product is about half the size of a regular comic, and is hardbound. The pages are worked on in side-by-side spreads, rather than individually, which gives us artists the unique opportunity to actually know for sure what pages will face each other in the final book.

3 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 5 times

Penciled by Gordon Purcell
Inked by Terry Beatty
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Capstone Press

Capstone Press produces historical and biographical comics for schoolkids. Their format is a little different from most comics companies, in that the end product is about half the size of a regular comic, and is hardbound. The pages are worked on in side-by-side spreads, rather than individually, which gives us artists the unique opportunity to actually know for sure what pages will face each other in the final book.

3 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 6 times

Written by John Kovalic
Penciled and Inked by Christopher Jones
Colored and Lettered by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dork Storm Press

2 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 9 times

Written by John Kovalic
Penciled and Inked by Christopher Jones
Colored and Lettered by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dork Storm Press

This issue of Dr. Blink exclusively contained short stories. Three of the tales were new (including an Alex Robinson Ultra-Gal/Dr. Blink crossover), and the rest were reprints of the shorts seen in various issues of Dork Tower.

The pages seen here are samples from the new material.

3 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 16 times

Written by Michael O'Hearn
Pencilled by Phil Miller
Inked by Charles Barnett III
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Capstone Press

Capstone Press produces historical and biographical comics for schoolkids. Their format is a little different from most comics companies, in that the end product is about half the size of a regular comic, and is hardbound. The pages are worked on in side-by-side spreads, rather than individually, which gives us artists the unique opportunity to actually know for sure what pages will face each other in the final book.

4 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 10 times

Penciled and Inked by John Kovalic
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Fantasy Flight Games

I got a panicked e-mail from John one fine Friday, begging for my coloring wizardry for the cover of the new edition of Mag*Blast. The art would need to be finished for Monday morning. No problem! I even upgraded to PhotoShop CS2 for the occasion.

Little did I know that CS2 had a terrible glitch that raises its ugly head when you combine it with Mac OSX 10.4.5 and a Wacom tablet. If you try to use a scatter brush under these conditions, the program bombs horribly.

This happened a lot. I must have lost four hours of work in three separate crashes on two different computers. See, when my G5 died from the poisoned scatter brush, I attempted to use my G4 laptop while the G5 went through extensive disk repairs. Silly me. I killed the G4 as well.

The sad thing is that I had Christopher Jones' brand new (as in, never yet used) G5 Macintosh in my studio... and I didn't think to move my work to that machine. (Not that it would have helped.)

Yet despite these setbacks, the piece was completed and turned in at 8 AM, Monday morning.

1 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 6 times

Written by Connie Colwell Miller
Penciled by Steve Erwin
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Capstone Press

Capstone Press produces historical and biographical comics for schoolkids. Their format is a little different from most comics companies, in that the end product is about half the size of a regular comic, and is hardbound. The pages are worked on in side-by-side spreads, rather than individually, which gives us artists the unique opportunity to actually know for sure what pages will face each other in the final book.

I personally really enjoyed working on this book, and thought it turned out very well.

4 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 4 times

Penciled and Inked by Christopher Jones
Colored and by Melissa Kaercher
Appearing in Mutants and Masterminds
Published by Green Ronin Publishing

All four of these pieces marked a departure for both Christopher and me. We both had been working in the Bruce Timm-type "animated" style of comics for quite a while, and this Green Ronin work gave both of them a chance to work in a more realistic style.

4 files, last one added on Mar 16, 2012
Album viewed 3 times

Penciled and Inked by Christopher Jones
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published at CONvergence 2005

1 files, last one added on Mar 27, 2012
Album viewed 15 times

Written by John Kovalic
Penciled and Inked by Christopher Jones
Colored and Lettered by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dork Storm Press

John, Christopher, and I were all part of the creation of Dr. Blink, though my inital link to the project was as web minion for its web site, drblink.com. The first backup features (in Dork Tower) and Issue #0 were both produced entirely John and Christopher. By the time Issue #1 came around, Christopher had begun work on The Batman Strikes! for DC Comics, and had far less time to work on Dr. Blink. Thus, I stepped into the project as colorist and letterer. Prior to this issue, I had also colored two of the backups in Dork Tower.

7 files, last one added on Mar 27, 2012
Album viewed 24 times

Written by John Kovalic
Penciled and Inked by Christopher Jones
Colored and Lettered by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dork Storm Press

This project was cursed with an opening page that almost completely demoralized both visual artists working on the book. John's script called simply for a convention scene. Christopher, smelling a challenge, created a giant one-page spread of a giant convention hall, loaded with people and detail. This page alone took days for him to complete, making him wonder just how long the rest of the book would take. When I got to it, I went through a nearly identical process on the same page.

A second challenge came on pages 10 and 11. Christopher noted that the venetian blinds in the windows "didn't have to be open" when he handed the pages over to me. Given this issue had a noir feel to it, I chose to color the room with the blinds open... which turned out to be a unique challenge.

8 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 18 times

Written, penciled and inked by John Kovalic
SFX lettering and colors by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Dork Storm Press

John usually does all of his own artwork, but he felt that this issue needed a little extra drama in the coloring.

7 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 9 times

Penciled, Inked and Lettered by Alex Robinson
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Appearing in Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink #2
Published by Dork Storm Press

Although Ultra-Gal had appeared before in Alex Robinson's self-published Tales of Action and Adventure Which Will Leave Your Senses Shattered, this is the first time she has appeared in color.

3 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 6 times

Written by Jason Glaser
Penciled by Tod Smith
Inked by Charles Barnett III
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Capstone Press

Capstone Press produces historical and biographical comics for schoolkids. Their format is a little different from most comics companies, in that the end product is about half the size of a regular comic, and is hardbound. The pages are worked on in side-by-side spreads, rather than individually, which gives us artists the unique opportunity to actually know for sure what pages will face each other in the final book.

6 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 14 times

Written by Ryan Jacobson
Penciled by Cynthia Martin
Inked by Terry Beatty
Colored by Melissa Kaercher
Published by Capstone Press

Capstone Press produces historical and biographical comics for schoolkids. Their format is a little different from most comics companies, in that the end product is about half the size of a regular comic, and is hardbound. The pages are worked on in side-by-side spreads, rather than individually, which gives us artists the unique opportunity to actually know for sure what pages will face each other in the final book.

4 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2012
Album viewed 3 times