a productive night -

working on the sketchjam anthology and sweating my nuts off. It is hot. No doubt about that.

random 05.09.07

Ever hear of the "piss rule". (My apologies for the language) It goes something like this; You never have to take a leak until you have finished your 3rd beer, but then you have to go after every sequential beer. It's math. It's a fact, and it doesn't matter the volume, 3 bottles or 3 pints, it makes no difference. It's fact. Like physics, it has never ceased to be 100% accurate, in my case anyway.

Today was no better (see last post)

Randomness

Scrubs is a really, really good show.

All of today sucked except the 30 minutes I played with the boys and a 6 minute phone call. 36 out of 1440, that's .025% of a good day, maybe tomorrow will be better.

That's all for now.

Weekend Round Up - Free Comic Book Day 2007

This past weekend was Free Comic Book Day 2007 and I loved (almost) every minute of it. Once again this year Mike Malve of Atomic Comics, comic fan, retailer and all around PIMP, took wonderful care of everyone and while I wasn't able last year to enjoy all the festivities, this year I soaked them all in. Friday night I arrived at the Hilton's hospitality suite just in time to hop a ride to a courtesy viewing of the latest (and hopefully last) Spider-Man movie. This one was terrible and while I loved the the generosity of Mike, this was the low point of the weekend for me. Best part was the trailers for Order of the Phoenix and The Bourne Ultimatum. After the movie we all piled back in the cars and headed south to a fantastic Drink and Draw that was set-up for us at a wonderful local place called Pita Jungle. I love Pita Jungle, I love drinking and I love drawing, so it was perfect. The best part was getting to meet some of the other artists and we all sketched on a giant bed sheet that Mike is giving to the Phoenix Children's Hospital, hopefully the kids like it. I shared a crazy cab ride back to the hotel with Francisco Herrera, I was so busy talking his ear off I apparently missed the 3 cop cars the driver almost hit and the red light he ran.

The next day was the signing and sketching at The Atomic Comics Mesa location with myself, Marat Mychaels, Shannon Denton, Scottie Young, Rick Remender and Jim Hanna. Our store was cool because everyone there was an artist and could do sketches so we all kept pretty busy. Scottie is a pimp and overall we all had a blast and the line was pretty busy all day long. Spider-Man was there and his line was about 3 times the size of ours, kids love the guys in spandex (yeah, kinda creepy).

After the signing we all hung out by the pool and shot the shit, we had a lovely dinner afterwards and then I called it a night. Overall the weekend was great and I'm glad I got to meet and hang out with alot of cool people, so thanks to Scottie Young and Casey, Josh Blaylock and Courtney, Shannon, Francisco, Marat, John Layman, Patrick Sherberger, all the other creators that I really didn't get to talk to much, the Atomic Comics staff and especially Mike Malve for for making it an awesome weekend.


Me, Scottie Young and Rick Remender


Francisco Herrera sketching Spidey, next to Scottie's Joker




cross posted to myspace + sketchjam

Recent sketches

Indie Spinner Rack

I did an interview for this podcast months ago, it's finally available, I haven't heard it yet so I hope I don't sound too retarded. Checkcheckcheckcheckcheckitout!

Musings and Mayhem

So while blog-surfing today I came across Becky Cloonan's blog, where she linked to Corey Lewis' blog where they were both discussing the problems with the comic book industry in respect to the independent comic creator. I thought I would chip in my 2 cents as well. In most indy comics (and many mainstream comics), monthly single issues do not sell well enough for the publisher to recoup costs, and are in essence, loss leaders that lead up to an eventual release of the books in trade format. Like my book VILLAINS, issues #1-4 were released, and then a few months later, the collected trade was released (still available too, clicky on the links to the right and grab a copy!). Now I was very lucky, I knew from day 1 that my book was going to lose my publisher money, to this day I am still eternally grateful they agreed to publish it. The loss leader mentality can only go so far. The percentage of profit on a collected trade is much more than a single issue, so many publishers have started following the Asian market and began producing OGN (Original Graphic Novels) to try and stay alive, while still producing titles.

They problem with OGN's are the massive amount of work that must go into completing them in one giant, singular effort. When doing a series of individual issues, Issue #1 can be released while the creator is working on Issue #3, they can get an instant sense of satisfaction to help keep their creative energies flowing, and the book can begin to get reviewed, gain momentum, and build an audience. When doing an OGN, the creator might labor for months on end, half a year, more than that maybe, on a single volume. During this time, there is little to no momentum being gained, no audience being built, nothing. The creator can easily get dis-heartened, with no book out there with his/her name on it to promote or discuss, it's easy to feel let down and have your creativity sapped. This is part of the reason I am so frustrated with not having anything on the schedule or set up anywhere. I have plenty of projects I am working on, but with no deadline, or schedule, it is easy to become stagnant. The biggest problem seems to be money. It shouldn't come as a surprise to many, but 90% of comic creators make very little to NO money for doing what they love. We work at night after our "real" job, we work on the weekends, we do it all for the love of storytelling. But putting 6 months or a year into a 150 page book, to never see the light at the end of the tunnel is a hard thing to do.

