Come Back Soon, Old Friend

Back on my 30th birthday, I bought myself a Herman Miller Aeron chair.

I'd had a few drafting chairs before, including the original one that I bought when I went to the Kubert School. It was one of those tall chairs with a five pointed base with wheels. And, every couple of years, it would break. Maybe I lean too much when I'm drawing, or my floor was slanted or something, but one of those spokes on the bottom would break off. My Dad would weld it back, and it'd be good for a while and break again. I remember more than a few nights lettering Elvira and drawing Raider balancing on the remaining four spokes.

I got sick of it. And, back when I was living at home and had more disposable income, I looked into the Aeron chair. I'd heard of them before. I'd certainly noticed Sela Ward scooting around her Sprint commercials in one. (Although, it took a few viewings to actually notice the chair.) I even got to test a couple out when I went to the grand opening of the WKYC-3 studios here in Cleveland.

Everyone who had one raved about it. So I did some research and then I bought one.

They're expensive, but they're worth it. They come in multiple sizes, to suit their owner. They have seventeen points of articulation, so you can really customize it for your body and posture. They're got a 14 year warranty or so, too. So I knew that if something were to happen, it'd be fixed. I ran the numbers and figured that buying the Aeron would be more cost effective than replacing my current chair every couple of years. So I bought one.

There are purchases you make that cost more than you're comfortable with, and you hope you use it enough to justify it. Then, with the right products, you use them so much you can't imagine how you survived without them. My first Mac was like that, as was my first scanner. Tivo and my iPod are my current examples of things that just work and become part of your life. The Aeron Chair was one of those purchases.

Then, last week, there was a snap. Part of the seat assembly started to pull away from the seat itself. I looked around and checked on the warranty. Still under warranty (and will be for the forseeable future) everything was covered, including shipping, which is a big deal with an item this large. Today, it leaves via FedEx and I'll see it again in a week or so.

I'm writing this at my computer on another chair and it's just not right. Bart Sears, one of my Kubert School instructors, beat into us the idea that when you're at your drafting board all you do is draw. No eating, no reading, just drawing. It helps snap your mind into work mode on those days when you don't want to work.

I've taken that to heart, and notice that I don't draw as well, or at least as comfortably, when I'm not in my studio with my materials at my board. For the next week, it's going to be weird not having the right chair. I think I pushed to get an additional page of LNC done before I had to ship the chair out just in case I get some kind of mental block about not having the right seat.

Okay, I know I've gone on and on about this simple chair, probably more than I should. But it's a great chair, seriously. And you'd be surprised how much your mood and productivity are affected by your comfort and something as small as your chair.

If you don't want to tell me exactly what you're doing, when I'm asked, I don't have to lie

With this, I'm two thirds through issue #7.

I think I did an issue, maybe #3, where I never showed anyone in Abby's bookstore. After that, I've tried to make sure she has a customer or two, just so we know that her store is relatively solvent. Plus, it gives me the opportunity to draw new/background characters, and they're pretty fun to design.

After the extended Christmas scenes, I'm really putting myself through my paces with the ladies' clothes, too. I know what guys wear. I can just go through my closet and imagine the stuff without all the Jack Skellington and Superman images on it. Women are different, so I troll all sorts of websites and notice ladies' outfits whenever I'm out. Complicating my process is that Abby and Charlotte dress differently… at least if I'm doing my job right. Charlotte's clothes are a little younger and a little more flirty than Abby's.

So, I've done a bunch of scenes that take place over a series of days, and I have to keep coming up with new outfits. And, the story is taking place in winter mostly in the bookstore, so you're essentially pulling the same type of outfits.

Okay, enough complaining. This page has one of my favorite jokes in it. Sorry to taunt you so, since I won't post it, but it's not like you have to buy this one, right? Just go to your local comic shop on May 3rd.

This is your last chance... free us or die.

My brain's been stuck in second gear all day, and I'm not sure why. I think I got enough sleep and all. But it's affected Love and Capes, as for the second time, I've had to redraw a panel to make it funnier. I'm sure you can see why I changed this panel...

...to this one...

Okay, probably not.

What makes it funnier, to me, is the distance. When Mark returns to the store, it's funnier to the big joke (that you can't see, but trust me, it is HI-larious) that he travelled some distance, rather than just outside the store. So I redrew it.

Fortunately, having a library of images I can reuse made it easy. We see Mark and Abby at the El Train tracks, which is a stock background I have. And the crowd are some cut-outs that you may remember from issue #6. Waste not, want not.

I'm now officially on the back nine of the pages. For a book that I was on a tighter deadline on than normal, and one I wasn't mentally prepared to start, it seems to be moving along nicely.

Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?

If you're like me, you're breathlessly anticipating the Steve Jobs keynote from MacWorld today. Is the AirBook as rumored? Anything new for the iPhone? Will backlit keys become standard now that I've bought a laptop?

