The Whole Shebang!

Here it is...the 'What If...' Story.

Words: Richard McCauliffe

Doodles: Stephen (Flintlockjaw) Reid.

Thank you, thank you very much.

What If....

Did this at work, inbetween actually working.

Script by the comic genius Richard 'BlueMeanie' McAuliffe.

Thugs! Update

Meet more members of 'The Liberty Syndicate' in 'Thugs!' at http://www.pixelstrips.com/

Storyboards, storyboards...

I got myself lots and lots of storyboarding to do.
175 panels to be precise.

Busy, busy, busy.....

Secret Project

Here's an inked panel from an upcoming secret project I'm working on.

Although, the people that know me already know what it is. Not much of a secret then, is it?

Thugs - Ultramaiden First Appearance

Yep.
The First Appearance of Ultramaiden.

Thugs is updated. Got to www.Pizelstrips.com and have a read.

Mrs. Browns Boys - Bible cover - color!

Need to probably tweak this a bit but so far, so good!

The Animated Series Bible Cover Inks!

Here's the inked version of the 'Mrs. Browns Boys' bible cover.

Mrs. Browns Boys - Bible Cover Ruff!

This is the rough pencils for the Bible cover for 'Mrs. Browns Boys: The Animated Series'.

I wanted to do a fun type cover instead of the usual boring family portrait cover.

Thugs! Update!

Another 'Thugs!' Update at www.Pixelstrips.com

The Liberty Syndicate HQ. Kinda neat. I still like that page.

Harley Quinn!

Did this Birthday drawing for Rich McAuliffe.

Rich goes by the name Bluemeanie on the CGS Forums. One heck of a funny guy and he's contributed to the Heroes Exposed strip a couple of times too.

Golden Age Wonder Woman!

Based this on 'The New Frontier' by Darwyn Cooke. Added my own bit of flavor to it.

Another Thugs update!

THUGS! @ www.Pixelstrips.com

Heroes Exposed - Script to Screen #5

Ta-Da!



The finished piece of art. Kevin adds the final touches with the lettering and colors.

Although when it eventually gets to print...some will have to be overhauled

Batgirl again!

Another commission, another Batgirl!

It's okay...not as happy with it as I was with the first Batgirl...oh well! Moving on!

Batman, Harley, Joker

Another commission.

Quite like this one...and yep...Batman is smiling.

Star Wars - Asajj Ventress

Really, really like this piece I did for a forum member on the ComicGeekSpeak forums...and he's a good guy too.

This is a commission for Lord Shaper.

As Borat would say...'It's niiiiice!'

Thugs! Update

Thugs has been updated...
www.Pixelstrips.com

Enjoy.

Green Lantern - Hal Jordan!

I love the Len Wein/Dave Gibbons Green Lantern from the 80's.
Probably my favorite take on Hal Jordan.

Tried to capture some of that fun with this picture. Not too shabby.

Batgirl!

Kinda like this one. Cute.

Nightbeat!

With a name like NightBeat...I thought a disco theme would be good.

Transformers...Dancers in Disguise!

Thugs! Doctor Patience

The Doctors first appearance.

Check out 'Thugs!' at www.Pixelstrips.com

Hellblazer!

John Constantine and friends!

I tried a sketchy approach with this. Not bad.

Superboy!

This is the late Conner Kent...Superboy.

Not too thrilled with it. I kinda screwed up his arm...apart from that it's decent.

Oh well....I'll do better next time.

Golden Age Sandman!

I was trying something different with the inking of this image. I went for more blacks and less detail. I think it turned out okay for my first experiment.

Wesley Dodds looks good in Black & White.

Thugs Case Files

As a way of breaking up the 'Thugs' chapters... Al has put together some 'Case Files'.
The case files are basically some background information on the chracters that appear in 'Thugs'.

First up is 'DarkCowl' and 'The Finch'.

Go to www.Pixelstrips.com and enjoy!

Heroes Exposed - Script to Screen #4

Here's the finished B&W for Kevin to add speech balloons and color.

I added the borders in photoshop. The border is 5 point pencil line and I also cleaned up the fuzzy stuff from scanning the page in with the eraser tool. I also fixed the last image. The one that the cigarette smoke was bugging me.

