#155: Terminating Operations
Come with me if you want to live ...making comics all day every day
ALL THE LATEST
-Status: Still very busy. I’ve been doing lots of interviews for TERMINATOR that Dynamite Comics have set up for me, as well as a couple for MYSTIQUE. These can be hard to manage around the workload of course and have taken up any livestream energy I’d been putting into TAPE DEC. Hope to get back to that next month.
-Popped up to Dublin Comic Con last minute last weekend. I was always planning on going, but I kinda dropped the ball with all the planning running up to the recent SDCC adventure. It as good fun to catch up with everyone, and I sold out of everything I brought, which was great. Pretty much everyone asked me how I’m able to be working on all the stuff I’m working on to which I just shrugged and said “Uh, I dunno, I’m very tired!”
Was a good quick break from the drawing table though. Took Stephen Mooney, fellow X-writer Mark Russell, Elsa Charretier and PK Colinet [who just so happened to be in Dublin for the day] out for dinner after, joining the Irish crowd for pints after.
-I saw Danny Earls at the show on Sunday who was kind enough to trade a cover of mine for this amazing spread of his for the ALIEN ANNUAL we did last year. I loved this spread when I initially saw it in my inbox, so I was delighted to be gifted this, will definitely be getting it framed.
-On Sunday I was also profiled in a national newspaper here in Ireland, the Irish Independent. The online feature is behind a paywall, so here’s a pic of the piece.
I’m quite happy with how it came out, thanks to Sophie Grenham for writing it, helping comics get a bit more of a profile in Ireland.
-As for actual work? I got some covers done [THUNDERCATS, ‘THUNDERVERSE’book, TERMINATOR] done last week, wrapped up the script for MYSTIQUE #3, have started pencilling pages for same issue. I need to get the cover for MYSTIQUE #4 done this week, then will get moving on the next THUNDERCATS and TERMINATOR scripts.
ART DECO
As promised, here’s a first-chance to get copies of my SDCC exclusive THUNDERCATS/ART DECO variant. I’m releasing them as a set, one with the regular trade dress, and one virgin. Click below to nab a set, there are limited numbers and I’ll be making the offer public on Thursday. Naturally, you Decolytes have a head-start on offers like these.
And a reminder that Stephen Mooney’s THUNDERCATS pages are available via ART DECO also, as a special guest feature. Some very splashy pages in there that ye should definitely check out, if only to gaze at all the lovely rendering. But also buy pages.
I ran a little poll in the last Declarations to gauge the levels of interest in my upcoming projects. I ran a similar one on twitter, and the results were interesting. Now, these are small sample sizes so I’m taking them with a pinch of salt. On Twitter, there was more interest in MYSTIQUE than the other projects, OLD DOG just being a little behind [out of 161 votes]
While here, you loyal Decoytles voted [out of 109] for OLD DOG as a clear favorite… I mean significantly, considering that I also included the upcoming MOON KNIGHT project, which I guess could skew things a bit, but more in favour of my creator owned project than anything else.
Is there anything to be learned from this exercise…? Probably noting certain, but I was curious. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised OLD DOG got more of a lead here, as you Decolytes are more likely to be invested in my personal projects, but even with the Twitter poll, I expected the work for hire stuff to have more of a lead. It’s the stuff that tends to get more attention online, in the press, etc, so it’s actually refreshing to see a stronger interest in OLD DOG than I thought. Makes me glad I made the choice to put out the anthology this year, to give OLD DOG readers something to chew on while I do a big mainstream project. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, it’s my hope a super-spy project made for the mainstream will guide more readers back to my creator owned book, sell more copies of the trade and put that project in a stronger sales position.
Once MYSTIQUE is finished later this year, I’m hoping I’ll be more ahead on the work for hire writing gigs and after a break over Xmas, I’ll be moving on a new creator owned book as well as an OLD DOG novella, the same longer square-bound one-shot format as the anthology, then spend the rest of the year writing/drawing a work for hire project. I think if I could write/draw a ‘mainstream’ project and write/draw an OLD DOG ‘novella’ [and maybe another creator owned ‘novella’] every year I’d be in a very good spot both creatively and commercially. I guess we’ll see, this poll had strengthened my conviction to enable that plan, at least, so was worth trying.
TERMINATOR
Promo time is in full swing for TERMINATOR, here’s some links if you’d like to learn more about the book…
Near Mint Livestream
The book itself is coming together swimmingly. The art by Luke Sparrow was already so strong but now with the added colours of Colin Craker the book has raised yet another level in quality. Just take a look at this first page…
Absolutely stunning. Ah hell, here’s another. Don’t tell anyone I showed ye this.
Every new page I see gets me more and more excited for this book to come out.
My cover was revealed last week, as well as come variants, this time by Drew Moss and David Cousins.
I’m currently playing around with the scripts for #2 and #3. While I’m describing this book as a series of one shots, issues 2 and 3 are actually a two-part story. They’re a bit intimidating as they both take place in a very important time in history [end of Vietnam War] but it’s fun do work on. I’ve already watched a lot of documentaries about the time in the past couple of months, filling my brain with material, I just need to nail the story down now.
OLD DOG
So the FOC for the OPERATIONS anthology was yesterday, I can no longer pester ye about ordering the book [though, you CAN still tell your local retailer you want a copy!]. Image Comics posted a load of pages yesterday, one from nearly every story. Here they are together; A page from my story, one from my story with Matias Bergara [w/Sofie Dodgson colours], Rory McConville and Dave O’Sullivan’s story, PJ Holden’s story with John McCrea finishes & Mike Spicer colours], Leonardo Romero’s story [w/ Triona Farrell colours], my story drawn by Luke Sparrow [w/Dee Cunniffe], Sumeyye Kesgin’s story and Alex Paknadel’s story drawn by by Chris Sprouse, [w/colours by me!] his first interior pages in a few years, he told me. What an honour.
I’ve approved the book for the printers, so this is all officially DONE. It’s a bit of a relief, I’ve been working on this in some capacity for what must be a year. While I contributed an 8-page story, it’s required sooooooo much work between the design work, planning, reaching out to talent, securing said talent, organising that talent [though editor Heather Antos really covered that], paying everyone, etc. I could have handed more of the work over to Heather but there was more creative fine-tuning decicions that I wanted to be making, which required more emails and administration but dammit, we got there in the end.
I got to bring in newer people like Luke Sparrow, highlight artists who I think are doing great work like Sumeyye Kesgin, Gavin Guidry and Dave O’Sullivan, bring in artists who I am in absolute awe of like Leonadro Romero and Matias Bergara [not to mention WRITING a story for Matias!] interesting writers that I think are doing great work like Alex Paknadel and Rory McConville and cash in on whatever name I’ve built for myself by convincing industry giants like Charles Soule and Chris Sprouse[who I also got to colour!]. Fine tuning the creative combiations was a unique challenge, there were some switcheroos here and there] including trying to find the right pairing for excellent colourists such as Triona Farrell, Dee Cunniffe, Sofie Dodgson, Mike Spicer. I wanted some artists to colour themselves too, which happened, as well as the creative treat of me colouring Sprouse. Showcasing some Irish talent on the stage with the best in the industry too. All while having my co-pilots Heather and Clayton making it all happen. How cool is that?
I’m happy to have this put to bed finally, though I admit I’d like to do another one. Maybe down the line when I’ve got a significant amount of my own OLD DOG material out.
Oh, DOSSIER supporters, I’m still waiting on the books from the printer, who hasn’t sent them out yet? Bit frustrating, but they should be sent out to me this week. I’m gonna update the kicktarter soon but I don’t want to update until I have a SOLID date. Don’t want to be jerking people around more than I already [inadvertently] have already.
MYSTIQUE
Yes, remember I’m writing and drawing my very own X-book…? I sure do, despite everything else going on. Script for Issue Three is in and I’m really excited about this one. There’s an interesting storytelling experiment here that will be very satisfying if it’s pulled off right. Lots of fun stuff to draw too, though none of it I can tease without spoiling which is frustrating for a show-off like me.
But show off I must! So here’s the cover for the issue where I got to achieve my dream of drawing a big, feck-off shot of a Sentinel head. It’s X-Men baby!
I’m working on the lettering draft for Issue One this week. It’s just so cool to see the whole first issue come together with amazing Matt Hollingsworth colours. I can’t believe I’ve gotten to do a project like this. Can’t wait to see this all lettered by Clayton Cowles. I also have to get the next cover in this week, so I’m getting stuck-in more on Mystique for the next weeks. It’'ll be easier to do now that the OPERATIONS anthology is all done.
THUNDERCATS
As mentioned above, last week I handed in a cover for a new THUNDERCATS related comic. A THUNDERVERSE slack has been established with myself, editor Nate Cosby and another writer so we can keep track of this larger world that’s developing. Never worked this way before but it’s been a good way to keep track of the various Thunder-plates that are starting to spin.
New solicits revealed that our next guest artist on THUNDERCATS will be Joe Mulvey! Once I knew we would need guest artists between overall arcs to give series artist Drew Moss a bit of breathing room, Joe was the first person I wanted to bring on.
Of course, editor Nate Cosby then said “what about Stephen Mooney?” and I threw a temper tantrum, eventually relenting. But now I finally have Joe! He’s just digging in, having already provided some cool designs. Man, I can’t wait to see more.
New covers by the usual dynamos, too.
Issue Seven came out last week, below are preview pages by Drew Moss [who’s currently wrapping up Issue Eight] if you previously missed them. This was a fun issue, felt the most ‘Saturday morning carton’ issue yet. Writing the SFX effect “FOOP” …doesn’t get more fun that that.
MOON KNIGHT
You know, it’s pretty damn mental that I have so much on, that I nearly forget to mention that I HAVE WRITTEN A MOON KNIGHT STORY WITH A NEW MOON KNIGHT THAT I CREATED. Yet it’s true, it’s out in about a month and I’m really happy with it. Here’s the first page as a tease, doesn’t reveal too much. Art by Eder Messias, colours by Yen Nitro.
Marvel also revealed my Design Variant cover for the issue, which is neat. Go get it.
It will be interesting to see how this goes down. It was an out of the blue offer from editors Devin Lewis and Lauren Amaro. After talking about the project more I got the feeling there would be potential for this character to break out into a book of it’s own wich I have to admi, would be pretty damn cool. Sales will dictate that future, of course, so do pick up the issue to see if there’s any potential here.
OUT SOON
Aug 28th
STAR TREK: DEFIANT #18 [VC]
September 2nd
STAR WARS: THE BATTLE OF JAKKU - INSURGENCY RISING #1 [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]
TIME BEFORE TIME VOL 06 [W/C]
DEADPOOL TEAM-UP #2 [VC]
STAR TREK: DEFIANT #19 [VC]
October 09th
TERMINATOR #1 [W/C]
October 16th
MYSTIQUE #1 [W/A]
THUNDERCATS #9 [W/C]
THUNDERCATS VOL 01 OMENS Hardcover [W]
October 23rd
STAR TREK: DEFIANT #20[VC]
Hearing how many projects you are grinding on is so inspiring. I know it's hard but you are building a great career. Thanks for sharing the process with us!
Done and dusted! Thanks for making these available!