Personally, my idea is to meet in the middle. Instead of releasing a 150 page OGN, break it up into three 60 page installments, sell them affordably and they can be released every 3 months or so. I have two current projects in development, Coral City Aeronauts and The Ronin of The Ryukyu series that I think would be perfect for this format and that is really the only way I am interested in publishing them. My dream for RoR is for it to be 6x9, 60 pages, b/w and priced at only $5.95. I have 3 volumes in mind, for a total of 180 pages or so. Now I just need to convince a publisher of this....

Be there or be square...

Mike Malve yet again hooked me up with a great store to sign and sketch at for May 5th's Free Comic Book Day. Mark it down on your calendar kiddos.

The Ronin of The Ryukyus

The Ronin character I have is something that has been brewing in the back of my mind for years. I have 2 story lines already mapped out for him, one is written, the sequel is in my head. I love drawing him and I can set him in any environment I wish. He actually pops up in the last page of my short story for the Legendary anthology as well. For the sketchJAM sketchbook I decided to do a short idea I had for him that I wanted to do last year. The Ronin & The Island of Beralku will run about 7 pages and will be a fun introduction to the character. This story actually takes place between the 2 others, which are The Ronin & The Shisa, and it's sequel, The Ronin's Revenge. Someday I will do these books, maybe in 2008. Anyway, here is a pic of my blueline paper after I blew up and printed out the thumbnails....



and here is a small version of the final page. This type of project is very spontaneous and fun, I thumbed and inked the first 3 pages in a total of maybe 5 hours.

News and Notes

Just got an email today from Mike Malve at Atomic Comics & The HERO Initiative saying that my sketch cover for Ultimate Spider-Man #100 sold for $300, which is a lot better than I thought it would, but also tied for the lowest, so maybe they had a minimum bid or something, either way, I was in great company and I'm glad I could help even a little.



also today, I was playing around on http://www.deathclock.com/ and according to that site, if I am slightly overweight (which I am) and pessimistic (which I currently am), I will die in 20 years. BUT, if I keep my current weight and be happy (optimistic), I will live until 2073 and be 97 years old. So that gives me another reason to try and get happy. Oddly enough, if I lost weight I would live 2 years less. huh.....................

Aqua

My buddy Mark Smith writes a great book for Image called The Amazing Joybuzzards and he's setting up a great looking graphic novel called Aqua Leung that will come out later this year or beginning of next. This is my version of Aqua.

updates

I have posted a few new bits of art over on the SketchJam blog, there are also lots of new stuff from Charlie Clark and Brent Schoonover. Check it out. Also, be sure to bookmark the Coral City Aeronauts blog, page 2 is up now with page 3 dropping on Monday. Thanks, and have a nice weekend.

What I need to do....

apart from lose weight, re-connect with my family and try to be a better overall father and husband (but who wants to hear about that?), I need to buy a laptop and wacom, just for comic/illustration work. I'm never happy with the quality of my scans and I know inking digitally, once I learn will be much faster, plus it make coloring faster when I need it. The laptop is needed so I can still be portable with my artwork and my home computer is about to die because of all the hi-res files I have on it. Now I just need to convince my wife to let me pull $1200 out of my "rainy day" fund to do it. Sounds like a plan! Who's with me?

Coral City Aeronauts

I launched my web-series this morning, here is a taste of page 1, for the full size please hop on over to the Coral City blog.

Sketch dump!

Most of this is from a Drink & Draw session last night. It was sparsely attended, but still fun.

Villains news

Needcoffee.com has done their list of best ofs for the year in every category in pop culture, and Villains gets a nod in the Best Limited Series category, with some other, not too shabby notables.

Best Limited Comic Book Series:

Blackgas by Warren Ellis & Max Fiumara (Avatar)

The Middleman, Vol. 2 by Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Les McClaine (Viper)

7 Days to Fame by Buddy Scalera & Nick Diaz (After Hours)

The Surrogates by Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele (Top Shelf)

Ultimate Extinction by Warren Ellis & Brandon Peterson (Marvel)

Villains by Adam Cogan & Ryan Cody (Viper)

A fun little thing I did for my buddy Daryl's book.

HUlk sketch

My second favorite character to draw.

again, go buy this......

Dan has really outdone himself with this book, go out and get it, you won't be sorry. Here is a tribute to the main character.

Lilly Allen

I've fallen in love with a British girl. Her name is Lilly Allen and I met her last Saturday night. I was getting drunk on Full Throttle energy drinks and Rum and there she was, on the TV, on Saturday Night live. She's cute, talented and mixes jazz sounds with a bit of dance, old school vocals and maximum charm. Her voice reminds me a bit of Nina from the Cardigans, but I bought the CD last night and it's a gem. Clicky-click here from some goodness.