Paper Dolls
And with that accomplished, it's time to put up my tree!
A Man's Gotta Do What a Man's Gotta Do
Guess who won the Doctor Horrible fansite gift tag design contest?
Yup, it's me. So now I get fame and accolades, as well as a copy of the spiffy Dr. Horrible DVD set, which is of the awesome. Thanks to all who voted! I was up against some stiff competition, which you can see on the site here.
Contest Up
Over at the Doctor Horrible fansite, they've posted the finalists for the gift tag contest, and Your Humble Blogger is among the finalists. Go over to the blog and check out the entries yourself, though. There are a lot of great ones. You can even vote for your favorite.
These Are Not the Hammer
So, the Dr. Horrible peeps are having a contest for the artistically-inclined to design a gift tag for people whose Dr. Horrible Sing-Along-Blog hasn't arrived in time for Christmas. I've decided to enter the contest, so here's my tag design…
Yeah, I know I'm reusing art from that Captain Hammer and Penny illo I did back in Texas, but gosh darn, it came out so well. Besides, it's Christmas and I'm busy with all of that, as well as actually doing work and a little thing called Love and Capes, so I think I'm entitled to a little repurposing.
Besides, I had to write the song parody lyrics myself. That's original, right (except, of course, by definition).
The contest ends today. I'll let you know if I get any love from the judges.
The One Where I Almost Show Too Much
Because 'tis the Season, I'm giving you two whole panels of page seven. Of course, they stretch together into one. Here, Abby starts to see the upside of her powers.
This sequence has been fun to write. It's also the first time I've bumped my head against the "kid-friendly" FCBD edict. Now, Love and Capes is, was, and always will be kid friendly, but since this issue has to be okayed by Diamond after some questionable content got into one of the 2007 books, I'm playing it a little safer.
It's the payoff to a joke, though, so I can't show you. Not until it comes out. It's just the kind of thing I might have drawn slightly differently had this been part of the regular run of the book. Don't worry, though, it's still funny.
Sign My Name… Across Your Book
Sunday I was honored to do a book signing of Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret? at the Mentor Barnes and Noble. It was pretty awesome. I'm from the area, so a lot of friends came to the signing and it's always good to see them. But the people I especially 
appreciate are the people I don't know. There were more than a few people who had seen the News-Herald article about me and come specifically to talk to me and buy the book. That's really important.
The crew at Barnes and Noble is always aces, too. They're great people and really take care of you and make you feel comfortable, which is really nice when you're sitting in the middle of a bookstore during the Christmas shopping season. Hopefully, there'll be a second trade, and I can come back and promote it.
The Mocha of Victory, part nine
…The Mocha of Victory!
Guest starring Supergirl, from the Alex Ross collection, wearing my favorite of her many costumes.
In a day or two, I'll be getting a proof of the book and it should be printed and out to stores the first part of January. Then you can all find out the resolution to last issues exciting cliffhanger!
Page Six, and not the New York one.
Yesterday, I did my signing and then did the bulk of my remaining Christmas shopping, and then had dinner with some friends. By the time I got home, I was pretty beat. I was thinking about wrapping 
Christmas presents as I watched the obligatory Sunday night Cowboys game, or maybe just collapsing on the couch.
Instead, I found myself drawn into the studio to finish the sixth page of Love and Capes #10. The storyline's taking off (HAH-hah… oh, wait, that's only funny if you've actually read the whole page, which you haven't), and the jokes are coming easily. Things really seem to be clicking on all cylinders, which I always appreciate.
Obviously, Abby gets super powers in this issue, and this panel is one of my favorites. I always like a panel that has a joke in it and yet isn't the last panel in the sequence.
I know the next page pretty well, but I can't start it until I get some clienty work done. After that, though, who knows?
What Says "Christmas" More Than Decapitated Elves?
I've been working with The Institute for Justice, a civil rights organization, for over five years now. The saw an illustration I did for Scene Magazine and they wanted to buy the art for republiciation. Because of that, I wound up doing other illustrations for them including two different Christmas cards. Three, now.
This was a cool job for more than just the normal reasons. This time I got to try out a new process. At the recommendation of some fellow artists, I purchased a Brother MFC-6490CW scanner/printer/fax combo. The new machine solved the problems I had with my Apple USB modem receiving faxes. Apple makes a great product, but the modem/fax combo is one of the places they've completely dropped the ball. I loved going to digital faxes, so I could only print out the ones I wanted, but the fax kept glitching.
But the scanner aspect was the big draw. The Holy Grail of scanners for comic book artists is an 11x17 scanner. On that, you can scan a complete comics page without stitching it at all. Every page of my three Raider graphic novels were scanned in two pieces and digitally combined to form the 11x17 final image. Most 11x17 scanners are scary 
expensive, but this one was under $300! Under $200 after the rebate that was being offered at the time. (Amazon now has it at $279.99.)
It can even print on 11x17 bristol board. You're probably wondering why that's so cool. That'll take even more explaining.
Most issues of Love and Capes are drawn on tracing paper, then lightboxed onto Layout Paper (also called Vellum). That's a very translucent paper that takes ink much better than tracing paper. Then, I'd cut it up into pieces and scan it, and put together evey page in Photoshop, one panel at a time.
But now, I could print onto bristol, which is a paper with a very ink-friendly surface and one on which I can get more effects than I can on vellum. So, I can print my pencils in non-reproducable light blue onto a piece of bristol, and then ink right on the bristol without having to erase, since the light blue lines disappear when scanned, or with exceedingly little tweaking.
That was a godsend on the IJ job. They needed 60 elves or so holding a giant piece of parchment, upon which they'd put their Christmas poem. I could work at a manageable size, scan in the pencils, and then print out a final piece on bristol where I could ink with no issues, and then rescan it at full size and not have to try to line up two sides, which is usually problematic at best.
Then I colored my headless elves in Photoshop. 
Headless because the Institute was going to put photos of their employees on those elves. And then I sent the final file to IJ, where they composited the heads and had it printed.
The cards just came out this week, and they look great! It was a fun and challenging job, especially trying to make 60 distinct elves, all doing something individual. It kind of reminded me of my famous Where's Slider job. And it came out just as well.
Another Day, Another Page
This page was a bit of a cheat, I suppose. It has a half-page splash on panel five, and one with a really easy background. But I needed a really big beat for that scene, so the story called for it.
It also occurs to me that this is the first daylight scene on Abby's balcony. Abby's apartment is based on an apartment building in Willowick here in Ohio that overooks the lake and kind of stands alone. I originally had that apartment in mind when I was creating Windstar, since I wanted him to have a location he could come and go from without being seen.
With Abby's apartment, I've added a bunch of trees around it, too, to try to make it seem more secluded. I haven't been able to work in the lake, since it tends to look like the ocean and I don't want it to seem like Abby has some ultra-swanky apartment either. In my mind, she lives about 30 minutes outside of Deco City in an adjoining suburb where she can afford the rent.
If I can do one more page between today and tomorrow, I will be completely on track with my compressed schedule for issue #10. I'm trying to get a little further ahead, since there are some of these holiday things that I keep hearing about coming up at the end of the month.
I'm pretty happy with the way this issue is coming out. I think it's definitely going to be my strongest Free Comic Book Day entry yet.