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:

One-A-Day #63

Funny enough I am not reading Swamp Thing, but I just sort of felt like drawing it (with a frog on it's head).

I am re-reading Jim Starlin's Dreadstar...I'll write about it more next time when I post new sketches, but I just have to say: it has been a long time since I was able to sit down and read 22 issues of the same series and always be excited about reading the next installment.

The first few issues were pure space opera on grand scale, a tiny band of rebels trying to stop a 200 year war between opposing galactic empires. Battles, politics, strange creatures, and some very intense character origins. Just as their adventures were starting to get routine...BAM...one empire is destroyed and the rebels are on the run. Then...BAM again...Vanth Dreadstar is almost killed. He revives with the help of magic, but now the small band of rebels has an inside traitor who needs to be found out and they are being pursued by a specially selected "hunt team"...and every issue one rebel team member dies. I am on issue #23 and the rebels are down to 4 right now.

This is really good stuff and is definitely worth a read.

My Marvel comic book bebut...

It's 1993 (!) and a young hot Marvel artist, Norman Felchle, is drawing a fill-in issue of "Darkhold". It is issue #4, guess staring Sabertooth...and Norman has just a few weeks to pencil the whole thing.

It's all a bit fuzzy now, but I remember going over to his place and posing for some photoreference. I remember posing for the guy in the red baseball cap...and before anyone asks, I don't know who posed for Sabertooth.

APE Sketches

As I mentioned before, I will be attending APE this year. I am sharing a table with Matt Maxwell (actually he is being kind enough to sub-rent me half of his table). A few weeks ago I sort of had to figure out what I am going to try to sell at APE to make back the table cost. I decided to bring with me a few copies of the first collection that I still have and to do original sketches in each one.

So I did a few sketches...some good, some bad, but all pretty fast. Here is a couple that I think turned out interesting. I figure I'll do most of the drawing at the show because....well because most of the time no one buys anything from me and I just sit around.