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!).

Now Taking Commissions!

Above is one of my typical commissioned drawings, in (from left to right) pencil, pen & ink, and pen & ink w/watercolor

I've got a bit of a lull in my schedule right now, so I've decided to do some drawings for fans for a (very)limited time. If anyone reading this blog has ever wanted a drawing of their favorite comic book character done by me, then now's the time! I'll be doing either pencil or pen & ink drawings--and if I have time I may be able to do some color pieces--on 11"X17" Bristol Board. If interested, send me a message via MySpace(the transaction details will be private that way). The link to my page can be found on the right side of this blog in the "Links" section. Include the single character you'd like along with any other details or questions you have, as well as the type of drawing you want(pencil or pen & ink), and your email address. I'll write back with payment details, and once everything is finalized and we agree on a price, I'll put you on the list. Here's the catch: I can only guarantee that I'll be able to finish a limited number of these drawings since scripts will be arriving soon and I'll need to concentrate all my time on my day job once again. I'll start with five drawings and I'll add more if I have time.

Update

Wow! All the spaces on the list are taken already! If any people back out or if I finish early, I'll start a new list. Thanks, everyone!

PlanktonPod Playlist Update

More covers this week, with a decidedly power pop theme--Paul McCartney's "Jet" done by Semisonic, the Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man" by my beloved Teenage Fanclub, XTC's "Mayor of Simpleton" by Joe Jackson solo on piano, R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming" by The Wrens, and finally a great version of Cheap Trick's "Surrender" by The Posies. Enjoy!

--C

PlanktonPod Playlist Update
My birthday is this week. I don't usually like to make a big deal out of it--heck, these days I want to just crawl away and hide on my birthday most of the time--but I'm using it as an excuse to put a bunch of new songs on the virtual iPod over on the right side of this blog. The theme this time is my favorite cover songs. I love a good cover song, and have been collecting cool ones for a few years now. My actual iPod has a covers playlist of 335 songs! I picked just seven(like I said--my favorites) for the PlanktonPod today: 1) "Love Will Tear Us Apart," originally done by Joy Division, performed beautifully here by Calexico; 2) "Two Of Us," a Beatles song covered by Aimee Mann & Michael Penn; 3) "Wichita Lineman," a Jimmy Webb/Glenn Campbell tune I barely remember from my childhood, performed un-ironically with real affection by R.E.M.; 4) "Sweet Child O' Mine," a Guns 'n' Roses song recreated by Luna--a cover which led me to investigate the rest of Luna's output; 5) "Vapour Trail," perhaps Ride's most well-known song, covered here by The Divine Comedy, possibly my favorite on this list of favorites; 6) Aztec Camera's "We Could Send Letters," made even more heart-wrenching by The Mystic Chords Of Memory; and finally 7) Aztec Camera's version of Van Halen's "Jump," a cover song I've enjoyed since I was a young whippersnapper in college.

I decided to embarrass myself on my own birthday this time with
another vintage slide from our time in India...

--Old Man Sprouse

Number Of The Beast #8

Things are lookin' shady for the Paladins...(layouts from NOTB #8)

The final issue of Number Of the Beast will be in comic shops tomorrow! I'm very excited, as this means all eight bi-weekly issues will have shipped on time! It wasn't easy, but we did it! I'd like to give Karl Story a huge "thank you" for some amazing inking and finishing done under much duress. I'd also like to publicly thank Scott Beatty for the fine writing and fun characters, as well as plenty of enthusiasm and encouragement. And finally I hope editor Ben Abernathy knows how much I appreciate being given the chance to do this job and how much his encouragement during some of the most stressful times helped.

One of the reasons I wanted to work on this series was to try to begin rehabilitating my reputation as a guy who isn't good with deadlines. It seems to have worked at least a little bit, because since finishing NOTB I've been offered almost more work than I can accept! As usual, I can't or don't want to talk about any of the offers until everything's finalized and official announcements are made.

Anyway, as a final send-off for NOTB, I thought I'd post the long ago promised unpublished character design material. Amazingly, every character design made it into the back pages of the individual issues. Lots of feet were covered up(I swear I drew all the feet! I may take some short cuts now and then, but that particular lazy cartoonist cliche is not one of them!), and lots of the elements of each design were re-sized or moved around, but they're essentially all there. Below you'll find the only omissions. Since I haven't mentioned it in a while, I should tell everyone that if you use your mouse or laptop touch controls to click on any image in this blog you'll be taken to a much larger version of the image(usually).
Enjoy!

The only completely unpublished material--some designs for a photo and a cheesecake poster from NOTB #2

The head and shoulders shot on the right never made it into the printed comic


Neither of the drawings of Dr. Sin without his robot were published

--C

PlanktonPod Playlist Update
I've cleaned off the summer songs and turned the PlanktonPod into the BatPod this week, as the thoughts of many of us nerdy types center around the impending release of the newest Batman film tonight and all the comic book themed movies in production(a trend that I hope to be a part of very soon).

