Perfect Storm Publishing

Rocketeer- Finished

2012-02-09T07:57:00.001-08:00

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...

2012-02-01T22:56:00.000-08:00

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

2012-02-01T07:48:00.000-08:00

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...

Mr. Freeze

2012-01-20T15:33:00.001-08:00

So, while struggling along with my own painting adventures, I figured I would post art from the person you can blame for giving me the impression I could paint in the first place: Brian Stelfreeze.

If you've never met Mr. Freeze before, 5 minutes into a conversation or portfolio review you would be convinced you could paint too, or draw, or friggin run through a brick wall if he told you that you could- He'll do it to show you it's possible, then continue to encourage and inspire you as you do that standing up baby giraffe thing, all wobbly and all...

After I met him the first time I totally re-thought how I drew, and any and all improvement in my art since then is all to his credit. Also since then he's become a great friend, continues to be a great teacher, and his work a high water mark I constantly compare myself to in order to improve...

Jay Scott Pike

2012-01-16T15:13:00.000-08:00

So the last post was all negative and whatnot so I figured I should even things out with something more gooder. See, I am thinking of you poor people who out of kindness or boredom are coming to read this blog here...

A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to have lunch with Jay Scott Pike- Creator of the DC (Yup, still about DC) character Dolphin, Playboy illustrator, artist of numerous advertising campaigns and magazines covers, and many, many romance comic stories. Mr. Pike was nice enough to not only show me around a gallery featuring his work (The show was called "Scott Pike and his friends") but also around his home and studio- Both of which were covered wall to wall with his paintings and were so inspiring that as soon as I got home I decided to start painting again.

Again being a relative term since I've only done a handful of paintings, and that was a long, long time ago...

But yes, rather then following up my negative post with more negativity I'm gonna post a few of Mr. Pike's pieces so you'll get something good out of coming here!!!

Burning bridges...

2012-01-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

As someone who's struggled to break into the comic book industry I've kept my opinions to myself on a lot of issues because ya never know who your gonna have to work with or for someday, ya know... But since that's no longer an issue...

Today I saw a report that Rob Liefeld is going to be writing 3 books for DC after the one he already had been working on was cancelled. In the corporate world this is called "failing up". We all know these people: They come in late, take long lunches, don't help customers or when they do they say "Can't help ya bro" or "that's not my job" or just in general are incompetent and lazy (The corporate term for this is "stealing time") and rather then getting what they deserve, which is fired, they get promoted.

...Take a sec. I know you can list 5 people you work with who fit this description...

Not that that description really fits Liefeld- Failing up does, but he's not lazy thats for sure. Love his work or not the guy is always working- Ya gotta give him that. I've also never had any interaction with him myself but the people I know who have said that he is very personable and cool to his fans and all so that's another positive. It's just the work itself just isn't any good. It was popular for a time, but rarely are "popular" and "good" interchangeable. And it's also a time the comics industry looks back on and cringes at and we've (Yes, I'm going with the collective "we've" here) tried to distance ourselves from. And even then he was known as a bad writer. Not just someone who's work you like or not like his artwork was, but just plain bad. And now, 20 years later, his work has shown no improvement and yet he's writing 3 books for the second largest comic company there is.

As someone who would kill for an opportunity to work for DC it's so frustrating. There are hundreds of actual writers out there who would kill for the opportunity, and rather then give the shot to someone who might do something good with it they give these books to someone who is the comic book equivalent of Ted McGinley. You remember him- He was an actor (Still is I imagine, in much the same way Liefeld hangs around) in the 80's who as soon as you saw him on your favorite show you knew it was gonna be cancelled. Jumping the shark has a whole section on him...

Anywho, I am a lifelong DC fan. The reason I got into comics in the first place was the Batman movie book by Jerry Ordway. I worked with Dick Giordano, DC's former editor-in-chief, for 8 years. I love DC and defend them constantly to my Marvel zombie friends. Yeah, we have a Who's Who full of stupid characters but so do you, I just don't have any of them to point it out...

