Warlock

The Ancient One

I have just finished reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". I originally checked it out of the library because I knew that "BladeRunner" is based on that short story and since I like the movie, I figured I would try the book.

I quickly discovered that the short story was nothing like the movie. There is definitely some of the same plot points and even a few similar situations...but it is two very different stories. I must say that I like both versions (even if I don't fully understand the Dick's verse version). Philip K. Dick is like the Kafka of science fiction, his writing is more about the out-of-body experience that his characters are undergoing rather than about anything specific that is happening in the plot. The spider torture scene almost made me dizzy...

Wolfshead and Timothy Green II

I have added a link to an active blog by Timothy Green II in the links section. Timothy is a very talented artist and I have no idea why it did not occur to me to add the link earlier.

I have been a fan of his work ever since I saw his StarLord mini-series at Marvel. His last two stand alone stories (Immortal Weapons #3 and Ender's Game: War of Gifts Special) have been great and I very much look forward to seeing more.

Apart from being a good artist and inventive storyteller, Timothy is also a very kind person, so anyone going to Emerald City ComiCon next year should seek him out to chat and check out his original pages!

Captain Marvel and Cosmic Awareness....

Zeus

An assignment based on Greek mythology gave me a chance to draw some of the Olympian gods and some pictures from the daily life of Ancient Greece. This one was Zeus-

Inked....

That was fun to do...but now that I inked it I think I see something funny with his legs not being quite right. Back to the drawing board!

Love at first sight....

When I saw this Warlock cover I thought it was the most beautiful piece of comic book art out there:

Now that I am working on the fanzine I thought that might be fun to play with that composition a bit:

Inked version...Lost in Space

I finished inking the earlier penciled picture. It turned out OK, but not how I thought it was going to look...I was hoping for a more "integrated" look, so Warlock is almost blended in with the stars.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Maze

Just done in pencil and a bit of crayon (that I stole from my kid). I totally got inot textures in this one :)

Werewolves...like you like them.

One of the funnest assignments I had, was illustrating a book for White Wolf about a tribe of werewolves that settled in Russia. It was perfect because I got to draw all these creepy illustrations with different history themes. Apart from the two here (the first is from the seige of Stalingrad 1942 and the second is from mid 12th century) I have a drawing that looks like an old 1920's photo of red commissars posing by a werewolf head...a bit too graphic for the blog I think.

Adam Warlock...Lost in Space

This is the first drawing of 3 that I am going to be doing for a fanzine (more about that in a few weeks). It is just a loose layout at the moment, but this is how all of my "space scenes" start out. Just trying to figure out where the planets are going to go and which parts will be left white.

Amazon Author's Page

I spent a couple of minutes on Amazon over the weekend (ordering books of course) and while there I somehow stumbled on an invitation to put together an "author's page". I figured I would give it a try. It took amazon a couple of days while they were checking with the publisher to make sure I was who I said I was, but just today I was "cleared" and the new page went-up...regretfully, I have no idea where my BWS look alike photo is, so I used whatever was handy in the photo folder.

Author's Page

The real cool thing is that I actually have a couple of items that can be put on the page :)!

And I was just told that there is a Wiki page devoted to Robotika...how cool is that. I read the synopsis and thought that it was excellent that someone took the time to create that!

Wiki Page

Monday...

Continuing on the Lovecraft sort of theme :)

Mars

How can anyone resist illustrating E. R. Burroughs? I always think of Frazetta when I think of John Carter illustrations, but Richard Corben also did some of the illustrated book club editions in the 1970 and they are great.

Thanksgiving...Lovecraft style

Interview and DK2

I got interviewed by Bill Baker. It was a fun discussion and I got to post some of my recent sketches.

Interview

Also, over the weekend, I read Frank Miller's "DK2". It did not really capture me as much as the Dark Knight Return" did. It had some of the same elements like: comments on the media, comments on the current comic book field, nostalgia for old comics...all of which was high lighted by the type of line and color work used. Interestingly enough, the "hard boiled" part was missing and I thought this truly was something you could read as a Justice League story from the pre-Watchmen/Dark Knight days. Did anyone else here read it?

The Russians are coming!

