The Penguin

Just a few words about my favorite sculptor - possibly my favorite artist. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, folks. Now I know you've all heard that name before, somewhere in the sleepy haze of boredom that was Art History class; and perhaps in your apathetic leafings through the textbook, at 3 AM on a Monday, while cramming for the final exam, you happened upon something like this: Did you stop to look at it? Did you stop to consider that this could possibly be carved out of solid rock? Did you thrill at the fact that, yes, not only was Daphne morphing into a tree, but that there were individual leaves shooting out of her hands - also solid rock? And that hair...! No. You didn't. You let the pages slip through your unfeeling fingers, and let your head fall into the book with a thud. When you awoke, the page was shiny with drool. Shame on you. But seriously, folks - in the profusion of Renaissance artists (and boring treatises on said artists), Bernini often gets lost in the mix. Or when

Be sure to check out my gallery every so often; it's at DeviantArt ( comicbook1287.deviantart.com ). Right now there are only a few pictures up there, but I'll be adding more, and eventually I'll have comic book panels up there, too. So rest assured, even if you get there now and go, "What the hell is this?!" it will get better in time. I even have one print up for sale (" Katana "), so if you want to buy that, go ahead! Also, whenever I'm out at a Con I'll be selling original sketches. Right now a rough sketch goes for $2.00, and an inked sketch goes for $5.00. Jay has the latest sketches with him right now (they're promos for an upcoming project), but as soon as I get them back I'll let y'all know.

Awesome second day at XcapeCON. Sold an inked sketch to Marc Wolfe , so I was pretty stoked. He's a cool guy, pretty down-to-earth; he studied (for a brief period, at least) under Dennis Preston at Lansing Community College, my Humorous Illustration instructor last semester... Actually, hold on. Let's talk about this for a moment. Do you realize that I studied under Denny for sixteen weeks without having the foggiest notion what kind of recognition he's had? Or that I'd never heard of Marc Wolfe before I sold a sketch to him? Come to think of it, though, if you're not much into comics or cartoons (or Lansing, I guess), you probably haven't heard of these guys either. Isn't that strange? Here I've been drawing and generally building toward comic book work for fifteen years (at least), and yet I'm either so isolated or so lazy that I don't know half the people I'm supposed to know. Or am I supposed to know them as, you know, them? All I know i

Yes, ladies and gentlemen: believe it or not, Rick is a Con Virgin. (By Con I mean, Comics Con - not, "ripping off old, rich ladies"-kind of con). I have been in front of the booths before, perusing the divers and various wares, but never behind the table, showing off my stuff. This is actually rather interesting, because I never did get my own space. I sat next to Jay Jacot - good old Jay - and practically squished myself between the stacks of Comics Obscura mags and displays. Somehow even my one-ton portfolio binder managed to find a space in there, and, egads, people were actually stopping to look at it. I tell you there is no better feeling than corralling perfect strangers and shaming them into looking at your stuff. And guess what? I even sold a drawing! I got a commission for a Robin (as in, Batman and Robin), and I daresay it was a pretty good rendering. As in, you could tell where the arms and legs were. And that he was human. I jest. It was damn good. Bow before m

Well, here we are. This is the first blog site created specifically by and for Rick Schlaack. Never has the world witnessed such an event. There will be a ticker-tape parade, complete with marching band, armored limo, and enormous balloons. Welcome to RixPix. This is a blog site dedicated to comic books, animation, cartoons, and pretty pictures in general - hence the "pix". A major portion of this site will also be devoted to a rising star, wunderkind, and all-around good guy - namely, me - who is trying to get his start in the heady world of Sequential Art. Hence: "RixPix". Now you may ask: "Rick, what sort of comic books, animation, cartoons, and pretty pictures will you be reviewing?" The answer is: whatever I feel like. Whatever strikes my fancy. Whatever inspires, or infuriates, or exasperates, in that big nebulous universe called "art". Hopefully coherence will emerge out of chaos, or at least a general pattern; but don't be surprised i