Chicago Comic - Con

It's that time again! Wizard World arrives in Rosement, Illinois for the Chicago Comic-Con, August 6-9. And while I won't be in Artists Alley this year, I will be at the show at a couple of different spots over the week end.

On Friday I will be signing at the Elmhurst Historical Museum booth #1236 (and co-sponsored by the American Academy of Art of Chicago) from 3-4pm. Come by and pick up a free limited edition print of The Black Terror, compliments of the museum and the American Academy.

On Saturday I will be a part of the Dynamite Entertainment panel from 2-3pm in Room D, the Bob Kane Room. Stop in and say "hello". The above image of The Boy King is a study from one of the latest Origin spreads I painted for their series, Project Superpowers. The pencil was featured on Newsarama last month. I'll post something here later on as well as some of the other recent Origins I've been working on with Alex Ross and Jim Krueger (and keeping my schedule mighty busy).

And I am sure I will be at the Moonstone Books booth at some point during the week end but I haven't had any confirmation yet.
If anyone would like me to bring sketches, drawings, paintings, prints or books that they can pick up from me, please send an email. I've had a few inquiries already (thank you!) so it's not too late to send your requests.
The rest of the time I'm going to be walking the show visiting friends and hanging out with my son. I'm looking forward to it!
See you there!

The Death Defying 'Devil: Origin

The next Project: Superpowers Origin is 'Devil, soon to be published in issue #1. (The #0 issue with The Black Terror is out now and is available at your local comic shop). The process shown is the pencil stage for approvals and then the finished piece with any adjustments that were added to the art. When printed in the book, the black and grey panels will be converted to red tones with all dialogue in place.



Currently working on: Origin of Boy King and Giant

Exhibition: June 16 - September 6, 2009

The Elmhurst Historical Museum in Illinois currently has an exhibit on the history of comic books as well as a summer long list of events planned inside their beautiful downtown mansion! The museum curator and designer, Lance Tawzer has become the super hero there as he's really poured his passion into the design and concept. The Museum has been transformed into two floors of comic book history displays, collectibles, and multi-media presentations most originating from the Indianapolis Children's Museum. Lance also contacted the American Academy of Art for their support and scheduled Jill Thompson, Bill Reinhold and myself to exhibit and include us into their programming. There is a time lapse video of me painting a portrait of the Phantom, and a focus on the process of creating a Phantom cover (in this case The Phantom: Generations #1).

The Exhibition runs: June 16 until September 6, 2009.

Check out their website for more information:
http://www.elmhurst.org/index.aspx?NID=73

The Black Terror: Origin

The New Year started off with a "bang" for me and I've been steam rolling through the last few months with deadlines. I apologize for putting my blog on hold, but there just wasn't enough hours in the days. It also didn't help that I caught a virus back in late February/early March that knocked me out for four weeks. It then caused a domino effect of me trying to play catch up with the work load. Throw in family, tax season and holidays and I'm sure you get the picture around here.

I'm going to start back into the blogging with something Dynamite! (yeah - I really said it...)

This is the first of the Project: Superpowers Origin spreads that I'm painting for the series from Dynamite Entertainment. Scripts are by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross and I am amazed at how they can squeeze all the important elements of the golden age origin stories into a two page spread. Alex actually roughs out the layouts and emails them to me. So what isn't in the script, it is in the layout. There's an interview on Comic Book Resources explaining a bit more:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20944


I first started out by doing a full figure pencil study of The Black Terror. Once it was approved, I penciled it onto the board with the sequential panels. After the spread was completed Alex and I discussed the finished artwork. The only major revision was to change the head position on the main figure. Another revision was the chemists' vial that Bob Benton was holding in the center panel. After reworking the pencil study to reposition the head, I got the go ahead.

Here's a work in progress and then the revised and approved art to be published in Project: Superpowers Chapter 2 #0.

Changes were made right on the board, gessoing over the areas and redrawing and then painting. I also decided to darken areas to make the overall piece more dramatic and richer in tones.