Or I guess I should I say "loved"- What they are publishing now are not DC books, the characters are no longer the characters we grew up loving, and the people there are not DC people. The EIC is an old Marvel editor and he's bringing back his old 80's/90's Marvel crew, and they are putting out shitty 80's and 90's Marvel and Image (Based on some of the characters re-designs) books. They even took Superman and turned him into Spider-Man- An emo kid with "problems". He probably even uses those laser beams to cut himself off panel...

I know what your saying: "Gee, that's a lot of bitching, aint it Rob? What's your solution???" It's simple- 2 words: Mark Waid. Bring in Mark Waid like baseball brought in Kenesaw Mountain Landis after the Black Sox scandal and let him clean house- The guy knows all the history of all the characters and would be the best guiding force the companies had since Dickie left.

And best off he's an actual writer!!! Please at least let him fix what you've done to Superman. Give me Waid with Cully Hamner on art and get out of their way. (Yes, I know Cully helped re-design some of the costumes but he had nothing to do with what they did to Superman- Had he it would have been closer to the original and without a doubt much, much better then what they have now). And while I'm ranting and speaking of Gaijin guys can you please give us at least one Bat-title with covers by Brian? I really don't think that one is asking too much...

You'll notice nowhere in this did I say anything about giving me a shot at writing any of these titles. I'm not a writer and would not waste an opportunity like that on me- Like I said before there are so many talented writers out there who would kill for that chance I wouldn't feel right lucking into or talking my way into a job like that that I am in no way qualified for. Same goes for art- Sure, I would rock a Batgirl story or Zatanna or something like that, but putting me on Superman would be like letting Rob Liefeld write 3 books for your line...

So yeah, aside from the Tourettes outbursts and posting artwork, this blog is now gonna feature my burning bridges too! Maybe if I get in a feisty enough mood I'll just start listing the people who's work I really hate...

Small victories...

2012-01-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

So, today I told someone I have Tourettes. Now I don't know if it's exactly "true", but I'll let you in on a li'l secret: I often think some awful, awful stuff. Sure sometime's it's funny, like the other day when this old guy came into work and was bitching about lithium batteries and said "I'm 80 years old son, I don't care about the environment", to which I replied "You should, your gonna be part of it soon". Now any sane person would have processed that before letting it fly... Luckily the guy was cool and laughed, but it easily could have gone the other way...

Most of the time I don't say it, but I'm always afraid I will slip and wind up loosing my job or friends or a tooth in a fight... So today I took the bull by the horns and just called my asininity Tourettes on the off chance I do say something completely off the wall and/or racist- Can't fire someone for their handicap I figure. Plus like I said it doesn't slip often, but as I get older and give less of a crap people will just think "oh, his Tourettes is getting worse" and feel sorry for me- Again instead or just realizing I am truly, deep down, just an asshole.

But all that said, I am kinda proud of myself for today because a guy came into work who looked just like George Lucas- He even had one of those "I don't have a chin so I am gonna arbitrary end my beard here" beards like Mr. American Graffiti, and I totally resisted the urge to just follow him around and ask a bunch of annoying Star Wars questions.

I really, really wanted to- But I didn't.

Small victories my friends, small victories- In the overall defeat that is my life ;)

So, where was I...

2012-01-09T23:03:00.000-08:00

My last post was on Oct 13th of '09, so it's probably best to just skip the excuses and just carry on like nothing's happened... So...

Here is a new page from Perfect Storm! Yup, still working on it, although now the time to do so is very, very limited. We plan on re-launching the comic as a weekly web strip in March, but more on that as it develops.

Until then, here's page 4 of book 2. You may be asking yourself why I chose to post this one... Just cause I like how it turned out.

Gothic Alice in Wonderland

2009-10-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

A while back I posted a couple commissions I did for a client of River Tam from Firefly/Serenity. Well, my buddy wrote me again asking for another cool character- This time Josh Middleton's gothic version of Alice in Wonderland. He sent me a few sketches from Josh's site and asked me to do a couple in my style. Here is the first complete one- I am posting this while taking a break from working on the second so that one should be up in the next couple days...

Wonder Woman day!

2009-10-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

Frankenstein's Monster

2009-09-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

Today I felt like a drawing of Frankenstein's Monster, so...

