Serenity now

I mentioned some time ago being asked to do a Firefly piece for the ScFi In the Valley convention charity auction http://www.scifiinthevalley.com/

Been kinda picking away at it since then and finally have it finished up- It's 13x19, pen and ink, copics, and the lettering and boarders were done in Illustrator and printed on the board...

There's the right way, the wrong way, and...

I'll be the first to admit that I have been very, very lucky when it comes to meeting artists I have admired. I got to work With Dick Giordano who was one of the first names I recognized when getting into comics, and through him (And Patti, his lifelong partner in crime in this business!) I've gotten to meet and talk with some of the greats including the guys at Gaijin Studios. All of which have become great friends and the people I most look forward to seeing at shows (Which is why I am sorry I am not able to come down to MegaCon this weekend) and huge, huge influences on my work. Brian in particular has spent a ton of time with me not only helping improve my art but also how I do it- It's his fault I am doing everything digital now- And I will never be able to thank him enough for that...

But the very first artist who's work made an impression on me was Jerry Ordway. In fact the first comic I bought was the Batman movie book that he drew- I had been drawing since forever and when I saw that book and how he was able to capture the likenesses of the actors and all I was hooked and knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I then went out and bought everything with his name on it and studied how he would draw this or that or layout a page- The people he drew looked like real people, you could identify which car was which, and when the characters were flying they looked as though they were flying over real cities. I even wanted to emulate his career path. He started as an inker, then became a penciler, then writer, then coloring/painting his own covers for books he wrote with other pencilers...

More on that in a bit...

So, some time ago Patti was heading back to Connecticut to take care of some house business and was going to meet up with him. I asked her to bring a copy of my (Then) recent Perfect Storm book with her along with the original art for the cover to give to him. She did, and came back with a Superman drawing from my childhood idol!!!

Some time later, Mr. Ordway started a facegoogle page so I contacted him through that and asked if he was available for a commission. A few emails later and we arranged for one of my ultimate dreams to come true- He agreed to do a drawing of my character!!!

From that time on I've been lucky enough to keep in contact with him and been able to send him some of my work for his critique... The notes on last 2 pieces I sent had focused on the coloring, which is certainly my weakest area. First one was the Rocketeer piece I posted not too long ago. Something about the highlights just didn't look right. Mr. Ordway gave me some suggestions and a few touch ups later it looked much, much better...

Next was this piece- The cover to a project I am developing called Pulse. Pulse was the first, and to this point only I think, superhero I ever came up with. Somewhere floating around is an 8 page story I drew in high school of this character... God help us all if I ever come across it... So, skip ahead to a few months ago and one of my many long car trips :D To keep myself occupied I tend to give myself assignments or li'l problem solving exercises while driving- What would I do with this character, how would I fix what that person's done with that one... Then eventually I'll drive past one of those billboards with how much the lotto is up to on it and try to figure out what I would do with all that money...

Anywho, so on one of my more focused drives (Maybe the lotto wasn't high enough to peak my interest...) I thought about what I would do with a superhero character. I came up with this or that (Which I obviously can't tell ya cause then when and if I ever get to it you'll already know the story) and then remembered the character I had created all those years ago. I then came home and drew out a li'l sketch of the cover, which being a superhero book is very, very Jerry Ordway influenced! I had originally wanted to commission him to do it, but he is still DC exclusive so I had to do it myself. But, like I had mentioned before I have been lucky enough to meet a bunch of great artists and one of whom came to mind straight away- Joe Rubinstein. He was one of Dick's assistants way back in the day and to me is the one who continues Dickie's inking style most closely today, so who better to ask to help with the cover, a very "Late 80's Superman style comic" then someone who worked on those very books!

A couple emails later and we had our game plan down- I told him how much I wanted it to look like Ordway had done it so Rube went to town and sent me back this amazing piece, and it then fell on me to color it. I had something specific in mind as far as a color scheme and how to handle the lightning so I started with those then worked my way out. Here's what it looked like when I first "finished" it.

