Hey, Gregory!

Lunchtime Sketch: SHAZAM

2012-02-29T06:32:00.000-08:00

Love me some Captain Marvel. Always have. I think it was Alan Davis who added the outline to the lightning bolt and that would be within the last ten years.

I was able to watch the live-action show on CBS Saturday mornings, and I ate it up.

When I tied a towel around my neck, I wasn't Superman. I was Captain Marvel.This was last week, by the way.

Sketch done in a Canson Mixed Media 9x12 sketchbook with a 2H pencil.

Lunchtime Sketch: Batman

2012-02-27T06:25:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of making a regular thing out of cranking out a sketch during a workday lunch break.

The head took on an odd anime look. Maybe it's the cut of the mask, maybe the shape of the head. I look at his face, and I see Zoltar from Battle of the Planets.

I wanted an intentional-looking composition by cutting off the figure. The cape was extended to make clear it was a cape and not simply background noise.

This was done in a Canson mixed media sketchbook (9x12) with a 2h pencil.

Aquaman

2012-02-16T06:41:00.000-08:00

I have not abandoned you, Gregory Groupies. I am chained to the drawing board/kitchen table, pounding out pages for the next installment of the Focus/eMMA comics. It's biggish and virtually all fight scenes. I'm playing with more money shots then the previous issues -- big panels of grand imagery and rough'n'tumble fisticuffs. I'm close to scanning and posting examples of my page pencils. Stay tuned.

I also just sent in my table reservation form for HeroesCon, and announcements of more Robot Wonderboy offerings are coming soon.

In the meantime, have a slice of Aquaman, starring once again in an eponymous comic series. Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis have made him interesting, lighter in tone and focused on his identity. The first issue does a fine job of defusing all the Aquaman jokes and launching him as a valid superhero.

The White Queen and The Purple Alien

2012-01-31T07:10:00.000-08:00

A while back, I talked about a Christmas card made for Pat Loika, comic advocate and swell fella. Here's his site.

This is Thanos. He loves him some Thanos.

It's become a tradition. He makes roughly a bazillion cards for friends and acquaintances, and this year he sent out more than 70 of them. That deserves to be written out. SEVENTY. Knowing my love of GI Joe and rasslin, he sent me this:

Trust me. This is hi-LAR-ious.

Around the time I was making his card, I was informed that a group within the Loika Legion was compiling an artbook for him for Christmas. I jumped on it. Of course, our hero likes Thanos, but a look at his online photo albums shows he also likes Emma Frost, The White Queen from X-Men. She was in X-Men: First Class (and technically in the Wolverine movie; the rescued mutant who turns to diamond? That's her.). Pat will often request Thanos or Emma as commissions from the top artists in the biz, and I figured a piece that included both would be to his liking, even if the final product stunk a stinky stank.

The image idea came pretty quickly. Emma likes baubles. Thanos pursues a glove covered in gems. The connection was too good to pass up, and I liked the notion of petite, alabaster Emma slamming down a cosmic bad guy just for some shiny rocks.

Comic debate: Could she do it? Emma has developed into a powerful telepath, and her initial villainous brutality has given way to a more disciplined mind power as she's become a hero. She can't simply brain slam everybody anymore. She proved she can be apply therapeutic techniques to strip away inner demons. By expanding her abilities to more delicate brain maneuvers, she's arguably become more powerful. More focused, at least. (And speaking of "focus" and "Emma," BUY MY COMICS.)

So maybe, a White Queen who finds herself working alongside Professor Xavier, the most powerful telepath on Earth, and sometimes head-to-powerful-head with Jean Grey, potentially the most powerful telepath in the universe, let her glom a thing or two. But would that allow her to brain blast a cosmic alien guy obsessed with death and dominion? I gotta give her a definite "maybe." It's not an impossibility anymore. And that gave me the foundation to pursue the art. Do I overthink this? Did I just ask if I overthink this? Isn't that overthinking the overthink? Methinks so.

And off we went. I drew the pencils in a sketchbook and went straight to inks with Micron pens.

For whatever reason, I just didn't like her head. Seemed off. I originally had the head tilted back more, looking down her nose figuratively and literally, and that angle was diluted in the inking. So I drew and pasted in a new head.

Looked good in pencils, lost its charm in the inking. I drew a third head and pasted that into the card.

But that didn't work for me either. I drew yet another head, but the bangs and the lips ... nah. Not good.

So I went back to the original head and slapped in the color.

This is the Photoshop color layer. It almost works alone without the inks.

I made the text balloon in Illustrator and pasted it into the Photoshop ink/color file and felt pretty good about it.

Then I looked at the image again and realized something horrible: I couldn't remember ever seeing anyone wear the Infinity Gauntlet on their right hand. I was about to send a fresh slab of failure to the one guy out of all my acquaintances who would know immediately that this was wrong. Crap.

But then I realized that I could simply flip the art in Photoshop. As Doom says,"SCIENCE! WHAT A BOON TO VILLAINY THOU ART!"

Buttons pressed, image flipped and saved, and the card was printed and mailed to the Project Pat head honchos. Pat got the art book this week and seems very happy with it. You can see all the book artwork here.

I'm glad to have been invited. I'm glad the notion felt fun. And I'm glad Pat likes it. This was a Good Thing all around.

Little Hulk on the Prairie

2012-01-20T07:17:00.000-08:00

After decades of denying Little House, (I'm old enough to remember it airing Sunday nights on NBC), I have been converted to the show via my wife, The Countess. If you ever get a chance to see her early school pictures, you'll notice an uncanny resemblance to Half-Pint.When we honeymooned in Atlanta, we would return to our B&B after sightseeing and watch catch a marathon airing of the series. Her sly plan to expose me longterm to small increments has built up my immunity to the show, and now I happily put it on as background noise.

A few weeks back, I commented on Twitter (@GregoryDraws) about our recent upgrade to a 1080p TV connection:

Little House on the Prairie looks glorious in 1080p. Even Nellie (You heard me, Oleson). Oh poop pickles! Typhus in Walnut Grove! #burnitall

I got replies from two (two!) Nellie Oleson accounts.

Wednesday, I posted this:

On Little House right now, Caroline & Mary are at a math contest. Laura can't run the house, becomes enraged, turns into Hulk-Pint.

And that sparked this one-page comic:

You never know where ideas will come from.

Bossk Office: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2012-01-09T07:43:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentleman, I am not a qualified film reviewer. I know that I like and what gives me the icks. I have the critical mind of yogurt. Thankfully, I have found the perfect twosome to hash out the strength and weaknesses of movies, the 1980s and 2000s toy versions of a bounty hunter from Empire Strikes Back.

Folks, this is Bossk Office.

Chipper Bossk: I'm almost afraid to ask you what you liked most about Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Surly Bossk: I'm not ashamed to say I liked the movie.

Chipper Bossk: It's not a film that one usually says "they like." It's a hard-R adult thriller set in a brutal environment, both in terms of the climate and the human cruelty on display. The film ends with a golden street light that provides no warmth, only illumination. That fits the movie to a T, but it's not what the typical American movie audience is conditioned to like.

Surly Bossk: Three words about this film: Interesting people thinking. That's the movie. But the dark elements, for many, mean it's not an "entertaining" movie.

Chipper Bossk: No, I didn't enjoy it, but I -- Oh, I know. I appreciated it. Most of it, anyway.

Surly Bossk: Dish.

