Exactly Where I'm At

Heroes Con was excellent! I got to meet a bunch of people face-to-face that I've only known through the Worldwide Web. The internet is an amazing thing, but getting a chance to talk to fellow comic creators in person is soooo much better.

I had a great time talking to Perhapanauts creators Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau. I'm a huge fan of the 'Nauts, so it was very cool to get a chance to hang with them. Todd has offered me a chance to do a little something for a backup feature for an upcoming issue, which I jumped at in a heartbeat! As a warm up to whatever that something will be, I did a Perhapanauts pin-up (below). I took it down to Heroes and gave it to Todd. He seemed to like it and even thinks it should appear in the 4th issue of the book! Sweet!

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Being a HUGE Guy Davis fan, it was an amazing few minutes when I got the chance to talk shop with him while he drew a very cool Marquis sketch for me... for free! Thanks, Guy!

I also got the chance to talk to some comic creator friends like Kevin Mellon, Dennis Hopeless, Kody Chamberlain, Josh Elder, Dwight L. MacPherson and Charlie Kirchoff (and his lovely wife, Elbonie). All in all, Heroes Con was excellent and I'm very close to saying I'll be back there again next year.

Meanwhile... back at home...
Things are moving on the Kill All Monsters! pitch pages. I had a few days off from drawing, after my trip to Heroes Con, but now I'm all about the giant robots kickin' giant monster butt action!

More soon!

Two For The Show

Looks like I should have booked that trip to the Baltimore Con, after all. You see, the Harvey's are presented during the Baltimore Con and I just found out that POSTCARDS was given nominations in two categories! One for "SPECIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION" and the other for "BEST ANTHOLOGY". Huge pat on the back goes out to Jason Rodriguez who now has the book in the running for the Best Anthology Harvey AND Eisner!

Here's what the "Best Anthology" nominations look like:

Flight Volume 4, edited by Kazu Kibuishi, Ballantine Books
Mome Volume 8, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics Books
Popgun Volume 1, edited by Joe Keatinge and Mark Andrew Smith, Image Books
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriquez, Villard
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, edited by John Clark, Gemstone

Heroes

One week until I'm climbing aboard an Airbus A319 and traveling to Charlotte, NC to attend my very first Heroes Con! Late last year, I decided that I wasn't going to go back to the San Diego Comic Con this year but I still wanted to get out to a good sized event during the summer months. I've always heard great things about Heroes Con, so I put 1 and 1 together and now I'm a week away from finally meeting some amazing talents that I've known only through the internet.

Standing In The Shower.... Thinking

Artist extraordinaire, Salgood Sam (aka Max Douglas), put together a very interesting video about his thoughts and practices regarding how he deals with page layout. Salgood was kind enough to do this to appease fellow Panel and Pixel member, Kevin Mellon, and myself after we asked him about what leads him to make the decisions that he makes. He definitely has me thinking about my reliance on the use of panel borders to organize space and time. Great food for thought! Thanks, Max!

Run (I'm A Natural Disaster)

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I'm working hard on the new Kill All Monsters! pitch pages. Michael and I have decided to hold off on showing any substantial images for the book while we work our way through it. But, for the sake of having something to look at (as this is an artist's blog), I'm posting this look at my process for working out a particular panel. That last image is pretty much ready to ink, although I think I may put something in the foreground to help give the reader a sense of the monster's scale.

Achilles' Last Stand

I've been doing tons of character sketches and designs for a couple of projects that are currently undergoing some script tweaks. Most of them I'm going to keep out of the public spotlight, for now. But, I'm willing to share one or two... from time to time.

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This one is a character from a "new" project called, Braids of the Gorgon. Actually, this book has been in the making for many years, about 8 years to be more accurate. Writer Ken Faggio and I started working on Braids way back in 2000 and we managed to get 2 full issues done before it was put on hold. Truthfully, it was all my fault that it got "put on hold". I was offered a short story in A. David Lewis's Mortal Coils book. That then turned into another which then turned into 5 years of continuous projects with various writers, all of which kept me from being able to go back to Braids. The project was never far from my thoughts, though.

Recently, when I found I had a gap in my schedule, I went about contacting Ken and seeing if he was still game to work on Braids. Luckily, he was! We called in editor James Powell and we're in the process of knocking off the rust and getting Braids up and going. So, while Ken and James do their magic, I'm sharping up my Greek Mythology art game.

One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces

We've reached the 200th post milestone here at No Quarter! What better way to celebrate this wondrous occasion than buying a Cintiq 12WX drawing tablet?!!

