The herbalist has invited us over for tea! Can you find all the missing potions on the way?
I adore the alchemist simulator game Potion Craft. I played through at least five times on the Steam version. Fans of the game will also find plenty of easter eggs!
Potion Craft Homepage —>
Potion Craft on Steam —>
The design of Potion Craft is extraordinary and the game-play delightful.
I loved the Marvel Special Feature, Michael Giacchino film, Werewolf by Night. And when the camera rises to show the garden maze? It’s like he pulled it from my brain.
Especially cool? Giacchino Retweeted!!
So this image is scaled to print across 2 pages, have fun!
Many of the mazes in Marvel Mazes are based on specific comics. This breakdown of my Table of Contents acknowledges some of the inspirations as well as the writers and artists. I highly recommend all the comics on this list.
•Shuri Lab.
Shuri 1-10, 2018. Nnedi Okorafor, Leonardo Romero
Okorafor is an amazing writer and these books are really fun.
The novella Binti is a great introduction to her other work. My personal favorite is Remote Control.
•Avengers - SHIELD Helicarrier
•Hawkeye - Brooklyn.
Hawkeye 1-22, 2012. Matt Fraction, David Aja
The Fraction/Aja books are exceptional and heavily reflected in the MCU series. Aja’s artwork is truly special. This was my introduction to Kate Bishop.💜
•Avengers - Skrull Flagship.
Avengers 96, 1972. Roy Thomas, Neal Adams
The Kree-Skrull War story line ran issues 89-97. Classic Avengers happening here.
•Iron Man - Cave Origins
•Ego Planet - I love drawing planet-mazes and the Ego character is bonkers. My maze premise? What if… after years of mining and research on an anesthetized Ego, he begins to wake?
•Thor and Frost Giants - Jotunheim
•Captain America - Eastern Front 1942.
Captain America 5, 2005. Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark
I definitely wanted to do WWII era Captain America. This flashback from the “Out of Time” story arc is perfect in every way.
•Dr. Doom - Castle Doom
•Spider-Man, Sinister Six.
Spider-man Anual 1, 1964. Stan Lee, Steve Ditko
My inner 6-year-old was, “I get to draw Sandman - yeesssss”
•Doctor Strange - Sanctum Sanctorum.
Doctor Strange 1-12, 2015. Jason Aaron, Chris Bachalo
This run of Dr. Strange is top notch. Bachalo’s art is insanely good. Zelma the librarian is introduced.
•Eternals - Dreaming Celestial.
Eternals 1-7, 2006. Neil Gaiman, John Romita Jr
Exactly what you’d expect from Neil Gaiman: mythical, relatable, brilliant.
•XMen - Dr Xaviers school.
circa X-men 171, 1983. Chris Claremont, Walt Simonson
This is my era of X-men. Rogue is possibly one of my favorite characters.
•Daredevil - San Francisco.
Daredevil 1-9, 2014. Mark Waid. Chris Samnee
My editors felt most Daredevil would be too dark and stabby for our younger audience. The Waid/Samnee run, however, is much lighter and super-fun. Also, San Francisco!
•Shang-Chi - House of the Deadly Dagger.
Shang-Chi 1-5, 2020. Gene Yang, Philip Tan, Dike Ruan
Great refresh of the Shang-Chi character in this 5 issue run. And there are Chinese zombies, jiangshi, which are totally a thing.
•Iron Man - The Godkiller.
Iron Man 15, 2012. Kieron Gillen, Carlo Pagulayan, Greg Land
I was looking for an “all-the-suits” story. Tony Stark kidnapped by and insane android aboard a planet-destroying robot spaceship racing towards Earth? Yeah, that’s cool.
•Marvel Zombies.
Marvel Zombies 1-5, 2005. Robert Kirkman, Sean Phillips
Like every great zombie story, the series is exciting, gross, funny and poignant. Really quite good.
•Gaurdians of the Galaxy - Knowhere.
Gaudians of the Galaxy 1-6, 2008. Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning
I love Guardians, but I really just wanted to make a Knowhere maze.