Chipper Bossk: This is obviously based on a book as there is a level of consideration we normally wouldn't get in a movie thriller: the way Daniel Craig's glasses hang under his chin, the title character's diet. In a typical movie, these things would be discussed for easy filler dialogue. Here, they just happen, and they reveal character. I appreciate that. But the movie also has flaws.

Surly Bossk: Like the central mystery.

Chipper Bossk: I wonder about this. Again, for the American audience, the mystery is rife with cliches because we are swamped by serial-killer mythologies. We have weekly TV shows -- dramas and documentaries -- devoted to method killing. This book is almost ten years old. It can't bring much new to our cultural buffet table. I think the movie makers decided to deal with it as if they are covering a classic song. Not to reinvent, but to refine. The presentation of the mystery details and the dramatic exposition are technically precise and good. But the lyrics to this song are dated.

Surly Bossk: The monologuing is almost embarrassing.

Chipper Bossk: Man, that hurts the film.

Surly Bossk: I'm glad the movie continues beyond the mystery.

Chipper Bossk: Yes, and that emphasizes the characters. We really need to break down the film into three elements:
1) The mystery.

Surly Bossk: Dud.

Chipper Bossk: Agreed. 2) The characters. This is the reason to see the movie. These are better than what we normally get for the cost of a movie ticket. I'm curious about them. I happily follow them throughout the film. And they don't pander to us. They move forward by necessity and curiosity. They are driven.

Surly Bossk: Especially her. When she gets a plan, she's moves like a bullet.

Chipper Bossk: They do a good job making her superlative but credible.I do wonder how Craig's character is described in the book. He doesn't act like James Bond, but here he obviously looks like him. That sometimes hurts the film.

Surly Bossk: But Craig isn't acting like Bond.

Chipper Bossk: No, he's not. Both actors are really good here. Everyone is, really. It's a superior film as craft.

Surly Bossk: But let's be honest: The story is pulp.

Chipper Bossk: Utter pulp. And that gives us the third element to consider: 3) The story. This is noir. Straight up. Call it Nordic noir if you want, but this is hard-boiled mid-century American pulp noir -- Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and Richard Stark. It just happens to be in modern Sweden featuring a girl with some awesome earrings. And for folks who don't know noir and expect a typical Hollywood tidy story, they won't "like" the film either. This uses a language they don't understand.

Surly Bossk: Well, we like noir. And so we like this film.

Chipper Bossk: As much as one can like something so harsh and dark. Which can also be said about the title character too, I s'pose.

Go Buy My Shirts

2012-01-06T11:03:00.000-08:00

If'n you go to GalleryMIA in Asheville, NC (or visit their website after they revamp it and add my stuff), you will find shirts with my art on them. I walked into the store today and There. They. Are.

Here's how I made the above artwork.

I've waited years and years for that Buddha/Shiva mugs art to get on a shirt. I spent weeks drawing it for a prospective client only to be told by that it looked like I stole it from the Internet. I took that to mean it's too good for an artist to whom we plan to pay so little. It's simmered in my art folder ever since.

I have a Groupon for that store, but it's bad form to use a coupon to buy your own work. Isn't it?

More art and shirts to follow in weeks to come.

Thanos for Christmas

2011-12-28T12:18:00.000-08:00

Maybe you know of the Loika.

Pat Loika is a tireless advocate for comics and a host of a comics-centered podcast with creator interviews and a participant on another for pro wrestling. He loves comics above all, and he's one of the best cheerleaders for the medium and comics community. He does the con circuit. He makes his own comics. He has nurtured a reputation among fans and creators.

And he draws cards for Christmas. Here's the 2011 set. I'm counting 75 images. That's madness. it's incredible kindness. That's Pat.

Once I got on his card list, I decided the least I could do is return the favor. This year's card features Thanos, one of the characters he regularly requests for commissions.

I took a reference picture after my hand sketches looked, well, sketchy. I knew I wanted an image close to this cover:

But it was gonna be a close-up.

The pencils and original inks on the left, and the cleaner ink version on the right.

I used color markers (badly, weakly) and sent the image off to Pat last week. I didn't wanna post it until he got it in the mail.

Here's to Pat.

The Women of 80TEAM80

2011-12-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I blanked on female members for the team during that podcast. I should have veered in that direction before I considered Turbo Teen, for crying out loud.

So here are the ladies.

I knew I would be asked about Cheetara's absence, and I can only say that I have no attachment to Thundercats. I would have added Teela first anyway, but we already had He-Man. That knocked out She-Ra too.

You may be interested to see that Diana was originally going to be Sheila, the redheaded thief from the same cartoon. In fact, she was my first choice before I did some research and remembered that she had very little to add aside from her cloak of invisibility, and the ninja skills of Snake-Eyes takes care of stealthiness. Also, the pose I was giving her was headed into Adam Hughes cheesecake territory, and that also made me question why I was adding her to the team.

Because Diana is an Olympic-class gymnast, she needed to be the smaller of the group, and that changed the camera placement for the image. Here are the full-size pencils, before I traced the image to ink. I never got a handle on Firestar's right foot. It taunts me.

80TEAM80

2011-12-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

The annual Sarcastic Voyage year-end specials are called Clusterflonks (named after an online collaborator) and feature questions supplied by listeners. I submitted a high-falutin' art history question, thus obliging me to field someone else's question. I was not-so-randomly given a question based on a mental exercise from a few months back: Who should comprise 1970s League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen? I think I picked The Bandit, Sybil, Regan from The Exorcist, Michael Corleone, and the Six Million Dollar Man. It's been a while, and Twitter won't show me tweets from that far back.

Because of that notion, I was assigned this question for the podcast: assemble a 1980s cartoon supergroup.

The dog, of course, is the leader. Snake Eyes is his enforcer, and He-Man is the party monster.

I couldn't come up with any women at the time, and the drawing represents my answer for the show. Now, I'd add either Firestar (Spider-Man's amazing friend), Jem, or Sheila the thief from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.

The Process of Podunk

2011-12-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

As I noodled through ideas for the t-shirt shop, I dusted off some art from my college days, including a doodle of a '50s giant-monster movie. My monster would be an entire town, not as individual zombie/mutants on the shuffling prowl, but as a collective creature: Podunk, The Town That Walked Like A Man.

When the Wide Awake folks asked me to contribute for a horror anthology, I made a four-part Podunk story.

It was over-thought and under-drawn, and I always wanted to revisit it. But hero comics bumped it to the bench. The idea of the Podunk movie poster stuck with me as a viable image, however, and I thought it could work for the t-shirt, especially given our many small towns.

Using the basic image I drew years ago (and seem to have misplaced), I kept in mind the screenprint color limits and simplified the colors. I played with color separations and foreground design to sell Podunk's size.

And then I thought I could make it simpler and better sell the menace and scale. As I strolled through Barnes & Noble on a lunch break, I saw this cover.

This is a loving homage to Saul Bass, a design genius who made some of the best movie posters in the '60s. I Googled a batch sample to keep in my peripheral vision as I drew. I had swiped the basic design of the second poster on the top row for a MetroBEAT cover years back.

I sketched a basic design in Illustrator.

I then created color segments. I wanted the buildings to be asymmetric and wonky to suggest anxiety. Also the colors would be uncomfortably bright in this context instead of happy and sunny. The white lines in the red blocks would underscore the tension and help break up the giant white monster silhouette. I got rid of the mountains behind him, leaving him the largest item.

