welcome to my madness

Consolidating...

2009-11-01T07:09:00.000-08:00

This is my last blog post here at Blogger.
All my new post will be on my main web site.

I will slowly be moving all that's here on Blogger to my main site.
Everything her will stay here, but you'll have to visit www.ljamal.com to get the new stuff.

E and O 19: Work in Progress

2009-10-31T07:17:00.001-07:00

Panel from E&O strip 19.

The fight with the zombies has begun, so this and the next few strips are filled with zombies, zombies, and more zombies.

written by Richard Nelson
pencilled by Tyler Richlen
inks and letters by me

The last 2 panels are down, so only the first 3 panels are left.

Previews Blogging: October Edition

2009-10-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

Every month, I go through Diamond's Previews to figure out what I want. From now until, I will blog about what I see that catches my attention. Keep in mind that most of my comic buying consist of #1s, collected editions (hardcovers or TPBs), or OGN (original graphic novels). I buy #1s to see if it's something that I will get later in a collected edition

Marvel
Because Marvel is still outside of the main Previews book, I'll start with them.

Page 8: Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield?
32 pages for $4 and it's a one shot. It's pricier than I care to spend, and I'm sure it will be collected someone, so I'll pass. However, my money's on Rogers returning as Captain America and Bucky soldiering on in another non-Winter Soldier identity. Maybe Marvel will revive the Captain and let Bucky run around with that nifty blank shield that Rogers used during the era after Captain America #332.

Page 9: Halo: Blood Line #1
I have no interest in Halo, however it's worthy to note that Bendis and Maleev are no longer on this title.

Page 21: Spider-Man and the Secret Wars #1
Marvel seems intent on mining past events with the Spidey Clone title and now this Secret Wars book. I'm not sure there is much interest in revisiting these events, but it's nice to see Patrick Scherberger art again.

Page 25: Daredevil #503
I always happy to see de la Torre on another Marvel book. I think he's an excellent talent and he's made a great (yet quiet) progression from Ms. Marvel to Iron Man and now to Daredevil. I hear that Quesada is quite the fan of de la Torre's work and it's a shame that Quesada doesn't hype it more often.

For that don't know de la Torre did some early work for Warmageddon that directly led to his first Marvel work.

Page 29 Dr: Voodoo: The Origin of Jericho Drumm
With the Dr. Voodoo series on #3, it seems like an odd time to put a reprint of his origins on the market. I think a better time would have been either a week or 2 before his new series hit the shelves would have been a better time with maybe a preview of the upcoming series to whet the appetite. 64 pages for $5, it's too bad a deal.

Page 30: Black Widow & the Marvel Girls #1 and #2
I'm not sure who this book is marketed towards, but I HATE new books that have covers by any one other than the interior artists when they don't show the interior pages. DC usually shows an excerpt of the interior pages, but Marvel is becoming notorious for not showing the interiors. #1 is not a problem, it's #2 (of 4 issues) that drawn by a different artist. I'm also left wondering why the initial artist different complete all 4 issues of the story.

Page 43: Origins of the Siege
This is noted as free to the retailers that distribute it on the 30 Dec 2009. What about the retailers that don't? Due to holidays and the UPS delivery schedules, Diamond is unable to deliver books that last week of the year, I suspect that this book will ship early and retailers will be asked to honor the street date. Those the break the street date may find themselves billed at normal costs for this book.

Page 53: What If? Secret Invasion
I worked with artist, Pow Rodrix, on Fist of Justice #5. Shortly after that he was picked up by Marvel. I assume this is his first Marvel project. I hope to see more of him in the future.

Page 64: X-Force Annual #1
This is written by Robert Kirkman. I thought he gave up on work-for-hire comics after his creator-owned manifesto. Maybe this is an inventory story that he wrote or maybe it's be waiting this long for Pearson and Barberi to draw it. Jason Pearson isn't a creator known for his speed.

Page 80: Ed Hannigan : Covered
There aren't many times when I think Marvel is doing the right thing, but Marvel is stepping up to help Ed Hannigan to cover the cost of his fight against MS. Even at $6 for 48 pages, I gladly support this.

Page 99: Runaways: True Believers Premeire HC
If I didn't already have this in the first hardcover collections of the Runaways (Volumes 1-3), I would be buying it. This is one of the best new superhero series from Marvel and DC.

Page 100: Mini Marvels Ultimate Collection GN-TPB
I think Giarrusso's Mini Marvels are cute and clever. I'm buying this for myself, but I'm sure the kids will enjoy it as well.

Page 108: Fantastic Four: The Master of Doom TPB
After all the hype surrounding Hitch and Millar on FF, they ended with a whimper and they were quickly ushered off stage. I read the first issue of their run and I'm interested in reading the entire run, so I think I'll wait for the hardcover of the entire which Amazon says is coming in February 2010.

And now to the main events... October 2009 Previews!

Dark Horse
Page 23: Hellboy : The Bride of Hell
I'm sure this will be reprinted eventually in the Hellboy Library Editions. However, it's been a while since I've read a new Hellboy story, so I'm slapping down the $3.50 to get this one shot by Mignola and Corben.

Page 24: Conan the Cimmerian : The Weight of the Crown
See the paragraph above? Copy it and replace Hellboy with Conan. Replace Mignola and Corben with Darick Robertson.

Page 26: Empowered
See the paragraph above? Copy it and replace Conan with Empowered . ReplaceDarick Robertson with Adam Warren.

Page 28: Martian Go Home #1
I've been watching the progress of this book on Mike Manley's blog wondering when it would see the light of day. This solicitation of the first issue means that I'm mere months away from the collection of what looks to be a very fun sci-fi mini series.

Page 38: Creepy Archives Volume 6
I eagerly await these Warren magazine collections and wish that someone would honor Vampirella with a similar treatment.

DC Comics
Wow! I went through the entire DC Universe section and not one item caught my fancy. I'm not really interested in Blackest Night and I'm patiently waiting from the Batwoman and Batman and Robin collections.

Page 105: World of Warcraft Special #1
I'm a fan of sword and sorcery and i'm interested in seeing what Pop Mhan will bring artistically to Warcraft.

Page 107: Daytripper #1
I'm not sire what it is about Moon and Ba's story, but for now they ahve me interested enough to check out this first issue.

Page 113: Preacher Book Two HC
I've read and since sold Preacher in single and TPB format. I've been waiting for years for it to be released in HC format, so I eagerly await the release of each book, so I can read this epic once again.

Page 117: The Unwritten Volume 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity TP
I've been hooked on this series since the first issue and have been patiently waiting for this TPB. Now my wait is just a few months away.

Image
Page 144: Tank Girl: Dark Nuggets
Rather than a black and white one-shot for $4. I'd rather see quality reprint collections. $4 seems to be a bit much for a 32-paged black and white book from Image. Maybe at $2.50-$3, i would ahve bought this with no problem.

What's funny is I have a Tanl Girl TPB from the library sitting on my right. I picked it up yesterday and it's the first Tank Girl comic, I've ever read.

Page 160: Savage Dragon #155
What's there not to love about an evil army of Dragon's?

and now everything else in the back of the book!

Page 188: Chimichanga #1 (Albatross Exploding Funny Book)
I glad to see Eric Powell do something outside the Goon. It should be interesting and I wholly support it.

Page 194: Artesia Beseiged #5
Artesia's back and I can't wait to get the new HC (whenever it's released)!

Page 195: Mouse Guard Volume 2: Winter 1152 Black and White Edition
I'm sure this will be just as beautiful as the first volume's black and white edition. However, I think it's a mistake to showcase them here side by side. The most glaring thing is the $50 price different for essentially the same book. Petersen says volume 2 had more vellum overlays, but that was my least favorite part of the first edition, so paying $50 more because it on the second decision is not something I plan to do.

Page 269: Tales of the TMNT #65
I'm working the grays for this issue of tales form the TMNT right now, so make sure you order and buy it as Jamal needs a need computer.

And that's it for this month.

Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards

2009-10-14T04:33:00.000-07:00

I went down to the Durham Public Library and perused the fiction section for graphic novels. Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards is one of the many GNs that jumped out me. By writer Jim Ottavani with art by Big Time Attic (Zander Cannon, Kevin Cannon, and Shad Petosky) and a cover by Mark (Xenozoic Tales) Schultz, the full title is Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology.

The story is a highly fascinating account of the rivalry between Cope and Marsh in the early period of paleontology as they jockey for digs, naming rights, and notoriety. As with all GT-Lab books, this story is enhanced history with the facts embellished by Ottavani to move along the plot. However, when you have Cope and Marsh alongside cowboys and the famous PT Barnum, there isn't much embellishing that needs to be done as they plant fossils, usurps digs and otherwise snipe at each other to establish early dominance causing one to burn through and inheritance and the other to die with only his body to donate to science. The reader is left to speculate to what good they might have been able to accomplish if either could set aside ego and grievances to work together.

The art by Big Time Attic is dominated by Zander Cannon so it's the style that we've become familiar with in his other projects. This time it is embellished by being printed entirely in sepia tones with a single half tone shade and is filled with rather colorful historic characters. What stands out most to me is the hand lettering which is finely showcased when PT Barnum shows up in the beginning and the end. PT Barnum's speech is embellished with flourishes of the lettering that you would find on carnival posters.

From beginning to end, this is a fine and entertaining comic book look at 2 fascinating character from a bygone era and comes highly recommended.

2009-09-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

Previews Blogging: September Edition (Dark Horse, DC, Image)

2009-09-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

Previews Blogging: September Edition (Marvel)

2009-09-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

Fantastic Four #306 Commission

2009-09-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

FF #306 is the first comic I ever purchased. I've looked for the cover or even an interior page of the original art for years. Thus far, I've only found one page and it is owned by someone on the same quest as I am.

Finally, I resolved just to recreate the cover.

I contacted Drew Moss to work on this commission. I wanted him to give me his interpretation of the cover. The idea is to do a complete recreation of the cover with Drew doing pencils, Stacie Ponder on inks, and me doing lettering and colors.

Here you see Drew layouts for the cover. He's changed all the poses to make them more close-up and more dramatic. I'm really digging Diablo's pose.

However, there are some minor changes that were made in the pencils.

Before we get to the pencils let's take a look at the head shots for the corner box. Drew pencilled the heads for the corner box on a separate sheet of paper. These are actually quite small (The Thing's head is about 1 in x 1 in).

I will be digitally inking these. Drew's knowledge of the FF shows here with Reed smoking a pipe. No Marvel character smokes at all any more, but Reed did at one point.

Here are the finished pencils by Drew. The only real change is Sue engulfed in flames replaces the golden transmuted Crystal.

I'm not sure why the original cover used Crystal rather than Sue. In the story, Crystal is taken out first (after signaling for the FF) and first battle although 1 panel longer than Sue's is less visual.

Far be it from me to question the great Buscema, but for this recreation, we went for the classic four members of the FF.

Now that I've scanned all the images, I can get to work on laying out the cover and mailing Stacie the pencils to ink.

Stay tuned for more at a later date.

Comic Lettering: How To and How Not To!

2009-06-08T04:56:00.000-07:00

Comic book lettering is the art of putting those neat little words that you read into the neat little balloons so that you can read them. It's mostly design and like all design sometimes it's done well and A LOT of the the time it's done poorly. Good lettering should be seen, but not noticed. If something about the lettering or balloons is pulling you away from the story, then the letterer has failed to do his job correctly.

Almost all lettering done today in comics is done digitally using computer fonts. There are 2 major places dedicated to producing high quality comic book related fonts. These 2 places are Comicraft founded by Richard Starkings and Blambot founded by Nate Piekos. Both places provide high quality fonts as well as articles about lettering. Those articles can be augmented by the lettering videos available at NinjaLettering.com. If you still find yourself with questions, then head over to the lettering forum at Digital Webbing. Some of the top letterers working in the current industry can be found at Digital Webbing including (but not limited to) Nate Piekos, Clem Robins, Tom Orzechowski.

Now while we can not all be professional letterers, we can all be better than sub standard letterers. Those you SHOULD NOT listen to are those that offer tutorials for lettering using anything other the Illustrator. While you can use other tools, they are undersuited for the job at hand. If you MUST use those tools, then you should do so mimicking the Illustrator method as much as possible.

If you don't think lettering is that important, then contact me and I'll get my youngest to letter for you. Otherwise, learn to letter well (I did) or hire a letterer (I'm generally available).

PVP Awesomology: Truth in Advertising

2009-06-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Scott Kurtz (of PVP fame) posted the following in his blog :

Image wanted to me to let you know that you’re time to nab a signed and numbered edition is running out. We are only printing 300 of our signed and numbered edition. These come with a full color tip-in sheet signed and numbered by ME. We’ve already sold through half of those editions and that’s not including our offline orders. Both editions are being sold at a reduced price online. These will cost more if you wait for them to hit stores or pick one up at a local retailer or book shop, so act now while you can.

The bold area immediately caught my attention and I immediately went to check out the great pricing. Kurtz is offering the $99.99 AWESOMOLOGY for $85. That's a 15% discount. Of course, there is still shipping which turns out to be $10 to me via the cheapest method. So the $99.99 book would cost me a grand total of $95.00. My saving $5 (5%).

Most comic books shops offer some sort of discount. Even a 5% discount is the same as buying it direct from Scott AND it has the added benefit of supporting a local business.

So much for truth in advertising. If you're a student in Durham, stop by any of the Ultimate Comics stores and you receive an automatic 10% discount. Become a subscriber and you can get a 10-25% discount (based on sales).

Furthermore, all Image collections end up on Amazon. Amazon will most likely give you at least a 10% discount AND free shipping. The Awesomology is very similar to the DC Absolutes (in pricing and size). Amazon offers those at 35%+ discounts AND FREE SHIPPING.

Overstock.com has it for $61.90 with a best online price match guarantee. If you find it anywhere cheaper before you buy it, they will match the price. If you find it cheaper after you buy, they will give you $500 is in store credit.

Tales of Wonder has it for $69.99

As a comic book creator, I think you should support creators directly as much as possible. However as a creator, I'm not going to say something is such a great deal when in fact it's not. Come on, Scott, you can do better.

RIP

2009-03-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

My aunt, May, died today from Cancer.
She once took the time to teach a 6 year-old how to thread a needle and sew a button. He can sew to this day thanks to his aunt and misses her deeply.

Italian Chicken and Noodles

2008-11-02T14:09:00.001-08:00

Tonight, dinner is an oldie but goodie, Italian Chicken and Noodles. There's nothing really difficult about the meal as it's fried chicken smothered in a tomato based pasta sauce and served with egg noodles.

Basically, you fry up some chicken and heat your favorite pasta sauce. As each piece of chicken is cooked drain it and them place it into the sauce. After all the chicken is completed and submerged in the sauce, let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Remove all the chicken and prepare your egg noodles. Mix the remaining sauce into your egg noodles and you're done. Top with Parmesan cheese as desired and enjoy.

