Comics Update
Again, hard not to feel like this all doesn't matter all that much, but I thought I'd update folks on what's going on with my comics work:

First, I'm happy to say that the Modern Masters book is finished. It only needs an introduction and final artwork approval and it's ready to go to press. I found it very strange talking about myself in such detail for so long, especially since I get very nervous when in the spotlight. I usually hate interviews (excruciating!), but Todd Dezago (friend and writer of Perhapanauts) made it a fairly relaxed and fun process. Editor Eric Nolen-Weathington chose plenty of great pieces to illustrate the book, with the majority of the artwork never before published. I'm pretty happy with it. Hopefully the book will be out in late May or early June. Stay tuned!

Work continues on Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom. Still not sure if it's okay to share artwork yet...soon! For now, I'll just post some recent sketchbook pages. While doing the Modern Masters interview and attending the Toronto show I started to feel like a bit of a hypocrite as I advised aspiring artists to practice drawing and to keep sketchbooks--I've abandoned quite a few sketchbooks in recent years because I just don't feel like drawing anymore in my free time. Time to get back into it and draw for fun again! I bought a nice new sketchbook and decided to start it off right with a decent finished drawing. I picked a couple of Tom Strong characters so I could get over worrying about what to draw and just went to town with pencils and some India Ink markers. The other page featured below shows the latest in my ongoing series of attempts to get a handle on drawing Superman, plus some hand and face doodles. I've decided I'm going to keep practicing these little "differently-shaped" faces so I can break my bad habit of choosing the same basic ovoid head shape every time I design a new character.


Finally, for those who frequent comic shops, here's a little list of upcoming releases featuring my work:

-May 22- posted on-sale date for Modern Masters vol.21, although I will be very surprised if the book actually ships that soon

-May 27- WildC.A.T.S. #11 - contains Part 1 of a Deathblow story written by Cristos Gage

-June 3- the new Ocean trade paperback(with new bonus material), plus The Authority #12 with Part 2 of that Deathblow story

-July 8- Tom Strong #1 Special Edition (a reprint of Tom Strong #1 as part of the "After Watchmen" promotion

-Sept. 16- Tom Strong Deluxe Edition Book 1 (high-quality larger size collection of the first 12 issues of Tom Strong all under a brand new cover)

--C

Photos
Nothing I can write won't sound stupid and trivial after recent events, so for now, I'll just post some recent photos (and one not-so-recent one)...


"Oh, how they danced..." (from our trip to Toronto)


Sara, Henning, Gavin, Vala and Xan in Toronto


The Belly-Girl and one of her birthday presents


This photo reminds me that I need to make more of an effort to keep in touch with my friends ... (from l-r: Gary, myself and Steve in Old Town Alexandria from the 1980's --thanks to Steve for digging this one up)

--C

Ingrid taking a photo of her awesome self with her phone

Ingrid Marie Hess 1978-2009

Hi there, readers of the SprouseNet Blog. Xan here, really, really wishing she was just writing all about the Canada convention and her birthday that fell on the last day of it. I will eventually, but I feel a little callous talking about myself right now.

The photo of the very beautiful and glamorous woman on this blog is a photo my cousin Ingrid. She took it with her phone, and I loved it so I copied it from her Facebook page. And if anyone has been to my Facebook page lately and has read my cryptic comments about being sad, it's because my family lost Ingrid this past Tuesday the 21st.

Having no siblings, my cousins were as close as I ever got to knowing what it was like to grow up with other kids. Ingrid and her younger brother, Brian are my Uncle Al and Aunt Kathy's children, Uncle Al being my father's younger brother. When my Uncle Al married my Aunt Kathy, they moved into the family home that my grandfather built in the 1950s, and they lived there (and still do) with my Grandma Rita. Anyway, since they lived in the family home, I saw a lot of them growing up since this is where we stayed when we would come visit. My parents would be on the hide-a-bed downstairs, and I would sleep in Ingrid's room. We spend a lot of nights staying up late and playing when we were supposed to be in bed, and as we got older, just chatting.

Ingrid and I got closer when she moved back to Cleveland from Michigan where she went to school. I would see her when I would go to Cleveland for concerts, and thanks to Facebook and MySpace we were talking every week. I never realized it until recently, but I relied on her quite a bit to be my rock in our family. Since she was so close to everyone (figuratively and literally-Brian bought the house next door, and Ingrid bought the one next to Brian) I could always depend on her to make sure I knew what was going on, who was doing what, and that I got my ass in gear and sent Gram a card for her birthday. We had some heart to hearts about our lives recently, and we were just good friends who happened to love each other like family since we were.

