Triple Shots: Wonder Woman and Harry, Hermione & Ron

My travel schedule hasn't let me finish these Triple Shots until now. I drew Wonder Woman and a set of the three main Harry Potter characters, Harry, Ron and Hermione. Since those were for the same person, I tried to give them a common feel. Click any to embiggenate!

Huh. It feels like it's been a while since I did these? Maybe it's about time to do it again?

Kickstarter Bonus: The Time I Almost Did "Up"

One more time, today is the last day of my Kickstarter project. It's completely funded, but I'd like to overfund and add some other benefits. As bonuses, I'm offering some art that's never been seen and won't be in the final art book.

I completely fell in love with Up when I saw it. It was a heartbreaking, nearly perfect film. Boom had the Pixar license, and they were talking to me about Muppets, and it took all of seven hours for me to write them an e-mail begging to do an Up comic.

At the end of the movie, Carl is clearly living in the zeppelin, and hanging out with Russell and Dug. It was just begging for a sequel. You know why? Because with that setup it's Uncle Scrooge! Old guy, boy scout tagalong, going off having adventures.

The idea was almost instant, too. Living aboard the zeppelin, Carl finds a never mailed letter from Muntz. And while Muntz was crazy, he was still young Carl's idol. so he decides to deliver the letter himself. The letter takes him to Australia and gives the book the awesomely awesome title Up: Down Under.

I'm still proud of that, title, pitch, concept and everything.

Here's the thing: it got approved. The pitch went to Disney where we were told that they didn't really see Carl traveling much or very far after his adventure in the movie. But they thought the idea had merit.

So, here's what I did: I realized the end scene of Up takes place at a famous ice cream place near Pixar. That meant the movie took place in Northern California. That meant I could use Southern California. So the trip to Australia following in Multz's footsteps instead became a trip to glamorous 1930's Hollywood. My Outback Flying Doctor was replaced by an actress who, Doris Day-style, started an animal shelter/farm.

And you know what? It was better. The dog shelter made Dug even more important, and Hollywood was a better backdrop. I liked it more, even if I had to lose the title.

In my dream world, one day I'll pitch it to Pixar and we'll make the thing. It sure would be swell. And it could happen someday. After all, adventure is out there.

Kickstarter Bonus: The Muppets

Today is the last day of my Kickstarter project. It's completely funded, but I'd like to overfund and add some other benefits. As bonuses, I'm offering some art that's never been seen and won't be in the final art book. In 2008, I was pitching Boom Studios on working on the Muppets. Plots were submitted, some even approved, but for a bunch of reasons, nothing ever went forward. That's the nature of the game, especially when working on a licensed property, so there are no hard feelings.

But, I still like to share them as I think they came out pretty well and show a different style and capability. And, since we've hit our 101st backer, this is the first reward.

(Depending on amount hit, I'll be showing off sample pages for The Incredibles, Up, and maybe even some stories.)

These pages weren't from an actual story, but a quick sample script I wrote to show how I could handle characters, environments and more. Click on any thumbnail to embiggenate!

In Which I Reveals the WonderCon Exclusive Print

WonderCon means another one of my local Con Prints. This one was a little tough, since Anaheim is mostly known for Disneyland and that puts me in the same bind as my Orlando print. Plus, WonderCon is traditionally a San Francisco show. So, in this case, I figured it would be okay to go ahead and do the original location rather than the new one. Plus, I was just in San Francisco a month or so ago and I really wanted to draw it. Click for a bigger version.

Couple of Things About Me and WonderCon

One of my goals for Con Season 2012 (which continues next week at WonderCon, by the way) is to do more commissions. I've had previous commissions on display, but nothing fresh that I could sell. So I've received the wise counsel to do a series of pieces to show off what I can do as well as have more products. I was trying to think of a unifying theme, something that would make it easier to choose who to do. With Love and Capes being what I'm best known for, I hit upon the idea of super-couples.

I'm trying to do one a day up until WonderCon, so I'll have about a dozen by the time the show hits. Here are the first five. These will all be for sale at WonderCon (except for the Black Bolt/Medusa which has already sold). And, as usual, click on any to embiggen!

We Did It!

With seventeen days left, my Kickstarter project is funded! I'm astounded by your support and how fast it happened. Thank you all so much. There are still some overfunding bonuses that I hope to hit in the next two and a half weeks, including extra pages in the book at $5000 (including a page by page breakdown of the Love and Capes Valentine's story), unique bookplates for backers at $6000, and at the highest level, a new Love and Capes t-shirt. All of which is to say that, while we've hit the funding goal, I'll still be promoting the heck out of it for a bit.

