Is this your name or a doctor's eye chart?

Here's where things really get interesting. Wait, that's a horrible thing to say. The whole darn book is interesting. Here's where things get even more interesting. After this, Mark's in costume for just about the rest of the book. We're going to see the closest Love and Capes comes to action and fight scenes in the back eight. It'll be cool.

This panel, of course, shows none of that.

Hey, I don't want to give the whole book away. I think I've got a fairly surprising ending here, with Mark turning out to be the last Cylon...oh wait, wrong show. Anyway, I want to play my cards pretty close to the vest from here on out.

Still, this panel is one of my favorite kinds of scenes. It's not the fourth-panel beat/joke panel, yet there's still a joke in it. I like when the funny spills into other panels.

And, we've got a new lyrics contest going on, too.

Riding up and down Broadway on my old stud Leroy

Two-thirds done, and I’m now officially on the Back Eight. Go, me.

I’ve referred to a dark period in the Crusader’s life when there was a “Crusader on Ice” show. The idea for it was very loosely taken from the Sea World DC Super Hero Waterski Show from the Seventies (and which I was lucky enough to see). The idea was to give the Crusader something cheesy in his past to be ashamed of.

During a Sequential Tart interview, I was asked if we’d ever see the ice show. I never intended to delve into it, but when I got the question, it sparked an idea. So, for reasons which you will see in this issue, Abby gets a DVD of said “Crusader on Ice.”

It’s a charity event, so I needed to reference a disease. I couldn’t make light of a real disease, as it would very much unfunnyify the joke. Instead, I used Sacks-Minnelli from the tremendously funny You Look Nice Today podcast. If you want to know more about the dreaded disease, check them out here.
Also, I pride myself on being a man who learns from history. In this scene you’ll get to hear some of the songs from “Crusader on Ice.” These were all written by the talented Mike Bokausek. I could have written them, but then when Mike saw the scene, he would have been inspired to write his own, and they would have been better than mine. So I just went ahead and asked him to write the lyrics straight-up.

I’ll post the full lyrics later. How he managed to write an imaginary song and got it stuck in my head, I’ll never know.

Speaking of songs, I'll post the answers to the lyrics game in the next couple of days, too.

Rings of Saturn!

The 2008 Saturn Awards were Wednesday. You can see the full list of winners here. All the attendees received a lovely gift bag, including an issue of Love and Capes. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees, and hope you like the book.

And, if any big names do like the book and want to contribute a blurb for the back of the Love and Capes trade (and I'm looking at you Ben Browder and Claudia Black) let me know.

He'll save every one of us

There’s a universal constant: No matter what version of Flash Gordon there is, Princess Aura is always smokin’ hot.

This one is based upon those way-cool Filmation designs from their animated series. It was my first exposure to Flash Gordon, and one that stuck.
Heck, I even have a soft spot for that 1980 Sam Jones/Melody Anderson movie. With Ornella Muti bringing the sexy as Princess Aura.

Yeah, Dale was the one for Flash, but you could see why he was tempted, can’t you?

With this, I've got twenty-five new images for my second Powerful Women sketchbook. I think it's a great one to end on, too. As soon as they come back from the printer, I'll make it availble for order her on the blog and on the site. And, I'll have it in San Diego, of course.

Toys Redux

Yesterday, I posted about my "I Love Comics Toys" article at Newsarama. I sent a link to it to my aunts who built the houses, and they responded with photos from that Christmas (thankfully there's only one where you can see me at all). This is what the dollhouses looked like before we lost so much of the stuff.

My Aunts were even smart enough to buy us two sets of figures, and hold on to the second set until we, as kids do, lost much of the first.

Here are the photos showing the superhero houses in their prime...

The Big Time

I'm a Trivia Question!

Over on the Comic Geek Speak podcast they do a regular "Stump the Rios" trivia question segment. They do three questions: DC, Marvel and an independent book.

On episode #458, the Indy Question is: In Thom Zahler's "Love and Capes", Amazonia writes a tell-all book. What's the title of the book?

Wow. That's just cool. I've never had anything I worked on hit big enough to qualify as a trivia question before. Thanks, guys!

Toy Boy

JK Parkin over at Newsarama asked me to write a guest blog for their "I (LOVE)" series. I was honored and thrilled to do it, although sorry that their venerable institution had fallen on such hard times that they contacted me. My article is all about my crazy love for comics toys. It includes such revelations as how my brother John is partially responsible for my obsession, how my cousin Jamie made an authentic Jason Todd figure, and how my aunts built John and me a way-awesome superhero dollhouse (er, actionfigurehouse) for Christmas one year.

Click the link to see some toys!

Not the Video Game

Here's the second-last image for my second Powerful Women sketchbook.

Batman and the Outsiders was one of those series I knew about, but got on board too late. Fortunately, my cousin has been buying a lot of those Showcase reprints and has been lending them to me when he's done. Now I'm reading the Batman and the Outsiders edition, which features some very solid Mike W. Barr (maybe my favorite Batman writer) stories and some nice Jim Aparo artwork. And lettering. The guy had skills.

People like Jim never get the credit they deserve. To paraphrase Isaac Newton, they were the giants whose shoulders the industry stands upon. Solid, reliable, and able to draw anything.

His original design for Halo’s costume shows that he still had chops after almost twenty years in the business. It’s basic swirly shape design was very graphic and very cool. I don’t know why, but it always reminded me of the shirt that Disney’s Captain Eo wore. Michael Jackson aside, that was a cool design, too.

Got two homes, car loans, in debt, and his third divorce ain't even final yet

Yeah, yeah, I've got a new panel. But I've also got this bit of coolness: This is my six hundreth post on the weblog!

Wow. I've had a lot to say over the last three years, I guess.It's been fun, and I've got no intentions of stopping. Thanks to everyone who's been a part of it. Here's to another 600. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. Well, I am, given the upcoming San Diego trip, but I'll still be blogging. Aw, heck, you know what I mean.

Here's a panel from page fifteen, the last one at the Deco City Comic Convention. Something from the Crusader's past surfaces, and he'd much rather it didn't. It's been fun doing this sequence, and finding old art and client work to put on the displays. There are ones for my Raider books, the SideChicks stuff I do for Lone Star Press, and some other stuff that hasn't seen the light of day. Yet.

I'm really in a zone now. I know exactly what will happen on page sixteen, and if plans go accordingly, it'll feature the writing stylings of someone who's not me. Yes, that's right. I've outsourced part of Love and Capes. But you'll have to buy the book to find out what and why.

What's meant to be will always find a way

The Deco City convention center is one of those places that's so big that they're able to host two shows: a Bridal Fair and… a Comic Book Convention. I've had this idea in mind since I did my interview with Sequential Tart last year. So, if you've read the article, or are clever enough to click the link, you might find out what's going to happen.

There's one more page in this sequence, and I'll be glad when it's done. Trying to render a convention is a lot of work, even with some of the repeated background elements and people I've been able to use.

What's really heartening, though, is that this is already page fourteen. Sure, I'm worried about fitting all the story I have in mind into the last ten pages, but I usually get worried about that around this part of the process. But I've only got ten pages left, and thirty days or so before San Diego, so I'll hopefully have it done before I go. It'll be a nice thing to have off my mind while I'm in the big ol'convention.

If last year was any indication, I'll be sitting there at my table and then have a whack of inspiration for the next issue. Although I did have a moment in church Saturday where I had a couple ideas about #9. I figure that was either divine inspiration or a boring homily.