Ghost Riders on the Storm

I've mentioned any number of times the work I've done for Toon Tumblers. It really is some of my favorite stuff, and the glasses which I get from Paul and his company have become my "good China" here at Zahlerdu.

I believe, and don't quote me, that the New York show will see the debut of the following glasses: two different Ghost Rider glasses (apparently, the movie helped his Q rating), as well as glassed featuring The Fantastic Four, The Punisher, Luke Cage Power Man, Iron Man, and, of all people, Adam Warlock.

I'll be working behind Paul's booth a good chunk of the time at the show, but I'll also have Love and Capes issues #1-3 there, too. Be sure to come up and say "hi!"

Blub blub

I've wound up getting some Flash animation jobs over the last couple of years. Some of the longer ones have reminded me why I didn't go into animation as a primary career. It's certainly fun to dabble in (and if you pay me enough, I can always do it) but I don't have the patience to do anything lengthy.

Having said that, I'm working on a couple of illos for a local commercial, and I had to create an ugly fish. So, I present to you… Mongo, the ugly fish. If you can't see it, click here.

I'll let you know when the spot will air.

I Know, You Know, That I'm Not Telling the Truth

My friend Amy noticed that I throw a lot of Easter Eggs and other hidden things into my comics. She's right as can be. I toss a lot of things just to crack myself up. Sometimes it's the name of a character, sometimes it's something in the background. And it's very rarely blatant. Sometimes I corrupt the name enough, or have a bizarre enough connection that no one except me gets it.

Here may or may not be such a case. I wanted some people walking by in this panel. I was thinking of drawing a couple, initially, but recently one of my favorite shows, Psych, came back on the air. It's not a show for the ages, but it's as fun as can be, and has a catchy theme song that you can download here.

It may be hard to tell, as this was the first time I really attempted to do a caricature of people in my Love and Capes style, but you should be able to look and tell that the people here are pretty obviously inspired by Shawn and Gus from everyone's "fake psychic/real detective" TV show.

And, for those of you keeping track: Thom Zahler has 23 days remaining to draw the last 11 pages.

Does Whatever a Spider Can

I slowed down a little bit, but now I'm back churning out the Love and Capes. Page twelve, for those of you math scholars out there, marks the halfway point in the fourth book. So, say it with me, preferably in that voice from the end of Star Blazers, "Thom Zahler has 25 days left to draw 12 pages."

Page twelve is the first actual appearance of the Arachnerd, although he does appear on a billboard and is mentioned in the third issue. (Wow, foreshadowing.) In fact, he's sticking to that very billboard for the Arachnerd movie seen in the earlier issue. You know why? Less to draw.

I'm also trying to texturize every different city. It's difficult, as I have about twelve pre-existing buildings that I use to make each city. Chronopolis has a lot of clock towers, hence the name, to differentiate it. Here, in the Arachnerd's home city, I'm trying to color everything in earth tones, including the sky, to get something different than that bright interesting Deco City feel.

I'm also including a close up of panel one. Here we see exactly how cool the Crusader is. Look closely. He's got an iPhone.

The Final Frontier

Pocket Books has announced it, so I guess it's okay for me to drop the news myself. Bob Ingersoll and I will be co-authoring a short story in the Star Trek: The Next Generation short story collection. I can't describe how jazzed I am about it…

Crap! If I can't describe it, maybe I shouldn't be trying to write professionally. Oh, well, ever forward.

I've tried to get published by them once before, entering their Strange New Worlds contest. My story for that, The Lady in Red, a Star Trek: Voyager story, got rejected, but if you're interested in it, I've got a PDF of it up here. So now Bob and I are collaborating on 'Til Death, a Next Generation story featuring Commander Riker. I don't want to reveal too much, but I will tell you that we put Number One through the ringer.

I've been published before, but this is my first published prose story, and it's a big thrill.

It's also great to work with Bob again. Our first collaboration was me lettering some of his Innovation stories. I've been his technical and science advisor on a few other things. Here we'll meld into one superbeing name Thob. Okay, maybe not.

