My Dulcet Tones, Yet Again

I had the pleasure of doing an interview with JJ from Fist Full of Comics and Games. You can check it out here. Hopefully I don't sound like too much of a dolt.

Tell me what it's like to be the last one standing

I've mentioned it before, but there's something I really like about doing the quarterly Love and Capes series over the semi-yearly Raider books: How quickly it goes. This is page six, and with that, I'm 25% done with the book.

The page has very little dialogue. Technically, there are only four words spoken on the entire page. I'm kind of known for my dialogue, and it's definitely my favorite part, so it's nice to do something different. It's largely decided by the joke, but once I realized the silent nature of the page, I really tried to play that up. There are things, like panel five, where I could have cheated and added a whisper, but I really wanted the body language to carry the message.

Because it's such a cool page, and because it doesn't spoil the larger plot of the eighth issue, I'm linking to the whole thing. Yes, that's right, you can both click and embiggen!

There's nothing to do that can't be done

There's nothing to do that can't be done.

Things are starting to pick up speed on the marathon that is Love and Capes. Here's page five, and I got it done yesterday. A lot of pages take two days to hammer out, this one took only one. And, if I'm not careful, I'll have page six done today, too.

I particularly dig the art on this panel. It's an expressiveness that I don't often get to do with Mark. He's rarely irritated the way that he is in this panel. It's also neat the way that I got to reverse the shadows, putting Mark's face in the darker area, really getting his feelings across.

As for what else goes on this page, you'll have to buy the book. It is one of the plot-heavier pages, although it doesn't look like it at first glance.

For those of you following my Twitter feed, Twitter was down yesterday. I'm trying to tweet the whole creative process, but it seems like they keep crashing whenever I'm working. I don't think it's my fault, but who knows?

Process Crimes

I love process stuff. I love books that go behind-the-scenes of TV shows and movies (like the way-cool Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) and into artists' studios and especially Steven King's On Writing. So, in that spirit, here's a glimpse into the way I write.

I got a little stuck on page five of Love and Capes, so I grabbed my iPod and took a walk. It seems to clear my head, and by the time I got to the beach, I'd gotten two and a half more pages of LNC #8 plotted. It's amazing how well that works, and I wonder why I don't take walks to get over writer's block more often.

Being an artist, I tend to think visually, so I keep my plot for the book as a series of Post-It notes. I keep them on my kitchen wall, which is close to my studio and is the largest empty wall here in Zahlerdu that's not in the living room. Not that I have that many visitors, but I like to keep the public areas a little clearer than my work areas.

Each Post-It one represents four panels of the book, and has some note, usually the punchline, to help me remember the bit that I'd written. And having this in such a visual medium lets me plot the pacing of the book and see how many more pages, how much more I have.

You'll notice one note in the lower right hand corner. That's the last page. I always have the ending planned out before I do the middle. It gives me an idea of where I'm headed. As I plot other sections, they'll appear in other places on the wall so that I can see the book as a sequence of scenes rather than just one age at a time.

Morning Had Broken Me

Man, waking up at 4:00am will mess you the frak up.

I felt like I was in a haze all day, even after I slept for an hour after the show. I managed to pump out a couple more parts of the Scene cover I'm doing. I even finished it this morning (and by morning, I mean something like seven or eight, not four) assuming my art director gives me the big okay. Part of said cover is even shown here. I'll post another image or two, probably, before I show the full cover on Wednesday when it prints.

Anyway, Good Morning Cleveland was great. I was surprisingly conscious for that early in the morning. Everybody there, from Todd the producer to Paul and Kim and Susanne and Patty to everyone else were fantastic. And a big shout out to Kimmy, who I went to Lake Catholic with and brought me to their attention to be on the show. You can see a slideshow of those caricatures here. I think most of them came out pretty well, and I was lucky enough to get the subjects to sit down for me. Last time I was on the show (it can't be seven years ago, can it?), I had to look across the studio to try to get a glimpse of them. There's probably one of the set I did yesterday that I'd do differently, but I won't out it here.

I think I even came across well in the interview, although I must admit that I've not had the intestinal fortitude to pull it up on the TiVo yet. I'll probably burn it to disc and never look at it again. I really have a hard time watching myself on TV.

But don't let that stop you if you're the producer of another morning show and want to bring me out to your studio. Good Morning Dallas... Good Morning Poughkeepsie... whatever. It's all about the self-promotion.

I'm A Rockstar!

Today was a strangely busy day. I'd had it planned to work on the Scene Magazine cover that I landed yesterday, and maybe finish the HGR cover. Then my phone rang for an hour... and the Super Secret Project popped up... and I did a career day for my neighbor at Garrett Morgan school (not Garrett Morris, although he's "berry, berry" funny, if you know what I mean). And tonight I have to go be a Councilman as well as get to sleep early so I can get up at the unThomly hour of 4:30am to go do Good Morning Cleveland. So... yikes!

But, I did get the tight roughs done for my Scene cover. Here's a snippet. Yes, it's heavily photo referenced, and the final style will be kind of familiar to most of you. I'll post it when they print it.

It's an Honor to Be Next to those Nominated

Like last year, Maerkle Press/Love and Capes will be part of the Saturn Awards gift bags. They'll be celebrated on Tuesday, June 24th at Universal City in California. Some good films, TV, and actors are up there. Cloverfield, Stardust, Enchanted, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Amy Adams, Alan Rickman, Lena Headey, Brad Bird, the Cohen Brothers and more.

On of my favorite quotes from SportsNight is "show up and see what happens." The deal being, if you never show up, nothing will happen. That's why I do things like this, to get my wares out in front of people who can take it to the next level. It can't hurt, and can, in fact, only help. Maybe Sam Raimi is looking to produce a sitcom. You never know.

32 wants to do things to you that'll make you blush

One of the things I like about working on a comic book, as opposed to a graphic novel, is the instant sense of accomplishment. This is page four, so I'm already one sixth of the way through the book. Two pages from now, I'll be one-quarter done.

In these exciting panels, Abby is looking for someone to replace Charlotte. What's most interesting about this page, at least to me, is that I didn't have a punchline for panel eight. I knew the body language, but I didn't have any dialogue. In fact, a couple panels were drawn with the "I'll think of something funny later."

There's a scene in Maverick (the Mel Gibson version) where he draws an ace just by trusting that he could. I think the creative arts are kind of like that. Sometimes you have a good hand, and sometimes you have to play and trust you'll draw an ace later on. Now, I'm not so arrogant to say that this page ends with an ace, but hopefully I at least pulled a face card.

Set Your TiVos!

I'll be on Good Morning Cleveland here on WEWS-TV5 on Wednesday. It should be between 6:00 and 8:00. I'll be talking about Love and Capes and the whole cartooning thing. It should be fun, aside from having to wake up at 4:30am to get ready for the show. I did GMC once before, and really liked it.

I told my friend Mike about it, and his response? "You know, there was a time where I would have set a tape." He's right. I seem to be on TV a lot.

You Say It Was My Birthday?

This past weekend was my birthday. I got to spend time with my loved ones, which is always the best present. But this giant Shogun Warrior (Dragun, for those of you in the know) from my cousin Jamie is certainly the most photogenic for the blog. He's two feet of giant robot, and he is vastly cool. I'm sure this won't be his last appearance in this digital forum.

Thanks to everyone who was part of celebrating, as my friend Rog says, one more successful trip around the sun.