The FCBD Interviews Begin
Hey! I'm interviewed over at the Free Comic Book Day website about, well, FCBD and Love and Capes #13, which is, of course, a proud participant in it.
New Tools and New Drawings
A lot of cartoonists have been saying great things about Manga Studio. There's a special going on from the Manga Studio Folks right now where you can get the full version for $149. So I bought it to check it out. Hey, if it's good enough for Dave Gibbons, it should be good enough for me. The deal only runs until the end of the month, so you don't have much time left.
Here's a quick sketch of Amazonia I did just to try out the program. It's pretty sharp. I'm looking forward to trying it in more things.
And, because I know I haven't been posting much, here's a new Love and Capes panel, too. I name-check a lot of people in my book. Here, I've named Darkblade's police chief contact after Chris Sims, uber-Batman fan, writer for Comics Alliance and all around good guy.
Pulling Back the Curtain
Just to share, here are the original rough pencils for a page of Love and Capes. It's a scene between the Crusader and Amazonia, and I think it has some nice movement to it. I've got a sheet of board with the 8-panel grid on it, and I toss some tracing paper on 
top of that and go to town. You'll notice some redrawings in the right column. When I've got an image like Mark leaning back on his hands in the third panel, that doesn't work, I'll overlay tracing paper and redraw away.
There's another sheet of tight pencils that I ink from, but it's nowhere near as cool looking as this. I wish I could translate all the energy in the pencils into the final inks.
It'll be a while before this prints, so enjoy it now.
Promoting Baseball, Captains Style
I'm partnering with the Lake County Captains once again this year. I'll be doing three promotions for them.
1. In previous years, I've arranged to have my Free Comic Book Day issue of Love and Capes available at Classic Park on FCBD. 
This year, I'll be doing an original eight-page Lake County Captains comic.
I've already committed to be at Four Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga that day, so I won't be there for the giveaway. But it'll be a great time, regardless!
And I'll be posting some art and the cover soon.
Free Comic Book Day: May 1, 2010.
2. I've designed a Skipper "Bobble Belly"with Skipper as a rockin' guitar player to celebrate Cleveland and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Skipper's playing a specially designed Fender Stratocaster.
Rock-n-Roll Nght: July 3, 2010.
3. And, to tie in with Cleveland and the A Christmas Story connection, we're going to be doing a Skipper Leg Lamp. Yup, you read that right. Hot electric baseball action that will look great on your desk. (It's not full size.)
Christmas in July, July 25 2010.
Click on either to see them embiggenated!
Shiny New Postcards!
Here's my promo item for the new Chicago C2E2 show, and probably my item for the rest of the con season: Local postcards. Here, classic Super Powers Cyborg and Braniac (two of my favorite figures from that line) look on at the first three cards. There'll be one given away every day, and then they'll be available for purchase on the Love and Capes site later.
Get To Know Me, Good Things Happen
So my friends at IDW are now a Diamond Premier publisher. Among other things, it means they're now in the front of the book, starting with the new catalog of Stuff Shipping in June, which comes out this week, I think.
In a completely unrelated story, among those first premier publishing solicitations is the second Love and Capes collection, Love and Capes: Going to the Chapel. Now, I'm not saying there's a connection, but those two events seem oddly connected, don't they? I mean, come on!
When you get your Previews catalog, be sure to order item APR10 0387, the snazzy new LNC trade. It's also available for pre-order on Amazon and you never know when they're going to have some crazy glitch sale, do you?
Wayback Wednesdays: Fish
Here's a poster-sized piece I did in my second year of art school. As I recall, the assignment was to draw something with multiple animals. I've always liked fish, so I did those. The piece was done in Dr. Martin Watercolor Dyes on a 20x30 piece of illustration board. I used to really like working wet like this. 
I remember being pretty happy with this piece, but looking at it now, I think it needs much more contrast. Maybe some of the inks faded in the intervening years.
With Friends Like These
My proofs for the Free Comic Book Day issue of Love and Capes came today. I'm checking it out now, but it looks good. You can see for yourself on May 1st!
Wayback Wednesdays: The First Slider Project
Back in 2001, I was pitching the Cleveland Indians on doing a Slider comic. Eventually, it would morph into the two page comic/puzzle page that I did for them for five years. But my original notion was do a three 24-page comics that could then be traded up into a graphic novel for sale at the Cleveland Indians Team Shops. This was back in the day when the Indians were a great team, and I think it would have been a great promotion. I couldn't convince them to do it, but I think it would have worked.
Well, aside from the slide the Indians took into lousyness the following year. Gone were the total sellout seasons and bleaker times prevailed. So maybe it all worked out for the best.
Along the way, though, I did an 8-page plus cover sample that I figured could be folded into the final product. I actually wrote all three issues, each with three stories apiece, and drew the first eight page story and cover, even designing a logo. Apparently, I had a lot of free time back then.
Still, it was a learning experience. This was the first big coloring thing I did with my newly purchased Wacom Intuos tablet. Apparently, I had a lot of extra income back then, too. Once I started using the tablet, though, I never looked back. It was one of my better purchase.
This was probably the last project for myself that I lettered by hand on the boards. I hadn't yet converted completely to computer lettering. I hadn't started doing my Photoshop composited heavy art yet, either, like I do on Love and Capes. So these boards look, largely, like the finished pieces. I like the process now, but I do miss having original finished art.
The invisibity effects in the story were created by drawing Slider on a separate piece of board and dropping him in later. I was also experimenting with doing colored lines in some places, and think it worked really well here.
If you look closely, too, you'll notice that the Wacky Professor character looks a bit like the Indians' Chief Wahoo. In fact, his name is Professor VaHoo. Oh, subtlety, thy name is Thom.
Click and embiggen on anything!
