#117
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Man, it’s been a busy few weeks. Will get more into that later, but mainly OLD DOG #4 is in the bag! Feels very good to be well into the last half of the arc and I can hit a lot of character stuff in the next two issues. Anyway, LOTS to tell ye about including a lot of cover reveals…
-My first con of the year has been announced! I’ll be at the Paris Fan Festival on the 15th & 16th of April. Really looking forward to it, will be able to get a day of touristy stuff in before the show I hope. I’m not taking any precommissions [way too busy] but I will take €100 headshots over the weekend. I don’t really know what to expect at the show but I’ll bring along some original art and some creator owned books [even though they’ll be in English]. Signatures will be free by the way, I want to stress that. I just saw ALIEN cover artist Dike Ruan will also be there… dammit, we’ll be missing the release of #1 just by a couple of weeks!
-Nominations for the Ringo awards are currently open. I normally don’t ask for stuff like this but feck it, a lot of people read this newsletter and I may as well try use it for the sake of influence and more importantly, my ego! Really though, if you feel so inclined, I wouldn’t mind if you threw a nomination my way, or for Old Dog or Time before Time, I’ll take what I can get. Lots of nomination fields apply [cartoonist, writer, artist, limited series, ongoing, single issue, etc] so have it.
-I did close to a 2 hour podcast interview with Lost N’ Comics. Was a fun chat that went to some …unexpected places.
-THERE’S GOING TO BE A TBOLTS OMNIBUS! Was announced that there’s going to be an omnibus of all of Jeff Parker’s THUNDERBOLTS run, which will include all of my issues of the book [as well as the amazing Kev Walker, Neil Edwards and more]. I’m really chuffed about it, I LOVED my time on the book… Shadowland, Man Thing, Fear Itself, The Underbolts, the OG Bolts, etc… it will always have a special place in my heart. Especially as my first issue on the title was also my debut at Marvel Comics.
-I’ve had an intense couple of weeks work-wise, inking the last half of Old Dog #4, as well as colouring the whole issue and a cover or two on top of that. I thought I might keep track of what I did last week day by day with a work log so ye could see what a solid work week was for me. See if any of this makes sense…
Yesterday, I coloured my cover for OLD DOG #6, dressed it and dressed the variants for solicitation. I also paid owed invoices and worked more on finished the script for #5. I’m hopping back to do the lettering draft for #4 today and that will be it for the issue. This week I need to get started on my layouts for #5 and need to get a couple of covers done as well as make a start on the next ALIEN script. It’s all-go all the time!
-Last week, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Marvel Comics has formed a 20th Century Studios imprint for the comics based on the studio’s films. Our new Alien series will be part of that imprint, which is pretty cool. Never been part of an imprint before!
-Lastly for this section, wanted to plug some Kickstarters by friends. First, the FRACTURED REALMS Norse-inspired anthology by Irish collective Limit Break Comics who have already got a couple of great anthology projects under their belt so they know what they’re doing. Sporting a lovely Nick Roche cover [collecting all the Micks it seems, me for their first book, Mooney for their second, etc…].
Also, friend-of-the-Substack Will Robson has taken a project near and dear to his heart and brought it to Kickstarted to finally goe it out in the world. Go check out OUTBREAKS!
OLD DOG
So yes, OLD DOG #4 is DONE, which is a relief. I just have to finish the lettering draft and then it’ll all be in Clayton’s hands, set for a May 10th release [hmm, just in time for a Free Comic Book signing, now that I think of it…]. Really happy with how it came out, every issue of this book has been a slog of work but it’s always always worth it.
With the issue now out a month or so, I wanted to show ye all the ‘layouts/ colour script’ I did for #3. Have a look at the issue itself and ye can contrast/compare all the whole story before drawing pages, and how I worked out al the colour beats, etc. Also, you can see where I may have tried something different or fleshed things out more. Overall, I wanted to have the exterior shots be very WHITE, in an overwhelming way,book ending the issue, with more muted colour palettes for the interior scenes. Those interior scenes ended up being a lot more colourful in the issue I think, but it all still works.
I promised some cover reveals too, so here’s a hell of a cover for OLD DOG #5, by Paul Azaceta. I’ve loved Paul’s work for yeeeaaars, so I was delighted when he said he was up for doing an OLD DOG cover.
And a C cover by co-creator of TIME BEFORE TIME, Joe Palmer! It’s a real tread to see his take on OLD DOG, applying his keen visual eye to my silly spy book.
ALIEN
The series is moving along nicely. Looks like my pitch for Vol 2 is pretty much approved, which is good to know at this point. I’ll be making a start on the script for #4 this week. Andrea has just wrapped up #2 and he really is knocking it out to the park. So much attention to detail and man, the Xenos themselves look fantastic. Nothing else I can really show… though I’ll sneak this to ye as long as ye don’t share it online… Dike’s cover inks for #3
Absolutely astounding. His cover for #4 is just as phenomenal. I wanted to buy this but I already bought the art for his #1 cover and now I can’t afford it. Jump on it if you can, and teach me a lesson. And order this book for god’s sake.
TIME BEFORE TIME
A reminder; #21 is out next week! Picking up where we left off with the big reveal in out previous issue. Are you excited…? I know I am!
#27 is all written now, we are inching closer to the end…
We have 3 different artists working on the book at the moment; Jorge Coelho is drawing his last issue for his arc[#23], the artist of the last arc [TBA] is working on his second issue[#26], and the artist of the one-shot [between those arcs] is working on his issue [#24]. I can tell you now that the artist for the one shot is none other than… GOSPEL’s Will Morris. Here’s his cover art for the issue in question…
Gorgeous. I’ve seen the pencils for his issue and was blown away by all the subtle character expressions, with beautiful and expressive figure acting. Reads like poetry. Working with great artists can be torture, as you can clearly see where you’re failing in your own pages. Anyway, I’ll sneak some peeks in the coming weeks. May as well show my cover for the issue too, which in comparion to Will’s, seems pretty fecking bleak…
No one burst into song over this one!
OUT SOON
March 15th
TIME BEFORE TIME #21 [W/C]
STAR TREK DEFIANT #1 [VC]
April 19th
TIME BEFORE TIME #22 [W/C]
April 26th
ALIEN #1 [W/VC]
#117
I've nominated you and Old Dog for lots of stuff. 😁
Nice!