Comic Book Resources

Christopher Herndon and myself were interviewed by Comic Book Resources recently.  We were pleased with the outcome.  Take a moment to read this interview and you'll get a sense of our process and you'll get some sneak peaks into what Terra Tempo 3 is going to be like!

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=44501

Thank You Petroglyph Elementary!

 Thank you to all of the students and teachers at Petroglyph Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico!  I had a wonderful time presenting my various workshops to all of the 4th and 5th grade students.

Also I would like to send a big thank you to park ranger Susanna Villanueva for taking an interest in Terra Tempo and setting up this action packed week of presentations.

I presented the making of Terra Tempo to the 4th grade students as well as my new presentation Time Travel Naturalist Style.  Thanks 4th graders!

I worked with a total of five 5th grade classes creating a story together as a class.  Collaboration is fun!  I have many of your illustrations and I have your writings of many of the class stories.  Some of the classes said they wanted to revise and edit the stories before giving them to me.  So I'll wait for a week or so before I start to post the completed stories on this blog.






I really enjoy doing the story telling workshops.  The students come up with some great ideas and the fast pace of the group collaborations is really fun to work with.  If a class can dream up and create a story together in an hour and a half, imagine what you could make if you focused your creative energies for a week or even a year!

I hope you all keep on writing!




Thanks again!

David

Presenting Terra Tempo

I had a great time presenting to the elementary school children of Moscow, Idaho.  Elyse Cregar was kind enough to take photos of my various presentations and then post these photos on her librarian blog.  I wanted to share this post as a window into what my presentations look like:

Click here to view the guest blog about my various presentations!

Moscow, Idaho and Emerald City Comicon!

I've got two big events that are back to back and are right around the curve of time!

First event:  Moscow, Idaho.  February 25th and 26th!

That's right, it's the coolest place you have probably never heard of.  Nestled against the backdrop of the Palouse hills, on the border with Washington State is Moscow, Idaho.  Seeing as it's not located anywhere near any of the major throughways most people don't go there without good reason.

And wow do I have good reason!  I will be giving my various Terra Tempo presentations to the children of Lena Whitmore Elementary, West Park Elementary, McDonald Elementary, J. Russell Elementary, and the Palouse Prairie School!

I will also be making an appearance at BookPeople.  They have given me some great press to prime the Heart of the Arts for my visit!  I'm really excited about this trip!

When I return from Moscow i will only have a few days to then get ready for the madness that is the Emerald City Comicon!

There will be more than 50,000 people looking to find new and exciting comics.  Spread the word!  Tell all your friends to visit either Christopher Herndon in Artist Alley or David Shapiro at the Craigmore Creations booth.  Both creators will be at the show all day, everyday of the event!

That's all for now!  I'll blog again after the whirlwind and post about my experiences on the road in the beautiful Pacific Northwest!

Illustrating the John Day

This past weekend, illustrator Christopher Herndon and myself went out to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.  The picture above is of Sheep Rock.  The John Day Fossil Beds are a unified collection of sites that make up the National Monument.  These sites contain the best assemblage of Cenozoic Era fossils in the country.  

The top priority of this visit was to visit the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center and gather up images and sketches of the fossils from the Age of Mammals.  The dead of the winter is really the best time for such a visit!  We had a great time talking with Jennifer Cavin, the park Fossil Preparator.  Her job is to take the specimens brought in from the field and clean them of the rock matrix they were found within.  After the specimens are cleaned, a mold is made of the original so that replicas can be made and passed around the paleontological world and studied.   

Above is a picture of me looking at an ancient canine fossil.  I had a great time asking questions about the animals that are found in the area.  For the paleontologists working here, it is a treat to have some of the best digging grounds on the planet be literally right outside your door!

This picture above is of Christopher Herndon speaking with Jennifer Cavin.  It was really fun for me to hear the artist and the scientist have conversations about the best materials to use in casting molds.  I think Jennifer enjoyed hearing a different perspective.  For those who don't know, Chris has extensive experience making monsters for Portland's largest haunted house, Fright Town.  

Though our first priority was in the lab, we did take a few short hikes to see the scenery.  It was cold!  But it was very beautiful.  The picture above is me at Turtle Cove and the Island in Time trail.  Behind me is the claystone in which thousands of fossils have been discovered.