My father prepared this meal at least once or twice a month and it always was accompanied with a story about his Italian grandfather (via marriage not blood). The sauce was always homemade built up from tomato paste,but alas the sauce recipe was lost to me when my father died (although perhaps my grandmother knows it).

Tonight for Sunday dinner is Italian Chicken and Noodles, garlic bread, corn on the cob and a garden salad.

Illustration Friday: Vacant

2008-11-01T13:51:00.001-07:00

Beside my grandmother's house for years stood a vacant house. It was unloved and uncared for . Over the years, it slowly just rotted and decayed. It was slept away in a flood and now a trailer sits where this house once stood.

Apple Marinated Pork Shoulder

2008-10-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

Most of the posts in this blog revolve around my art, but more and more of my projects are stuff that I can't share, so rather than leave the blog idle, I'm going to start posting about the other aspects of my life.

As most know, I'm a father of 3 and we'd taken in my nephew (Eli) so now, I'm essentially the father of 4. Every night we sit down to the dining room table to have dinner. Those dinners are mostly prepared by Deanne. However, on the weekends, I get a chance to flex my culinary muscles. I'll attempt to post my weekly experimentation here. For me cooking is not an exact science, so the recipes you find under the Dinner Recipes label will not have exact measurements. So with that in mind, feel free to take my recipes and expand them as you wish, however please share any changes you make along with the results.

Without further ado, I bring you....

Apple Marinated Pork Shoulder

2.5 lbs Boston Pork should sliced 1/4" thick
1 medium sized apple (I used Golden Delicious)
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup BBQ sauce (I used Kraft Honey)
3 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
garlic powder
onion powder
celery seed
Italian seasonings

Slice the apple into 1/4" pieces.
Place the apple and all other ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
Coat the pork with all the mixture and set in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour (mine sets for 5 hours).

Heat a pan under medium heat.
Add the pork to the pan and cook until done (about 5 minutes on both sides).

And that's it.
We're having this for dinner tonight along with a small salad (lettuce, cucumber,onion, boiled egg), corn, broccoli and cauliflower*.

* We're attempting to introduce new veggies into the kids diets, so every week we pick a new veggie for the kids to try. The last veggie was Brussel sprouts (UGH!) and they went over very well when I blended intto mush and added them to the sauce for Shepherd's Pie. This week it's cauliflower.

More Work in Progress: Warmageddon Tarot the Devil

2008-09-06T11:10:00.001-07:00

I left left you with this image...

The next step I drop more shadows into the dragon and place the female into the shadows with the dragon.

Next, I finish off the dragon.
I dropped the BG color to make the wing transparency easier to see.
The shadow on the female have been lighten a little.

That's all for now!
Next is KRI'LANG THE EXECUTIONER!

Work in Progress: Warmageddon Tarot the Devil

2008-08-31T19:35:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to get the ever talented Drew Moss to contribute to the Warmageddon Tarot set. Drew is an artist that has grown leaps and bounds over the years and I'm very happy to work with him on anything.

The commissioned piece is the Devil card. This called for a devil, a throne, a nude male and a a nude female. Since this image was to be available to the general public, Drew was instructed to the cover up the nude figures. Instead of a throne, we place our devil (Kri'lang the Executioner) on a dragon. The Image below is what Drew turned in, penciled traditionally with digital inks. The original pencil art will be on sale at some point at BullCityComics.com.

I will be coloring this and hopefully it will be completed in time to be available for the Baltimore Comicon. As I color this, I will upload it in steps. Below is the first stage. This is basically all the flats with the rock platform rendered.

Stage 2 include the 2 human figures rendered.

With Stage 3, I'm playing around with the colors, trying to find the right color for the dragon and the background. I'm not totally committed to this color scheme, but it will do for now. The mouth and head of the dragon have been fully rendered.

This all for now, check back with me. The next updates will focus solely on one image.

Coming Full Circle

2008-07-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

Very few know my origins as a small press comic book creator, so I'm going to share where I began now because as of last week, I've come full circle.

Back in 2003, Dan Berger (now managing editor at Mirage Studios home of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) was publishing his Gutwallow comic via Digital Webbing. He had just finished a 3 issues mini series and was collecting it into a TPB and needed a colorist for the cover (that's not the final colored image to the right). Publisher, Ed Dukeshire, posted the cover in the Digital Webbing forums with an open call for colorist to color it. Being a Gutwallow fan since Dan's earliest efforts with the character, I decided to dust off my copy of Photoshop and give it a try. This was my first effort ever to color anything using the computer (no that's not my effort to the right either). I didn't win the contest, but I believe I was in the TOP 3. The winner did a much better job than I. However, within a mnth or so, I was contacted by Ed to lay down some grey tones on an upcoming issue of Digital Webbing Presents and have continued to receive regular work inking, coloring and adding gray tones since.

Last year, Dan Berger contacted me to grayscales for a TMNT story over Andie Tong's art. This year at Heroes Con, Dan mentioned that Gutwallow was returning in an issue of Tales of the TMNT. (Okay Dan told Deanne that Gutwallow was returning because Deanne is Gutwallow's #1 fan. She has a Gutwallow tattoo design by Dan on her left shoulder blade.) Dan contacted me again last week and asked me to do the grey tones for the Gutwallow appearance in Tales of TMNT #51. I signed the contract and received the first 10 pages of the story today.

Upon receiving the pages, the very first thing I did was single out the panel with the largest image of Gutwallow to experiment with how I wanted him to appear. The result is below.

And with that my minor comic book career has come full circle.

Illustration Friday: Sour

2008-07-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to get back into doing these Illustration Friday topics. No promises as I've got a move coming up in the next 2 weeks. But here's my illustration for SOUR.

A Plethora of Projects

2008-06-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've been silent for quite a while. My silence, however, is never a sign of me not having anything to do. In most cases it's a sign of me having lots to do. Here's a run down of the projects that I've been working on over the last couple months.

Warmageddon Volume 1 : Foundations
http://www.bullcitycomics.com/prodView.asp?idproduct=93

Foundations is a 128 paged collection of the 11 Warmageddon stories that form the cornerstone of the land of Warmageddon. This project came about from a conversation with my buddy, Mike Imboden. He wanted a TPB collecting the Warmageddon stories that he had written. As a surprise to him, I put this collection together with 10 of the 11 stories written by Mike. The cover was drawn by Jake Bilbao, inked by James Taylor, and colored by myself. From start to finished this collection was produced in little over 2 weeks time and was ready for purchase at HeroesCon.

I purchased the original inks of the cover and gave them as a gift to Mike. The cover features all the main characters from the stories featured in the volume with a special edition in the buttom left corner. Prints of this cover will be available soon at BullCityComics.com and any convention where we are set up.

Kid Lightspeed and ... #1: Pi is Squared
written by Aaron Thomas Nelson
illustrated by Michael Nigro

I'm not sure of the exact name of this title, but I have lettered the first 8 pages of the first issue and expect to receive the remaining pages. This is a fun tongue-in-cheek story set in space.
Noble

This is gray scale project of just 10 pages. Page 6-10 have been completed and I'm awaiting pages 1-5 (they are being inked at this moment, I believe).

Mr Phelps Space Detective #1
written by Shawn Granger
illustrated by Jason May

This is another letter job for a space adventure. I have 3 issues of Mr Phelps to letter and spo far I have completed the first issue. I plan to start the second issue this week.