•Black Widow - Romania
”The Name of the Rose” storyline is excellent, but I couldn’t pull a maze from it. So I imagined Black Widow in a tourist-filled medieval Eastern European town, hunting down Hydra agents and warheads, which seemed like the right vibe. Based on Sighisoara, Romania
•Black Panther - Wakanda.
Black Panther 1-13, 2016. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze
Exciting, philosophical and inspiring. Perfect.
•Ms Marvel - Jersey City.
Ms. Marvel 1-11, 2014. G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona
Kamala Khan is a fantastic hero with a great origin story. Smart and funny. Alphona’s artwork is lovely and whimsical. Great to see some of his work in the end credits of the TV show.
•Fantastic Four - Galactus.
Fantastic Four 48-50, 1966. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
The introduction of Galactus is also a top-tier Fantastic Four story. His world-consuming machine became a base for a multi-surface cylindrical puzzle. If there is a second book, I will certainly do Galactus’s spaceship.
•Hulk - Sakaar.
Hulk 92-104, 2006. Greg Pak, Carlo Pagulayan
Prisoner> gladiator> rebel leader> king. Planet Hulk is a traditional story arc of protagonist Hulk on an extremely hostile world. Amazing stuff.
•Fantastic Four - Baxter Tower.
Fantastic Four 249, 1982. John Byrne
This issue has a superb cross-section floor plan of the Byrne era Baxter Tower.
•XMen - Days of Future Past.
Uncanny X-men 141,142, 1981. Chris Claremont, John Byrne
Two issues central to everything X-men. Smashed up NYC and Sentinels.
•Ant-Man - Inside Vision.
Avengers 93, 1971. Roy Thomas, Neal Adams
A one-issue subplot that inspired the Ant-Man maze
•Captain Marvel - Maniaciano Outpost.
Captain Marvel, 1-8, 2014. Kelly Sue Deconnick, David Lopez, Marcio Takara
This Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers series shows how to write an invincible, super-powered hero. Most problems can’t be solved with punching, and are especially challenging when punching is what you are best at. Includes great side characters, Rocket Raccoon, the flerken and plenty of space-hopping. The outpost world central to the story has a real Star Wars feel, which I love to draw.
•Thor - Asgard
See my previous post all about Asgard
•Spider-Man - Spider Verse.
Amazing Spider-man 9-14, 2014. Dan Slott, Olivier Coipel
My previous Spider-Verse knowledge was limited to the absolutely perfect Miles Morales movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Reading the actual series, along with most of the tie-ins, was a blast. Spider Noir, Spider Gwen, Spider-Ham. I had no idea all of this was canon. I am now enlightened and a better person for it.
This also became the template to make a portal maze. I hope you like it! I plan on making more.
I had a ton of freedom when creating the book, Marvel Mazes. The only guideline was that the mazes be based on the Marvel comics, not the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Asgard was a maze I definitely wanted to include, but it could not be based on the “pipe organ” style of the films. Instead, I went to the source Jack Kirby comics.
The original pencil sketch on the left continues to the final maze on the right. The maze in the book also includes characters and seek and find elements.
1) Pencils 2) Black line work is done in the computer. The isometric grid keeps things straight, but the lines are freehand. 3) Final “ink” lines 4) Final color. All my colors are flat, never gradients.
MCU Asgard from Loki on left, Jack Kirby Asgard on right.
Lots of Marvel comics Asgard references!
The full pencil scan. This was drawn 8”x16”. The out of focus bit in the center is because my scanner is too small to fit the whole piece.
All the mazes are filled with characters and seek and find items. The heroes have to be simplified, since they are printed quite small in the book. For Asgard, I wanted to stick with the classic outfits. Here are my references, sketches and finals.
Thor shows up in a lot of the book!
This is a recolored version of the “Map of Asgard" from Journey Into Mystery Annual #1 (1965) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Many of the buildings here also show up in my maze!
The original published colors can be seen here-->
Marvel Mazes will be out October 4. You can pre-order now:
Or, best, order from your local bookseller!
I enjoy jigsaw puzzles immensely, though I only build occasionally, maybe 4 or 6 a year. I had a blast assembling the NYC puzzle when I got my copy. It is surprisingly challenging, so I thought I would share some hints.
