Anyone Remember KC Munchkin?

I love working on Love and Capes, but I also love that part where I'm close to the end. It's always nice when the page numbers start with the number two. So, here's page twenty! Mark's on his iPhone playing video games while on monitor duty at the Liberty League satellite. I didn't really want to create an entire fake video game, but I managed to find some screen shots from some old Odyssey 2 video games, and used those as the basis for Mark's game.

My family had the Odyssey 2 when I was a kid. The game system had great box covers, and uniformly pretty lame games. They used sprite graphics instead of original artwork, so Pick Axe Pete looked like your Football player looked like your Basketball player. The game system was outdistanced and out performed by the competing Atari and Intellivision games, but I've still got a soft spot in my heart for it. I thought that look would be perfect for the panel, as it's a simpler look, so it read as more cartoony. The game Mark's playing is based on Invaders from Hyperspace

There's a later panel in this sequence where you can see images on the monitor bank. I used some websites I designed (the Thom Zahler site and the Baltimore Bee site) as well as one of my favorite places for life hack information (43 Folders) to fill the screens.

Page twenty also starts the last sequence of this issue. Yay!

Thom Zahler has eight days left to draw four pages.

No Boom Today, Boom Tomorrow

I mentioned earlier that I did two different covers for the great state of Texas. I don't have a PDF of the second one yet with text and headline, but here's the image that was used on the cover. Houston apparently has some old abandoned buildings downtown that they're thinking about blowing up. So this cover for the Houston Press ran with the headline "This Blows!" This one was a bit of a challenge, as my art director wanted a cartoony look, but the building I needed to draw didn't lend itself to much caricature. But I think I managed to make it work. I do particularly like the colors on this one.

He Had a Bad Day

We're getting closer. Five pages left. I can see the finish line.

Not much to say about this page or panel, except that I get into why Mark's been taking so many of the Arachnerd bits so personally this issue. As the Crusader, Mark's always a little jealous of the success of other superheroes, but he's been a little more petulant this issue. There's actually some motivation behind it.

Oh, and since I don't think I've mentioned it before, I'll be at the New York Comic-Con this coming weekend. I'll be working behind the Toon Tumblers booth for the most part, at Booth 577. I'll have all three issues of Love and Capes for sale. I might also be in the line for Stephen Colbert. I've got a crazy idea about getting him to appear in LNC#5. Haven't decided how to do it or pull it off yet, but I've got five more days to figure things out.

Thom Zahler has nine days remaining to draw five pages.

Kiss, Kiss, Beam, Beam

I described my musical theory of pacing Love and Capes somewhere before. I always try to throw in a couple of more serious or sweet beats to change up all the jokes. Page eighteen is one of those, as Abby finally auditions for the play, and Mark finds the rewards of being supportive. I think Mark and Abby kiss more in this issue more than they have since the first one. In thinking about it, I'm not even sure they kiss at all in #3. Hmmmm. That's interesting. At least, I find it so.

I also finished my last draft of Bob Ingersoll and my Star Trek: The Next Generation story. It's now in Bob's hands to save and send off. We may get together to hammer some final things out, but we're just about done now. Yay!

Ohio's answer to Derek Wildstar, Thom Zahler, has twelve days left to draw six pages.

Big Texas Love

The State of Texas seems to really like me, and I really like it a lot right back. One of my best friends and his family live there, and I try to go out a couple times a year to see them. I've also worked for a few companies out there, including the Fort Worth Weekly and Houston Press. Oddly, both of them decided they needed some Thom Zahler eye candy on their covers the same week. No problemo, I'm enough of a style chameleon that I can do two covers and have them not look too similar. And besides, Texas is a big state and there's a lot of space between them.

The Ft. Worth Weekly cover is for a story about Texas Governor Rick Perry, who seems to have flipped his lid lately. I make no actual political comment here. I really don't know everything he's doing, and I would have drawn Perry as Superman if they'd wanted. As long as their check clears.

