Menu Close

Category: Comics

Wonder-Con

Coming up this weekend, 4/2-4/4, I’ll be at Wonder-Con in San Francisco alongside pal and fellow cartoonist Chris Giarrusso. If you’re out there, stop by and say hello. You can fund us in Artist Alley, table 45. I’ll be doing sketches and I’ll have copies of X-BABIES as well as some Batman and Superman chapter books, mini-comics, and a brand new set of prints that may or may not take the world of fictional character fans by storm. Dig ’em:

DC_Final

MVL_Final

And yes, as a matter of fact they do line up side-by-side.

See you in San Francisco…

MegaCon!

This weekend, March 12-14th, I’ll be in Artists Alley at MegaCon in Orlando. I’d love to tell you exactly where, but as of this post I don’t yet know my table assignment.

I do know I’ll be sitting alongside Chris Giarrusso and collectively we’ll have all the X-Babies, G-Man, and Mini-Marvels you could ask for…I think.

Also this weekend, if you’re on the left coast, is the Emerald City ComiCon. That’s a great show and if you’re in Seattle I say check it out. Tell ’em I sent ya!

And in about two weeks I’ll be on the west coast at WonderCon in San Francisco…

Ten Years Ago, Today.

January 28, 2000 marked my last day working as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics.

I started there, first as an intern in the summer of 1996…followed by my first work as a freelance penciler a year later on WHAT IF? #104…and then joined the staff as Tom Brevoort’s assistant in October 1997.

In the two-plus years I was there I had the joy and honor of working on some of the best titles with some of the greatest talents in the field and an overall amazing crew at Marvel itself, from my fellow editorial staff to the production team in the Marvelous Marvel Bullpen to the folks in manufacturing, accounting, online, advertising and creative services. And I even got to draw a comic book here and there, when the opportunities and time permitted. To this day, so many years later, I think back on great memories of my time at Marvel Comics.

I thought it might be fun, upon reflection, to tell a few stories or make note of things I recall from my time.

X-BABIES #4 – FINAL ISSUE!

Just over a year ago (1/19/09) I sent in a pitch for an X-Babies mini-series. Tomorrow, 1/27/10, the final issue of that mini-series will hit comic book store shelves. And the world will never be the same! That, or it’ll go right back to normal. Hard to say.

But yes, tomorrow you’ll finally see how it all shakes out. Will the X-Babies reclaim their top-spot as stars on Mojo TV? Will Mr. Veech’s Adorable X-Babies outnumber and out-power the real X-Babies? And what of the revived Star Comics characters, what happens to them?

If you’re remotely curious…or just want to see a comic book where Jacob Chabot draws adorable versions of every single X-Man character ever, check out X-BABIES #4!

xbaby004RGB

Meanwhile, I found this out on the internet and thought it, what with my love of cake, too cool not to share:

Mae Makes Cakes!

Yeah, a cake based on the cover art to X-BABIES #4. That’s way cool.

PS – If you haven’t picked it up, G-MAN: CAPE CRISIS #5, co-featuring my finale to the Pix, Teenage American Fairy story “The Most Dangerous Donut”, is out now. Pick it up tomorrow when you race to pick up X-BABIES #4.

X-BABIES: While You Wait…

xbaby004RGB

X-BABIES #4, the final issue of the the X-Babies mini-series I’ve gone on and on about lo these past many months, won’t be out yet for another 30 days, on 1/27/2010. That’s 30 days on top of the past three weeks since issue three rocked the comic book reading masses to their core*! That’s a long wait. What are you supposed to do then if you want your X-Babies fix?

X-BABIES #3

XB3_CoverX-BABIES #3 is on sale today at better comic shops everywhere.

It’s an issue I’m really proud of and happy with, chock-a-block with all kinds of good comic booky stuff. And the last five pages…oh man…I only hope people dig it as I much as I do.

So check out X-BABIES #3, “Chase, Fight, Snikt!” in comic shops TODAY!

*Special bonus game: in this issue, due to a deadline crunch, I stepped in the help Jacob on the art side by working up layouts for several pages in this issue. Can you tell which six pages I had a hand in, visually?

From the Reject Pile: DEADPOOL/SPICE GIRLS “World Tour”

Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth, Marvel Comics’ resident maniac gun-for-hire is all the rage these days. But this wasn’t always the case. 11 years ago last month, Marvel had a big Deadpool push with “Deadpool Month”, October 1998, when Marvel put out a series of Deadpool related one-shots and such in addition to his monthly title.

Now coveted on the back issue market as collectors’ items, books like Encyclopedia Deadpoolica, Baby’s First Deadpool Book, and Deadpool Team-Up Starring Widdle Wade all came out that month.

Being in the offices at the time I was aware of the upcoming event and pitched my own idea for a one-shot: DEADPOOL/SPICE GIRLS: WORLD TOUR.

The premise was simple: Deadpool meets The Spice Girls, who, at the time, were HUGE. The movie Spice World was released earlier that year and yeah, they were a big deal. And it seemed to me a perfect pairing.

The story was a simple one: Deadpool, a mercenary, gets hired to off the Spice Girls. He takes the job but when he’s finally got the girls in his sniper scope he’s taken by Scary Spice and instantly falls deeply in love. He cannot kill the woman of his dreams…his soul mate… He confesses his love to Scary Spice and the plot to kill them is revealed, leading to Deadpool and the Spice Girls teaming up to flip the game and take out those who hired Deadpool in the first place. I wrote up the pitch, worked up a piece of art, and, suffice to say, it’s now appearing on my site under the “From the Reject Pile” heading.

I’d be lying if I said I actually thought it would fly (though, courtesy of my intern at the time, Dennis, I do have the address for Spice Girls Limited, who I was prepared to contact should rights need negotiating).

But what could have been has long since passed and all that left is that single piece of pitch art, in pencil, appearing here for the very first (and really, only) time. So, from 1998, please enjoy:

Deadpool_SpiceGirls_72

Don’t it just make you want to zigazig ah?

I just keep talking…

I’m still going on and on about X-Babies out there. And in the event that you don’t regularly do web searches of my name, I’ve gathered a few here so as to share.

First up, an interview on the appropriately named site, Lots of Interviews.

Next, I had a brief chat with Rachelle up in Nova Scotia from the always pleasant and comics-positive blog Living Between Wednesdays.

Thirdly, the audio of my appearance on Comic Book Club (along with Jacob Chabot) is available on iTunes or here, should you care to give that a listen (though for those not familiar with comics and without the visual, it could be…challenging).

Jesse Thorn over at Maximum Fun (PRI’s The Sound of Young America and a series of podcasts) kindly posted the reference I dropped to his “Jordan, Jesse, Go!” podcast in X-Babies #2.

And finally, a couple of video interviews, both from the weekend spent at Acme Comics in Greensboro last month. The first of these is an interview with Dylan O’Connor, a very savvy interviewer despite his age:

And here’s my post-show, wrap-up interview with Julie, who helped out at the event and brought us delicious cookies and brownies.

I can’t explain the color changes to my flesh in the two videos, though it might have something to do with the different cameras used. I can explain, however, my seeming ignoring of the camera in the second video, as I was working on the last sketches of the night and people were waiting on us to get dinner.

Oh, and that fella sitting to my left in the video, that’s Jacob Chabot, artist on X-Babies.

And if all that weren’t enough: G-MAN: CAPE CRISIS #4 is on sale today, 11/17. The penultimate issue (and it’s got not only three more pages of PIX: TEENAGE AMERICAN FAIRY, but an all-new SAFARI JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL comic in there too). It’s a good one!

X-Babies #2 On Sale Tomorrow.

X-BABIES #2 (of 4) hits comic book shops tomorrow, 11/11/09. It’s a fun issue, chock-full or superhero action, X-Babies bickering, hyper-subtle references to podcasts I listen to, and some characters not seen in Marvel Comics’ history in over 25 years. Check it out!

XBABIES002_cvr

Also, I just saw Jacob’s inks for the last page of issue 3 and let me just say, for the record: it’s amazing. More on that in a month, you know, when I can talk about with without spoilers.

Acme Comics Weekend

This past weekend, 10/23-10/25, myself and a handful of other comics creators (Chris Giarrusso, Jacob Chabot, Brian Smith, Art Balthazar, Ian Flynn and Michael Watkins) were the guests of Acme Comics in Greensboro, NC. We were flown in, put up, fed and essentially made to feel like rock stars and all we had to do was sit around and draw and sign comic books. And boy did we ever draw. Holy cow. There were well over 200 sketches done by all of us in total. The crew at Acme scanned as many as they could and posted them on their site.

By my count, based on what’s on their site and what I can remember that wasn’t scanned, clocked in with about 38 sketches. I encourage you to check out the scans of everyone’s sketches here (I encourage you to check out Brian “Smitty” Smith’s takes on E.T. and “The Star Wars”), but for simplicity sake, here are 32 of the sketches I did: