Except a scene or two erased by sweet red wine

After a ten-day block, I've finished page nine. Worry not, I know exactly what will happen on page ten, so I shouldn't get so stuck on the next one. This one came out better than I thought, and has some pretty solid artwork. It's also got a couple of in-jokes, too. And, I did managed to make it funnier after I drew it, thanks to a kickboxing epiphany. (Finally, one that didn't happen in the shower.)

There's also a reference as seen in this posted panel to one of the inspirations for Love and Capes. That's the TV show Mad About You. I loved the show. I thought Paul and Jamie were two wonderful, well rounded, interesting characters. Jamie's sister, Lisa, was one of the major inspirations for Charlotte (who has since morphed into a character of her own). And, they've just started replaying them from the beginning on TV Land, so I've told the TiVo to grab the episodes as they air. They're great to work to.

And Mr. Rieser's book Couplehood is just great. It's inspired by his stand-up, but it holds together tighter than a lot of stand-up based stuff. The book starts on page 46, as I recall, so that you feel like you're really flying through it.

I also managed to pump this page out thanks to a bout of insomnia that kept me awake from 3:00am today on. On the upside, I caught a fantastic biography of Alexander Hamilton on PBS. I highly recommend it.

Wonderfully Powerful

I did this Wonder Woman and Power Girl piece for a client who wanted it for his daughter's room. I think that's pretty cool. It's also the second time that I've drawn the Amazon Princess with someone (the first being this Wonder Woman/Wonder Girl image) but I've never done a commission of her, solo. This pic came out nicely, and there's some nice characterization between Diana and Karen.

Anyway, click, embiggen and all that.

In other news, Apple announced the new iPhone, releasing on July 11th. I think this may be the one that I get, even though it still doesn't have voice dialing. Why, Apple, why?

Widow's Pique

I think I only bought one issue of Daredevil when I was a kid, but I know it had Black Widow on it. I don't like her earlier outfit, of her later black/gray outfit, but this one worked well. So it's the one I used.

Process-wise, I tried simplifying as much as I could. Cartoony basic shapes, just a little bit of airbrush (that I'm torn on if I like it or not) and just a graphic, sharp image. It's also one of the few sitting and profile shots I've done, so that was interesting, too.

By the way I've recounted, and I only have four spaces left in the new Powerful Women. I'll probably have to suspend commissions until after San Diego then, so I can continue to prepare for that juggernaut of a show and pound out some pages of Love and Capes before I go.

First Eight

Here are the answers to the first eight lyric headlines. I would have made an iMix, but half the songs aren't available on iTunes. And I would have done an Amazon MP3 list, but I couldn't get the widget-builder to work. And neither have the Beatles catalog online yet anyway. But who knows? Maybe Steve Jobs will announce the Yellow Submarine iPod (yes, I know it's a joke from the always funny Merlin Mann) with the new iPhone.

1. I could hide out under there/I just made you say underwear
   Pinch Me by the Barenaked Ladies.
2. Can you handle the curves, can you run all the lights?
   Shut Up and Drive by Rihanna.
3. Still care about your hair and the car you drive
   High School Never Ends by Bowling for Soup.
4. Thirty-two wants to do things to you that'll make you blush
   Lucky 4 You (Tonight I'm Just Me) by SheDaisy
5. There's nothing to do that can't be done.
   All You Need Is Love by the Beatles, and featured memorably in Love Actually.
6. Tell me what it's like to be the last one standing
   Savin' Me by Nickleback. Used in the Battlestar Galactica season three promos, too.
7. Does she speak eloquently? And would she have your baby?
   You Aughta Know by Alanis Morisette
8. There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist, there is a hunger in the center of the chest
   Shed a Little Light by James Taylor.

X'Hal!

I was a big fan of the Teen Titans, back in the Wolfman/Perez era. I came on board late, right around the time of The Judas Contract. But it was a different type of storytelling than what I was used to, and it was pretty darn fun.

If you're going to do a book of beautiful, powerful women, you can't go wrong including Starfire. Heck, she probably should have been in the first one, but she was a little... I don't know, obvious. I'm making up for lost time with this one, though.

This one is a lot more airbrushed than a lot of images I've done recently. And I worked in (relatively) dead line, rather than my usual brushy style, to get a different look on this one. You've got to shake things up every once in a while to keep them fresh.

There are still six more spaces to get your commission done and be in the next Powerful Women collection, too!

Fish Tales

I got to see the Bobble Fish in person today.

I went up to Classic Park, where the offices of the Lake County Captains are, and got to see the one sample of each of the fishies. The rest are in transit, so I wasn't able to get any for me.

That's my artwork on the boxes, too. Jonathan at the Captains did a good job with it. And my logo and website are on the bottom of every box, so that is sah-weet. I am so looking forward to seeing these at the big signing on June 28th. You can get tickets here.

Below are a passel o'pics. Click on any for biggimization!

There is the feeling like the clenching of a fist, there is a hunger in the center of the chest

For those of you playing the lyric guessing game, I'll be posting answers tomorrow.

Today's page is page eight, which means I'm a third of the way through the eighth issue. I was stuck on this one for a while, as I knew I needed a scene to separate page seven and what comes next. I finally hit upon the idea of making sure that Charlotte landed in Paris safely. It wound up being the perfect beat to separate things.

I think this may be the first time I've drawn Abby's bedroom. Come to think of it, we haven't seen Mark's either, and yet Charlotte's has been seen two or three times. I don't know what that says.

To decorate Abby's bedroom, I went to my own. I don't quite have the same bed, but I do have the same comforter, drapes, and end tables. Sometimes it's nice and quick to steal something I know rather than create something new, especially something that's only in one panel.

I also had to create a Paris scene. I wanted something away from the Eiffel Tower, because while Charlotte has a full scholarship, she doesn't have so good a free ride to get that kind of view. So I did my research on the internets. And I wanted Paris to look very different from Deco City has, so instead of using Illustrator like I do to design the Art Deco skyscrapers, I drew everything by hand. In fact, to get that older and more natural look, I didn't use a ruler or a French curve, either. I even colored it differently. If you look closely, you can see that I didn't really stay within the lines, at least of each building. I used the chalk tool and tried to get a textured, impressionistic feel.

The designs for Pixar's Ratatouille certainly were an inspiration too, as is much of what Pixar does. I highly recommend their Art of Ratatouille book, or any of their art books. They're little squarebound pieces of inspiration in my library.

So, things are going well with the book and I'm on a good pace. Time to work on page nine.

It's That Time of Year Again

Ten years ago or so, I did the Big-Easy-Con in New Orleans. I loved the show, due in no small part to it being run by Super Con Promoter Roger Price. It was a great show, and did well, but not well enough to continue, unfortunately. But I have nothing but fond memories of the show.

The New Orleans Tax People though, are a different matter. They've got the tactics and the charm of the Stormtroopers who raided Hoth. You need to get a seller's permit and file tax forms to set up at the show. Perfectly understandable. But that they demanded your tax bill be paid in cash at the end of the show. And they couldn't wait. I went upstairs to my room to get some change to pay them and then they were gone. I escaped New Orleans without paying, but then I sent them a check for the outstanding amount. A check they held on to for over six months, long enough for me to switch banks when my existing one closed up... and then they hit me with charges for that.

And they were really rude.

They also wouldn't let me fill out my own form. No, I had to dictate it to them. When you live on a street which takes its name from The Poem of Hiawatha, that's always dicey.

I haven't been to the Big Easy since 2000. That's something I need to rectify one of these years. I really enjoyed my time there. But every year, since my two con appearances, I get not one, but two tax forms from them.

One is apparently to Thom Zahler of Zahler Thom, the other is to Thom Faber Art Studio. Mr. Faber, no relation to the talented Rich Faber, has been so successful that he's gotten credit card applications, too. All of this because I, the guy with immaculate comic book handwriting, couldn't fill out his own form.

I'm not the only one, as I know other attendees who get our yearly junk mail from New Orleans. And I've written them to tell them to stop. They don't. So, how much money are they wasting sending out such notices?

All this as I've just found out that the California Board of Equalization has managed to lose my Sellers Permit forms for San Diego for the second year in a row, after being told my permit was mailed out a week ago. It does befoul one's mood.

That Nancy-Boy Hair Gel I Like So Much

I read the blog of one of the frequent Pub Quiz opponents of the much-vaunted Team Eleven. It's a fun read, and she mentions her love of the Spike "To the Angel-Mobile, away!" monologue from "Angel." Along the way, she links to a product I did not know existed, but am not strangely intrigued by.

Keeping with nettiquette, I'm linking to her blog so you can see it, rather than stealing the link and passing it off as my own. It's only proper.

Yo Joe!

I haven't posted a Powerful Women image in a while. By the way, I'm still accepting commissions, and if they get in soon, they could also appear in the second edition, which might even be out in time for San Diego depending on how things break.

So, the publisher of the Love and Capes trade, IDW, just got the G.I. Joe license, and that got in my head. I was a big fan of the comic, and have said in many places that the legendary G.I. Joe #21, the silent issue, was one of the huge inspirations for Raider and a bunch of the secret-agent-action stuff that I did before Love and Capes. I've got crazy love for the characters (though not as crazy, or as fun, as the Comics Pants guys). That got me to thinking about the characters like Flash, who I dressed up as for Halloween one year, complete with a custom laser rifle made by my Dad, and Snake-Eyes, and Storm Shadow... and Scarlett.

She was the crossbow-weilding Joe, and I always thought she was cool, both visually and as a character. So I took a run at her for the next sketchbook. The texture of her bodysuit was done in Painter using the chalk brushes, and it came out almost exactly the way I had it in my head.