Because If You're Gonna Build a Robot, It Might as Well Look Good, Right?
I got a commission request to draw Cameron from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which happens to be one of my favorite TV shows. (Please don't cancel it, Fox. Please. Don't you have enough blood on your hands already, killer of Firefly, John Doe, Lone Gunmen and who can remember what else?) Anyway, I had to draw Summer Glau.
Summer's got a really exotic face. I drew her years ago for the program book for the first Flanvention. I was having a hard time with her likeness, and I got lucky in that she was a guest at that year's WizardWorld convention and I got to meet her and actually see her face in three dimensions. Still, it wasn't an easy likeness to achieve.
Here, I needed to mesh that caricature quality with the stylized cartooning that I use for my Powerful Women books. I think they blended together fairly well. As much as the face, I think I got the cold, intense stare as well as the pose.
Oddly, my favorite part is the rifle she's carrying. I did the reference on it, it's an LR-300, I think. It's getting those little details accurate that I dig. And it strikes the right chord between cartoony and realistic.
When the Free Comic Book Day Book is a Little Less Free
Taking a step back, here's the alternate cover for the retail version of Love and Capes #10. Because of the new Diamond minimums, these won't be available through the Previews catalog, but they will be available on the Love and Capes website the Monday after Free Comic Book Day. They will be available for direct order by comic shops, too. I'll post more information about it soon.
And More Love and Capes Valentiney Stuff
Did I mention it's Valentine's Day? Did you forget to get something for that special someone in your life? You know what he/she/it (we don't judge here) would love more than anything? To appear on the cover of Love and Capes!
I soft-announced it a couple of days ago, but here's the full release an information. If there are too many words, here's the short form: Send me some money and you'll be on the cover of the double-sized LNC#12, coming out in November/December, as part of the wedding congregation for Abby and Mark. Click here to sign up. The full release follows.
You are cordially invited…
to attend the wedding of Mark and Abby in Love and Capes #12.
You might not have been invited to Lois and Clark’s wedding. You probably couldn’t attend Peter and MJ’s wedding (and, if you did, you don’t remember it.). But you can be in attendance for the comic book wedding of the 21st century! The Crusader and Abby are getting married in Love and Capes #12, coming out in December 2009, and you could be there.
Tickets to this wedding are limited and seating is first come, first served. Cost is just $40 per couple or $25 per single. No "crashers" permitted. To be part of this special event, RSVP by sending a photo of yourself, along with your payment, and you will be drawn into the wedding scene cover of Love and Capes #12 and mentioned by name at the end of the book.
To commemorate this special event, and to show our appreciation for the fans of Love and Capes, artist Thom Zahler will be creating a special limited edition 11 x 17 print of the wedding cover. All "attendees" will be sent a signed and numbered print to commorate their attendance at this "super" celebration. Interested attendees can also look for Thom Zahler at MegaCon in Orlando, Florida on Feb. 27-Mar.1 or the Free Comic Book Day event May 2nd at Rogues Gallery Comics in Austin, Texas , where he’ll have his camera ready to snap your photo on site.
If response warrants, an alternate version of the cover illustration (featuring Mark in his tuxedo, rather than his Crusader uniform) will be created to handle the overflow crowd.
Please RSVP by May 25, 2009.
Is Love and Capes the Official Comic of Valentine's Day?
It's Valentine's Day, and I know what you want: More interviews with me. You can't get enough, can you, because I am apparently all over the place right now.
Over at Robot 6, which is an awesome site of awesomeness and you secretly hate yourself if you don't visit regularly, I'm interviewed by JK Parkin about Love and Capes. We cover things like the new Diamond minimums, Mark and Abby giving dating advice, my "process", such as it is, and more. Check it out here.
It's not a full interview or anything, but I am mentioned over at Whitney Matheson's online blog over at USA Today. Yes, that USA Today.
I'm also interviewed in something called "print" over at Comics Buyer's Guide. I did the interview a few weeks ago, so I honestly don't remember much of what I said. The CBG site is here, and the book is available at newsstands and such. Apparently the words "and the trade is published by the fine folks at IDW" didn't make the interview. So just print that sentence out, cut it out, and paste it in.
I was on the Dork Forest podcast, briefly. Hosted by Jackie Kashian, comedian (or is it comedienne, since I know it's not actress anymore... anyway, she's a funny person) has a podcast devoted to geekishness and such. Unfortunately, a technical glitch booted me from the call and we couldn't get back together. So, it's about ten minutes that ends as abruptly as No Country For Old Men.
John Siuntres, Chicago talk show host, interviewed me on the floor of the New York Comic-Con. John's always great to talk to, giving me the time of day long before I started Love and Capes. (I think it was 2:15pm, actually.) So, you can hear me babble about LNC here.
I've also mentioned the Raging Bullets podcast, I think, but let's mention it again given that this is a bag of listings. Sean's a great guy, and obviously a DC fan. It's great to chat with him.
NYCC2009 - Day Three, a bit late
I never did finish talking about New York, did I?
I should be used to this. It's so hard to write up the last day of a show because it tends to be your getaway day. And then you get back and you're busy and you just don't have time. Plus, things were really crazy back home with work that came in.
Anyway, the last day of the show was pretty good. The crowds were still thick, and I sold pretty well that day, too. I think as a lot of these shows max out and become almost exclusively 3-day attendees, Sunday becomes a huge sales day. After all, if you have until Sunday, why buy until Sunday? Well, because Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret? was almost sold out, of course. By 1:00 or so, I was sold out, and only had single issues left. I'll have to keep that in mind when I go to San Diego this year.