Ultimate Avenger
story by Jeff McClelland
pencils by Travis Sengaus

This was a 3-paged digital inking job which turned out quite well. I've been a fan of Sengaus's pencils since I saw them on a Klik-Boom story in Digital Webbing Presents. By biggest complaint about his work is usually the chaos as he usually uses very organic panel borders and often breaks through the boards with art (in all direction). This was a more restrained Sengaus and was a pleasure to ink. I think this would look amazing with some simple bold coloring.

Gene Gardens #2
I lettered #1 so I returned to letter #2. It's a pleasure to work on Shawn Granger projects (even if he does change the scripts after the first round of lettering).

Eirian and Orumil: Season 3
I was lucky enough to snag by buddy, Grant Perkins (of Doxxville fame) to complete the pencils for Season 3 of the Eirian and Orumil strip. I digitally inked the 33 strips and have lettered 13 of the 33. Season 3 finishes the story line from Season 1 and 2.

After I complete lettering Season 3, all 3 season will be collected into a single collection (Eirian and Orumil: Televised) and will be launch the brand new Eirian and Orumil strip with pencils by Tyler Richlen and inks by me. The new E and O series will be updated once a week and we will have 3 months worth of strips in the can before launching.

Pin-up form Dreamweaver Press
I was contacted by JD of Dreamweaver Press before Pittsburgh Comicon and he asked me about inking this pin-up. We talked about it at Pittsburgh a bit and when I got home after that weekend, it was waiting for me in my email. I just put the finishing touches on it this weekend and it's done and delivered.

I planned to use this pin-up to do a tutorial on my digital inking method, but just couldn't find the time. So all you get is the finished work.

Awakenings
Last but not least, there is the Awakenings GN. This is 180-200 pages and so far I've completed 12 of the first 20 pages. I'll be working more on this project this week. When I do greys, I usually only get the art, so I don't know exactly what's going on via the script. I do know that there are guns, goons. swords and decapitations, so it's all good.

That's about all that's on my plate for now.

On Warmageddon
Mike Imboden and I have a few future Warmageddon story ideas to work out. I've seen more layouts for the next Warmageddon Tiegre story (and they are NICE). There are lots of other Warmageddon stories being written, drawn, inked or lettered and I'm working on a new Warmageddon web site.

Mother

2008-06-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

My maternal grandmother, Clara Lee Koonce Farrow, passed away today. She was 82 years old and was always affectionately known as Mother. Mother had 9 children (7 boys and 2 girls). Her oldest and youngest sons preceded her in death. She was the matriarch of the family and lived to see 4 generations of her descendants.

For me, my grandmother was a teacher and storyteller. She was never without a story to tell you or a lesson to teach you. She lives on today via the 4 generations of lives she created. We are her legacy and through us she gains immortality.

Mother, you earned your rest. Know that you are missed and loved.

Clara Lee Koonce Farrow
"Mother"
March 20, 1926 - June 20, 2008

Zombie Con 2008 Report

2008-03-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's a bit dusty in here as it's been a while since I've posted. Hopefully, this is a start of more regular updates.

This past weekend, I was invited by Mark Bowers to attend the inaugural (one day) Zombie Con at the Clarion Hotel in Greensboro, NC. This con was the first convention of the season for me and was a particularly odd fit because I don't do a zombie comic or even a horror comic. Warmageddon is pretty much strictly a sword and sorcery (without the sorcery)/ fantasy comic. What about Zombie City? Well yes, there is a Zombie City in Warmageddon, but to date we haven't really explored it much. In preparation for Zombie Con, I pulled out a zombie print that I colored a while back that was drawn by Josh Ross and I had a new display banner made (see left). With that and my usual cache of comics and merchandise, I was ready to go.

Greensboro is only about an hour away from my palatial estate in Durham and the con began at 9:30, so I was up and on the road by 7:30 am. I hit the local Wally World for some con snacks and drinks (I never ever ever eat the overly expensive con food). After the stop at Wally World, I hit the road. I was in Greensboro and all set up by 9:30.

After meeting Mark Bowers, the first person to my table was Mark Carter. Mark is a surrealist fantasy painter who is seeing increasingly more interest in his work in the world of tattoo art. We had a nice discussion about art, commerce, and finding your niche for about an hour between his table and mine. It's always good to make new connections in and about the world of comics and fantasy art.

Speaking of making connections, shortly after finishing up my discussion with Mark, I headed back to my table. At my table I ran into Brett of Brett's Comic Pile. Brett is one of the co-owner's of the Virginia Comicon in Richmond, VA. He's been nice enough to invite me up twice which is always nice. If you are in the area, then check out the Virginia Comicon.

Business at these small one day cons isn't huge, but I received a consistent flow of traffic and sold a decent amount of comics and prints. Actually, I sold a lot more comics than I expected. As a result of this con, I'm going to have to need to do a short second printings on all Warmageddon Quarterly issues*.

The family (with our new addition,Eli**) showed up around 12:30. They stayed until near 3:00. This was just enough time for all the kids (and Deanne [my SO]) to wipe out all profit made and for the littlest one (Nesta) to attempt to get himself lost.

I made my rounds of the convention after the first dealer began tearing down his set-up (around 3:30) and spent some more of my profits on the Young Avengers hardcovers (I'm a sucker for hardcovers). By 4:15, I was back at the table and began to call it a day. I was packed up and out the door by 4:30 and home no later than 5:45.

All in all, it was a good time. Where else do you get to see people pay to beat a zombie, girls from a burlesque show, buy stuff for the entire family, and walk away for $7.00 more than you started with? I have very low expectations for local hotel conventions, so being able to walk away with a profit (of any type) is a boon. These cons (for me) are more about building my brand and local goodwill. Despite, not having much zombie material, I'm very happy with Zombie Con 2008 and hope it returns next year.

* My plan is to launch the new Warmageddon title (WARMAGEDDON) to replace Warmageddon Quarterly, but as of this con, I don't have enough stock left to get me from point A to point B, so I will be working on a short run of each issue in order to last through this convention season.

** Eli is my 12-year old nephew. He spent his Spring Break with us and will be returning to live with us permanently this summer. We have to increase the size of our palatial estate before Eli can join us.

Riddle Page 1 Final Inks

2008-01-15T21:58:00.000-08:00

My goal for the new year is not only to post more, but to get more personal comic book work done. Every day, I devote about 90 minutes to one of a personal comic project. Today, I spent a little bit more (about 3 hours) to finish up this page.

This is page 1 of a Warmageddon story called Riddle. It's pencilled by Dario Carrasco and everything else is on me (writing, inks, lettering, grays, publishing). Dario received the script for this story about a year ago and so far has delivered 2 pages. I'm still patiently waiting for more pages and can't wait to jump into inking the next page (page 2).

While you're her at my blog, take some time to visit, read and hopefully vote for Thomas: Agent of Chaos over at Zuda Comics.

Harley Quinn in 90 minutes

2008-01-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

I hope to get more coloring and inking practice in the new year, so I will be posting regular exercises where I spend no more than 90minutes on an image. This is the first one.

Harley Quinn
Pencils by Tom Hodges
Inks and colors by me

Illustration Friday : sprout

2007-02-05T07:18:00.000-08:00

As I've said before, I still a big fan of He-man and the Masters of the Universe (MotU). One of the episodes from the first season features a plant villain known as Evilseed. This week's Illustration Friday topic is sprout so, I present you with my version of Evilseed.