Now it's in kevin's hands to add the magic.

Heroes Exposed - Script to Screen #3

Above is the inked version.

What I've done is inked over the blue pencil lines...scanned the image into photoshop at 300 dpi.
Used levels and brightness and contrast to get rid off the blue line and then grayscaled the image.

Next step is to add the panels and clean up the drawing a little bit more in photoshop. For example...the chimps cigarette in the last panel. The smoke is kinda screwed up...so I'm gonna remove some of it and hope that Kevin can make it look good in color...in other words...cover up my screw-up. ;-)

Heroes Exposed - Script to Screen #2

Above is the pencilled version of the script.

I've added a few changes as you can see...and I've also included suggestions for the balloon placement (sometimes I'll do that so some of the art isn't covered up.

(Sometimes it matters to me and sometimes it don't...I'm weird that way!)

I scan it in a send a ruff to Kevin to see if he likes the additions I made. Kevin's pretty flexible and anything I suggest he goes with it. He's awesome that way.

Heroes Exposed - Script to Screen #1

Okay....I've decided to post different the different stages of how I create the Heroes Exposed strip.

1. First I get the script from Kevin. Sometimes it's detailed, sometimes it's vague. In this case...it's a bit vague...which I don't mind and quite like because it leaves me a lot of room to throw in my own ideas. I've pasted the script below ...it's a Superpets themed one. The idea actually came from Peter Rios of the ComicGeekSpeak podcast. I had talked to him about writing a guest spot and he mentioned the Superpets. Unfortunately, he didn't get the chance to write it...but I mentioned it to Kevin...and Kevin drummed up this number.

Here's a new script. I'll more than likely chage the dialogue as usual, but the gist is the same. Thanks

LEX- Where are they now? Today we talk with one time hero Beppo.

BEPPO- (smoking, blowing out smoke, he has a monkey comb over, whatever that looks like, and a suit)Hey Lex. Glad to be here.

LEX - So the team, where are they now. You've just written a tell all, give us some details.

BEPPO- (he is holding up the book, have fun with the cover) Its been a tough road for some of us...You can do the next panels like pages from the book maybe, like picture pages they do in the middle in the book. Fairly large.

BEPPO- Streaks pretty much burned out on supernip.(Streaky- Do a mug shot having him really strung out looking. Almost like a Bill the Cat look.)

BEPPO- Krypto went all show business. (Not sure about this surprise me) BEPPO- And well...Comet...well that was just sad(A bottle of glue like the rubber cement, with Super Glue on it.)

Another page up!

Thugs at www.Pixelstrips.com

The Black Cat!

One of Spidey's friends/foes...The Black Cat.

Big Iron Pin-Up!

A pin-up for Kevin Volo's and Uriel A. Duran's western epic...Big Iron!

Of course, poor Kev will have to color it and slap the logo on it.

This drawing is based on Jonah Hex No. 16. The greatest western series ever!!!! (apart from 'Big Iron' of course!)

Supergirl!

...on a trampoline!

Happy with the expression...but not much room for the trampoline.

Oh well.

Sam and Twitch!

First time drawing these characters.

Not too bad for a first attempt.

Stormtrooper vacation Inked!

...Or...How 'Return of the Jedi' should have ended!

Yet another Thugs page!

Check it out at www.pixelstrips.com

Thugs! Update!!!

Another week...another page.

Check it out at www.pixelstrips.com

Stormtrooper - Ruff pencils

A blue pencil ruff of a commission I'm currently working on.

I thought it would be fun to stick the trooper on Endor looking real full of himself for killing some Ewoks.

I bet he's gonna have them stuffed.

Thugs! Update: Page 3

Go to www.pixelstrips.com and check out the 'first' appearance of Dark Cowl and The Finch!

Old school Batman!

Back in the day when he was known as 'The Batman'.

This image was inspired by Batman No.1 'Professor Hugo Strange And The Monsters' from 1940.

I always liked the appeal of The Batman carrying a gun an taking no guff. A real crying shame they introduced (toned down) the strip by adding a certain lame Boy Wonder!!!!

James Larkin Court!

