In a Word, "Huggable"

There's a fantastic review of "Love and Capes" up at Silver Bullet Comics. The buzz for the book continues to be good, and let's hope it continues.

From reviewer Steve Saville:

"The art work is of a very high quality and the fact that it is colour throughout adds to the visual effect but the real standout feature of this title is the writing. It is sharp contemporary, precise and very, very funny. For example we have The Crusader and his sidekick discussing whether he should reveal his true identity to Abby while they hold a villain by the neck high over the city. and a fallout between the lovers when they both fail to keep a secret. There are also some nice allusions to modern pop culture that just add to the fun.

The dialogue is also highly individualised and this is particularly the case for Abbey who is the more appealing of the two main characters. Her sarcasm and indignant anger when faced with the knowledge of Mark’s previous girlfriend is realistic and amusing. In fact the tension between her and the super heroine Amazonia is one of the comic’s highpoints. In the same way her fears when she watches her man get beaten up on TV whilst defending the city are touchingly realistic. The cover says it all really as Abby and Mark are locked in a passionate embrace in a phone booth, a super hero super situation comedy."

Again, you can read the full review here.

Put Me In Coach, I'm Ready to Play

I'm working on websites and lettering today, so I've got nothing new to show you. But it's Opening Day for the Cleveland Indians today, so I thought I'd post some of my Slider stuff.

From 2002-2006 I was the artist for the "It's Slider Time", a monthly feature in Game Face magazine. The piece was half-comic, half-puzzle page, and I wrote and drew the entire feature, including creating the puzzles. When it first started out, I wrote it as an adventure strip, having a loose "Someone stole all the bases" storyline. At the end of every strip, the thief would leave a clue that would be the puzzle on the facing page. Kids could solve the puzzle and find out where the next base would be at.

With a month between strips, I didn't think the adventure format worked well, so I switched to a humor format, and I thought that worked much better. Writing the joke was always the hardest part. Occasionally I worked with the actor who played Slider to come up with the jokes. Two things were funny about that: First, he'd call and say "Thom. this is Slider." No, you're not Slider, you're Dan, the guy who plays Slider. You're not Batman. Batman can call up and say "This is Batman." Second, some of the help was very often a starting point. "We should do something about the hurricane that flooded the Winter Haven spring training facility." (Yeah, because hurricanes and mass destruction are hilarious.) Oddly, those starting points helped a lot. When you've got an infinite field, it's hard to narrow it down to find the funny. When you're given the starting point of "It's All-Star Balloting time", it gives you something to focus on.

I also did the infamous "Where's Slider" cartoon, too, for the 2004 Spring Training edition. This was a tremendously successful piece, and won a number of awards. It also took two solid days to complete because of all the detail. When it was done, my contact at the Indians was raving about it. I told her "It's a great piece. I'm very proud of it. And I will never, ever do it again, unless you increase my pay drastically. It almost killed me."

The strip also featured tons of my trademark in-jokes. When I needed a newspaper photographer, I drew him to look like Jimmy Olsen. And, while the jokes were aimed at kids, I'd throw in a few funnies that would probably go over their head. When Slider was actively campaigning for the All-Star ballot, that strip ended with Slider folding in a press conference. It was during the 2004 presidential campaign, so he was asked "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the National League?" (Joe McCarthy), "Were you a member of the Ohio National Guard" (playing off the George W. Bush Air National Guard controversy) and "Do you drive an SUV?" (playing off John Kerry's at-the-time famous "No, I don't own an SUV… tmy wife does.")

In 2005, after three years of the comic strip format, new management took over and the strip became a straight-up puzzle page with spot cartoons of Slider. It still looked good, and continued to improve from an artistic standpoint (man, I can't even think of that first strip without cringing) but it was nowhere near as much fun to do. In 2006, there was another change in direction, and Game Face magazine switched from being a monthly program book to more of a Playbill format, where it was printed once, and flyer inserts were added to change the information. That year I did my last comic for the Spring Training edition. There was talk of bringing me back to do the 2007 Spring Training issue, but we couldn't come to payment terms.

I guess that Trot Nixon deal really tapped out the club.

Still, Slider was one of the coolest jobs I had. And, as my friend Sean told me just last week, "Nothing leaves the resumé." So mine will always says that I worked for the Cleveland Indians, and that's pretty nice.

Below are some of the strips from the 2004 run. Click, and they shall embiggen.

Now… play ball!

