So I Got My Apple Pencil

My Apple Pencil finally arrived last week. I've been experimenting with it in whatever free time I have. Overall, I like it quite a bit. It paired easily and charges quickly. It's got a great feel to it. Mostly, I've been drawing in Procreate, which I like quite a bit. It does a lot of the things that Photoshop does and has a pretty quick learning curve. I do wish it had a straight-up magic wand tool to select an area.

I adore the different brushes, especially the pencil, graphite and chalk ones that create a really natural tool. They're better than anything in Photoshop and at least on par with Painter.

The problem I've had so far is line fidelity. The iPad Pro is almost too good. I'd like to be able to tweak it so there's a little more smoothness to my line, the way that I've done with my Cintiq and Manga Studio. I can make a pretty crisp line with a brush, but the Apple Pencil isn't a brush and doesn't have the same feel.

I'm following the same learning process I did with the Cintiq, Manga Studio and my Nostromo where I forced myself to do a drawing a day using that tool. That's been helping a lot. The Captain Cold sketch below took almost two hours to do. The Wonder Woman one took less than an episode of Castle. That's improvement.

The iPad Pro is doing what I expected it to do. Ultimately, I wanted what I call an Eighty Percent Device. Something where I could get 80% of the way to finished. With my current setup, I'd be able to at least create tight pencils for projects. I'm working on getting my inks where I want them. And I'm finally going to be able to sit on the couch and color comics pages! That will work well for me. Ultimately, I'll still need to take it over to the desktop and tweak and finish those files off, but being able to do 80% of the work on the iPad when I need to makes my convention travel schedule a lot more manageable, so I'm definitely happy with my purchase.

My Weekend at Alter Ego Comics

This past weekend, Marc Bowker invited me to his store, Alter Ego Comics, in Lima, Ohio. I've done a few events for Marc, and they are uniformly excellent. They're a lot of fun, Marc's staff is delightful and they all take care of me. If you're a creator and you get the chance to do something at Marc's store, jump at the chance! (Marc also has an unerring ability to find great places to eat, too.) Saturday's event included a screening of my Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors episode, a Q and A afterwards, and lots of signing and sketching afterwards. Lots of people came by and I had a wonderful time meeting and chatting with everyone.

Photos are courtesy of the Underground Video Network, who also interviewed me. The interview is linked here, too.

About that Convention Booker Story

I've seen this post about Scott Roush saying that he's a booker for a number of comics creators, including me. For the record, I have no business relationship with him. I'm sure we probably traded cards at Comicpalooza. And if he wants to forward my contact info to you, that's fine with me. I don't want it ever to be hard for people to find me. But you can also find it on this site.

My 2016 Convention Schedule

You can see me in lots of places this year. Right now, my travel schedule isn't as crazy as last year, but I'm sure that will change. But, as it stands, my 2016 convention schedule isn't listed. This doesn't count any store signings (like the one I'll be doing at Alter Ego in Lima early next month) or FCBD. And there are a lot of shows on top of other shows so there are a few shows I'm usually at that I won't be able to attend this year. It breaks my heart that I won't be at DragonCon, but hopefully next year. Same goes for Comicpalooza and HeroesCon.

And, I'm not yet booked for Free Comic Book Day. I am available. I'd love to do something out of state again. It's the one day a year where comic creators get treated like rock stars and I love it.

