Turning and returning to some secret place to hide

The pages are coming even faster now. Okay, I was waiting on a script to letter and had the day free. Plus, by this time in the book, I'm not creating new environments and I can use a lot of the existing ones from my Love and Capes library. Like this one in the Spencer household, reusing the backgrounds I created for the previous issue. The Christmas tree from #7, though, is gone.

Four left to go, plus the bio and recap sections, as well as the cover for #9. That should go pretty well. I've got about two work weeks before San Diego, and in that time I'd like to finish the book, as well as letter a book for another client, and do a cover for a major comics publisher that, for once, is not Maerkle Press.

What's the cover? Who's it for? I'll tell you as soon as I can.

We weren't meant to be, at least not in this lifetime

With page nineteen now done, we're down to the Final Five. What will they be? Who will they be? Why is Sci-Fi Channel making us wait so long to find out? Wait, again, that's Battlestar Galactica.

It's Amazonia and Crusader in the background, and Windstar and Arachnerd in the foreground. Windstar's not actually a member of the Liberty League, but maybe I'll have to change that with as often as he's appearing. I needed seven little superheroes (to reference one of the best episodes of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends) for this sequence, and Doctor Karma was way too powerful to bring in, and I still haven't designed Mermantis. I needed a couple of filler characters, so Windstar and Major Might pop in.

Windstar is one of my childhood creations, along with Raider. It's fun to pop him into these scenes, just to see him in print.

It's also Independence Day today, so have a happy one.

I'm so tired of being here

I have to say, this page has one of my favorite panels, shown here. Our heroes are thrown onto an alien planet. And, when they appear, Darkblade just has to say "Crusader--?" and Mark already knows what he's asking and, better yet, has anticipated his request.

It's a little thing, but it really gets that Super-Duo friendship thing down. It's the kind of thing Kirk and Spock would do, or Luke and Han, or, once upon a time, Superman and Batman.

Six pages left. It's just gonna fly from here on in.

And by the way, Alpha Tauri, or Aldeberan, really is 65 light-years from Earth. I does my research.

Blub Blub

Now that I have one of my own, I can post a larger picture of the first Bobble Fish, Buster Bluegill. Here, the King of the Seven Seas attempts to communicate with the Bobble Fish.

Captain's Log

Saturday night was the signing at the Lake County Captains' game. It was a lot of fun, but it didn't go off without a hitch.

It rained on Saturday. On and off, soft and hard. Very hard. It stopped raining a couple hours before the game, but the field was so soaked that they had to really work to make it game-ready. So the game was pushed off to 7:30, then 8:00, and finally 8:30. The game went until 11:30 or so, and then there were fireworks, too. It was a late night.

Of course, years of being an artist have steeled me for such late nights.

The bobblefish just flew that day, too. I maybe signed for half an hour, because that's about how long it took for them to run out of the fish. After everyone dispersed, there wasn't too much doubling back. Still, it was worth it. I got a lot of compliments and met some great people. I even got to autograph one, and then later sign a card for, some lady having a birthday.

The bobble fish even made it onto the scoreboard before the game. That was pretty sweet.

But, best of all, a lot of my family and friends showed up for the game. It's nice sharing such a time with then.

I won't be at the July signing, as matters of state (well, Comic-Con International) will keep me away. But I'll be back at the August one. Let's all hope for nothing but clear skies.

Oh, and click on any photo to embiggen.

Is this your name or a doctor's eye chart?

Here's where things really get interesting. Wait, that's a horrible thing to say. The whole darn book is interesting. Here's where things get even more interesting. After this, Mark's in costume for just about the rest of the book. We're going to see the closest Love and Capes comes to action and fight scenes in the back eight. It'll be cool.

This panel, of course, shows none of that.

Hey, I don't want to give the whole book away. I think I've got a fairly surprising ending here, with Mark turning out to be the last Cylon...oh wait, wrong show. Anyway, I want to play my cards pretty close to the vest from here on out.

Still, this panel is one of my favorite kinds of scenes. It's not the fourth-panel beat/joke panel, yet there's still a joke in it. I like when the funny spills into other panels.