Comics Career

ComicsCareer.com launched a “10 Questions for Comics Creators” project on January 1, 2009, with the ambitious goal of posting a new interview with a different creator every day for a year. It was a good set of questions, so I gave it a shot.
My interview is online, January 14th at: http://www.comicscareer.com/?p=259
Or click on my blog title above, "Comics Career".

Sketchbook Entry 11: Happy Noir Year

This next drawing from my Sketchbook is from the cover of "Episodes From The Zero Hour" Volume 1 from Blinding Force Productions featuring Tommy "Knuckles" McNichols. This piece (and specifically the finished painting) is a very important project to me: one, because I'm mighty happy with the way all the noir, pulp and private eye influences all fit together for me, two: because the project moved along nicely with the writer, art director and designer and, three: because it forged a great professional and personal friendship with the designer Anthony Schiavino. Aside from Anthony having an impeccable eye for good design, he's a great writer / creator himself with some really fine ideas. Anthony and I talk a lot via email all week long, talking about everything important: comics, films, art, work and family (not in that order). We've become great friends this year and it all began with a Tough Guy, named "Knuckles" created by his cohort Jay Butkowski. It's a great pulp story (available at: www.lulu.com/zerohour) so give it a try.



When Anthony first inquired about my schedule and interest in the project, he had the cover designed with color palette options and a rough sketch. The original layout had "Knuckles" sitting behind the desk with his feet up, but after discussing the character with Jay and Anthony I came up with a rough thumbnail that had more body gesture and attitude of a tough guy for hire. More of a "Bobby the Mitch" swag to his personality. I also put more emphasis of noir by adding the blinds and played with light and shadows. Adding the framed boxing photograph behind him in the shadows introduced a bit more of the characters past.



Have a great 2009! Thanks for visiting the blog over the year. It's been quite a busy year for me, which explains the lack of posts but I'll get to them and I will try and update with new posts on a more regular basis in the coming year. I still have some exciting things to showcase as they take shape as well as continuing with the Sketchbook entries. See you next year.

The Phantom: Generations

New work:
Recently announced is a new Phantom series of comic novellas from Moonstone Books titled: The Phantom "Generations". I have been assigned to do the 20 covers of the series. And I felt this was the perfect opportunity for me as an artist to get back into the ink. This is very exciting for me to do a series of comic book covers for The Phantom where I will be able to stretch out a bit more and pull out the ink pen and brushes and collaborate with some really creative friends in producing the covers.

My good friend, Ruben Procopio has been a big inspiration over the years with his amazing sculptures from Electric Tiki and Disney to his black and white illustrations in "Tales from Zorro" and "The Phantom Chronicles". One of my all time favorite Phantom covers is his stark, noir-ish Phantom in the shadows for Moonstone's first Annual last year. Simply, brilliant. And we have been discussing some possibilities of working together ever since.

After Joe Gentile discussed the series of covers with me, I immediately thought of two things: working in black and white (to be digitally colored) and asking Ruben if he wanted to collaborate. Iron sharpens iron... and I'm working with the best.
There's one goal in mind with doing these together: to make them the best possible images of The Phantom.

I had already roughed out the first cover of "Generations" when I approached Ruben. But, we've already started developing the series of covers and we will be sharing the credit for the rest of the run. There's no formula yet; together we'll both brainstorm a batch to get approvals from Moonstone and for the time being, I'll pencil the finish and either I'll ink the entire piece (like this first one), partially ink for Ruben to take over and finish it or he'll ink the entire cover over my pencils.
We're going with the flow for the time being.



So, here's the first issue cover that I have titled, "The Oath". For those who have come in late... this is Christopher Standish Jr. making the legendary oath upon the skull of his fathers murderer: "I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms! My sons and their sons shall follow me."



The inked art was then handed over to my friend and color artist, Jason Millet to finish. Jason was fantastic to collaborate with as well and he did an exceptional job.



The Phantom "Generations" begins early next year.
Check out Ruben Procopio's blog: http://www.maskedavengerstudios.blogspot.com/
And Jason Millet's site: www.jasonmillet.com