Attention people of the comic book world! The new Previews catalog is out, and my My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle book is available for a'orderin' in it. Order code DEC120395. Come on, you know you want to see what I do in the Ponyverse.
That's a Wrap For This One
Love and Capes: What to Expect #6 is off to IDW. That's the last issue of this miniseries.
At this point, I've written, drawn, inked, lettered and colored 25 issues worth of superhero romantic comedy. I say "25 issues worth" because it's actually only been 24 issues (thirteen issues of the original series, five of Ever After, and six of What to Expect) but the wedding issue was double sized so I'm counting that as two.
However I do the math, that's a lot! I'm kind of proud of that.
I can't imagine that I'm done with Mark and Abby, but I know I'm taking a break from them for a little bit. I threatened to do that after the last issue of Ever After, but that didn't quite happen. I've got some other projects running, including the My Little Pony book and something else that you know the name but I can't talk about yet. I'll announce that as soon as I can.
That's Right… My Little Pony!
The news finally broke on Friday! Yes, I am writing and drawing the first issue of IDW’s new My Little Pony micro-series. My issue will feature Twilight Sparkle. 
I can’t say too much about the story right now, and I won’t be able to show any art until the book is ready to go, but I’ll share some still with you after it comes out in February.
February? Yikes! I better get back to work. After I finish up the last issue of Love and Capes: What to Expect, of course.
Where I've Been
I've kind of gone off the grid, haven't I? I figure I should share some of the reasons why.
The first is Love and Capes. As I type this, I'm a quarter of the way through the last issue of this arc, and it has to be done by the end of the month. It's fair to say that's sucking up a lot of the oxygen in my world right now.
Also, there are two more projects coming that I can't tell you about. They are things that I know you've heard of. I'm bumping my head on that double-edged sword of success. The cooler the projects, the less I can say about them. At least one of them should be announced next month. As soon as I can say something, I will.
Plus, there was Baltimore Comicon, Cincinnati Comic Expo, Wizard Ohio and New York Comic-Con.
And, for a lot of reasons, I've decided to head out to LA for an extended trip. That's been fun, but there were a lot of logistics to manage. They're now managed and that's settling down.
Fortunately, that means I was able to be here for Halloween, which means that I got to go to the Disneyland Trick or Treat event. The Haunted Mansion becomes Nightmare Before Christmas-ified, with a new story and ride elements. It's fantastic!
Plus, there was candy. Lots of candy. And carrot sticks and apple slices, but really, CANDY!
There were some unique sights there. There was a villains farewell show that was pretty good for not featuring the two villains who are my favorite: Chernobog and Hades. If they were in the show, it would have been awesome squared.
We did get to see something I've never even imagined being at Disney: Super Goof! The Disney characters came out in costume, and Goofy was dressed as his super hero self. That brings back memories of Gold Key Comics and Super Goobers. Hey, Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm, why don't you bring that back?
Thanks to some friends, we also got to spend Halloween at the Magic Castle, the club for magicians. That was awesome. I can't think of a better place to spend October 31st.
And yes, they had candy, too.
So, I'm going to try to update this blog at least once a week until the crazy times are over, and then get back to better and more regular postings. The same with my Twitter and Facebook accounts. Sometimes it might just be a panel with fake dialogue from the new book, who knows? But it'll be good to bounce around this corner of the internet again.
Pictures of Disneyland follow. Click and embiggen!
It's Baltimore Time!
This weekend, I'll be at my favorite show. Marc Nathan's always-excellent Baltimore Comic-Con. I'll be at booth 1605, sharing it with Paul Storrie and a certain Lady Crusader.
Here's the official press release:
The Baltimore Comic-Con is proud to announce the first Baltimore Comic-Con Yearbook, celebrating the creators appearing at the show. This book of art features some of our guests interpreting the Liberty Meadows characters, sometimes in conjunction with their own creations, in a celebration of creator-owned properties.
As a bonus, we have a scavenger hunt of sorts. When you buy the book, you'll get a list of our 36 contributors and their table numbers. Get 15 of them to sign it, and come back to the booth for your choice of an added print by either Joseph Michael Linsner or Barry Kitson. Get 20 signatures and receive BOTH prints!
Liberty Meadows was created by Frank Cho and first published in 1997, launching in newspapers internationally. This year marks the 15th anniversary of Liberty Meadows, having seen print in book, comic strip, and digital formats. "Frank has always been a fan and a friend of the Baltimore Comic-Con," said Marc Nathan, show promoter for the Baltimore Comic-Con. "We are very thankful to Frank for his willingness to trust his characters with our other guests and friends, as well as his continued support of the Baltimore Comic-Con."
