After Marvel Girl, there were five open spaces in Powerful Women #3. So this will start the parade of remaining images in the book. Today we've got the Emerald Empress, of the Fatal Five from Legion of Super Heroes. It's one of my few reclining poses and there's something about the linework that really pops. Click and embiggen.
Here Comes Part the Third!
Comic-Con is twenty days away and… wait, that can't be right. Twenty days? Seriously? Adding a June convention really messes you up, I think. Man, that's not enough time.
It always pays to have new product at the show, so in addition to having Love and Capes #11, I'll also have Powerful Women #3. I know I thought I had my cover design done, but now I think not. I'm torn between using the Zatanna image and the Marvel Girl image. Zatanna would be my first brunette (previous ones were Poison Ivy and Supergirl) but Marvel Girl would be my first Marvel character. Anyone have any opinions? I've got until Monday morning to decide.
If you want to see the Marvel Girl image complete, click the preview and see it embiggened. I think it came out pretty well, actually.
Blink and You'll Miss Her
Okay, I admit, I have no 
idea who Blink is. (I know now, though, so I know she's from the X-Men books. Don't worry.) But it's part of the fun of doing convention sketches, when someone comes in with a character you've never heard of. As well as reference, man is reference important. At HeroesCon, if necessary, I could use the insanely useful iPhone to pull some reference off the web. At San Diego, that's not going to be possible, I presume, since I think everyone in the Creative Services and Hollywood has an iPhone, and that's going to slam the 3G network at the San Diego Convention Center.
Back to Blink, though. She was fun to draw. I think this is a definitely different pose, and her skin tone was fun to color since it's not a traditional tone. It made it fun to color.
A Little Early for Independence Day
I don't know why I didn't think of doing a 
Stargirl piece before, but when someone commissioned me for a sketch at HeroesCon, man did I take to it. My booth neighbor, Rich, was pretty impressed with it, validating my opinion. There's something about the pose and attitude that comes through so nicely. And, this is another one that I ran through my iPhone pic/blueline print process.
Cat Scratch Fever
Here's one of 
the sketches I did at HeroesCon. I grabbed a snap of it on my now-sadly-outddated iPhone. I messed with the levels in Photoshop and converted it to a blueline so I could reprint it on bristol and ink it again. It's a nice way to save sketches when you can't get a scan per se. And then I have another original to sell, too. How cool is that?
This one is of the Black Cat, created by Marv Wolfman for the Spider-Man books. She hasn't made an appearance in Powerful Women yet (unlike Poison Ivy, who seems to command at least a page a volume), so it's always good to see someone new in those pages.
Wasn't One of Her Letters Actually a Guy?
Another day, another Powerful Women piece.
This one is from a warm-up piece at HeroesCon in Charlotte. I like working on something, even when I don't have a commission scheduled, just so people can see what I can do. This one is another one of Mary Mrvel, and I think I really got her expression down. She seems pretty optimistic, as opposed to the leather miniskirt version that's been running around lately.
The Rockewho?
Yup, it's another commission from my current sale. This time I was asked to do a duo, Bettie and the Rocketeer, 
from the late, great Dave Stevens book. Of course, I'm nowhere near the artist Dave was, but I think there are hints of his work in this. I know he was on my mind.
The movie is worth checking out too. It didn't seem to catch on the way it should have. Among other things, it has one of the best and most perfect casts of all time, with Billy Campell as the Rocketeer, Alan Arkin as Pevey (who gets the best line when Cliff tags him for not having a date since 1932, and he responds "Flora Maxwell. There wasn't any point datin' nobody after her"), Jennifer Connelly as Jenny, a pre-Lost Terry O'Quinn as Howard Hughes, and Timothy Dalton and Paul Sorvino to boot.
And Id be remiss if I didn't mention that the publisher of my Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret trade, IDW, is going to be releasing a collection of his Rocketeer work. I've already bought it, I just don't know it yet.
NYCC2009 - Day Three, a bit late
I never did finish talking about New York, did I?
I should be used to this. It's so hard to write up the last day of a show because it tends to be your getaway day. And then you get back and you're busy and you just don't have time. Plus, things were really crazy back home with work that came in.
Anyway, the last day of the show was pretty good. The crowds were still thick, and I sold pretty well that day, too. I think as a lot of these shows max out and become almost exclusively 3-day attendees, Sunday becomes a huge sales day. After all, if you have until Sunday, why buy until Sunday? Well, because Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret? was almost sold out, of course. By 1:00 or so, I was sold out, and only had single issues left. I'll have to keep that in mind when I go to San Diego this year.
