Daily Sketch #162

Thoughtful David

David's having a thoughtful moment today. Don't disturb him.

Daily Sketch #161

Rambo

Part of a page in progress for Dead Inspector where David and Ashley share a quiet couple moment. Enjoy.

Last night, my buddy Joe and I paid homage to 80s maniliness and grabbed some ribs for dinner and then went and plopped out $10 down to see "Rambo". Oh, wow... was it awful. But awesome awful, filled with ridiculous gore and blood. Stallone (who also directed and co-wrote) didn't miss a single chance to show your decapitations, maimings, or guts. Did you miss that head flying off, don't worry just give it a minute. Plus the obligatory machine gun scene was even more absurd than the last Rambo movie. And prior to the Rambo induced carnage beginning, Stallone made sure you knew the bad guys were REALLY bad, that way no matter what Rambo did to them you would feel they had it coming. I leave you with a picture of Sly in gentler days...

The icing on the cake of seeing Rambo last night was two awesomely bad trailers that ran before it. Enjoy "Midnight Meat Train" and "Doomsday"!

Daily Sketch #160

Thoughtful Ashley

Continuing to work on the new Dead Inspector pages so you get a sneak peek of thoughtful Ashley as she talks to David. JC had a tough challenge with Ashley in issue #1, establish her quickly as a strong, smart female partner to David without coming off mean or nagging. I think he pulled it off, but reader reaction will be the ultimate test.

Off to take Valentine to the vet today. She's continuing to throw up randomly for no good reason and we're starting to get a bit concerned. Personally I think it's because she doesn't want to move so she's trying to jinx our attempts to show off the house to potential renters.
Also I took a look at the drive out to Los Angeles yesterday on Google Maps to starts a rough trip itinerary. 2700+ miles going the Northern route through Chicago, which according to Google we can do in 1 day 16 hours. Yeah, okay... without sleep maybe. Some how I'm thinking at least one of us wouldn't survive that trip.

Daily Sketch #159

New Page Cookin'

After taking a whole bunch of reference pics, I've started on the next and final batch of page for Dead Inspector #1. Hopefully I can punch these out relatively quickly and then JC and I will be looking for a home for DI. Here's an early look at a page in progress.

Also we found our drummer last night for Rock Band. By virtue of being the only friend that's tried it out and made it through an entire song, Stacy D is now our drummer. I'm sure she'll regret being good at it soon enough.

Daily Sketch #158

Wonder Woman

Friday morning superhero sketch just for the heck of it, gang. I picked Wonder Woman because she was on the cover of two books in my office.

In other random news, I took advantage of my Christmas gift from D yesterday - a hour long massage. I got a deep tissue massage on my neck, shoulders, and upper back (thanks, hours at a laptop computer!). It was at once painful and awesome. At the end of it I felt exhausted and had to resist the urge to take a nap. Coupled with my new laptop stand and wireless keyboard we'll see if it improves the constant pain in my neck and back. Fingers crossed!

Daily Sketch

52... What the?!

Okay first the sketch - more Ashley warmup sketch action. Dig it.

Okay, now to the subject line of the post. I just finished reading "52" from DC Comics last night. Four volumes of trades, 52 issues, a weekly comic series. First, the good - I respect what they accomplished. They managed to put out a weekly comic book for an entire year without missing a week. The issues were dense and jam packed. They got four of the biggest writers in the biz to co-write a series together. They managed to convince the bulk of the comic buying public that they NEEDED to read about a half dozen second or third tier DC Universe characters.

Here's the problem. I invested a fair amount of time reading these and consider myself to be a pretty firmly entrenched DC geek. Crisis on Infinite Earthes is an all time favorite series of mine. I read the History of the DC Universe books and the Who's Who books for Christ's sake. But at the end of it, I was left saying, "So what?" The story didn't move me and I found myself wondering frequently "Why am I reading this?" I kept thinking that perhaps given the caliber of writers involved that at some point it would hit a tipping point and everything would come together. But it never happened. Man, if I'd spent the $156 to buy the individual comics at retail (not counting all the ridiculous tie ins), I would have been angry. Fortunately, I didn't so I'm just disappointed.

