Heroes Con Commission Pre-Order Special!

Here's a sample of the commissions that Brian Hurtt and I did last year -- Brian on pencils/inks and me on color/painting. Thanks to everyone that ordered them this year!

Thanks in advance! Looking forward to Heroes Con -- one of the best shows of the year!

CONVENTION AND SIGNING APPEARANCE SCHEDULE!

This is a list of all of my appearances I've got schedule for the year (so far). Hope to see you guys somewhere this year!

Kansas City (this weekend)

TCAF (5/5-5/6)

Challenger Comics (5/25)

Chicago Comics (5/26)

Denver (6/15-6/17)

Heroes (6/22-6/24)
San Diego Comic Con (7/12-7/15)

Baltimore (9/8-9/9)

NYCC (10/11-10/14)

Writing and Commissions...

I started writing a monthly book for DC last week. I've written shorter pieces for Marvel and DC in the past but this is kind of monumental (to me anyway) because it's the first monthly book that I've been able to write. Writing for an artist is really an interesting process. Kind of liberating in a way and it has a fire-works kind of feel to it, in that the script I write is like lighting a fuse and then you get to sit back and enjoy the show that the artist puts on. Kind of a unique feeling. Horrible if it goes wrong - but amazing when the artist surpasses your imagination and the script. Anyway, having a blast this month - can't wait for DC to announce it so I can talk more freely about it. In the meantime, here's a commission I did over the holidays...

Cover Process

Peter Bagge, Gilbert Hernandez, and myself are doing a "cover-swap" on our new Dark Horse series coming out in the Spring - so there will be a "variant" cover for each series. Gilbert did my cover and I got to do Peter's.

I usually end up throwing away most of the process stuff and keeping the final product only but got too busy to clean my desktop so actually saved all of the steps accidentally!

Here's the process -- 1. Thumbnails: I gave Peter 3 to choose from - the last one being a sort of Conan-esque cover which is the one he liked best.

2. Pencils: I scan this in so I can see how the logo/type will look over the top of it and for editorial approval.

3. Ink/color: This is the raw image - the original art. I try to do as much at this stage as I can so I don't have to spend a lot of time on the computer.

4. Photoshop/design/logo: I stick the logo on and adjust the color, etc. depending on what the piece is and how it looks with the logo colors. In this case, the background was way too light so I darkened that up and also had to fix the skin of the girl kneeling down (she's not white).

New Giant Man Stories!

In April, Dark Horse is publishing a 24-page collection of 3 Giant Man short stories I did for their Dark Horse Presents Anthology. These are short stories that take place during the same time period as Part 2 and 3 of my book 3 Story. Here's the cover! Also -- this comic is going to have a sneak preview of my new on-going series MIND MGMT that starts in May. More on that soon!

Top 10 Movies of 2011

It's been a while but I'm going to try to update my blog again on a weekly basis! Lots of new stuff going on this year. To kick it off...here's a list of my favorite movies of 2011. It was a pretty good year for movies.

TOP 10

1. The Artist

2. Tree of Life

3. Tintin

4. Hanna

5. Planet of the Apes

6. Moneyball

7. Drive

8. Captain America

9. Thor

10. X-Men First Class

ALMOST TOP 10

Sherlock Holmes

Hugo

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Mission Impossible

10 HOURS I'LL NEVER GET BACK

Pirates of the Caribbean

Sucker Punch

Green Hornet

Super

Gainsbourg

EVERYTHING ELSE I SAW

Transformers

Super 8

Green Lantern

Conan

Rango

Rio

Battle LA

Kung Fu Panda 2

Bridesmaids

Adjustment Bureau

Source Code

Gnomeo and Juliet

Your Highness

Puss in Boots

Muppets

Midnight in Paris

30 Minutes or Less

Super

I Saw the Devil

Dolphin Tale

Attack the Block

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

The Descendants

Young Adult

You Are Wild Dog!

Finished up the last of my commissions for a while -- until I finish penciling Strange Crimes. I'm 120 pages into Strange Crimes with about 80 pages to go. About half-way through the pencils though, I came up with an idea to an extra chapter I want to do -- which is probably another 10-12 pages so it may end up a little longer. That's the part of the comic writing process I love -- the fluid nature of it -- the ability to come up with ideas along the way and just fold them into the finished product.

Got a great Wild Dog commission -- a character I liked back when I was younger -- and sort of strikes me as the pre-Punisher. Also did a pin-up for a good friend of mine Chris Schweizer who does a series of books "Crogan's Adventures." Highly recommended -- he'd told me the idea for his series years ago in San Diego when I first met him and I knew that if he had the guts to back up his words -- he'd be doing an incredible series of books -- and he is.

Criterion Collection!

Had a fun project this week - an illustration for a poster to promote a new film festival that Criterion (the best DVD publisher/designer out there) is promoting next month. I had a tough choice - choosing between Repulsion and The Night of the Hunter. I ended up doing the Robert Mitchum movie only because I immediately thought of an image to draw even though I think I like Repulsion as a movie a little more. After I was done I really regretted not coming up with an image where I could have drawn Robert Mitchum's face. Next time.

Also - over the summer I've written more pages of comics in a shorter amount of time then I ever have before. Since the spring I've written and thumbnailed 1200 pages worth of comics and written full-lenth pitches for two on-going series ideas. Waiting to hear on the on-going series stuff but the other 1200 pages will be turned into graphic novels over the course of this fall, winter and spring for 2011. It's nice to be in a place where I know what books I'm doing next but I also have the plots and layouts completely nailed down as well. The hard work is over - time to just plug away on drawing until it's all done. See you in the spring!

Mad Man.

I finished an 8-page Madman story for Mike Allred a few weeks ago -- for a to-be-published collection of Madman stories by various creators. I'll update more when I know the details of the when and where. Needless to say, one of the high-points of my career in comics. Back in 1991 I'd just graduated from high school and had this Madman black and white poster hanging on my wall -- a long vertical poster with the flip-book corners from the books -- of Madman dancing. I met Mike in 1991 at a local comic show and bought the first limited series from him. Nicest guy. So, years later -- this year, at a party in Portland that Top Shelf had put together to celebrate me and Jeff Lemire being in town, Mike shows up. First time I'd seen him since 1991. I said "I was a huge fan of yours." And his reply: "'Was?'"

Needless to say, I still am. Got the offer to do anything with any of the characters in Snap City and couldn't resist the beatniks. Here's a teaser panel from the story...

Pre-San Diego Comic Con 2010

I'm in Los Angeles this week doing a book signing and my first ever book reading for Revolver. I'll let you know how that goes (if it goes well). I had a glut of commissions before San Diego that I'm hand-delivering -- that's what these are this week. I've never drawn or even looked that close at Enemy Ace but his mask is pretty awesome.

I'll be signing at Dark Horse, Top Shelf, and Vertigo this weekend (a record amount of signings for me) and I'll be at the Vertigo panel on Saturday as well so if you're in the neighborhood of any of that come on by!

New Studio. New Books.

I think I've written more comic book pages this year than I have in my entire career combined so far -- 1200 pages of script that will be my next 3 books: Super Natural, End of the World, and Strange Crimes. It feels good to have these books "in-the-can" story-wise so now it's just a matter of production. Drawing, inking, painting. To celebrate (or at least to help me get it all done) -- my new studio is finally done being built! Here's a photo...can't wait to start drawing. [Also pictured -- my mom and daughter.]

Catching Up

I've done a ton of commissions during the gap of me not blogging. So I'll try to catch up a little bit here. Also if you're buying any Vertigo books this month there's a preview of my Revolver graphic novel in the monthly books. I think that there's a short column I wrote as well describing the book and the inspiration for it. So check out some monthly books this month. Keep floppies alive! Next month I'll be doing a daily Vertigo blog with notes, preliminary sketches and more regarding Revolver so stay tuned.

Wild Things Happening

Sorry for the long delay in blog updates. It's been a busy few months and I probably won't be caught up until 2012. But, lots of new things to report. A movie option for 3 Story and four new original graphic novels due to come out between now and 2012. First is REVOLVER from Vertigo which arrives July 14. Then it will be THE TOOTH for Oni in the Fall and Spring of next year. After that THE STRANGE CRIMES OF RED WHEEL BARROW for First Second. And finally the Super Spy sequel SUPER NATURAL which is written and just waiting to be penciled and inked. I promise to keep the updates coming on a more regular basis.

Thanks to everyone that came by the table at Heroes Con this year in Charlotte. It was a great show again. Here's a commission that I did for that show. One of my favorite books as a kid and one of my favorite kid's books as an adult.

Lucca Italy Comic Festival

In September I went to the Lucca Comic Fesitval in Italy and had a great time -- Super Spy was just published over the summer in Italian. One thing I've always done is try to come up with a different sketch every time I sign a book. But truthfully I end up cycling through 15 or 20 different sketches that I've come up with. But for this show I thought it would be fun to come up with a different sketch for every single book I signed. Well, it ended up being about 300 sketches over 3 days. Tons of fun. What I didn't realize until the second day was that my wife was taking pictures of the sketches as I was doing them. Didn't get photos of all of them but here's a sampling....

I'm really curious as to what other artists do at cons. To me, there's a strange kind of fun to work with ink in a book without penciling anything first and having that kind of "danger" of screwing up every time and still coming up with a drawing you haven't drawn before. It's as close to any kind of performance "improv" I'll ever get and I really enjoy it.

If you look closely, there are a few where I started doing 3 panel stories in the front of the book -- each different and written on the fly. I think I only did 3 or 4 of those -- the writing and drawing just took too long for people waiting to get their books so I went back to straight sketches.

SPX Next Weekend!

I'm getting ready for SPX 2009 this weekend. Should be a good show. I sold out of 3 Story last weekend at Windy City Con but should have a Twhole new stack of books for SPX so come by and check it out! I'll be doing commissions all weekend as well. And again, here are a few new commissions I did this week as well as a sketchbook commission from this weekend (The Flash).

3 Story is out, Revolver is in the can and being lettered by the awesome lettering dept. at Vertigo as I type this for a release this spring/summer. In addition, I'm currently plugging away on a fun 70s style Marvel comic with Cullen Bunn called "The Tooth" and laying out pages for the Super Spy sequel "Super Natural".

Thanks again to everyone that came by and talked to me in Chicago this weekend. What a great show!

Commission Time!

My new book 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man is out this week! Check it out please! Also if you want to get a signed copy you can order it directly from me at my newly redesigned website. Take a look! And thanks to everyone that ordered books and art from me -- it is much appreciated!

Got caught up on a TON of commissions this week. I put the finishing touches on my Vertigo book "Revolver"which including actually writing footer "scroll" text for the bottom of every page of the book that was specific to the action of that page and...also contained the page number in the same text. Hard at first but by page 100 I figure it out. There's actually a whole other book if you just read the text at the bottom. Really fun to work on. Here are all the commissions I finished this week! Going to Chicago this weekend for the Windy City Con -- come say 'hi' to me there!

Aquaman

This is a commission I did a few weeks ago -- maybe my daughter's favorite one I've done so far. Still plugging away on a few new projects and waiting for 3 Story to hit the store shelves on October 2. I'm also doing balloon layouts for Revolver right now which is a first. I've lettered all of my books until now so I'm excited to see how this one turns out. I think lettering is one of my weak points generally, so we'll see. Should be good! But I still snuck in a few hand lettered sound effects.

Super Spy Revisited

Here are some character sketches for a new Super Spy project that I'm working on. I'm also starting pencils on a new book called "The Tooth" that I'm doing with Cullen Bunn and Shawn Lee. I'll be posting more on that as I go along. It is going to start as a free on-line comic.

I have about three more commissions to get done this week and then I'm also going to start on the Super Spy sequel "Super Natural". It's written, I just need to start penciling that as well. As I type this I realize it's sounding more like my to-do list. Well, I guess it is. More art and info next week!

Giant Man Short Story

Here is the first of two Giant Man short stories I've done for Dark Horse Presents. They'll be collected later this year but for now you can read them free online HERE! And don't worry about spoilers for the graphic novel. These stories were designed to stand alone and they don't appear in the graphic novel at all so this is the only place to see 'em.

Vertigo Book Announced

The book I've been working on the last couple of months has finally been announce. "Revolver" is a new Vertigo original graphic novel -- 192 pages. It won't be out until spring but you can see a little preview and read a little about it from my editor here.

Also -- my next release 3 Story is going to be out on October 7th. And if you're in the St. Louis area make sure to come by the official book release party at Subterranean Books in U. City from 7-9pm. I'm going to have every page of the original art on display as well as sketchbooks and scripts and other fun stuff that ties into the book.

In the meantime, here are three recent commissions that I did at Heroes Con and San Diego...