There are three different versions of the classic 60's Batman Theme by artists as diverse as The Who, The Jam, and The Flaming Lips on the pod today. Other superhero and comic book/strip characters are well-represented, with several songs dealing with Superman and his supporting cast. The band XTC is featured on two Super-tracks, "That's Really Super, Supergirl" from their classic Skylarking album, and "Brainiac's Daughter," recorded under the pseudonym The Dukes of Stratosphear. The Kinks' "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" proves that everyone briefly lost their minds and taste during the disco years. The Flaming Lips make another appearance with "Waitin' For a Superman," which I dearly love, and I'd never leave R.E.M.'s "Superman" (actually a cover of a song by 60's band The Clique) off of a comic book-themed playlist. Another DC Comics character is name-checked in yet another XTC track, "Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)." To prove I'm not merely a "company man," I've also added songs to the playlist which feature non-DC heroes, The Ramones' version of the 60's Spiderman theme, and another cover song by R.E.M., "Ghost Riders," which sure sounds like it's about the Marvel comics character, even though the title is pluralized. Finally, I couldn't resist adding "Flash's Theme" by Queen. Flash Gordon is my favorite classic comic strip and the 80's movie from which this piece of nostalgia comes is one of my favorite guilty pleasures.
Enjoy!


A commissioned Batman drawing from the early 90's
--quite possibly the last time I drew the character

--C

Life Outside Comics
Some readers of this blog may have enjoyed the dozens(seems like hundreds) of comic book-related posts I've written over the last year, but I'm sure there are others (a large portion of my family, for instance)who are tiring of the endless examination and discussion of pencilling, inking, feathering, double-page spreads and the like. These folks may be wondering--and rightly so, I might add--if Xan and I ever actually left the house over the last ten or so months while I drew the Number Of The Beast series...

While we didn't have an especially active year, we did manage a little extracurricular fun. I've already written about a few of our rare excursions like seeing The Kids In The Hall and last year's three or four conventions (oops--those still involve comics...oh, well...), and Xan posted a piece on her continuing guitar lessons and another about a visit with friends in Toronto. We also attended a few weddings--our friends and neighbors Nate and Michelle were married last September, and we just returned from Xan's cousin Molly's wedding this past weekend in Milwaukee.

The year has been chock full of family visits as well, with my sister and my parents moving to Ohio and preparing to move to Ohio, respectively. We saw most of one side of Xan's family at the aforementioned wedding, and while in Milwaukee we also caught up with my Uncle Jim and his family for one thoroughly enjoyable night.

Somehow we managed to spend some time with friends too, with Xan's childhood pal Sara and her children dropping by for a weekend. Xan's old college roomates Bret and Steve each made an appearance at some point, as did friend Kevin O'Brien on his way back home to Australia.

Xan and I also made it to a couple of out-of-town concerts: for Xan's birthday we escaped to Pittsburgh for a Joe Jackson show at the Carnegie Music Hall. Neither of us had seen Joe Jackson before, and with a setlist heavy on the classics performed in a beautiful venue, we left happy and spent the next day shopping in funky record, book and comic shops in the city. Then in June we zipped down to Maryland in a lightning-quick visit to catch R.E.M. at Merriweather Post Pavilion. As regular readers of the blog know, I've spent a large chunk of my life attending R.E.M. concerts, and I've seen them twice before at Merriweather(site of many shows for me, including my first ever concert back in the day). Between the band, the location, the nearly-forgotten but not at all missed DC/Baltimore humidity, and a generous serving of tunes from my college days, it could have been 1986 again! Somewhere during the opening of "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" I felt like I was having an out of body experience...maybe that was just exhaustion and the mugginess finally getting the best of me...Anyway, the concert was astounding--Xan says it was the best R.E.M. show she's seen, and it's definitely up there in my top five(yikes!). Both concerts were top-notch and lots of fun, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly on what turned out to be my only real time off while working on NOTB.

Speaking of concerts and road trips, Xan is currently in New Jersey with friends Shelley and Mark (who also spent a weekend with us earlier this Summer) as I type this, and they'll all be seeing 80's band Yaz in Manhattan sometime tomorrow night. I'll let her write about that when she gets back.

I'm sure I'll be back to writing about comic books soon(especially since the final issue of NOTB hits stores next week and I'm in the process of starting a few new assignments), but I hope this post was a nice change!