After assembling the edges, focus on the water boundaries and bridges. While working on these, you will probably discover many of the landmark buildings as well. But at this point, all the remaining pieces look the same!
Edges and water assembled. Now things get tricky!
Since we are in a city, the pieces have an obvious orientation! All the pieces in the puzzle are “opposing tabs” and are either tall/vertical or squat/horizontal. Separate the remaining pieces into these two groups. This will also help position any remaining water bits.
Galison puzzle pieces are all “opposite tabs” style. But orientation is super easy!
Notice about 2/3 of the remaining pieces have at least some part of a bright magenta bridge on them. Locate the partial bridges in the assembled puzzle and find the piece that matches.
The bridge color is unique, and often crosses an edge
You should have only a handful of pieces left! Hope this helps!
Sean
My third book, Marvel Mazes will be out October 4, 2022!
Marvel Mazes, a new book by Sean C. Jackson, arriving October 2022
I had a tremendous amount of freedom making this book, able to draw from the greatest storylines from the past 50 years of Marvel comics. All the fan favorite heroes are included, a little something for everyone.
Pre-orders are great because it gives booksellers an idea of the interest in a book. They can be sure to have enough copies available when the book is available in October. Last year, my books were sold out and on back order by mid-November! Don’t get caught having a mazeless holiday! Pre-order today!
Check out these two jigsaw puzzles I made in collaboration with Galison for the spring 2022 collection!
New York City, The Big Apple:
San Francisco, City by the Bay:
SFMOMA -San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Bookshop.org
Amazon
My largest mazes yet, with tons of details to explore. Great fun for tourists or residents, there are plenty of landmarks to find and dozens of locations to discover.
If you are a store who carries the puzzle, I will give you a shout out! If you want to carry the puzzle, Galison can help you with that —>
There seems to be mistake in the first printing of the book! One of the finadables on pp 22-23 (Naboo) is missing! I am so sorry if this caused frustration. ug. This will be fixed for the next printing. Thank you for your patience!
If you bought the book as a gift, here is a little bookmark you can printout and slip in between pp 22-23 to give the recipient a gentle warning directly from me:
The advance copies look fantastic! I am so happy how the book turned out. Each theatrical Star Wars film gets at least 2 mazes, plus one Mandalorian and Black Spire Outpost on the inside cover.
This detail is from the Naboo maze, based fairly closely on the capital city.
Well, was yesterday and I posted this Hoth maze from the book all over my social media.
Below is the sketch for the maze. You can see it is very similar! Phil Szostak, content and asset specialist at Lucasfilm, asked me to rotate the Millennium Falcon and add additional snowspeeders.
The yellow lines are the gutter. Though the book can open flat and my publisher is has excellent precision, I wanted to be sure there were no bridges or vertical paths in this area.
All the mazes in the book had to be canon or canon adjacent. I made adjustments to create a fun maze in my style, but it was important to feel like the recognizable Star Wars from the films.
I used tons of research! Screen grabs from the film, 3d model references, images from the Battlefront video game, Wookieepedia, and the DK Star Wars Locations books. The Hans Jenssen cross-section of Echo Base is amazing! His illustration includes much more than I needed and a lot of information not in the film. It was especially helpful because relationships between the scenes is never shown in the movie. Jenssen’s illustration is the best, canon-approved overview I found.
These people are drawn 600dpi, so are very small on the page! They look jagged because soft, anti-alias lines are not so friendly for print. Also much easier to work with my preferred flat colors
While doing research, I found this cool picture of director Irvin Kershner on a tauntaun
Happy Holidays everyone! If you got From Here To There today, Hooray!! I encourage everyone not to draw in the book, but use your finger or something pointy, so you can explore the mazes again and again.
If you’re visiting this page for the first time, let me be the first to tell you about my upcoming book, Star Wars Mazes, available in July!
Star Wars Mazes, a new book by Sean C. Jackson, arriving July 2021
Currently, the name on all the bookshop websites is misspelled Staw Wars Mazes, which is hysterical. I’m sure my publisher will update that on Monday. Hopefully they are not all on vacation until January 4!
