One Night Love Affair

David Hopkins' One Night Stand is now out in the world. It was part of "Indy Comic Book Week", an event staged by indie comic creators to fill the new comics gap that occurred this Wednesday. Diamond Distribution, the distributor of almost every comic book publisher, decided to give its workers some Holiday time off and not send out any comics this week. This created a void that needed to be filled... with indie comic goodness. Thus, One Night Stand was born!

Due to very low distribution, I'm posting my one page collaboration with Hopkins here. It was a fast and dirty affair.

New Years thoughts and resolutions coming soon! I know you can't wait.

Happy and Safe New Years wishes to you all! See you next year!

Can't Get It Out Of My Head

During the Christmas holidays, I managed to squeeze in some sketching time. Some of the sketches were influenced by the Alien Legion book I was reading. Some were influenced by the Northlanders book I was reading. And some of it just came out of my own head, uninfluenced.

Marker on paper.

Just Got Back From Baby's

Just got back from a few days away. The Coplands spent a couple of days up at Whistler, just chillin'... literally. Man, it was cold up there.

Santa was good to me. I got a bunch of comic trades... let's see... Alien Legion Omnibus, Northlanders: Sven The Returned, The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, Scalped: Dead Mothers and Jack Kirby's: The Demon! Nice haul, no?

Raphael, of Teenage Mutant Ninja fame.
Marker and whiteout on paper.

Merry Christmas!

Will do, Santa. Will do.

Distance Equals Rate Times Time

Time is running out for pre-ordering your copy of the Perhapanauts: Molly's Story one-shot from your local comics retailer. Please, please, please consider going to the shop and asking them to order you a copy. Chances are, if you don't get them to do that, there won't be one there for you to pick up on release day. Take the following code with you and ask them to pre-order it for you. DEC09 0376

Written by Scott Weinstein and Todd Dezago and coloured by Mike Thomas. The book will feature a flip cover drawn by Perhapanauts co-creator, Craig Rousseau! So please, take the time to order one for your LCS. All involved will be forever grateful! Plus, I think it's a great book... :)

Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone!

Jason

Perspective

Boning up on my 2 point perspective. This is what's on my Cintiq, right now. It's a design for a dining hall in a spaceship. It's going to go through a few more changes but it's getting close.

Still

I once did a 5 page Puck sequence for a Marvel submission. I got a really nice letter back from Joe Q. saying to keep at it. I guess I'm *still* at it...

I might have one more post in me before the Christmas holidays set in. But, if not...

Happy Holidays to you and yours!
\
Cheers!
Jason

One Week

One week until Christmas. Wow.

Finally put some ink on that Cannonball/Hulk clash.

Marker and whiteout on paper.

Tell Me Why

I'm going to take this moment and draw your attention to The House Always Wins, a webcomic that needs your support. Let me tell you a little about why.

Zuda is a webcomic site that gives the readers editorial weight. Readers (ie you and me) get to vote on what comic should be given a contract to finish out the story. See, every month, a team of creators develop a comic, produce its first 8 pages and post them in a direct competition with 9 other comic teams' creations. Then, we the people can vote all that month to see which comic is worthy to continue for the duration of the year. The "losers" will not receive a contract from Zuda to finish their comic. Sadly, this power we have can be miss used. Sadly, the competition doesn't really come down to who has the best comic, it comes down to who has the biggest social network.

So, on that note, I'm thrilled to lend whatever support I can to get a very cool comic (ie The House Always Wins). THAW is the best drawn (artist John Bivens, draws wicked cool stuff) and most interesting comic of the 10 that are in this month's competition. Please, if you can, take the time to go over, read the comic, vote.

Here's how!
1) Go to http://zudacomics.com

2) Either sign in, or make a new account at http://zudacomics.com/user/register

2a) If you’re signing up, just fill out all the required (red asterisk) fields.

3) Go back to http://zudacomics.com once you have an account, and sign in.

4) Go to: http://zudacomics.com/node/1550

5) Click the button marked “Favorite” on the sidebar.

6) Click Five Stars on the “Rate this Comic” section, also on the sidebar.

7)Finally, click the big “Vote!” button; again, right column. That, Favorites, and the Rating all count towards our winning the contest.