ORIGINAL EVILSEED

MY EVILSEED

Illustration Friday : Super Hero

2007-01-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

I'm back and this is Illustration Friday Topic "Super Hero". I chose Superman. click for the larger version.

Illustration Friday : Thanksgiving

2006-11-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

Nothing too complicated about this. It's just a turkey some fruit, bread and veggies waiting to be served up on Thursday.

Reading Lists

2006-11-11T17:53:00.000-08:00

I read lots of stuff from time to time and the other day, I went through all the books that we placed in the closet (away from the Trio of Destruction). I've pulled out some books to read so there they are on the side bar, my current reading list. Check them out. Right now I'm little more than 1/2 way through with Sphereland and part way through Akira Volume 1.

Deanne reads much more than I do. You'll very rarely see her without a book. Her list of books right now includes 3 from Sue Grafton, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach.

What's Going On

2006-11-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

For the last couple days, I've been lettering almost non-stop. I finished the last of the 48 pagers today, so all that is left is whatever corrections that need to be made. I now have time to sit down and flip through the comic books I just received. From Ultimate Comics, I picked up the latest 2 issues of DC's 52 and issue #3 of Frank Cho's Red Sonja comic. In the mail, I received Issue #2 of the Savage Sword of Conan (from 1974) and Essential Conan (Marvel's black and white reprint of the first 25 issues of the Conan the Barbarian comic).

I've been a big fan of the Conan, Red Sonja and Masters of the Universe comics and I've been trying to get as many of the comics as possible. Right now, I have issues 60-200 of the Marvel series (which ran to 275) and about 30 of the various issues of Savage Sword and Conan Saga. The newest stuff (from Dark Horse), I get mainly in collected hardcover form. I'm not a big fan of the mini series although P. Craig Russell's was good. I look forward to reading Tim Truman's mini series as well, I simply waiting for all the issues to come out so I can read it all in one sitting.

I think my run of Red Sonja is mostly complete. I'm not big fan of Dynamite's Red Sonja and their collections of the old material was poor, so I got all the back issues. I think I'm missing the newest Marvel series, but that I can live without. I'm enjoying the Frank Cho written Red Sonja mini series, but the art could be better. The funny thing about the Cho story is it features Sonja versus a cannibal queen and in a bit of creator synergy Tiegre's latest adventure in Warmageddon Quarterly #3 has her taking on a cannibal queen from the Tribe of Drakul.

Speaking of Tiegre, I just sat down to pen her latest adventure for Warmageddon Quarterly Volume 2 Number 1. In this we venture off the coast of the Warmageddon mainland and unto the isle of J'Mekya where we meet Marlee, the Oracle of Pars (along with the other Priestesses of Pars). I finished the overall plot and have written the script for the first 2 pages. I hope to have a working draft of this story before the end of the month, so that the artist can begin work on it. But I also have 36 pages left to ink for WQ#4 and comics to read.

Illustration Friday : Clear

2006-11-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

Clear as a crystal .. this one is Deanne's idea. I was thinking about a magnifying glass burning and ant, but she suggested the crystal and the rest is me being a geek.

Zombie King Page #3 : Step 4

2006-11-05T06:02:00.000-08:00

And... with the last panel done... This page is set to the side for grayscales. The grays will be added after I've finish inking all the pages, so it will be a while (7 more pages) before you see that. Stay tuned for Step 5.

Zombie King Page #3 : Step 3

2006-11-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Two more panels down and now on to the last panel which just happens to be the first panel.

Illustration Friday : Smoke

2006-11-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

This week's Illustration Friday topic is smoke...

Growing up, I think my mother was the only one around that didn't smoke. Now every one in my family that I have contact with has given up smoking (except one uncle). Strange how the time change.

I'll be posting an update to the Zombie King Page later before I finish up the inks.

Zombie King Page #3 : Step 2

2006-11-02T17:46:00.000-08:00

For these panels I just grabbed the pen tool and started clicking away. I started with these 2 panels because they were the most simple and the kids are running about. This allowed to get some panels out of the way and still keep an eye on the kids.

For the most part these panels used one pen size for the foreground. The background in the 3 panel is just rectangles set to an angle with 3 different line weights. Now on to the other panels.

Zombie King Page #3 : Step 1

2006-11-02T07:02:00.000-08:00

Over the next few weeks, I will be working almost exclusively on Warmageddon stories. With those stories I will be inking, lettering and adding gray tones (grayscaling). The 2 stories are drawn in 2 radically different styles so I thought I would chronicle my work on one page from each story from beginning to end. First up is the Zombie King.

The art for Zombie King is drawn by Grant Perkins (Paradox). Below are the pencils from page 3 of the story. Zombie King was written by Richard Nelson.

Grant has a geometrical drawing style that uses consistent line weights. I've decided to do all my work on this story in Adobe Illustrator. The usual work flow on a page is writing, pencilling, inking, grayscales and lettering. Since I'm working solely in Illustrator and doing all the latter work myself, I've decide to change the work flow to lettering, inking, and then grayscales. Why? Mainly because I can. It really doesn't save any time, but it allow me to get all the lettering out of the way first. So below you can see, the page above with just the lettering and panel borders.

In lettering the page above I used Comicraft fonts. Those font were Astronauts in Trouble (for the captions) and Fighting Words (the zombie balloons). I opted to use a manga-style balloon similar to that used by Nate Piekos on Atland.

That's where I am now with the page. Look for more updates as I reach the next steps.

Cartoon Captain Hysteria

2006-11-01T17:22:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday : Wind

2006-10-31T10:57:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to do at least one piece of art a week. I will be participating in Illustration Friday. Every Firdya that send out a topic and then you create art on the topic. Wind is the latest topic and below is my wind image. I just did it in about 30 minutes in Adobe Illustrator. It started with the idea o showing a cloud with puffy cheeks blowing, but ended as this.

more play

2006-10-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

Just playing, but this looks eeriely similar to a troublemaker I know a long time back.

Graves from Eirian and Orumil

2006-10-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

I took a break from coloring the next set of Eirian and Orumil strips to draw up this little sketch in Illustrator. About 10 minutes to draw and color. It'sGraves from the strip. The strip is update Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays with new comics, but now I'm thinking about tackling a Sunday strip. Richard Nelson is hopefully coming up with Sunday strip ideas and we'll see how long I can keep those following.

Back from SPX

2006-10-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

I got from SPX last night at about 12:30 AM or so and promptly crashed so her's the Warmageddon SPX report.

I got to SPX on Friday morning about 11:30AM. When I got there, Steve Ahlquist (who I shared my 1/2 table with) was already then with his friend Dave. Steve has gotten in the day before and was set up and ready to go. Steve is a writer/editor. his claim to fame is the Oz Squad books and SLG Strange Eggs (which he received a Harvey nomination for). He also does a mini-comic caused Peeny Boy.

Steve was on the right of me and Craig Tallefar (Wahoo Morris, Chelathon Kid) was on the left. Craig had just released the Wahoo Morris trade (collecting the 3 self published issues and the one Image issue) on Wednesday and had stacks of them on his table along with his accoustic blues CD and Sleeping Dragon TPB and speakers.

On Friday we learned that the convention ran from 2 pm and 8pm and that all our sales combined would not pay for the cost of one table. I think I sold 1 comic on Friday. 1 and I never left the table. However, eveyone else learned that animal crackers are a great and tasty treat that can be purchased in 2 pound bags at Walmart for less than $2 and I got a free 20 oz Dr. Pepper for watching Steve's 1/2 table while he and Dave went to get drinks.

After only selling one book, I wasn't in the mood to do anything after the convention, so I grabbed something to eat at the McDonald's across the street and set off to find the local Borders. After travelling the wrong way down Rockville Pike for about 2 miles, I turned around and located the Borders which was about 2 blocks away from the convention hotel. I located the graphic novel section and found the Art of Usagi Yojimbo, the first Walking Dead hardcover and Scott McCloud's new book Making Comics. I sat down and read the first 2. It was 10:45PM when they announced that Borders was closing and I went to purchase Making Comics. It was then that I discovered my wallet was missing! After panicking, I went back to the car (the last place I remember having it) and looked. After searching the car, I found my wallet under the steerring wheel and all was good in the world. I went back to Borders and bought Making Comics.

Following the adventures in Borders, I then called Deanne, grabbed some food at the 24 hour McDonald's and read some of Making Comics. About an hour later, I headed back to the hotel and went to sleep.

During conventions, I don't usually get much sleep, so I was up at 5 and back at the McDonalds for the $1 tea. Some old guy in front of me was arguing with the cashier and manager because his $1 order was $1.05 with tax. his assertion was that there was no tax on food. He was adament about not paying a tax on food and stormed out. I just stood there thinking that in fact McDonald's isn't chargining you for the food, but rather the service of producing the food. Also, I thought that he wasted more than 5¢ of his time arguing over 5¢.

Anyways, I finally got my tea and set down to read more of Making Comics. When I loked up an hour later, there were 4 people sleeping in the McDonald's booths. One was obviously homeless, but it struck me odd that people come to McDonald's for the early morning version of siesta. I grabbed Making Comics and headed to the hotel lobby.

In the hotel lobby, I sat down and read Making Comics as the sun rose and warmed the lobby. I was greeted by another comic fan who sat down and feel asleep while waiting for hte rest of his party. Later, 2 little girls ran around the counch near where I sat while their grandparents attempted to wrangle them. I finished reading Making Comics and headed to the car to get my stuff before starting the day at the convention.

The convention started at 10am. I was inside by showroom by 9:30 and it was mostly empty. I put together my table and sat down hoping for a better day. By 10:00, you couldn't even tell there was a convention. Most of the tables were still empty and it seemed as if no one was wandering about. Someone mentioned in passing that the first 2 hours on Saturday were pointless as ntohing started until noon.

2 hours passed and I had 1 sale. It was now noon and I settled in expecting no more sales for the rest of the day. My plan was to wait for Scott McCloud to show up, talk to him for a bit and head home. It was then that people just appeared out of nowhere and the sales started coming in. Before I knew it, it was 12:20 and I had even more sales. by 12:30 I had even more sales and by 1PM even more. It was around then that Steve Conley passed by and we had a short chat and then I sawe Scott McCloud enter the room and head to his table. His table was 2 tables down from mine on the corner and then .... he disappeared. Scott was off buying the various comics and mini comics, just taking a view of the landscape. So I stayed at my table as even more sales trickled in.

Stan of Squid Works came by and purchased some books.
Logan of ComixPress.com came by and we talked a bit. He purchased several books and headed back to his table after inviting me to come check out their perfect bindingas they had samples at the table. It slowed down a bit and I spied Scott McCloud at his table wiht only one person in line, so I headed over there. By the time, I navigated the 2 tables to Scott, I was the 6th person in line so I patiently waited while Craig and Steve laughed at my misfortune.

Some time later, I finally made it Scott. I didn't want to monopolize too much of his time, so I sat down the 3 books to be signed (Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics) and started to introduce myself when ...

Scott hesitated and began, "How's it going Jama..."

For those that don't know, I had a friend, Jamar Nicholas, who is also a black guy with dreads and glasses and roughly the same body type. We met at SPX 1999 and have been communicatng ever since. We do look vaguely similar and are both into making comics and the comics scene (as it is). We have a similar set of comic industry friends, so every now and then I run into people who thinks I'm him and he runs into people who thinks he's me. So with that in mind, let's remember that I've only corresponded with Scott once via email and I've met him once (about 4 minutes 7 years ago) and now back to Scott.

Then Scott paused and you could see the gears turning as he putting a last name with the firat name. "Walton?," he half- stated and half-asked. I was astonished that he knew my name since we haven't corresponded for over 6 years. And then Scott began to talk about how he was aware that I was building a good web presence and we talked for about 10 minutes about comics and what I was doing with Warmageddon and who knows what else. As we talked a line began to form, so I turned his attention to the books again (which we had both forgotten as we were deep in conversation). I apologized for monopolizing his time and he promptly ignored my apology as we started talking about print on demand and Zot! We reached the end of that conversation and I excused myself so that the others could talk with Scott.

Free of my table and having recently (with Scott) talked about print on demand, I heade over to the ComixPress both and talked with Logan and Jodi. Honestly, I have been a very vocal critic of ComixPress. Both Jodi and Logan know how difficult I am and they won me over! You couldn't ask for more dedicated, patient, polite, and knowledgeable people. Logan knows his stuff and stands behind everything that ComixPress does. The short run color look great. The black and white books look good. The TPBs are well bound. My only gripe is the glossy paper, but you can't win them all. As I said, I'll be working with them in the future and with their new discount systems and the SPX discount, they'll be hearing from me soon!

After talking to Logan, it was back to the table and making more sales. Chris Stevens and Jason Rodriquez stopped by. I didn't get to talk to Jason as he darted right on by. Chris had come by earlier and introduced himself. Chris is working on a comic with some amazing artists. When it's complete, I very much look forward to buying it.

There were occassional lulls, but every time I really noticed it appeared as it people were just dropped into the middle of the showroom and then more sales came. There were lots of people interested in Warmageddon for their teenaged kids and I'm really glad that we made the decision to make it a PG-13 book. There was one mother that asked which of the 3 issues would I reccomend for a young female reader. I told her that the books are PG-13 and that issue #1 features Tiegre (a strong female character that's always in control) and Ulmragha (a young female character that is banished because she doesn't fit into her clans beauty standard). She purchased it and I was happy to be have a book that could appeal to a female audience.

Before I knew it we were in the last hour of the show. Typically, in the last hour of the show, I begin to tear down everything and get ready fo rhte trip home. however, 5 minutes into the hour, I made a sale and then another. All said and done, I made 5 sales in the last hour and almost completely sold out of issue #2. I packed up said my good-byes and hit the road.

4 hours later, I was home and 1 hour after that I was sleep.
At some point today, I'll unpack the car and read Peeny-Boy again and figure out who I need to contact and follow-up like Green Brain Comics and Stephanie Brandford (mutate20) at Dwayne McDuffie's forum.

Writing

2006-10-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is what I was given today by McKenzie. She's now 4 and has been working on her writing for a couple months now. She has been spending lots of time daily looking at books and writing the words from the books. She can't read but she can successfully copy letters and write the correct letter when you tell her what to write. Right now see can successfully spell 3 words without any assistance. Those words are the 2 above (Daddy and McKenzie) and Mommy. She can't yet spell Mom, without help (go figure) and she with working on Gwen and Nesta.

I'm most impressed beause her name has some really hard letters that most kids write backwards or just incorrectly (k, e, n, z) but she writes the correctly most of the time. I'm very proud of my little 4 year old, however, I wish that she (and I) could stay as we are now forever.

One day my little girl with no longer be my litle girl :(

The Name Game

2006-10-10T06:44:00.000-07:00

I (Larry Jámal) am named after my father (Larry Ben) who was in turn named named after his father (Benjamin). Despite everything, I chose to keep the tradition and name my son after myself (Nesta Jamal). Why? I don't know, but I take solace in knowing that that my father knew I extended the tradition even if I don't know why I chose to.

