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!).

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