the beginning of #13 and stuff

Well here are the long awaited pencils to page 1 of Number 13. Number 13 is the adaption of ERB's Monster Men written by Martin Powell with art scribbles by me, coming in the future from Sequential Pulp imprint of Dark Horse comics.

While doing the pencils, and now while doing the inks this weekend, I can't seem to get that old 'monster mash' song out of my mind. ha.

Also, it has been a very long time since I updated the Legion blog here.  I won't go into details since it is the old standard things and I hate even using an excuse. Really there is no excuse other than the medical and all. My mother used to have a saying, 'just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get going'. That keeps running thru my mind too. Needless to say sometimes it doesn't work really well remembering that. And since I hate to post if I don't have anything solid to show. Oh sure there are sketches, mostly bad ones lately, and there are writing ideas and all, but again nothing solid. So I will try and post the inks to this page later this weekend. I should finish it up tomorrow, if all goes well, so look for it later tomorrow.

I always think of tons of stuff I should post about, but then when I start posting it all seems to go away. Ha, one of the worst things of getting old.

I am kind of pumped because of the newer footage of the John Carter movie. It does look like a good adventure film.  And if you can believe the leaking reviews, it is trending as an adventure film with heart and a story. I sure hope so as more people need to know of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his works. Most modern readers or first timers will probably think his writing is stilted and old fashioned, and well it might be in places for the modern mind.  But people need to realize where all the stuff they have been watching for decades comes from.

I was always a bigger fan of the Tarzan novels than the Mars. I enjoy them both a lot, just always could really get into the Tarzan and some of the other series more. I don't remember ever playing John Carter as a kid, but I do remember trying to be like Tarzan. ha.

Also, as a bit of news, I started a page on Facebook for Action Science Adventures magazine. This, if you don't know, was the fictional pulp mag that I created when I started Captain Spectre years ago. His adventures, sequential and prose, would have appeared in this magazine.  But lately with the growing new pulp comics and prose items, I have noticed people from time to time will stumble on the term 'action science' for a description of some adventures here and there. So since I came up with the term when Cap started I thought I had better put out some stuff to anchor my claim to it.  The future Captain Spectre stuff will be under this banner or publishing house.
I would hope in the future to achieve to actually put out issues of this, with sequential and prose stories in it. I really like the combo of comics and prose together in one magazine. I have seen a couple of later day pulps that did this and thought it was something I would like to do.  All in the future, but the mind likes to have something to shoot for. ha.

Also the other day I was churning thru old archive discs looking for a couple of files, haven't found them yet but did find some of my discs are losing date.  But in the process found some older stuff. This maybe be a piece not many of you have seen. I did this cover for a game supplement book for a pulp game company a few years ago. Ha a blast doing it.....I sure need to get back on the painting wagon some day soon.....but time is my enemy.  

Nov 13 update...

Well folks, and of course Loyal Legionnaires from all over, it seems I just can't keep up. I have a couple of additions to throw at you so here goes.

The first are the finished pencils for a piece produced for the project 'Number 13'. An ERBurroughs adventure published in 1913, adapted by Martin Powell. Number 13 is the original name of 'the Monster men'. We are going to use the original tales' name to try to keep things straight.
This is a piece that I roughed out, sized up in photoshop and fixed a couple of things, then lightly printed out onto board, then I finished the pencils on the printed board. It is a great way to get things composed and organized on the page before committing to highly finished pencils or even inks.

The second piece is the finished cover design to 'PreFlight' which is taking over, kind of cutting in line in front of the promised 'Solo Flight' issue of Captain Spectre. Again the reason for this juggling of issues is that 'PreFlight' will be a short tale, and easier for me to get to. It will be an introductory tale to Captain Spectre....kind of setting the stage. But it isn't an origin story. It will have a taste of an origin to let new readers know who, what, why, and all that of the Captain Spectre story. But nothing long and drawn out. I have posted this before, but it didn't have the cover treatment done to it. 

And if you want to know a bit more I will post this below the actual good stuff up top. The reason I haven't posted much, is I haven't been able to get much done. I have had many bad days lately and things just aren't moving along at a decent pace. I hate it, and I hate even writing about it. I feel like I am whining, and have never been know to whine much about myself, just about my day job and stupid things. ha. Anyway I will continue to post the medical stuff below the art so as you Loyal Legionnaires pass over the art, you can ignore the last paragraph of my posts. Here's to better days and more art which leads to more posts. 

Busy weekend.

Here is a quick edition update to the last entry I posted. I knew when I inked the Captain Spectre piece it was going to need color to clear it up some...so I couldn't rest til I saw it with some color on it. So thought I would post it sooner than later.


Also with more and more conventions starting up in the central plains/midwest area and with my new plan of starting to get to more of them and advertise a bit more, make some friends and fans, and actually get some work published ( the number 13 from Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse) and self publishing Captain Spectre...I figured it was time to look into a new banner. As I was looking around I found a place that has those roll up display banner things at a good price. Those things used to be so expensive I couldn't justify them, but now it seems they are cheaper and you can get two for less than just one of them used to be. So I decided to promote two things, my art - myself, and Captain Spectre and Action Science magazine. So here are a couple of designs I churned up.

Well...Somebody had to do it!!

Merry Christmas Loyal Legionnaires, and readers of Action Science Adventures Magazine!

This very well could have hit the local news stand in December of 1939!

Who's to say it couldn't have been done. Ha. I was thinking about doing something for Christmas again this year, and just couldn't come up with anything. I sure am not feeling the Christmas spirit...I usually don't.... the holiday is totally wasted on me. The only thing I like it for is the time off, and I won't even get much of that this year. I have a deadline at work and it is taking me more time on the project than I guessed. Just one of those things that happens way too often.

Then this thing sprang full blown into my mind late last night. I hadn't actually inked anything in a bit...the job I am doing for work is being inked 'digitally'. And I am not a fan of working that way, but the job calls for it. Anyway, I wanted to kill two birds with one stone....so I did a Christmas thing and inked it....then threw some digital coloring at it, and here you go Loyal Legionnaires! I would assume that Captain Spectre would give up his feature story once a year for a new Kringle: the Avenger - Super Science story. I can only imagine aliens landing at the north pole to steal all the toys. This of course would result in a world wide disaster that only Kringle: the Avenger could deal with....maybe with a bit of help from Captain Spectre! ha.

Enjoy Loyal Legionnaires......Merry Christmas and happy holidays!!!!!