And, we've got a new lyrics contest going on, too.

Riding up and down Broadway on my old stud Leroy

Two-thirds done, and I’m now officially on the Back Eight. Go, me.

I’ve referred to a dark period in the Crusader’s life when there was a “Crusader on Ice” show. The idea for it was very loosely taken from the Sea World DC Super Hero Waterski Show from the Seventies (and which I was lucky enough to see). The idea was to give the Crusader something cheesy in his past to be ashamed of.

During a Sequential Tart interview, I was asked if we’d ever see the ice show. I never intended to delve into it, but when I got the question, it sparked an idea. So, for reasons which you will see in this issue, Abby gets a DVD of said “Crusader on Ice.”

It’s a charity event, so I needed to reference a disease. I couldn’t make light of a real disease, as it would very much unfunnyify the joke. Instead, I used Sacks-Minnelli from the tremendously funny You Look Nice Today podcast. If you want to know more about the dreaded disease, check them out here.
Also, I pride myself on being a man who learns from history. In this scene you’ll get to hear some of the songs from “Crusader on Ice.” These were all written by the talented Mike Bokausek. I could have written them, but then when Mike saw the scene, he would have been inspired to write his own, and they would have been better than mine. So I just went ahead and asked him to write the lyrics straight-up.

I’ll post the full lyrics later. How he managed to write an imaginary song and got it stuck in my head, I’ll never know.

Speaking of songs, I'll post the answers to the lyrics game in the next couple of days, too.

He'll save every one of us

There’s a universal constant: No matter what version of Flash Gordon there is, Princess Aura is always smokin’ hot.

This one is based upon those way-cool Filmation designs from their animated series. It was my first exposure to Flash Gordon, and one that stuck.
Heck, I even have a soft spot for that 1980 Sam Jones/Melody Anderson movie. With Ornella Muti bringing the sexy as Princess Aura.

Yeah, Dale was the one for Flash, but you could see why he was tempted, can’t you?

With this, I've got twenty-five new images for my second Powerful Women sketchbook. I think it's a great one to end on, too. As soon as they come back from the printer, I'll make it availble for order her on the blog and on the site. And, I'll have it in San Diego, of course.

Not the Video Game

Here's the second-last image for my second Powerful Women sketchbook.

Batman and the Outsiders was one of those series I knew about, but got on board too late. Fortunately, my cousin has been buying a lot of those Showcase reprints and has been lending them to me when he's done. Now I'm reading the Batman and the Outsiders edition, which features some very solid Mike W. Barr (maybe my favorite Batman writer) stories and some nice Jim Aparo artwork. And lettering. The guy had skills.

People like Jim never get the credit they deserve. To paraphrase Isaac Newton, they were the giants whose shoulders the industry stands upon. Solid, reliable, and able to draw anything.

His original design for Halo’s costume shows that he still had chops after almost twenty years in the business. It’s basic swirly shape design was very graphic and very cool. I don’t know why, but it always reminded me of the shirt that Disney’s Captain Eo wore. Michael Jackson aside, that was a cool design, too.

Got two homes, car loans, in debt, and his third divorce ain't even final yet

Yeah, yeah, I've got a new panel. But I've also got this bit of coolness: This is my six hundreth post on the weblog!

Wow. I've had a lot to say over the last three years, I guess.It's been fun, and I've got no intentions of stopping. Thanks to everyone who's been a part of it. Here's to another 600. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. Well, I am, given the upcoming San Diego trip, but I'll still be blogging. Aw, heck, you know what I mean.

Here's a panel from page fifteen, the last one at the Deco City Comic Convention. Something from the Crusader's past surfaces, and he'd much rather it didn't. It's been fun doing this sequence, and finding old art and client work to put on the displays. There are ones for my Raider books, the SideChicks stuff I do for Lone Star Press, and some other stuff that hasn't seen the light of day. Yet.

I'm really in a zone now. I know exactly what will happen on page sixteen, and if plans go accordingly, it'll feature the writing stylings of someone who's not me. Yes, that's right. I've outsourced part of Love and Capes. But you'll have to buy the book to find out what and why.