My Art Director there was on vacation when the editor decided she needed this cover, so she called him and asked "Who do I get?" Without missing a beat, I'm told, he said "Get Thom Zahler." In my head, he spoke in the same urgent tones as when someone says "Get me Jack Bauer" on "24."

If you click and look at the larger image, you'll see a little bit of an Easter Egg for people who watch the same shows as me, too. I'll post the Houston Press image when I get the final cover back from them.

Valentine's Day Cancelled?

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and it was also Super King Kamehamaha Snow Day here in the Buckeye State. Radio Personality Chip Kullikfrom WMJI 105.7 decided to announce that Governor Strickland cancelled Valentine's Day due to the inclement weather. Always one to help out my friend (perhaps you may remember that he, Jimmy Malone and I worked on a book together) I managed to find a screen capture of the State of Ohio website that featured that announcement. If you forgot yesterday, feel free to print it out.

Despite the proclamations, I did go out and have a nice V-Day, thanks for asking.

Nothing Says Valentine's Day Like Love and Capes

I managed to squeeze out a pre-Valentine's Day page of Love and Capes last night/early this morning. One of the things they don't tell you in art school is that you'll eventually learn everything that's on late night TV, because you'll be up to watch it. Last night, Conan was interviewing Eva Longorria as I was finishing off coloring this page, and then I scripted and lettered it this morning.

One of the weirdnesses of the quarterly comic schedule is that I have to write the solicitations for my books long before I actually write the book itself. With #4, I didn't really have the plot squared away, so I mentioned the Crusader/Arachnerd bit that I had set up in #3 and knew would be a big part, and wanted call out a storyline for Abby. I figured that Amazonia is a perpetual figure in the books, one that's far more popular than I thought, so I'd say "And Amazonia causes problems for Abby."

Then I hit page sixteen and she hadn't appeared. She definitely appears near the end, but I needed a scene that was heavy with the Abby/Amazonia conflict to set that one up. So that's how I came up with this bit, as Abby is practicing for her audition.

Amazonia is hard to write (much like Mark's Mom in #2) as I never write her actually doing anything against Abby. She says things that can be interpreted as mean, but she never says things that are overtly so. That level of wordplay, though, takes some effort. Hopefully I pulled it off four a fourth issue.

Thom Zahler and the crew of the Argo have fourteen days left to draw seven pages.

33.3% Left!

You were worried, weren't you? Things got quiet here and you said "Where, oh where, is the new page of Love and Capes?" Well, here it is. This panel shows my devil-may-care attittde as I bite one of the hands that's feeding me and make a Star Trek joke.

The weekend was actually trés busy as I spent some time with my girlfriend, celebrated a friend's birthday, including a trip to IKEA (she's a party animal), dropped my Dad at the airport, celebrated my cousin's and my aunt's birthdays, and got together with some friends. There was barely time to get to Church and make a couple (okay, three) trips to Starbucks.

Things stay busy this week too. There are lots of clients to take care of, and there is, of course, Valentine's Day. Having not had a Valentine in three years, I have done all of nothing to prepare for tomorrow. Nothing. Why, I could forget it altogether. Either that, or my Valentine reads my blog and I'm not going to reveal anything here. One of the two.

Thom Zahler and the crew of the Argo have fifteen days left to draw eight pages.

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!"

More Behind Me Than Ahead of Me

I finished page fifteen last night. We're moving from the Arachnerd storyline to the Abby-trying-out-for-Twelfth Night storyline. This is the penultimate plot line in #4. This scene is also actually a great example of what Bob Ross called "happy accidents." Because of the ending joke in this sequence, I originally planned on Mark being in full civilian mode, with his hair brushed back and wearing glasses, but when I started drawing it, I forgot I had that in mind and drew him without. Since he'd just flown back from meeting the Arachnerd, I figured that he'd just throw on some clothes but not necessarily do the whole secret identity thing.

But, it worked out to make it even funnier. Of course, I can't reveal why these things play so well without ruining the joke, so you'll have to buy the book to see if it works.

Thom Zahler has nineteen days left to draw nine pages… with our Star Blazers.