Interestingly enough, Deanne and I had names for the kids long before we ever had kids. The boy was to be Nesta Jamal and the girl, Tate Alexandra. We had these names back in 1995 when we first got engaged right out of high school. When Deanne was pregnant with McKenzie we stated the name game again mainly because I wasn't happy with Tate (I wanted Paige) and she still wanted Tate so we later decided on McKenzie Elizabeth. McKenzie is name after my mother, Stephanie Elizabeth. She was named after her maternal grandparents (Stephen and Elizabeth). To further complicate the matter, my mother's official name is actually Stephenie and not Stephanie (note the e after the h and not the a that is normally there). Apparently while she was in grade school, the teacher decided that my mother should use the "correct" spelling and thus up until a this last year, my mother has used the a rather than the e. Who knows why she decided to make the change (but she may read this post and respond with a reason in the comments, she'll be Nona), but she has.

I have cousins Stephen and Elizabeth. My sister (Clarice) is named after our grandmother (Clara Lee). There's a Stephanie (named after my mother Stephenie). There's my cousin (and Stephanie's brother) Darryl Lee named after his father (Darryl Trent) and our grandmother. They also have an older brother, Trent. There's my uncle James, Jr named after my grandfather (James). There's my cousin Rhonda named for her father (my uncle), Ronald. That's my maternal side.

There are only 4 of us on my paternal side (me, my sister, and 2 cousins). The only one of note for this discussion is Charnez who is name after her father, Arnez. Incidentally, My sister's daughter is Ieashia Sharez, but she denies all implication that she named her after our uncle Arnez.

The bottomline is that there is a naming tradition on both sides of my family. On my mother's side there are even family names (Ann, Elizabeth, Steven, James). Our mother didn't pass along any family names to us, but she did continue the tradition and I passed that tradition on to my children. It will up to them to reinstate the family names. I can only think of one child in my children's generation that has a family name and that would be Stephen's son Stephen. Neither Stephen nor his son Stephen use their first name, like myself and most of my cousins, they use their middle name. Of my generation, only 2 use their given first names, 2 use nick names (alternate versions of their first names) and at least 6 of us (myself included) use middle names.

Procrastination ....

2006-09-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

Yep, I completed nothing today and I blame ... ULTIMATE CONAN!!!

Dropped Deanne off at work today and when I got home, there it was waiting for me, Ultimate Conan. So I sat down and opened the Amazon package and after flipping through once, I was hooked. At every chance I read a page here and there. In the car waiting at the school. In the car while the kids played (Nesta didn't want to leave the car) and as soon as Jay's monologue is over tonight, I'll be reading it again.

The good thing about all this is that it's giving me a direction for next's years issues of Warmageddon. I've decided to flesh out the gods and mythology of the people of Warmageddon. I've always been a huge mythology buff and this gives me a way of tap into that.

Staus Update #2

2006-09-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

I'm down to 4 pages to flat from Digital Webbing's BloodRayne comic.

I down to 1 panel to color on the Image submission.

I have 14 pages to script and letter for the next issue of Warmageddon Quarterly.
I now have another page, but I've decided to add gray tones to this story, so that adds some extra work.

I still have 1 commision to color.

I have 12 pages to letter for another Small Press Idol submission (Badland Taxi). These pages should be in either tomorrow or Saturday.

I have 3 new Warmageddon online comic strips to letter and color.
I'm waiting to finish everything else, so will probably get to this over the weekend.

And I did pay for the car insurance, yesterday.

Working status....

2006-09-27T06:04:00.000-07:00

Let's see how much progress. I have made.

I'm down to 4 pages to flat from Digital Webbing's BloodRayne comic.

I down to 2 pages to color for an Image submission.

I have 14 pages to script and letter for the next issue of Warmageddon Quarterly.
Still waiting for the high resolution scans for the the last 9 pages, but I have a good idea of what to write.

I still have 1 commision to color.

I have 12 pages to letter for another Small Press Idol submission (Badland Taxi).
Waiting on the pages which should be in soon.

I have 3 new Warmageddon online comic strips to letter and color.
I'm waiting to finish everything else, so will probably get to this over the weekend.

So I'm slowly but surely getting stuff done.
Now I'm off to pay for car insurance.

Working ... Working ...

2006-09-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

Lots of stuff going on that I need to get out this week.

I just finished lettering and grayscales on Wicket and Imp. Wicket and Imp is part of the Small Press Idol contest that Warmageddon once competed in. Go to www.dimstoreproductions.com and check it out.

I have 5 pages to flat from Digital Webbing's BloodRayne comics.

I have 4 pages to color for an Image submission.

I have 14 pages to script and letter for the next issue of Warmageddon Quarterly.

I have 1 commision to color.

I have 12 pages to letter for another Small Press Idol submission (Badland Taxi).

I have 3 new Warmageddon online comic strips to letter and color.

I think that's about it for right now, but I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Time to get to wrok while Nesta is sleeping.

I also completed a phone interview with a local company that looking for a web developer role into a print /web design guy.

new sketch

2006-09-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

Just more digital playing around with another member from Ungoodwise. This is Uyi from the Darkside. I'm liking this new style and may apply it to another project that my buddy Mike Hawthorne says that I'm stupid not to do. More on that later.

Below is just another drawing I did just to get more comfortable. I thought of it as an Uyi image, but now, it looks much to old to be Uyi and looks more like a totem pole face.

Sketch #2.5 : Going Digital

2006-07-29T23:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to count this as a real sketch (thus the 2.5) as it's a digital image. I've been trying to create a digital style of my own because I spend more time at the computer with my stylus than I do with pencil and paper. I figure drawing digitally is the next logical step. The real problem is I don't like drawing in Photoshop and I don't like the inking in Illustrator. So I've been inking in Photoshop and I've finally settled on a style I like. I'll be digitally inking the next Tiegre story over Robert Herzig's art a sample appears below.

Back to my sketch... it began as my Ungoodwise character (Rasta) and ultimately evolved into a afroman when I couldn't get the dreads to look right. Oh well... here it is followed by the Tiegre page.

Sketch #2 : Trap-Jaw

2006-07-28T23:15:00.000-07:00

I feel like such a slacker. It's taken me a whole week to do another sketch. It's a head sketch of Trap Jaw and took me all of maybe 15-20 minutes. I really should be doing this more often and I really will try. Really....

Sketch #1 : Evil-Lyn

2006-07-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

I used to draw more often, but now I don't draw very much. I'm hoping to change that. This is a sketch of Evil-Lyn from the Masters of the Universe (aslo known as He-Man).

Eden Completed!

2006-07-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

I just finished the last of the Eden books and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed them more than any book that I've read lately. In readin them, I found myself engrossed in the story and yearning to read more. A lot of times, I really find myself struggling to read through books ... even books I enjoy. Sometimes I even fall asleep reading them. With the book, I fought off sleep to complete it and now I feel empty. No more stories of Kerrick, the Tanu, or Yílane. Now it's time to move on to something new.

Harry Harrison's Eden Trilogy

2006-07-16T21:50:00.000-07:00

I finished up Kamandi a couple nights ago and decided to jump into a prose novel. The novel of choice was Return to Eden by Harry Harrison. I was first introduced to the Eden Saga in 1992 with West of Eden and Winter in Eden. Some point in the last year, I bought all three books off Amazon and read WoE and WiE again. It wasn't until I started reading Return to Eden that I realized that I never finished the series. So now, I'm finishing it.

