Thugs! - Page 3

My scanner is STILL broken!

I'm off to fry's electronics tonight to get me a new one!

In the meantime here's page 3 of Thugs! Again, I had to resize and reletter it to fit the print format. It's a pain ...but it gives me the opportunity to fine tune everything...so, it's not all bad.

Scanner Problems!

Aaargh!

My scanner is on the fritz!
For some strange reason it's scanning 'Blank'. I reinstalled drivers etc, and did everything possible to fix it!

No dice!

I was cruising through pages today until the scanner issue. Wasted half my day trying every sort of solution.

If I can't get it sorted in the next couple of days...I'll have to buy a new one. What a bummer!

I have two pages to scan. One of 'Caretakers' and the other is the next page of 'Spicy Space Tales!'

........

Babes - Page 12 - Panel 1!

Another page down!

Babes - Page 10 - Panel 1!

Another snippet! Only a few more pages to go.

Thugs! - Page 2

As you may or may not know, Thugs! started as a web-strip, but that kinda fell to the wayside because the site the strip was on needed an overhaul.

Myself and Al have decided to self-publish 'Thugs!'. We decided that we are going to print through Ka-Blam and that's when I came across an important format issue. The pages are too big for Ka-Blams technical specs. So, now I have to go through each page and resize/reposition and in some cases completely redo the layout. Also, I'm going to tweak the lettering and the artwork...try and give it a more polished look.

So...what you see above is page 2 of Thugs! Book One...which was actually Page 1 of the webstrip. The Ubabee page was added as a nice intro to the series.

Confused? Don't worry...as the strip gets a fresh look for print...I'll be confused too!

THUGS! - Ubabee!

While I was doing some rough pencils on the last Caretakers story...I decided to draw the opening page for the Thugs! book.

Al Sparrow provided the words. It's Ubabee, The looker...the Thugs! universe version of Uatu, The Watcher.

THUGS! - Cover Ruff!

Heres the ruff cover for Thugs! No.1.

It's an homage to Batman: Gotham Adventures No.1 cover by Ty Templeton.
Of course I'll put the credit on the cover when I'm finished. Also, we spoofed the tagline from 'DC Universe 0' - The Ending Begins Here!'

In fact the whole of Thugs is a huge lovesong/spoof of all our favorite Superheroes. Lots of homages and 'tip of the hat' type stuff.

We hope to have the first issue published by August. It seems like it's a long way aways but time flies...

I'll post the final cover when I'm finished tweaking this one.

Babes - Page 10 - Panel 1!

Here's a peek at Page 10!

I got back from Sedona on the weekend. Myself and my beautiful wife of 10 years had a great time. Now my batteries are recharged.

I did page 10 today of the last Caretakers story. I'm really hyped because...not only am I near the end of the book, but my team 'Manchester United' beat 'Barcelona' today to go to the Champions League Final.

Woohoo!

Mercury and The Murd - color mock-up!

Here's the nearly completed cover for PKD Media's 'Mercury and the Murd' issue 2.

What I mean by mock-up is...the logos, credits etc proabably need to be switched around. I sent Shawn the uncluttered version for him to play around with. I put the the stuff on there to get an inkling of what the cover might look like because it looks very bare without it.

As soon as I get the complete cover back from Shawn at PKD I'll post it.

This post will be my last post for until Monday the 28th. I'm off to Sedona for a few days to celebrate my 10th Anniversary.

See y'all later!

Babes - Page 9 - Panel 1!

Alrighty!

I can't post anymore complete pages at the moment. I don't want to spoil the story...so, here's a snippet of page 9.

The Joker

A 5 Minute Doodle!

Everyones favorite lunatic.

New York!

An oldie but goodie!

Did this a few years ago. It was one background of a series of backgrounds showing the whole of the USA. This was the first one. I think I actually did around seven backgrounds before the idea was scrapped because the head of the department changed his mind a month into it. He was so incompetent.

The amount of time and money wasted on the whims of that lunatic are unbelieveable.

Darkseid

DARKSEID IS!

Or basically...Darkseid was!

The Fourth World is no more. The New Gods are Dead. Long Live the Fifth World.

It will be interesting to see what DC do now with Kirby's characters likely to be reborn in this Fifth World.

A 5 Minute Doodle!

Batman - 70's

A 5 Minute Doodle!

Wasn't intentionally meant to look like a 70's era Batman...just turned out that way.