Cleaned up background for the animated pilot. This is where Agnes Brown lives.

Alan Scott - Green Lantern

Old School, yo!

Seriously, I grew up reading the Len Wein 'Green Lantern' with art by Dave Gibbons. It was fantastic and had back-up stories written by Alan Moore...

But the thing is...I've recently been acquainted with the Alan Scott 'Green lantern'...and from the glimpses I've got...he is the real deal. Better than Jordan!!!

Alan Scott rocks!!!!

Thugs! Update

New page up on www.pixelstrips.com

You know the drill!

ZombieHomies... NOW in COLOR!

Here's the color version on the B+W ZombieHomies.

The colors on this series aren't really to my taste but it's what the client wanted.

What the client wants...they get!

Deb Bonair - More panels!

Two more inked samples.

Rory's pencil work continues to shine for me.

ZombieHomies Attack!

I did this for a start-up company.

A Lowrider, A hot babe, Homie Zombies and a punch to the head...what more could you want?

The thumbnails for the roughly '18 seconds' of the first audio clip 'Dermot/Chicken'.
The next stage is to roughly put together a quick animatic to see the flow...and then when it's okay'd...to do out cleaner storyboard pages and shoot a 'proper' animatic.

The animation will follow closely the 'proper' animatic.

Deb Bonair - Another panel

Another panel from the Deb strip.

I'm really enjoying inking over Rory's pencils. His work is so solid. He leaves me a lot of room to add my own touches.

The guy is a drawing genius...and a real pleasure to work with.

Thugs!

Ta-da!

After a year of working on this webcomic...it can finally be officially seen!

Kevin at Pixelstrips has graciously devoted a space to on the website to this quirky story of two lowly henchmen.

Al Sparrow (the uber-talented writer) has provided this brief FAQ:

1) When do we get to see it?

As soon as I get off my butt and get the stuff to Kevin. Hopefully I'll have time this very weekend. April 1st would be a great day to have an "official" beginning, wouldn't it?

2) What's it about?

Two thugs, or henchmen for a major supervillain, get lucky and kill two major superheroes by accident. Not only does this make them targets of the entire superhero community, there's more than a few supervillains who want to take them out as well. After all, they stole their thunder...

3) Where'd you get the idea?

I watched way too many episodes of the old "Batman" show with Adam West. Pay too much attention and you'll notice that sometimes the same thugs working for Cesar Romero's Joker one week were also henching for Gorshin's Riddler or Newmar's Catwoman the next week. It occured to me that being a thug must be a full-time gig, and someone ought to write a story about that. So I did.

4) Is this going to be like PVP where we can expect a new strip like clockwork, or Megatokyo, where we get a lot of side art while you're working on new pages?

Probably more of the latter. It comes down to how fast Steve can get pages. We have a solid 50 in the can and the plan is to release one a week. In addition to that we'll throw in character sketches, Who's Who type stuff and maybe I'll torture you with my artwork on occasion. It's a definite work in progress, but it's also one click on your mouse a week. That's not really that much to ask, I don't think.

5) Does the story have an ending?

Yes. We've actually plotted the whole thing out in case one of us dies. Or kill each other. Or something like that. It could happen.

6) Where's the merch?

It's coming, as soon as we figure out what on earth anyone would possibly want to spend their money on from this comic. It's no Marvel Zombies, you know!

7) Can my kids read this?

Depends on if your kids can handle seeing characters getting shot, dropping the occasional F-bomb, or dressing in suggestive superhero attire. We're not trying to make Garth Ennis blush or anything, but I've always felt cursing exists for a reason and if used effectively can help make dialogue better.

8) What are your goals with this comic?

It started out as a pasttime, evolved into a project, and is now becoming a published work...even if only on the web. Beyond that, we'd like to collect it in pulp format and sell it at some point, and then there's the day Marvel or DC taps us to bring back Atari Force or the Micronauts. After that, I see Timm doing the art chores on the cartoon release. Nahh...we're in it for the funny, not the money. Not that we'd turn it down if it happened, mind you.

9) Are you always this long-winded?

Why do you think Steve makes me letter my own stuff?

So, Check it out...it's up at www.Pixelstrips.com