Pre-orders are great because it gives stores an idea of the interest in a book. They can make sure to have enough copies available when the book comes out in July. If you we shopping this year for my current book, From Here To There, you might have noticed the book sold out everywhere! I feel like a lot of folks had a sad, mazeless Christmas. Don’t let that happen to you! Pre-order today!
Origami Yoda is one of my favorite books. So imagine my delight when author Tom Angleberger asked if he could post one of my Mandalorian fan art mazes on his Origami Yoda page! Turns out, in addition to being a huge Star Wars fan, he also loves mazes!
Read the post at Origami Yoda —>
While there, check out all the great Star Wars origami finger puppets and neat games he has collected. The website is packed with fun stuff. If you haven’t read the book, or have kids who have not, order The Strange Case of Origami Yoda right now!
I celebrated by creating my first OY finger puppet! Instructions to make your own are on the Origami Yoda website!
My first OY finger puppet! Ask him anything!
I’ve been having a blast with Dr. Ph Martin’s Dyes! These colors are super bright and look lovely when combined with brown or sepia ink. Here are some smaller mazes and mini-mazes that I’ve played with since the completion of my super-secret project. Several of these originals are now available on my shop, and would make a great present for maze-loving family or friends!
Sorry I’ve been so quiet! It has been interesting times. If we wind the clock back to March, I posted a bunch of coloring pages for all the kids stuck at home. Since I tossed out some more this week, I thought I’d put a link to my downloads here and maybe add some links to other cool coloring pages of artists I follow.
Coloring pages from other artists
Cinta Vidal (line studies for her amazing paintings)
Jen Bartel (6 pages of Sailor Moon)
Graphix (Bone, Dogman, etc)
Steve McDonald (hot architecture from his books)
Robert Wilson (Transformers, Ultraman)
The Guardian Online did a little profile on my work, with a collection of some of my recent mazes: Link->
There was a section in the Sunday Observer too!
The movie, Parasite, is absolutely wild. I went into it cold, only knowing it was created by Bong Joon Ho, the director for Snowpiercer, and that it has 99% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
I knew I’d only be hitting the first few days of Inktober this year, but it was fun to do some black and white ink and wash mazes. I used prompts from Mab Graves Drawlloween Club
Day 1. Vampire. Vampire -> lower right
Day 2. Catacombs. Upper left -> lower left
Day 3. Bat. Center tree-> lower right
Day 5. Huntress. Huntress -> hunted
Vinyl stickers from Sticker Mule. Available in my shop
Maze-themed fan art for the video game Sea of Solitude. Follow the path to the boat in the lower right, then return by water to the open sea.
Even though this piece is digital, I wanted it to be painterly. I used a nice rough, oval brush in Photoshop set at about 92% opacity. Since I was not relying on black outlines to define the shapes, it was important to add the cast shadows. Once I picked my shadow colors though, I would also lay those in opaque (92%)
The buildings continue under the water, like in the game. I only reflected the sky, which seems to work well. Many of my decisions were based on eventually making more maze oil paintings.
Sea of Solitude the game is both lovely and haunting. It is a string of interactive puzzles overlaid with dread, anxiety and childhood trauma. It is somewhat linear and story-like, but also beautiful and cathartic. I enjoyed the game very much. The game’s creator, Cornelia Geppert at Jo-Mei Games saw my maze on Twitter and kind of dug it, which is kind of awesome.
You can see purchase the game or watch the trailer on the Sea of Solitude website.
I was invited to collaborate with Brooklyn based Kayrock Screenprinting on a limited edition screenprint. Karl Larocca and his team are friendly and knowledgeable. The final prints are available in my online store as well as Kayrock pop-up art print shows.
Gabe mixed colors and helped me pick the opacity. She also pulled the prints!
This is the tiny test print. You get a good idea of the detail and how the colors overlay.
Signing day! Limited edition of 185
You can see some other pieces they produced behind me. There is a lot of great work at Kayrock.org
The final print. Hand signed and numbered edition of 185. For purchase in my shop —>
Kayrock Screenprinting is the way to go if you need art prints, art books, concert posters, shirts or other screened products. They also have great work for sale on their website.