Babes - Page 8 - Inks!

The last preview page for this story.

Babes - Page 7 - Inks!

I'll probably show one more preview page and then I'll post an odd panel or two. I don't want to ruin the ending.

Babes - Page 6 - Inks!

Our villain of the piece makes his entrance!

Babes - Page 5 - Inks!

Mercury and the Murd - Sneak Peek!

Here's a sneak peek of the second issue cover of the new independent comic book 'Mercury and the Murd' from PKD Media.

Shawn Pryor, the series creator, approached me to draw a cover for him. I hope he can get a good color artist to color it. I have a couple of suggestions for the background. and foreground.

Loady McGee

Here's A 5 Minute Doodle of one of my favorite Johnny Ryan characters...'Loady McGee'.

A friend of mine, Jim Mariano, introduced me to the amazingly politically incorrect world of Johnny Ryan a few years ago. I've been hooked on his work ever since.

You can check out Mr. Ryans work here. Be warned it's Not Safe For Work.
http://www.johnnyr.com/

Babes - Page 4 - Inks!

This is coming along nicely.

Spicy Space Tales - Page 7

...And then there were two!

Here's my attempt of trying to keep the strip on track and somewhat consistent.
You can check out all the previous pages from different artists at
http://spicyspacetales.blogspot.com

Babes - Page 3 - Inks!

I'm happy with the first panel background...but the second panel background is awful! I hope that Rob can work his magic on 'fixing' this at the color stage...either that, or I'll end up redrawing it.

I think that's the end of the two panel pages for at least another few pages...I know, I know, theres only so many times I can get away with showing off the ladies.

The Scarlet Rios v Lobo!

Did this really quick.

There was a heated debate going on over in the CGS Forums between Peter Rios and and forumite 'Lobo'. It was over DCBS (Discount Comic Book Service)...Lobo was having an issue with the service and things got a little out of hand.

I couldn't resist drawing this up. If you're not familiar with the people on the CGS Forum...you won't get the joke. I thought it was really funny and appropriate...so did fellow forumite Frank Castle.

As long as I can make one person chuckle (besides myself!)...my job is done.

Babes - Page 2 - Inks!

Not bad.

Babes - Page 2 - Ruff!

Really rough blue pencils for page 2 of the last 'Caretakers Tales' story.

Quite like this. I went for a 'Charlies Angels' type pose. Sent it to Rich to make sure it suits his vision of what he was thinking when he wrote it. Fingers crossed.

Can't wait to ink this.

Homer

A 5 Minute Doodle!

Ah, Homer! When I look at Homer I see so much of myself.

mmmm....Beer....mmmm

Red Sonja

A 5 Minute Doodle!

A bit late with this one. I was supposed to post this a couple of days ago.
I like this one a lot.

CGS: The End - Inks and letters!

Ta-da! Next step is to color it...but I don't think I'll get the time. I need to get a cover done and finish up Caretakers Tales.

And, yes...Professor Martin is named after Don Martin, hence the crazy sound effects.

My tribute to MAD's maddest artist.

CGS: The End

Really rough outline inks for my two page contribution to a ComicGeek Speak book to be presented to the geeks at the SupaShow in PA.

The Caretaker

My favorite old, crusty, vulgar storyteller...The Caretaker!

Another 5 Minute Doodle.

Tomorrow, Red Sonja!

Harley Quinn

A 5 Minute Doodle.

Captain America

Here's another 5 Minute Doodle.

I did this while in Washington DC. Seemed appropriate.
Now, I'm back in Arizona. I got a few more of these to scan and post.

Rob 'Seraphyn' Jackson - Color Artist

Well, it looks like myself and Rich have got ourselves a real genius of a color artist to work on 'Caretakers Uncannily Nasty Tales'.

Rob Jackson is his name and his color work is absolutely fantastic. Notice I used the words 'color artist' and not 'colorist'.

Why?

Because what Rob has done to my chicken scratchings is nothing sort than miraculous.

I'm really, really excited to finish this book and see what amazing art Rob adds to it.

Mr. Flint goes to Washington

Sorry for the lack of Updates.

I've been in Washington DC for the last week and won't be back home till Thursday night.
Having a blast here. Saw all the monuments worth seeing and plan on hitting the museums later this week.

I have to say there are a lot of impressive sites to see and the most awe-inspiring has to be the Lincoln memorial. Lincoln's presence towers over everything else. And just by standing next to the statue you do get a sense of 'everything is alright with the world' vibe.