So, to help distract you from such obsessive thoughts, I present page fourteen of Love and Capes. I've only got ten pages left, seven of which are pretty well planned out, so I'm in decent shape. And, speaking of obsessive thoughts, I'm almost at that stage on the new book, too. It gets in the way of other work, but it does help get the beast done.

Here we get a Crusader/Darkblade scene, which we haven't seen since the first couple of pages. It's also the closest I've gotten to an actual action scene (not pictured here, obviously). I keep trying to shake up the traditional prowl-and-talk that I've done, and show them actually being heroes without violating the self-imposed rules of my world.

My money's on a new AirBook, the release of the iPhone SDK kit and there'll be one more thing. What, I don't know, but something cool, I hope.

Ah, But You Have Heard of Me

And with this, the Christmas part of the story is over. Yay! I think it's been okay, but it's also been plot and set-up heavy. Things should get a little easier for me with the next page, which also finally has heroes in costume again, too.

I think this may be the toughest issue yet to write. I've got about a month to finish the next eleven pages, though, so I'm in decent shape on the old schedule.

Quote Answers

Here's the quotes and the answers (I started doing the quotes with page three.)

3. Crystal Duck!
Friends. When Chandler accidentally spills the beans about Ross loving Rachel at the end of the first season.

4. Legen… wait for it… dary!
How I Met Your Mother. Barney does versions of this all the time.

5. We’ll Skip Lunch
Gung Ho. Michael Keaton and Gedde Wanatabbe explain how they're going to finish all the cars up in one day.

6. Of Course You Did, You Saucy Minx You
Love, Actually. Newly elected Prime Minister Hugh Grant asks a portrait of Maggie Thatcher if she had the same problems with relationships that he does.

7. Nice Suit…John Phillips, London… I Hear Arafat Gets His There
Die Hard. Hans Gruber makes small talk with Mr. Nakatomi in one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.

8. A Driver Don’t Pick the Car
Transformers. I'd just watched it with RiffTracks when I finished that page. I have no idea why Bernie Mac showed up in that movie. He was almost parachuted in. But the movie was fun.

9. Come With Me If You Want to Live
Terminator 1,2,3. A classic line that Peter David once opined that you can't argue with, you have to go.

10. I Have No Responsibilities Here Whatsoever
A Few Good Men. Sam explains why he's tagging along with Daniel Khaffi, and so began my mad love for Aaron Sorkin dialogue.

11. We Need To Schedule More Events Where Somebody Gives Me a Really Big Fish
The American President. President Sheppard discusses his schedule with Janie. More Sorkinisms.

12. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.
Malice. The forgotten Sorkin screenplay. The most elaborate con in history, but man is it fun to watch.

You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.

After this, we're walking out of the woods.

Here's page twelve, halfway to the big finish. There's one more Christmas scene, and then onto other, non-holiday, matters. Yay!

This page is also one of the few that I've done that I redrew and rewrote a joke. I didn't like the ending gag and actually drew a new panel with a new closing joke. Of course, I'm not posting it here, since I don't post the punchlines. It's just that for as tightly plotted and worked out as Love and Capes often is, every once in a while I go off the rails.

Oh, and since I'm in the 50% range, Tomorrow, I'm going to post the sources of all the movie quotes I've been using as titles for these posts.

Amazonia Rules!

Trevor bought a sketch from me at WizardWorld Dallas last year, and he was nice enough to send me a scan of it so I could color and post it.

Amazonia is one of my favorite characters in Love and Capes. She's tough to write, since she has to work on multiple levels. And, all that said, she probably won't be in issue #7. (I'm still working that out.) She's tough and smart and probably still hung up on Mark, but you can't blame her too much for that.

I have to admit I didn't remember too much of the sketch until I saw it again, but now that I see it, I really do dig it. She's got that defiant "Yeah, what you gonna do about it?" pose and attitude that I think the character has in spades.

Hokey Smokes! I Can't Believe I Forgot This!

There's a special 6-pack of Love and Capes available through Previews this very month. You get six comics for the price of four, and a free sketch by, well, me. It's order code: JAN08 3783. Tell your retailer... nay, DEMAND your retailer get it for you!

I would have mentioned it sooner but, you know, holidays, Vegas, saving the world. Busy couple of weeks.

We Need To Schedule More Events Where Somebody Gives Me a Really Big Fish

I've complained recently about a lot of the pages being hard. This one, blissfully, wasn't.

I'm finally hitting the stride of pages where I know exactly what's going to happen, and the meat of the story. Well, I say "exactly" but then I realized that I had to add a page after the next one to resolve a dangling plot thread from ten pages before. Damn my tight plotting!

I'm posting panel five, which is my favorite of the sequence. The cadence of these panels is different, as neither ends with a joke so much as a "What?" beat, so I like being able to slide jokes into the body of the strip, like this one.

Incidentally, I had to design a new kitchen set for this scene. I think it turned out really well. Given the well-off-ness of Abby's parents, I tried to design a nicer, more upscale kitchen than the Spencer family kitchen. I did my online research (man, I love me teh internets) and put it some nicer brushed metal applicances among other things.

Almost halfway done now!