Hats are the order of the day for Sara's children Vala and Gavin


Joe Jackson in Pittsburgh(left) and R.E.M. in Maryland(with Johnny Marr of
The Smiths joining them for "Fall On Me")


Dan and Molly, just married(left), and my Uncle Jim in his home studio in Milwaukee, WI

--C

Finished Pencils Vs. Layouts
As requested by guido, this post will feature a comparison of my finished pencil art and the layouts I did on the last three issues of Number Of The Beast, and I'll show what each looks like when inked by Karl Story.

First up is my second favorite page from NOTB #1, page 18(my fave is the double-page spread featured in earlier posts):

This was lots of fun to draw, and I labored over little details like the salt shakers, condiment bottles, the signage, napkin dispensers, and on and on. I used a straightedge wherever I could and worked out cast shadows and placement of areas of solid black. Any black areas are filled in with pencil or there's an "X" somewhere within an enclosed shape indicating that Karl needs to fill it in during the inking stage. In short, there's a lot of tight work showing--everything has been finalized in pencil before the page goes off to Karl.

Here is the same page after Karl has inked it:

Karl was super-faithful to the pencil lines I put down on paper, but he certainly didn't just trace what was already there. He added depth and emphasized certain figures or objects using different line weights that just weren't there when I drew the page. Mechanical details such as Engine Joe's auto-body are even slicker and cleaner in the inks. Look closely at the feathered shading on Mago's vest, for example, and you can see how Karl used thick to thin strokes to transition from solid black to gray to white very smoothly whereas I just scratched some lines out of a shadow really quickly and a little gracelessly(Mago is the long-haired guy seated to Engine Joe's right in the big panel). Does it sound like I'm just gushing too much about Karl Story's inking here? Impossible! The work he does over anything I give him is astounding--and the original art looks even better in person than it does in the printed version or even in my scans, if you can believe that!

Next up is page 12 from NOTB #7, a fairly typical example of my layouts on this series:

You can see that I didn't do any shading(apart from the eyebrows, which I just noticed...weird...), and didn't indicate every solid black area. My pencil lines are still relatively clean and precise, but you'll notice I didn't even use a straightedge on the page more than a few times--all the background details in the large third panel are pretty roughly free-handed. There's very little feathering at all and only one line weight used throughout(feathering, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is the use of multiple thick-to-thin "feathery" lines as shading or to simulate gray tones in black and white line art).

Here's what the same page looked like when Karl was finished with it:

Thankfully, Karl did use a straightedge in panel three--he really made sense of that background. All the shadows in that panel--except for those on Black Anvil--are Karl's creation, as is nearly all the feathering. As for line weight, compare what Karl did with Engine Joe's hand in the last panel to what I drew--the hand looks much more solid and far heavier, as it should. So, basically, Karl took a bare-bones coloring book-like page and gave it some life and some pep.

My layouts are pretty tight, and when inked by Karl, colored and printed, they don't look terribly different than my finished pencils. I also enjoyed doing my work as layouts--concentrating on the basics and building up a huge pile of pages really quickly, not to mention finding a way to beat the dreaded deadline doom--but it's back to my regular finished pencils on my next assignment, which I'll write about as soon as I can.

--C

Number Of The Beast #7

Surprise attack! From my "layouts" for NOTB #7

The seventh issue of Number Of The Beast is at your local comic shop tomorrow, delayed one day because of the holiday. Only one more issue to go!

I also updated the PlanktonPod playlist today with a few more summer-themed songs in commemoration of the sweltering weather we've been having here (interrupted by temporary bouts of thunder storms). The first song on the list is "The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count" by The Divine Comedy, a favorite from the days when Xan and I met, followed by an oldie from Yo La Tengo. The last new addition is a rarity by R.E.M., from one of their earliest fanclub flexi-discs. Check it out!

--C

Introducing The PlanktonPod...

Some readers may have noticed I've tweaked the look of this blog a bit. This is the nerdy kind of thing I do in my very rare spare time--kind of sad, isn't it? The biggest change in the blog is the addition of the little music player at right. Music is a huge part of our lives, and I thought it would be fun to include some on our blog. Since Xan and I are also both iPod enthusiasts(!) I wanted to present it in the form that you see, with the ability to update it occasionally with songs or other audio tracks that have some connection to what we're writing about or what's going on in the world.

I get just as annoyed as anyone when I visit a mySpace site and some obnoxious music blasts out of my speakers uninvited, and I know the pain of internet slowdown while waiting for embedded automatic audio players to load and start. For those reasons, I've set up the PlanktonPod so that you don't have to listen to it if you don't want to--interested parties have to actually hit the play button to hear any music. I should mention that the controls are pretty easy to figure out--just click on the name of the first song in the list on the iPod's little screen(or whichever song you want to hear) and the music begins. You can also press the center button in the middle of the white click wheel and whatever track is highlighted will play(pressing the forward and rewind buttons will highlight and scroll through the songs). Once music is playing, the virtual click-wheel works like a real iPod's click wheel with the exception of volume levels(you'll have to control the volume using your computer's own controls). Underneath the PlanktonPod are some little buttons that will take you to iTunes or other sites where some songs I post can be purchased(if available), or will help you create a music player for your website. I plan to change playlists every week or so. Feel free to comment on the songs and playlists and we'll be happy to answer any questions(we love talking music).

