The Future is rapidly approaching...!!!!

Hello Loyal Legionnaires....again sorry for the flagrant lack of posts here, but I have been really busy lately and will give the low down on most projects in a minute.
But first the reason for this post's title.  My future is something that is rushing headlong towards me, and I will have to deal with it sooner than later.   I for one have always hated working for other people, but I was always scared to strike out on my own.....doubting my talent and everything else.  When i had a family there was almost no way to strike out on your own, too many responsibilities and all of keeping everyone feed, clothed, and all the things that go with living.
But now i am coming rapidly up on the age of 'early' retirement.  To early retire, or not to early retire, that is the question!!!  First of all i vowed to myself that i would never be one of those people i had seen in my childhood years that gave all to his company or job, and had no life outside of it.  I have seen people like that work at a job until they dropped dead, or worked until forced to retire and had nothing to do, or didn't know what to do when left alone to themselves.  Oh sure i had a strong work ethic and all that, and did my jobs, and even over and above most of the time, but i always wanted to do my own thing and just couldn't wait to get done with the day so i could at least think about what i wanted to do.
Anyway that all leads me to me being very busy lately.
I have a few projects in the works, and have actually over reached in that department.  But you can never count on all projects going forward.  But with some of these projects, it just might bring in a bit of money to help me reach that 'early' retirement status.   I hope.

So the list goes like this.....

A famous jungle project that might happen.....
A famous planetary romance that might happen....
An famous aviation strip that might happen....
A pitch to a comics company for a rocket powered person you might know.....

and.....to go along with all that......

   i am lettering the Halloween Legion graphic novel written by Martin Powell that will appear later this year, hopefully from Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse.....

   i am working on a tee shirt design for a hot musical group out of Texas.....

Also have some projects floating around the edges like:

Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs adaption......

and above all CAPTAIN SPECTRE!!!!  which is the point of retiring early!!!!!! So i can work on Captain Spectre!!!!

So here are some pieces to fuel your imaginations!!!! enjoy Legionnaires!!!!

 

Where does all the time go anymore!

Well Loyal Legionnaires, bet you gave up on me.  Well I almost gave up on myself.  I have been working on things, and doing my normal job too.

But since the last post I have just been exhausted.  Blame it on the heat, blame it on the total lack of rain killing crops and yards, but mostly blame it on me.  It seems to happen about this time every year, and I never knew what caused it.  Then one day a friend of mine said, 'hey isn't this the time you went into the service'?  And guess what, my enter day into the US Army was Aug 3rd.  So it seems weeks before that date and a week or so after that date are the toughest times of the year for me.  Like when some people get the holiday blues....I guess I get the 'oh god, i got drafted' blues. heh.

Also I have been trying to increase my writing ability by doing various things.  But never fear Legionnaires, I am actually working on Captain Spectre from time to time.  And you will begin to see the results pretty soon.  I hope.

So in the mean time I am continuing work on the Dark Horse project, Number 13, I have toned the Spider Christmas story that Martin Powell wrote and it appeared in color in a Christmas annual - but now is going to be reprinted in a Spider collection of stories just written by Martin Powell. That will come from Moonstone later this year and I will post more about it so you can pick it up if you like. Also working on a set of illustrations for a prose KiGor story, once again written by Martin Powell and showing up in a series of books called the Return of the Monsters from Moonstone.  And like i said i squeeze Captain Spectre in there too. whew.

So anyway I also did some sketch cards for one of my favorite comic conventions..... and some designs for a nether water creature for the KiGor story that I will let you in on.

So all for now Loyal Legionnaires, and watch the skies because Captain Spectre is coming!!!!!!!

thanks.......

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.  

overdue post

 Here are some of the things I have been slowly working on. These are a couple of additional pages for 'Pre-flight' - the stand alone Captain Spectre adventure I am currently working on. I don't want to give it all away as I want some surprizes left in the book. But I do like getting reactions to the storytelling and art from everyone so I will post as much as I can. Alot of it will be process stuff, from pencils to inks into the color process. I am trying to keep this story short and simple and that is tough to do as I want to pack all kinds of things into it. But I have to try and keep it manageable so I will finally finish one book at a time. ha. I want it to be action packed so keeping the speeches down is tough to get some ideas across. After all it's about the action for Captain Spectre.

