Everything Is Broken

I've shifted gears a bit and have begun working on some Marvel sample pages. My plan is to have at least 5 pages of pencils ready to show C.B. Cebulski at C2E2, which is a brand new convention happening in Chicago in less than 2 weeks. I was going to work from a Spider-Man Team Up script that C.B. had given me but I had the good fortune of getting writer/editor Stuart Moore to let me use one of his scripts, instead. The script I'm working from now is the Cloak & Dagger one shot that just came out called, "The Broken Church". So far, the roughs are looking good. Let's hope the final penciled pages turn out solid!

Kickapoo

So, I haven't mentioned this but Trickster is coming out very shorty! I'll let the words of the anthology's editor and contributor Matt Dembicki fill you in on the particulars...

'Trickster' to debut at SPACE

The 232-page, full-color anthology Trickster that I've worked on for the past four years will debut at the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo April 24-25 in Columbus, Ohio. The book features trickster stories from more than 20 Native American storytellers illustrated by some of today's most dynamic indie comics artists! (You can also pre-order copies here at Amazon.com.)

Needless to say, I'm very excited to be a part of this book and hope you all will give it a chance!

I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart

Hey, all!

Today's the big day. The Perhapanauts: Molly's Story one-shot is out in comic shops today! I haven't seen it in printed form yet but I hear it looks great. Run down to your local comic shop, grab a copy and let me know what you thought!

Also, the good people at Review2aKill have put together a heartwarming overview of some of my recent work. Please check it (and the rest of the site) out here.

I've been inking the Last Leaf pages and haven't had a whole lot of time for anything else. I did manage to scribble out the drawing of Batman (see above).

You'll Accompany Me

Well, folks, it's official. The Perhapanauts issue I drew is going to be in next month's Previews! I'm still not sure of the page or order numbers but, as soon as I know, I'll post it here. Below is the cover I drew, coloured by the talented Mike Thomas, and the solicit info that will accompany the cover.THE PERHAPANAUTS: MOLLY’S STORY (ONE-SHOT)

story TODD DEZAGO & SCOTT WEINSTEIN
art & cover JASON COPLAND
flip cover CRAIG ROUSSEAU
FEBRUARY 17
32 PAGES/FC
$3.50

Finally it can be told! The story that everyone's been waiting for, as we reveal the tragic tale of the Perhapanauts’ resident ghost – Molly MacAllister– and how she came to be!
Stand alone story! You don't need to know any continuity or anything!

Crackity Jones

click the running man to see him bigger

Here are a few more panels from the UFO story, Life Is Funny, that writer Chris Beckett and I are doing for APE Entertainment. I have the thumbs up from Chris and my editor on the penciled pages and that means I'll be inking them as soon as I finish this post. And, um, I think I'm finished writing this post...

Guess I'd better get cracking!

In A Big Country

click the Bigfoot to see him Bigger

I was over at Todd Dezago's Perhapanauts blog and read the news that Perhapanauts #6 should be out on June 24. And even better news, Todd and Craig will have the issue available for purchase at Heroes Con, the weekend before that Wednesday! Sweet!

In honour of that event, I've done a drawing of one of my favorite Perhapanauts members, Big. I may give it a colour treatment... if I can find the time.

Night Fever

Work continues on the UFO story but I thought I'd give you another sketch that I've done in preparation for my collaboration with James Powell.

James is fleshing out the story at a fever pitch and I'm loving what he's come up with so far. This is just my first pass on the main character of our still unnamed "near future" project.

Let Me Entertain You

Here are a couple of panels from a short story I'm doing with Chris Beckett for a UFO anthology from APE Entertainment. Not sure when this will be out but I'll definitely keep you all in the loop as things develop.

Ten Years Gone

In keeping with the previous Friday's "blast from the past" post, I've scanned in a page I did almost 10 years ago. It contains a couple of super hero characters of mine that I fully intend to do something with... one day.

Distant Early Warning

Putting together a new project with writer/editor/pal James Powell. It's still in the very early stages but James and I are excited to finally get the chance to collaborate on something together. This image is not of anything in particular, I'm just trying to get a feel for the drawing and colouring style that we are going to go with for this story.

History Will Teach Us Nothing

I flirted with sequential comic art at a semi early age. A friend and I had just got into collecting comics and decided it would be cool to do our own superhero book. We dubbed the cast of misfits, The Safekeepers, and history was made. The series lasted a full 22 page issue. On a cliffhanger, in fact. Here is the full colour cover from that historic first (and last) issue!

Art by a 14 year old me (then Jason "Bosson") and co-created with a then 12 year old Matt Stockbrocks.

Fear of Pop

And here it is, the last page of the Braids of the Gorgon pitch. My thanks go out to Rico Renzi, colourist of the Perhapanauts, for his guidance and time. He shared a few tricks of the colouring trade with me and really helped me make this last page sing. Thanks, Rico!

Eyes Without a Face

Here are a couple of penciled panels from a page I'm currently working on. It's from a script by writer Kel Nuttall. This particular script is a one shot story based on his creation, Nothingface.

Nothingface was released as a graphic novel from Digital Webbing with art by Yildiray Cinar. It rocked. Since reading it, Kel and I have been trying to match up our schedules so we can tell another NF tale. I still don't have the time to do the bigger story Kel had suggested we do, but I have found some time to work on the smaller one shot script. Depending on the timing of things and this may yet happen. But for now, I'm just working through the script as time allows.