Then, I sent it to Mr. Ordway to get his opinion- And again he wrote back with some great, great tips! First off, I should mention to you guys what I had also failed to mention to him or anyone else who's tried to help me with color- I am colorblind. Not "hey, I suck at this so let's say I'm colorblind", but I am actually colorblind. Reds and greens kick my ass. And don't start sending me those hidden eye "F you color blind people" stuff- I may not be able to see it, but I still have feelings...

So yes, he mentions converting the over to B/W to check values and separating the characters and all so I did that then fiddled with the cover some more and came up with what you see below!

Don't know when or how I am going to work on this story- I had intended to write and pencil it then have Rube ink it, but time is getting away from me so I might wind up trying to write it and finding a penciler. See how that works out- I always wanted to emulate Jerry Ordway's career path and look- I am now writing a book and doing the cover just like he did on Captain Marvel, with a li'l help from the man himself!!!

My kind of movie review...

One of the cool things about having many more movie nights lately is that I finally actually have opinions on newer movies!!! This past "weekend" (My 2 days off were neither Saturday or Sunday) I got to watch two great, recent movies. Two you say? Yes, indeed I did... Which gives me the opportunity to steal a segment from my favorite podcast: Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast (http://billburr.com/) called "overrated/underrated"!

Overrated: Moneyball.

Don't get me wrong, it was a great movie, one which I now own on DVD (Thank you ;) ) and will certainly watch many more times, but yeah, for all the hype it got for best actor and best supporting actor my expectations were pretty high. Actors seem to get nominated for roles in which they play handicapped people (Not breaking new ground calling out that one) or carry a prop. De Niro is good at this one- Watch Copland (I know, I said new movies and here I am mentioning one from 1997...) where he acts circles around everyone with a friggin' sandwich.

Or Alec Bladwin in Glengary Glenn Ross. Best performance ever!!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI) And yes, it's another older one...

But yeah, so Brad Pitt walks around with a spit cup the whole time.

Eh.

The thing is he's so good in everything he does that this really doesn't stand out for me. On the other hand, Superbad was awesome in this! I totally didn't think of him as Superbad other then the fact I can't remember his real name other then to call him Superbad. He really should just change his name to Superbad, although I am sure he's afraid of some sort of typecasting...

The other knock against this movie is it's "hey, lets try to add to the storytelling by dropping out he sound" shtick. Also stinks of "hey, we're trying to be artsy so give us an oscar" to me... And yeah, they set it up in the car when Pitt was listening to the game on the radio turning it on and off, but when it continued to happen I honestly thought the TV was broken and did actually get up to jiggle the wires hoping the sound would stop cutting in and out. After he "explains" it I felt like a rube on the midway, and I could have reviewed the movie without brining it up I guess, but it annoyed me so you people have to sit through my venting about the crap now.

Now underrated: The Ides of March

Damn George Clooney is a good director and chooses (Or, in this case, writes himself) some great, great movies! Great story, extremely well-acted, beautifully shot... Speaking of beautiful, this had something else lacking in the other movie: Ass. As much of a shock as this might come to those of you who know me and know of "the rotation", I was completely unfamiliar with Evan Rachel Wood until about 8:20 last night.

But not to get off topic. Or, actually I'll bring it all together... She was not only eye candy but really, really good in it as well, and as someone much older then she is I get to break out one of my favorite old man expressions that I am so happy I get to use now that my beard contains more curly grey hairs then Barbara Walter's bikini bottoms: That kids got some talent. And for you ladies out there the other kid, Ryan Gosling, is also very, very good in this. Him, her, friggin' Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman (Yeah, the guy from Twister, I know!!!) , Paul Giamatti (As much as I dislike Howard Stern Giamatti will always be Pigvomit), and Marisa Tomei (From "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"... Yeah, she's been in better known movies, but if you've seen this you'll know why its listed instead, and if not you'll thank me)...