Also a character piece for 'Number 13'. Here we have Virginia manning the Maxium machine gun mounted on the foredeck of the yacht, with the chinese cook bringing ammo to her as they strike back at the pirates.

And again apologies to all the loyal Legionnaires for the lack of posts. I have been having a very hard time with my physical and mental states lately. But I will leave all that up to my biographer when they write my pitiful life story.....ha.

Dec 4 update

Again sorry for a late update, but if I have nothing finished or even a good sketch I don't like bothering everyone with nothing. So anyway I have a couple of things more finished. First up is more coloring on the Number 13 cover art.

There are still a few things I want to refine in this coloring, but I do think it is finally getting there.

Also today was a pretty good day. Freezing outside and all the rain I got Saturday is all frozen in the ground or on top of it. Also got a dusting of snow pebbles on top of most everything. So saturday working on the story for 'Pre-flight' a little more. Pre-flight is the working title of the first Captain Spectre comic. As you remember the other stories I was in development on were turning into more novella's or graphic novel length. And I wanted to get something a bit shorter and cheaper out there first to get people looking at the material. So Pre-flight is the first story. I don't want to reveal alot of the story points yet. But today I banged out the first page of pencils. Enjoy Loyal Legionnaires.

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.

Legionnaire Express update

Well things are starting to shake loose and move forward again, even I have to exclaim, 'it's about time'!
Here are the inks to Virginia Maxon splashing in the water, as her new future friend 'number one' looks on. A true stalker before the term was used.

This piece was done with a bit of a new process, no the brush was still pulled across the bristol board and all that labor and sweat still prevails in the piece. But I did incorporate a bit of technology as I sketched it out until I was fairly happy with the drawing, then printed the pencil drawing in light blue on the bristol board, then inked that board. This was done with the help of a new printer. I haven't had a printer at home for about six years and sometimes it has been a real pain. So I finally sprung for a large format printer that can handle bristol board and most papers up to and including 13x19, for some reason but I have never seen 13x19 paper sized anywhere. Anyway it will print an 11x17 borderless and that is what I wanted. I hope it improves me drawing speed a bit since I can now sketch out panels for a page concentrating on just the panel image, then scan them all and composite them in photoshop to get the sizes and panel flow just right. I then print them out in a light blue or very light grey and I can ink them. It kind of skips the full blown pencils stage, but with me inking my own work full blown pencils are destroyed in the process anyway as after i ink them i erase all the pencils. So anyway experimenting with it all to get the best results with consideration of upping my production rate, which is very slow.

Also another 'concept' cover to Number 13. This one goes for the creepy got to grab the reader at the newstand kind of marketing. Plus I had fun doing it and like it alot. It is done totally in photoshop, so no original to sell. Alas the curse of a digital world.

Also I know I have neglected Captain Spectre a lot lately. With all my problems and jobs and things going on he never leaves my mind. I am planning several things which I will reveal in the future. But for now a little taste of some good ole' Captain Spectre. 

Also this is one of those pieces that just screams 'finish me'! So expect to see some finished pencils and inks sometime very soon. 

Lightning Legion update....overdue

Well Legionnaires, it is about time I posted an update. Sorry for the delay in postings, but as you know from past mentions, my home computer went down with a video card malfunction. So many dollars and days later I finally have it back and am up and running. Also there are some health issues, which is going to be a constant in my life from now on. So I am still getting used to all of that too. Then throw in the day job, domestic duties, and all normal things and life really zooms by. Also I am beginning the layout process for 'number 13', the adaptation of ERB's Monster Men novel.

Speaking of the 'number 13' project, I will be pimping it at the I-con convention in Des Moines Iowa this coming week. On Sept 17 I will be at the Adventure Land inn in Des Moines at this great little event. It is a one day con with tons of Iowa comic fans. Such a good group of people put on the con and attend it too. I haven't been to a con in quite awhile and really don't have anything to sell, other than myself, ha. But I need to get out more and will be there all day on Saturday, the day of the con. I will try to do as many sketches as I can for fans.....so if you are in the area please drop by and shoot the breeze as I try to get more people to join the Lightning Legion and look forward to the 'number 13' book.