The art created for the 2012 Baltimore Comic-Con Yearbook celebrating 15 years of Frank Cho's Liberty Meadows will be auctioned at this special event! Don't miss this opportunity to own original art featuring Frank's characters as depicted by artists including Frank Quitely, Brandon Peterson, Gene Ha, David Petersen, Bernard Chang, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Tom Raney, Billy Tucci, Steve Conley, Thom Zahler, Craig Rousseau, Frank Cho, and many others!
The book will be sold, and the art auction will be held in our Main hall, in Booths #2505-2507. The auction will commence following the Stan Lee/John Romita panel, at approximately 5:45pm. The book will be available at the Baltimore Comic-Con for $20.
I'll be there taking commissions, selling books (including Love and Capes: What to Expect #2 I think), trades, the Baltimore print, and more! As usual, with t-shirts, or if you want a particular convention print other than Baltimore, please pre-order here so I know to bring them.
Remembering Joe Kubert
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. --Mark Twain (possibly apocryphal)
When I was a kid reading comics, I didn’t like Joe Kubert’s work. He was maybe the second or third artist I learned to identify. (The first was the late Kurt Schaffenberger, because he drew the Superman’s S-Shield so distinctively.) His stuff looked sketchy, the characters seemed a little rubbery.
But he created the Kubert School, the place to go if you wanted to be a cartoonist, and I did, so that’s where I went. And by the time I graduated, I was amazed at how much better he’d gotten. Joe taught my third year sequential art class. I’m going to try to dig some of those assignments out and show them this week. Here’s one. But honestly, drawing is the least of what I learned from Joe.
Joe’s school had a philosophy. He said that he wanted his students to be able to go into a one-horse town and get whatever art job was available there. It flew in the face of what I was hearing from comic book editors, who wanted you to concentrate on one discipline, to specialize. Joe let you concentrate on your strengths, but you still had to do everything.
So sure, I can draw. And I can ink. But I can color. I can letter (my first pro work). I can design. I can airbrush. I can do paste ups and cut amberlith and make dummy books. Yeah, some of that last stuff has phased out with the computer becoming a bigger tool, but being able to think in CMYK separations is still a great skill to have. I know what steps the computer is doing for me.
And now, when I do my Love and Capes, I don’t have to hire someone to letter it or color it or lay it out. I can do all that. It’s given me flexibility that I know I didn’t appreciate back then.
Joe also beat deadlines and hard work into you. He told me at my interview that a lot of people who come to the school want to get a part-time job but can’t because the workload was so fierce. I somehow managed to make one work my second year, but it wasn’t an insignificant amount of work. Ten classes a week, every week. By the time I came home for Thanksgiving during my first year, I had already done one hundred assignments.
People ask me how I get so much work done. It’s because Joe didn’t teach me any other way.
After graduating, I really appreciated him as a businessman. He started a school. He owned his own characters and created graphic novels. He’d worked as an editor at DC and still worked on their characters. There weren’t a lot of artists from his time who did as well as he did, and it wasn’t because he had One Great Idea that became a gravy train, it’s because he worked at it so well. He was smart that way, and I think that’s something we all can learn from him.
And, he worked forever. He was still doing solid work this year. He may have slowed down, but he never stopped. I don’t think he could have retired if he had wanted to, and you could tell he loved what he did. That’s a road I hope to be on myself. I didn’t know Joe well. And there’s a natural tendency after school to rail against your teachers and your school, because what you learned doesn’t give you the results you want in the time you want them. But when do you get those results, you realize you couldn’t have gotten there any other way. All of this is by way of saying, I hadn’t really seen or spoken to him since school, and I may not have always been kind in describing my time at the school.
But a couple years ago at the Baltimore Comic-Con, he was a guest and walked by my table. I stopped him and said hello, and reminded him that I was one of his students. (He had so many, there’s no way he would have remembered just me.) He looked at me, and with a focused and concerned look, he asked me if I was still doing art.
“Every day, sir. I’ve only had art jobs since I graduated, and I’ve been completely freelance for the last ten years.”
He lit up and smiled that big Joe Kubert smile. I felt a wave of pride I wouldn’t have expected, and all that silly stuff like the cold classrooms and the tuition price and Joe’s conception of optimum walking distance describing how far the dorm was from the school faded away. There was just a teacher proud of his student, and a student proud that he had used the tools his teacher had given him.