Absolutely incredible.

p.s. Of course, sometimes it's hard not to vision the damn dirty 'Lincoln' ape that Burton ended his horrible remake of 'Planet of the Apes' with.

Spicy Space Tales!

There are a group of artists and writers that decided to do a comic blog. Each one gets a turn to do a page as long as you call 'dibs' in the comment section. Here's my page...I'm following Gary 'Cheekyfish' Fitzgerald.

Check out the link to the blog on the right. It's 'Spicy Space Tales' and I named it for my fondness for EC comics. Note the name of two of the characters so far...Gaines and Kurtzman.

We're gonna have a lot of fun with this experiment.

Babes - Page 1

Ta-da! The first page in the final story of The Caretakers Tales Anthology.
We got some good pages coming up. As usual, Rich's script is immaculate. One funny guy.

Drawing Desk

While you're all waiting for the latest Caretakers page...here's a really old drawing I did back in '99 (or there abouts!). It's a drawing of me at my art desk. I was just learning Flash at the time and I was going to animate a small part of this as an experiment.

Nothing much has changed appearance wise from then till now. Years may have passed but you'll still catch me at my drawing desk...wearing a 'wifebeater', hunched over, drawing up plans to conquer the world!

Zombie - Page 14 - Snippet

Woohoo!

Just finished the last page of the second Caretakers Tale.

The Caretaker doesn't look too happy does he?
But he will with what's coming up next...the third and last of this jokefest. I'm really looking forward to putting this book together and working on a 2nd volume with Rich. The plans are to make it a Sword and Sorcery spoof.

The Sorceress

A 5 Minute Doodle.

Was never a big fan of He-Man. I was more a Dungeons and Dragons guy. He-man always came across as one big ad to sell toys and I found a lot of the characters to be pretty dumb. However, I did like some aspects of the show. The Sorceress was one of them.

All the 5 Minute Doodles are drawn on Comic Book Backing Boards (the glossy side) using black Sharpie markers and Prismacolor markers.

Zombie - Page 13 - Return of the Zombie Nurses

A snippet from page 13.

Only one more page on this story and then I get to draw some babes and mutated chickens...well, one mutated chicken anyways.

You're a Wonder...

A 5 Minute Doodle.

She's fighting for your rights in her satin tights...Wonder Woman.

Hulk Smash!

A 5 Minute Doodle!

It's the Ditko/Kirby Hulk. I don't think a lot of people realise that Ditko actually worked on the Hulk with Kirby in the early years of the Hulks history.

Love the mad eyebrows...very Ditko.

Old School Supes

Yet another 5 Minute Doodle.

Old school Superman. I'm really enjoying drawing these bit and pieces. I think I'll try a Marvel character next.

Zombie - Page 12 -Happy Sam

Snippet from page 12!
The situation is looking a lot more optimistic for Sam...but I know what's going to happen over the last two pages of this story.

Johnny Alpha - Strontium Dog

Another 5 Minute Doodle.

Strontium Dog was one of my favorite strips as a kid. It still is damn good strip today.

I've been really enjoying the Rebellion reprints (Strontium Dog: Search/Destroy Agency Flies 01/02) of his early adventures. John Wagner/Alan Grants writing with Carlos Ezquerra artwork is simply magnificent.

For more on Alpha click here....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium_Dog

'Oww my balls!'

As suggested by Jim Mariano!

Another 5 Minute Doodle...this time while watching Sky Sports News.

Dredd

Another 5 minute doodle in front of the tv. This time it's Mega City's finest Judge Joe Dredd.
Dredd has to be one of the greatest characters in comic book history.

Did this while watching Kate Winslet in 'Little Children'. She's a damned great actress and probably very underrated.

Portrait of Evil: The Mekon

I did this quick 5 minute drawing while watching the movie 'Infamous' with my wife. 'Infamous' is an inferior version of 'Capote' with a lot of well known actors but falls way short in every department when compared to 'Capote' except in one - Sandra Bullock. Bullock can act in this movie and she's darn good as Harper Lee. There, I said it!

The Mekon is Dan Dares evil nemesis. And I have to say, probably one of the greatest villains, if not, the greatest ever to grace the comic medium. Doctor Doom comes a close second.

I might do more of these type of doodles while watching tv with the missus. I don't think I caught the Mekon quite evil enough...I'll have to work on that. Not bad for a five minute doodle.