Here is a bit of a teaser I am working on. Not final of course, I am working on the coloring and all, but I needed something quick to make a table sign out of, and don't have time to do a new piece, just enough time to finish this one up. So an in progress work for sure......

Also here are a couple of thumbnail layouts for the juicy fight scene between number 13 and number 1....

I am still working on costumes, and have actually asked a person that is a professional costume designer to pick some period costumes for me in this project. We are keeping the period the novel was set in which is around 1913, so that will be a challenge in itself. 

Also so many little things have happened and are going on since the last update. I received my two action figures and they are more AWESOME than any photos can do justice too. Hence I don't really have photos of them to show other than the ones you have already seen here. But they will be making the journey to Iowa with me, so they will make their premiere at the Iowa I-con show at my table. It is what I got them for was to attract people to the table, so I can tell them all about the strip and stuff. ha. 

Stay tuned....Loyal Lightning Legionnaires!!!

Lightning Legion progress on all fronts!

There can be alot said with the title of a comic book story, I think. Sometimes as a kid just seeing a certain cadence of words on a comic cover got me to buy it. Because when we are kids, at least my experience was that I didn't have enough money to buy all the comics I would have wanted. The titles would attract me to certain books....especially in the silver age.....Challengers of the Unknown, Journey into Mystery, Tales of Suspense, The War that Time Forgot and on and on. Books had great titles back then. Then there were the great story titles too.  So up at dawn, actually before dawn, and I started thinking of how many stories I have been working on. They are all in various stages of development and they all needed a title treatment. See if you Loyal Legionnaires can figure out the stories just from the titles. Of course 'Solo Flight' is the first Captain Spectre story.

Then some great news to share. And again let me say what a world it is with the internet. I had been following this blog for awhile;  PackRat Studios. So I shot him, Jonathan, an email since he had posted he was doing commissions......and lo and behold look what has happened!!!! How cool is this Legionnaires!

Also I have been thinking about my childhood alot lately. For better or worse I remember the best times of it and consider my childhood a pretty good one. We didn't have much spare change laying around but things were good. I used to save up my money for comics, paperbacks, and going to the movies.  Summers were filled with coming to Nebraska to stay at my grandparents house, the Rexall Drug store's comic spinner rack, black cherry soda, the town's swimming pool, ballgames and going to the movies. Of course there was that habit of trying to learn to draw, also.
So I guess with all of this I am still trying to talk myself into traveling to see the Captain America movie. As you all know I have a huge fan of the character. For a time I collected anything and everything with Captain America on it. I have Cap gumball machines, soap mits, cards, models, figures, toys, pencil boxes, and of course the comics. So the movie is getting some good reviews. So I am still trying to convince myself to drive over to Beatrice, one of the theaters close to me, and the town I was actually born in..... to feel like a kid again and catch the saturday matinee of Captain America.

I never had it as lucky as this kid......but in spirit I was probably a bigger fan. ha.

Solo Flight progress

Well, Loyal Legionnaires, I have been down and out for some days with my medical problems, and pretty much confined to the house because of the heat wave here. But even being confined to the recliner with my swollen feet and all I have managed to finish some layouts or thumbnails for upcoming pages of 'solo flight'.

As you can see a bit on this page I wanted to keep the good Captain still somewhat mysterious to the police, so I only show him in pieces and bits, or from the back or in long shots. I am also planning on adding the advent of sound effects in this story. I don't know if anyone noticed but in the close to 100 pages or strips on the site there have not been any on screen sound effects. I am not very good at making up good sound effects or even using them. I feel sometimes they are overused in comics or underused. But I do plan to use them in 'solo flight' along with the thought balloon.  Something I feel is missing in comics are the actual interworkings of the character. I find anymore in new comics they try to let the art tell all. Well it just can't do it all. I look at some comics and don't feel a connection to the character shown, or sometimes the art doesn't 'cut it' and I just don't know what is happening, or more precisely just what the hell I am supposed to get out of it. Maybe it is my age, maybe I am trying to get too much out of it, or maybe I am trying to make it too complex, but I just don't get it. I have always been the kind of guy that if I don't like a books art I don't buy it. Especially now a days with the high prices. But the words and connection to the characters have to be there too. I see so many comics now that have pages of six or seven panels that have a character doing something and maybe only one word balloon on it. I see alot of wasted storytelling time. I know some of the major companies have banned the evil thought balloon, but I think something is missing.
Also there is the 'new' reader problem. I want to get my books into hands of people that don't read comics on a normal basis. And I see and hear of so many adults that don't know how to read a comic. The thought blocks are confusing to people, they don't know who is talking, and I want my book clear and too the point and easy for lapsed readers or new readers to get into, just as much as I do regular comic readers. So get ready for sound effects and thought balloons in 'solo flight' when it gets finished.

