Once again, I turn to you, the readers of Love and Capes. Con Season is approaching. Heck, there’s supposed to even be a Wizard World Cleveland now. Just as long as it doesn’t park on any other shows, especially Mid-Ohio-Con, I’ll be trés interested to see it. Anyway, for the upcoming year, I’d like to have something new.

First, I toyed with the idea of trading cards. I figured I could sell them at each show, and then make the package available online. I though $1.00 a card might work. Anything less means making coin-change, and I don’t know if anyone wants that. But the printing cost is pretty reasonable, and it could be a neat thing to do.

Then, I had another idea, which in a moment of "great minds think alike" also came across my Twitter feed to do an actual postcard. I could feature every city I’m visiting and have Mark and Abby (or Amazonia or Darkblade) hanging out in the city, with a "Greetings from [CITY]!" on them. But, if I did that, I think that they need to be giveaways.

I’ve got rough mock-ups for both of them displayed here. Click on either to see them embiggened. So what do you think? Do the postcard? The trading card? Both?

In my ongoing attempt to make this The Coolest Blog in the Multiverse, and with a tip of the hat to Andy Ihnatko, I’m trying out the WordTwit plugin for my blog. Now, blog posts will be automagically sent to my Twitter feed. You’l be up to your eyebrows in up-to-the-minute Thom Zahlerishness If that’s your thing.

Here’s a commission I did for Jon Knutson’s Random Acts of Geekery blog. He’s a Krypto fan, so I decided to put Superman’s real best friend in front of the Doghouse of Solitude. I’m pretty sure the Doghouse in no longer in continuity, but I’m sure DC will fix that soon.

I just realized I haven’t announced my first convention of the year: I’ll be at CEC2, the Reed Chicago show. Or, as I call it, New Chicago… which reminds me of the Buck Rogers TV show, and that’s enough of a reason to call it that right there.

So, I’ll be in Artist’s Alley. I’ll let you know my exact booth space when I have it, but I’ll be there with all sorts of Love and Capes stuff, including issue #12.

Recently, I was called upon to draw a logo for a cleaning service called Melissa’s Magnificent Cleaning. I did it pretty quickly, but it was also a lot of fun. I like the pose and the attitude.

The final file was all vector, which is still a bit of an effort for me since Adobe discontinued their fine Streamline program. And yes, I know Adobe Illustrator has a great trace function, but I just can’t get it to behave the same anymore. I’ll get it eventually, though, I’m sure.

Comics Worth Reading has a nice review of Love and Capes #11-12 up now. Among other things that made my shriveled heart grow three sizes:

Thom Zahler takes the cliches of both the superhero and romance genres, plays jokes with them, and then dives into them to make them something more. It all stays very funny, but with meaningful emotions underneath the jokes.

Read the full review here.

Back in the Dark Times before I went full freelance, I worked at the Lake County News-Herald as a graphic designer. My chief task there was to design ad layouts, both as spec designs to entice new advertisers, or to establish a cool looking layout for production to later flow in the actual content.

The most common advertisers I designed for were car dealers and real estate agencies. I was the News-Herald’s graphic artist for two years, and in that time, I think I figured out every way to advertise cars and houses possible. It’s little box with copy after little box with copy.

I thought that I was done with that part of my life, but my Mom is a real estate agent and asked me to design a newspaper layout for her and a group of other agents who were taking out an ad. So, I found myself back in the real estate layout game.

It went pretty smoothly at first. After the second proof, though, it was just like being back at the paper.

Anyway, here’s the ad.

I did have some great times at the News-Herald. The people, as with most things, were the best part. When I left, it was definitely time to leave, but I still look back on those days fondly.

Yes, it’s true, I’ve been bad about posting artwork lately. I’m trying to break the story for my next project, which is not going well, but I’ll wrangle it down.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on designing the second Love and Capes collection. (What’s that? You want a link to pre-order? Here you go!) It’s not just dropping the pages into inDesign, but reformatting the covers, writing and creating the back matter, and designing new sidepapers.

I don’t know if sidepapers is even a real term, but that’s what I call them. My stories are 24 pages (with #10 being 26 and #12 being 45) which means that if you want to maintain the page-one-on-the-right, page-two-on-the-left reading order, you’ve got a blank page on the back side of the cover. Not wanting to have a completely empty page, I designed some filler art for each chapter. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it means creating them for this second edition.

I don’t know if sidepapers is even a real term, but that’s what I call them.

In the first trade, there were six images (Crusader, Abby, Darkblade, Arachnerd, Charlotte, and Amazonia) but in this one there are only five. The back of the issue #12 cover is the alternate cover. So I drew these.

All of them are original, except for Amazonia which reuses the art I did for the Comic Creators Alliance’s art jam to end human trafficking. (By the way, the art raised over $10,000, and that is all kinds of awesome!) The art is below, and feel free to click and embiggen!

I did a sketch at Mid-Ohio-Con for their annual charity auction. The auction is up now, so if you’d like a large representation of the conflict between Abby and Amazonia, check it out here.

The Fort Worth Weekly in Fort Worth, Texas, is one of my favorite clients. They give me such fun things to draw, and really let me cut loose with styles and experimentation. This time, they asked if I could draw a cover illustrating the conflict between the approaches of gay communities in Fort Worth and nearby Dallas. Click

I won’t attempt to explain the story any more than that, since I’m sure it’s far more complicated than my little one-line description. You can read all about it here. And, of course, you can click and embiggen the image.

I think there are similarities between this and my last cowboy illo that I did for them, but really, in my head I was inspired by the character designs for Per Degaton on last week’s Batman: Brave and the Bold. Such an interesting face shape, and a great vocal turn by Clancy Brown.

Love and Capes #13 is done! And that means it’s time for…

…the Mocha of Victory!

The Mocha of Victory is a grand tradition dating back, oh some two or three years. It’s a celebratory Starbucks drink when I accomplish something big with Love and Capes. Usually there’s one when the story and art are finished, and one when the book prints. What differenitates a normal venti mocha skim no-whip from a Mocha of Victory? It just tastes sweeter.

Issue #13 came together much faster than I would have thought, and much better, too. Honestly, I wasn’t quite ready to start this issue as soon as I did, but I pushed through and everything tied together nicely. You’ll see the results May 1st on Free Comic Book Day (and then available through the website and Haven Distributors shortly thereafter).

I always try to do a little better with every issue. You’ve got to keep pushing to get better. In this issue, the story went places I hadn’t expected. In fact, if you’d asked me last year if I would have done the plot I have, I would have said "No way!" The characters really took the reins from me. And, as always, I tried to make the art better. Here’s a panel that shows what I mean. Mark’s pose as he’s reacting to his ring is a lot more animated and fluid than anything I would have done a year ago.

I read the Walt Stanchfield Drawn to Life books, and those have just been my taskmasters trying to make my drawings come even more alive. I’m not "there" yet, and for that matter, I don’t think you ever actually reach an end point in your artistic journey. You should keep striving for more and better.And big thanks to my friend Chris Bailey, animation director on the animated Alvin and the Chipmunks features, for recommending those books. They’ve been invaluable.

Today, I’ll be doing the things I ignored most of yesterday to draw the final two pages. Then, eventually, I’ll do production work and get the book to the printer. And don’t forget, there are still advertising spaces left!