Am I missing something? I really wanted to like this...

Daily Sketch #156

Ashley's Skeptical

A quick warmup sketch of Ashley from Dead Inspector, David's fiance. I'm about to introduce her in the actual final pages so I wanted to get back into establishing her features and attitude.

Daily Sketch #155

I Have the POWER!

World meet generic super-hero guy charging into the fray. He's yelling some sort of battle cry no doubt. Very fierce.

D and I opened up Rock Band last night and set up our band, the Cheeky Monkeez. My alter ego Stefan Kielbasa and her's (Patty Scraps) rocked hard for a good portion of the evening. My rendition of Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" was particularly haunting. No really, it would haunt your dreams. The game's customizability and fun quotient are way up there and I think this is going to be a kick ass party game. Now if we can just find someone who can master the drums. That drum kit is tough!

Daily Sketch #154

Uh, Yeah... I Don't Know

Really. I haven't a clue. I just started drawings a face and this is what came out. I really have NO clue what's up with this guy's hair. Kind of looks like a skinny Hulk though.

Also, finally saw Shrek 3 this weekend. Not nearly as good as Shrek 2.

Daily Sketch #153

Sinister Me?

Random drawing time. Just started doodling while D and I were watching American Idol last night. It ended up kind of being a self portrait, but D says this guy looks "sinister". Well that ain't me. Or is it?

Daily Sketch #152

Top Secret!

Still working on some layouts for Dead Inspector and you'll notice these are the final pages from issue #1. Because of that I've opted to cover up some top secret plot points that might be apparent from my little doodles. Wouldn't want to give away the big reveal prematurely, would we now?

Daily Sketch #151

Layouts for Dead Inspector

Back on the job with Dead Inspector this morning, working on layouts for the remainder of issue #1. These pages will introduce Ashley, David's fiance to the reader. As JC wrote, "It's the first time we're seeing her, so make her pretty and friendly."
I'll do my best, JC.

Daily Sketch #150

Ocean's Thirteen

Wow, #150. If I'd remembered this would be a benchmark posting I probably would have done a more impressive sketch. Oh, well.

We watched Ocean's Thirteen last night, which fell between Eleven (the best) and Twelve (the worst) in terms of quality for me. I think these movies entertain and keep me enthralled only because of the enormity of star power in the cast and the director's competence. If I stop to think about it, I can't recall why I watch them. Anyway, here's a drawing of Matt Damon from the movie as Linus sporting the ridiculous fake nose, which "played".

And for D, Team America's much funnier interpretation of Matt Damon...

Daily Sketch #149

Brit?

Again, just pulled this sketch from the ether of my subconscious mind but looking at after it was done it occured to me that it looks kind of like my pal Robert Kirkman's character The Brit. Check it out and be the judge for yourself.


Seperated at birth?

Daily Sketch #148

Dead Inspector Detail


I'm back on the wagon and working on Dead Inspector currently. I'm hoping to have the first issue wrapped up relatively shortly so we can begin shopping it around to publishers.
In this panel I'm playing with dividing a single scene up into three panels to convey movement and time elapsing between panel gutters.

Daily Sketch #147

I'm a Bad Kid

Last night despite fighting off a cold (and/or sinus infection), a long day, and my better judgement I ended up popping in "Hitman: Blood Money" into the 360 at around 9:30 last night. My plan was to unwind for 30 minutes of game time before going to bed. There was nothing on TV and I had the itch to play. Two hours later I finally shut it off.

So I'm a bit tired today.

But I beat the damn level. Take that porno king and embarrassing senator's son. You got yours.

Daily Sketch #146

Samurai Chic

I pulled this sketch out of the mindscape ether (i.e. I have no idea where it came from). Just a cool female samurai with a dragon motif. It probably stemmed from some Witchblade related thing I was thinking about at work.