So...the inaugural PlanktonPod playlist is a mix of summer-themed songs, with an emphasis on this week's holiday. Next week I'll post more summer songs(or if the current weather conditions here in Columbus persist, I'll post any songs I can find about rain, floods and tornadoes). Enjoy!

--C

Original Art

One of the pieces of original art I kept for myself from ABC A-Z #1. Check out that gorgeous Karl Story inking! I wish all of that Tom Strong merchandise in the top left panel really existed...

Just took a look at what pages of mine art dealer Jim Warden has for sale on his site (click HERE) and it's kind of making me regret not keeping more Tom Strong pages for myself. I only kept a few from the early issues because I was so unsatisfied with my work then and later went through some lean times when it would have been self-destructive to hoard pages I could sell. I was quite happy with the final few issues of the series that I drew and kept quite a bit from them(including all of the pencil art from the "painted" sequence from the final story), and I kept most of the pages from the ABC A-Z book, which were all double-page spreads or full-page splashes and my favorite Tom Strong artwork ever published(technically-speaking). Oh, well...at least I have my photocopies to help me get through fits of nostalgia like this!

A pencilled page from my personal collection, from the "painted" portion of the final Tom Strong issue, #36. Done pretty much the same way as my layouts for final issues of Number Of The Beast (see my last post below).

Xan just promised me she'd write something about the trip to Canada she took while I locked myself up in the studio for one final Number Of The Beast drawing marathon recently. That's something to look forward to for all of the less comic book-centric readers of this blog! It'll be a nice change!

--C

Number Of The Beast #6

The Authority is on the job in NOTB #6

The sixth issue of Number Of The Beast hits the stands today! Eagle-eyed readers may notice that I'm credited with "Layouts" this time instead of the usual "Pencils." In case anyone's worried about the quality of the art, I'd like to explain that this doesn't mean that all I produced were the same kind of rough, scribbly layouts I usually do before drawing the finished pencil art(see those older posts covering the making of the spread from NOTB #1). What it does mean is that in order to make the shipping dates for the rest of the series I had to come up with a slightly faster version of my typical drawing process. What I came up with was basically the same thing but without all the black areas indicated(that step was left to inkers Karl Story, Brian Stelfreeze, Andy Smith and Drew Geraci, all credited as finishers). With just this slight change(and some SERIOUSLY long days and nights at the drawing board) I was able to get the final three issues in and they should all ship on schedule. Above and below are examples of my work on the issue and it should be plain that these are far tighter and more polished than those blue pencil rough layouts I used to do--again, pretty much my usual pencil art but no shading or black areas, just the line art.

Since I am finished with the series, look for more frequent blogging as I can now actually leave the studio occasionally and do things other than drawing that are worth writing about...

Engine Joe sans helmet, looking worried as stuff really starts to hit the fan in NOTB #6

--C

Number Of The Beast #5

My Land of the Giants homage from the pencil art for NOTB #5, with the mighty Mite held captive!

NOTB issue#5 hits stands today! We're past the halfway mark now!
--C

Happy Birthday, Mike!


Today is my brother's birthday, and I originally thought I would commemorate the occasion with a photo from among the vast vintage Sprouse family slide archive, one that would be funny and a little embarrassing. Instead I chose to run the photo above in honor of Mike's birthday, since it's one that he would actually like to see and not one that would make him cringe. Okay, maybe the hairstyle is a little cringeworthy, but who am I to criticize--my hair from this era was even worse, trust me! Anyway, the picture shows my brother with Pop, our grandfather on our father's side, in front of Sprouse's Furniture near Charlottesville, VA sometime in the early 80's. Happy birthday, bro!
--C

More Ocean Movie News

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Condal has been picked to write the screenplay for Ocean. An internet search reveals that Condal is a newcomer who has written a highly-regarded but as-yet unproduced script for Galahad (as in King Arthur, etc.).

--C

Number Of The Beast #4

Beastly super-villains from NOTB #4 in pencil form(okay, some of them are downright goofy, like Stinkbug, but I think Ragamuffin and The Skeleton Crew are kind of creepy)

The latest issue of Number Of The Beast, issue #4, is out! Four more character bios w/designs in the back of the book again--and even I learned something this time: winged super-heroines The Thrush and Falconette are mother and daughter! Scott Beatty and I had never talked about this, but it works! 