For those that haven't heard of the series ... The basic concept is what if the dinosaurs did not become extinct. That line of reasoning is followed to the point of the creation of a race of man like lizards (YÃlane) that rule the Old World while humans (Tanu) rule the New World. The YÃlane comtoot the new world because the Old World is becoming too cold and thus the 2 species meet and go to war. At the beginning of RoE they have reached a truce of sorts. It's an interesting series of novels.

The reason that I picked up the books again was that I was planning to use the YÃlane as a base for the Warmageddon bwangs. Now I don't think I will, but I have some other ideas brewing. Right now, I'm 1/2 way through RoE and then I will being catchrch up on some comic reading before hitting the Martian books. I vaguely remember having the Marvel John Carter comic series, so maybe I'll search those out as well (if I still have them).

On the Warmageddon front, I've finished lettering the Asar story for issue #3 and have begun to work on the cover colors. Caio has finished pencilled one page from the Adventure on Roc Island. So that's about it.

Currently, I working on a shopping cart for a new site. This is the first shopping cart that I've built in about 3 years, but everything seems to be flowing well. I've finished the addign to cart and editing/ removing items in the cart functions. Next will be the user login part and address information. I hope to get through that by tomorrow. Time to hit the sack and get another small bit of reading done.

Warmageddon Monday

2006-07-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

Did you check out the Warmageddon strip today?
If not then why not? Today marked the 4th strip so get in on the ground floor.

Today was a Warmageddon day. Today I ...
1) lettered 5 more pages of The Golden Egg (the next Asar story)
2) stopped by the post office to grab the contract from the next Warmageddon artist. He will be working on new Asar stories
3) received strip #21 via email today
4) lettered and uploaded strips 19-21
5) uploaded new art to the Warmageddon art gallery

In addition to all that I managed to read up to issue 6 in the Kamandi archives. Only 5 more issues before I move unto to Burroughs's Martian stories and the stack of comics, I sat aside to read. The stack is about 1/4 a short box so I'll plow through those in maybe a week's time.

That's it for today. I'm a little late on the update because, I was watching Leno.

Loooong Sunday

2006-07-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

It's been a long day and it's only 11PM.
Today was a complete Warmageddon day. I grayscaled all 18 pages for the next Asar story and I managed to letter one of the pages. The completed page can be seen below.

Funny ... I don't really feel as though I did too much today. With any other comic that would be the equilivant of an entire book worth of grays, but with Warmageddon that's about 1/3 of the 56 pages. I'm thinking Volume #2 (next year) will be less pages (maybe 48), but who knows.

Maybe my day seemed so long because I had to clean up 2 tea spills and changed about 300 diapers and addition to the Warmageddon stuff. Or maybe it's because I decided to watch Star Wars. I started with Episode I around 3or 4 o'clock and Luke has just headed to see Yoda for the first time in Episode V as I type this. I know Lucas has said Star Wars is the story of Anakin Skywalker, but after watching the prequels, I'm far more interested in learning more about Palpatine. Just how did a Sith Lord become a Naboo senator?

It's now time to make one last rounds of my usual Internet spots before diving into issue #2 of Kamandi. The Kamandi reading is going much slower than the Cerebus reading. I love Kamandi but often find myself drifting off. I wish DC would finish up the Kirby issues of Kamandi in Archive format.

Busy Saturday

2006-07-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

Weekends are usually slow. I usually sit back and watch a He-Man DVD or something. However, today I had to flat some pages for the BloodRayne comic published by Digital Webbing and latter 3 strips for the Warmageddon comic strip.

What is flatting a page?
Flatting is basically taken the finished lineart for a comic book page that is to be colored and separating by color each element that needs to be colored. This usually takes me about an hour and a half if I'm wrangling with the kids or about 45 minutes to an hour with no distractions. When flatting I try to get 2-3 pages done before noon. One page during the day when the kids are more active and another 2-3 pages after the girls hit the sack. Flatting makes for really long days (as it is boring and tedious work), but the girls like watching it. You can tell if the girls are watching by the the amount of red and pink that appear in the flats. At night, I just stick in any colors (the colors you use don't matter when flatting), and they tend to stay green, brown and blue, but the girls request red and pink so I use a lot of those colors when the girls are about.

A finished flat is nothing exciting. It's just the colors without the lines. But the first one is with the girls watching. The other is without the girls. See how the colors are different? These are 2pages 4 and 5 from a Fist of Justice story.

With the Warmageddon strip, I letter it, upload it to the server and try to keep it on schedule. It's a strip that updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so that means every weekend, I should have 3 strips to letter. Monday starts the second week of the strip and I have uploaded all the strips through the end of week six, so we are about a month ahead. In addition, we have a month worth of filler strips and I received the first strip for week 7 on the 5th. That seems to be chugging along nicely, now we just need to get an audience for the strip so it generates money for us all (Richard Nelson, Jon St. John and I). If you are reading this you should stop rerading right now and go check it out.

That's it for now, time to feed the munchkins .... again.

FF/ Iron Man : Big In Japan

2006-07-07T21:24:00.000-07:00

With story by Zeb Wells and art by the late Seth Fisher, FF/ Iron Man: Big in Japan is a fun romp with the FF and Iron Man in Japan complete with oodles of big monster and the gigantically huge Apocalypse Beast. As it is, the story is basic superhero fare. The heroes join together to stop the beast who will end the world. What makes this book radically different from those that come before it, is that the creators embrace the absurd and run with it. I've been meaning to checkout the work of Seth Fisher since I first saw the cover to the Green Lantern: Willworld hardcover. Unfortunately, it took his death to really make me look into his work. I enjoyed this 4 issue FF mini series and will be hunting down Seth's other comic book contributions.

And yes I did read this after posting my first blog post. Right now I'm looking for something to start before going to bed. My usual night ritual involves the Tonight Show, but all this week it's been reruns after Wimbledon highlights. With no Leno I've been reading more before going to bed. Up next is Kamandi Volume 1 (Archive Edition) after I finish this then I'll dive into Burroughs's Princess of Mars.

Welcome.. Welcome .. come one come all

2006-07-07T18:44:00.000-07:00

We are all wandering the world in varying states of madness and since today is my birthday, I've decided to start yet another blog. I have one for my kids and one about my late father (see the links). This one will cover everything else. At some point, I will move everything to ljamal.com (my web site), but until then.

WELCOME TO MY MADNESS!

I just finished reading all 16 Volumes of Cerebus and Cerebus #0 (6000 pages of comics) over the last 47 days. I started on 22 May 2006 and finished tonight (7 July 2006). Cerebus is a 300 issue comic book, so that's about 6 1/3 comics per day. For those that aren't aware, I had to read Cerebus #0 because it collects the 3 or 4 stories fromt he 300 issues that were not collected in the larger volumes. Without the #0 issue I should have only read 296-297 issues Cerebus.

Now that I'm finished with that monumental undertaking, I think I'll settle in and read some smaller comic collections before diving into the Martian stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs (A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, The Warlord of Mars, etc). I picked up 2 collections but out by Barnes and Noble that collect all of Burroughs's Martian tales and I mean to read them soon. First however, I think I'll spend a week reading the comic trades that have piled up while I was reading Cerebus. First on that list is Seth Fisher's last work (Fantastic Four/ Iron Man: Big in Japan). That will most likely be followed by the latest Conan hardcover from Dark Horse and then who knows. Maybe some Rocketo (Image) as it's starting to back up.