Inkwell part 2

... And here is the second cover I did for the Inkwell Awards auction. Not quite as happy with how this one turned out, but the people I've shown it to seem to like it so I'll go with their opinion rather then my own...

Inkwell part 1

A couple weeks ago I got an email from the Inkwell Awards asking if I would be interested in doing a cover for their auction while I was attending the Pittsburgh ComiCon. Unfortunately I wont be able to make that show but I really did want to contribute so I asked if they would mail me one or two to work on... Couple days later I got two books in the mail- A Wolverine and the X-Men #1 and a Death of Spider-Man (Number #160 I think)... Just finished the first one:

It has to be said...

OK, I noticed this a long time ago and didn't want to admit it... But like a gym membership that you've cancelled but they wont stop calling you or an uncle who used to touch you, from time to time it comes back and eventually you have to deal with it...

Having never been subjected to those god awful mormon vampire movies my only impression of Twilight was that it had a couple cute chicks in it, a guy all dudes think is gay cause we're friggin jealous of the amount of tail the guy can pull, and a cross-eyed kid who's never got his shirt on.

But, one of the "cute" chicks always reminded me of someone and I couldn't place who. Then once I did I took one of them silkwood decontamination showers and tried to forget, but like they: Once it has been seen it can not be unseen.

If you don't want it ruined then don't scroll down...

...Spoiler alert, in the most honest, horrible sense...

Still here? Ok. So, here is a side by side of Jacksonville's own Ashley Greene and her doppelganger, Michael Jackson.

I'm sorry people... Let the vomiting and regret begin...

Going Rogue...

Continuing the theme from the last post, if only with the reference to Palin and this one also being about "chicks who are out of touch"...

Women are always going on and on about how much childbirth hurts- well, I just had a mustache hair that decided to curl up instead of down and tickle my nose, so I ripped the bastard out! I can't even tell you how much that hurts, and that's a pain you people will never know...

There's a li'l something for ya...

Game Change

I got some positive feedback on my version of a movie review so I figured why the hell not do another...

This time on the HBO movie Game Change, starring the always hot Julianne Moore and the not quite as hot Ed Harris. It's my opinion, you ladies out there (Or dudes, I don't judge) are free to think different...

Anywho, back to the hotness. Julianne Moore was great in this! She kept her ridiculous accent through the whole thing unlike a previous crush, Jodie Foster, in The Silence of the Lambs... I know she won an oscar for it but watch it now that some time has passed... She goes from accent to no accent from scene to scene. Which pains me to say cause like I said, huge crush back in her "less butch" days... How does that relate to Game Change? It really doesn't, other then that Julianne Moore played Clarice Starling in the second movie...

But yeah, Game Change is great- From what I've seen Moore and Harris have been getting the bulk of the credit for the movie being as good as it was, but really the guy from Kingpin does the best job out of all of them- I truly thought he still had two hands throughout the whole movie. Or maybe that's credit to the special effects team... Either way, he did a great job. As did Jamey Sheridan, who grew a goatee for the movie (Shows commitment), and his Chicago Hope buddy Peter MacNicol. I must admit though as soon as he came on the screen I had to yell out "He is VVVeeeeeegggggggoooo! He's dripping withs goo..." despite the fact that it was almost 2 in the morning and people in the surrounding homes needed to sleep...

And for all you people out there who thought "why the hell did they pick her to run with him?", well you now have your answer- They had no idea what they were getting either. And by the time Kingpin finally realized he had Munson-ed himself again with the hot ol' moose-killer it was too late.

My theory, not that anyone really wants to hear it, was that the Republicans knew they weren't going to win from jump since Governor Bush screwed up so badly in office (Thanks again, BTW, for the soon to be $5 a gallon ass-reaming... Really? A dollar every summer?!?! Hope all those good old boys you were protecting are giving you some sort of kickback...), so they let McCain run. I think Senator McCain is genuinely a decent man who would have done a decent enough job, but they felt they owed him one so they let him run, much like when Dole finally got a shot in '98 when he had no chance of beating a President who actually knew how to run a country. And since they were throwing in the towel already why not throw the chicks a bone and try to win a couple of them over after that talking muppet Cankles MeGee got blown out of the water by Obama so they could count on them when they actually stood a chance sometime in the future...

But back to my take on the movie, and by extent my take on Palin. At first she comes across as just naive, but as you go along and find out more you see she's actually extremely manipulative. If you read between the lines you can see it coming, but there is one scene, one line, that just cements it for you... No, I won't tell you what it is or where it happens, but it's in there... Actually, I guess I shouldn't have said any of that if you wanted there to be some sort of "twist", even though we all know how it ended. But I will say that Kingpin's reaction is awesome and sells it perfectly, and by the end of the movie her true nature and motivation is crystal clear and front and center.

If you go into this movie as a Republican I am sure you will see it as an attack or a manipulation or liberal bias, and if you go into it as a Democrat you'll have two or three "Ah-HA! See? SEE???" moments, but going into it as neutrally as I could (I am a registered independent so I have no dog in this race) I came away thinking the same thing about her as I did going in-

Man, did we dodge a bullet.

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!!!