Well, this movie review turned into a low rent version of Mr. Skin (Or, thanks to my buddy Frank while we were in high school, "The Bare Facts Video Guide"- Mr. Skin before Mr. Skin)... Did ya ever notice it's easier to write about things you don't like then things you do? I mean really, I had like 2 nitpicks to Moneyball and it takes up most of the blog here, and the movie I was really blown away by and totally impressed with quickly degraded to dirty jokes and nude scene recommendations...

Uuuumm, how am I going to wrap this up and tie everything together??? I got it: The Notorious Bettie Page! The perfect mix of it being a great, great movie, and Gretchen Mol is like nekked through the whole thing... So there's something for everybody...

Rocketeer- Finished

Hey everyone! I was able to put the finishing touches on the Rocketeer piece yesterday... Well, sort of... I tend to let things sit overnight then look at them with fresh eyes (Or, as fresh as they can be having starred at something for hours and hours already) the next day.

So this morning I changed the color of Betty's eyeshadow and added a bit more shading to Cliff's gloves and helmet. Probably not enough for anyone to notice the difference between yesterday and today, but hell- I know, so there ya go...

Up next is a Firefly piece for the ScFi In the Valley convention. ( http://www.scifiinthevalley.com/) They invited me to go and unfortunately I wont be able to make it, but they were asking artists to contribute pieces to a charity auction so I offered to do one and send it on up...

Yeah, I know what your thinking: Handsome, smart, singer-songwriter, world famous chief and charitable... What can't this guy do??? Surprisingly plenty, but that's a blog for another day...

Before Watchmen...

Well, since everyone else in comics is commenting on the Watchmen prequels here's my two cents on it too-

First, a bit of backstory. As anyone reading this blog knows (Since I doubt anyone but my friends read this, and that's mostly out of pity) I was Dick Giordano's assistant, and having heard so much of the hullabaloo about the behind the scenes of Watchmen one of the first things I asked him was for his memory of it.

Dickie told me that Paul Levitz had bought the Charlton action heroes as a gift for Dick to "play with" since that line at Charlton in the 60's was his baby. Once word got around that DC had the rights to the Charlton heroes Alan Moore approached Dick with the idea that was Watchmen. Dick told Alan (When reciting Dickies part of the story he will be Alan, because that's what Dick called him, and when giving my opinion he will be Mr. Moore, because I have never even met the man and would not be so disrespectful as to call him by just his first name even if that ever came to pass) that it was the best story he had ever heard and advised him to not use the Charlton characters for 2 reasons: One being that they just got them and he didn't want to kill off one of them right away, and second, and most importantly, IF ALAN CREATED HIS OWN CHARACTERS THEN IT WOULD BE HIS OWN WORK TO OWN.

The original deal was that Alan (and Dave Gibbons) would create the characters and that DC would have the rights to them as long as it was in print, then the rights would revert back to Alan and Dave. At the time there weren't really trade paperbacks or hardcover collections of anything so the expectation was that the series would run it's course, maybe do a collection for the bookstore market (Which was then also non-existant), then after it had been out of print for a year the rights and everything would revert back to Alan and Dave, and in all probability never be seen again.

That sounds funny now, but at the time there really wasn't a market for creator-owned books. Comico, Pacific, and First Comics were around and publishing creator-owned stuff, but nothing like what we would see in the early 90's with Image and Dark Horse and the explosion of creators rights. The idea of "leasing" the story from Mr. Moore also wasn't a new one: Marvel had done the same thing with Dave Cockrum and his Futurians book. They printed the first GN (Which was, I believe, Marvel's first GN) then the rights reverted back to him and that property bounced around from publisher to publisher... Much like another series at the time, and topic of my last post, The Rocketeer! It started with Pacific Comics but wound up with, well, everyone at one point or another... Much would have been the fate of Watchmen had it ever gone out of print, but...

No one, not even Mr. Moore who is without a doubt a genius, saw what it would become. Had anyone expected that the wording on the contract would have surely been different. DC, and Dickie in particular, did not enter into that contract expecting to be publishing Watchmen 25 years later. Like I said the expectation of everyone at the time was that it would revert back to Alan in a couple years time at the latest. That is the contract, and the intent of the contract, that he signed.