New Captain Spectre page!

Well Loyal Legionnaires, here is another page from 'Solo Flight' - my first comic novella in the works. This page follows the last one posted as I am working thru the story on a linear basis. I am too narrow focused of a person to try and do it any other way. And once again I hope posting this progress isn't going to affect the millions of sales I plan on having.......hahaha. Just joking you 'all.  But you can see one of the bad guys going for a bit of a ride via Captain Spectre airlines, but oops that poor gal seems to be having a bit of trouble in the back of the truck. Maybe it's just a 1939 version of a bad hair day.
As before it takes me quite a while to plan out a page and get it all down. If you notice the pencils are somewhat less refined on this page. I started figuring since I was going to ink them, I didn't need to spend too much time worrying about totally finished pencils. I like doing tight pencils so I am trying to loosen up some on that area to help speed things up a little.

And speaking of speeding things up, I have actually agreed to do a project for a fresh starting company to be published thru Dark Horse Comics....and will have more news as it is released by the company. But I will throw out a tease for now......

finished pencils for page 6 of Solo Flight

That panel from last week was just the top of this page. Here are the finished pencils for the whole page. On this page we see some of the fates of two criminals in our story. 'Solo Flight' is kind of a story about what happens to different breeds of criminals. Again I don't like giving away too much of a spoiler, but again I will say this book is pretty much all I am working on lately - other than the day job stuff, and that isn't any fun. 

I wanted to make sure I got this post up and running, even if it is a bit early on the weekend. I have a few outside chores to tackle and with a chance of rain tomorrow I figured I better finish this up this morning and post it. Then after chores hopefully I will have time for some more pencils. 

This is kind of an in and out page....Captain Spectre rockets into the page in the first panel and flies out in the last panel, of course with an added payload. And I am sure all you Loyal Legionnaires can tell what is going to happen to the passenger in the last panel. He is going for a bit of a high altitude sight-seeing tour. 

Enjoy all you Loyal Legionnaires!

A tough one....

As the title says, a tough one...this panel gave me a ton of trouble as far as the layout is concerned and also it proved my arthritis is getting to me more than I thought. This is the top panel of a page. And I just tried and tried but couldn't get the layout started right. So other than wearing out a piece of board, or comic paper, I drew the pieces one at a time, then lightboxed them together onto a new page. I discovered I don't have any control over my hand movements, well limited control when my arm is extended to the top of a page. In other words the more I reach the less control I have. This is making things tougher to work. But there are work arounds like the lightbox and other things. Getting old is not fun kids. Ha. 

Also I hope viewers of any of the Commando Cody/Rocketman films don't think I am just ripping off one of the cool scenes in the movies. As most of you know I am heavily influenced by those great Republic cliffhangers. This scene is a tip of the hat to the first serial with Tris Coffin as Rocketman. But after alot of thought, there truly isn't alot of ways to land on a moving truck with your jetpack. So it actually helped using the lightbox. I drew the truck and all, then drew Captain Spectre at this angle, then lightboxed the truck and then placed Captain Spectre and lightboxed him. (The lightbox is a small box with frosted plexiglass as a drawing surface with a light source underneath. That way you can place a drawing on it and transfer, or trace the drawing onto a clean piece of paper.) 

Isn't the internet a wonder. A place of unlimited reference for artists. I can't count how many times I use it to look up what something looks like. Especially like drawing the Captain Spectre strip. If I need a 1936 police cruiser, then I just type it in and wham there it is. Amazing to this day. And it sure saves alot of time in research and reference. It also yields great gems, like this photo of Kong on the mountain. Being a poor man's collector, I don't have many film books or things like that. I mostly buy comic collection books and things like artist collections, so I had never seen this photo before. And being a King Kong film fan, as I still consider it the greatest adventure movie made, when I saw this photo I just had to reach for the DVD and view it again. I can honestly say that I don't know how many times I have viewed this film. Hundreds for sure. It never fails to make me feel like a kid again. 

