Endgame Art

The Disney+ app is on heavy rotation in House Debacles, and Endgame holds up.

NC Comicon Bull City

After two years' absence, I am back in Durham for the fall NC Comicon. This show has always been non-stop, probably as folks shop for Christmas gifts and perhaps lubricated by adult beverages available on the con floor. Either way, I hated being away, and I'm glad to be back.

Find me at table A-113, near the big names for the show. I caught a sneak peek at the program and saw who my immediate table neighbors are, and it looks like we're all in for a fine time. As always, cosplayers get a discount on each item at my table. I wanna see your costumes.

I have a new trade, the first bound book for the OUTSKIRTS anthology, and the Cosmic Ladies of the Lake stories front and center. That sets up next year's OGN, which combines Lovecraft, the Heroic Age of Exploration, and, of course, magic weapons.

The Last Days of Inktober

Skrull

 Ahsoka

 Fester

Debbie

Even Further Into Inktober

Nightcrawler

Maleficent

 Firestorm

Sister Night

 Mary Marvel

Inktober Rolls On

Kat Manx from Power Rangers SPD. 

Hawkgirl

Janet from The Good Place

 Whiterose

 Flex Mentallo

Batgirl

Cyclops

The Winter Hopper

I love Winter Soldier jokes. A while back I made a print based on the pun of Winter Shoulder just to get that dumb joke out of my head.

Then I found out the Captain America comic ACTUALLY DID IT. The arm was removed, and Bucky controlled it to move through duct work and attack bad guys. I love comics.

So when I found out we 're getting Stranger Things 4, I knew we'd find out Hopper is "the American" held in Russia, and I made the connection. He'll be brainwashed and made to do their dirty work. He'll have to be salvaged using coffee and contemplation.

So we have The Winter Hopper.

More Inktober

 Starfire based on the design by Stjepan Sejic.

Another scene from Lego Batman, and I'm talking myself out of doing the whole movie adaptation.

Lego Batman

Lego Batman is the best Batman movie, and I say that as a 47-year-old who adored the Keaton and Bale movies. Saw the first Keaton film in the summer of '89 and was astonished to see it for sale on VHS that same Christmas for under $20. That was unheard of at the time. The window from theatrical release to home release was much, much longer, and you might pay $90 for a new videotape. I worked at Wal-Mart; Hunt for Red October was $88. And people bought it.

Lego Batman tells you in the first 20 minutes that all the previous Batman films happened, and for that alone, it earns top stars. As dark and somber and perpetually clenched as he has been since the '90s, his history is full of magic and goofiness and winks to the camera, and we have to celebrate that for a franchise built around a man who wears bat ears.

I wish we could get a full-length comic adapting the Lego Batman movie in the traditional comic style and tell that story word for word with people and not block toys. I would buy that immediately. I would DRAW that immediately. Like I did here.

Inktober Begins!

We just finished reading and watching Deathly Hallows, so let's start with this winning smile and a whole week of Ralph Fiennes characters!

And now Grand Budapest Hotel and Red Dragon!

Have some Hail Caesar!

And then we have M from James Bond and Quartermaine from Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

 

Batman Day

It's the 80th birthday of Batman. I grew up on reruns of the 1960s TV show, and Batman appeared on Superfriends and Scooby Doo, and we even got the first Michael Keaton movie before I left high school. And from that we got a Prince soundtrack, including this all-time jam:


And that led to this drawing for today's anniversary:

Party on.

Back At It

Inktober is coming up, and I need to get back into the swing of things.

We are a fan of Captain Underpants, thanks to the clever Netflix series, so here's ya boy, via PITT pens, Copic grays and a red Sharpie.

Outskirts 4 is now on Comixology!

The Lady of the Lake, still wearing the sheriff's badge of a dead man, faces off against The Eldest to save her town from The Slivers! In her absence, who will emerge as the new champion of the realm? Who will hold the weapon? And what is the cost of worth? This is the concluding chapter of this first arc of the Lady of the Lake and sets up next year's one-shot spinoff! Watch this space for news on that.

GET ISSUE 4 ON COMIXOLOGY NOW.

Making Sketch Covers

I was handled a literal stack of blank-cover comics by friend Nic, and I'm working them over while researching the next comic story.

Proofing the Outskirts Trade A Thousand Times

Here's the cover to the upcoming OUTSKIRTS trade, collecting all the Lady of the Lake stories and most of the anthology material from issues 1-4. It will be out by October.

I took the PDF to a local printer yesterday to get a proof, and I made notes and corrections throughout its 90 pages. I redid a few panels, something I used to consider blasphemy. But the paying customer deserves the best I can manage, and I can't offer knowingly bad material for their money. I can do better, so I did.

I'll make another proof and probably more corrections before it goes to the printer. I want this to be the goodest it can.

Until then, you can see the original issues, imperfect but still tasty, on Comixology.

RobCon Is This Weekend

After years of seeing their ads and postcards, I took the plunge and signed up for Johnson City's Rob-Con. It's a two-day show and a short drive up the road, making for a fine sherbet after HeroesCon.

Heroes is a great show -- a reliably great show -- but it's four days for me to get there, work it, and come back. You have to limber up for it, hop around and shake your hands before getting behind the table. It's a marathon. A show like RobCon is a couple of 5ks each day.

That's not a slight. A thousand blessings on small shows. They are easy to maneuver, more relaxed, and more egalitarian. With fewer tables, there's less chance of getting a bad spot on the floorplan. Again I love Heroes, but with that many tables, inevitably the table assignments approximate seats for a theater; the stars will be in the orchestra and box seats, and the small guys will get the nosebleeds. It's an algorithm of marketing and industry prominence, and nothing fuels my comic ambitions than the hope of getting a center-stage table assignment one day.

Because it comes so soon after Heroes, RobCon is easy to pack for. I only had to order a few replacement prints and restock the snack bag. A lower-gear show is just what I need to wind down my booth piloting until November.

In the meantime, I will make costumes for DragonCon, prepare OUTSKIRTS for a trade release, and make the next OUTSKIRTS story -- a long standalone suggested in the very first issue. More on that later.

HeroesCon Is Here!

I will be at table AA-109 this weekend, and to find me, remember the mantra:

I also have the latest OUTSKIRTS for sale, featuring the final installment of the Old West Lady of the Lake story, but a mystery emerges as well.

HeroesCon Commissions

I advertised early and often this year for HeroesCon commissions and was rewarded with a fun spread of subjects. I had to get them done early before I leave on a big trip I'll talk about later, and I mention it only to whine about coming back the Tuesday before HeroesCon. As in: I land in Charlotte on Tuesday, drive back home, unpack the suitcase, launder, pack the suitcase, and go back to Charlotte Thursday.

Oy. This is the schedule of a much younger, but almost as handsome man.

Anyway, commissions!