#153 Raw Dogging
Just flown back from SDCC, a lot of OLD DOG to do...
ALL THE LATEST
I’ve just landed back home this morning after the madness of San Diego Comic Con. No, I didn’t ‘raw dog’ the trip; I did some writing, watched some episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock and tried to sleep a little.
-I owe ye all a proper post-con report but I’ll make good on that next time as I’m leaping back into deadline fire. I have to finish inking a MYSTIQUE cover today, and jump right on my remaining OLD DOG OPERATIONS pages that needed inking and get them prepped and flatted so I can get them colored by the end of the week. I also need to colour Chris Sprouse’s pages when they’re ready. OH, and I need to finish all the design stuff for the one-shot too as well as finish off three scripts that are nearly done, just not quite there yet. I’m just hanging on by a thread into next week!
-You may be aware there’s a DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE film out now, right?
Well to celebrate, I’ll be releasing all of the remaining pages from my The Good, The Bad and The Ugly run on the ART DECO store this week. I’m sorry I don’t have advance codes set up ahead of time, but *points to SDCC*. At least I’m giving you a heads up here. This is a much beloved run of the character and while some of the pages have been available before, most won’t have been. Keep an eye out on the site on Thursday, I suspect.
And no, I haven’t seen the film yet though I just saw this headline to a story I obviously can’t read yet because SPOILERS. This is killing me!
-By the way, I do have copies of my SDCC Exclusive THUNDERCATS cover left! I’ll be putting them up on the store soon too.
PROJECT NETWORK TERMINATOR
Yes, PROJECT NETWORK was revealed at the start of Comicon as a brand new TERMINATOR series, written by myself, art by Luke Sparrow and colours by Colin Craker. Issue One is out in October, just ahead of the 40th anniverasy of James Cameron’s clasic film.
With this stripped-down, grounded approach to the time-skipping franchise, I’ve been joking with friends that this books is kinda Quantum Leap…. From Hell.
From the press release…
The approach of this series is new situations, new dilemmas in each issue. Mostly done-in-one stories, but as the series progresses there may be some recognizable faces," Shalvey teased. "We're going for a more stripped-down, pulpy approach to the book. As innovative and groundbreaking as the first film was, it was also grounded in its environment, being noir-ish and moody as hell. An unstoppable force is coming to kill you — that's the element of the franchise I want to lean into.”
Here’s some stunning pages by artist Luke Sparrow…
Luke has also drawn a story in my OLD DOG: OPERATIONS one shot! So if you’re curious about this new book, you can get a sampler in the anthology.
There’s some class variant covers [waaaaaaay less than what we had for THUNDERCATS] above but I was especially delighted to see them use this classic cover by Alex Ross!
An iconic Alex Ross cover, with my stupid name stamped on it. Never saw that coming!
Luke is currently working on Issue One and as you can see with the preview pages, it’s looking AMAZING. While I said the book will mostly be one shots, I’m currently working on Issue Two and Three as a 2-parter. It’s requiring a bit more historical reference on my part so taking a bit longer, but I’m enjoying the hell out of it.
Also wanted to point out the trailer for a new TERMINATOR anime series coming out Judgment Day itself; August 29th. It’s a totally different take to what myself and Luke are doing but it looks great, no surprise with THE BATMAN scribe Mattson Tomlin showrunning it.
MUSINGS
With this project announced… that means I’m all out of codenames! Everything currently on my plate is now public, all set to come out over September/October. Those will be busy months I’m sure, with NYCC and all the promo to push the books. I don’t really have the bandwidth to take on anything else until I wrap up MYSTIQUE near the end of the year, or at least finish the last script. Some potential offers were presented to me at SDCC which was amazing, but I know I can’t take anything else right now. THUNDERCATS is ongoing and TERMINATOR is a 12 issue maxi-series so that’s a lot of my schedule locked in just on the writing [and covers'] front. Doing a book like TERMINATOR [writing, drawing covers and with a brilliant artist doing all the real work and making me look good] is a great place to be. Like previous gigs, being offered a franchise and been given the reins to run with it for a bit is creatively exciting and refreshing to me. Especially with TERMINATOR, where I got to hand pick the creative team myself. I’ll need to get writing the next proper installment of OLD DOG and I’ve left PROJECT ARCA [oh wait, there IS a codename left!] on the vine too long. I’m very pleased with all this work for hire stuff on my plate, but I don’t want to be ignoring the creator owned side of things. The OPERATIONS anthology has helped, having that creative channel open, but I need to pay it more attention. It’s all very very cool stuff though, I’m quite lucky to have so much cool stuff on the go.
