Sunday, November 30, 2008

STNG VS SW

What I Should Have Invested In

While reading an old issue of Action Comics from 1966 last night, I was amused to read the following letter in the Metropolis Mailbag letters column. I was thirteen in 1966, and it would have been difficult, but not impossible, to scrape up $40.00 for the investment. But who knew back then? The scan of the 80 page Giant Superman is the comic to which the letter writer refers to.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Details about Shel




Krayonzilla just told me today he had talked to Shel and learned most of what is in this letter from Karyl Miller.....




Date: Friday, November 28, 2008, 4:36 PM

Thought you'd like to read this e-mail I just sent to Wardell Brown and Matt Lorentz. Please forward the information to Jackie Estrada, Jack White and Lynn Stedd, and any other friends of Shel. Thanks !
Hope you both had a fine Thanksgiving. Wanted to let you know that Shel has been at Sharp Hospital in Kearny Mesa since April......yes, April (!)
David Siegel called us Wednesday night about this, and Joan and I went down to Shel's home in OB on Thanksgiving where his brother Mike is moving everything out. I've known Mike since the 1980's, though it's been some 20 years since I've seen him.
Today Joan and I went with David Siegel to see Shel. He's lost some weight and is fragile, but we had a brief and friendly visit with him. He's extremely hard of hearing, and is apparently on pain medication but at least we were able to see him and he was glad to see us.
The head nurse told us Shel will never be well enough to go home again, but otherwise he's stable.
Mike plans to eventually move Shel closer to a hospital near Mike's apartment in L.A.
I wanted to let you both know about this first, as Shel had both of your autographed photos framed and hanging proudly on his living room wall. Mike gave them to me to return to you if you want them.
The visit to Shel's was pretty emotional , as the first job I ever had in San Diego was helping Shel with his lettering on "Steve Canyon", while Joan transcribed some of his interviews. We lived right around the corner from Shel from August 1983 to August 1987. I also made several trips to LA with Shel as unofficial photographer while he did his interviews, and got to meet some amazing people.
Shel is allowed to have visitors, and it would be great if you guys could get in to see him. Needless to say, we ALL owe Shel a huge amount of gratitude for the Comic-con, SCCS, and so many other things that brought us all together.
He's at Sharp Hospital 7901 Frost Street near the 163 and Balboa Avenue. He's on the sixth floor, in Room 656 Bed 1. The hospital phone is 858-939-3622. I'm pretty sure visiting hours are 11 AM- 8 PM, but call and check first.
I realize this news is hard to read, but at least Shel is still here to Thank in person.
My Best, Charlie Roberts

Hey Gang


FYI. Lost my gig this last Monday so I'll be having lots of time on my hands.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Champion





Howdy. Here are a couple of colored pages from my graphic novel "The Life , Death, and Life of Michael Midas: Champion." Jonny Rench did the colors and Jordan Gorfinkel is the writer. It's supposed to be out in February from Devil's Due Press.
It was kinda done in a pseudo "widescreen" format. Most frames go border to border. I wasn't allowed to do traditional layouts or break any of the panels in any of the flashback sequences (which is 95% of the book). It proved... challenging let's say.
They're going to release it in landscape format which will be cool. Every page was designed initially to have a gutter placed running through the center of it so it could possibly be chopped in half and positioned lengthwise side by side. This means the 128 page book is now doubled to 256 pages. It hilariously makes me look productive.
Hope you enjoy. If anyone is near Ellis punch him in the stomach for me. Thanks!

Cheap Vellum



I walked into a paper supply store and asked if they had vellum. It was mostly office supply. But the clerk sent me to the paper i used in these scans. 500 sheet ream for about 50 bucks. I'm going to Kinkos and have a couple of sketchbooks made out of it. 100 page sketchbooks and leave the rest of it loose.

The title is a link to the paper I bought. Really nice. Like tracing up through glass but a great tooth surface. I may do a little inking with my new medium

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving


This was to be further finessed for the Thanksgiving sports page's Turkey of the Year award. But, alas, the paper no longer needed my services or those of 35 other people. So this is my Thanksgiving sketch to all of you. Have a great T-day!

Cork 9

And lo, the angels wept with joy for I FINALLY FINISHED MY FRIGGIN' GRAPHIC NOVEL!
About bloody time! I will be showing you some excerpts from the book soon (including colored pages), but now that I'm finished it means I can finally get back to more Cork.
In fact, here's one now...

Sunday, November 23, 2008

New Lulu Book



I turned my Students work into a Lulu ready PDF. 120 pages. But expensive since it is full color. The PDF download is free. I don't think the covers are included.

Title is a link.

It takes almost a minute for the preview of the book to show.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Scanner Working


So my home scanner seems to be better now than it was before the move... weird. At any rate, now I can start sharing some of my "Bus Sketches", such as this one. You can also see one at my own blog... (linked to title of post)

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Life mag Photos


Time Life and Google project. More photos than you can surf through in a year.

Title is the link

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Tony DeZuniga's Pin-Up ....


Here is another little sampling of the creative energy beginning to gather within this project ... From his vacation spot in the Philippines, Tony DeZuniga posted this pencil pin-up for Gun Nose Presents. Johnny B. will ink it as soon as he finished his third page of penciled inside art.

Nice, I say ...

Monday, November 17, 2008

Update on "Gun Nose Presents ..."

Here is what is currently the slate for the "Gun Nose Presents" comic book. I am doing an edit pass on the script, five stories, each three pages long ... and I should have that done this week. I will than send it out to the inside artists for review and discussion.

So far, my overall plan is to have the stories completed and inked by March of next year. Because my friend Johnny B. may need to take two non-art jobs to cover his living and child support expenses (a recent development ...) he will likely not be available to ink the book like I had planned. I have a backup plan in mind, however.


BTW: if any of you know of a permanent art job, I'd love to steer Johnny toward it; he's currently looking at the Post Office and his current graveyard shift at Wal-Mart ... not a great existence for an artist).


So here is the cast as it stands right now:

Storyteller – Tom Carroll

Front Cover – Ben Herrera


Story 1 – Pencils by Johnny B. (nearly done), Inks by Tony DeZuniga
Story 2 – Pencils by Tom Carroll
Story 3 – Pencils by Rick Schmitz
Story 4 – Pencils by Ellis Goodson
Story 5 – Pencils by Joe Staton


Pinup #1 – Pencils by Tony DeZuniga, inks by Johnny B.

Pinup #2 – Pencils by Tim Vigil

Pinup #3 – Pencils by Ernie Chan

Pinup #4 – Pencils by Matt Haley

Pinup #5 – Pencils by Sanjulian

Pinup #6 – Pencils by Brent Anderson


Thursday, November 13, 2008

Eyeball Game


link is the title.

it;s fun. i hover around 5 .

you can beat it

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

KrayonZilla

Krazonzilla, click title for a good Blog. An artists named Axel. But this post is about a Sherman Oaks game developer position.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Green Tech Well in contrasting background




Title is a link to the concept art forum sketch a day with more takes

A Pacifist Looks Forward

While mourning past and current sacrifices (both military and civilian, both heroic and needless), I look forward to a far-too-distant time when our species as a whole will finally understand this:

The moment you pick up a [insert choice of weapon here], for the purpose of eliminating a fellow human being, is the moment you've run out of ideas.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Lil' Dude


Ellis says for me to post, so I'm posting. This is a little concept for a little game that was never made.

As far as unpacking is concerned the printer/scanner is unpacked, but it's so awful that I don't want to use it. We have a much better scanner at the office, but it's not currently hooked up to the network. I may just break down and use the crummy one at home.

In other news, I had lunch with Mike Christian yesterday. It turns out he works just a few blocks away from my office. He looks to be doing well and he's in fine spirits. It was very cool to hang out with him... perhaps he will read this and be inspired to post something... hint, hint.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

0070





Sketch done while goofing with Mudbox at work. I like Mudbox.

And another just to keep the page from being too static. Hurry up and get unpacked Rick.

Forrest J Ackerman is slipping away...


Sad news from the world of Monster and Horror fandom. The King of all monster fans and the face and pulse of Famous Monster of Filmland magazine is knocking at the door of the great beyond, Forrest J. Ackerman is by all reports slipping away from us at 92. Henry and I had had the opportunity to visit the Great Ackermansion and have lunch with Forry himself one weekend back in the early 90's. It was something I thought I'd never do. As a big old movie monster kid of the 60's I owe it all to Forry and that first FM#55 I ever got. Great times. Better days.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Cork 8


Had a small gap in my graphic novel drawing window so I banged out another Cork. Please enjoy the shenanigans.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Meltdown Trip





It was fun.It was great to see Kali, meet Nico. John K threw in a caricature for the John McCain vinyl toy I bought. Good times.

I also got the new Hellboy.