8) Feel free to leave a comment as well. I don’t know if it counts for anything, we just like hearing from folks.

Thanks, folks!

Welcome To The Occupation

Last zombie panel I'll post... for a while. I've finished the art for the Dino Caruso zombie short that will in an upcoming Zombie Bomb volume. I'm going to start on the 14 page Digital Webbing "Last Leaf" short story today, so expect to see some character sketches and rough layout type stuff for that project occupying this space for a while.

I think I'll start doing some more super hero ink drawings, too. Those seem to get the kiddies coming to the site.

Wonderin'

The final inks have been added to this panel. The progression is almost complete. All it needs now is someone to add some colour. I wonder who that will be ...?

Plynth (Water Down The Drain)

Wow. I got the coloured Perhapanauts pages in my inbox, this weekend. Mike Thomas has been working hard on them and has done what every artist hopes their colourist will do.... make them look good. Some of the colours are EXACTLY what I was seeing in my brain, like the image above. Perfect!

The full issue of The Pehapanauts that I drew is in the current Previews magazine. Unless you go to a indie friendly comic shop, this NEEDS to be ordered by you to make sure there is a copy for you. The order # is: DEC09 0376

Please please please talk to you retailer and ask that they order this book (should you be interested in it, of course). Thanks!

The Voyeur (I Like To Watch)

Some of the funniest writing on the internets is created on this woman's keyboard. Miss Teen USSR is part observational comedy and part confessional voyeurism. She cuts to the core of the issue with a no holds barred ferocity. She's part of the ReView2aKill site but maintains a blog all to herself. Please do yourself a favor and check her out. And then read her site.

The above illustration is of Miss Teen USSR. Marker and whiteout on paper.

Ed Is Dead

This is another panel from the Zombie Bomb story I'm doing with Dino Caruso. On the left is my digital rough and on the right is the result of me inking it traditionally (brush, whiteout and ink).

Sweet Leaf

In between all this zombie stuff, I'll be working on a futuristic revisioning of O. Henry's "Last Leaf", written by Jason Mullikin. The story is a part of a Digital Webbing anthology that will be out sometime in 2010. This is my first attempt at developing the "Johnsy" (renamed "Shea" for our version) character's look.

Marker on paper.

Can You Taste The Waste?

I'll be inking zombie pages for the next few days, so I was trying to get my zombie ink flowin'. I was inspired by a panel in the first Wasteland trade. This drawing doesn't look like the panel, really, but its genesis was from that excellent book.

She's So Cold

Man, it's cold in my studio!
This is another illustration I did for the brand new site, ReView2aKill.com .

ReView2aKill is the brainchild of Nuv Takhar and it's live! So head on over, read some cool columns and tell them I sent you!

Marker and whiteout on paper.

Fun Fun Fun

Here's that last panel but with more lines on it. I'm not sure why I'm tightening this drawing up as much as I am. My plan was to do the tightening during the inking phase. I guess I'm still just having fun figuring out how to use the Cintiq.

Business Time

I feel like I`m starting to get the hang of this Cintiq business.

Here`s an almost complete rough drawing of one of the panels for the Zombie Bomb story I`m working on. I still have to draw in most of the zombie figures... but that stuff tends to be easier to draw.

All drawn on the Cintiq.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Yesterday saw the beginnings of a new way of making comics, for me. I'm starting to use my new Cintiq tablet for the rough drawing/layout steps. It's a liberating way of working in that I can "erase" my mistakes and resize/move things that I've drawn that aren't quite right. I've barely scratched the surface of what this thing can/will do for me so that I can make comics in a faster and more immediate manner.

For those interested, here is a look at one of the panels for the new Zombie Bomb short story I'm doing with writer Dino Caruso called, Zombie Night In Canada. The top image is the panel I drew with the Cintiq and the second image is the final inked drawing, done over a non-photo printout of the Cintiq sketch, using real life brush and ink. I still don't see me doing "digital inks" on the Cintiq, though. I think traditional inking is still the best way for me to retain the quality of line I'm looking for. Maybe I just haven't found the right digital tool/brush to make my marks with.

The Heart's Filthy Lesson

I set up my Cintiq, today. After making some random lines, I attempted my first digital sketch. This is it, in all it's pixelated glory. Seems I was drawing in a really small image size...

First lesson learned!