Kids Read Comics

Tomorrow, I'll be at Kids Read Comics in Chelsea, Michigan. This two day event is all about, well, kids reading comics. They named it pretty good, didn't they? Anyway, I'll be there, talking and selling comics, and scaring kids straight. If you're out that way, drop on by. It's free!

Girls' Night Out

So, I've been asked to draw a bunch of things over the years. Some of them have been, well, a little weird. But when I got this request, to draw Power Girl and Ms. Marvel hanging out, the requester originally mentioned the two heroines at a bar with "Power Girl with a glass of red wine and Ms. Marvel with a beer," I had to remind the buyer that Ms. Marvel was a recovering alcoholic and wouldn't be drinking beer. The requester had forgotten that aspect of her character, and when I mentioned it quickly agreed "Oh yeah, that wouldn't be appropriate at all."

I've drawn a ton of weirdness, but drawing Ms. Marvel with a beer is apparently a line I wouldn't cross. Carol is clearly drinking a Pepsi.

This one was a lot of fun. The little things, like making them sit on bar stools and have it look right, is always a challenge. And I like the body language between the two of them too. Click and see if you like it, too.

Go For the Gold-- Booster Gold

I've been putting out the call for commission requests as we run up to Charlotte, and it seems to be working. One of the most recent was to draw Booster Gold and Skeets. Booster was one of my favorite books back in the day, and I think Dan Jurgens did a good job creating a character with staying power.

I had to research to get the most recent version of the costume as well as the current Skeets design. I think I like the old one better, but hey, at least he hasn't been turned into a bluetooth headset.

I Should Really Do This as Product Placement

I was asked to draw the Love and Capes trinity, Crusader, Darkblade and Amazonia. I thought of a bunch of typical superhero poses, but given that Love and Capes isn't really a typical superhero book, I rejected those and decided to do something a little closer to the tone of the book. So, here, our three heroes are drinking coffee.

There's something about this pose that reminds me of those Clark Bar contest ads from the 80s where you could be drawn in an issue of a comic book.

Commission - Mark and Abby

I've drawn Mark and Abby together a lot over the last five years, both through the book itself and commission requests. It's always a challenge to find something different. It's also a challenge to find a way to make them work together. The cartoony nature of the characters and the body types and proportions don't always mesh well together. You have to work to make sure they belong in the same universe. I think I've mentioned it before, but any scene where Mark and Abby are drinking is work to make both their hands hold the same size glass.

When asked to draw this, I took advantage of having studio time and pads of tracing paper and worked with the pose. I was able to do one of those hugging-from-behind poses. I further cheated just a little by making the two of them flying so their feet didn't have to be on the same plane.

I really like this image, and I think you'll be seeing it again somewhere…

Lois and Clark and Mark and Abby

There's a commissioner (is that the right term?) of mine who loves Lois and Clark the way I do. I've done a Superman and Lois/Crusader and Abby piece for him before. Here, he wanted Lois in her Ultra Woman identity from the ABC TV series, and Abby as Titania from Love and Capes #10. It's always fun to draw Superman, especially to make sure he looks different than Crusader given their commonality.

Of course, you'll can't see Mark and Abby in the preview. You'll have to click and embiggen.

You Can Do Magic - Zatanna Commission

Commissions are starting to pick up. Or maybe I just let them pile up while I was churning on the last issue of the current Love and Capes miniseries. Either way, there's a lot of drawing going on.

First up is a Zatanna piece for a customer in Charlotte who wanted to see Zee magically choosing between her classic and Eighties outfit. The second Eighties outfit, of course. He'll be picking it up at HeroesCon. So I think this is a fine time to mention that if you know I'm coming to a show (my full schedule is here) and want to get on the sketchlist early, I'll be glad to do that. Since I color digitally, it means that you'll be able to get the digital print at the same time, too. Just shoot me an e-mail at tz (at) thomz.com and we'll get you set up.

Nebraska Art in Color

I did some commissions at Ground Zero in Omaha, and one of them was this Gwen Stacy piece. The purchaser had me take it home so that I could color it, since I color exclusively digitally. You want to see it in color? Well, then, click and embiggen!

I Didn't Even Know the Last One Was Sick

Here's another commission, this one's a holdover from the New York Comic-Con. I needed reference on the new Ventriliquist, and the Javitz Center is a black hole for communications equipment so I wasn't able to pull anything up on my iPhone. So the request came home with me where I could do the work and get it right.

I like the spotlight effect on this, and puts a nice spin on a character that almost has a required pose.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

I recently got to do a caricature for a couple people as a present. They wanted a Wizard of Oz theme, as well as a tie to Cleveland. The layout just seemed natural to me, and I turned some Cleveland landmarks into the Emerald City.

This was a lot of fun, and I used a different coloring technique than I have in recent years. Rather than doing that cut color shadow layer (that's the style I use on Love and Capes) I actually rendered the artwork in color with a few hard cast shadows.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out and so was the client, which is always important.