Then there was the question of how the text and where to run it. That big building block seemed like a good fit. I added black to lock the buildings in the foreground and help the text jump out.

I decided to stretch the arms higher to make as fearsome a profile as practical.

And that's when I thought I should full vertical with the design to REALLY push the size of Podunk.

I squeezed the white lines to mirror Podunk's profile in perspective, made the name equally as towering, and changed up the building layout. That seemed pretty good for an experiment of style.

And then I considered a scene away from the city and how a change of color might affect the poster's tone.

Our guy now became contemplative of his place in the world, reminding me of DC Comics' Swamp Thing, a man-monster who doesn't seem to fit anywhere. What if this guy is the backwoods Godzilla, a spirit of the mountains who balances the egregious threats to the area? Not an eco-warrior but a monster fighter and a way to play with mountain legends and myths. That story might have a poster like these:

I like the distinctions, even as they stay within the same style inspiration. And when I finally put his story down, I'll have a choice as to which tact to take. I like the idea now of a flipbook with both stories getting some play.

Now let's see if the t-shirt shop will bite.

Skate Girl

2011-12-09T09:58:00.000-08:00

Still making t-shirt art proposals (even though that shop has yet to respond to my emails and calls), and I'm at a resting place with this one.

Might add some text, might add some motion lines. I dunno. But it's at a point where I'm gonna let it sit for now.

I took some reference pictures for the pose and drew it in Illustrator and colored it in Photoshop. I've had the idea of a luchadora skater ever since I heard Beck's "Qué Onda Guero." I wanted her to have the late '70s relaxed skate posture and clothing instead of a current style. I think the wheel color helps sell that.

UPDATE: I realized I needed to sell the '70s vibe more and decided to give it a title. This gal is my cloudy memory of the quintessential late '70s tomboy, the kinda gal who rejected the page haircut and Farrah makeup. I picked out Cooper, the popular iron-on font that was all over that decade, and angled it with a customized O design. I colored the rest, giving me a new resting point for the art.

Jesse Helms

2011-11-29T08:30:00.000-08:00

I recently signed a contract with a local t-shirt shop, and it sent me scrambling.

I wanted to submit material immediately to, if nothing else, show them what I had in mind. They signed my contract without seeing as much as a doddle, so I need to prove I'm serious about this. I dug through my old newspaper art to see what I could rework into a shirt design, and I found something that sparked an idea. But for that idea, I needed to make a new piece, and I decided it would be of longtime North Carolina Jesse Helms. I found an image and recreated it, Shepard Fairey style, in Adobe Illustrator.

Now, yes, Illustrator's Live Trace can accomplish much the same thing, but I find its results to be flat. And it feels like a cheat. I was doing this kind of spot-color recreation years before Illustrator provided the same style of artwork. I like making art this way -- color field by color field -- and I think the result is stronger than what Illustrator hands you when you click the mouse.

And here he is:

When I hear from the shirt shop (yea or nay), I'll post the final design that includes this work.

Finishing Spider-Girl

2011-11-11T05:34:00.000-08:00

I traced the original foreground and background layers onto one artboard with a lightbox and held my breath for a week, waiting for the mindless mistake that would make me start the final version all over again.

It came more than halfway through the inking. See that tallest building behind Spider-Girl? See the section under her left arm? I inked that full black. It was a flat block of black. As soon as I held the page at arm's length and looked at it, I knew I screwed up. And I had only two options: Start over or salvage in as efficient and clean a manner as I could imagine.

Instead of starting a new artboard, I decided to draw lines in white using acrylic paint. Because it would cover black ink, I knew it wouldn't be as bright a white as the uninked paper. But I could layer that paint, even though it might get bulky. It would accumulate like a stalagmite off the page, and that would be tricky for whatever framing her parents wanted.

So I put down the lines using my smallest acrylic brush and my beloved rolling ruler, making the lines as slim and straight as possible. When they dried (and they do quickly, even on day-old ink), I used the ruler and my thickest Micron pen on either side of the paint lines to cover it with ink, leaving white lines approximately as thin as the original black lines. That paint takes on a bluish hue over the black ink, but the lines are so small that the slight color helps sell the illusion of distance. I also used the paint to thicken the white border separating Spider-Girl from the background, making her pop forward more.

There are still some things I'd like to change, but I think it came out well. It's clean, and I like the variety and arrangement of the buildings. I think I managed to use her requested spider-pose well. I tilted the background intentionally to balance the pose and create a sense of movement, and I left the space over the buildings blank as a negative-space balance. Had I drawn clouds, I would have reached for my .005 Micron, a pen whose nib could split atoms.

I hope they like it.

And now onto the next piece.

Starting Spider-Girl

2011-11-07T07:08:00.000-08:00

A couple of friends requested artwork of their oldest daughter in a tweaked Spider-Man costume. "Does she want one of the Spider-Woman/Girl costumes?" No, they said. Spider-Man. She even has her own Spider-Man pose.

I made some reference images as I played with composition, but they didn't work well on the page.

After a couple of false starts, I drew a full image on one piece of board, and then split the foreground and background onto separate pieces.

This let me finesse each component and find my mistakes before making a final drawing. The building reflections worked better in the pencil sketch. When I played loose with them on the background ink, the illusion failed. When I'm ready to move to the final artboard, I can move around the figure for the best placement over the buildings and then add black reflections based on the figure's black areas. I want the background to be noticeable but stay back; it shouldn't compete with the figure.

I've also, since these scans, fixed the torso webs and redrawn her curly hair.

I showed them the figure image a few weekends back, and they seemed happy with it. I can move forward with a scoash more confidence.

Hellraiser

2011-10-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

God bless British horror.

I read a lot of Clive Barker alongside my Stephen King and Lovecraft, and I was a fan of the Books of Blood anthologies. I was slightly obsessed with Cabal, later adapted as Nightbreed, and its parade of outcast monsters. It was the horror version of X-Men, guaranteeing I would be all over it.

Hellrasier was a fine horror franchise alongside Nightmare On Elm Street or Phantasm. The Cenobites were fascinating as a subclass of demons, middle managers of Hell, slightly bored with the jobs at which they excel. The first two films remain nice dark horror films with as much atmosphere and suspense as gore. Marvel published a fine spin-off series about the Cenobites and those who stumble upon the puzzle box that summons them.

The Mist

2011-10-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

I waited more than 20 years to see this film.

I first read Stephen King's Skeleton Crew, an anthology that lead off with 'The Mist,' when I was at most a high-school freshman. My Mom got me stared on his works when handed me a copy of Night Shift from the library; she didn't care for it. She must have noticed my interest in UFOs and ghosts and "real" monsters and figured the King stories couldn't be any worse than the same three books I religiously borrowed from the school library.

'The Mist' is the longest work in Crew, benefiting from the extended format but eliminating tangents to stick with the premise: a fog enshrouds a small Maine town, trapping our characters in a grocery store, and monstrous things are emerge. Great story, great ending, ill-fitting sex scene seemingly tossed in to attract publishers. I avoided the audiobook (advertised in a 3D audio format) because I assumed it wouldn't match my internal version of the novella.

But when I heard of the movie, I was immediately curious, and I happily followed the vague backstage diaries posted at Ain't It Cool News. Matt Drudge, ever the dick, ruined the ending on his website, but I went anyway, curious how the film story would go where the novella didn't. I like it, I admit, because, without spoiling it the movie, the new ending is scarier for its implications. King himself said he would have used that ending had he thought of it. But I like King's original ending; it was the right kind of ending teenage me could accept.

My favorite mental image from those reads is the encounter with the giant monster, something so big that they people in the car could only see its legs stretching skyward until the fog enveloped them. The movie gives us a slightly different version of that scene, and I decided to mix the two. This image makes the big monster bigger but still visible to the passengers.

If you get the chance, watch the black/white version of the film. It's better.

I hadn't used hatching to this degree in years. We were discouraged from using it in my university art classes, and this style is a nod to the kind of technique I would have used it had I drew the scene back when I first read the story.

Prince of Darkness

2011-10-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a jaded horror fan. I go into films with a half hope, but only half, that the film is gonna get me. It will unnerve me or jolt me or surprise me. It's that way with all types of movies, right? We don't want the movie to take the safe, predictable path. We want to see something new.

But that in itself isn't the highest measure of success. What I really love is when a scene, no longer new, continues to jolt upon repeated viewings. When you know what's gonna happen, and it still gets you, that's the blue-ribbon moment. And when that happens in a horror film, I think that's the highest mark in cinema, honestly. Those films are constructed to spook you, but 90% of those scares diffuse over time. But the other 100%, we horror fans treasure because of their rarity.

So it is with Prince of Darkness. Now it's not perfect. The film drags in spots. But the story is secondary to the visuals, and it's there that the filmmakers go all in. Essentially, it's a haunted-house movie: The people can't escape, and the danger is growing. In a small church sits a large cylinder, a prison for Satan, and it's weakening. A group of scholars is whittled away as the devil's influence seeps free, and doom with a capital D sets in.

What really gets me are the dream sequences. In the film, the scholars nod off and suffer a shared dream that's actually a time-shunted video from the future: Satan has escaped, and he's about to bring the thunder. It's a simple set piece -- a figure silhouetted in a doorway -- but director John Carpenter makes it work thanks to the "found footage" conceit. This presages quite a bit of modern horror/thrillers like Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, and the first alien scene in Signs. When Prince of Darkness was released (1987), home video was just starting to became affordable to everyone, and the audiences recognized what a first-person video moment looked like. More than 20 years later, this recurring scene gets me each time. And there's a significant alteration at the film's end that makes it all the creepier.

Legion/Exorcist 3

2011-10-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

Despite the curse of a roman numeral title, Exorcist 3 is a great horror film.It contains a scene that never fails to spook me.

It should have been titled, at worst, Exorcist 2, but that was used for a studio-penned sequel for the film based on William Peter Blatty's novel. Blatty eventually wrote a true sequel titled Legion, a title that should have followed the book to the screen.

Fans of the original book and film will remember Lt. Kinderman, the detective investigating the death of the drunken director friend of the possessed girl's mother. In Legion, Kinderman is the main character, now pursuing a string of deaths seemingly related to a serial killer killed more than a decade ago. That search takes him to the psychiatric wing of the local hospital, and what he finds in a padded room dramatically alters the investigation and his burgeoning theory of the universe, a cosmology that can make sense of a fallen world.

I won't spoil it for you, but Exorcist fans will recognize the mysterious patient as quickly as Kinderman.

Did you know cartoon "surprise" effects cast shadows? Neither did I.

From Beyond

2011-10-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

This one may not be as familiar. I'll explain.

Right after the success of his Re-Animator adaptation, writer/director Stuart Gordon was asked to pursue another HP Lovecraft film. From Beyond was chosen. Unlike the Re-Animator stories, From Beyond is maybe five pages long. The gist makes it to the screen though:

In the story, the unnamed narrator explains how his friend built a machine called the resonator that expands our perception of the spectrum. It also breaks down dimensional barriers, and creatures cross over. People disappear, the inventor dies, and the narrator is driven insane. The end.

In the movie, all that happens before the opening credits: machine, creatures, death, institution. From there we get a story of fetishism, liberation, addiction, and monsters. Turns out the creator wasn't killed despite his head going missing. Instead, he merged with the monster that chomped his brains, and he's developing control of the resonator "from beyond." When it's on, he and his menagerie can cross over to call dibs on a planetwide brain buffet. This goes to the core of Lovecraft mythology: man discovers he's nothing compared to the violent mysteries of the universe.

So today's image is of the inventor as he again crosses over. Each time he does, he loses more of his humanity, and his appearance mixes with that of the giant bug that ate him (designed by comics legend Neal Adams and inspired heavily by William Blake's Red Dragon, yes, the same creation used for the Thomas Harris book and films).

Our heroes get the double whammy of seeing his incremental distortions along with their own dissolving sense of reality. It's a fun movie. Very gory, but not so much bloody. Not for kids though. Tuck them in first.

Warming Up

2011-10-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

As of yesterday, I finished the initial thumbnails for next year's comic. Currently, it will only be one comic but will closely tie in to the previous Focus/eMMA comics. It'll be bigger in size and action, a big blowout episode. The script thumbs out at at least 33 pages, and that might expand as I inflate the fight scenes. The little scenes, I mean; the whole comic is practically a fight scene.

These are the thumbs, sketched on the 7x10 paper, making each page sketch about 2 x 1.5 inches. I want to check panel layout, camera movement, and beats. Make sure my characters hit their marks.

The script will need tweaks, the first of many all the way up until the book is sent to the printer. The recent theme artwork has my drawing brain segment confident I can draw whatever the writer brain segment has cooked up.

The first scene of the book came to me as I mowed my lawn a few weeks after I attended an open house at the local fitness center. It's also dedicated to two longtime friends of mine who teach fitness courses. So I need to get those pages right or they'll make me workout until my joints pop off.

And now that I look at the pages above, the comic doesn't seem that big at all. I think I'll tightly choreograph the fight scenes and stretch them out.

Jason Voorhees

2011-10-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

Admission: I'm really digging this new sketchpad size.

Confession: I have not seen a Friday the 13th film.

Declaration: I'm OK with that.

Still, I thought this turned out really well.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

2011-10-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

I don't remember when I saw this guy first. Was it the books on monster movies I read obsessively as a boy or was it when the local NBC affiliate aired it as a 3D movie (and we had to buy glasses at the local convenience stores, and I still couldn't use them because of my bad eyes)? Either way, I was young, and this was one of the first monsters I knew as a movie monster instead of a creation from books that were adapted into films. That seemed to make him distinct, less real. And as I didn't live around big bodies of water, I wasn't afraid of him.

Great design. Not a great boogeyman.

The Fly

2011-10-07T05:47:00.000-07:00

"Oh sure, being half-man, half-fly has its downside. I mean, lookit my hand. I can't wear proper oven mitts when I bake my cookies. I can't wear that hat my Nana knitted me when I was 14. And I loved that hat. That hat and me have seen some crazy times, you know. Crazy times. I also can hear the neighbors breathe, and that gets old right quick.

But, hey, I can walk on walls. I can eat as much sugar as I want, and I, frankly, never knew poo tasted so good. You should try it. It goes great with this '87 Sangiovese. Remember when you had to only eat certain food with red or white? Listen, Sangiovese goes with e'reythang, let me tell you. But it makes poo sparkle. Sparkle. I'm spoiled. I won't go back to chardonnay. Just won't."

