Wednesday, November 30, 2011

'Everlast'ing brothers, oringal launches and students

Here's page 61 of Tomb of the Undead - part of a pivotal moment in the escape from customs at the airport - I thought it was particularly useful to have Starkwood's character be a motivational factor that delayed the detective from contacting France to intercept our heroes.

In any case - they sneak through without any complications, even though they should have been taken into custody. No doubt, the story is better with our characters acting on their free will, rather than being in detention.

For the record - Detention is a bad word. Shouldn't someone in "detention" be in "retention," or "detainment?" Where does "Detention" even come from? Sounds stupid to me - but that's hardly relevant.


Graphic Novel News
Student designs, relaunching all DC's original books and 'Everlasting' brothers.

Students design comic books
Andrew Nelson
Nique.net

Springtime Atlanta is heyday for comics, with MomoCon just in March and Free Comic Book Day in May. At Tech, local artists and students met at the first Annual Atlanta Comics Symposium to host panels on comics from their nature and creation to the industry’s ambivalent future.
Click to read more.

DC Comics to relaunch line; Geoff Johns, Jim Lee to create Justice League
nerdblog
www.newsok.com


As USA Today and the DC Comics Source blog are reporting, the publisher is relaunching its entire line starting in August, with 52 No. 1 issues across the line.

This relaunch will start with a new “Justice League” No. 1 on Aug. 31, and all DC’s superhero titles will be offered digitally on the same day from there forward.
Click to read more.

Chad Michael Murray updates us on his graphic novel, ‘Everlast’
otownrog
orlandosentinel.com

Chad Michael Murray’s been in town this month, filming “Renee,” the new drama about Rene Yohe. He plays Jamie Tworkowski, founder of “To Write Love on Her Arms,” and “I picked up some of his mannerisms, but I didn’t want to imitate him, any more than Kat (Dennings) is doing the ‘real’ Renee,” Murray (left, with the real Jamie) says.


Click to read more.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Hush, Hush - Serenity (vol. 3) for a Heachache

Some exposition of the mythology of this story begins with our protagonists searching out their contact in Marseilles - and this story gets them away from the airport, into France, and closer to the answers they're searching for.

I hope you enjoy this - I was never much of an artist when it comes to vehicles - so I was relatively pleased to see some of these cars turning out relatively well. I hope you enjoy it!



Read more at Stretch My Legs. I hope you like it.

Graphic Novel News

'Hush, Hush' Author Becca Fitzpatrick (And Fans) Help Shape Graphic Novel
Sabrina Rojas Weiss in Page Turners


Are fans of traditional YA novels eager to pick up graphic novel versions of their favorite books? Judging by the feedback "Hush, Hush" author Becca Fitzpatrick gets on her blog every time she posts a sketch from Sea Lion Books' upcoming adaptation of her fallen angel stories, due out in October, that's a resounding "yes."
Click to read more.

Graphic Novel Review: Serenity Volume 3: The Shepherd's Tale by Joss Whedon and Zack Whedon
Eilonvi, BLOGCRITICS.ORG
seattlepi.com


I just loved how the life-story of Shepherd Book was structured - starting from the moment of his death (on planet Haven, as we well know from the movie 'Serenity') and going backwards to the unknown parts of his life. All the defining moments of Book's life are presented as a chain of events that we uncover from end to origin, as each short chapter delves deeper into his past.
Click to read more.

Joy and Athena Give The Gods A "Headache"
Josie Campbell,
comicbookresources.com


Last year, brand new comic book company Kickstart Comics, founded by film producer Jason Netter, promised to change the face of comic sales and distribution by rolling out original graphic novels in both comic stores and Walmarts across the country. This month sees the release of their latest original comics property, "Headache," written by "Pushing Daisies" and "Burn Notice" scribe Lisa Joy with art by Jim Fern, Vertigo artist for "Crossing Midnight" and "Fables."
Click to read more.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Homeless in San Fransisco, Mr. Wonderful and the Uncanny X-Force

On page 60 I remember the new challenge - after having the characters trapped in an airplane for a few pages, they were suddenly in a crowded airport ... which wasn't any easier to conceive or draw. Check it out at "Just a Little Escape"

Graphic Novel News
Check out some graphic novel news - first, a graphic novel that's inspired by local homeless, which leads to "Transient Man," learn more about the introverted world of graphic novelist Danny Clowes and meet the Uncanny X-Force!

Homeless in San Fransisco, Mr. Wonderful and the Uncanny X-Force


Artist's graphic novel inspired by homeless people in San Francisco
Alexis Terrazas
SFExaminer.com


Justin Kaufman, art director of Massive Black, recently completed his graphic novel “Transient Man,” which is based on The City’s homeless. For more information, visit www.transientman.com or www.massiveblack.com.

What inspired you to write “Transient Man”? I’ve lived in The City for like 15 years, in and around the downtown area for most of that. And you know, you see these homeless people sometimes talking to themselves. I work in the GFX industry and I got obsessed with this idea. I talked about it to a few of my co-workers and it kind of spawned into [this]. I hope that it will encourage people to look at homeless people in a positive light.
Click to read more.

Graphic Novelist Daniel Clowes on What Makes ‘Mr. Wonderful’ Wonderful
Dennis Nishi
Speakeasy (blog)


If you’ve read the graphic novels of Dan Clowes, you already know the artist. The characters from such work as “Ghost World” and “Art School Confidential,” which have both been turned into movies, are reflections of the 50-year-old and his close circle of introverted but creative friends. He describes them all, and himself, as having a seething anger that surfaces during some social situations but who are very likable once you get them to relax.

His latest graphic novel is entitled “Mr. Wonderful” and it follows a middle-aged divorced man named Marshall that has been set up on a blind date. Of course, the evening spins off into some unexpected directions. “Mr. Wonderful” was originally commissioned as a serialized 20-episode comic strip for the New York Times Magazine back in 2008. The story has since been expanded and turned into a hardcover book that was released earlier this month by Pantheon Press. Speakeasy spoke with Clowes at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
Click to read more.

Wednesday Comics Review: Uncanny X-Force 8 And Super Dinosaur 1
Rich Johnston
BleedingCool.com




For weeks I’ve watched Aaron and Mike going on and on and on and on and on about the new Uncanny X-Force series from Marvel by Rick Remender and Billy Tan. I picked up an early issue and, aside from a gorgeous scene with Deadpool and a still-framed assailant, wasn’t overly impressed. But it’s time to go back.

Ostensibly, this is a black ops group, but it’s more about pawns that have lost their king. They act independently, with great ferocity, but in the end are being placed in a position where they can do their thing. Expect these pawns get back on the board after they’ve been sacrficed and start moving each other around the place. Which makes for a very interesting game of chess, even as it’s embedded in Claremontian X-Men with the return of Shadow King, astral battles, possession, the price one must pay to win, the demons unleashed in the process and all that jazz, given a very pleasant painted execution of Billy Tan’s art.
Click to read more.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

back in the saddle

I was on a great pace, and things were rockin' but I hit a major slump in production at Tomb of the Undead.

But I'm back at it, after like three weeks - not having the time to work on it made me feel really frustrated, so I'm glad to be back at it.

The hiatus seems to have coincided with me finishing rewatching Lost all over again on DVD. So, let's get back in the swing of things and start it all over again.

On to the pilot ... and back to updating with some regularity, if I have anything to say about it.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Hero physicists, Kite Runners and Untrue Tales of The Exorcist

Here's Page 59 of Tomb of the Undead - which was a lot of fun to draw, especially considering, as I mentioned before, I kind of got to give tribute to a buddy of mine. Again, the customs agent doesn't really resemble my buddy, but it is in honour of him.

It was tricky figuring out how to get this back-and-forth to not fill up too many pages - here's an example of a scene that ran a bit too long. It took a long time to cover everything that had to happen, and it's not good if these scenes go on for too long.

I think readers get impatient only if scenes take six pages to get through, but it takes you six weeks to publish them. Nobody likes that.


In any case, enjoy Page 59 of Just a Little Escape.

Graphic Novel News
In the links below, there are a bunch of neat posts about some new graphic novels coming up soon. The Untrue Tales of the Exorcist looks pretty f-ing awesome!

Check 'em out!

Richard Feynman, the late physicist, is hero of new graphic novel
Monica Hesse
WashingtonPost.com



It is a sad fact — an endlessly rehashed symbol of just what is wrong with America — that we make heroes of athletes but not mathletes, that we write comic books about men with capes but not real men with calculators, and that “Dancing With the Stars” has never tapped Andre Geim or Konstantin Novoselov, who — oh, admit it, you had to Google them — were last year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in physics.

Let us now commence an ode to a dead scientist.

There is a new graphic novel called “Feynman.” The hero is a particle physicist. Not, mind you, just any particle physicist. The people’s particle physicist. The cute one. Richard P. Feynman, “The Great Explainer,” 1965 Nobel Prize winner, player of bongos, seducer of women, launcher of thousands of dreamy-eyed physics majors. Even for those who hav­en’t taken a science class since 11th grade, referencing Richard Feynman (1918-1988) is a somewhat fashionable pursuit — the quirk, the flair, the devil-may-care. As much as representing science for scientists, his attitude seemed to represent science for the scient-ish — kookiness that was first brought to the mainstream in his autobiography, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman.”
Click to read more.

GeekDad Interview: Khaled Hosseini, Author of The Kite Runner
Tony Sims
Wired.com



2003 best-seller The Kite Runner reveals the beauty and agony of a tormented nation as it tells the story of an improbable friendship between two boys from opposite ends of society, and of the troubled but enduring relationship between a father and a son. The Kite Runner begins in Kabul in the 1970s, shortly after the overthrow of the last Afghan king. Set on a broad canvas encompassing the communist coup d’état, the Soviet invasion, the rise of the Afghan freedom fighters or mujahideen, and the early days of the Taliban, Hosseini’s tale also portrays the Afghan community of exiles in America with unparalleled insight and deft wit. The Kite Runner graphic novel is a beautiful new rendering of Khaled Hosseini’s beloved story.

I recently caught up with the author, Khaled Hosseini, for a brief interview:
Click to read more.

Jay Baruchel To Adapt Image’s Random Acts Of Violence And Tell Untrue Tales Of The Exorcist
Rich Johnston
BleedingCool.com



The basis for William Peter Blatty’s book The Exorcist, and subsequently William Friedkin’s film, were said to be events that took place in Mount Rainier in Maryland during the late 1940s. Investigative journalist Mark Opasnick wasn’t sure all of the claims added up, however, so he set about sifting fact from fiction. This resulted in The Real Story Behind The Exorcist, a non-fiction book that dispelled a lot of the myths.
Click to read more.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

So close!!!!

I'm so close to being at an incredible milestone for the project.

The Tentpole or mid-point of Act II, that marks the centre of the story, is within eyesight. I'm drafting up the final pages to mark the half-way point in the story. I don't think it's going to get done before Oct 1, but I still made almost an entire half the story in a year, which is pretty cool.

I'm just excited - here's a cool post about it.

While I'm not quite at the anniversary of the day I began posting artwork to Tomb of the Undead, I'm very close, and I'm 78 pages in, within only 52 weeks. That's pretty impressive, in my books.

Let's hope I can replicate this success in the next year. I hope readers have enjoyed the story, and if it was moving too slow, there's almost 80 pages now to read - which should give you plenty to catch up on.

Enjoy!

Monday, September 19, 2011

"Homesick Swedish Maus" and the Last Days in American Crime

Here's the post for page 58, which was another scene in the airplane, which I was definitely getting tired of drawing. It's awkward having characters trapped in any location where they can't move around and things like that. With a limited range of motion, it feels like there are a limited amount of ways to draw them, which can be a bit suffocating.

Just a little escape was a cutesy title to lead from "trapped in an airplane" but I had no idea how much more meaning it was going to have on me while drawing the scene. I really felt like the characters needed to escape, too.

I was relieved for them to make it to the airport terminal, and it was almost as claustrophobic to have a large open space for the characters to be in as it was to be confined in the airplane. The customs agent is modelled after a buddy of mine, loosely. My guess is you'll never guess who it is - but he'd be somewhat honoured to know that he was my choice for a jolly Frenchman who believed more in the spirit of the law than the letter of the law.

Graphic novel news
In graphic novel news - I'm finding I' jealous all the time. There are so many really neat sounding graphic novels out there, and today I've got a sample of more of them. I WISH they were my idea, but at the same time, I'm glad these things are out there to read though - for sure.

F. Gary Gray to Direct 'The Last Days of American Crime' (Cannes)
Gregg Kilday
hollywoodreporter.com


Are you kidding me? This thing looks AWESOME! And it's going to become a movie with Sam Witherspoon, or whatever that guy from Avatar - Sam Worthington - that's the guy.


Cannes -- F. Gary Gray is now attached to direct The Last Days of American Crime, a heist movie in which Sam Worthington is set to star, for IM Global and Radical Pictures.

The project ... is based on the Radical graphic novel written by Rick Remender. Karl Gadejsak will write the screenplay set in a near-future where the government plans to implement a form of legal mind control, making it impossible for its citizens to commit unlawful acts. Worthington, the star of Avatar and Terminator 3: Salvation, will play a career criminal, who must put together the last heist in American history on the last night that crime is possible.

The actor’s Full Clip Productions label is also producing alongside Automatik Entertainment.

Gray most recently directed Law Abiding Citizen.

The project was announced Monday by IM Global founder and CEO Stuart Ford and Radical founders Barry Levine and Jesse Berger.

“This is such a powerful, iconic piece of material - we really believe this movie can bring something fresh to the noir universe and become an explosive action feature film. We're delighted to be working alongside the super talented Radical team, Gary and Sam,” Ford said.

“The Last Days of American Crime graphic novel is one of the most coveted titles in the Radical catalog and our most successful international seller,” Levine added.
Click to read more.

Representing History in Art Spiegelman's Maus II
By Derek D. Miller
studentpulse.com


Here's an incredibly powerful example of the places that graphic novels can go. And this scene in particular really shows how powerful the images can be even in a seemingly innocuous scene. This post really illustrates all of this.

Spiegelman's Maus II is a graphic novel and I believe Spiegelman chose this format because it is the only way to discuss the Holocaust while simultaneously conveying the impossibility of doing such a task. The Holocaust was such a horrific event that there is no way of truly representing it. Spiegelman realized that everything is a representation. He also realized that representing every aspect of the Holocaust was something that simply cannot be done. It is impossible to capture something free of representation. Spiegelman wanted to write a story about the Holocaust but he was very cautious in his construction. Maus: Volume II is constructed with precise self-awareness and self-devaluation to tell to a story about the Holocaust, while also writing a story about the impossibility of trying to capture this tragic event within the extremely limited parameters of representation.
Click to read more.

Nick Frost: Zombies, Cops, & Aliens, Oh My! PAUL & Beyond
Lucas Siegel,
Newsarama.com

On a much lighter note, but in the same vein as mice, is Nick Frost's graphic novel idea, barely mentioned, about a Homesick Swedish Mouse, which is the tentative title of his upcoming work.
Could be interesting.

Nrama: Would you like to write outside of film and TV?

Frost: Well I'm writing a graphic novel at the moment!

Nrama: What can you tell us about that, that's our bread and butter!

Frost: Well it's not what you'd expect. It's provisionally titled "Homesick Swedish Mice." My wife is Swedish, she's not a mouse, so I had this idea about a group of Mice who become marooned in London. Grandfather Mouse passes away and his final words to his son are "Take me home." So then it becomes about a group of mice trying to get from London to Sweden in a toy boat. So yeah, doing that at the moment, as well.

Also, I've written a film about a wrestler, so I'm hoping to shoot that later this year or early next!
Click to read more.