Kevin Mellon

Major comics publishers were pretty light on holiday stories and holiday specials this year, but there's no need to be blue this holiday season - CA's still got plenty of Great Holiday Comics That Never Happened to enjoy from artists like Steven Sanders, Nate Bellegarde,Dean Trippe and Kevin Mellon. You can counteract this year's lack of holiday offerings with some classic (if non-canonical) covers below.

Over the past few years, I've been toting around themed sketchbooks to conventions to get pieces of art from some of my favorite comic book creators, based on Jack Kirby's creations and tokusatsu heroes. This summer, however, I decided to switch things up a little and go with a much broader theme, since some people are not as familiar with the past 40 years of Kamen Rider as I'd like them to be. The result: A sketchbook full of my favorite characters. Now that I've been through HeroesCon and San Diego, I've gathered up a pretty solid bunch to start out with, and they're pretty amazing. Check below for this summer's crop of sketches from artists like Chris Burnham, Tom Fowler, Joëlle Jones, Ben Dewey and more!

Summer is in full swing, which means that convention season is upon us once again, and with it, the opportunity to get art from some of your favorite comic book creators. As much as I like digging through back issue bins and hanging out with pals from across the country, filling up my sketchbook is one of the most fun parts of going to conventions. So much, in fact, that I actually had two in circulation this year. One was continuing my theme of tokusatsu characters like the Power Rangers and Kamen Rider, while the other was just a general collection of favorite characters. Which, as you might expect, ended up with two drawings of Destro. Check out the new pieces below, featuring art from Tom Fowler, Kevin Mellon, Tom Scioli, Jordan Gibson and more!

  For the past few years, I've been taking a sketchbook to conventions across the country and getting pieces of art with a single theme: Characters created or co-created by the King of Comics, Jack Kirby. After 52 sketches, you'd think I'd be running out of characters, but with only a couple repeats, it's still going strong. Today, in honor of Kirby's 96th birthday, I'm putting all the sketches in

Fans of Kevin Mellon likely know him as the artist of Heart with Blair Butler, Lovestruck with Dennis Hopeless, American Muscle with Steven Niles, and a storyboarder/designer on FX's Archer -- among other collaborative efforts. Beginning today, though, Mellon will fly indie as the writer, artist and colorist of his new creator-owned series, Suicide Sisters.

With the end of the New York Comic-Con, convention season has once again come to a close, and that means the end of another round of entries in my ongoing sketchbook. Schlepping this thing around the country is definitely one of the most fun things about conventions for me, even if my theme isn't quite as good as Gavin from 4thLetter, who has artists drawing "The Macho Man" Randy Savage

Comics: The Marvel Age looks at fan correspondence from Stan Lee that reveals Dr. Strange was originally supposed to be called Mr. Strange, which is a way better name that Fartface Booger Strange if you ask me. TV: A Green Arrow TV casting sheet may have surfaced, revealing spoilers about CW's potential upcoming live action series...

Whether the thought of mixed martial arts makes you want to TapouT or you regularly catch fights in every flavor of octagon, G4's Blair Bulter, Kevin Mellon (Lovestruck artist and occasional CA art contributor) and Crank! aim to deliver a story that's pure passion in their four-issue series Heart from Image Comics...

Digital: According to a survey of 572 comic readers (many of them Fleen visitors) by Mia Weisner, a graduate student at the University of Applied Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, the majority of respondents are interested in buying digital comics but think it should cost quite a bit less than print, among other fun details...

Relaunching comic books with new #1 issues and alternate takes on familiar characters is nothing new in the world of super-hero comics, with the ongoing DC Comics relaunch as the latest and greatest example. Rebooting without the baggage of old stories can add new life to characters -- or completely misinterpret them in very fundamental ways...