I think Echo 24 should hit the stores today. Here’s a sneak peek of what you’re in for. Only 6 more to go!
I don’t know how many tattoos of my characters there are out there, but I’ve seen quite a few. Personally, I think it is the highest honor for someone to get a tattoo of my art. I’m always amazed and a little awestruck by the people who make these brave, and permanent, statements. Katchoo is the most common, but Kixie has a lot of fans, too… especially for a cartoon character who doesn’t even have her own comic book. Here’s the newest addition to the family.
Because I missed the deadline to solicit the Complete Paradise TOO book, it will ship in November, instead of the October date we planned. My fault entirely. Sorry. If you can’t wait, you can order your copy now through our web store. BTW, I drove to Brenner Printing and picked up a box the day the book came off the press. Here’s a pic of the unbound books, waiting to be bound and boxed and shipped to our warehouse. Isn’t publishing glamorous?
Found this on my computer today. A pic taken at the Dallas Comic Con a year or two ago. Billy Tucci, Frank Cho, Craig Rousseau, me, and Matt Wagner, doing a panel on how to get out of comics, or something like that. Notice I’m the only one eating (that’s a bag of chips in my hand). Jenny Craig, here I come.
FYI: Speaking of conventions… Robyn and I made a rough draft of the 2011 convention schedule today. We’re planning on a very busy convention schedule next year.
Back in the studio tonight after a very rewarding trip to Baltimore for the comic con. Organizer Mark Nathan runs a great show, pros and fans alike love it. Robyn and I flew in Friday, setup the booth and went to dinner with friends. Saturday we walked over to the convention center to find a line down the street of people waiting to get in. All morning people continued to pour into the show, but it never felt overcrowded or jammed up inside. My Spotlight Panel was the first of the day, at 11 AM, and I noticed the audience more than doubled during my hour. All weekend I heard people say they had missed the panel while still waiting in line to get in. So, I think we’ll see Baltimore expand to 3 days in the future. The support for the show is great.
I took a sketch list and tried to draw sketches during the show, but it was impossible. I never really had a line, but people came up to our booth one or two at a time all day. Which is great for meeting and talking with fans, but no good for sitting and sketching. So, plan B, sketch that night, right? Oops, we were invited to the football game next door to watch the Ravens play the Giants. And we had a blast with that. Back to the room at midnight and collapse.
Sunday morning, I woke up early, walked over to the convention with Robyn and found a quiet place in the lobby to draw. That saved me. By the time I joined the gang at the booth I was well through the list, and still able to talk to whoever stopped by and sign books, arms, t-shirts, bras, blue jeans, you name it.
After the show we packed up and rewarded ourselves with a nice dinner by the harbor, then a good night’s sleep. This morning we ran into the various families of Billy Tucci, Adam Hughes and Bernie Wrightson, all experienced road warriors, all heading home today. Because of our excessive air miles, Robyn and I were upgraded to first class seating on the way home. The food was lousy—no such thing as better meals in first class anymore—but the extra room was great, as Robyn watched the Sex And The City movie, and I napped like an old dog until the wheels touched down.
Some pictures from the weekend:
Katchoo, Francine and Casey were bribed into trying on Slave Leia costumes, something even Carrie Fisher won’t do anymore. I don’t think Katchoo had a good attitude about the session. Her “wardrobe malfunction” excuse is just as lame as the first time I heard the term.
A groovy Batgirl from the ’60’s. I think she swings.
A piece I did for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund titled “Pursuing Liberty Since 1990″. Look for this in an upcoming book collecting pinups by a lot of artists on behalf of the CBLDF.
Here’s a 1940’s Cat Woman. Sorry for the lousy phone camera pic. That’s all I had on me at the booth.
Red Sonja, posing for my phone camera. Does she look like a meat eater to you?
Finished the new issue of Echo yesterday and sent it off to the printer. I’m happy with it for two reasons—I love the story and I’m back on schedule, which is unusual so soon after a San Diego. Usually the fall schedule sits on the edge of the San Diego black hole, tottering on the brink of disappearing forever and I spend the remainder of the year trying to save it. Not this year. What a relief.
So look for Echo 24 in about two weeks.
Speaking of black hole, one more issue and we’ll have enough for the next Echo TPB, titled Black Hole. It’s 5 issues per trade. Look for ECHO: Black Hole in about 8 weeks.
