Why Are They Searching for Ray Palmer When He's Right Here?

Today's a good day, and good days like this need to be celebrated with the Mocha of Victory! (Skim, no whip, for those of you keeping track.)

Late last night I finished Love and Capes #6, today Bob Ingersoll and my Star Trek story 'Til Death comes out in stores, and the Indians are up 2-1 over the Boston Red Sox. Heck, Apple's even announced that Leopard will ship on October 26.

And it's only 9:45 as I write this. Who knows what other greatness will befall the day. Hope your day is just as victorious.

All Over But the Screaming

I finished Love and Capes #6 today. Well, mostly. There are some copy corrections that I have to make yet, lots of proofing, and one art correction thingee. But the art's all done, the bio page is written, the back cover ad is built, and I've even thrown in some trivia into the back. In the words of Bo (or Luke) Duke: Ya-hoooo!

Words, Words and More Words

Hey, everybody, I'm interviewed this week over on the Sequential Tart site. Stop by and have a look.

This is the Last Page...

…that I'll show you. There are still two more after this but I can't post any images from them. They're from the big surprise ending for the first season of Love and Capes. How big a surprise? Well, did you read the Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special with its big surprisey surprise? Okay, now imagine that if it were good. That big.

Or not. You'll have to be the judge.

Incidentally, back in issue #2, I named a restaurant after my friend Barbara Caridad Ferrer, author and all-around great friend. So Chez Ferrer is the big fancy restaurant in Deco City. Mark and Abby are heading back as of this scene. I mention this because I just finished It's Not About the Accent, from MTV Books . It's a really good book, and I highly recommend it. It's not exactly the story I expected, but I love when that happens. And one of the main characters is an artist, so you know I like that.

Check it out.

Blackjack Redux

There's one more flashback in Love and Capes #6... one with Abby and Mark.

With this, there are three pages left. I should get page 22 done tomorrow. And, depending on things, I should have everything wrapped up on Tuesday. That's way ahead of schedule, and I'm crazy jazzed about that.

Breakfast of Champions

In Scene Magazine today is a little illustration I did for them some months back. Every year, they do a Best of Cleveland issue. I've been lucky enough to work this, their highest-profile issue of the year, a couple of times and even won an award for it. This year's theme was a kind of Wheaties/Breakfast of Champions thing. They needed some artwork for the back of the cereal box that they gave to award winners and called me.

The final image features a lot of Cleveland items, including newspeople Dick Goddard, Paul Orlowski, Denise Dufala and Sharon Reed, Yankees fan LeBron James, Iron Chef competitor Michael Symon, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, The Rock Hall, the Veteran's Memorial Bridge, The Terminal Tower, Slider and, of course, orange construction barrels.

I really like the way this came together. The image is running in Scene this week as well, so if you'd like to see it, pick up a copy.

The Big 2-0!

Here's the page where the Other Shoe drops. What shoe? I can't tell you. Sorry. You'll have to buy the book for that.

I'm surprised, sometimes, how well things come together. I kept trying to figure out how Amazonia would make her entrance into the bookstore, and then came up with the idea of having Abby borrow a portable teleporter pad. It got her in position quickly and cleanly. And having it there allowed me to transition Mark into the bookstore.

I've got four pages left, exactly the number of games the Tribe needs to win against the Boston Red Sox. Heck, depending on how fast we both do our jobs, we may finish on the same day.

I Can See the Finish Line Now

Page nineteen is done! Five to go!

In this page, Mark confronts Zoe about her book and portrayal of him. It's not as confrontational as I'd originally intended, and certainly not as much as this panel may indicate. But it is the first real indication of The Second Shoe that's going to drop. It's also Amazonia's last appearance in this issue.

When I first created Amazonia, I never thought she would be as popular as she became. She wasn't even supposed to be in the second issue at all, but as I was working on it I started receiving reaction about her and knew I had to give her a scene. There's a temptation to use her too much, but much like Worf in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation she works better in small doses. But issue #6 is the most she's appeared in one story.

Heck, she may have more screen time than Mark or Abby in this one.

Hopefully, the character becomes a little more well rounded (metaphorically, as physically it'd be hard to add any more curves) without losing her edge in this story.

Orders Up, Part Six!

Orders for Love and Capes #6 are in and they're better than #5. Maybe only by 50-100 copies, but still, we're trending up and that's a good thing. So thanks to everyone for ordering!

Torre! Torre! Torre!

I put page eighteen to bed just as the Indians were putting the Yankees' season to bed. Go Tribe!

Six pages left to go, and this is Amazonia's penultimate appearance in this issue. I got to create a new super villian, the Kingfish, for a one-off joke, which was nice. This is the first bad guy who shows up in this book, and is one of a handful to appear in the six-issue run. The only recurring foe in the book is The Evil Brain, who much like Vera in Cheers or Merris in Fraiser, never appears on screen.

I probably won't get a page done today, but there's a good chance I could have the book wrapped up by the end of next week. How cool be that?