Then of course the big news, and this is what I think one of the better cartoons of the event. Most had political sides taken but this one was more American so I liked it better. Of course it is copyright by the artist, I am just reposting because I liked it. As some of you know I have a personal stake. One of my sons served in the War on Terror in Iraq for almost two years, and made it back home from the frontlines.

Also some things stay the same as in enemies can only hide so long, either from Seal Team Six or Captain Spectre. As shown in one of the first Captain Spectre shirt designs I did when the strip started.

I wanted to get this update posted as I will be spending some time with the northern branch of the Floyd family today. They are coming out to the secret HQ for a cookout. So happy Mothers day to all the mothers out there. And to my mom, long gone, Thanks Mom.

Throttles at full....!

Well as before, I don't know how much I want to show of the Captain Spectre novella, but since that is the main thing I am working on in all my spare time it is all I have to show. So Loyal Legionnaires, here is another full page of pencils, page 5, showing a bit of the set up and Captain Spectre ready to go into high flying action! At least the words aren't included, so that will be the surprize when you read the full issue. This thing is going to clock in about 48+ pages so that is why I am calling it a 'novella'. It is a complete story also, no continued stuff here. Enjoy...

A quick update, and long overdue.

Here is a quick update to prove I am working on 'Solo Flight', the first Captain Spectre novella length comic. This is just a rough unfinished piece of a panel. Remember I wasn't going to show alot from now on in it's full form, since I don't want to spoil anything about the plot or lack of plots. As I have said many a time, I am not a writer ... I just pretend to be one on the web. Ha.

Anyway to keep all you Loyal Legionnaires up to date with things, I seem to be dealing with this new drug they are giving me for the nerve problems I am having in my arms and hands. They are working on the nerve part but have seemed to let the arthritis part slip thru their fingers. So am still dealing with that too, with these people it seems to be one problem at a time, and that isn't helping with my production at all. This nerve med is making me sleep, which is something I don't really normally do a lot of. Also it is making me be really lax in my production. Making it very hard to do what I feel I need to do. It is an odd thing and I do need to have another talk with these people. I appreciate them wanting to cure it all long term, but when I don't do my work, sometimes I don't know if the cure or the pain is worse.

So stay tuned Legionnaires to the slow updates, I will try to produce more and update more, and the adventures of the sick artist that is trying to just hold a pencil and push it around.....!

thanks....

Captain Spectre preview, and yes another film rant

Well I guess I will have to post more product than I had thought I would. Mainly because it is all I am working on lately, of course except the product I slap out for the day job, and this blog isn't about that stuff.  Anyway, here is the opening page to the actual story of the book. This will be page 4 since the intro I posted is three pages long. I wanted this page to end up on the left of the spread so that it is facing page 5. Since I seem to spend quite a bit of time on the actual visual design of the story, and panels and pages. I hope it will show in this book. I am still trying to put my best foot forward as the saying goes. 

Again sorry for the long time between updates lately....I am still dealing with these new meds for my neuralgia and my production time is more limited lately. I hope soon my production time will speed back up.

I also wanted to go ahead and post something because of this new type editor and stuff on the blog's backend. Also you might notice a couple of subtle tweeks here and there on this site. I thought it would be neat to add that globe thing showing where all you Loyal Legionnaires are from. If it creeps you out let me know and I can take it down, but I thought it was swell. 

Ok, here I go again with ranting about the new Marvel movies. Altho I am liking the Captain America film more lately, except for the costume, and the whole Bucky story being changed. I told a friend the other day I will just pretend his real costume is in for repair or something, and will just think the film Bucky is another Howler and not actually Bucky.
But this rant is a short one about the Thor movie. One is those 'people' with Thor - the two girls or women or whatever are really annoying for sure to me, especially that youngest one - the one that Tasers Thor. And there we have the main point of the rant. I have seen two clips from this movie, in one the God of Thunder and Lightning gets Tased and he goes down for the count. Am I the only one that finds that wrong? And in the second clip just released the other day, Thor is fighting the emergency room people and someone sticks a needle in him and he instantly goes down. I find this so wrong too. Think about it here....a medical person with a knock out hypo seeing a big guy would administer a dose for a 'big guy', not a dose for a Norse god.
So in two clips so far we have the God of Lightning knocked out by weak electricity and then knocked out by a human dose of some knock out drug.
That isn't my vision of Thor, the Norse god of Thunder!!