OLD DOG
As suggested above, those curious about TERMINATOR would do well to order OLD DOG OPERATIONS as TERMINATOR artist Luke Sparrow has drawn one of the stories I’ve written.
When I was offered TERMINATOR, I had already hired Luke to draw the “06/06” story for the anthology. As these pages came in, I knew I wanted to do something else with Luke and then realised he’d be perfect for what I was looking to do on TERMINATOR. Luke to me, is one of those precious jems of artists who are amazing but don’t have a big profile yet. YOINK! Getting someone like Luke will only elevate the quality of the book but also hopefully give him a book to make a name for himself like say I did on 28 DAYS LATER. Anyway, this should really be in the TERMINATOR section but I’m waffling a bit.
I’m currently losing my mind trying to get the OPERATIONS book wrapped for Image. I’m finishing off the last inks for my own story this week, about to colour them all as well as Chris Sprouse’s story. On top of that, assembling the whole book and finalising the design stuff. No matter how much one [ie, me] tries to get stuff in early, it’s always a panic to get a book wrapped. I applaud my fellow operators for being more organised than I, and apologise to editor Heather Antos who has been hounding me to get my own stuff done as well as making sure everyone else has been on time.
Speaking of my fellow operators, I met the amazing Matias Bergara at SDCC where he gave me ALL of the pages for our OLD DOG story! I was blown away, what an amazing gift. It’s worth doing the anthology for this alone.
MYSTIQUE
I’m currently working on the script for Issue Three. Can’t get into it, but it depends slightly on what’s happening in another X-MEN book. Will be getting started on reference/layouts next week once all the OLD DOG production stuff is taken care of.
Matt Hollingsworth has handed in all the coloured pages for Issue One! I’m so delighted with how it looks, I just have to hand in a few notes today and it’ll be all set for Clayton Cowles to letter.
I got to talk about MYSTIQUE at the X-MEN: From The Ashes panel [which was an amazing experiance] at SDCC where they revealed the cover for Issue Two
As well as some interior pages from Issue One.
I assume since these were shown at the panel at SDCC, I can show the proper pages here.
Just before SDCC Marvel released some great variant covers for MYSTIQUR Issue One, but I was blown away but this Yasmine Putri piece. WOW. I’ve loved her work for years, so delighted to have an variant for the first issue by her.
There’s also a host of some very cool variants included below.
Again, more in depth SDCC suff next time, but being a part of the big X-MEN signing and panel was not only a highlight of the show, but a real career highlight.
THUNDERCATS
I’m doing the finishing touches on Issue Eight, Drew’s gonna need pages any minute now and don’t want him to have to be waiting. I’m also writing Issue Ten at the same time as our guest artist will need pages soon too. There’s been a lot to work out in these scripts but it really feels like the overall book is expanding in scale, story-wise.
I’m currently designing a new character set to appear this arc. Keep your eyes open!
Have you seen this amazing cover for Issue Nine by David Nakayama?
Stunning. In fact, I got a chance to say hi to both David and other cover artist Jae Lee at the show. Both were so nice, David even signed a copy of THUNDERCATS Issue One for me and I did the same for him. I also picked up this page of Drew Moss original art from Issue Six! I tried paying for it but his agent wouldn’t let me.
Comics can be very cool.
OUT SOON
July 31st
MIDNIGHT SONS BLOOD HUNT #3 [VC]
August 07th
FREE AGENTS #2 [VC]
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MEN #6 /WEAPON X-TRACTION VAR [VC]
August 21st
THUNDERCATS #7 [W,VC]
September 18th
OLD DOG OPERATIONS (ONE-SHOT) [W/A/Col/C]
THUNDERCATS #8 [W/VC]
September 25th
PHASES OF THE MOON KNIGHT #2 [W/VC]
DEADPOOL TEAM-UP #2 [VC]
Hey!!! I can’t believe you even got this out, you have to be wiped! Great updates!
Nice on the Thundercats page, I had to jump on that as well.