Sharing Is Caring: Kill Bill 2 Deleted Scene

2011-10-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

Found this on Grantland, ESPN"s spinoff clubhouse for Bill Simmons and friends. This is from the DVD for Kill Bill Vol. 2, which I don't have as I, along with a lot of the films' fans, am waiting for the ultimate combined cut of the two films. Also, a commentary track would be nice.

I can see why the scene was cut, as it feels slow and never quite achieves the cool for which it strives, but it's validated completely by Uma's face at the very end.

For those of us who never quite bought her attraction to Bill, this scene explains it and does so without words. It's very similar to Rosario Dawson's moment in Death Proof when her character shifts from terrified to calm to delighted in the space of six seconds. One of my favorite moments in film. I always liked Dawson. This made me love her.

Sharing Is Caring: Coriolanus

2011-10-03T12:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a film I just learned of today, a new Shakespeare adaptation directed by first-timer Ralph Fiennes.

I find him fascinating. Clearly a thinking actor, he's played a remarkable range of roles including Voldemort (the clear hero of the Harry Potter series), Francis Dolarhyde, Amon Goeth, and John Steed. He's also played opposite Jennifer Lopez and Wallace & Gromit. I cannot help watching him no matter the scene or the co-star. He is magnetic, and I'm not surprised a person of his apparent consideration has tried his hand at directing.

Dracula

2011-10-03T06:08:00.000-07:00

The first of our Spooky Monsters of Spooky Spookiness. And it's the Big Daddy: Dracula. I went with the vampire described in the Stoke novel instead of the Lugosi template.

As with most of what I'm posting here, this was an experiment of design, and it's pretty much what I had in mind. I'm clearly veering away from sketches and into (quasi)polished works, and that's gonna force me to be more exacting in design and execution. Still, this is fun stuff, and it teaches me what to avoid or repeat as I tackle the next comic.

Tigra

2011-09-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

This is the the last of the short Marvel Ladies theme. This is Tigra, the cat lady hero person, who you have to think influenced the design of DC's Starfire, another orange heroine with green eyes who fights in a bikini.

Next week, we start the October theme: Spooky Monsters of Spooky Spookiness.

Ms. Marvel

2011-09-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

She's an officer in the Air Force. She worked for NASA. She's an Avenger. Can we drop the "Ms." now? Any reason why she can't be Captain Marvel?

I'm also hoping for an explanation of the stylized S/lightning bolt on her costume? I was prepared for some sort of connection to Sentry to be revealed in Marvel's Seige miniseries.

I first read the character in X-Men when she was depowered after tangling with Rogue. We older readers will remember Rogue was constantly tortured as the Danvers personality fought for dominance. That's why she went running to the X-Men for help, beginning a continuing theme of villain redemption through membership.

I almost cheated here and added stars digitally.

Oktoberfiesta

2011-09-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

A few years back, for my brilliant sister-in-law in med school, I drew a bierfrau for a fundraiser. Originally the image had an agency logo on the pitcher in her right hand. That's why it's so prominent in the artwork. Bier gardens make for popular fundraisers, and this lady has been dusted off a few times. When used a second time, we removed the agency logo, and we e recycled the image again this year, with small tweaks, for a special Tex-Mex Oktoberfest fundraiser.

Come on, chili in October? That's when you need it. And what goes better with chili than German beer or local microbrews?

That's right: Bierfraus.

Dark Phoenix

2011-09-23T06:06:00.000-07:00

I wanted to avoid what I considered the standard Phoenix poses: pointing at the viewer or hip cocked out like Ke$ha or frenzied with malice. I had an idea for a contained stance. Something to suggest she's less interested in the viewer, focused instead on whatever notions strike the cosmic superpowers.

I was pretty happy with the initial inking.

But on this side of the work, the expression seems flat, and the gloves lack color distinction from the bodysuit. Not thrilled with the sash either.

Still, we learn from sketches. I think the shading has some nice moments, but I'm still struggling with a cohesive inking veneer to the pencils. Small moves, Sparks.

She-Hulk

2011-09-21T06:12:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to see dividends in working at a larger size. It even inspires me to try backgrounds. BACKGROUNDS!

Still struggling with inking. The lines softened a bit; that front shoe looked much stronger in penciled form. But I added all the thick black spots on her arms and head and the car's undercarriage in the inking stage, and that didn't come out too badly. I'm encouraged.

Spider-Woman

2011-09-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

I'm still playing with the larger size of the new sketchpad and drawing styles. You can see how I somewhat flattened the hair for a strong design element. I wanted to better define the fingers but keep the bent leg simple and save myself the aggravation of a realistic contour. That's what I need overall: simpler, surrendering to design and energy.

Magic WheneverIfeelikeit: Scarlet Witch

2011-09-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

Here's the Scarlet Witch, the mentally unstable daughter of Magneto and brother to Quicksilver. She manipulates chaos magic to create unlikely events. She married a robot and magiked up a pair of twin babies she later learned were figments. Then she beset the Avengers, her teammates, with a slew of doomsday situations, destroying their mansion and necessitating a new team formation.

This is my first art in the new sketchbook which is supposedly suited for wet media -- heavier paper stock and all that -- but my Sharpie ink bled right through. I was playing around here with the new book dimensions. I didn't sketch out a composition before I started penciling, so the angle shoved her right of the page.

A Humble Recommendation

2011-09-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

If you feel you will not escape the 9/11 anniversary coverage this weekend, and you want to navigate toward material that will truly encourage and strengthen you -- as opposed to what the majority of media outlets will try to do -- check out Scott Raab's excellent series for Esquire as he delineates the efforts to build a practical and respectful new World Trade Center amid a storm of politics and sentiment.

Go on.

Thoughts on the Con

2011-09-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

So, yes, DragonCon 2011 was a fun time. The missus and I dressed again as GI Joe characters Shipwreck and Lady Jaye (as seen in this fine person's Flickr album). My pictures are here.

This is us in the parade. It was right nice. We couldn't help but smile the whole time.

Ruminations:
1) Lots of people. 45,000 people. Once you're in the common areas of the hotels, you shuffle only. You can't stride until you make it to a guest room hallway, connecting airwalk tube, or the street.

2) This makes courtesy and patience mandatory, not just preferred.

3) Which is a lesson the football fans could have used as they were checking out of our hotel Sunday morning. The very definition of white plight is your constant bemoaning of a 10-minute wait time in an air-conditioned lobby while the valets retrieve your car. Compare this to the wait times convention attendees endured for their favorite panels.

4) Speaking of patience, I applaud everyone for not clobbering that jerk street preacher deliberately provoking those headed to the parade Saturday morning. I missed that part of the gospels where Jesus yells at children.

5) And there were a number of children at the convention, which is good and bad. Good in that they get to see their favorite characters walking about. Good in that they made for a great parade audiences; seeing their faces as we yelled the name of their costumes as we walked by was a highlight of the trip. Bad in that the foot traffic was bad enough without adding strollers.

6) And you might argue, well what about people in wheelchairs or scooters? Far be it from me to deny those folks from attending. I complimented a guy in his Han Solo outfit as we headed back to our hotels for the night. Wheelchairs are necessary vehicles. Strollers ain't. I advocate keeping kids who need them out of the high-traffic areas. Take turns sitting with them in the hotel room or escorting them to local attractions with fewer people (by a factor of ten).

7) We left our boy at home with my mom. We thought about taking a 14-month-old to DragonCon before we sobered up.

