Boldly Arriving

Behold! Look what arrived in ye olde mail today. It's an advance copy of The Sky's the Limit, the Star Trek: the Next Generation collection that includes a story by me and Bob Ingersoll. (That's the book, that's my Captain Kirk action figure, and that's my big ol'hand.) It's right there, starting on page 321. The book comes out next month, you can preorder it from Amazon here, and…

…well, it's just cool.

Here we Arrrrrrrgh Again

Today's National Talk Like a Pirate Day. It's a little less impressive when you work alone, although it does cut down on the weird looks you get. Everybody else is doing all the "Avast" and "Ye Maties". I'm flexing my fingers and saying "Savvy?" and hoping someone says "You're the worst cartoonist I've ever heard of" so I can reply "Yes, but you have heard of me." No eye makeup, though.

Gay Cowboys Eating Pudding

Look! Superheroes having tea! Why isn't this book getting more recognition? I should have an Eisner, a Harvey, and a Grammy because of this brilliance.

But seriously, here we go with another flashback panel. The Crusader has gone to visit Amazonia at her office tower, and then they have the aforementioned tea. This page was hard to break. I knew what ground I had to cover, but I couldn't figure out the jokes. I struggled with it for three days, and then...

Well, when I was a kid, I used to sit on my bed and toss a ball into the air, all the time thinking of stories and ideas. So much of Raider was originally written that way and a bunch of other things that haven't seen print. At least not yet.

So after three days of racking my brain, taking walks and long drives, I sat on my couch to watch some football. I grabbed a beach ball that I got as a promotion from some photo stock house, and tossed it in the air. Before it even came down, I had both jokes.

Sometimes the old ways are best, I guess.

Actually, I'm pretty happy with this sequence. The next page is pretty strong. And, since this is page eight, I am officially one-third of the way through issue six.

One Last Time, NOT the Video Game...

Another story from the Baltimore Comic-Con...

I got to talk to Joe Kubert. Obviously we've met before, given that he taught me in my third year of school at his oh-so-appropriately named Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. He didn't really remember me, but that's no surprise. I went there fifteen years ago, and in his class I was by no means notable. That's less a feature of my talent and more how I was dwarfed by classmates.

Here's what was cool, and what surprised me. He asked how I was doing, and what art I was doing. He exuded this genuineness when he asked. I could tell that he really wanted to know that the education that he was responsible for had paid off. And he was genuinely pleased when I told him that I was making my living as a cartoonist, and was doing pretty well.

Of course, I say "genuinely pleased" and for all I know he was actually thinking of ways to kill me using a Hunt 107 pen tip. But, I thought he was being genuine, and in these cases, I find perception is reality.

As for why I was surprised, that comes from my experience at the school. I've referred to my time there as "boot camp for artists." It wasn't always pleasant. And there were times that it felt I was getting a good education in spite of the administration. I don't hold Joe responsible for that aspect, as I think he was pretty removed from the day-to-day operations. I also had some great times there, and made some fantastic friends there.

I was just surprised at how much I wanted Joe to be proud of me. With all those mixed feelings from the school, I would have thought I would have been a little more distant from Joe himself and that his opinion wouldn't matter. But it did, and it was kind of nice that it did.

Joe also has what a friend of mine describes as "a young man's walk." When he said that, my friend was referring to Stan Lee. It gives me hope that a lot of my artistic heroes, both in terms of style and business, seem to live so well so long. Viktor Shrekengost is almost 100. Al Hirschfeld lived to be about 100 and was still working. Carl Barks and Will Eisner both seemed to live long, full lives. Joe Kubert and Stan Lee are still doing really good work.

In an Uncle Scrooge story, Carl Barks suggested that Scrooge McDuck was so old and so spry because he was doing what he loved. I think there's a lot to be said for that and makes me appreciate that I get to do what I love for a living.

Flashback!

Here's my first new page since Baltimore, and it's also the first of many flashback pages.

There were a number of design challenges in this page. One was to come up with a way to visually show that it was a flashback. The faded edges do that okay. I also muted the colors of all the flashbacks just a little bit. So, for example, the red of Crusader's costume is just a little more washed-out in the flashbacks as opposed to the current stuff. Also, and you can't necessarily see it here, the Crusader has sideburns.

I was tempted to bring back the mulletted Crusader from the time travel scene in #5, but I thought that was too much. So the sideburns are a subtle reminder that we're in flashback.

Pictured here, Mark and Zoe's first kiss.

Baltimore Recap and a Lotta Links

Marc Nathan puts on a darn fine show.

The Baltimore Comic-Con is a pretty special thing. Is creator friendly, family friendly, and comics friendly in a way so many shows aren't anymore. I set up there, selling a little thing you may have heard of called Love and Capes. I did pretty well, and in a pretty cool way. It's hard to tell exactly, because so much of conventioning and selling are fluid concepts, but it seems like more people who attended the Baltimore show actually read the book, and wanted more.

With most shows I do, it feels like I'm always at ground zero, trying to sell the book to a new audience. "Have you heard of Love and Capes? No? Well, let me tell you about it." In Baltimore, people came up saying "I got issue one and need the rest!" Now, that could be because the book has been around for a year-and-a-half and I did the Free Comic Book Day issue, both of which make the series a little more noticable. Whatever the reason, I'm just glad it happened. I think I sell better at Baltimore than I do at any other show, on a daily average.

