Greetings. My name is Christopher Stevens, but due to the fact that there is an active professional comic book artist who has the very same name, I also go by the pen name of Christopher Galletta. I was born in May 1974 of Italian-American heritage, and I live in Upstate New York with my beautiful native Thai wife and my family. I am a part-time florist at my family's seasonal greenhouse business, and go-kart racer while I illustrate the comics found on these websites. Below are free, online samples of what I do best: Comic book, cartoon, graphic novel and commercial artwork. I pencil and/or ink all of these illustrations by hand, and many of the latter ones that have been colored have been digitally colored via Adobe Photoshop. I usually do some kind of work with my art daily, so you may check at any time for updates.
My free online samples:
My mature teen-to-adult-humor comic book:
Here is
Chrusher Comix (A.K.A.
Chris The Crusher Comics), my ongoing
"sketchbook-with-a-storyline" comic book serial. I draw it for the amusement
of myself, my friends and
family, and it mostly contains fictional stories and events surrounding loose caricatures of
said friends and family. The 1988-1992 series is rated PG-13, but 1993-current is Rated-R. It has teen-to-adult humor, occasional adult language, and occasional brief nudity. Many of these have some of my better semi-professional artwork telling my silly stories, although occasionally I just doodled stuff.
I also included are doodles by some of my friends who are big fans of my comics and one of the reasons why I keep doing them without pay,
and in some cases, they co-create with me. The 1994-2006 years had my better/best art examples that I'd want to show to potential employers, but the 1988-1993 years are also included so you could see how my skills developed over time and tell the back story to my earliest characters and odd high school imagination.
Samples:
Above are links to some of what I deem are good examples
of my "American comic book" style (that show good pencil form,
inking, coloring, and so on), but remember the fact that I have over
900 comics up on this site, some better than others. These are just
a few to showcase (I'll update and add more samples as I upload
them).
My family-friendly comic strip:
Here is my family-friendly comic strip named
Towner. I started it in 1997 after I missed
Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes from the newspapers after he retired. I didn't have any intention of trying to replace or copy Calvin, but many can probably spot Watterson's influence in my earlier strips. So, I took some of the humor and characters of my Chrusher Comics and miniaturized it in a kids-friendly package. I then named Towner after my favorite composer,
John Towner Williams,
mainly because most of the time that I'm drawing, I'm listening to his
music. My mom and my wife absolutely adore my Towner comics. I believe that
Towner would be well-suited as a comic strip, a children's book series, or
an animated cartoon... Now I just have to get syndicates, publishers, or
animation studios to read some and agree with me. All of the strips are
pencil & inked by hand and some are digitally lettered and colored via
computer.
Samples:
Above are some samples of some of my better strips. But with over 100 up and
more to come, I'd love if you'd sample a bunch of surrounding strips!
Get a sneak peek at my children's book:
This is a project that I co-created with a friend of mine named
Robert Buchanan. It's a children's book tentatively labeled
Tee & Wee: Health and Nutrition. It's about two aliens who teach earth children how to eat and exercise to stay healthy. Robert proposed the idea and we co-collaborated on the design of the characters. Robert then wrote the story and I hand-penciled, inked, and digitally colored the entire book. I basically taught myself how to use Adobe Photoshop from scratch via coloring this book. Robert created the above webpage to show samples to anybody, but we will only show the entire project to publishers interested in the project. Please inquire with us if interested.
Small samples are found on the official website:
Samples:
My other projects:
Here are some illustrations of some random pop culture characters from TV shows and movies that I loved when I was growing up. Mainly
Star Wars and Transformers, both of which I owe a great deal of my childhood memories and imagination to. My objective with these was to try out for comic book companies, but none ever called. Do I suck or are they missing out?
Here are some of my Star Wars illustrations. I can actually do better now, but they still aren't too shabby,
especially the 1999 ones. The characters are all owned by Lucasfilm,
obviously.
Note: Most of these aren't colored, as I did them before I had a computer. However, the Darth Maul bust was colored by art marker and the background by Photoshop.