Sometime after it was clear that Watchmen had become more then your standard superhero story, Jenette Kahn, who was the publisher of DC at the time, asked Alan (We're back to Dickie's re-telling of the story) to write a sequel. Alan said then the same thing he's said since: I HAVE SAID ALL I HAVE TO SAY WITH THOSE CHARACTERS. Jenette was not a woman who heard no often so she reacted like, well, someone who didn't hear no often- She told Alan that if he didn't want to do it then she would bring in someone else to write the new series. This, to Dick's memory, was the breaking point between Mr. Moore and DC. Not the royalties over some promotional Watchmen pin or whatever the story was at the time, it was the publisher of DC's complete and total lack of respect for Alan and his work. Dick said he and Paul Levitz had tried to reach out to Alan to no avail, and Mr. Moore has famously not worked for DC since.

From that point forward Dickie and Paul became Alan's behind the scenes protectors, making sure no one would green light at sequel without Alan's involvement or blessing (And fat lotta chance of that happening). When Dick left it '93 it fell on Paul to continue, then when Jenette left in 2002 Paul became the publisher and it seemed there was no reason left to worry.

Since 2002, however, DC has also had some other influences at the top of their ranks who don't have the moral standing that Dick or Paul had, and those influences had been gaining power with their "anything for a buck" M.O., until finally Paul was forced out in 2009 and then the door fully swung open for even more of the maelstrom of shit we as comics readers have had to endure from our once favorite company but also rumors of this project resurfacing, resulting in today's (Now yesterday's, since it's taken me so long to write this) announcement.

Watchmen has indeed become more then anyone ever expected it to be, with the characters gaining status in this industry like a Batman or Superman, but unlike Batman who was created specifically for DC by Bob Kane at the direction of his editor, or Superman who was outright sold to DC, Mr. Moore entered into a contract expecting to get the rights back to his characters. So does DC even have a legal right to do this? Again, they are essentially "leasing" these characters, so if you lease a car can you chop the top off and make it a convertible or drop a new engine in it and start drag-racing?

And what's happened to the DC I grew up with and wanted to work for so badly? The analogy that I used earlier today was that it's like a company that knows it could make a lot more money if they just cut a few corners and start polluting the river next to their plant. They recycled for years and were the gold standard for other companies in their industry, but now all of a sudden it's more important to them to "maximize profits" (Or, in the bullshit statement that was released today "to find new ways to keep all of our characters relevant"... THEY ARE NOT YOUR FUCKING CHARACTERS!), so why not jump dump all their garbage in the lake...

And I don't mean that to say that these books are going to be garbage- Quite the contrary. The line-up of creators they've brought together is great and they will certainly do a great job, and there are more then enough people out there who don't know or don't care about the backstory and how Mr. Moore has fought for this NOT to happen (And if you read Mr. Gibbons "Blessing" as anything more then "they are gonna do this anyway, so..." you need to re-read it) that are going to buy the book so that my li'l moral stance won't matter, but unless it is a Watchmen book written by Alan Moore, I'm gonna have to pass-

The Rocketeer

I've been working on a couple projects at once as well as working a day job so "free time" is kinda hard to come by. In cases like that you have to make your own free time- Ya just need it so you don't get burnt out. Most people have hobbies that aren't related to their work so they can fully "get away": Sports, video games, drinking, ect... But my only real hobby is also part of what I do for work: drawing.

The other day I did take some time away from my usual crap to help a friend with a project of hers- My friend Megan needed some photos taken for her portfolio so her, her boyfriend (Who's also one of my best friends), and I went out to take some pics. We drove around, found some interesting backgrounds, and set up a few shots. While doing this I asked them to pose for a shot I had in mind for a Rocketeer pin-up and gave them a vague description of what I was thinking...

They knocked it out of the park!

I got home and started working on this piece- Here is the linework and the flat colors. As I work on it more I'll post more of the WIP too...