--C

Number Of The Beast #3

Anti-superhero propaganda poster from NOTB #3

NOTB issue #3 is out today! Features four more character bios w/designs in the back of the book.
--C

Number Of The Beast #2

The Cover of NOTB #2

The second issue is on the stands today! Four of the character designs along with biographical text pieces by Scott Beatty can be found in the back of the book.

--C

Number Of The Beast Is Finally Here!

With a cover like this, you just know Karl and I are going to Hell...

Issue #1 is on sale NOW at a comic shop near you. Go buy it! Feel free to buy one of the ones with the alternate cover as well! Issue #2 will hit the stands in two weeks--yes, two weeks! Better get back to work...

--C

The Kids In The Hall
Sunday Xan and I had a very rare(these days, anyway, thanks to my schedule) night out. We saw The Kids In The Hall at OSU here in Columbus. They did all new material, yet many skits/bits featured old favorite characters such as Buddy Cole, Gavin, the Chicken Lady and the Head Crusher(the last two are my personal faves from the TV series). The night wasn't completely funnybook-free, as we ran into friends Dave Aiken and Andy Bennett in the lobby after the show and talked comics and illustration for a while. After saying goodbye to Dave and Andy, we were able to meet the five Kids In The Hall, snap some photos and get some autographs! Below is a pic of my favorite girl Xan with my favorite Kid, Mark McKinney(creator of the aforementioned Chicken Lady and Head Crusher). Check out Xan's MySpace page for more photos from that night.

--C

Xan & Mark McKinney from The Kids In The Hall

One Week Until NOTB!

Another pencilled page from NOTB #1

Six days, actually...This will just be a quick post since I'm incredibly busy and frazzled right now. Anyway, DC Comics/Wildstorm and Newsarama have a few little promotional things going on leading up to the release of Number Of The Beast #1 on April 9th that I wanted to point out for readers of this blog. First, Newsarama.com has been posting character designs with brief commentary from writer Scott Beatty and myself all week. Click HERE to see the latest, Falconette--you can jump to the other designs from that page. Next, the Wildstorm website has a multi-page full-color preview of NOTB #2 you can see by clicking HERE.

I'll be back to post a final segment on the making of the spread from NOTB #1 later in the week when I have more time!

--C

Greetings blog readers!  I'm sure everyone reading is checking out the Number of the Beast artwork and thinking "How super cool, I can't wait for the summer when this is released!"  Rest assured, it is very cool.  I'm personally impatient for the Engine Joe action figure.  I don't know if there are plans for one, but I'd love it.

And perhaps some of you may be thinking "Wait a second, doesn't Chris have a wife?  Surely she's been up to something equally as cool, right?"  Well, yes and no.  Chris does have a wife, but she's not really up to anything as cool as Number of the Beast.  But, she is back to taking guitar lessons.  Since she is me, I'll talk in the first person now.

Hey everyone, Xan here.  Chris has been taking over much of the blogging responsibilities lately, and for good reason.  If you haven't checked out the artwork he has been posting for NOTB, you should.  I'm so excited to see this book in print.  Other than this, it's been a pretty status quo winter into spring for us.  But we enjoy our status quo, so I consider this a good thing.  It's a quiet life of reading, beading, cult tv and whatever else we can work into the day.

Aside from trying to get caught up on Doctor Who and Torchwood episodes, I started guitar lessons again this year.  For those of you who don't know the sordid background, I took guitar lessons in 2005 until the fall, when I was in the process of changing jobs and Chris and I were moving into our current apartment.  I stopped going to my lessons around this time because my teacher asked me to not come anymore.  He told me I wasn't focused enough, and was therefore wasting his and my time.  Evidently, guitar lessons come before finding and moving into a new apartment, and any job searches should be put on the back burner for scales.  Maybe I'm bitter (I am, actually), and maybe I am making excuses.  He told me that I was welcome to return when things were settled and I could focus, but this evidently wasn't the case, since my emails to him which said basically "Settled into the new job and the new place, ready to play again!" went unanswered.

I kept playing a bit on my own, but really wanted a teacher again.  I always benefit from the experience of others, and considering my near criminal neglect of the piano, I needed to get back into learning about theory and not just looking up tab online.  So in a moment of pure serendipity, aka Marcie and Kade's New Years Eve party, I found a new teacher.  Greg is a friend I met through Marcie, and he is a guitar teacher and was willing to take on new students in the new year.  So I jumped and now have been taking lessons again since January.  Greg is a great teacher, and was a bit appalled at my being kicked out of lessons, so I feel more on the same page with him.  And he seems to be patient with my difficulty getting used to a pick, which is good.

The picture is a photo of my guitar, Jane.  She's an Ibanez AW40-NT, and I love her.  I didn't know much about Ibanez acoustic guitars.  The electric guitars were all I knew about as they have a reputation as being metal guitars.  But this one is great.  I saw a 12 string Ibanez at Sam Ash the other day, and it was about all I could do to walk out of there without it.

While it feels good to be taking lessons and learning music again, I feel guilty about the fact that the piano is out of tune.  I really need to get back to all of my instruments.  I found it difficult to find time to play as an adult.  Everyone knows I've never been the best with managing time.  I should also take one of those free workshops at the Apple Store, and get the most out of my GarageBand.

Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo.  So little time, so much to know!

And oddly enough, Greg taught me "Yellow Submarine" this week.  Maybe I should learn "Nowhere Man" next...

Yet Another Interruption...

Click HERE to see a little animated trailer for Number Of The Beast over at the DC/Wildstorm website. Goofy but fun.
--C

Another Short Interruption
I thought it would be a good idea to butt into the series on the making of a page from Number Of The Beast in order to let interested people know that the most current Wildstorm comics (cover dated April 08) contain a NOTB preview! The preview is seven pages long and features the cover and six fully finished pages from the first issue.

The pencil artwork for page 9 of Number Of The Beast #1,
just one of the pages featured in the preview
--C

Creating a Comic Book Page for
Number of the Beast - Part 4: Inks

Inks by Karl Story for Number Of The Beast #1 pages 6 & 7; click on the image to see an
extra large version

In the last few posts, I've described my part of the process of creating a comic book page, specifically a two-page spread from Number Of The Beast #1. Beginning now, I'll attempt to explain what happens once I'm finished with the pencil drawing.

As I mentioned in the last installment, I box up the pencilled pages and FedEX them to Karl Story in Atlanta, GA. Karl and I have worked together off and on since 1992 when we were teamed up by editor Michael Eury on the DC Comics series Legionnaires. Karl is one of the founding members of Gaijin Studios, whose website can be found HERE, and he's one of the best inkers currently working in the industry(if not THE best). As an inker, it's his job to go over my pencil lines and shading with black India ink using various brushes and pens. He does more than trace the lines and fill in areas of solid black, though: he cleans up and finalizes anything sketchy, adds depth to the drawing using various line weights(traditionally, thicker lines on closer objects, thinner on background objects), and creates texture where none was present or merely hinted at in the pencils(compare what Karl did with the chrome on Engine Joe's belt/bumper or the little pieces of rubble around Joe's feet to my pencils to see what I mean). Some comic artists ink their own pencil artwork, but the standard practice is to split the pencilling and inking into two separate jobs done by two different people in order to save time. This works out well for me, since I am barely competent at inking, and Karl brings a level of polish and finish to my work that I could never achieve. I have repeatedly thanked him for making a turkey of a page look good, but he also makes pages I'm happy with look spectacular! Judge for yourself with the image above!

Once Karl finishes his inking, he scans the pages at high resolution into his computer and sends them digitally to the Wildstorm offices in San Diego, where the final two steps in the process, lettering and coloring, are completed. I'll cover those steps in the next two posts.

--C

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Blog...
Just wanted to post a couple of links to some recent interviews over at Newsarama.com, one is an interview with me that's kind of a career overview, and the others are separate interviews with me, writer Scott Beatty and editor Ben Abernathy covering Number Of The Beast.

- Click HERE for the general interview with me

- Click HERE for an interview with NOTB editor Ben Abernathy

- Click HERE for an interview with NOTB writer Scott Beatty

- Click HERE for a NOTB Q&A with me

--C

Creating a Comic Book Page for
Number of the Beast - Part 3: Pencils

Pencil art for Number Of The Beast #1 pages 6 & 7; click on the image to see an
extra large version

Once the prep work is done(the thumbnails and layouts, covered in the last two posts), it's time for the fun stuff(at least for me), the pencil art, commonly called "the pencils" within the industry. All of the basic problems have been solved and all of the forms and guidelines are there in the finished layouts, and in this step I take that rough draft and turn it into (hopefully) clean rendering and good drawing.

I began the double-page spread above by taping two 11X17 pieces of company supplied Bristol Board paper together. Then I placed it directly on top of the layouts on the lightbox I have on my drafting table. This allowed me to "trace" over the layouts which were visible through the Bristol Board with the lightbox on. Below is a photo that shows what this looks like(although it's not the spread above, but a model sheet for the NOTB character Seafarer instead):

Looking through the pencils at the layout underneath on my lightbox

As you can see, the layout is clearly visible through the Bristol Board, but not terribly intrusive--I can see it just enough to use it as a guide(it's clearer in person than in this photo. but you get the idea). You can also see that in the Seafarer drawing I didn't strictly trace the layout--as I draw the finished pencils, I constantly change and tweak elements, adding final details shading and any lighting effects, sometimes changing entire figures and even entire panels. If you compare the spread at the top of this post with the layout version in the last post, you'll notice that the final panel with the flying saucers is completely different in the pencils.
Anyway, using the blue layouts as a guide, I rendered everything very tightly and as clearly as I could, finalizing all the elements in black lead. I used straight-edges for the buildings and ellipse templates for the saucers, but everything else was pretty much free-hand drawing. Not much else to describe process-wise, but I can say that this step was a pure joy to do--this two-page sequence turned out so much better than I had hoped. If I have the wall-space in a future studio, this one's going up in a big frame--that's how much I like it(and anyone who's ever heard me talk about my own work knows I don't say that very often)!

This is also the last step where I have any hands-on involvement. I box up my finished pencilled pages and FedEX them to Gaijin Studios in Atlanta , GA where inker Karl Story makes them look really good! I'll tell you as much as I can about that when I cover The Inks next time.

Tools/materials used in this step:
- 11"X17" 2-ply Bristol Board
- PaperMate PRO-Touch II mechanical pencil w/Pentel 0.5mm black lead
- PaperMate PRO-Touch II mechanical pencil w/Pentel 0.7mm H black lead

--C

NOTE: I forgot to mention all of the little "X"'s all over the pencil art above, and people outside of the business always ask about those. In order to save time and prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, most comic artists, myself included, label areas on the artwork that are supposed to be solid black with a little "X" or a bunch of "X"'s. I don't know how this practice started or who originated it, but it's pretty much standard. It also keeps the smudging and fingerprints to a minimum--if all the areas with "X"'s were filled in with black graphite, sheesh--smudge city by the time I'm done with it, let alone after an inker works on it! This will make more sense when you compare Karl's inked version of the spread(which I'll be posting next time) to the pencil version. One other note, I replaced the old smaller images of the layouts and pencils with extra-large versions today, so now you can see any details you may have missed in the initial jpegs.

Creating a Comic Book Page for
Number of the Beast - Part 2: Layouts

Layouts for Number of the Beast #1, pages 6 & 7; click on the image to see an
extra large version

Last time I described how I create a thumbnail sketch for a typical comic book page and how I arrived at the final design for what became pages 6 & 7 of Number of the Beast #1. This time I'll be concentrating on the next step, the layouts. The layouts are the most difficult and work-intensive part of the entire process, at least for me. The layouts are where I work out the anatomical structure of all of the figures and hash out all the backgrounds.

For these two pages, I began by roughing out Engine Joe in the large panel running across the top of the spread using a blue pencil. Then I drew a perspective grid for the background behind Joe, which--among other things--allowed me to accurately place everything else in the panel. For example, since Joe is about ten feet tall, maybe higher, I knew that any doors in the background would be shorter than his shoulders, and that if I drew a fireplug or something in the foreground it would only come up to a certain height somewhere around his shins or his knees. Once the perspective grid was down on paper, I tightened up Engine Joe's figure, getting all of the details in the correct places and the parts in the correct proportions. I usually bear down pretty hard when I draw, so the linework gets dark fairly quickly, and that makes it hard to see the lines I've put down in some places. Since there were still parts of Joe's figure that needed fussing over, I went in with black lead and did some more finalizing, which you can see most clearly on his right arm in the image above. Once Joe was in good shape, I moved on and used the same process on The Aeronaut, the flying hero above Engine Joe, and then on to the homeless man in the foreground. Next, I worked on the background buildings, but as usual, I left the backgrounds fairly loose since I've drawn hundreds of street scenes and was confident I could do most of the work in the next step(the finished pencils). If the script had called for a more complicated background, a recognizable building or something I've never drawn before, I would have been more precise here in the layouts. Once this large panel was done, I went through the entire process again for each of the remaining panels. As soon as I finished the layouts I knew this spread was going to work well. I couldn't wait to get to work on the finished pencils...which is part 3, and I'll cover that next time!

Tools/materials used in this step:
- 11"X17" copy/office paper
- PaperMate PRO-Touch II mechanical pencil w/Pentel 0.9mm blue lead
- Alvin Draftmatic mechanical pencil w/Pentel 0.9mm red lead
- PaperMate PRO-Touch II mechanical pencil w/Pentel 0.7mm H black lead

--C

Creating a Comic Book Page for
Number of the Beast - Part 1: Thumbnails
Actually the first part of creating a comic book page is the script, created by a writer in pretty much the same form as the script for a play or a movie. The script contains descriptions(sometimes brief, sometimes very detailed) of the characters, action and setting for every panel of every page of the story, along with the dialogue the characters will be speaking and any captions needed. In the case of Number of the Beast, the writer of the script is Scott Beatty. Unfortunately, I won't be showing any of Scott's actual script for the pages I'll be discussing on this blog because they give too much away about later plot developments we'd prefer to keep under wraps. What I'm going to begin with instead of the script are the thumbnail sketches. Thumbnails allow me to very quickly(by virtue of their size) work out the panel sizes, placement of figures and general flow of the story--and that's it. I don't worry about facial features, good perspective or precise rendering at this stage; that all starts in the next step, the layouts. In case anyone's wondering, they're called thumbnail sketches because they're traditionally drawn very small, about the size of a human thumbnail. The ones I do are in fact about the size of my entire hand--that's small enough for my purposes.

Below you'll find my initial thumbnail sketches for page 6 from Number of the Beast #1, the page where we finally get to really see our main characters for the first time. This page, as initially scripted by Scott, was supposed to be one large panel (this type of page is called a "splash page") showing four superheroes running down a city street at night. This page was also supposed to be the title page for the book, so it needed to have room not only for the drawings and dialogue balloons, but for titles and credits as well. The right part of the sketch below shows how the page was intended to look, with Engine Joe et al racing away from the reader deeper into the city-at-night setting. As soon as I drew it I knew it would never do--there was very little room for dialogue, titles, or credits, and it basically just lacked the dramatic "oomph" I felt the introduction of these larger-than-life characters called for. On the left side of the image below, you can see that I started playing around with showing the characters in profile, but this too left no room for any text and was still pretty dramatically boring.

Number of the Beast #1 page 6 thumbnail, take one
I took another try at the thumbnail, which you can see below, but this time I thought I could add some of that missing "oomph" by making page 6 part of a two-page spread with page 7. This attempt produced a slightly more dramatic page 6, and the sheer largeness of the two pages presented as one large image would add some impact, but it still wasn't quite working for me. I left it alone for a few hours and when I sat down to take another pass at the thumbnail, something clicked in my head and I saw the solution immediately. If you look closely at the top left of the image below(above the red writing), you'll see a thumbnail within a thumbnail, where I changed the entire layout of the two-page spread so that the top half would be a "widescreen" version of what was supposed to be page 6, with all of the little panels that were intended to make up page 7 spread from left to right on the bottom half of the spread. That was all I needed to go on to the next step, the above-mentioned "layouts," which is where the real drawing, as well as the hard work, begins...but that's going to have to wait until the next installment...


Number of the Beast #1, pages 6 & 7 thumbnails, take two(and take three at top left)

Tools/materials used in this step:
- 8.5"X11" copy/office paper
- PaperMate PRO-Touch II mechanical pencil w/Pentel 0.9mm blue lead
- Alvin Draftmatic mechanical pencil w/Pentel 0.9mm red lead

--C

NOTB Sketchbook Gallery 3
Next time I'll begin a step-by-step look at the creation of a page from Number of the Beast from thumbnail stage through to the finished lettered/colored product. For now, though, while I gather the materials for that post together and get more work done, here are two more NOTB character sketches...

--C

NOTB Sketch Gallery 2
Here are some more sketchbook pieces...

--C

Apparently more people are reading this blog than I realized... ...including someone at DC Comics who has asked that I stop posting artwork from Number of the Beast until after it's been seen publicly elsewhere. So, to play it completely safe and until or unless I hear otherwise, when I post NOTB artwork I'll only be posting sketchbook material which will never be published in the series or anywhere else. I'm sure someone will let me know if this is a problem as well. For now, here are some of my earliest Number of the Beast sketches from last summer...I hope they'll make up for the missing three character designs which will probably turn up someday on Newsarama before finally being published as bonus material in the backs of the individual issues(that's the plan, anyway).


--C

Finally!

Double page spread from Number of the Beast #1, introducing the superhero characters
Engine Joe, The Aeronaut, The Thrush, and Falconette

As a few of you have already noticed, Wildstorm finally broke the news about the series I've been working on. Click HERE to see that story on Newsarama.com, which includes four fully finished color pages from the first issue of the Number of the Beast series. Starting later tonight(probably) I'll begin posting daily or semi-daily images, either pencilled pages or some of the 26 or so new character designs I've done so far. Right now, however, I need to get back to work--this book has to ship on time(we're on schedule and half-way through the series, so it's looking good...)!
--C

The Cat's Almost Out Of The Bag...

Newsarama.com has posted an interview with comic writers Christos Gage and Scott Beatty and way down at the bottom is the first mention of the new project I've been working on for the last several months--the first mention that reveals any details, anyway. More will be revealed soon, and I hope to start showing some art here on this blog any day now. Click HERE to read the interview.

This is obviously one of those posts that will be of no interest to non-comics fans, but at least there's a cute photo above of Jess-Belle and her new Christmas present that everyone can enjoy!

Hope everyone had a good holiday!
--C