I was in Toronto when my mom called me to tell me that she had some bad news, which was that Ingrid had had an accident on the 19th and was in the hospital, and things were not optimistic. We checked out of the hotel as fast as we could and raced to Ohio (thank you for ignoring us, state troopers of highway 90) to be with the family. I got to the hospital and there was Ingrid, Brian holding one hand and Aunt Kathy holding another. The room was dimly lit, and they had a stereo playing Brad Paisley, Ingrid's favorite musician. I kept wanting her to just wake up, and everything would be okay. She looked just like Ingrid, still beautiful, the same head of thick wavy black hair that I coveted my entire life, same sweet little hands, same soft skin. I held her hand and thought "Just wake up sweetie, and this will all be okay. If you would just wake up, we can go watch the Cavs and have a beer like we used to. If you could just wake up, we could have a Muppet Show marathon with Beata (her daughter). Please wake up, and we can have you back with us because we love you." False hope sucks worse than anything, because even though her body was alive, it was only thanks to medical technology. She never did wake up, and around 8:30 Tuesday morning the 21st, Uncle Al called my mom to say that Ingrid had let go of this mortal coil and was no longer with us. I felt numb and empty, and I still do.

The one thing that is keeping me going is that I know she knew I loved her very much. I had told her recently, and not being the most demonstrative family, it's not like we said it every day or anything. She knows how much I loved her, and still love her, and how much she meant to me. This terrible event is making me want to tell everyone that if you love someone, be sure they know.

If you are reading this blog and you know me, odds are I love you too, very much. I may be an agoraphobic flake, but I love you and just because I suck at planning visits and calling doesn't mean I don't think of you often. If you are ever sad or need me, I'm here.

I'll miss you, Ing.

Happy Birthday, Xan!

Today is Xan's birthday! We're in Toronto right now, visiting friends and attending a comic convention and I am so exhausted I can barely type. I'll try to get her to write about the trip and I'll post some photos and artwork when we get home. Until then, wish Xan a happy birthday on her Facebook or MySpace page.
--C

Interview with Ocean Screenwriter Ryan Condal

I've heard absolutely no news about the Ocean film adaptation lately, so I surfed around the internet a little this weekend and turned up an interview with the guy hired to turn our graphic novel into a screenplay, Ryan Condal. Click HERE to read the interview. Condal talks about Ocean about 2/3 of the way down. 

Sounds interesting...phrases like "huge action movie" are used and the writer mentions turning to the Aliens and Terminator movies as well as The Abyss for inspiration...

As always, I'll post it here when I know more!

--C

Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom

Finally! I can now talk about what I've been working on since finishing Number of the Beast and that still unpublished Deathblow story! DC/Wildstorm at long last announced that Peter Hogan and I are working on a new Tom Strong limited series, Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom. Click HERE to be taken to a little news story announcing the project. The plan is to do more of these mini-series if this first one is successful, so that Tom Strong can live on--Hellboy-style--as an ongoing series of self-contained mini-series. Robots of Doom is well underway (we're at the half-way point), and since the first issue won't be solicited until I'm 90% finished with the entire series(according to editor Ben Abernathy), every issue will ship on time.

I cannot adequately express how excited I am to be working on Tom Strong again! I'm loving it and I'm giving it my all. I'll start showing off some art from the series soon.

--C

Happy Birthday, Jess-Belle!
The littlest member of our family turns three today. Here are a few photos to commemorate the day:

--C

Books and Burns

A rare Xan appearance on the blog today. Every year I say I'm going to stop neglecting the blog, but I'm never as diligent as I plan to be when the new year comes around. I haven't even kept up my blog on MySpace, I've been using it mainly to keep track of my Pez collection total. Which, by the way, is up to 641, I think. I really need to do another physical count. I'm not going to do the count anytime soon however, because I have 2nd degree chemical burns on my legs.

Now that sounds a little melodramatic. I wasn't actually diagnosed with 2nd degree burns, I'm just assuming 2nd degree because my legs look similar to 2nd degree burn photos I've seen online. I've been playing "Wiki Doctor" and doing the ever so accurate self diagnosis from the internet. And, it's not as scary as it sounds, the chemical in question that burned me was Veet, a depilatory. Technically, that is a chemical, but it's nothing that would turn someone into the Joker or anything.

The funny thing is, I never used to shave or remove my leg hair in any way. When I was in high school, it was this alterna-girl unspoken rule that you weren't supposed to shave your legs. It was a small bit of leftist rebellion that required only laziness to achieve, so it was a popular trend. And while I proudly displayed my hairy legs during the summer, in the colder months, this created a problem for me. You see, this was the 1990s, and one of the alterna-girl fashion trends was to wear tights under cutoff jeans. I actually still dig this look, and I can't wait for it to come back. And after about 3 hours of being covered in tights, hairy legs start to itch like mad, so I had to break down sometimes and shave my legs, succumbing to the media's standard of beauty etc. etc.

This being driven to the point of madness by the itchiness of winter legs thing was my motivation to get rid of my leg hair 2 days ago. I don't like to use actual razors because I am convinced that there is no way that I can do it without injuring myself. I've been shaving since the 5th grade, and every damn time I find out the hard way (usually when putting on lotion, ouch!) that surprise, I've nicked myself again. I finally got sufficiently fed up with that, so I decided to go with depilatory. Depilatory has it's drawbacks-it can be expensive, and it will stink. No matter how much the manufacturer tries to provide a "Fresh scent", it still smells like a perm. It's also a chemical intended to basically, melt your hair away from your body from the follicle, so if you have skin that is the least bit sensitive, or you get it wet during the application process, it can burn you. And the burning sensation lasts for a few days. Aloe vera gel has been wonderful to me, but I'm still in a lot of pain. It's better now than when the photos are taken, but still, it hurts.

And since I haven't been able to go many places so far this year (the flu kept me in bed and this burn makes walking sound like torture) I've been trying to get some reading done. I have a stack of books I have been meaning to read that is about as tall as I am, and this doesn't even include the comics that have been stacking up for months now. So far in 2009 I've read 9 books, which doesn't seem like much to me considering a few of them were quite thin and fast reads, and others were the guiltiest of guilty pleasures of readers, tv show tie-ins. Specifically, the "Supernatural" tie-ins. I love that show, and the books aren't bad as a tide-me-over until the next episode. I've read the first 2 and the 3rd just arrived from amazon.com.

I also finally finished "The Book of Lost Things" by John Connolly. I purchased it in 2007 I think, started it, put it away, picked it up again, put it away, started other books, you know the score. I decided to get it finished once and for all so it wouldn't taunt me, and it was a fun read, but not my favorite book. It has a very "Labyrinth" feel to it, so it is fun, but a very "boy" story.

For Christmas I got one of Mary Woronov's novels, "Niagra" which I enjoyed very much, although the main character is about the saddest thing ever. I recommend her as a writer, and am anxiously awaiting the arrival of her novel "Snake" which should be arriving from a seller I found on the Amazon Marketplace any second now.

While I had the flu I had no energy or attention span, so I basically just stayed in bed and listened to DVD commentaries. Specifically, commentary from "The Simpsons" DVDs since I've seen the episodes so much, all I had to do was listen and I could pick where the episode was by the references made in the commentary. Sad, I know. Standard commentary cast of writers, directors, Matt Groening, and they all mentioned a Simpsons writer named John Swartzwelder as being a fantastic writer who never does commentaries. Matt Groening also mentioned he wrote novels. This sounded interesting to me, so I ordered the title with the earliest copyright date from amazon.com. It arrived, and these are no frills books. Paperbacks that look like they should say "Novel, net wt. 7oz" on the cover. The book I got was "The Time Machine Did It", which is a time traveling detective story. I loved it, and highly recommend his work.

Another writer I discovered from some form of gadget is Simon Rich. After downloading the Stanza application for my iPod Touch, I went searching for free e-books to download. The Stanza app turns your iPod into an e-reader, so I now have an iPod that is part Kindle. Not that I don't still want a Kindle. Anyway, on the list of free downloads from Random House, I found a book called "Free Range Chickens". It's not a novel, just vignettes of alternate points of view that are extremely funny. For example, one of them is a conversation between God and an angel during which God complains that Simon Rich is not attending Temple even though he swore he would after praying for God to make sure "Perfect Strangers" was not cancelled. Simon Rich is a writer for SNL, and I am convinced after reading this and his first book "Ant Farm" that if you see something funny on SNL and it's not Andy Samburg, it's Simon Rich.

Other than Mary Woronov, Carrie Fisher and Gene Wilder are two other movie stars with books I finished recently. While I couldn't get into Gene Wilder's novel "My French Whore", my favorite book I've read so far this year is Carrie Fisher's new memoir, "Wishful Drinking". She has led one hell of a life, and she is hilarious. The style of this book made me feel like I was listening to her tell me these stories, and I found myself devouring it completely in about 2 hours. I highly recommend this one.

Well, I think it's time for me to put on some more aloe vera because bending my knees is hurting again. Thanks for reading my half-assed book reviews and looking at my gross legs!

Fun Stuff for Comic Nerds and Tech Heads
Xan gave me her old iPod Touch earlier this week when she upgraded(thanks, baby!) and I've been toying around with it every night. I already have an iPod that I love and use constantly(a 160GB Classic used to store and play pretty much my entire music collection and for listening to audiobooks on a constant daily basis), so I wanted to find some unique uses for the iPod Touch--with its larger screen and touch controls--so I could justify having it and not just feel really decadent about it.

Well, I've decided to use the Touch more as a PDA or little portable computer than as a music player. I've found a few games and some useful applications that I like, including one called ComicZeal, which allows you to view comics on the iPod.

I've already used a program called CDisplay, a digital comic-reading program for the PC and Mac. With CDisplay loaded on a laptop, one can bring along entire comics series to read on long plane flights or car trips. CDisplay reads .cbr or .cbz files--folders full of jpegs of scanned comic book pages which have been compressed and stored as tiny .rar or .zip files. Once the ".rar" or ".zip" parts of the file names have simply been retyped as ".cbr" or ".cbz," respectively, the compressed files can be read by CDisplay. ComicZeal takes your .cbr and .cbz files and converts them so they can be used on iPhones and the iPod Touch. I have CDisplay files of most of my own work, and I have a huge collection of other series i plan to read on my new iPod now! I'm also thinking about putting together a reference file I can view using ComicZeal while sketching at conventions. I'm often asked to draw characters whose costume details I just can't dredge up from the murky depths of my memory, and a small portable collection of all the major Marvel and DC Comics characters would be very useful!