Amazing Arizona

Phoenix  February 12-14, 2016

Wizard Cleveland

Cleveland  Feb. 26-28, 2016

C2E2

Chicago March 18-20, 2016

WonderCon Los Angeles

Anaheim  March 25-27, 2016

Indiana Comic-Con

Indianapolis  April 29-May 1, 2016

 Space City Comic-Con

Houston May 27-29, 2016

Denver Comic Con

Denver  June 17-19, 2016

Comic Con International

San Diego  July 21-24, 2016

Baltimore Comicon

Baltimore September 2-4, 2016

Cincinnati Comic Expo

Cincinnati  September 23-25, 2016

New York Comic-Con

New York October 6-9, 2016

Akron Comicon

Akron November 5-6, 2016

So, about 2016

I've been watching a lot of Suits lately, and one of my favorite lines is from my spirit animal, Harvey Specter: "I don't have dreams, I have goals." That said, here are five of my goals/resolutions for the New Year. Finish 1.1 new projects in 2016. I've got a new project in mind that is almost ready for me to start working on. For now we'll call it "Project: Burgundy". But I'm really excited about it. It's exactly the kind of thing you'd expect me to do, but it's not like anything else I've done. And I want it to look different, too, which is why you'll be seeing me post some new coloring samples on Twitter from time to time.

And why 1.1? Well, doing a big project every year is fun. But I'd like to try to slip a smaller one in there somewhere. Maybe a single issue of something?

Write more animation This year saw the telecast of my episode of Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors. I'd really love to do more of that. It's a great medium to write for. Of course, given production time, even if I do manage to make this one happen, I won't be able to tell you about it until 2017. But I'm willing to live with that.

Tell Antony Johnston why Speed Racer is Unjustly Maligned. Unjustly Maligned has become one of my favorite podcasts, and I adore the often-vilified Speed Racer movie. Two great tastes that taste great together. I've guested on a few podcasts this year, including Jesse Jackson's Next Stop Everywhere and Storming the Castle, and I'd like to do more of that in general.

Get an editor to contact me about a gig. Hunting down the next project is part of the job, I get that. But I'd love to have an editor contact me out of the blue and ask me to pitch on something or be part of something (another Secret Love, I'm looking at you). That means being more of a presence online and promoting more and in different and better ways. That's something I can do.

Do another international show This year I did a comic convention in Monterrey, Mexico, and it was a lot of fun. Plus, as a gift to myself this year, I applied for TSA PreCheck and Global Entry, so it's a breeze going through security now, even internationally. So I'm all set up for it.

Extra credit: Lose another twenty-five pounds. This year I lost almost 45 pounds, depending on what day you catch me on. I got serious about watching what I eat thanks to Under Armour's MyFitnessPal and serious about working out thanks to the ubiquitous Planet Fitness and their open-all-the-time schedule. Can't sleep? Might as well work out. Plus Pedometer++ makes sure that I'm taking over 10,000 steps a day. (Some of my Disney World days were staggering.)

I add that one not to brag, but because if I can do it, anyone can.

Merry Christmas!

Hope you and yours are having a simply wonderful Christmas! Here's this year's card. [image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/xmas2015a.jpg" align="left" border="image_border" link="#" alt="How I know what season it is?" title="Red?!"lightbox="false" ]

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/xmas2015b.jpg" align="left" border="image_border" link="#" alt="Have a great holiday, no matter which color it is!" title="Have a great holiday, no matter which color it is!" lightbox="false" ]

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/xmas2015c.jpg" align="left" border="image_border" link="#" alt="We don't celebrate red" title="We don't celebrate red" lightbox="false" ]

Live from New York Comic Con

This past weekend was the excellent New York Comic-Con. I've just about recovered from it. I had a busy show, appearing on ConTV, doing two signings at IDW, and teaching a drawing class. I would have liked to have been at the table more, but it's the perils of being popular, I suppose. Sales were good, and I think I may do more commissions in NYC than anywhere else. I've got some regulars who like to challenge me, including doing a Teen Titans/Star Wars mashup, and a Princess Leia pony. (The hard part there: Figuring out her Cutie Mark.)

I also had a fantastic time after the show. Great friends and great conversations at great restaurants. I had marrow, or "meat butter" for the first time! Cucumber soju continues to be my kryptonite. And New York pizza is still New York pizza… which means tasty but no Chicago pizza.

The highlight of my nights was when Tony Fleecs and I got to go see the taping of Saturday Night Live, as well as getting a tour afterwards and hanging out with some of the writers. Seeing SNL live has been on my Bucket List for a while, and it was great to check that off. It is so much better, so much funnier in person. It's amazing to see what they do to make that show happen in such a small space, and how great the band is to perform flawlessly while so much is going on around them. It was definitely a treat, and I don't know how much I should say about how this trip happened, but thanks Person Who Arranged It! Thank you so much!