Yesterday was crazy on the email as folks were dropping lines left and right to congratulate me over the job change. It was nice to hear from everyone and have folks be so positive. As my buddy Mark Britt said, "Bask in the glow" and I have been. Well, when folks haven't been hitting me up for a job. It cracks me up, as if there's some lottery where if you are the first person to email asking for work - you win! (There's not.)


D and I watched "Queen" last night and both thought it was incredibly well acted and compelling. We also watched a made for TV version of "Picture of Dorian Grey" from what looked like the late 70s, which was neither well acted nor compelling. Pity.

Daily Sketch #145

Sitting at the Big Boys Table


The biggest piece of news in my professional career has just been announced - I've been promote to Publisher at Top Cow. I'm incredibly stoked about the opportunity and excited to make the most of it. You can read the CBR exclusive interview or the official PR on Newsarama. Thanks all of the folks who've already dropped me a congratulatory note. I'm feeling the love and hope I can live up to everyone's expectations!



The other big news last week was the internet wildfire over the end of Spider-Man "One More Day". Basically at the end of it (SPOILER ALERT)...











The devil splits up Peter Parker and Mary Jane and makes it that their marriage never existed in the first place. Today's sketch is inspired by the event.

I've never been a big Spidey reader other than Ultimate Spider-man (which I think is genius), so I don't have a great personal opinion on the subject. Neither have I read OMD, so it's not like I can speak intelligently on the story merits itself. I have read Joe Q's interview on CBR and bunch of the outrage posts by fans and retailers over the event. I can certainly see the validity of both points of view. What I'm most curious about as a industry pro is if the Marvel diehards that are dropping Spidey and/or all Marvel titles (as some reports indicate) will pick up other titles from other publishers or if they've been burned and take their dollars out of the comic market entirely. I'm hoping it's the former.

Daily Sketch #144

I am TV's Black Widow

I'm not sure why but many of the quality shows I get into seem to get cancelled. I've lamented previously over the cancellation of shows like Traveler, The Black Donnellys, The Nine

and Drive. All well writte shows, good casts, and looked like they had a solid push from the networks. All cancelled within their first season.
Most recently I got hit with a 1,2 punch from network land when I heard they cancelled Journeyman and 4400. Journeyman wasn't a huge surprise, it's a new show that I just got into. We even played it safe and Tivo'd the entire season before watching one episode. And it was good, REALLY good! The acting was superb, the story interesting, and the conceit of the show interesting. Nonetheless it nearly ruined D's Christmas when she found out.
The 4400 was a bit more of a surprise. The show was going into its fifth season, seemed to be on a roll and as far as I can tell was one of USA's original series that had a solid fan base. I've talked about how brilliant I think the show is and how fearless they seemed to be in making changes in the storyline. I started a sketch yesterday of Jordan Collier (as requested by Elena) and have included it below. Not really happy with it so I'll probably continue to work on it or do another one soon.

I am television's black widow. Keep your shows away from me.
On a personal level this weekend will mark the first time my parents and D's parents meet. We're having them over to the house for the weekend and hopefully all will go well.

Daily Sketch #143

So This is The New Year

I'm kicking off the New Year with a sketch of Alec King, from the Forever Man which should hopefully play a big role in 2008 for me (and my partners John and Thomas). We'll see if later blog posts in the year make this prediction true...

My story in Black Diamond #6 entitled "The Curse" should be in stores this week, so make sure you swing by and check it out. A special thanks for Larry Young for giving me the chance to write and draw my own story for publication and to Nick Senior for helping me out with some awesome colors.

New Year's Eve was good times as D and I engaged in my yearly tradition of ringing in the New Year with a group of my college friends. We've been having a party with rotating hosts for going on eight or nine years now. They went from wild college drinkfests in the old days to much more subdued get togethers. Everyone contributes food, we do a hilarious Secret Santa exchange, and we've graduated from beer and shots to wine for the most part. Although jello shots still make it into the picture every year. I also drank a bit too much champagne and rocked out hard on Guitar Hero. My favorite gift this year was this bizarre gag gift from my friend, Stacy. I can't believe a publisher actually put this out.

One day I hope to have a moustache as manly as Tom Selleck's.