Here are some illustrations of some
popular Takara/Hasbro's Transformers: Generation One characters. I don't care for the modern day Transformers series; the cartoon by Sunbow/Marvel
that aired from 1984-1987 (which are all available on DVD) was everything to me when I was a kid, and still admire them twenty years later.
Note: Same as above, mostly uncolored because I didn't have a computer when I drew these. The colored Bumblebee, Hot Rod, Optimus Prime, and Megatron were colored years later using Corel Photo House before I learned how to use Adobe Photoshop. I could add more gradients and effects if I had used Photoshop, and did add a little. Please note that these Transformers were drawn prior to Dreamwave's fantastic meched-out Transformers comic books were out. If I drew them nowadays, I'd likely adopt some of the similar styles that they used. These illustrations were based more after the animated series and Movie that ran from 1984-1987, which I love to no end.
Here are a few illustrations that I did for a
writer friend who goes by the nickname of Uni. He was co-writing for a book that had these fantasy characters. I spent quite some time on specifically the ink work, which is some of my best stuff, so I wanted to show it here as well.:
In addition to Tee and Wee, Robert Buchanan also had me draw illustrations for a short story of his. But the project was placed on hiatus so we could tackle Tee and Wee. Here are a few pencilled and inked pages from
"Sara: Stray"
The text of this story is omitted and
© copyright
Robert Buchanan.
Some more gibber-jabber about me (artistic influences)::
Big influences in my creative input are mostly fairly popular in modern pop culture. Starting with mid-1980's era
Transformers: Generation One cartoons &
The Movie and 1980's era
G.I. Joe
cartoons and
comics by Marvel and
Sunbow, which taught me how to draw robots and humans. Later on, comic book artists
Todd McFarlane,
Jim Lee,
and
Arthur Adams, along with cartoonist
Bill Watterson (for his
comic strip,
"Calvin and Hobbes") also played a big role in development of my artistic abilities, as I rabidly collected their comics and books when I was in high school.
All of the above influenced my style and some people can still spot
it even years later. I am also creatively influenced by filmmakers
George Lucas
for his entire Star Wars Saga and
Steven Spielberg for his better movies. I'm also a fan of writers
Eric Van Lustbader for his
Nicholas Linnear novels and
Larry Hama for his impressive run in the original 1980s-90s G.I. Joe comic. However, perhaps my greatest artistic role model is countless multi-time award-winning composer
John Williams, who's
world-renowned music, tireless work ethic and quiet success are such a deep inspiration for me, that I have
a world-class collection of his music on CD, LP, and DVD.
Contrary to most modern comics, I tend to stray away from the
currently-in Anime/Manga look, although I started drawing in the
fashion of the predecessor of today's Anime (like 80s Transformer
and GI Joe cartoons). But none of these role models and inspirations can be anything without hard work, support of family, friends,
teachers, and God-given talent.
Experience & Awards:
I started doing cartoons and comic books when I was a
little kid as far back as I can remember. I was drawing Frosty the Snowman when I was barely old enough to walk. I made my first comic strip,
Mr. Butts, when I was under ten years old and used to get in trouble in Elementary School doing them. In Middle School, I again got into more trouble than good with my practical joke comic strips mocking my friends and completely destroying some teachers that I didn't care for. By High School, the trend continued, as I continued to get in trouble for them. That was until the High School newspaper's editor/teacher spotted my art and instantly asked me to be on his art staff, where I stopped getting in trouble and started getting positive attention. I drew Crusher Comics and occasional news-related illustrations for
Oswego High School's Buccaneer Bulletin from
1989-1992
and I have them
here. I was proud to accomplish many accolades during this era, as I won
The Empire State School Press Association's First Place Certificate for the Best Cartoon in New York State of the academic school year of 1989-1990. I also won
First Place two times and Second Place
one time for The Syracuse Newspapers High School Press Day's Editorial Writing/Cartoon Contests
during the years of 1990-1992, which has, to my knowledge, a streak that is unmatched before or since. I then took assorted cartooning and commercial art adult education classes after high school, and have a degree in cartooning
from Oswego. I have been art director, advertisement illustrator and co-website designer for
Galletta's Greenhouse
for well over ten years now, where my illustrated advertisements have
been appearing in local newspapers. Of course, I've been a , and florist
there since I was a kid, because its owned by my family. I've been
writing & illustrating Chrusher Comics since 1988, and Towner comics
from 1997. Samples of my illustrations are above.