I just got the word from eBay that I finally managed to win one of these beauties and at a great price, too! I see me using this for all my preliminary rough drawings and for doing coloring, when the opportunity presents itself. I still anticipate doing all my inking with pen/brush/whatever on good old fashion bristol board.

Hard to sell original digital pages...

Lil' Devil

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Some ink drawings fresh off my table. Daredevil, Thor and...I don't know who the flying dude is... I just made him up.

I Dig A Pony

Let's talk comics for a second, shall we?

I've noticed that I haven't given a shout out to any of the swell comic titles I've been enjoying for quite some time. I've cut down on the number of books I follow but here's a quick list of some of them I've been diggin':

The Perhapanuats - by Todd Dezago, Craig Rousseau and Rico Renzi
I've dug this title since the first Dark Horse mini series from a few years ago. The book got a second mini series arc at DH before it went into limbo for a while. But good news was announced recently that it found a home at Image Comics and will be an ongoing series! The first issue of the ongoing title is out at your comic shops right now and it is excellent! And it has a Art Adams cover variant, too!!

Walking Dead - Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
Another book I've been following since it's inception. Always entertaining. And moving at a mind numbing speed. No one is safe in this book.

Robotika - Alex Sheikman
I love love love Alex's book. The second Robotika series is named "For a Few Rubles More" and the first issue was full of amazing art. Alex is really pushing his layouts and pacing in some way innovative ways. The book has hit a production bump (no fault of Alex) but the second book should be coming out very soon!

Dynamo 5 - Jay Faerber and Mahmud A. Asrar
I don't usually read superhero related comics these days (a few of you know my stance on that), but Dynamo 5 seems to make all the right moves to keep me interested. It helps that I really love Asrar's art.... but major props to Faerber, too, he's got something good here.

Therefore Repent! - Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam
"a post-Rapture graphic novel" is how the book is described on its' cover. Having almost zero connection to religion in my personal history, I admit that parts of this book went directly over my head... but I caught more than enough to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Plus, the art by Sam is top notch.

5 - Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis Lolos, and Rafael Grampa
I picked this up at SDCC last year and was blown away by the beautiful art. The stories are short but entertaining. This book is one of the books POSTCARDS is up against in the 2008 Best Anthology category in this year's Eisner Awards.

All Stripped Down 2

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Here's a couple more strips of warm up drawings. The second one has kind of a skateboard thing goin' on in it.

Midnight Creeper

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As you may or may not know, I'm a big fan of Digital Webbing, a.k.a. the House That Ed Built. So, when I saw that Mr Dukeshire was looking for people to advertise in the back pages of one of DW's flagship books, Fist Of Justice, I decided to throw away my usual inability to promote myself and whipped up a decidedly creepy ad(above) for this very blog that you are currently reading! The ad will run in the second and third issues of Fist of Justice, so head out to your local retailer (or online retailer) and order up a copy!

It's guaranteed to be a collector's item!

Ain't It Fun

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Doing a small 2 pager for a fellow Canadian, a writer named Dino Caruso. Here is a page of sketches that I did to work out a few of the panels. It's a fun little tale that is set in a pizzeria.

The Winner Takes It All

Wow. I'm in an Eisner nominated book! I'm sure it was my work on Matt Dembicki's story "Send Louis His Underwear" that got Postcards the nomination. (Insert rolling eyes smiley here). Here's the category we're nominated for and the competition we're up against:

Best Anthology
Best American Comics 2007, edited by Anne Elizabeth Moore and Chris Ware (Houghton Mifflin)
5, by Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis Lolos, and Rafael Grampa (self-published)
Mome, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriguez (Villard)
24Seven, vol. 2, edited by Ivan Brandon (Image)

See all the nominations here.

Mutha'uckas

Well, I feel like I should mark this day down in le Livre d'Histoire de Jason Copland.

I just pre-ordered my very first full digital album. The album is the new Flight of the Conchords, which I ordered through iTunes. Now, I should mention that I have purchased a number of individual digital download tracks in the past, but this is the first time I've ever purchased a complete digital album download. To a "collector" like me, it's kind of a strange feeling. I won't have anything physical to hold in my hand, no liner notes to flip through, no jewel case to file. Sigh. You can't stop progress, I guess.

Sadly, I'm already experiencing buyers remorse. I just realized that the album wasn't offered in the iTunes+ format, which means that I won't be able to burn any of the tracks on a various cd for the car.

The upside is that pre-ordering the album from iTunes got me a bonus track, which is cool.