Sweet Caroline!

Sweet Caroline, it's been a long time since we've updated this blog. But the SketchKrieg crew and I are getting back into the swing of things, and we'll be updating it more and more often in the coming weeks and months. Also, exclaiming 'Sweet Caroline!' gave me an excuse to post this sweet sketch of Neil Diamond, the Jewish Elvis himself:



The remainder of my post is tied to my forthcoming young adult book, The Dead Kid Detective Agency. It's set to hit bookstores in Fall 2011 (I'm still mid-edit). The book is primarily text, but I've been working on some spot illustrations for here and there. I'll post some of those later, but first, some character designs for all the dead kids.

There's Cyril, the dead United-Empire-Loyalist kid:



Tabetha, the dead former-slave kid who came to Canada via the underground railroad:



Morna, the dead, recent-Scottish-immigrant kid (circa 1910):



Kirby, the dead quintuplet:



And Derek, the dead, almost-modern-age First Nations kid:



There's also, of course, our living protagonist, October Schwartz:



Any suggestions? It's not too late to change things up a bit. I feel like Derek may need something more distinct to his design. He looks very generic to me at the moment, even with a severed head.