As far as my craft goes, I write at Starbucks. For some reason, I can't write prose or long chunks of dialogue at home. But I go up there, have a venti mocha (skim, no whip) and write like the wind. I think it goes back to something one of my old teachers, Bart Sears, told us at Kubert. He said "When you're at your drawing table, just draw. Don't read. Don't eat. Don't talk on the phone. Just draw." The idea is to get your brain to associate that space with the work, so when you sit down, you click over to Work Mode. So, for better or worse, Starbucks clicks my writing brain into Work Mode.

The Star Trek TNG collection drops in October of this year. Start lining up now.

On the Floor!

I received word from Rod at Comic-Con International yesterday that I do have a space at the 2007 show! It's good to get that out of the way. No booth number as of yet, but I'll be in the comics section. Make sure to come on by and see me! By that time, I'll have five, count 'em five issues of Love and Capes, as well as the first three Raider graphic novels and Long Distance. I'm working on other things to make this my best show yet, so keep checking back and see what I come up with.

Page-a-Day

I don't usually post the fourth panel of a sequence, as it usually is the punchline for the gag, but I'm making an exception here. Why? Because the punchline makes absolutely no sense without the panels before.

It's also a silent panel, which I try to do every now and again, too. They're keep variety in the texture of the story, which helps keep things interesting. I worry that some of my panels get a little copy-heavy, so it's nice to know that I can pull these off from time to time.

With this, I'm done with the family picnic sequence of issue four.

Also nice is that it puts me two pages off my schedule, which is twelve pages a month. That's sometimes a feat with all my other projects, but I've still got three days in the month to do two pages remaining. I'd like to be further ahead, but keeping the pace keeps me from freaking out about my deadline.

"No!" Or, as the Germans say, "Nine!"

I'm posting two panels today. One is the representative panel from the just-finished page nine. Mark's mocking expression, by the way, is hands-down the hardest expression I've had to capture in a comic. And, it reinforces why I don't let people watch me draw. Staring into the mirror above my drafting table, making that look, trying to hold it and then trying to draw it… well, no one needs to see that.

I also do stuff to crack myself up. I put books I like or books by my friends (usually the same thing) as featured books in Abby's bookstore. Most of these get obscured by dialogue or are just too small to see. Doesn't matter, I still like to do it, and I like knowing they're there. Mark watches "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Stuff like that. In that vein, the second panel features my cousin's son Carter, who if we could tap the energy within him, Timberlake wouldn't need First Energy to provide power to the village. His brother, Aidan, makes an uncredited cameo in another panel, too.

My library of backgrounds in the book continues to increase, too. I did a decent sized forest/park background, and you might notice that it appears in both these panels, although flipped and color shifted and so on so it's not horribly noticable.

Hopefully I'll be able to get page ten done later today, too, which should be the end of the family picnic jokes. And only fourteen left after that!

Goodbye Darlings!

I finished the actual lettering on my last issue of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark for Claypool Comics today. I still have to paste it up, whenever the boards roll in, and I'll still be doing Deadbeats. But it's a bit of a milestone.

Elvira was the regular project that, as much as anything else, allowed me to leave the Salt Mines (better known as the Markell Company) and regular employment for the Wild West that is the World de Freelance. You can think what you like about the property, I make no judgments about the book. But it was good work, regular work, and I'm a better letterer for the almost ten years I spent lettering her adventures. Fortunately, I have enough work to fill the void, but that doesn't mean I won't miss the Mistress of the Dark.

I got to meet Elvira in person a couple years back at the Claypool 10th anniversary panel in San Diego a couple years back. She was nothing but sweet, and very funny. IMDB says there are a couple of Elvira projects in the works for her. Hope she's doing well.

Traffic and Other Steve Winwood Bands

I try to stay away from doing too many super-stunts in Love and Capes. My mental rule is "what could a sitcom's budget handle?" This one is as close as I'm going to get to doing superhero stuff in the book, I think.

Then again I could change my mind and do an entire issue that's one continuous fight scene. I'm flaky that way. (Just kidding. Heavy on the love, light on the capes.)

With this page I am officially one-third of the way through the book, too! Yay, me!

And, don't forget, Love and Capes #3 is available at your local comic book shop today! Not only is it all kinds of good fun, but it's got the funniest biography copy yet.