The second Robotika collection is coming :)

StingRay (part 2 pages 5-8)

Yeah, the octopus at the end was my idea :)

StingRay (part 1: pages 1-4)

Here is the first 4 pages of a StingRay (an underwater character from the mid 70's that was first introduced in Marvel Two-In-One) that I did for Marvel Comics Presents:






There is a lot of baggage associated with this 8 page story for me. It turned out to be my Waterloo, and by the time I saw the story in print I decided to quit comics...up until about a year ago I would have been embarrassed to show the pages, but now it all seems kind of funny.

I did the layouts/pencils/most of inking, the StingRay figures were inked by Mark McKenna who was also the guy who went out and got the job. Mariano Nicieza wrote the story (I believe he was related to Fabian Nicieza who was doing a lot of writing for Marvel at the time) and a lady with the last name Buscema did the colors...

Xena the Warrior Princess!

This was something that Leif Jones penciled (I think as a try out for the Xena books that Dark Horse was putting out...if Leif reads this I would love some enlightenment). Anyway I loved seeing the photocopies of the pencils and using some overlays I tried inking one of the figures and a portrait of Xena. I had a lot of fun at the time, but looking at it now it seems a bit heavy handed...again because I feel I used the wrong tools.

Mermaid Illustration

This illustration was done for a book of poetry by Alex Ness. I have been doing Robotika by this time for about a year or so and trying to do a single illustration felt weird...but it was fun!

Prom Queen (part 2)

Here is the conclusion to the story. I think with a tweak here and there it could have been something like an Eerie or a Creepy short:




Around the time that this story was done, I was thinking of trying to be an inker. Funny enough this is the only panel-to-panel story I ever inked...not too good for someone who aspires to ink for a living. I found out that I just don't have the right head to be an inker. I can't really "read" what the penciler wants. To me it's all about what I am using at the moment. For this story I used a brush for just about everything (because I was practicing with the brush and felt very good about handling it) and looking at it now I think it's a real shame. This could have been so much better if I used a bit more variety of line.

I also remember talking to Leif about the story and I believe he was in talks with someone at Dark Horse about submitting samples for their Buffy comic book. He thought that drawing teenage girls in this story would be a perfect try-out to send to the editors. However, he told me, that by the time he was done with the story, he had his fill of drawing high school boppers and that was that.

Prom Queen (part 1)

At one point, White Wolf Games, were printing short comic stories in front of same of their role playing books. I did a couple and Leif Jones did a couple (which are totally worth looking up just for the awesome art) and than Leif suggested that we should do one together. I thought that was a great idea and agreed right away. Leif penciled and I inked. I thought Leif did an outstanding job storytelling and I still believe that it is just a cool little horror story. Here is the fist 4 pages:






On Friday, the conclusion and some trivia about this short story :)

One-a_day #72...and Amazon pre-order

-How are you feeling Dr. Stephen Strange?
-Just fine thank you.


Placing a pre-order with amazon is so sweet. They don't charge until the books are printed and shipped. So I get to hit the "buy" button a few times and get it out of my system for free...of course there will be a time when I will have to pay for the books, but I'll stress about that later.

So in the last 6 months I have placed 4 books on my pre-order list:

Winterworld by Dixon and Zaffino.
The original 3 issue series "Winter World" knocked me out. Here was the guy whose art was pure energy and anger. It was not as "messy" as Salmons or Sienkiewicz, but it sure was not pretty. I loved it and when I heard that he and Dixon completed a sequel called "Sea Wolrd" I started waiting for it....15 years later (!!) IDW is reprinting "Winter World" together with never released "Sea World" in black and white. The shame of it is that Jorge Zaffino has passed away and even though his art will be "discovered" by a whole new generation of art fans, he won't know it.

Rocketeer by Dave Stevens.
A whole new collection by IDW collecting all Rocketeer stories re-colored by Laura Martin (the colorist who started Adam Hughes on his road of digital color). I have some of the original material, but not all of it and after reading last year's Dave Stevens book I can't wait to sit down and read this collection.

Rip Kirby by Alex Raymond.
I have no idea what this will look like, but I have seen some panels from "Rip Kirby" and I thought they were amazing. The only "Rip Kirby" reprints I could find on-line were Italian collections and they cost an arm and a leg to get shipped over here, so I passed and I hope this will be as good as what I have seen on the web.

And last (but not least) I placed an order for Robotika: For A Few Rubles More collection that is now listed on Amazon. Mostly I did this because "if you wish it, it will come true". Maybe if I place an order they will actually print the book (and also because it was in the 4,000,000th place...it is now somewhere in the 200,000th)

One-a-Day #71

Another piece of "fan art" for teh Dreadstar series. I finished reading all 32 issues and totally enjoyed them. My one regret about this piece is there is not enough..."cosmic" in it. I believe I needed more experiementation with scale of things and the deapth of space to get the right effect.

