#135: Dec Day [kinda]
It's a Dec-heavy day at your comic store this week
ALL THE LATEST
-Was nice to see everyone had a great time at Thought Bubble last weekend. Felt weird to sit it out, but on the other hand, it gave me a chance to care of my taxes! Last minute as usual, but there’s two days taken up with doing maths. Huge relief to have it done though *takes deep breath*
-TOMORROW IS DEC DAY! Well, not really but I do have FOUR books out tomorrow…
ALIEN [DESCENTANT] #1, the start of my next ALIEN arc with Andrea Broccardo, the collection for ALIEN [THAW], our previous/first series, my variant cover for CARNAGE #1 and of course, TIME BEFORE TIME #29 …our final issue of the series. Go forth this week, and pick all of them up!
-I have more to say about TIME BEFORE TIME but this newsletter is long enough, I think I’ll wait til next time, when I’ve digested the end a bit. Hope ye like it though, was an emotional experience putting the series to bed.
-I’ll be at Galaxy Con Columbus, December 1-3! I haven’t been to a Galaxy Con since just before COVID, so very much looking forward to it. I will be doing some drawing at the show, reach out to Cadence Comic Art for more info.
-Myself and Stephen Mooney did a talk about our careers as part of an event run by Dublin Libraries South. Was fun to do, we did a similar one a year or so ago. Was interesting for both of us to look over where we started from and just how far we’ve both come in each of our careers. It’s pretty crazy, and a good reminder to have.
-Boom Studios released that SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN cover for Issue 35, sporting some really nice trade dress. Don’t know who did that design work, but kudos! In fairness to Boom, these last two covers I’ve done for them, they’ve been flexible with incorporating the trade dress into the piece with fun results.
-I’m currently working out the last details of my outline/pitch for PROJECT RAVEN. I’ve worked out a new character design, just ironing out some plat details, will be handing it in tomorrow. Once I hand this in, I can concentrate on PROJECT ARCA for a little bit til I see how that pitch goes.
-Artist Andre Lima Araujo posted something recently that resonated with me. The importance of having a website, especially in these days of the waning reach of social media. Worth a read.
-I have a call with editor Heather Antos tomorrow, to go over my creator owned plan for 2024. Certainly OLD DOG and PROJECT ARCA, but some other notions I have too.
LUCCA COMICS & GAMES
Talking about Lucca will just overload the usual ‘All the latest’ section, so I’ve given it a section of its own!
I had an absolutely fantastic time at this amazing Italian show. So much amazing work to see and people to meet. I had the pleasure of hanging out with brilliant creators such as Howard Chaykin, Lorenzo deFelici, Gigi Cavenago, Goran Sudanka, Yi Yang, Lisandro Estherren and Garth Ennis, just to mention a few. Being around such great talent was hugely inspiring and in a couple of case, incredibly entertaining.
I drew my arse off, more people asking for Xenomorphs which is a new challenge. No fear of running out of Mr. Knight sketches though, must have done 30 or so of them.
When not drawing, I did some writing work, walked around the beautiful town, also eating some incredible food [and enjoying some gelato to boot. All-vanilla please!]
It was pretty rainy for the trip unfortunately so didn’t get to wander around as much as I’d have liked to, so made the most of it by sneaking in two A4 commissions.
I did manage to swing by the Garth Ennis: Till the End of His Words exhibition just before it wrapped up. Got to see some amazing original art by art heroes such as John McCrea, Glen Fabry and of course, Steve Dillon. Was really amazing to see the original pages that had moments seared into my mind since adolescence. The exhibition space was done up to be a bit like an old pub and street corner. Neat touches.
The only downside of the week really was the weather but it didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. Quite the opposite, everyone war in great form. While I returned home last week pretty exhausted, my enthusiasm to make things is only stronger. A huge thanks to Lucca Comics & Games for having me as part of their festival, and for SaldaPress for making it happen.
OLD DOG
I desperately want to get writing the next installment, but I need to get outlines done for PROJECT ARCA and PROJECT RAVEN, while ALIEN pages, covers and digging into THUNDERCATS has kept me occupied.
The DOSSIER is coming together though. Some parts have developed a bit more… I need to get all the reward material made while the last of the DOSSIER is nailed down. Can do that now that my taxes are out of the way.
I’ll be livestreaming a new head-sketch soon by the way. Not sure when, but aiming for this week.
THUNDERCATS
I’ve handed in the first script! Waiting on any incoming notes. I cannot wait to see Drew Moss’s first pages. To show ye something, here’s my rough for the cover of Issue Two. The cover is pencilled/inked, but there’s only so much I can reveal at the moment.
I’ve to get on the script for #2 right away, will dig into it over the weekend. With all the big, broad strokes worked out over the next year, most of the hard work is done, so the rest should just be fun! He said …asking for trouble…
Now that the first script and second cover are both in, and I’ve had some to play in the world, it’s interesting that while I am leaning for a more sci-fi feel to the concept in the book, it seems I’m channeling an ‘90’s X-Men’ feel too. Not part of the plan, it’s just happening.
ALIEN
Yes, ALIEN #1 is out tomorrow! Marvel released some preview pages by Andrea…
As well as one of my pages…
Can’t lie, that was a lot of fun to draw.
My pages are for a flashback story for one of the characters. I have been a little jealous of Andrea for all the cool things he’s gotten to draw in our run [but not jealous of all the work it took to do it!] so it was cool to be able to take on this little side story. Writing this stuff has been great, and part of me wishes I could have drawn the whole series …but was just never going to happen, practically. This way I feel like I’ve gotten to do my own ‘solo’ ALIEN story alongside the main narrative [though you will see it’s all connected] …shhh!
I’m just wrapping my layouts for Issue Four today, will get pencilling tomorrow. Lettering draft for Issue Three is done too, so just Issue Four to take care of once my inks are in, I imagine.
I do hope ye check out this new series, especially if you read the last one, it’s all connected. If for noting else, get this fecking AMAZING Ian Bertram cover for Issue One.
Now that’s something else.
Also! we have a very special cover …Andrea Broccardo has a variant cover for this first issue, coloured by myself!
Despite ALIEN being a work for hire gig, it’s been very cool to have this back-and-forth relationship with Andrea on the book. I hope I did his work justice with these colours, working up close on his inks, I appreciated all the detail he put into this.
So yeah, pick up ALIEN #1 tomorrow!
OUT SOON
November 15th
ALIEN #1 [W]
ALIEN: THAW [W]
CARNAGE #1 [VC]
TIME BEFORE TIME #29 [C/W]
November 22nd
THE RIBBON QUEEN #5 [C]
November 29th
SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #35 [VC]
December 13th
DARK RIDE #10 [VC]
Good epilogue Dec. Well done!
Thank you for the nod, buddy!