I did a couple more caricatures, including Jennifer Kale from Marvel's Man-Thing. Yeah, I had no idea who she was either, but the customer had reference, which was good. There were a couple more that escape me, too. Kale and the Spider-Woman that I did are now colored and here on this page. Make with the clickin' and embiggenin'.
Let's review: I did a panel, sold out of a product, did some sketches, and lined up some work. Yeah, I think it was a success.
Bob and I helped Toon Tumblers take down their booth in trade for borrowing some space in their van to get our gear back to the hotel. I had a taste for pizza, so we wound up at Antonio's next to where the Late Night With David Letterman show tapes. It was pricey and it seemed to take forever, but the pizza was good, and it was a great end to a great show.
On the way back, I wanted to stop at the Kubert School to buy some brushes. Good art brushes are hard to find, and the Kubert art store stocks a lot of them. I kind 
of need to see a brush before I buy it as there's a whole process to choosing one. They only had one of my current brush, the Windsor Newton Series 7, but they had a selection of the Rafael, a brush I hadn't used since art school.
I bought three.
I even got to go into the school, which had been extensively remodeled since I'd been there. 
The school, the old Dover High School, had been lopped in half and a chunk of the JKS parking lot had been sold off. Kubert had a lot of unused space in it, including a full auditorium and a gym. Now those are gone. Computers are all around, the windows have been replaced (a source of contention for all of us in the old days) and they even have air conditioning now.
Man, these soft, coddled artists today. In my day I drew in the cold and the heat and lived off a box of Captain Crunch because I couldn't afford it and... well, I hated it, but I did it anyway.
Mike Chen was kind enough to give Bob and me a tour, and we even dropped into a couple classes. Bob had asked if I got the shakes coming back into the building. Truth be told, I did get the wiggins when we waited in the waiting room. I don't think I'd been in there since my first day at the school, or maybe when I came out for my interview when I was applying. That room brought back some worries. Everything else was fine, though.
Bob also said he had to get used to seeing classrooms without desks and instead with drawing tables. That never occured to me. I'd just gotten used to it.
The school looks good. The students seem the same, bantering with Mike when he brought us in. Well, there is one big difference: girls. The school got girls since Iwas gone. There were I think three women in my first-year class of 150. Now, with the success of manga and the like, there's a bigger female component, which is very cool. The school even has dorms for them now, which previously they weren't able to provide.
Big thanks to Mike Chen for taking the time out of his day to bring us around the school. It was a great time.
Now I'm back and working again. I've got a couple of weeks before my trip to Orlando for MegaCon, so I'm trying to clear some things out before then. Thankfully, Love and Capes #10 is done, so it's just doing client work, of which there is a lot, thankfully. I've got some cool things coming up, which I'll tell y'all about as soon as I get a chance. So stay tuned, cool things are happening.
Wizard World Dallas: Day Three (In the Shadow of Jerryworld)
Still, I did as well on
There’s always the cloud of a question of WizardWorld Texas. Will there be another? They’ve announced dates for next year, and I hope it comes through. While the show seemed slower this year, my sales were a little better, so it’s hard to get a read. I think it’s a good show and hope it sticks around.
Wizard World Dallas: Day Two (Now with pictures)
Day Two here at Wizard Texas was a little slow. Saleswise, it was a little better than yesterday, but off from last year. That’s okay, though. Things are going well enough, and the day had a lot of highlights.
I wore my Captain Hammer shirt, and I’m always surprised how few Captain Hammer shirts I see at these shows. But, for the people who know the excellence that is Doctor Horrible, it always gets a reaction. I met a guy dressed as the bad Doctor, and I posed for a picture that will inevitably appear above my biography in Love and Capes #9.
I also met a couple dressed as Captain Hammer and Penny. In a bout
Plus, I figure any day you sell out of something is a good day. Well, I sold out of Powerful Women #2. If you sell out of anything, it menas people wanted it and you printed a good amount. Don’t worry, I’ll go back to press on it eventually, probably when I get a third version done.
I also did two different podcast interviews, with a third to come on the phone when I get home. Any PR isgood PR, and the more the better, especially with the trade coming out at the end of the month.
Speaking of which, I did get my first advance copies of said IDW trade paperback collection. It looks phenomenal! You all are going to be so happ when you buy your ten copies.
Jesse and I went to the Heroes For Heroes sketch party after the show. There were some phenomenal pieces there,
All in all, it was a pretty good day. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a feeling Sunday will be even better.