One-a-Day #70...Strangeways

"Strangeways" is a horror western by Matt Maxwell set in the post Civil War period. Matt does a great job telling a gripping story that puts a new twist on the werewolf mythos, and the art harkens back to the black and white glory days of Creepy and Eerie (with undertones of Jorge Zaffino). "Strangeways" is available through amazon.com and I very much recommend it.




Another shout-out goes to Brian Churilla, who on his blog states that his new book, "Anchor" from BOOM!, has sold out and is going in for second printing. A well deserved success!

One-a-Day #69

A sketchbook page with a bunch of stuff: a couple of sketch ideas, a try out at lettering for the future Robotika collection (that will not be used thanks to Dan), a costume idea, and a study of an ancient city...something that might be good to use as a background someday :)

Double Sized Robotika #3/4 in stores today :)

I am pretty tickled to say that the conclusion to my second Robotika mini-series came out today. It is now all our...complete...finished!

One-a-Day #68

One of the pages where a couple of things get put on the same evening. First up a couple of mummy head shot straight out of National Geographic and down below a little floating guy...in a bubble

APE!

This weekend I attended APE and I got really inspired by all the creative energy that I found at the show. Unlike San Diego this was all about comics...INDEPENDENT comics. It was a nice change :)

I want to thank everyone who has stopped by to pick up a copy of "Robotika" and if you are visiting the blog for the first time after the show: Welcome!

I shared retail space with Matt Maxwell, the creator/writer and publisher of "Strangeways", a well crafted western horror story with "cowboys and werewolves, as you like it":


I also got to spend a little bit of time with Timothy Green II, who just recently completed work on the best issue of "Immortal Weapon" I have read so far. We got to walk the convention floor and at Stuart Ng's table found a brand new (2009!) Moebius book which was a conclusion to his "Airtight Garage":


Our neighbors at the show were High Tower Comics promoting their titles "Smart Bullets" and "Ghostface". A very nice bunch of guys and gals passionate about the quality of their work:


And a very pleasant surprise of the show was running into Tim Goodyear a truly original comic book creator who has a wonderful ability to bring a fresh new perspective to graphics. I met Tim through Ryan Sook, but after Tim moved I lost touch with him and it was nice to get back in touch. He has always been very supportive of my work and has encouraged me a great deal when I started drawing "Robotika":

One-a-Day #67...Death or Glory

Ok, this will be the LAST "Soul Gem Saga" inspired sketch...I promise. This all started when I picked-up a few of the 1980 Marvel Baxter reprints and just loved re-reading them. This has lead me to re-read and/or buy Starlin's "Breed", BreedII", "Cosmic Guard", "Kid Cosmos", and finally "Dreadstar". All fun stuff.

Here is an interesting thing that I noticed: in "Dreadstar" Willow's mother is in a coma, Breed's mother is brain dead, and Kid Cosmos' mother is in a coma and can't tell him anything about his father. In each case, the "device" is used differently, (in Dreadstar there is "hope of recovery", in Breed there is "loneliness" after Breed kills his mother, in Kid Cosmos there is a mystery to be solved) and it is almost like listening to the same musical composition being played totally differently.

One-a-Day #65-66....More APE sketches

One-a-Day #64...Jim Starlin's Dreadstar!

I am reading Dreadstar by Jim Starlin and I am really enjoying the whole title. In fact I did a little bit of "fan" art. Here are the pencils and the inks for a Vanth Dreadstar sketch that will be going out to Dan for all the help he gave me with the type for the second collection layout. I did this on a piece of Bristol (so I can send it out without having to cut up my sketchbook) and I was struck at how I got used to working on a much more fibrous sketchbook paper. It was fun to do all the textures on a smoother surface...much easier.





And here is the cover to a Walt Simonson book that I bought at a used book store. It has some great stories that he drew/wrote for DC back in the early 80's. I have a few of them in their original comics, but this reproduction is much crisper, with better line work being shown, and the coloring is much better (everything go re-colored for this edition). The "Captain Fear" 3-part story, "Dr. Fate", "Batman", and some shorter stories are the best, but "Metal Men" and "Hercules" stories are also fun. Great collection that is rounded off with a cool sketchbook section of DC characters: