Nov 5

... and the future looked a little bit brighter today.

Happy Halloween

  A bit belated but Happy Halloween anyway!

 Like a growing number of people it seems, Halloween is my favorite Holiday and has been since I was a kid. Yes, even better than Christmas. Although this has little to do with my work, I wanted to post this anyway. This year I whipped up a little Kevin Matchstick action for Halloween night and of course, nobody got it.  The

neighborhood just isn't that Comic savvy, but thought at least some of you would get it. (I know, I know, but that's about as much of a beard as I can grow) 

   On Saturday we went to a Costume party (with no kids!, yaaaah) and we got all done up for that and had a great time out and about. My wife as a Vampire and I her tasty victim. Hmmm, something subliminal there?, maybe lifes undertones coming to the surface?, maybe just an easy costume choice, who knows. We had fun.  

Until next October 31

WM

Catching Up with Other Stuff.

   Happy happy happy, as I've finally finished all my sketch card projects. Those last 550 cards were really killing me. The bulk being Trek cards that were repeat sketches and to keep the mind-numbingness my brain was feeling, I subscribed to a dozen different podcasts to listen to on my Itunes. Some sucked but found a few gems in there.  The Totally Rad Show (videocast) 3 guys from CA talking Comics, Movies, Video Games, and TV. Very cool. Also of note is Indie Spinner Rack. Out of NY and hosted by a friend of mine I went to school with and really great guy, Charlie (Charlito and Mr. Phil) Covering everything about Indie Comics in a fun and really informative way.

Check them out, I'm not kidding! ... and along with some other casts about Macs, Comics, and Tv & Literature, I finished up the card sets with most of my neuro pathways still firing.  

   So I finally got to sit down and catch up with some computer backlog that's been building up and posted all the sketches for The Women Of Marvel Cards I did and can be found here on my Comic Space Galleries Page. I was pretty happy with the Fantastic Four cards I just finished and also got to organize all the scans for those. I'll have those posted also as soon as they get released.  Thanks to all the inquiries about them btw.

   If anyone has any good recommendations for pod or videocasts, let me know. My mind has lately been like a sponge that just needs constant input. 

Later

WM

  

What Not To Draw

   Over the years, I've learned that one of the hardest things about drawing is knowing what not to draw. (A concept I'm still learning and reminding myself of all the time) Some basic ideas of this are things like not needing a background in every panel, not drawing the entire figure or every blatant detail of a sequence all the time and opting for something more subtle or hints of a scene while still conveying it properly. There are so many aspects to this concept and I tripped across an interesting one the other day. One problem that stems from what not to draw, is what to "not" not draw.  While reading one of my sons books to him, I had to stop when I got to this page and got a good case of the giggles with the comment that my mind blurted out upon seeing the picture. It demonstrates very well how a picture can go very wrong by "not drawing" or "covering up" something thats happening. Leaving what's going on entirely up to the readers imagination is a powerful thing and can be extremely useful (and time saving) or fail miserably.   

Later

WM

Fun Little Sampling of Life

So I'm sitting here laying out some panels for a Comic page I'm working on and my 5 year old comes downstairs yelling at the top of his lungs, 

(The boy) "Daddy, I've got a picture to show you!" 

(Me) "Neat, let me see."

He hands me a Halloween Birthday card for his Granddad with an old black house, a dark blue sky, a tree and a pumpkin, all done in crayons.

(Me) "Hey that's great, good job. I like the pumpkin"

(The boy) "Yeah, it's for Pop Pop. What are you drawing? Is that a car?"

(Me) "Yeah, it's a car driving through a town."

(The boy) "Oh, that's not very exciting.  Are there people there?" 

(Me) "Actually, those are Zombies trying to catch the car." 

(The boy) "Is it a Zombie town?"

(Me) "Uh,.. sure."

(The Boy) "Ok, that's cool then. Bye"

... and off he goes tearing back up stairs leaving me with a feeling of pride. That's my boy.  

A snippet of life here in the studio.

 I've got an awesome job.

WM