This is a website that features me, my friends, and family go-kart racing every weekend behind
Galletta's Greenhouse
from June-October in Oswego, NY.
We have a ton of fun doing it, but it doesn't have much to do with my art career, other than the website design and the kart paintjobs. New racers always welcome!
Hobbies and Pastimes:
My hobbies are a treasure trove of what one would call guilty pleasures. They include
racing go-karts, attending/watching
Supermodified asphalt racing, playing basketball, and working out while watching
San Antonio Spurs
basketball and (painfully)
New York Jets
football, where I've recorded entire seasons of both teams for over a decade now. But some of my hobbies will have some, including my wife, calling me nerdy or childish. I have a complete collection of 1984-87
Transformers toys and DVDs, in addition to impressive collections of
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, and
Star Wars collectibles and action figures. My favorite TV shows are
The Sopranos,
Homefront,
WWF/WWE
wrestling, and Transformers and G.I. Joe cartoons from the mid-1980s. One of my favorite pastimes is
collecting and listening to John Williams albums, something I've done since childhood, and often I can be found working on my artwork while listening to his film scores. His film scores lead me into my favorite movies. They are (even in spite of all the
bashing), The
Star Wars Saga as a whole (in order of liking:
The Empire Strikes Back [also my favorite movie of all-time],
Revenge of the Sith,
Return of the Jedi,
The Phantom Menace,
A New Hope,
and
Attack of the Clones) and my favorite fictional character is The
Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious from the aforementioned Star Wars saga. Amongst my other favorite movies are several of
John Williams' scored movies, including many of his that he scored
for
Spielberg, led by The
Indiana Jones
and Jurassic Park
series. Other favorite movies of mine include
Braveheart,
the Rocky series,
Superman
and Superman II,
The Fury, the darker
Batman
movies, along with one of my first childhood favorites,
The Black Hole. Most of my favorite movies also double as some of my favorite soundtrack albums. My favorite video games are the
Zelda series, The
NES
Ninja Gaiden series, the NES
Double Dragon series, and
NBA Live and
Madden NFL games, amongst assorted other favorites of many genres, though I do not play as many now as I did in my teens and twenties. Last but not least, I'm a Christian. I realize that there are millions of people who are hateful or close-minded against my religion and occasionally prejudiced against me because of my beliefs. Experiencing this has led me to be an amateur
Judeo-Christian
apologist of sorts, but usually only amongst open-minded acquaintances. Amongst the more close-minded, I would usually request that they
listen to
some of my favorite Christian apologists free
radio
shows because they are far wiser sages than I am. In conclusion, it should be noted that although I may disagree with other people's beliefs or lifestyles, I am very tolerant of them, even if they are intolerant of mine.
Towner is hosted on
ComicGenesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.
Towner Comics - All artwork & original ideas (unless otherwise noted)
copyright © 1988-2006
Christopher Galletta Stevens.
Please ask permission before using any of the artwork on this website, although you may link to it without permission. All original artwork, intellectual properties, characters, stories, names, and ideas on this website are created and owned by Christopher Galletta Stevens and are protected under copyright laws as such.
Artist is seeking publication and/or syndication of any of the projects displayed on this website, and any other project offers are welcome, but stealing or defacing my comics
without expressed written permission is not. Please consider donations
or buying merchandise, as they are essential for the survival of un-syndicated cartoonists, including this one. Seeking employment as a commercial artist, graphic designer, computer colorist, freelance illustrator, and/or cartoonist.
Contact me with offers.
Though I hate
MySpace
Fight Spam! Click Here!!
Since 10/2005, visitors have loaded this many Chrusher comics pages: