my how time flies....

Hey all you Loyal Legionnaires....are you still out there in internet land??? Hope so.

Once again apologizing for the lack of updates. Time just flies the older you get. ha.

I have been a little busy with projects, but it seems to be all over the place so this post is going to wander by the nature of the times.

Well seems that old KiGor wide vision  story I did a couple of years ago for Moonstone is finally going to surface.  If you remember it is a prose story with I think five illustrations I did that spread across the double page spread.  Remember, this is the one.  Written by the great Martin Powell, so look for 'War of the Beast-Men' sometime in the future....I will keep you posted...I promise.

Also been working on another proposed KiGor thing, after all I need a few bucks to pay down some of my medical bills that roll in. Believe me it isn't much of a chance at some money, but then again no publisher pays much at all anymore. It is all back end money and promises mostly. Shame the industry has to resort to this kind of treatment of the talent. Anyway, I feel I draw a bit better than a couple of years ago, so went for a slight redesign of the KiGor character last night while watching 'the Spider Returns' serial. 

I was also dealing with a haunting feeling that the Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Deep Ones from HP Lovecrafts tales are closely related. So was playing around with that in my daily warm up sketches...and it is thinking toward another little project for bucks I may have going. 

Also I have been playing around with some color, especially for the Number 13 project for Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse.  I consider myself one of the worst color theorists in the business. Plus I seem to agonize over it way too much when I color something, and it just takes so much time hitting the art one more time after inking it. Sometimes after I ink something, I feel done with it. ha. Anyway here is a un-refined color version of the first page of Number 13. 

Also, since I am thinking ahead to doing more conventions next year and the year after, and also wishing and hoping I can take early retirement....so I figured while I had a pay check coming in I thought I would go ahead and get a business card....then I figured I needed two....one kind of serious one, and one spotlighting the cartooning aspect of everything from cartoony to serious illustration type stuff. So here those are.....

So see even tho I don't make it around to posting, and feel I don't have anything new to show, I guess I really do most of the time.....it may not all be finished stuff, or good stuff.....but it is stuff! ha. 

And of course once again I am slowing down due to my health, can't seem to sit at the board for ultra long periods like I used too.  So some days when the day job is long and tough, the evening just isn't very productive.   

So Loyal Legionnaires hope you are still tuning in........and if you are, Thanks for hanging around and waiting on the old man. 

Hitting the jungle path running.....

During my stint on the 'Mucker' cover Joe at Moonstone contacted Martin Powell, writer of KiGor, and wanted us to turn out a Moonstone 'widevision' compact pulp story. This now will be the public's first contact with KiGor and his world that Martin and I plan to bring to Moonstone. Martin has written a whiz-bang story, and I plan to do about ten illos to go in the prose story. If you haven't seen one of these books, they are pretty cool. A cross between a pulp mag and a comic. Prose on each page and an illo spanning the whole open book on every other or every third page. So any way, I started on the rough layouts and designs inbetween all the other stuff going on. So stay tuned Loyal Legionnaires for more on "The War of the Beast-Men" starring KiGor and Helene. Coming to a comic shop soon....well as soon as I get it done.

Enter the Mucker...

As many of you Loyal Legionnaires know, I have been invited to be the Artist Guest of Honor at the Burroughs Bibliophiles con this year. It isn't until August but to go along with the honor is the duty of producing a cover for the new edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs - the Mucker.

For those that aren't familiar with the story....it is a pure adventure/romance yarn. Not the usual fantastic genres of Burroughs, like Tarzan or John Carter of Mars.

Anyway in the production of the book cover, which by the way will be also illustrated by many different Burroughs artists inside. I don't know for sure who's illustrations will be in the book until a later date as they are organizing it.

But as a starting place of course I am re-reading the book, which is a combo of both Mucker books. Also I am trying to pin down the look of the two major characters that will be on the cover, also the Brazos pony will be there too - it was requested by the organizer. But first is the Mucker himself - Billy Byrne. A tough guy from Chicago, who frankly is a jack-ass thru most of the story. But he is changed by his meeting with Barbara Harding, a woman from the rich part of town.

So this is the beginning of the process of feeling out the characters, how to visually represent them and their personalities, and then moving to a design.

So in place of updates to the strip for a bit, you Loyal Legionnaires will have to put up with this. After all it is the first time I will be able to take advantage of a real Guest of Honor status. So please bear with me as I want to do a good job on it and be worthy of the invitation.

Also, Legionnaires, please vote on the poll at the right of the page here. I am ready to start on the stand alone comic and have developed several storylines, but I want you to be a part of the selection. So Vote!