The Complete Paradise TOO:
Something you can buy NOW is the Complete Paradise TOO. This 360 page book collects every issue of my OTHER series, Paradise TOO, plus a little more. It isn’t in the stores yet because we put it together just before San Diego and it takes the Diamond distribution system awhile to turn around books. Complete Paradise TOO will hit stores this fall, but you can buy your copy NOW in our store. If you’re wondering why on earth you should spend your allowance on this frivolous collection of doodles, here’s a sample of what’s waiting for you between the covers.
Hey gang, got a bunch of NEW things for you! These are all available on our webstore right now. Check it out…
The 2010 Echo Print. This is the official HeNRI-ARMY portrait of Annie Trotter, in her experimental ARMY jet pack and wearing the Alloy 618 suit she created. This photo was taken just 2 weeks before her death (and if that’s a spoiler to you then you haven’t read the first 5 pages of issue #1!) Print is 11 X 17 inches. Price $10. To order: click here, then click Printed Merchandise.
The 2010 Strangers In Paradise Print. Let me just say this: how many times have you seen a full-length group photo of all the major women of SIP? Answer: NEVER. I’m way too lazy to draw that. But something came over me this summer and here we are, the rarest picture in all of SiP history, available as a $10 print. I guess I really miss the gang. From left to right: Veronica, Tambi, Casey, Francine, Katchoo, Darcy, Becky the Gun Girl, Cherry Hammer. David’s there too, in two different forms. If you know the story, you see him. Print is 17 x 11 inches. Price: $10. To order: click here, then click Printed Merchandise.
The 2010 Sketchbook. This is 24 pages of pinups, sketches, commissioned artwork and behind the scenes pencils. The women of SiP art is the wraparound cover, that’s why you only see half on the front—the rest is on the flip side. By the way, the pencil version of this art is the middle-of-book spread. In between is just a ton of unpublished drawings of Francine, Katchoo, superheroes and who knows what all. Good stuff. Price: $10. To order: click here, then click Printed Merchandise.
The 2010 Strangers In Paradise Tumbler! Remember the SiP Tumbler we offered during the ’90’s and early 2000’s? Well that is long gone. This is the new kid on the block. Whereas the first SiP Tumbler featured art and scenes from the first half of the series, the NEW Tumbler features art from the end of the series, beautifully colored by famed SiP colorist, Brian Miller. If you drink anything at all, you must use this tumble, or…
…you may also drink from this, the 2010 ECHO Tumbler! This is the first and only tumbler from the Echo series. I promise it is not radioactive, so if you find yourself glowing after use, it may just be the excitement of being the first kid on your block to score this nifty chalice. What Would Annie Do? Use this tumbler. Price: $13.95. To order one or both tumblers: click here, then click Various Fun Stuff.
And now, the BIG book of the summer… the Complete Paradise TOO! 360 pages of cartoons, comic strips, doodles and madness compiling the complete works found in the brief 14 issue PTOO series. It’s so fun for me to see this stuff all together. I also added new pages and rewrote the fairy tale Wonderland so that it is a tidy little story. Lizzie the goth girl, Kixie the fairy, Plato the polar bear, Morris the dog, that ape who lives next door… they all got their start in the pages of PTOO. Now you can read all their stories in this comprehensive collection. Price $29.95. To order: click here, then click Paradise TOO.
I will probably post a page or two from the Complete PTOO book and 2010 Sketchbook in a few days for those who want a peak inside. I’m really pleased with both books. The prints are cool and the tumblers are just great to have on my side table, full of Dr Pepper. Life is good. Enjoy!
We’re loading up the truck this afternoon and I think we’re ready for the show. A LOT of NEW things for you!
Complete Paradise TOO omnibus (√)
2010 Sketchbook (√)
2010 Echo Print (√)
2010 SiP Print (√)
2010 Echo Tumbler (√)
2010 SiP Tumbler (√)
And like Old Faithful, we will have the eternal staples there are well, all 6 of the SIP Pocket Editions, all 4 of the Echo TPBs, SiP tote bags, t-shirts for both series, cloisonne pins and more!
I drove to San Antonio yesterday to personally pick-up the new PTOO book. I’m very pleased with it. It’s my White Album, full of random ideas, cartoons, comics and characters that mean something to me.I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. By the way, it’s bigger than I thought it would be—about an inch thick! You can see it here next to my antique Blackberry, which is thick as a stone and twice as heavy. Anyway, I love this book!
FYI, for those of you in the know—and you have to be if you’re reading my blog—I will be sketching this year at San Diego. Price is $100 for bust portrait in pencil on 9 x 12 paper, $150 for full figure. That’s for one character. If you add characters it’s more money depending on what you ask for.
I have to do this because folks ask for things like, “Can you do Francine and Katchoo with David and my husband and his nine cousins and our dog Daffy?” That would be $9,000.
Prologue: Echo #23 is at the printer. I’ll post a preview tomorrow.
Okay… unless you’ve been following me for a long time, or you’ve read The Strangers in Paradise Treasury, you may NOT realize that I was drawing Francine and Katchoo before the Strangers In Paradise comic. The girls were actually developed in comic strips. In fact, everything I did before SiP was in comic strip format. So, during the years I was making SiP, I decided to publish all those strips in their own series of comics titled Paradise TOO. P.TOO, as I nicknamed it, ran for 14 issues that were collected into 2 TPBs. The series ended many years ago and that was that.
Okay, I told you that so I could tell you this.
I was recently reading through the Paradise TOO trades and discovered, much to my horror, that 3 issues were not in the TPBs! That got me to thinking about how few people had ever even seen the series, and next thing you know, I’d talked myself into collecting everything into one comprehensive book titled The Complete Paradise TOO —a 360 page softcover book filled with hundreds and hundreds of my comic strips and cartoons, from high school to SIP to all the Kixie strips and Plato and Lizzie the axe-murderer… all for just $30. Just look for this cover…
This marvelous collection of insanity will make its debut in a few weeks at the San Diego Comic Con. After the show, the book will go up for sale on our website, and be listed with Diamond ASAP for fall release through the stores. The book is at the printer now, and I have to tell you, I cannot wait to get my hands on one and see everything in one definitive book, like the SiP Omnibus. I love it!
Speaking of San Diego, my convention schedule for the rest of 2010:
Completed a X-Men Rogue cover for Marvel. I can’t show it before Marvel does, but when it comes out, I’ll post the original line art for you to see. I originally drew Rogue exhibiting a power she doesn’t possess, and turned it in. Naturally the editor responded a bit confused, wondering what brilliant angle I had in mind that wasn’t obvious in the art. Ahem. And the thing is, I know better. I know Rogue. We go way back. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it. Anyway, there were a couple of ways to justify the scene, but it’s not the point of the cover, so I fixed it. I’ll show you both version when the book hits the stands. When that is, I have no idea. It’s one of those guest covers, with a vertical row of Marvel faces down the left and right sides. The company did a run of them last year, to much success, so a new batch is coming your way in 2010.
Over the past couple of years the gang at ComicGeekSpeak.com has graciously devoted their time and resources to an in-depth interview with me on each of the Strangers In Paradise pocket editions. One entire show per book, so these are as close as you can get to director’s cut commentaries on the series. You can find all the shows at the CGS website, and today they posted the 6th and final installment. If you enjoy it, let them know and check em out…. they have a ton of material on all your favorite comic creators and they make a new show Monday through Friday.
Okay, I think Echo 22 should be out by now. Since the distribution/trucking situation has changed in our industry I never really know for sure when it hits what area. But I think it’s safe to say you should be seeing this new issue of Echo in your stores about now, or very soon. While you wait, let’s try a brief preview. I’ve always wanted to try this. Just 4 pages to wet your appetite. Trust me, you have no idea what happened before. And what happens after will scare the devil out of you.
Well into the middle of Echo 23 this week. Every woman’s dream comes true in this issue.
Have you guys even seen Echo 22 yet?
Just a couple of things to update…
For San Diego:
We’ve made our list and we’re checking it twice… for the San Diego ComicCon. New things to look for will include an Echo travel mug (penciled the art this afternoon, will ink it Tuesday when I confirm the specs and post the image then), a new 2010 Sketchbook (I have some fun new art to show you!), a new Echo print, the SiP tote bag and a couple of things I’m trying to get done but haven’t yet so shouldn’t promise. One thing I can promise, a new SiP print… because I had lunch with my son Trey on Saturday and we were talking about it and came up with a very fun idea that I’d love to see.
Marvel Rogue Cover:
Today I completed a cover of Rogue for Marvel. I don’t dare show you a peek, but my take on her is younger, not skinny. This will be among many covers planned using a special cover design, with the heads of Marvel icons on the left and right sides. They did this in 2009 and it was so popular they are doing it again, anew, for 2010. I don’t yet know when my Rogue comes out, but I’ll let you know when I do.
A couple of things for the geeky artists among us…
Online Art instruction:
There are many online art classes. I don’t know enough about any of them to recommend one, but I recently discovered one that looked very interesting. Schoolism.com Why? Because you can click on lengthy trailers of their videos and instruction, and some are with living legends. I particularly liked the one with Mad legend Mort Drucker. I grew up on a steady diet of Mort Drucker, but I’d never before seen a video of him working. He draws with a $6 Parker Jotter pencil! I love that irony in art: from humble supplies come priceless things.
Books and interactive websites:
Over the years, I’ve written two stories that utilized interactive websites. In Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, a girl makes a MySpace page that ridicules Mary Jane. I wasn’t able to get Marvel totally on board with that, but I thought it would be easy to make and fun to look at, with the idea being that what you saw in the comic matched what you would find online. It’s fun to blur the line, if you can.
In Echo the webmaster creates a page to post revelations about the explosion at Moon Lake. Did you catch that? Did you try to visit his website? The address is in the story, moonlakeconspiracy.com If you go there, you will find that the government has shut it down and issued a stern warning to scare people away from the subject. Blur. Fun.
Anyway, a new vampire trilogy, titled The Passage, launches on Tuesday by a Houston writer, Justin Cronin. I read an article in the paper today. Sounds interesting. They have two websites supporting the story. EnterThePassage.com, which is info and PR, and FindSubjectZero.com, which has videos of victims (my fave is the girl on the computer being sucked out the window) and faux news reports as a virus hits and spreads around the world, creating a post-apocalyptic world of vampires and a little girl trying not to become one. The Publisher paid a lot for this book, so they’re giving it the full court press. It will be interesting to see if it’s worth the hype, and if the interactive sites work.
Robyn and I spent the weekend in Jersey City attending the annual National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards. This is a cartooning tradition that goes back some 50 years or more, as cartoonists and artists from comic strips, comic books, magazine cartoons and newspaper illustrations get together and toast comics and the slightly bent friends who make them. They even allow editorial cartoonists through the door, which is like inviting a gang of irritable bobcats to a mouse circus.
We stayed the Jersey City Hyatt on the shore of the Hudson river, directly across from the World Trade Center, a perfect view of Manhattan that you can’t get when you’re in the midst of it. It’s too big for one photo. Below is just the south end, across from us.
For those who don’t know, the name World Trade Center applies to an area of buildings, not just the twin towers that once loomed over them. Rebuilding of the site is robust, but I don’t think they’re going to make their completion deadline next year.
I’ve been to NYC countless times, but neither Robyn nor I had ever been to the top of the Empire State Building, so we made a point this trip to do so. You have 2 choices, up to the 88th floor, the top of the building…
…or you can go higher, up to the 102nd floor at the top of the tower!…
Either way, the view was spectacular. Folks, the E.S.B. is one tall pile of stones. Robyn and I got a kick from checking out at all the rooftop gardens. The only time I’ve been higher in a building was the restaurant in the World Trade Center north tower a few years back. There are higher buildings in the world now. We look forward to visiting them someday.
Outside our hotel was a wicked looking monument to the lives lost in the 1930’s when Russia invaded Siberia.
The Reuben Award dinner was Saturday night. The Best Comic Book award was given to Paul Pope for his wonderful work in 2009. I knew it wasn’t going to be my night when they sat us at a table in the back of the room by the exit and sound board. If my name had been called, it would have taken a HumVee to get me to the podium. There was no way to walk through that dark, dense tangle of chiffon and tables. You’d have to go over the top of them—something I was perfectly willing to do to collect my prize. Mercifully this did not happen.
It’s all good though. We had a good time, saw some dear friends and got to dress up for the black-tie affair. All in all, a great trip. I encourage any and all cartoonists, in comics or whatever your specialty, to join the National Cartoonists Society. It’s easy, and you won’t meet a better bunch of nuts. The Reuben weekend is in a different city every year. Rumor has it the 2011 affair will be in Las Vegas. I can’t wait.