Western Hero

Here's a couple of character sketches I did for a possible anthology gig. It's a western themed book, so that's cool. As I wait for word on this, I'm starting to work on some pages for a friend. More on those... soon.

Diary Of A Madman

I thought I'd do a post about my process for coming up with the new cover for our Braids Of The Gorgon pitch. A visual diary, of sorts. I know I dig these kinds of things when I see them on other artists' blogs. Are you seated comfortably? Then we shall begin... Step 1.
This is the first ink sketch I did as I started to get a sense of what I wanted on the cover. I did a loose drawing in pencil and then just let the pen and brush do the rest of the drawing. I was pretty happy with this, hand/temple roof tangents aside. I did up some simple colours for it and shipped it off to James and Ken for their reactions.Step 2.
One of the things that James suggested I change was the placement of our resident Gorgon and place her behind the temple. I did a few quick sketches to see how that would look and thought it was an interesting idea. Step 3.
I felt the emphasis was too much on the architecture (something I love to draw) and made it smaller and had the Gorgon more prominent and more "gorgon-like". I decided that a logo placed on the bottom of the cover was probably not the best place to have it. Instead, I pushed the whole image down and left more room at the top for the logo. I was also flirting with the idea of adding some figures, like Damara and Perseus, in the foreground but decided that it was looking forced and taking away from the narrative of the image.Step 4.
I then picked up my brush, grabbed my cup of ink and did this. No pencil drawing, just ink and all the happy mistakes that can happen. I dug this drawing and sent it off to the Braids crew (Ken and James). I waited breathlessly to hear their reaction. Well, maybe not breathlessly...Step 5.
It was suggested that I try and open the Gorgon up for a tad more detail and to maybe put a hand coming forward to give it more tension. All great suggestions, so off I went to my drawing table and redrew the image. Again, no pencil drawing first. All ink, baby! I was jazzed with this and decided to throw some colour over it.Step 6.
With colour applied and the Braids logo (designed by Avi Goldberg) in place, I sent this off to Ken and James. And, what do you know? They liked it as it was! Cover complete!

Hope you dug that! See you on Friday!

I Dig A Pony

Let's talk comics for a second, shall we?

I've noticed that I haven't given a shout out to any of the swell comic titles I've been enjoying for quite some time. I've cut down on the number of books I follow but here's a quick list of some of them I've been diggin':

The Perhapanuats - by Todd Dezago, Craig Rousseau and Rico Renzi
I've dug this title since the first Dark Horse mini series from a few years ago. The book got a second mini series arc at DH before it went into limbo for a while. But good news was announced recently that it found a home at Image Comics and will be an ongoing series! The first issue of the ongoing title is out at your comic shops right now and it is excellent! And it has a Art Adams cover variant, too!!

Walking Dead - Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
Another book I've been following since it's inception. Always entertaining. And moving at a mind numbing speed. No one is safe in this book.

Robotika - Alex Sheikman
I love love love Alex's book. The second Robotika series is named "For a Few Rubles More" and the first issue was full of amazing art. Alex is really pushing his layouts and pacing in some way innovative ways. The book has hit a production bump (no fault of Alex) but the second book should be coming out very soon!

Dynamo 5 - Jay Faerber and Mahmud A. Asrar
I don't usually read superhero related comics these days (a few of you know my stance on that), but Dynamo 5 seems to make all the right moves to keep me interested. It helps that I really love Asrar's art.... but major props to Faerber, too, he's got something good here.

Therefore Repent! - Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam
"a post-Rapture graphic novel" is how the book is described on its' cover. Having almost zero connection to religion in my personal history, I admit that parts of this book went directly over my head... but I caught more than enough to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Plus, the art by Sam is top notch.

5 - Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis Lolos, and Rafael Grampa
I picked this up at SDCC last year and was blown away by the beautiful art. The stories are short but entertaining. This book is one of the books POSTCARDS is up against in the 2008 Best Anthology category in this year's Eisner Awards.

Midnight Creeper

click to see larger

As you may or may not know, I'm a big fan of Digital Webbing, a.k.a. the House That Ed Built. So, when I saw that Mr Dukeshire was looking for people to advertise in the back pages of one of DW's flagship books, Fist Of Justice, I decided to throw away my usual inability to promote myself and whipped up a decidedly creepy ad(above) for this very blog that you are currently reading! The ad will run in the second and third issues of Fist of Justice, so head out to your local retailer (or online retailer) and order up a copy!

It's guaranteed to be a collector's item!

Ain't It Fun

Click to see it larger.

Doing a small 2 pager for a fellow Canadian, a writer named Dino Caruso. Here is a page of sketches that I did to work out a few of the panels. It's a fun little tale that is set in a pizzeria.

America, F**k Yeah!

I just read this at Newsarama:

September will see an Absolute Edition of Frank Miller’s Ronin, which was originally published from 1983-1984. The timing places the six issue miniseries after Miller’s initial run on Daredevil (but before “Born Again”) and before The Dark Knight. The story spans centuries, starting in feudal Japan where a young ronin sought to avenge his former master who was slain by a demon. The ronin was successful, but was trapped in a curse the demon uttered with its dying breath that linked the two. Centuries later, in a New York overrun by the bio-engineered Aquarius Complex, a boy begins to have dreams about an ancient ronin warrior, and the complex is invaded by an unstoppable terror – the two enemies live again.

F**k Yeah!!!!!

I'd Rather Go Blind

There are probably only 2 or 3 superhero characters that I would ever see myself drawing for any prolonged amount of time. Daredevil is definitely one of those 2 or 3.