Plus, it's just so pleasant. There are a lot of creators I only see at Baltimore, and I actually get to talk to them. I was set up across from Kyle Baker, and chatted with him quite a bit. I got to hang out with Steve Conley, writer and artist of one of my favorite books, Astounding Space Thrills, and is one of the current artists on IDW's Star Trek book. I spent some time with John Gallagher and Rich Faber of Buzzboy, which is always nice. I got to have dinner with Mike Manley, Echo, Scott Cohn and Jamar Nicholas, among others. And I got to meet some new people, like Jann Jones and Art Baltazar.

I even got to do a panel, which outside of Mid-Ohio-Con, I don't do too much. I helped out at the Kids Love Comics panel, where I taught some kids about lettering. Yeah, I was surprised they picked my station, too.

Baltimore itself is a great location for the show. There aren't many shows that have that great mix of a good show and a lot to do in convenient walking distance. San Diego is just so frellin' huge, that getting to the Gaslamp District, which is just across the street, takes an act of God and a reservation for dinner made yesterday. Chicago plants its show out in the relative middle of nowhere, with two restaurants and a McDonalds to choose from. But Baltimore, like my much-beloved Mid-Ohio-Con, manages to find a location where there's a lot to do in proximity to the convention.

Paul Storrie and I had a nice drive to and from Charm City. No accidents or traffic tie-ups or anything like that, and lots of conversation. Paul did pretty well at the show, too.

The only down beat at all was the absence of Mike Wieringo. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the tribute panel. Among other things, it was two hours at the end of Saturday. Ringo and his career deserve those two hours, heck, deserve more, but it was a long time to be away from the table for a lot of people. And I didn't manage to find the pros' wake that night either. Baltimore's only a two day show, with a lot of things set up before the show started and before Ringo's untimely passing, so finding a way to give him his due and still do right by the show is a balancing act. But there was a lot of money raised for the ASPCA in his name, and he was definitely missed.

The show's a couple weeks later next year, so I have to wait a little bit before I can make my hotel reservations again. But I'll be doing so as soon as I can.

Next show for me is WizardWorld Texas, and then Mid-Ohio-Con will close out my 2007 Conventions.

Trip Sixes

I'm just about to pick up stakes and head out to the Big Baltimore Comicon. Well, it's not actually called "the Big" but it is bigger than last year, so I guess it's accurate. I'll get to see some friends, have some food, drink some drink, and get some new Toon Tumblers. What a weekend.

Anyway, before Paul Storrie and I get in the Supercar-D for six hours of driving, chatting, podcasts and the Flash Gordon soundtrack, I finished up page six of Love and Capes. For those of you mathies in the audience, that means I'm 25% done. And, since it's book six and page size, I decided show off panel six. Yup, 666.

Make of that what you will.

Gentlemen (and Ladies), Start Your Order Books!

Hey, look what's in Previews this month on page 326, right below the also-excellent Pantheon collection! Why, it's Love and Capes #6.

Be sure to ask your local comic shop to order you a copy or six. Heck, tell them it's Previews Order Code SEP073844 just to make it easy on them.

Speaking of issue six, here's a panel from the fifth page of LNC. Here we see Abby getting interviewed by the local news, promoting Amazonia's book launch at her store. For this page (but not in this featured panel) I finally designed "the crowd." I've written a few scenes in past issues with lines of people. So I've finally designed a set of stock characters that can be used to form a line. At least fall and winter lines, since everyone's wearing a jacket. One of these day's I'll have to do a summer collection, too, I suppose.

It's also the first TV panel to appear in the series. It's not the only new panel type that will be appearing in this issue, either. I've had to design a flashback panel border that should be showing up on page seven.

Branching Out

As I write this, it's Saturday morning (but this won't appear until Sunday, lest I innundate you with posts), and while I've got stuff to work on, I don't have anything I want to work on. So I thought I'd try something.

I'm a big fan for Sean "Cheeks" Galloway's stuff. He's got such a fun, animated style. It reminds me a little bit of Claire Wendling, whose stuff I also love to pieces. So, I got inspired to try the style.

I didn't know what to draw first, but I had AMC's Mad Men on while I was mulling things over. As an aside, Mad Men is an interesting show, but it's also one of those shows that I can't figure out if I like. It's a fascinating time period, the New York advertising world in the 1960's. A time when they were advertising cigarettes and Nixon and everyone smoked. It's also got some bang-up actors, including Christina Hendricks and John Slattery. I first saw Christina Hendricks on Firefly and have had the pleasure to meet her in person a couple of times. I've never met John Slattery, but he did a great job on Ed taking a character that I shouldn't like and giving him depth, and then he did the same thing on Jack and Bobby. The show also features Vincent Kartheiser, who I think was much better than people give him credit for on Angel. The character was written whiny and mopey, but look how cool he was in the last couple of episodes.

Anyway, since I had Mad Men on, I decided to do a take on Christina and John's characters. I think the initial foray into this style worked well. I jumped out of my comfort zone and worked in one line weight, rather than the brushy style that I use on Love and Capes. I also played with proportions

Seven Days

Just a reminder that I'll be in Baltimore this time next week, so come on by and say "hi". I'll have issues 1-5 of Love and Capes, some copies of Raider and Long Distance. And, of course, the swanky Love and Capes t-shirts.

In fact, I just got new product art of the lovely Alicia wearing her Love and Capes shirt. This photo, as are all my model photos, courtesy of DK Photography.