The last pic is of Chris at the Mascal Formation overlook.  It's too bad there was so much snow, because I could not show Chris the very pretty colors of the Mascal formation.  Oh well.  It seems as though every time Chris and I go out to the field to gather up reference images, there is snow on the ground.  I guess we'll just have to make another trip to the John Day region in the spring!

Holiday Open House!

Happy Holidays!  I wanted to put the notice out on my blog that Craigmore Creations is having our first ever Holiday Open House!  We are going to have Terra Tempo 2 available for early purchase (just in time for Christmas)!  We are going to have button making!  We have a green screen that will allow you to plunk yourself into the action of a still shot from Terra Tempo!  There will be hot chocolate for the kids, hard cider for the adults and cookies and snacks for all!

If you live in Portland, come check us out!  This is a great opportunity to see where we work and meet the staff!

It's December 19th from 1-4pm.
We're located at 2900 SE Stark #1A
Portland, OR 97214

Call 503 477 9562 if you need more information!

See you there,

David

Rough Riders, Terra Tempo 2, Time Travel and the Spanish American War

I'd like to take a blog post to celebrate the Veterans of the Spanish American War.  The Spanish American War was fought in both the Pacific and Caribbean in the year 1898, with the war fronts being on the island of Cuba, the Philippines and Guam.  

Teddy Roosevelt was in charge of the 1st US Volunteer Calvary, that was mustered out of Arizona, New Mexico,  Oklahoma, and Indian Territory.  Roosevelt added to the ranks college undergrads from the Ivy League.  It was this eclectic mix of Native Americans, Cowboys, prospectors, mountain men, glee club singers, college athletes, and of course, Teddy Roosevelt that made this grouping of men the best possible candidates to be important side characters in Terra Tempo: Four Corners of Time.

During the creative process of researching the book, I had come across a major challenge:  Where to place the Time Travelers in time?  The Rough Riders seemed to fit the bill just right.  First of all, they were a very diverse group of people.  Second, the majority of them came from the territory of the book. Third, they were alive at the right time,  Fourth, they were all quarantined in Montauk New York, a place that already has a history of time travel.

The diversity and origins of the troops:  The Rough Riders were all volunteer enlistees who came from Arizona, New Mexico and the Indian Territories and Oklahoma.  They were all skilled with horses and guns.  These were men who were raised on the trials of frontier living.  There were also the 9th and 10th Calvary, which were the African American Calvary troops, nick-named the Buffalo Soldiers.  Added to this mix of the toughest and most resilient people of the time, were the Ivy League enlistees who came to fight along side Roosevelt. 

In Terra Tempo 2, the troops are having an ongoing debate about the history of the earth, the fossil record, evolution, and what may still be unknown about the Earth's past.  The grouping of men that made of the Rough Riders were very qualified to be having this debate. They were coming into the service with varied levels of education ranging from the Ivy League, to being educated directly in the field, having worked with the earth as ranchers, miners, and prospectors.    

The time:  The year was 1898.  The balance of economic power in the US was shifting.  Standard Oil still controlled 84% of the US oil.  The Bone wars of Marsh and Cope had recently come to an end.  This time period seemed like an especially fertile ground to plant the Time Travelers within.

Montauk:  The Rough Riders were quarantined at the eastern tip of Long Island in Montauk, New York.  At the time, Montauk allowed relative isolation from the rest of the country.  Many of the men were suffering from Malaria, Yellow Fever, and exhaustion after the war in Cuba.  It is in these sick camps, in Monatuk, that we have the soldiers figuring out their formula for time travel.  Why Montauk?  It is because of the long run of urban legend stories about time travel activities at Montauk Point and Camp Hero in the 1980's that I was inspired to place a time travel mystery there, 80 years earlier. 

Thanks to Teddy Roosevelts dramatic writing and the many films that reenacted the Rough Riders campaign in Cuba, the 1st US Volunteer Calvary road off into American History and has been remembered ever since.  I hope they don't mind being casted as the creators of Time Travel maps.  I figured it would only serve to keep the memory of the Calvary alive in the minds of the youth of today.