The other highlight happened at the show when a mother came up with her daughter who was in my drawing class. I taught a higher-level class because it was mostly teens in the class, but her younger daughter was there and just absorbed the whole thing. She always liked to draw and took classes in previous years, but her mother said that she saw the light go on in her daughter's head in that class, and that I was going to be "her memory" of learning to draw.

I like doing what I do, but I can get a little cavalier about it. Moments like that remind me how I can actually have an impact on people. It's very humbling.

A big thank you to everyone who came by. I hope I gave some good advice to the Kubert School students who stopped. Thank you to everyone who came by and said kind things about Long Distance. That book is finding an audience in ways I never would have expected.

I'm looking forward to next year already!

Man, I love the Baltimore Comic-Con

Last weekend I was at the always-excellent Baltimore Comic-Con. It was so much fun. I got to host Katie Cassidy's panel, be on a panel with writers far outside my fighting weight like Amy Chu, Terry Moore, Jamal Igle, Louise Simonson, Mark Waid and Christy Blanch, sell a bunch of stuff and meet a ton of people. The Baltimore Yearbook entered it's fourth year, spotlighting David Petersen's Mouse Guard. There was some excitement getting it there on time, but in the end everything worked out and I'm pleased to work with and recommend everyone I dealt with. But if I looked particularly tired on Friday, that's why.

Cons can be a grind and often, by the end, I'm ready for things to wrap up. Baltimore is the only show I ever want more of. Like ice cream, you have to know when to stop, but you always want more. At least for me.

Thank you, Marc, for a fantastic time. Let's do it again next year.

Long Distance Wrap Up

Last week, the last issue of Long Distance came out. It seems like not long ago that I started this particular journey, and it seems like it’s over before it started. I know that’s not so. I started drawing this story on November 15 of last year. But it’s weird to have all the issues done before the first one really hits the stands. [image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ldtrade-132.jpg" align="right" border="none" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

I am humbled by the outpouring of affection and great reviews for this book. I never expected how many people would come up and say “I was in a long distance relationship…” There was an audience for this book that I didn’t know was out there, and I’m glad that I could created something for them.

As it stands, I’m pretty happy with the book. It was a challenge a couple of different ways. Love and Capes was so well received that creating a follow-up project of any kind was daunting. Would people like it? Was Love and Capes a fluke? Looks like the answers were “yes” and “no.”

Also, doing a new project in a different style and without a lot of the Love and Capes structure was scary. Near the end, I was cranking out four pages a day to hit the last deadline. (The third issue, for some reason, just crushed me under its gears, eating up all my slush time.) But I made it, and I think the quality remained consistent.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ldtrade-112.jpg" align="left" border="none" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

So thank you, each and every one of you, who read it, supported it, tweeted about it and  enjoyed it. You’re the reason I do it.

As is my wont, I thanked a host of people in the last issue. There are two in particular I have to call out:

Lisa Manglass was my technical advisor for Lee’s career. I didn’t actually have to be a rocket scientist to write Lee, thankfully, but Lisa explained a lot about that job to make it as accurate as possible. My initial questions were “what kind of office would Lee be in” “what would she wear” and things like that. Basically, I needed her to have an office where she could talk to her friend a lot. Everything else was details.

Lisa explained the nature of the job and how much of it would be traveling, which fit well with the series. She also exlained how the job essentially goes fellowship to fellowship and they might not all be in the same area. All of which played into the ending in a way I hadn’t imagined when I started.

And Tony Fleecs helped more than just doing an awesome cover. I was talking to him about it when we were sitting next to each other at New York Comic Con. The basic ending was always there, but he challenged me to make it bigger, make it something unique. He forced me to come up with the ending that you all read, which gave me the structure for the whole series.

How much did that ending change the story? The whole flashback structure came about only because of that ending. I’ll be forever grateful for his guidance.