Another sneak preview page.

I planned on posting this the other night, just didn't get to it, and actually just noticed I need to change one thing. In that bottom split panel young Chris is holding a biplane toy. Ha, I need to erase that and either replace it or just will probably leave his hand empty. As with Chris being born at the turn of the century I don't think at this age there would be bi-plane models or toys yet. I guess I was just trying too hard to get the symbol of flying or him wishing to fly over too much. Oh well.

Anyway I am posting this as a full page preview, it is the end of the 'intro' piece at the front of the comic. Remember I had mentioned this intro to get people who know nothing of the character or time or place into the comic. To make the story more accessible to a wider audience if you will.

So in other words the sneaks from now on will be panels or sketches, so as to not spoil anything for you. Also as a bit of torture too. ha. Not really. Well there may be parts I could post as things move along. We will see.

Anyway this proves I am still working at it. Again just a very slow process.

the process.....the warm ups

I thought I would post a bit about 'the process' as it were. I had some people ask here and also email me about this little known part of the drawing process.

The first thing when I sit down to draw is the 'warm up'. I guess like most things involving controlled parts of the body, ha, like a baseball pitcher or something is the 'warm up'. Same in drawing. The 'warm up' gets the arm moving so you can work on control, movement, and just generally working the kinks out. And of course the older you get the more kinks you have to work out. I find it also gets some of the images out of your brain you may have stored while watching tv or reading or whatever from the night before. It also serves as kind of an 'idea factory' for poses and other stuff.

Also after doing this I usually scan them with my 11x17 scanner and save most of them. I usually scan all my work. Even pencilled pages before inking. Sketches I like, finished work and all. My scanner is one of my most important pieces on my computer table. I paid a ton for it, but it has been worth every penny. I used to have a small scanner, and when I started doing Captain Spectre I had to scan each half of a page and put them back together in photoshop. What a pain that was week after week. Or whenever I got a page done. Now I can scan a full size comic page, they are draw bigger than the print size, if you don't know. The drawing field on a full size comic page is about 10 x 15.25 inches.

Anyway you can see the simple sketch of the Captain Spectre drawing I posted last week, in the lower right corner of the top page of sketches. That is where it started, and I thought it was a cool pose so I finished it up on the bigger paper of a comic page.

warm up drawing goes crazy!

Usually as a warm up drawing I try to do poses for Captain Spectre flying or fighting. Mainly because they are more fluid and have some energy, and for warm up drawings that is kind of what you want to either get into, or out of your system. Also lately because of my hands I have been using large paper so I can kind of get all the joints and things going in the same direction. Well this morning started with a couple of very quick roughs sketches then this one just struck a cord. My arm felt ok, and things were going good so I just stuck with it. Also must of the time if I do a pin-up type thing it is or can be used for a couple of different things. I figure this could be a splash page sometime, or a cover, or poster or banner or something. Anyway now I have something nice to ink and warm up my inking someday, maybe tomorrow....we shall see. Sometimes a drawing gets under your skin and you just have to finish it - strike while the iron is hot kind of thing.

'Solo Flight' update - I don't have any more finished pencilled pages yet, I went back to working out some problems I saw on my thumbnails and layouts. Fight scenes are not as easy as they look to do the choreography for. And especially to make some sense out of. I don't like those fight scenes that don't move right. Anyway hope I can make them all work.

On the medical front, it seems that I had a couple of pains that just won't fade at all with all the different meds I have been taking. So my local doc tried something different, and it seems to be working some....it is a nerve med that attacks the way your pain receptors receive signals from your nerves. So it is a combo of neuralgia and arthritis...so more meds and more time to sort things out. But more on all that as it develops.

Again thanks to all who tune in....I do appreciate it more than you know. thanks.