8) Much thanks to the Hyatt Regency for spoiling those of us relocated to the Omni because of delayed renovations: free shuttle service, free Marta passes, a free night at the new place, and priority confirmation for next year's con. I had rooms for the 2012 convention at the 2011 rate four days before the con started.

9) If you find yourself at that Omni, skip the room service breakfast prices and walk to the CNN food court around the block. Also, consider getting lunch at Pittypat's Porch on the Andrew Young Boulevard. It's not far at all from the con, and the food is great. They were very friendly toward the convention folks.

10) The Android version of Google Maps gets a mite confused in the heart of downtown. But it was better than the scrunched and pixelated map in the official convention booklet. Our hotel gave out a downtown map, and we relied on that to get to the con and the parade.

11) If you haven't gonen to DragonCon, go. Go in costume. It's more fun that way. Join the party; don't just watch it.

DragonCon 2011 Pictures

2011-09-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

This is THE picture of the show.

Shipwreck and Shore Leave. Finally.

Thoughts to come later. Now, to bed. See all my pictures here.

Magic WheneverIfeelikeit: Deadman

2011-08-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

This is a drawing easily ten years old.

I found a site way back when that was devoted to Deadman (a Google search turns up nothing now), and it featured a gallery of artist renditions. I asked to join in, and I tried it as a painting originally. That failed hard. I moved to ink and brush and a lot of white paint. But by the time I submitted the piece, my clumsy efforts at communicating with the site's owner and my delay convinced the owner to pass. I instead posted it to a much earlier version of this website. Like I said, it was years and years ago.

So let's see this again.

Reference Photo, Aug. 29

2011-08-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

This idea is stolen outright from Stuart Immonen.

Friends of mine requested a drawing of their daughter in a Spider-Man costume, and I took pictures of her in her Spidey poses. They felt a little flat. Here, I'm adopting her pose and moving the position of the viewer for a better composition.

Coinkydink

2011-08-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

Not a week after posting my Etrigan sketch, I found An Etrigan toy at my local comic shop.

Nabbed.

Gone, gone
O, dignity.
I bought another
toy for me!

Sharing Is Caring: Irene from the ISS

2011-08-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

I'd buy extra grapes and Pepsi.

Magic WheneverIfeellikeit: The Demon

2011-08-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

Gone, gone,
O form of man.
Rise, the demon
Etrigan!

This guy needs to meet Hellboy. They need to share a stack of pancakes.

Magic Fortnight: Raven

2011-08-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

This started as a pose notion, and I was maybe halfway through before I realized I had done much the same angle and character with Sistah Spooky. Oh well.

Those arms are confusing, but I think the shading is coming along. Since she's a Teen Titan, I wanted her to have different proportions from someone in, say, Fully Grown Titans.

This leaves me with only two blank pages in the current notebook. Time to crack open a new one.

Magic Fortnight: Finishing Thor

2011-08-16T19:23:00.001-07:00

Done and done.

Yeah. I'm OK with this.

Magic Fortnight: Beginning Thor

2011-08-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

The first sketch is in my standard sketchbook size, and it seemed like an easy exercise in camera angles. But he now looks very squat. The foreshortening doesn't quite work. My thunder god is a Tolkein dwarf. Also, that head is a tad simian.

I made a new sketch with the same pose on the larger sketchbook, and I decided to do all the simple linework before doing any shading. Then I can add that incrementally and hopefully avoid the heavy-handed finishing that makes my work seem stiff and drab.

The feet look farther away, boosting that illusion of depth. And presumably he's now very, very tall.

Oh, and, hey, a background!

I'll post the finished work when it's, well, finished.

Magic Fortnight: Sistah Spooky

2011-08-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

Sistah Spooky is from Adam Warren's Empowered (link possibly NSFW), a comic I look to these days as I tweak my style. I don't want to ape Warren's work, but I can certainly learn to loosen my corpse-stiff linework. Also, I'm very tempted to print my comic direct from pencils.

Spooky is a minority high-school student trapped on a campus dominated by cruel cheesecake blondes. She discovers they each made a deal with a demon for physical perfection, and she wants in. She gets the same physical upgrade (in exchange for her soul), but the demon gives her too much mojo, and she goes into business as a bitter superheroine. She hates Empowered, another cheesecake blonde.

This is my first pass at a Spooky sketch, and I wasn't happy with the flat hand placement and the face. The arms should be bent more, forcing the hands higher and foreshortening the arms. You can see that I didn't finish it; that's Empowered herself on the top left.

I went with a pose that forced me to consider the cape and arms to balance the stance. I played a bit more with shading and highlights. It's progress, but it's a small increment forward. Maybe I just don't like her mask's eyes.

Deleted Scene

2011-08-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

This is the panel sequence I referenced in my Lions Club speech. Except I never got around to actually saying it. This is Kitty Pryde saving the president of Iran from a Sentinel, and this is prime comics goodness.

Magic Fortnight: Hellboy

2011-08-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

Wait, isn't he more of a horror character than magic?

Wait again, isn't he kinda scifi? Or fabulist?

The beauty of Mike Mignola's character is that the franchise goes where he wishes and takes on genre trappings as it requires. But he's definitely magic. He's fighting changelings and dragons and witches. That's magic.

Wait, isn't that more adventure?

See, anything Mignola wants it to be.

The original sketch for this felt pretty good until I set it down and approached it a few hours later.

That's more of a Superman pose. It had to go.

I moved to a larger sketchbook to work big and to play around with markers and pens. The usual sketch sizes are 5.5 x 8.5. This one is 11 x 14.

I think this one turned out not too badly. Not bad for a piece done between periods of calming a sick baby.

The 'Inflated Sense of Importance' Publicity Tour: Lions Club

2011-08-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

I was invited to speak about being an indy comics creator to the local Lions Club last night at their monthly dinner meeting. I had just over a week to prepare, and I wrote a speech to fill the allotted 20 minutes speaking time.

The copy was 17 pages, double-spaced. I did some homework on various topics: circulation numbers and comparison to 40 years back; the Siegel and Kirby lawsuits; the new Ultimate Spider-Man; and the recent X-Men scene where the American Jewish mutant teenage girl saves the president of Iran. I wrote about my portfolio and meager comics career. I wrote about conventions. I wrote about the Marvel formula of tortured heroes, female characters, singles vs. trades vs. manga, and comic stores. I highlighted the main points in each paragraph for quick cues during the speech. I felt prepared.

And then, when I took the podium, I never looked at the printed copy.

My introduction informed the audience (and me) that I was "going to tell us his life story," and I realized with some dread that this angle veered away from my speech outline. I took the podium and followed up on the introduction off the top of my head (I know my bio better than anyone) and that segued into our new local comic store and direct sales and the evolution of indy comics and the comics code and Fredric Wertham and spinner racks, and I was off. I used the majority of my speech material, but I didn't want to delay the conversation by rifling through my papers to find a salient point. Writing it up and editing it and highlighting the main points cemented it in my head, and I dropped information as those data points came up in the talk.

I didn't know what kind of audience to expect, and I was warned to mind the time as these folks wanted to leave around 8 pm. I arrived at 6, and we sat down to eat around 6:15. I think I started talking at 7. My 20-minute speech lasted 45 minutes. I pulled out of the parking lot at 7:57.

