Clean Sweep

Recently, I was called upon to draw a logo for a cleaning service called Melissa's Magnificent Cleaning. I did it pretty quickly, but it was also a lot of fun. I like the pose and the attitude.

The final file was all vector, which is still a bit of an effort for me since Adobe discontinued their fine Streamline program. And yes, I know Adobe Illustrator has a great trace function, but I just can't get it to behave the same anymore. I'll get it eventually, though, I'm sure.

They Keep Pulling Me Back In

Back in the Dark Times before I went full freelance, I worked at the Lake County News-Herald as a graphic designer. My chief task there was to design ad layouts, both as spec designs to entice new advertisers, or to establish a cool looking layout for production to later flow in the actual content.

The most common advertisers I designed for were car dealers and real estate agencies. I was the News-Herald's graphic artist for two years, and in that time, I think I figured out every way to advertise cars and houses possible. It's little box with copy after little box with copy.

I thought that I was done with that part of my life, but my Mom is a real estate agent and asked me to design a newspaper layout for her and a group of other agents who were taking out an ad. So, I found myself back in the real estate layout game.

It went pretty smoothly at first. After the second proof, though, it was just like being back at the paper.

Anyway, here's the ad.

I did have some great times at the News-Herald. The people, as with most things, were the best part. When I left, it was definitely time to leave, but I still look back on those days fondly.

Cover's Got Back

Yes, it's true, I've been bad about posting artwork lately. I'm trying to break the story for my next project, which is not going well, but I'll wrangle it down.

In the meantime, I've been working on designing the second Love and Capes collection. (What's that? You want a link to pre-order? Here you go!) It's not just dropping the pages into inDesign, but reformatting the covers, writing and creating the back matter, and designing new sidepapers.

I don't know if sidepapers is even a real term, but that's what I call them. My stories are 24 pages (with #10 being 26 and #12 being 45) which means that if you want to maintain the page-one-on-the-right, page-two-on-the-left reading order, you've got a blank page on the back side of the cover. Not wanting to have a completely empty page, I designed some filler art for each chapter. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it means creating them for this second edition.

I don't know if sidepapers is even a real term, but that's what I call them.

In the first trade, there were six images (Crusader, Abby, Darkblade, Arachnerd, Charlotte, and Amazonia) but in this one there are only five. The back of the issue #12 cover is the alternate cover. So I drew these.

All of them are original, except for Amazonia which reuses the art I did for the Comic Creators Alliance's art jam to end human trafficking. (By the way, the art raised over $10,000, and that is all kinds of awesome!) The art is below, and feel free to click and embiggen!

I Wanna Ride a Cowboy

The Fort Worth Weekly in Fort Worth, Texas, is one of my favorite clients. They give me such fun things to draw, and really let me cut loose with styles and experimentation. This time, they asked if I could draw a cover illustrating the conflict between the approaches of gay communities in Fort Worth and nearby Dallas. Click

I won't attempt to explain the story any more than that, since I'm sure it's far more complicated than my little one-line description. You can read all about it here. And, of course, you can click and embiggen the image.

I think there are similarities between this and my last cowboy illo that I did for them, but really, in my head I was inspired by the character designs for Per Degaton on last week's Batman: Brave and the Bold. Such an interesting face shape, and a great vocal turn by Clancy Brown.

Thirteen Down, Five to Go!

Love and Capes #13 is done! And that means it's time for…

…the Mocha of Victory!

The Mocha of Victory is a grand tradition dating back, oh some two or three years. It's a celebratory Starbucks drink when I accomplish something big with Love and Capes. Usually there's one when the story and art are finished, and one when the book prints. What differenitates a normal venti mocha skim no-whip from a Mocha of Victory? It just tastes sweeter.

Issue #13 came together much faster than I would have thought, and much better, too. Honestly, I wasn't quite ready to start this issue as soon as I did, but I pushed through and everything tied together nicely. You'll see the results May 1st on Free Comic Book Day (and then available through the website and Haven Distributors shortly thereafter).

I always try to do a little better with every issue. You've got to keep pushing to get better. In this issue, the story went places I hadn't expected. In fact, if you'd asked me last year if I would have done the plot I have, I would have said "No way!" The characters really took the reins from me. And, as always, I tried to make the art better. Here's a panel that shows what I mean. Mark's pose as he's reacting to his ring is a lot more animated and fluid than anything I would have done a year ago.

I read the Walt Stanchfield Drawn to Life books, and those have just been my taskmasters trying to make my drawings come even more alive. I'm not "there" yet, and for that matter, I don't think you ever actually reach an end point in your artistic journey. You should keep striving for more and better.And big thanks to my friend Chris Bailey, animation director on the animated Alvin and the Chipmunks features, for recommending those books. They've been invaluable.

Today, I'll be doing the things I ignored most of yesterday to draw the final two pages. Then, eventually, I'll do production work and get the book to the printer. And don't forget, there are still advertising spaces left!

I Told You It Was a Long Story

I'm a big fan of How I Met Your Mother. How can you not be? It's really got some clever writing, both plot and storytelling. The episode where Barney pretended to be Ted, and the flashbacks of Barney were played by Ted to lead you astray as a view, brilliant. To say nothing of the "bagpipes" and "thumbs up" references. And, of course, Canada gags, especially the Robin Sparkles stuff.

Don't you think Love and Capes would be a great sitcom, right between How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men? Yeah, me too.

Oh, and the episode being referenced here? It's actually extremely important for this scene. Just a little shout-out to the HIMYM/LNC fans.

The Important Thing to Take From This Panel Is...

Abby can drive stick.

Anyway…

Last Christmas, my friend Mike got me the first couple of seasons of Supernatural, a show which I missed out on in first run. I think I was just burned out on the WB, thanks in no small part to Smallville. It really only took the pilot to sell me on the series. I expected a typical "older brother who follows the family way" vs. a "younger free spirit brother". And, while a little bit of that is true, the characters were far more rounded. Dean was far more the rogue than I thought, and Sam was much more responsible. And the family history was interesting.

I've caught up with the four seasons on DVD, and through the miracle of TiVo and Amazon on Demand, I should be current on this season soon. (I can't play iTunes on my TV, but I can with Amazon, hence my rare moment of disloyalty to Apple.) I'm really digging this show, and I understand those Eric Kripke is my Master Now shirts that I saw at Comic-Con last year.

(Anyone want to guess my place in the family birth order, by the way?)

Let's Party Like it's Nineteen!

Page nineteen is done. It's the end of the penultimate sequence in issue #13. The next five pages all serve a different arc, and that's mostly plotted and written at this point. So these last pages should go by at a decent clip.

This page also shows how far I've come with the Love and Capes characters. There's not a superhero joke to be found on the page. It's newlywed jokes. Now, given that I describe Love and Capes as a superhero romantic comedy, that may not seem like a good thing, but I like that the characters are now so fully realized that they can step away from the hero jokes and occasionally just do a joke.

If I keep on pace I'll be done almost a month ahead of the FCBD deadline, which is especially cool in light of the delay in finding out I was a participant this year. Add to that the skittishness I had in writing any sort of follow-up to what was I felt was a pretty satisfying conclusion to the second arc, and I think I'm sitting pretty well.

In Which Abby Uses a Laptop

When I'm working on a page or a comic, I sometimes I get a little bored. I love what I do, but there's a bit of monotony, and sometimes my mind wanders. When it does, I wind up throwing in jokes or references to things that I think are cool. It's why Abby reads books by Nick Castle and why Charlotte drinks out of a MacBreakWeekly mug.

This is panel seven from page eighteen. When I drew it, I knew I need to put something on Abby's screen. I chose The Celestial Waste of Bandwidth, written by Andy Ihnatko. Andy's a tech writer, Mac pundit, andcomics fan. I met him once in Boston at a Wizard (or whatever they're calling it these days) show. Oddly, for reading many of his columns, I didn't realize it was him until after he left, leaving only a silver booklet behind.