I did a couple more caricatures, including Jennifer Kale from Marvel's Man-Thing. Yeah, I had no idea who she was either, but the customer had reference, which was good. There were a couple more that escape me, too. Kale and the Spider-Woman that I did are now colored and here on this page. Make with the clickin' and embiggenin'.
Let's review: I did a panel, sold out of a product, did some sketches, and lined up some work. Yeah, I think it was a success.
Bob and I helped Toon Tumblers take down their booth in trade for borrowing some space in their van to get our gear back to the hotel. I had a taste for pizza, so we wound up at Antonio's next to where the Late Night With David Letterman show tapes. It was pricey and it seemed to take forever, but the pizza was good, and it was a great end to a great show.
On the way back, I wanted to stop at the Kubert School to buy some brushes. Good art brushes are hard to find, and the Kubert art store stocks a lot of them. I kind 
of need to see a brush before I buy it as there's a whole process to choosing one. They only had one of my current brush, the Windsor Newton Series 7, but they had a selection of the Rafael, a brush I hadn't used since art school.
I bought three.
I even got to go into the school, which had been extensively remodeled since I'd been there. 
The school, the old Dover High School, had been lopped in half and a chunk of the JKS parking lot had been sold off. Kubert had a lot of unused space in it, including a full auditorium and a gym. Now those are gone. Computers are all around, the windows have been replaced (a source of contention for all of us in the old days) and they even have air conditioning now.
Man, these soft, coddled artists today. In my day I drew in the cold and the heat and lived off a box of Captain Crunch because I couldn't afford it and... well, I hated it, but I did it anyway.
Mike Chen was kind enough to give Bob and me a tour, and we even dropped into a couple classes. Bob had asked if I got the shakes coming back into the building. Truth be told, I did get the wiggins when we waited in the waiting room. I don't think I'd been in there since my first day at the school, or maybe when I came out for my interview when I was applying. That room brought back some worries. Everything else was fine, though.
Bob also said he had to get used to seeing classrooms without desks and instead with drawing tables. That never occured to me. I'd just gotten used to it.
The school looks good. The students seem the same, bantering with Mike when he brought us in. Well, there is one big difference: girls. The school got girls since Iwas gone. There were I think three women in my first-year class of 150. Now, with the success of manga and the like, there's a bigger female component, which is very cool. The school even has dorms for them now, which previously they weren't able to provide.
Big thanks to Mike Chen for taking the time out of his day to bring us around the school. It was a great time.
Now I'm back and working again. I've got a couple of weeks before my trip to Orlando for MegaCon, so I'm trying to clear some things out before then. Thankfully, Love and Capes #10 is done, so it's just doing client work, of which there is a lot, thankfully. I've got some cool things coming up, which I'll tell y'all about as soon as I get a chance. So stay tuned, cool things are happening.
NYCC2009 - Day Two
Second day, more of the same.
The show started out slow. I think that the Hollywood Presence and the Ticket Sellouts are being felt. There were so many good media panels that I think they drew from the floor early in the show. And, since the show is so successful, most of the ticket sales are three-day admissions. And, if you can shop on Sunday, why shop on Saturday? There's no impetus to buy more.
That said, I'm almost sold out of the Love and Capes trade. Sold out of what I brought to the show, I have pleny more at home. If I sell out. and I expect to, well, that alone is a good number.
I only did a couple of commissions. Today I did Star Sapphire and Medusa, yesterday I did Gwen Stacy and Spider Woman. The Spider-Woman's a color job, so when I get home, I'll scan and post it.
I had a couple of cool meetings with people I can't mention yet. And I did ride in the elevator with Bruce Timm this morning.
But, my highlight has to be the couple that came by the table near the end of the day. They were a little older than me, and the woman was palpably thrilled to see me. They brought their copy of #9 just on the chance that I'd be there, and she was so excited to have it signed. Then she bought a pin, too. She told me she hated Amazonia because she was always in Abby's way.
Really, you should have seen her. She was so excited. And it is so frakkin' cool that something I did touched someone like that. It's a special moment, and makes me think I'm doing something right wth the book.
Then Bob and I had dinner with our friend Josephine and caught up since we saw her last year. We wandered Times Square a bit, hit the Toys R Us and, oh my, there was a Starbucks there, too. How fortuitous.
So, it's to bed with me soon. Don't forget, tomorrow I'll be on This Week in Media. It's gonna be fun.
NYCC2009 - Day One
Today was the first full day of the show. There's a pro part that started at 10:00am and then the regular portion began at 1:00pm or so and went until 7:00. Whew! That's a long day. But it was a good day, too.
I met a couple of TV and film production companies. You never know what's going to pan out, but it's never bad to make those contacts. I met the lovely and talented Whitney Matheson from USA Today and we spoke of comics and conventions and Love and Capes. I did Douglas Wolk's character design panel, which was a lot of fun I met some friends, chatted, maybe even lined up some work.
One thing I didn't do, though: Twitter. Now, I'm sure you think it's because I was so busy and important that I wasn't able to get to my iPhone to document the day. You'd only be partially right. The big thing is that the iPhone is so frellin' popular that the 3G network is overtaxed at the show. I had a spotty connection at best, which is okay for some light e-mail, but is Of The Bad for Twittering.
I suspect tomorrow will be even worse. Well, better with the crowds and the selling and the awesome, but less good for the communicating and the writing. Sorry.
Guess y'all will just have to come here next year to experience it.
Perhaps I'll Media-ate
This weekend, I'm going to be a guest on This Week in Media. I'll be talking about New York Comic-Con among other things, and I am so looking forward to this.
Show tapes on Sunday and the podcast appears soon thereafter. I'll let you know when.