I knew I had them when I mentioned the 1960s Batman TV show and how it affected comic sales. And throughout the speech, they asked questions about Dell and Fawcett comics, Classics Illustrated, and the relationship between comics and radio shows. What could have been a stiff lecture quickly became a back-and-forth with incisive questions (what's more important: the pictures or the words? can't people make comics digitally without using paper at all? aren't comics skewed toward an older demographic now?).

I was lucky twice. I was fortunate to be asked to talk comics, and I was fortunate to have an engaged audience who sat forward and locked in. I went long because they wanted more.

I was going to upload my original speech text here, but it in no way resembles last night's conversation. It has the ingredients, but not the recipe.

I can't thank the Lions Cub enough for this opportunity. A highlight of a comic creator/fan's comic life. Support your local Lions Club. They do good work.

Also, I plugged the hell out of the town's new comic store, and I hope that translates into business for them. (And you, seeing as how they sell your comics? Well sure.)

Sharing Is Caring: Debt Ceiling on 'West Wing'

2011-08-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

Did someone mention Our Lord and Savior Toby Ziegler?

This is from 2005, by the way.

Magic Week (or Fortnight): Dr. Fate

2011-08-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

I like heroes with ties to mythology, and Dr. Fate got his magic thanks to Egyptian gods. Also, he drew power from an amulet, and the "magic item" origin remains a cool element of comics.

Sharing Is Caring: Ides of March

2011-07-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

Hoffman and Giamatti? SOLD.

A hat rack could be playing Ryan Gosling's role. Doesn't matter. HOFFMAN AND GIAMATTI. It's West Wing with bigger-name schlubs than we got on the TV show. And I loved those schlubs. If this movie has a walk-on from Toby Ziegler, I'll have to change my pants.

Magic Week: Zatanna

2011-07-29T06:04:00.000-07:00

Her magic trick is to spout spells backward. "Freeze in place!" becomes "ecalp ni ezeerf!" Bad guys can incapacitate her with a muzzle, and she's helpless. I'm sure there's a feminist comment there, like when Wonder Woman loses all her powers if her wrists are shackled. In recent years, she was retconned as a childhood friend of Batman, and that gave her a rationale to branch into meager detective work.

Zatanna's costume is a stage magician outfit, a big improvement over her original, vague, flowing hero drapery. That was essentially a nightgown, conveying, I dunno, mystical regalia.

The 'Inflated Sense of Importance' Publicity Tour

2011-07-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

Hokey smoke.

Thanks to the article in the local paper, I've been contacted to speak about comics to the local Lions Club next Thursday. This is a surprise. I wasn't sure what I could offer a service organization in regards to a mostly solitary avocation, but I was assured I could speak on making comics and comics in general. A QnA session will follow. As will a victory lap.

Why yes, I think I will talk about the new Captain America movie. Also, Scrooge McDuck.

I will of course wear my President Science outfit to class up the joint.

President Science is ready to set you straight.

Magic Week: Dr. Strange

2011-07-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

He looks like Frank Zappa. He dresses like Liberace. Of course, he's magical.

It's possible I drew this just to have an excuse to draw the Mindless Ones. Yes.

Bossk Office: Captain America

2011-07-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

To properly assess the success of Captain America, we again look to two toy versions of our favorite bounty hunter from Empire Strikes Back.This is Bossk Office.

Chipper Bossk: Just saw Captain America. I can't remember the last time I was so delighted by a film.

Surly Bossk: Scott Pilgrim?

Chipper Bossk: Maybe Scott Pilgrim, but I didn't have the same emotional investment with that film that I do for this one. I mean, I've read Cap since I was hatched.

Surly Bossk: And they got it right?

Chipper Bossk: So, so right. This is a fantastic boys movie. It's nothing but adventure and resolve. It's funny, it's emotional, it's ... I can't stop smiling.

Surly Bossk: It wasn't too inside?

Chipper Bossk: Didn't seem to be with the audience I was in. They had a ball. There are a lot of comic book touches here. Clearly the filmmakers embraced the source material.There's even a fantastic line referencing a similar film about Nazis and historical artifacts. As a comic geek, there was lots of little trivia bits that made me gasp with, well, I go back to 'delight.'

Surly Bossk: Maybe I shoulda seen this after all.

Chipper Bossk: You woulda liked the Red Skull. He's got the right attitude. He's not merely cackling and cursing the hero. He's motivated and smart. A good hero demands a good villain, and we got both. This is a credible Cap. There's a fantastic scene between a pre-powered Cap and the scientist who devised his miracle growth. Just two guys in a barracks talking about motivation and hope before we get to the costume and explosions. It elevates the whole film.

Surly Bossk: So no quibbles at all?

Chipper Bossk: I got some lingering questions. Like exactly why was the English woman so involved in an American effort? Not that I mind her presence, you understand. Also, having not seen Thor yet --

Surly Bossk: For which we are humiliated.

Chipper Bossk: There may have been references I missed here. But the film starts with a strong connection to the same Thor playground, and I felt that was sufficient for the film's MacGuffin. And speaking of connections, for the love of Dengar, stay after the credits.

I loved this film, I tells ya. It hits home runs everywhere.

Magic Week: Illyana

2011-07-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

Her hero name is Magik, but Magic Week: Magik sounds weird.

So, yes, a theme week here at Heygregory, and we start with the X-Men's teenage sorceress. She tends to be evil and not just because she's a teenage girl. As she summons the soul sword, another piece of its accompanying armor materializes, conveying the incremental corruption she suffers. When the armor is complete, she will be the full-blown evil demon girl thing she has envisioned through time travel and magicky magics. Also she can teleport. Also, she's Russian. Also, she died at least once. But then virtually all the X-men have.

Captain America Sketch

2011-07-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

Wait, he's got a movie coming out?

Among my hometown comic gang, I am not the biggest Cap fan. By far. Two of my buddies met in a comic store, casually tossing about Cap strength trivia, and became fast friends. If my Cap interest were a candle, theirs would be the sun. Unfortunately, one is no longer with us, but I bet the other will watch this weekend's movie debut dressed in his Cap costume. And I hope he grins like a child the whole way through.

The Missus remembers the theme song to the long-ago Cap cartoon (somethingsomething mighty shield, somethingsomething yield), cementing her status as a hot mama. I had a Captain America book-and-record set featuring the son of villain Baron Zemo.

Me? I collected only a small chunk of Cap comics. This was in the mid-'80s, and Cap was one of the few regular titles carried by the drugstore next to the town grocery store. I happened onto the comic as we learned the origin to the Red Skull and saw him supposedly die of spite and old age. I later bought the title when Mark Waid and Ron Garney had their run interrupted by the Heroes Reborn event. But otherwise, no, I can't say I'm a big Cap fan.

I'll see the movie though. A WW2-era action film always catches my eye, and early reviews say this avoids the b-movie cliches of such films. Plus, the Avengers trailer after the credits is almost worth the ticket price alone.

Sharing Is Caring: New Spidey Trailer

2011-07-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

The cast looks good. The suit looks good. The implication that they are again deviating from the comics is good (Want the comic? Read the comic.).

But I'm not sold on another origin movie. We got the origin on the big screen within the last ten years. His iconic beginnings are known to the mainstream audience. If the movie is only his origin story, you better have great effects/dialogue/chemistry to bolster that new product core.

It's the New Style

2011-07-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

After some weekend frustrations with simple sketches, I decided my art style was working against me. I had to fight the art at every level. I needed to open up the style, make it looser and more fun, and for that I looked to Adam Warren's art style (link probably NSFW). I dusted off my Empowered comics and tried my hand at emulating the style just enough to break some art habits.