Mr. Freeze

2009-09-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been feelin' a Mr. Freeze, so I decided to sketch it out. Wasn't worried about applying a style to this one, just trying to get the feeling down. I had started a different sketch but it wasn't what I had in mind so I scrapped it, and this one is closer to what I was feeling- Still not "right", but it's a start...

9 x 12 on marker paper, done with a Faber-Castell brush pen and Copics.

Catwoman

2009-09-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a Catwoman illustration I just put up on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260477298661&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123#ht_500wt_1182

Check it out and bid!!!

Mini-MegaCon

2009-08-27T15:23:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone! Finally recovered from our weekend away at Mini-MegaCon. It was a nice show- Got to see some old friends, meet some new people, and got some good feedback on both Perfect Storm and artwork from some other projects I am working on... As soon as I am clear to post samples from those I will-

While I was there I also did 3 sketches- Here are pics of 2 of them. The other, a Black Canary piece, was done for a friend who promised to send a scan. When it arrives I will post that one as well.

Elizabeth Taylor

2009-08-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

My friend Matt came over today and asked me about working with watercolors. I had seen this picture of Liz Taylor and wanted to paint it for some time so I decided to do it today as a li'l demo. Everything I know about watercolors I've learned from Brian Stelfreeze, so check out his blog or just google his name to see how to do it right!

Rush jobs... Complete!

2009-07-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I not only met my deadline but CRUSHED IT when I sent in the last page of the rush job I mentioned in the last post! I had a few corrections along the way but I have to say I am really happy with how it turned out, especially in the amount of time I had to do it. I'm going to try and keep that pace from now on which should get me way ahead on Perfect Storm and finally allow me to work on a project from my friend David King called "Gifted"...

I've also just completed a pin-up for the Concrete Dove Swimsuit calendar... It was also due by the end of the month, but thankfully I had started on it long ago and just needed to color it today.

Rush jobs...

2009-07-24T06:45:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts lately- We've had a few conventions to attend and a big project for DC we're working on which has taken up most of my time, but I did want to write and tell you about 3 very cool things going on:

The first was a workshop held at the Art Institute here in Jacksonville about comic art. I went in a did a li'l presentation about the process of producing a comic, as well as getting into the importance of storytelling and leading the eye around the page. The students had a good time and I had a blast doing it so hopefully it will lead to doing it again, or maybe an expanded version where we can get into the meat and potatoes of actually producing a comic.

The second is a friend of mine, Paul Monsky, publisher of VaVaVaVoom, emailed and asked if I could do a 16 page story for him. The catch: The first 9 pages need to be done by the end of the month. 9 pages in 11 days, which is more then I had ever done before... The cool thing is I've got 4 pages done already, including finishing 2 from start to finish in one day, and I've never had more fun working!!! It's amazing what you can do when you NEED to do it- I'm so jazzed about this that I am going to try and keep up this pace with Perfect Storm and my other projects once this one is complete.

Here's a little preview:

Lastly, the 4th issue of our book, Unleashed, is complete and off to the printer!!! We will be debuting it at Mini-MegaCon this August in Orlando so if your near by come to the show and check it out! Here's the cover, done by Matthew Kirkland:

As always I want to thank everyone for checking out the blog and the site, www.perfectstormpublishing.com I promise more updates soon!

HeroesCon 09!

2009-06-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

Got back from HeroesCon late Sunday- As always it was an awesome show! Got to hang out with a lot of friends and meet some new ones, not to mention sell some books and do some sketches! I had the honor of being asked to do a Dejah Thoris in the sketchbook of Rob Ledford. It is an amazing sketchbook with a huge Brian Stelfreeze piece across the front 2 pages so I was nervous as hell to do it. After thinking it over for most of the day I drew the picture below- I hope you like it!

I also had a good meeting with Mark Waid about Perfect Storm. He said it's not necessarily what Boom! Studios publishes but he offered to help me find a publisher- He's really going above and beyond on that so if you ever see him at a show go up and thank him!!!

Again I don't know how far each of you are from HeroesCon but I can not recommend making the trip enough! The analogy I use is that it's like a family reunion but a family you actually want to hang out with and this trip again proves that to be true.

Rob

Colors

2009-06-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

Just got the OK from Larry on the colors so here is the complete cover!

Long time, no post...

2009-06-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Very sorry that it's been so long since my last post. I had a trip down to Miami for a convention last weekend so the week before and the week since involved a lot of "trying" to get ahead of deadlines. I did alright on that end but all my other projects, such as the blog here, suffered.

Anywho, one of those projects is called the Concrete Dove. I'm inking the interiors and providing the cover to an upcoming issue. Larry Jarrell, penciler and creator of the series, penciled a cover that he wasn't too please with so he asked me to do my version of it. I did a rough sketch, changing the camera angle from his original, and emailed it to him. He approved it so I had my model-friend Daniela come over for some reference shots then penciled the cover. I finished the figures but was not happy with the background, so I brought it down to the studio to show Dick. He made a suggestion about the angle of the side of the building which tied the whole piece together! Funny how he will pick that out right away while I will stare at the thing for hours/days without figuring it out...

Here is the inked piece- I will be coloring it early next week once my friend David King (Creator of the Oscar and Sid comic strip) does the flats for me... No pressure on him now that I've told the world I'm waiting on his flats...

Serenity

2009-05-31T03:21:00.001-07:00

The other day I got a commission request to do a couple of sketches of River from Serenity. I loved the show and the movie so I said yes right away and he sent me the reference pictures he wanted me to work from. Here are the results...

Now I am off to finish up tomorrow's Perfect Storm page... I'll post it here too when it's finished.

PerfectStormPublishing.Com update!

2009-05-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day. I've just uploaded this week's Perfect Storm page to the site- Click over there to check it out!!!

Chelsea

2009-05-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days so I thought I should do a li'l update, and since I just finished this drawing of my friend Chelsea it seems like good timing... Done in pen and ink then colored in PhotoShop. I was originally going to do the background pastels in Painter, but I had a set of pastels sitting on my desk so I did it on a board and uploaded a picture instead.

Unleashed Book 3

2009-05-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

Busy weekend- Yesterday was the deadline for issue 3 of Unleashed from ChalkLine Studios so the group of us had an all night drawing marathon to get it done. It was hard work, with a couple of us working from 10 am Saturday till 1:30 this morning, but it's done and on it's way to the printer, and we will have them back in time for HeroesCon in June!!!

Today, well, not much work got done. Unless you count returning emails as work. And "networking" (i.e. facebook and myspace)? If you count those then yes, some work was accomplished today too...

Finally I got to see Star Trek tonight too- Wow, what an awesome movie!

Tomorrow I get back to the grind, including uploading page 23 of Perfect Storm to the site (www.perfectstormpublishing.com). What, you don't want to click all the way over there?... Fine, here it is- If you want to read the story from the beginning though you'll have to go to the site!

Finally...

2009-05-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Well it had to happen. I knew eventually I would wind up working on one of these "blogs" but kind of fought it till now. See, I grew up at the very tail end of Gen X, which is the last generation of kids who didn't grow up with a computer in the house. Sure, some of my friends had them, but they weren't the cornerstone of existence as they've become now.

So, I tend to be a little behind on these things. Didn't have a cell phone till a few years ago, never texted till recently, still don't twitter, but I do have an iPod. Doesn't play movies or games or anything, just music, mostly Gen X stuff with a whole lot of Beatles and blues thrown in... Maybe games, or video games, is a good barometer for how far behind I am in technology. I had a ColecoVision when I was very young, then a Sega Master System, which we replaced with a Genesis around '91/92, just before it came with Sonic the Hedgehog. Really not much to speak of since, but I am considering a Wii because you can buy old Genesis and Master System games on it...

And of course just as I got used to Myspace everyone switched over to Facebook. I'm telling you whatever comes next is going to have to do without me. There's a lot of time to invest in getting these things up and running which I just don't have the heart to do.

So then why the blog you ask? Well, this has come about for the same reason why I bought a computer in the first place- For work. I'm going to be promoting upcoming projects here, posting artwork and sketches, networking, and hopefully talking to other artists and comic fans here- If in the upcoming posts you see something you want to comment about please do- I hope this becomes one of your regular stops on the information superhighway...

Wow, I'm probably the last person to call it that, huh? Told you I was behind...

Rob