My Life in Airports

I'm am, as I am so frequently, waiting at Cleveland's Hopkins International Airport. It's a little better than it has been, because I can get online for free now, Not out of any kindness of the airport, but because AT&T has expanded their home DSL service to allow me to log into AT&T hotspots gratis. So I've got that going for me.

The radio show interview went well last night. It's Comic Book Talk Radio, and it's available on iTunes as well on the wsRadio.com website. I'm on the first two segments, and if you listen, you'll get a hint about a Big Announcement that will be coming down the pike come April.

It's supposed to snow a lot here in Cleveland while I'm gone. Excellent! I have to say that I enjoy the Florida weather better when I know I'm missing some cold up north. Of course, I'm flying into some thunderstorms today, so I may have some problems in Orlando myself.

They're Here!

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I picked up the Powerful Women sketchbooks today, and they look sah-weet. I'll have them with me at MegaCon tomorrow, and at shows afterwards. If this goes over the way I expect it will, expect a second volume too.

By the way, the descriptor copy is on the back of each piece. It'll be fine when you see it, but it explains why the copy reads Kitty Pryde and the page image in Red Sonja.

Me. Radio. Again.

It looks like I'm going to be a guest on the internet radio wsRadio.com Comic Book Radio Show tomorrow between 7-8EST. We'll be talking about Love and Capes and anything else they'd like to bring up. You can tune in here, or download it as a podcast.

Comedy is Timing

Yesterday, I was at Starbucks. It was Election Day, too, so there were a lot of kids either off for school or having a half day. Anyway, I got into line and was promptly followed by 20 or so junior high, maybe freshman girls. When I got up to the counter, the barista (one of the many that I know) saw me, and then saw the crowd that had filled the coffee shop behind me. I smiled and said "It's my network."

You don't get a lot of chances for those kind of perfect timed visual gags.

Dawn Has Broken

Here's the last one in the sketchbook series, the Legionaire Dawnstar. I was reading LSH when she joined the team, and she was pretty consistently in the run after that until DC started doing their seemingly-annual Legion reboots.

She's definitely visually cool. Here, I played with some textures applied to her wings and her uniform, which I think came out nicely.

Dawnstar has reappeared in DC lately, in the JLA/Lightning Saga and Action Comics stories. I hear she might appear in the animated Legion cartoon, too.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

Normally, today would be a Dark Day. I spent a good chunk of yesterday compiling my tax information to hand off to my accountants and today was the day I dropped them off. I hate dealing with taxes. It's part of the job, I understand, but I hate anything that takes away from me actually being an artist.

But it was unusually warm today. So it was a Convertible Day and those are always good, and took the edge of the Tax Thing. Just mentioning it because I think it's important to appreciate the things that go right.

The Zahler Oeuvre

Wowio now has the complete Maerkle Press selection of titles (save Love and Capes #4-6) available for free download from its service. I think I'll write a little spotlight on some of these books down the road, but for now, if you want to check out the romantic-comedy sitcom Long Distance or the three volumes of the Raider action-adventure-spy series, click on any of the links below.

Princess of Purpleness

I know I wasn't the target audience, but I always liked Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. The first mini-series was great. The resulting series was a little weaker, and when the creative team changed post-Crisis, it kind of went off the rails. Still, those first twelve issues are solid entertainment.

I'm surprised DC hasn't done more with it. I think I slightly retooled version would be a bang-up Johnny DC project, and a trade, maybe at manga size, would do pretty well too. Heck, in these days of Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings, I'd think a movie or TV mini-series would be possible, too. I remember that DC was thinking of doing an animated cartoon back in the late eighties. I wonder what ever happened to that.

Enchanted

I really modeled Amazonia's tiara after the Scarlet Witch, but after doing this piece starring the Enchantress, I guess Amora got in my head a little more than I'd thought. When I did the first rough of this, I thought "Hey, that looks like Zoe."

I kept this one simple in color, favoring solid bright shapes. I turned the body into profile though, as I hadn't attempted any side views yet. Always finding a new challenge.

This one also has a cool Wicked Queen vibe that works nicely too, I think.

This Girl is Poison

The current version of Batman’s femme fatale is a pasty white, nearly naked, walking plant. That’s just too cold for me. I always figured she’d be warmer, and definitely tan from being out in the sun so much.

This is one of my favorites in this series. The layout is kind of enspired by the American Beauty poster, and I think I’ve expanded my technique toolbox with the painterly approach to the colors.