A Man's Gotta Do What a Man's Gotta Do
Guess who won the Doctor Horrible fansite gift tag design contest?
Yup, it's me. So now I get fame and accolades, as well as a copy of the spiffy Dr. Horrible DVD set, which is of the awesome. Thanks to all who voted! I was up against some stiff competition, which you can see on the site here.
Sign My Name… Across Your Book
Sunday I was honored to do a book signing of Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret? at the Mentor Barnes and Noble. It was pretty awesome. I'm from the area, so a lot of friends came to the signing and it's always good to see them. But the people I especially 
appreciate are the people I don't know. There were more than a few people who had seen the News-Herald article about me and come specifically to talk to me and buy the book. That's really important.
The crew at Barnes and Noble is always aces, too. They're great people and really take care of you and make you feel comfortable, which is really nice when you're sitting in the middle of a bookstore during the Christmas shopping season. Hopefully, there'll be a second trade, and I can come back and promote it.
The Mocha of Victory, part nine
…The Mocha of Victory!
Guest starring Supergirl, from the Alex Ross collection, wearing my favorite of her many costumes.
In a day or two, I'll be getting a proof of the book and it should be printed and out to stores the first part of January. Then you can all find out the resolution to last issues exciting cliffhanger!
Twenty-one to go!
Love and Capes #10 is coming together slowly. Here's a panel from page three.
Here's another Doc Karma and Abby panel. I had forgotten how much fun the good doctor is to write, as well as how much space to leave for his flowery speech. Page four should be his last appearance for the book. At least I think so. He could always make another appearance.
And, just a reminder, tomorrow my interview appears in the News-Herald. Hopefully, it'll be on their website, too. Even more hopefully, it'll turn out well and I won't look like a complete doofus.
Fingers crossed.
Where's My Pasta?
Sunday I was at Bravo with my Goddaughter, my NotGodson, and their parents. Bravo is one of those cool restaurants that covers their tables in white paper and gives you crayons. Sure, they say they're for the kids, but I never pay attention to that.
Eating with young kids is always an adventure. It's sitting still longer than they'd prefer, to be sure. They're five and two, and well-behaved as opposed to a lot of kids I see, but still, it helps to be able to occupy them.
So I draw for them. Fortunately, drawing is so automatic that I can do that while talking intellegently with their parents. NotGodson started suggesting, though some would say demanding, characters after I knocked out a quick (and not very good) Lightning McQueen. Before I knew it, he was rattling off the lineup of the Animated Justice League. The fact that a two year old is asking me for "Jonn" (the Martian Manhunter) and "Hawkgirl" makes me feel like my Godparentage has been a success.
It reminds me of that late lamented Baja Brewery restaurant that used to be across from the San Diego Convention Center that would do the same. By the end of the show, the walls would be covered by artwork from the table papers, and I personally had gotten more than a few free beers. That's just the advantage of being able to do caricatures of the wait staff.
Anyway, for your edification are my crayon scribblings from Sunday's dinner, taken on my iPhone of Awesomeness.
See, It's Not All About Me
One of the books that helped me become a small publisher myself was a book I stumbled upon at a San Diego Comic-Con years ago. It was Astounding Space Thrills. It was a cool little black and white book with an awesome cover and an infectious sense of fun. I mean, Little Green Men who are photosynthetic? Brilliant! It also had one of the coolest designs for a t-shirt, and one that I would have bought even if I hadn't liked the book (and was the inspiration for the marketing plan behind the Raider t-shirts).
Best yet, the writer and artist of the book was a great guy. Steve Conley has gone on to become a friend of mine. He's so damnably likeable. This must be how people feel about me. Or so I'm told. Or maybe so I hope. Either way.
Now, IDW, publisher of a certain other collection of a small press book (you know which one I mean) has collected all of AST, it's miniseries and its online strip, into one convenient and great-looking trade. It's coolness collected between a cardstock cover, and I highly recommend that you pick it up.
Get it at Amazon here. And, use that link, and I even get a little bit of a kickback.
My Virtual Refrigerator
I think I mentioned here, and definitely mentioned in my Twitter feed, that I'll be the subject of a News-Herald article coming this Friday. It's set to tie in with a book signing I'll be doing on this coming Sunday at Barnes and Noble in Mentor. The interview was fun to do, and it's very flattering to be the focus of such a thing. I have't seen the article, and I'm hoping that I didn't say anything stupid in it. I was able to recall exactly how many houses I had, as well as not pushing anything off as being "above my pay grade", so I think I did okay.
I remember being proud of it, and showing it to Bob Wiacek, who was generally complementary. I don't expect that Bob was geniunely impressed by a 12-year old's scribblings, but he was positive enough in a "keep at it kid, you're on a decent path" kind of way. That kind of support is priceless in a young artist's journey. Gil Kane was also there, whom I knew from his Star Hawks strip and other similar work. Gil's art didn't appeal to me then, and much like Kirby or even Simonson (whom at that show I mentioned disliking, since he made the grevious error of not being Paul Smith on the X-Men) I didn't start to appreciate and even like until later in my life. I kind of regret that. It would have been nice to talk to him a little more.
So, presented here are two drawings from that portfolio. One is of Laser Raider, a character I created for my grade school newspaper and was heaviy influenced by Dynamite Magazine's Dynamite Duo (later drawn by students of the Kubert School that I would even later attend myself). The other is Firestorm, proving my fascination with the character started at an early age. I remember being a young kid and drawing characters whose limbs looked like sausage links, since I didn't understand musculature, as well as not being able to draw noses or feet. With that in mind, I'm a little surprised at how inoffensive these drawings are. They aren't great, to be sure, but they hold up just a little better than I thought.
I also notice that I was using a signature different from my "family" signature. The now-familiar elongated ZAHLER with the united H and L and curved R going to the year was on all my Dad's and Aunt's paintings. I think I was somehow rebelling against it, although later I'd come to embrace it and I like the continuity that comes with having the family signature. I did change it a little, elimiating the vertical line in the E. Every generation adds something, I guess.
Love and Cats
Look what showed up on the Daily Sampson blog this morning.
Thumpety-thump-thump
In case you missed it in the papers and on TV, it's Christmas Season again. It means that it's also time for me to do my annual Christmas card. Waaaaaay back in 1993, I decided to design my own Christmas cards with a little cartoon on them. They were just simple photocopied and cut cards that went out to fifty people or so. Since that time, they've changed to become full-color cards and go out to much more than just those original fifty people. They're an advertising piece as well as a Holiday wish.
The hardest part as usual is coming up with the joke. My first
This year's? Well, they haven't gone out yet, so you don't get to see them until they do. Here's a preview of the art for the card, though, featuring a certain snowman who's been the subject of a song and a couple Rankin-Bass specials.