For those of you who funded on or before Leap Day for the $29+ event, I'll be making and designing the original artwork and it'll go out in the next month or so.

Also, I'll be posting some of the finished pages here in the next few days on the Kickstarter site. I reserve the right to be an irritating perfectionist and tweak them after they appear here, but you'll get to see a closer look inside the finished product either way.

Thank you all again!

Leap Day Means Superman's Birthday!

So today is Leap Day. It's your Once Every Four Years Day to mangle a song from The Pajama Game. And, it's also Superman's birthday.

Well, technically it's Kal-El's birthday. Krypton rotates slower around it's red giant sun than Earth does, so their year is four of ours. The man who would be Superman was conveniently born on February 29th, even though Clark Kent celebrates his on June 18th, the date his rocket landed on Earth.

Interestingly, Kyrptonian birthdays were not a celebratory event, instead one of great sadness… okay, maybe that's just interesting to me and to Joe Murray of Captain Blue Hen Comics in Delaware. Joe, you see, is celebrating The Man of Steel's Birthday in style today, complete with an auction by one of his guests for this year's Free Comic Book Day, Thom Zahler.

Hey, that's me!

Yeah, that's right, I did a new Superman piece for Joe's auction. You'll have to find out from him what you can to do bid on it, but he told me I could share it. Hope you like it!

And as always, click the image to super-size it.

Last Week's Triple Shots

The MegaCon to WonderCon work schedule is kind of whipping me around, so I haven't been posting as much. But I have been drawing. Like the wind.

I've done Triple Shots of Green Lantern John Stewart, Superman, Dr. Crusher, Deanna Troi, and Leia in Endor dress. Click on any image below to be take to the full Triple Shot.

The Triple Shots are going to go on hiatus for a couple weeks, too (aside from the couple that are still available). Work is stacking up, and I know you all want me to make sure I get some of this Love and Capes book done. But, we'll be back by the end of March. And, there might be some other commission projects that pop up in the meantime.I'll certainly be taking commissions for my first appearance at WonderCon, so be sure to give me a shout at tz (squiggly at) thomz.com

Rancho Obi-Wan: My First Step Into a Larger World

I visited Rancho Obi-Wan, the largest private collection of Star Wars merchandise (though I don't know who else would have more). It was fantastic. There was so much stuff… stuff I had as a kid, stuff I wanted, stuff I never saw and beyond. I got to play the Star Wars vector arcade game from the Eighties. I played chess against R2D2, who cheats. And best of all, I got to me Steve Sansweet, who is just the nicest guy. After my trip, I drew a thank you piece for Steve. His favorite character is Obi-Wan, and mine is Boba Fett. So I drew our two characters facing off against each other. And in my thank you note I admitted to Steve that, yes, I know that Boba Fett would lose. Heck, it'd be a victory if he walked away with both his arms. But it was still cool as can be to draw it.

And please, check out Rancho Obi-Wan's Facebook page. If you want to see more, check out Amy's report on the fully-functional memorabilia base. Go there if you're in Northern California. Totally worth it.

The Announcement! New Sketch Product!

I've got some goals for 2012. Among them are to draw more and, honestly, get paid to draw more. So I've come up with something that I think will help with both of those. I've come up with a new product, these Triple Shots. They're a chance to see the whole drawing process, from pencils to inks to colors. They measure 5.5" x 17" and feature a reproduction of the pencils, the actual inks, and then a colored version of the art. I'm going to take orders online, as well as sell them at conventions.

Here's how I'm going to make them available.

Every week I'll put a certain number of these on sale, based on my workload and schedule. Tomorrow I'll make three of these available, first come, first served, for $25.00, and free shipping during this first week. Most importantly, you get to pick the character.

If I don't sell them out, I'll pick whatever characters strike my fancy. And then I'll make those available for sale for $15.00 for the first week. After that, they'll be $20.00 online and at conventions.

Every week, I'll make another few available. I'll announce it 24 hours ahead of time on Twitter and Facebook, and again an hour before, and I'll vary the time to be fair to those in different time zones. Tomorrow's will go on sale at Noon Eastern Time. The samples seen here will go on sale for $15 at the same time.

So there's flexibility for you. You can get exactly the character you want. You can wait and see what's available and get a deal. Or you can buy them when you see them at a convention. It's up to you.