Joe is probably the most influential person on my career not counting my family. From his drawing articles in Dynamite Magazine to his school and his education… I don’t know where I’d be without any of those. And I’m glad I don’t have to find out.
Oh, and he could draw pretty well, too.
Comic-Con Has Come and Gone
Sorry this one has taken so long. I got off my plane Sunday night and started teaching a Summer Camp Cartooning program the next day. It's been crazy busy. So, Comic-Con.
Yeah, that happened.
I’ve been doing con reports sporadically since I started coming to shows, and it was fun to tell you about all the cool stuff I did and people I saw. The problem I’m running into now, as it becomes more about the work, is that I can’t talk about things.
But here, I offer you this Mad Libs version of my San Diego experience.
I spoke with [name of person] at [name of company] about doing [type of work]. [Pronoun] seemed warm to the idea and even [follow up action]. I am cautiously optimistic.
Now repeat that, say, twelve more times.
Last year, my heart was starting to harden about Comic-Con. It was the first year that I really felt it was becoming too much. This year felt a little more manageable, so maybe that was a one-year thing. And maybe it’s that I’ve decided to have a quantum mechanical con now. The only part of the show that exists is the part I perceive, which means the 50 feet square around my booth, the men’s restroom just outside the Hall C doors, and, technically, the Marvel booth since I can often hear the crowd noise from their danceatorium.
I’m can’t say I took it easy. I still do a pretty massive amount of work, I think. But the bar con scene seems to have faded a bit. I’m wondering if because of the preponderance of cool parties, that people aren’t going to dinner and hitting the bar, but going to an event and then hitting their bed.
I know I certainly did when I went to [exclusive party] and then, instead of running by the Hyatt bar, I just went back to the hotel to get my five to six hours of sleep before starting the fun parade again.
Energy on the floor seemed better this year. My sales seemed better, and traffic seemed steady. The only exception to that was Preview Night, which was a little dead because the show only had one point of entry, and that was down by the Hollywood booths. The result being that people stopped to see all the cool stuff, like KITT and the Trolls from The Hobbit, and slowed progress to the rest of the floor. I’d like to see that changed.
The show security certainly seemed tighter, and I think overall better. The new security team was a little more strident, but there were things that the old team was lax on. I’ve heard good stories and bad stories, and I’m willing to chalk a lot of them up to growing pains for now. We’ll see next year.
I’ve set up a photo gallery plugin to my website now, so some of my favorite scenes of the show are below. Click on through, there’s a lot of cool there.
Not the least of which is the lovely Ms. Amy Ratcliffe dressed up as a female version of the Crusader. She was inspired by the cover to Love and Capes: What to Expect #5 which, oh, yeah… you haven’t seen that yet. Guess you’ll have to wait, won’t you?
San Diego. It’s still the place to be. And, after so many years, maybe I’m starting to figure it out… or at least how to do it so it doesn’t break me. Having good friends to help me out certainly makes it easier.
#sdcc Sunday Love and Capes Deal Please RT
This year I've decided to do special deal coupons for Comic-Con International. Each of these coupons is good for one day only. To use the coupon, either print out the attached PDF, or download it to your phone and bring it to my booth.
Today's deal is $5 off a three-pack of Love and Capes trades. Normally, buying three trades is $60, but with this coupon you can save $5. This is the first time I've ever discounted the trades, and is only good while supplies last.
Remember, we're at Booth 2000!
Get the LNC San Diego Exclusive EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT AT THE CON!
I've gotten a number of people asking me if there's a way to get a copy of the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive variant of the first issue of Love and Capes: What to Expect #1. Well, yes, there is.
It's Sunday, and I know I've got extra stock on my con variant, so I can offer it for sale today. I'm relatively sure I won't blast through the remainder of my copies today. So, you can buy them from the below link for $5.00.
Here's the thing: This offer is only available until 12:01am Tuesday, July 17th.After that, the variants will go up to $10.00.
Either way, be sure to let me know what name you want to add to Abby's pad on the cover!
#sdcc Saturday Love and Capes Deal please RT
This year I've decided to do special deal coupons for Comic-Con International. Each of these coupons is good for one day only. To use the coupon, either print out the attached PDF, or download it to your phone and bring it to my booth.
Today's deal is on con prints. I have the San Diego-exclusive print of the Love and Capes characters at the Kansas City Barbecue (as seen on display at the restaurant right now). Normally, those are $25, but you can get them for $20 with this coupon. I've also started offering the con portfolio, containing all sixteen of the con prints that I've done over the past year. With this coupon, the $200 con portfolio is $25 off. While supplies last.
Remember, we're at Booth 2000!