Not Long and Hodgeman, But Not Bad Either

When I tried out for Who Wants to be a Millionaire I sat next to a lady named Marjorie. I made the cut, and she didn't (you can read about my adventures in game shows here) but we exchanged cards and have kept in touch since. She's gone on to pursue her dream of stand-up comedy. As a frustrated comic myself, I'm greatly impressed by her talent and drive.

She's still based in Cleveland, but does a lot of work in Chicago, taking Second City comedy classes out there. She's put together a few YouTube videos of her parody of the Apple "I'm a Mac" ads comparing Cleveland and Chicago. Now, anyone who knows me knows my relationship with Chicago is complicated, and if you don't know, as Constable Benton Fraser used to say "that doesn't need exploring at this juncture." But, I still think Chicago's great. It's one of the few cities I've thought I could leave Ohio for under the right circumstances, and it's the template for Love and Capes' Deco City. Anyway, I think these spots are pretty funny. They're not perfectly executed, but they score a lot of honesty and funniness points.

Her spots remind me of a conversation I had with someone from Chicago a couple of years ago. I was raving about how well Chicago used its lakefront, in a way I wish Cleveland did. "How did you guys design the city so well?" I asked.

"Um, you know we had a fire here, right?"

"Oh, yeah, Cleveland needs one of those!" Frighteningly, if we did, I don't think anyone would get hurt. It's pretty empty these days.

Cleveland's a great place. It's certainly in a downslump, but I don't think those things are necessarily permanent. And Cleveland could do far worse than to use Chicago as an example of what it could be.

And Many More…

Most of the work here at the studio the last few days has been production stuff. I'm lettering a "Deadbeats" trade paperback, working on the new Claypool website, and getting ready to color a new project. Lots of stuff, but not a lot to show. So, this is a birthday card I designed for Catapult Online a couple weeks ago. It's designed to be customizable, so CO will be able to have it say "Happy Birthday, Student's Name Here." It features the same Catapult Kids I've been drawing for a while.

My hand is starting to twitch from not drawing "Love and Capes", and I think I've broken down the first three pages, so it might be time to start. Expect to see some art from that start to pop up around these parts soonish.

Jossishness

I got to attend the first and only Flanvention a couple of years ago. The second one was cancelled abruptly, and all sorts of bad surrounded it. I don't know what happened there, so I can't speak to it. (Many of the cast, including Nathan Fillion, showed up to the bar at the hotel where the Flan was supposed to be, and I think that's just six kinds of cool.) The first one, though, was fun. I met a lot of great people there, professional and fan alike.

One of them was Brenda, the photographer. She remembered me, and got in touch with me to have me do a caricature of Joss Whedon as part of a "get Joss Whedon a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame" project. I'd done caricatures both live at the event and of the cast for the program book and she liked my work.

I had to guess at his eye color, but other than that I think it turned out swell. You can find out more about Brenda and her campaign for Joss here.

Wasn't Icemaiden From There Too?

I, like everyone else on the planet, have a list of “things I’ve been meaning to do.” One of them is to use Cleveland’s House of Blues a little more.

I’ve always liked the House. I’ve been to the ones in Orlando, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and of course, Cleveland. The place has a great vibe. They do a great job of bringing in a mix of smaller acts and big name people. Here at Cleveland’s HOB, they have two rooms, the larger Music Hall, and the smaller, more intimate Cambridge Room.

I’ve wanted to go to more things there, to try out more new music, a lot more often. Otherwise, it’s one of those things that you always talk about, but never go to. Like the Rock Hall, which I only visit when I have visitors from out fo town.

So I got this e-mail from the House about a quartet called Amiina coming to town. They’re from Iceland, and just sounded interesting. I called my brother Mike, who’s got pretty ecelctic tastes in music himself. I knew he’d be up for something different.

The show was this past Sunday night at 9:00pm. Honestly, I thought that was a little late for a Sunday night. I don’t have to get up in the morning, but my brother still works for The Man, so his morning call was a little earlier than mine. I let him know that if it got too late, or he just didn’t like the band, that we could go, too.

Like most shows, the opening act started half an hour late. The opening act was a guitarist by the name of Tom Rosseau. He had kind of a folk/country vibe to him. He was a little nasaly for my tastes, but he played guitar very well. I didn’t mind seeing him, but I’m not rushing out to buy his CD, either.

Anmiina started around 10:30. Their music has a very unique flavor to it. It’s similar to Enya I suppose, kind of new age, and very ethereal. I liked it a lot. The quartet used a variety of instruments from violins and cellos to saws and water glasses to make their sound. The ladies themselves didn’t seem comfortable on stage. They trade and switched instruments and locations a lot, so maybe the stage was a little small for them.

The foursome consisted of:
María Huld Markan - violin
Hildur Ársælsdóttir - violin
Edda Rún Ólafsdóttir - viola
Sólrún Sumarliðadóttir - cello

Man, I love Nordic names.

The big problem was the group of four people at the bar in the back of the room who just wouldn’t shut up. Like I said, the Cambridge Room is small, and there were maybe forty people in there. And while Amiina’s music was loud enough, the light, wordless music wasn’t enough to fill the room to drown those people out. After about four songs, someone who I think might be the band’s manager, got them thrown out. The concert was much better after that.

The ladies announced that they’d play a couple more songs, but it got late enough that Brother Mike needed to leave. That was fine, and we decided liked their music enough to buy a CD on the way out. Except there was no one at the table. That was a bit of a misstep, too. I would have thought that they might have realized that people may leave before the show, and they should have the table up and running.

Those quibbles aside, it was a good show and I found a new CD to check out. The band seems to have eighteen different websites and two names, but here’s the official one, at least according to the HOB website.

The Shirt Off My Back

Okay, I don't usually bother you faithful readers o'my blog with things like this, but this one's a little different.

I'd like to do a Love and Capes t-shirt for San Diego. My plan is to do it as a giveaway, or something close to that as San Diego has rules about giveaways at the show. Here's the concept: You come up to my booth at San Diego, and somehow, you walk away with a shirt with the requirement that you wear it right there. I've seen this a lot of times and it does have the ability to "flood the zone." The convention has a bunch of people walking around the show with t-shirts, walking billboards for your book.

Yeah, people could walk twenty feet and take it off, but in my experience, that doesn't usually happen. And even if only half of them keep the shirt on, it still serves the larger purpose.

Here's the thing: it's expensive. Not crazy expensive, but it'd be a bit of a bite. I'd be willing to put a sponsorship logo on the back, if anyone's interested, but I've got another idea… premium t-shirts.

I've posted my design and versions on black and dark red. I could sell the black through preorders on my websites, and charge $15 or so for them. Selling those would defray the cost of my free shirts. And, it'd give me a little more flexibility with sizes. I play the odds when I print a bunch of shirts, so heavy on the extra-larges, light on the smalls. With pre-orders, if you need an XXL or a medium, I can probably swing it.

If I wind up doing this, it'll be in June or so. The question I have for you now (admittedly, a couple of months early) is would you buy one of the shirts? If you would, e-mail me or make a comment below and let me know.

Making More Work for Myself

I'm being a little over-achievery today. I don't need to have this done for almost a month, but I have this theory. Actually, I have a theory about darn near everything. This particular theory is that it's better to do the work you want to do when you want to do it. You'll be more inspired and more productive. So, I've had the rough for the cover of Love and Capes #5 on my shower wall for about a week now. It was time to draw it.

This joke has the benefit of being the theme of the fifth issue. At least as planned right now. There is one Easter Egg on the cover, the wine bottle is J. Dub's winery. That's a nod to my friend, and big supporter, Jesse Jackson. Unfortunately, with a name like that, it's hard to work it in without it being misconstrued. Jesse's wife calls him "J-Dub" from time to time, so I added that in.

The other thing I was going to do is make the plane say "Oceanic", the name of the airline from "Lost". Try as I might, though, I couldn't work it in without messing up all the perspective, so I let that one go. That's okay, I'm sure there will be other little jokes inside the book.

Once I start it, of course.

Marky Mark and the Chlorine Bunch

I met Mark Lutz at the 2002 Mid-Ohio-Con and we've been friends ever since. We share a love of comics, and he was on one of my favorite TV shows, "Due South." Now Mark is writing and starring in a movied about Victor Davis, Canadian swimmer. It's been a mission of his for some time, and it looks great. I'm hoping to get a copy over the border sometime so I can check it out. The trailer for his film is below, so take a gander.
VICTOR Trailer

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It's Gonna Be Messy, I Bet

I just finished working on a logo for Catapult Online for their Baltimore vs. DC Celebrity Paintball Tournament. It's going to feature players from the evil Baltimore Ravens and the Washington Redskins. Working for Catapult Online lets me do some pretty fun stuff, and I think this will look pretty sharp on t-shirts and wherever else they put it.

Plus, I'll get another t-shirt for my collection!