Seriously, he did. It was all about the Mac.

Andy's got some great ideas about the Mac tablet. One of his best is the idea that Apple's pretty good at doing That Thing That You Didn't Expect But Now Makes Perfect Sense. This happened when Apple decided to make a phone. "Why's an Apple phone going to be so special?" everyone asked. Then they revealed it and everyone copied it.

Go check him out here.

If you want to know what I would like to see in an Apple Tablet, I'll tell you. I don't for a minute think it'll happen, but I can wish. What I want is a slick, light Wacom Cintiq. Something that could be touch sensitive or use a stylus. Maybe when the stylus is activated the touch sensititivty goes away to account for my hand resting on the screen. I desperately want a Cintiq, but I'm not sold on spending as much as I would on a new laptop for something that has to tether to my computer. I want something lighter and frothier. Heck, Apple's a green company, they could use this to eliminate paper and pads. Just print out the pages I want.

I would also like a rocket and a pony.

Is This Really a Big Deal?

I read a lot of commentary about "writing for trade" and "every issue is someone's first" and those battling ideas.

The former refers to the idea that since these six issues or whatever are going to be eventually collected for trade, do you have to worry that The Seige of the Blackest Crisis #3 is someone's first issue? Chances are, they've probably read the first two parts.

The latter is an idea that started when comics weren't collected and were monthly books of indeterminate story length, if any length at all. There were even stories that didn't have a clear start or stop, but just kept on going like a soap opera. And a lot of times there was a flashback panel or two that recounted the character's origin.

Me? I think we all should be able to get along.

Love and Capes is a quarterly comic. That can make getting a narative flow going pretty rough. It's part of why the stories tend to be done-in-one stories. But I did do one hugely continued story, and more than a few others that hung off a plot point introduced previously. On top of that, I do issues of the book as part of Free Comic Book Day, and that means that there's a huge chance that it really is someone's first exposure to the story.

So the first thing I did was I added a recap page. This introduced the main characters and told you what happened last issue. There are lots of ways to handle these, but the upside is that they can be removed for collecting in a trade. Especially if you're doing a complicated plot-heavy story, I think these are a great idea.

But, even with that, a lot of people skip over it, or don't read it all the way. And you don't want to have people referring back to the recap page constantly while they're reading.

Which brings me to Love and Capes #13. It's the FCBD issue, and the issue immediately following the marriage of the two characters. You can read the first five pages along with my interview at Robot 6. Just read the first couple if you haven't already. I can wait.

Back? Cool. Now here are links to page 1 and page 2 with notes. I didn't stop the plot for exposition, or force anything in to the story, but they're crafted so that in those first two pages, you find out the following:

1. The characters' names. Why? Because people use names in coversation..
2. They quickly reference that they're on their honeymoon, and not just on vacation. And we know they're married, not just dating.
3. Mark brings up Abby's bookstore and her sister. Charlotte's not named yet, but we can do that whenever we meet her. For now, we know Abby's job and that she has a sister. We don't know she's got a brother and two parents who are still alive, but that's okay. They're not going to appear in this issue. So my new reader doesn't need to know they exist yet.
4. Mark uses his powers in front of Abby. First, this shows that Mark's the hero, just in case they didn't get that from the cover. We know he's invulnerable and can fly, and probably move at super-speed given how far away the sun is. Now, I have the advantage of using a Superman archetype, so I don't have to catalog all his powers. But I've shown the powers that will reference most of the jokes that will follow.
   This also shows that Abby knows Mark's secret, and I think that's hugely important. That's a plot point that's different from the genetic memory of Superman that exists. Yeah, Lois knows Clark's secret now, but ask the guy on the street and they'll remember all those put-one-over-on-Lois stories. So I've covered that.

No clunky exposition. No flashbacks. But if you haven't read an issue of Love and Capes before, you're probably caught up enough to keep on reading.

Crafting a story that does this isn't effortless. But I think it's worth the effort to make sure your book can be read by a new reader without turning off an old one.