It's a start. The art was much more fun to work through, and it seems more natural to thicken the lines and rely more on dark areas to build mass. It's not a final victory but a good start. I'd like to copy Warren outright only in printing finished pencils. My inking is as painful to look at as it is to do.

The moral: Make it fun. Because if you're gonna do a comic, you're gonna be drawing and drawing and drawing.

Also, I made the local paper.

Gregory Dickens works at his drawing table in his home office in Brevard. In front of him is his “serial killer wall” which holds samples of drawing, photography and other artwork that he sometimes uses for inspiration or example. Over his shoulder is a collection of science fiction and super hero action figures, also used for inspiration. (Times photos by Robbie Robertson)

Thanks to reporter Robbie Robertson for the fun interview and article.

Marvel Girl Sketch

2011-07-08T07:37:00.000-07:00

Marvel Girl from the X-Men, seen in her classic go-go costume. Still playing with hair here.

There's some new media exposure happening soon. Check back for details.

Sharing Is Caring: Twist In My Sobriety

2011-07-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

A moody '80s tune that enjoyed regular radio rotation at the time. I can't imagine this going beyond NPR's World Cafe these days.

Jedi Sketch

2011-07-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

I promised an action pose. This isn't a specific character from a specific story, just a jedi gal leaping toward something that probably deserves to get whoop-ified.

I started this before I realized Spike would show all the Star Wars movies this week. New revelation: Harrison Ford is almost unrecognizable from the first film to the first Indiana Jones movie. I think it's because he's so much more animated in those early films and then he slid toward stoicism, now giving us only the smirk or the angry face.

Sharing Is Caring: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2011-07-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

Hokey smoke, does this look good.

Starfire Sketch

2011-06-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

I really really really can't draw hair. It's a failing of my already meager art skills, and I picked a sketch subject just to face that whirlpool. I don't consider this sketch a triumph over hair, but a step in that direction.

Starfire here was introduced in the early '80s reboot of DC's Teen Titans, the sidekick supergroup. This was seen as DC's answer to Marvel's X-Men, which was beginning its ascent to THE franchise for Marvel for the next 20 years. I happened to get into regular comic reading just as New Teen Titans was launched, and I followed the book for a good while. Starfire -- the tall orange alien in a purple bikini -- may have had a great deal to do with that.

I should note that artist George Perez got around her giant head of hair (which he designed) by drawing it as an amorphous blob with random curls breaking its contours.

Next time: action poses!

Magneto Sketch

2011-06-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

I doodled this out a few days ago.

It knew it was somewhat of a static pose, but I hoped I could build a mood as I fleshed it out. That just didn't happen. It's stale. His right arm adds nothing to the composition, and the expression is blank.

This has more drama. The pose and eye contact engage the audience, and the foreshortening adds depth despite the lack of background. That thumbs's clunky, but the helmet lighting came out pretty well.The fabric definition is mild, but for a sketchbook inked doddle, I can live with that.

Bossk Office: Green Lantern

2011-06-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentleman, I am not a qualified film reviewer. I know that I like and what gives me the icks. I have the critical mind of yogurt. Thankfully, I have found the perfect twosome to hash out the strength and weaknesses of movies, the 1980s and 2000's versions of a bounty hunter from Empire Strikes Back.

Folks, this is Bossk Office.

Chipper Bossk: Green Lantern.

Surly Bossk: Green Lantern.

Chipper Bossk: I can't believe they made a Green Lantern movie.There were scenes during the film that were overwhelmed by my shock that I was watching a Green Lantern film. They couldn't compete with my astonishment.

Surly Bossk: Among other things. Your glee --

Chipper Bossk: I didn't say I had glee.

Surly Bossk: Your glee couldn't whitewash an awkward collage of cliche and confusion of audience. What could have been a decent mainstream film, a fun time for the family, is a stiff kids movie. Because the kids will ignore the formula and marvel at the visuals.

Chipper Bossk: The potential is there.

Surly Bossk: And the greatest sin this movie commits is adhering so closely to the comics that the obvious goofiness of the source material becomes blatant. The constructs our hero builds to fight the bad guys are so needlessly complex that he seems apathetic to the danger to others around him.

Chipper Bossk: I did like the cast. They seemed invested in it.

Surly Bossk: I blame the filmmakers. Here's an example: In order to get to the eye-popping visuals early, they give us a narration of the origin of the Lanterns. This includes the origin of the man bad guy. The movie gives us the villain's origin again halfway through. But because we get the skinny on the Lanterns upfront, the hero has to play catch-up to the audience, and his mind-blowing discoveries are old-hat to us.

Chipper Bossk: The effects are nice. The money is all on the screen.

Surly Bossk: Yeah, but they have no emotional wallop because the story has no surprises. Actually, scratch that. The film does surprise me by introducing a likable nephew for the hero, a young kid who is never seen after our hero emerges despite the easy home run of seeing them enjoy his new powers. How could they miss that?

Chipper Bossk: Bet that's on the DVD.

Surly Bossk: Which will come to stores much quicker than they'd like because this film ain't long for theaters.

Chipper Bossk: The best thing that can be said here is that the film is disappointing for being exactly the kind of comic book movie that the best comic book movies rise above. We're accustomed to more from our comic movies, and that's a heartening progression for us comic fans.

Vampi Sketch

2011-06-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

I clearly don't know what I'm doing. Not only have I have drawn Vampirella for the very first time, but I didn't bother to draw her chestal accoutrements, and that's approximately 60% of the character's appeal (leaving 35% for her tush and 5% for her fangs). I have failed at small-time female comic character sketching.

+ + +

Here's the new trailer for the Captain America movie. It continues to look a little flat -- as in "those sets look like backlots" -- but the low-budget retro style harkens back to Rocketeer and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hopefully it won't be as middling as The Shadow and Phantom. Those films couldn't elevate themselves beyond the stifling doldrums of b-movie cliches. I think Marvel will be happy if it makes $70 million, just as long as it properly prepares audiences for next year's giant Avengers film.

Hugo Weaving is getting all the nice genre-film gigs, and I like to imagine him laughing manically on a pile of his own action figures.

Batman Sketch

2011-06-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

Behold the Batman.

It's a delicate balancing act to get those ears at a length that doesn't make him look like a spork. In the lingering debate about Batman with or without visible eyes, I vote for the opaque, white mask lenses. It provides mystery and avoids the cinematic horror of facepaint showing where the mask doesn't cover the skin around the eyes. How does a quick-changing superhero have the time to apply that makeup with such care? Does he use a paint roller?

+ + +

I just found this video of a book-and-record I had as a kid. Sit down for about 15 minutes and look at that fine 1970s comic art. It's a little Neal Adams and a little John Buscema. See if you can explain why Conan sounds like a dad from a 1950s radio show.

Kitty Sketch

2011-06-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

For some reason, when I draw Kitty Pryde, I think of her hair first.

Breaking In

2011-06-20T13:55:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the new new Heygregory.com.

Didn't you update that website like two weeks ago?

Yeppers, but it kinda stunk a lot, and the limited page options made the site unwieldy. You'll find everything here that you found on the old site, and I'll bring back some extras from the site's olden days of yore.

The new site will feature sketches and peeks at new works, including comics in the works for next year's convention season.