Titans time—

But, not really.

I get lots of sketch requests, and I turn down many because I am too distracted with the day job and keeping on top of stuff. But I still mindlessly churn out Titans circa 1973 sketches!

My work on the Cavalcade re-print is just about ready to send to the printer, and after that, I really need to start my Bonnie N. Collide guesties for Monica Gallagher. I promised they would be ready to run in September. That's but 2 weeks away!

Fortunately, my loft space is now in great shape for me to start creative work again. It was a long 4-month haul (still far from "done" but in a very live-able state), but it'll feel good to get to some comics again.

Draw, monkey, draw!

Comic Con Report

A few weeks back, I made my not-quite-annual trek to my old stomping grounds of San Diego for the giant crazy-fest now known as Comic Con International.

Ah, the good old days when I would hop in my Jeep and park a few blocks from the convention center in the abandonned factory district and walk up to a short registration line and into the con are so long gone. Long lines, packed floor, and visual/audio overload these days. But still a fun fest of all things dork.

On Friday, I did a signing at the Prism booth, and explored the con floor, and saw many old friends. That night I made it into Oni's Scott Pilgrim party.

Saturday morning was my big shopping spree: super fun t-shirt from the I Heart Guts booth, at long last I bought Kevin Dart's Seductive Espionage as well as Scott Pilgrim V6 and Super Pro K.O. from Oni. I tracked down some Sekowsky early '70s comics, too. I caught up with some self publishers who I admire and bought their latest work. Oh yeah, I went to Mistress of Halloween Elvira's pay-for-autograph booth, too. My friend Ryan harasses me every time I go to CCI to do so. She's SO NICE. For some reason, no one was talking to Matt Fraction at the Marvel booth so I introduced myself. He's the main X-Men writer, and he knew my story in the Nation X mini series, complimented me and thanked me for writing it. I was flustered and didn't give him my card. Way to go, Tim.

In the early evening, I felt honored to be on a panel alongside Dan Parent, Geoff Johns, and more. It's always easier to have professional conversations and interactions with people once they've been forced to listen to you on a panel. :) That evening I attended a pre-dinner and then a dinner, both lots of fun.

Sunday, I had another signing at the Prism booth alongside Will O. Tyler (who colored half my OGN Trust/Truth). I insisted we have a draw-off. It took us some time to agree on a topic, but in the end it was "lesbian with a tool." We randomly awarded and retracted points from the other, and ultimately ended with a tied score. His completed drawing was a vamp with a chainsaw surrounded by some body parts. Mine was inspired by my dear friend Paige Braddock...I envisioned her chopping wood. Will and I donated our drawings to Prism for some future charity auction or something. Then I spent time queued up at the Capcom booth to buy a Mega-Man "Proto-Man" toy as a gift.

All in all, another fun and crazy con!

Jam!

Action! Romance!

Pretty girls! Cute guys!

This loop around the rink will have it all! It will leave you begging for more! Ok, ok, I'm just trying to psyche myself up to get working on it. It'll be alright.

Right now, I am wrapping up work on a CAVALCADE SAMPLER, which will include the entire V1, excerpts from V2, V3, and Love is the Reason. It will be a limited run book, perfect for shops who still have V2 and V3 in stock. Otherwise, I will package it with my remaining V2 and V3s as a set, since the jumbo book is about 5 copies away from being out of print.

I hope to finish work on the SAMPLER this weekend. Show the cover layout and the wrap-around to my designer-friend Katha on Monday, make final tweaks, and start FTPing files on Wednesday!

925

Monica's comic about Bonnie is fully titled Bonnie N. Collide Nine to Five and is largely centered around Bonnie's life in a cube farm. She rollerskates around, causing havoc, hullaballoos, mishaps, fandangos, a kerfuffle or two, and some hubbub. She has a crush on the cute guy on floor 3 and has a werewolf as a co-worker.

My story line is a little bit of a side-step, what with an ex in town. However, there must be sexual tension developing as a result of the love triangle—which will take place in the office. I'm trying to stay generally conscious of the office as a venue even though the story arc won't be about office life per se.

Bonnie N. Collide

I ran a few ideas past Monica, and she chose one in particular involving an ex boyfriend who's back in town after a stint with the Marines. That's all I'll say about the story.

But here's one of my brainstorming sketch pages. I need to review some of the finer points of Bonnie and derby. What position does she skate? What is her actual skate #?

I am having fun drawing a true leading lady, which I haven't really done since I was drawing Midge in my never-finished OGN Baby Makes Three.

In related news, I ordered the wrong color of blue woodless pencil. They aren't expensive, but shipping sure is...bummer.

Guesting

Monica Gallagher, my inspiration to use blue pencil, has her thumbs in too many pies lately:

• Gods & Undergrads webcomic
• Bonnie N. Collide webcomic
• Oni's JAM! derby girl book
• Another Oni project well underway

All that and she's a derby girl herself, rolling as Whipstick for the Charm City derby in Baltimore!

She finally admitted she needs to pare back a bit, but was nervous to abandon all her pet projects completely. So what's a girl to do?

Enter me, with my offer to guest on Bonnie N. Collide for a spell. I started sketching Bonnie to gear up...

In the meantime, check out Monica's comics at www.eatyourlipstick.com

Playin' with the brush pen

No pencils on this one at all, 100% brush pen. Her finger's kinda globby, but overall I liked the way the new brush pen glides over the sub-par paper of the sketchbook I was using.

My dad gave me a bunch of art supplies for xmas. I love trying new supplies because sometimes you find a pen or something that you really love. This is one such case: the brush pen he bought me I like even better than the Tombow brush pen. I'll need to order some online.