Twelve some years ago I wrote Long Distance to work out some feelings I had and to enter a contest. The original work is way-too autobiographical and the characters aren’t as rich as they should have been. It was definitely a first draft, but there was something there worth pursuing.

Some of the banter and chemistry in it inspired Love and Capes. And telling a superhero comedy, well, that was definitely a comfort zone. When I ran out of dating jokes, I always had superhero jokes. And vice versa. And that four panel format was a comedic metronome to keep me on task.[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ldtrade-140.jpg" align="right" border="none" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

I don’t ever want to repeat myself too much. So I threw a lot of that away. Gone was the panel format, but that also meant the story wasn’t as kind to be able to show to my trusted readers a page at a time. I had to commit to 44 page chunks to put it in a format people could read and react. That’s a lot to do if something didn’t work on page eight and things needed to be reworked. (Fortunately, they didn’t.)

I also changed up some of my tools. Love and Capes has a tremendous amount of in-jokes and references in the art. Here, I got rid of all that. Computer screens are no longer screen shots of my favorite sites, but are abstract patterns. The Doctor doesn’t appear in the background. A lot of those crutches were gone. I think about Pixar, which did two movies with a faux blooper reel and then never did it again, because they didn’t want to be pigeon-holed.

There are worse things you can do than take guidance from Pixar.[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ldtrade-096.jpg" align="left" border="none" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

I even essentially got rid of color. I was terrified that the geographic dutotones would come off as a gimmick. Thankfully, they didn’t, and it’s been one of the things people have liked most about the book.I’m so glad that decision worked.

Long Distance is a deeply personal work for me. I’m very much in those pages, and very much not in the places you’d expect. And it’s hard doing a follow up project to something which was so well-received. So thank you for coming along for the ride.

And thank you IDW for taking a risk on a slice-of-life romantic comedy in a market deluged with superheroes and irony and spectacle. They’re good people, every one.

Will there be more Long Distance? Well, if you’ve read the book, there’s a lot of space to explore some new stories. I’m not sure if and when I’m going to go there. I think I want to do something new again, but we’ll see. I never intended to do a second issue of Love and Capes after all.

DragonCon 2015 Recap

This weekend I attended my fifth DragonCon. I really love this show, and I love it more and more each year. The show is very much defined by the people. Well, the people and the costumes. It’s an amazingly welcoming and fun atmosphere. This year was a weird year for me, and DragonCon met the challenge and found a way for me to have the best time I’ve ever had there. There were laughter-filled dinners, lots of hugs, card games, and maybe an extra drop or two of alcohol.

I have to call out for special attention my good friend Jesse Jackson, who rose to the challenge, especially on Saturday, and was able to be me on a day when I wasn’t. He sold more books than I did that day. I’m lucky to have him as my booth babe, body man and designated drive… and most importantly as my friend.

It’s because of him I had my biggest DragonCon moment. Jesse has a sketchbook of drawings of actors that he has signed by those celebrities when he meets them. It’s more personal and more original than an 8x10, and the actors seem to get a kick out of it. I’ll let him tell the full story, but the quick version is this: Stephen Amell loved the drawing I did of him. And then he tweeted it out. Ten thousand likes later, here we are.

The costumes are always amazing at this show, too, both in execution and in sheer volume. It’s the only show where I feel like I should be wearing a costume. I love seeing the obscure ones. This year, it’s a tie between Letterman and Brainwave Junior for most niche character.

The photo that accompanies this post is one of my favorite moments. A young girl bought a copy of the latest issue of My Little Pony and immediately started reading it. That she was dressed like Princess Leia was a bonus.

I also did more game-playing and late-night hanging-out than I have in a while. I certainly slept the Odinsleep when I finally got home, but it was totally worth it.

And a huge thank you to my friends, some who I spent a ton of time with, some of whom I only saw in passing, and the new ones whom I just met. Without you, this show wouldn’t be as special as it is.

I hope to see you there next year! I’ll definitely be there.

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