Number of the Beast #2 on the iPod Touch

--C

February Update: Sick As The Proverbial Dog, But Still Productive
Xan and I have been as sick as we could possibly be with the cold/flu thingy that's going around, spending most of January and all of February so far coughing and feverish. Having no appetite and no interest in leaving the house gave me plenty of time to focus on work, and I've been really productive. While I still can't discuss my current full time project, I can talk about some small jobs I've been able to complete lately.

First, Tom Strong is getting the "Deluxe" treatment this Spring/Summer when Wildstorm collects ten or twelve of the best issues of the series as a deluxe hardcover collection. Editor Kristy Quinn asked me to do a new cover for this collection, and the results are pictured below. I'll post more details about the Deluxe Collection when I have them.

The pencil art for the cover of the Tom Strong Deluxe Hardcover Collection

At some point this year, Ocean is also getting collected in a new edition. I don't have too many details on this collection either, but one thing I do know is that it will have supplemental material from both myself and writer Warren Ellis. I provided Kristy Quinn (who's editing this book as well) with every Ocean character design drawing, sketch and unfinished page I could find.

When not working, I've also been busy arranging convention appearances for the rest of the year. In April, it looks like we'll be returning to Toronto for the Toronto ComiCon Fan Appreciation Event on the 18th and 19th. In September, we'll be heading to Spain for a Comics Festival in Aviles--more on that when I have the details. Then in October, it looks like I'll be attending the Mid-Ohio Con here in Columbus again. If you're able to attend any of these shows, come out and say "hi!"

--C

Art Sales Site Revamped



I just did a massive overhaul of my art sales blog site, SprouseNet Art Emporium, adding an image gallery after the price list. The site now features an image of every single piece of art I have for sale. Check it out!
--C

Superman #683


The next of my Superman covers (Superman #683) hits comic shops this week--Friday, I think...Above is the final piece with colors once again by Laura Martin. Below you'll find a jpeg of the pencil art. What you'll also find below is a photo from exactly three years ago--New Year's Eve 2005, about this very time of night. Xan snapped it a few minutes after I finished what I thought would be my very last Tom Strong drawing ever, the final page of Tom Strong #36--a full-page shot of the Strong family waving to their fans and supporters. A weird night--the rest of the country was gearing up for celebration, but I was feeling a strange mix of the relief I always feel when finishing a job and utter sadness over the end of Tom Strong and my cat Max's failing health. Like I said, weird night. Now on the last night of 2008, things are looking a little more upbeat...as I type these words, I have a cute little tortoise-shell two-year old cat on my lap and hope to soon have some Tom Strong news to report. Stay tuned! Hope everyone's new year gets off to a good start!





PlanktonPod Playlist Update
I took down the Xmas songs and added a bunch of new stuff. The new playlist is made up of two of my favorite musical discoveries of 2008. First up is the work of Dave Derby. Derby was the leader of a 90's band called The Dambuilders before he went solo, and now he's the singer/songwriter behind a group called Gramercy Arms, sort of an indie-supergroup which also has ex-Luna member Sean Eden on guitar. Gotta love the homage to "Beth" by Kiss in "Even Further Behind!" Then I added music by a group that started off as The Greenberry Woods, a Maryland band who recently evolved into Splitsville. I cannot get the Splitsville songs I've selected out of my head this week--but that's a good thing in this case, not like when some TV ad jingle gets stuck in your brain--and I just adore "Super-Geek!"

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Hey everybody, Xan here, and I wanted to share the super cool stocking stuffer Chris made this year.  The above image is the Happy Time Harry doll he made for me, complete with scar from when he had half of his liver removed.  

Okay, you might be saying, "What the hell are you talking about?" Well, one of my favorite television shows is Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which is part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup.  It's a 15 minute show about a milkshake, box of fries, and a meatwad (named Meatwad) who live together on the South Jersey Shore in a town called Hamburger.  Anyway, there was an episode called "Dumber Dolls" which I dearly loved, in which Meatwad wants a very expensive doll called "Jiggle Billy", but Frylock instead buys him the very affordable at $2.99 "Happy Time Harry" doll, complete with a knife hand, red dancin' glitter shoes, and Action Bills.  Happy Time Harry is voiced by David Cross, and has lived a very hard life and just being around him makes everyone depressed.  The episode is hilarious.

Anyway, Chris has been freaking me out lately by Frankensteining G.I. Joe figures.  A head here, a limb there, and boom, you've got a full figure, but the heads lying around is just a bit too Apocalypse Now for me.  Anyway, one day when he was trying to replace some Kung Fu Grip hands, I walked in the studio to find a handless G.I. Joe and rather than be completely freaked out, I had an idea.  I said "Hey, are there G.I. Joe hunting or Bowie knives?  If we could attach them to the arm instead of hands, we could make a Happy Time Harry!"  Evidently, this started Chris scheming.  

Christmas Eve is when Chris and I usually open the presents we got each other, since my parents and Juice come over Christmas morning for gifts and copious amounts of food and usually, James Bond.  So Christmas Eve he says to me "You have some stocking stuffers!" and I looked at my stocking and the torso of an action figure was hanging out of it.  At first, I thought that he was messing with me and just trying to gross me out with some more body parts, but when I looked more closely, I noticed this figure had a knife for a hand!  I yelped and said "Did you make me a Happy Time Harry?!"  He confirmed this, and I ran over to grab him out of my stocking and was so excited to see that he had red glitter shoes too!  I was so excited, and just had to take photos.  

I love this present.  The stocking also contained some iTunes and Starbucks gift cards (yeah, I know, but I'm a sucker for the eggnog latte, and they have a drive through a block away from our house), and he also got me 2 seasons of Psych, a green iPod shuffle, an extremely detailed book on The Twilight Zone (which I will be pouring through during the New Years Marathon), and the 6th volume of Aqua Teen Hunger Force on DVD.  I love all the gifts, but Happy Time Harry just reminds me that Chris is so creative, and I love his attention to detail.  He's also so sweet to make me something this cool.  Perhaps it is odd to feel all mushy because of a drunken doll who likes to cut himself with his knife hand, but I do.  I've got the best husband in all of explored space.

Happy Holidays



I know it's not very original, but I finally updated the PlanktonPod with a new playlist featuring a dozen of my favorite alternative and rock holiday-themed songs. As I've mentioned previously, I collect alternative cover songs. Well, I also collect alternative Christmas/holiday music, and I picked my favorite dozen songs for the Pod tonight. Hopefully, these songs won't be as annoying as what you might hear over store PA systems this season, and everyone should be thankful I wasn't feeling so mischievous that I made a prog-rock Christmas playlist (because I could have--somehow I've also amassed a frightening amount of horribly pretentious prog holiday music, including tracks by Jon Anderson of Yes, Jethro Tull, the Moody Blues and others...maybe next year).

Enjoy, and have a good holiday season!

--C

Supergirl #36
Here's the completed cover for Supergirl #36, in comic shops today! Beautiful colors by Laura Martin saved this piece, in my opinion--I didn't like it very much when I drew it.



--C

Non-Work Update
I've been posting pretty much nothing but work-related stuff lately, so here's a little photo guide to what Xan and I have been up to in our off time. Comic fans need not worry--my next Superman-related cover comes out this week, so I'll probably post some more art on Wednesday.


Xan and I hit a Pittsburgh toy show in October. We had a nice long talk with guest actor Ray Park(Darth Maul) and delivered a sketch promised to him when we saw him at Dragon Con in Atlanta a few years ago. On the way out, Xan posed with the life-size Lego Spider-Man(above).

We also made it to a few more concerts. First up was Joe Jackson at the Southern Theatre in downtown Columbus...

...then we saw Dean & Britta (formerly of the band Luna) performing "13 Most Beautiful" at the Wexner Center as part of a big Andy Warhol multimedia exhibit. The band accompanied thirteen Warhol "screen tests" with live music, including a couple of Luna rarities, a Velvet Underground cover and several new compositions. If you look really closely, you can see Xan and myself in the front row, down at the bottom edge of the photo above. The photo was taken by Kim Rottmayer, and you can see more of Kim's photos from that night at Picture The Sound.com.

The very next night, Xan and my sister Megan enjoyed themselves thoroughly at the AC/DC concert at the Schottenstein. Xan reports that it "rocked (her) face!!!"

My family, including my brother Mike and his wife and kids, spent Thanksgiving weekend in Ohio. We showed Mike around Columbus a little, but mostly everyone gathered at Megan's house where we looked at old photos and talked into the night. Above, Mike horses around with his daughters Shannon and Brittany.

A week later, the Sprouse family gathered again, this time to help my parents move. It was bitterly cold and thoroughly exhausting, but I have to admit, it was good getting to see everyone so much this year. The photo shows Megan and her son Aaron, slap-happy and punch-drunk during a dinner stop on the way back to Ohio.

The little Belly-Girl's been busy, too. Here she works on her Jabba the Hut impression with her own little Salacious Crumb toy...

...and here she is assisting me as I try to repair some action figures. Kung-fu Grip is no match for Jess-Belle's mighty paws!

--C

Action Comics #872


Whoah! I was so busy helping my parents move this past week that I didn't realize that the first of my four Superman covers hit the stands yesterday! So, for all the SprouseNet readers asking for more artwork, here's a look at each step of the creation of the cover of Action Comics #872--layouts & pencils by me, followed by Karl Story's inks. The finished cover with colors by Guy Major is shown above...



--C

Rare Stuff
While going through boxes of my old work recently in order to compile an accurate and exhaustive checklist for the Modern Masters book, I found the long-buried items featured in the photos below, probably my rarest and least known comics-related work. What makes this work so rare and so unknown is that it's almost all unsigned and uncredited. At times I'm thankful for this, because the art was all done between 1992 and 1994, so it kind of makes me cringe when I see it! I haven't done a lot of work for Marvel Comics, but the first assignments I ever had from the company that Stan Lee built were a series of Spider-Man licensing drawings. These illustrations were never intended for publication in actual comic books--they were for use on various retail or promotional items instead. The Spidey drawings showed up on some lunchboxes and one made it into a calendar. Eventually, the first Spider-Man licensing piece made it into a comic(sort of): a collection of Spider-Man posters and pinups called Spider-Man Hot Shots. Later, I was hired again by Marvel Licensing to design a couple of action figures, Ahab and a Sentinel from the X-Men. The Ahab toy was produced and even featured part of my design art on the back of the package, but the Sentinel I designed was scrapped in favor of a newer design by fellow DC artist Bart Sears. The Ahab drawings were later published in a book of toy photos and designs Marvel released years later. Finally, Nabisco actually hired me to do the artwork for four metal snack tin mail order premiums, each featuring a different set of marvel characters. The tins feature my only Fantastic Four work to date, which is a shame...Anyway, Nabisco created a whole ad campaign for the tins with TV and print ads featuring the artwork, so that was pretty neat!

--C

Art for Sale!

I just created a second blog site where I'll be selling original comic book art from throughout my career. Check it out HERE or through the top link on the right side of this page. You'll find everything from Tom Strong pages to Number of the Beast layouts for sale, including lots of unpublished finished and unfinished pencil art(jpegs provided) as well as a few surprises. If you see anything you want to buy, there are instructions in the first post at the bottom of the page. Thanks!
--C

PlanktonPod Playlist Update
I was hanging around with con and concert-going pal Dave Aikins recently, and I mentioned we'd be going to see Dean & Britta at the Wexner Center here in Columbus next month. Dave claimed to have never heard of Dean & Britta or their previous band Luna, not to mention Dean Wareham's first band, Galaxie 500. Voila! Instant idea for a new playlist: an introduction to Luna and Dean & Britta. This one's for you (again), Dave!

White Woses

Hello kind blog readers! This blog is being written by Xan, aka, me. I thought I'd give Chris a break from posting. I'm a bit embarrassed, since he's been so diligent and I've not done a blog in months. Have I even done one in 2008? Oh well. I'm here now.

So we've been pretty busy so far this October. First of all, I've actually been going into the office since around mid July to assist in the training classes for new hires. It's not a bad commute and the project is actually fun so I don't really mind, but there are mornings I wake up and think "Okay, if I weren't on this project, I could sleep another hour!" But by the time I get there, I'm over it. Chris has been busy with his new project which I'm not sure he's supposed to talk much about yet, so I'll let him go into greater detail later.

The Mid Ohio Con was the first weekend of October, and the following Saturday my sister in law Megan was in town getting more work done on her extremely ambitious full back tattoo piece, so Chris and I hung out with our nephew Aaron whilst his mother spent like 5 hours getting inked! My tattoo took about 40 minutes, I can barely imagine 5 hours.

That same night, I got a call from my friend Sara who was visiting her mother in Kettering, so I drove there to see her and her family. She lives in Toronto, and was in the states for her brother's 30th birthday, which was celebrated where he lives in Yosemite. He works there, so yes, he really does live in a national park. It's like superhero cool. I spent the night with them, chatting until late with her and her husband, then playing with her kids in the morning. When I left I decided to try the following experiment-will a Marion's Piazza SuperCheese pizza be any good after the drive home to Columbus? The results were favorable. First of all, I learned that there's really only about 2/3 of a pizza remaining after transport. And when consuming the remaining pizza, just throw it in the oven for about 5 minutes and it's like you're right there in the land of never-ending fake daylight that is Marion's. They do that thing where they have what looks like windows, but it's really concealed lighting. Anyway, my next trip I'll try a similar experiment but change the variables to a Milano's meatball sub. By the way, if you've never had a Marion's SuperCheese, I highly recommend making your way to Stroop and Far Hills at some point in your life. If victory had a flavor, it would taste like a SuperCheese.

But I forgot one thing when ordering the pizza. I forgot about my hit or miss relationship with mushrooms, which I usually have them hold. I have a slight mushroom allergy that comes on in degrees, sometimes terrible, sometimes mild. Unfortunately, the terrible end of the scale was what I had in store, and Monday I was in bad shape. I was pretty violently ill, and I had-get this-hives. Hives on my neck and chest. Lovely.

Hives however didn't keep us from making a drive to Cleveland on Wednesday to see Nick Lowe at the Beachland Ballroom. The Beachland is a great venue to see a show. It's intimate, the bar sells orange sodas in glass bottles, and it's down the street from a record shop called Music Saves that I just love. It's a tiny little place, but it has mainly the type of stuff we're interested in-lots of indie label stuff, vinyl, and handmade bags. It's a great shop, and since it's so close to the venue, sometimes you run into the musicians. We once found ourselves shopping next to Peter Buck.

Before the show, we stopped off on Coventry Avenue for some geek shopping at Big Fun. I wish we still had a Big Fun here! I was able to find some of the new plush Pez, and some other various Pez things that I will photograph and post soon on my MySpace page. It started to monsoon while we were shopping, but we made it to the show which was fantastic! Nick Lowe has an album called "The Jesus of Cool", and he kinda is just that. We were able to meet him after the show, and he seemed genuinely interest in my story about how Chris and I posed for wedding photos in the same poses from the "Cruel To Be Kind" video.

Two days later was the Billy Bragg show in State College, PA. I've never seen Billy Bragg, so when we found he was touring I didn't really care where he was, I was going. 6 hours was about the closest he was going to be, so out of our choices we chose the State College show because we'd never seen Penn State's campus, and we were able to get second row seats. The drive was pretty easy and gorgeous, but when we got to town, it was chaos. The concert was scheduled for the same weekend as Penn State's homecoming. Ugh!!! The show was at the State Theater which is on College Avenue, which was CLOSED for the homecoming parade! All parking garages were full, and the meters were 15 minutes per quarter and no one would sell us more that $2.oo of quarters at a time. So after 2 stops to convenience stores, we had parking money and found a spot about 10 blocks from the venue. Our initial plan had been to get there a little bit early, check out the local shops, grab a bite, our standard drill. But we wound up eating pizza by the slice as we walked and no shopping. But again, the show was fantastic. I got to meet Billy Bragg, and he signed my longbox from when I purchased "Don't Try This At Home" way back in 1991. I, like everyone my age, used longboxes as bedroom decor in high school and in college, and I was really glad I'd saved that one.

Since I had to work on Saturday, we had to drive back that same night. Chris slept on the way there so I was able to sleep on the way back, and I'm glad because Chris told me later that the deer carnage he encountered on the dark ride home was nothing short of nightmarish.

We got home around 630 AM, and I slept, worked, slept some more, then prepared for the Drexel Horror Marathon. Even though this was a really busy week, I still really wanted to go to the marathon because they were running "The Fog" which is one of my favorite movies. They also ran "Meet the Feebles" which I'd never seen in a theater, and it was quite the experience. This year's premiere was "Lat den ratte komma in", a Norwegian vampire story. English translation is "Let The Right One In", and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The rest of the lineup wasn't overly spectacular, but I did get to see the trailer for "The Thing With Two Heads". Chris didn't come with me this time, as he used his Saturday night for some much needed sleep, so I met up with friends when I got there. But before the last 2 movies I had a headache and my friend Aaron had a fever, so we left early. That's been my trend the last few years. I'm still going to marathons, but I just can't hack the whole thing anymore.

After the hour it took us to get home after Chris picked me up (the Columbus marathon was also today, runners and such, and many streets were closed because of it) I just plopped myself on the sofa, took something for my headache, and just napped and watched whatever 50s horror was on TCM. I'm still sleepy and its 1030 PM. It's been a long week.

So that's been our month. We have more concerts coming up and a toy show next weekend, so hopefully, I'll have more Pez to talk about soon!

--X


Nick Lowe at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH

Billy Bragg at the State Theatre in State College, PA


The poster for Lat Den Ratte Komma In, a highlight of the 2008 Horror Movie Marathon

Mid-Ohio-Con 2008
Whew! The con was exhausting this year! Under new management and in a new venue, Mid-Ohio-Con was possibly even busier and more crowded(on Saturday at least) than in years past. Or maybe it just seemed that way because I started to get a wicked headache that wouldn't let up about half way through the day. Anyway, I started the show drawing onstage for about an hour for a charity auction(don't know how the piece did in the auction). Then it was off to the booth to sign and sketch. Fans got a sneak preview of my newest project, and the reactions were uniformly positive(more details soon)! My sister Megan and her son Aaron and his friend EJ showed up around noon and seemed to have a blast at their first comic convention. My headache was ramping up to full bore by this time, so I apologize if I was surly or brusque with anyone who met me. I did sketches for everyone I could fit in and talked with lots of really nice people. That's one thing I like about Mid-Ohio-Con in particular: the people attending seem to all be friendly and very easy to talk to. Xan arrived after she got off work and she was off filling in huge chunks of her Gold Key Twilight Zone collection in no time. No big dinners or get-togethers for us that night since I felt so bad--we just went home and crashed.

Sunday was quieter and lots more fun for me--I was well-rested for a change and had no sign of a headache! I had several long conversations with fans and did much better sketches than on Saturday. Xan found a Star Wars rancor figure she'd been searching for high and low for years, and I even got in some shopping and lunch--two things I almost never get at cons! Highlights of the con for me: talking with fans and the copies of the really neat Mice Templar comic given to me by my booth neighbor, writer Bryan J. L. Glass.

Thanks to everybody who came out and said "hi!" and thanks to Megan for the first two photos below!


Sketching for EJ


Aaron and EJ look like they could take this Vader...


That's my girl!

--C

Fall Mix
It's just about October, and it's a crazy week this week, so I thought I'd better post something while I have a moment.

First up, our anniversary is later this week. Hard to believe it's been six years since we said "I do" in the cute little Columbus Wedding Chapel! We had a party/reception with our friends and family a month later, but the ceremony itself was just the two of us together on a beautiful Fall afternoon.

Next up, the Mid-Ohio-Con is this weekend, so I'm scrambling to get ready for that, getting art supplies and organizing my original art pile while trying to do my day job. I'm also trying to not think about the fact that I'm scheduled to draw onstage first thing in the morning on Saturday at the convention...anyone who knows me well knows that "first thing in the morning" and "onstage" are not two of my favorite things...Not that I mind doing anything I can to help out the Con, I just have terrible stage fright and am--er--not at my best early in the day! Oh, well...I'm not certain yet, but I think I'll have a table or booth, so drop by and say "hi" and browse through my art(which will all be for sale), talk comics, and take a look at my upcoming work(you won't see it anywhere else for a while).

If you're one of the people who were on my commission list and you plan to attend Mid-Ohio-Con, I'll be bringing the finished pieces with me to the convention and you can pick them up at my table. I'll mail the remaining commissioned pieces out after the show. Hope everyone likes the final results.

See some of you this weekend!
--C

Update:

I do in fact have a table assigned to me for Mid-Ohio-Con: I'll be at booth #734 near the back wall of the room.

PlanktonPod Playlist Update
Just added some mostly mellow stuff this week including some Fall-themed songs from Polaris and Robyn Hitchcock, some covers from The Posies' Jon Auer and The Divine Comedy, and finally a cover of the song Xan and I danced to at our wedding party...Awwww....

Better Things
The song I added to the PlanktonPod today was played for the first time publicly on the Sept. 21, 2001 episode of Late Night With Conan O'Brien(Conan's first show back, I believe). It was the first tiny peep of optimism I had heard in a while and it moved me. Things got better for me personally after a while--Xan and I got married, my career hit some pretty high points...but it seems like the country is in worse shape than ever now. I'm still hopeful, so I thought I'd share "Better Things" today.
--C

Mid-Ohio Con
Lots of people have been asking me about Mid-Ohio Con and it looks like I can finally confirm that I will definitely be there! For those who don't know, Mid-Ohio Con is a comic convention held in Columbus Ohio, usually on Thanksgiving weekend, but it's on October 4th and 5th this year. I've been a guest at the show for at least fifteen years running(with only one missed year when i was actually moving to Columbus the weekend of the con), and it's always proven to be a good time. Click HERE to go to the Mid-Ohio Con website to see who else will be there, get driving directions, buy tickets, etc., and click HERE to go to Mid-Ohio Con's own blog.
--C

Recent Stuff


Haven't posted in a little while, so here's an update on what's going on with us:

I can finally announce a couple of the things I've been working on since Number Of The Beast. My first post-NOTB work was a two-part story featuring the character Deathblow, basically showing a little of the events leading up to and just after the NOTB storyline. The story will be published as back-up stories in two upcoming Wildstorm books--I'll post the exact titles and issues as soon as I know what they are. The next project I was scheduled to do I can reveal now because it fell through! I was supposed to do some work on Superman with new Superman writer James Robinson, but the storyline I was supposed to draw was shelved by the powers-that-be. I did do one cover which may or may not see print--it's the image at the top of this post, and it is currently my best rendition of the Man of Steel ever, in my own opinion(I can't stand the way I've drawn him almost every other time I've had to--he just never looked like the "real" Superman to me until this drawing). Supposedly I'll be doing some more covers for the Superman books soon. The third project in the works will have to wait until I get the go-ahead to talk about it, but trust me--it'll make a lot of people very happy, but no one will be more pleased than I am to be drawing it! Stay tuned!

I've also been hard at work on the commissions solicited in the last post on this blog. They'll be finished soon and I'll let everyone who is owed a drawing know when they're ready to be mailed out so we can arrange everything. If I choose to do another round(which I probably will--these are going pretty well), I'll announce it here first! Thanks to everyone who wrote in expressing interest.

Not that I have any spare time, but whenever I can I've been working with Perhapanauts and Tellos writer Todd Dezago on my Modern Masters book. It's been weird but kind of fun to relive some of this stuff in the re-telling, and even more amusing seeing all of my old pre-professional stuff that I just dug out of boxes in the basement. A lot of this work will probably make it in the book, so look out!

On the personal front, now that the nearly year-long marathon that was Number Of The Beast is over(it was a blast to do and I was happy with the results, but it was really hard work!), Xan and I have been enjoying lots of time together again. There was the Wisconsin trip I've already written about, and we just bought a new car, a little Honda Fit--a great little car, our first new one together. We can't get enough of it, so we've been making up reasons to go on road trips, just cruising around listening to music like we were teenagers! We have a few concert-related road trips scheduled for the next couple of months--Nick Lowe, Billy Bragg, and we'll be seeing Joe Jackson again when he comes to Columbus. Xan bought me a brand new digital camera for my birthday, so our photos from these shows will be quite a bit better than the last concert pics I posted.

Xan's had some solo fun lately, too. She and my sister Megan, metal-heads that they are, hit a Motley Crue show a couple of weeks ago. Xan also saw Alice Cooper here in Columbus last week. As for work, she's been heading into the office a few times each week to train and generally be on-hand to advise new-hires, then returning home to find me and the little girl feeling clingy.

That's it for now! I'll have more soon!
--C

My favorite panel from the Deathblow story I just finished

PlanktonPod Playlist Update
Just a mini-playlist this time. I tried to come up with tons of songs that had something to do with the subjects I just covered above, but it's late and I'm beat...First is a song dedicated to Xan, "Metal Baby" by Teenage Fanclub, then we have a cover of the Flaming Lips "Waitin' For A Superman" by Iron and Wine(because I sure was waitin' for a Superman script for the last few weeks), and finally a cover of one of my favorite songs of all time, David Bowie's "Heroes," by Joe Jackson...I'm hoping he pulls out a cover even half this cool when we see him next month(this one's for you, Dave Aikins!).