From the Vault - Exit 6 Alternate Covers 1999

After I ended my self published comic book, Exit 6, at the end of 1998 I thought that was it for the concept.

But, along comes 1999 and a start up comic book company approaches me and wants to republish the existing issues of Exit 6 as well as pay me to complete the series. Long meetings were held to hash out the details, contracts were signed, and we agreed that I'd do new covers for the new series under their comic label.

These are the new, alternate covers I came up with.

The good part is it really gave me a chance to rethink my initial covers and do something new on each of them. As with most of my personal colored work before 2001, these covers were all done with traditional means. I would ink by hand and the logos and comic information were pasted up by hand on the original. Then I would go to a place that had a photostat camera and have them shoot a stat so I would have a clean service to airbrush on. Then I'd airbrush up the whole thing, cover and logos included.

All in all, I was happy with the new covers.

The bad news is that after I finished these covers the guys I signed the contracts with disappeared.

Now, like most of the work I did for shady, fly-by-night companies in the late 90's who had me do work for them, not pay me, and then disappear, you'd think the story might end there. But, it didn't.

I'm not sure how long, maybe a few months or a year later, I got an email from a fan telling me he was really happy to see I was doing something with Exit 6 comic again through a company, if I recall, called Ice Comics. He had read the news on the companies website. I had no idea what he was talking about, where this website was located, or even who "Ice Comics" was. So, I clicked on a link he sent me to check out this news.

What I found was a comic called, again, if I recall correctly, "Goon Toon".

And, it looked vaguely familiar.

OK, it looked a lot familiar.

What this company had done was take the first issue of Exit 6, recolored it, and repackaged it under a new name. It listed a separate creator, writer, penciler, inker, and colorist. And, guess what? None of them were me.

I was furious. I wanted to hit somebody. The gall of some people. To just take a person's personal work and steal it in such a way made me sick. Luckily, I had some recourse. The first issue of Exit 6 was actually registered for a copyright with the US Government so the ownership of the property was all mine. I drafted a letter to Ice Press telling them as much and told them to take my work that they had stolen down off of their website or I'd have my lawyer get in contact with them. I never got a response but, the next day, "Goon Toon" was nowhere to be found on their site.

So, Exit 6 was finally done. But at least I got some new covers out of the whole mess.

The funny thing is, this wasn't the last time someone would take my work and pass it off as their own. But, that's a whole other story.

Thursday Inks

The inks on the new OilCan Drive project continue.

It's not until I'm right in the middle of doing a new comic book that I remember what a grind it is to get one done. Most single illustrations you can get in, get out, and start the next one.

But, with pages and pages of story, it just never seems to end.

The good news is that I have surpassed the half way mark and am now on the back end of the story. The bad news is that most of the "fun" pages have been inked and it's harder and harder to pull a page from the pile that turns me on and makes me want to ink it.

So, I just close my eyes, grab one, and keep inking.

Just keep inking...just keep inking...

Inked!

After a day of drumming away (I take drum lessons every other week) I found some time Tuesday night to ink the newest pin-up girl. You can click on the image to see a larger version of the inks.

I always like doing these pieces. When dealing with a nude body there aren't a lot of lines and tricks to hide behind. No clothing folds or dense shadows. Every line you put down has to be perfect because all you get is that one.

And, not only do you get the simplicity of the lines on the body but you can get a bit more detailed with the hair and the face. It's a fun exercise all around and is a nice change of pace from doing the client work, the kid's books, or the OilCan Drive project.

Next step, onto the colors.

The last pin-up girl I did I colored with a grayish purple skin. Maybe this time I'll go green...or blue...we'll see how it comes out! Stay tuned!

It's Nudey Magazine Day!

Well, not really, but that is one of my favorite lines from Adam Sandler's "Billy Madison" and, given today's photo from the art table, seemed appropriate.

I found this piece I had penciled a few months ago and never got around to finishing. I guess the OilCan Drive project as well as client work got in the way and I forgot all about it until I found it today while rummaging through some pages I had in a pile.

So, now that I've found it again I think it's time to ink it up and paint it.

I really love the cheesecake aspect to the piece, how it's sexy, but still all of the naughty bits are covered. I'll take more photos and scans as this piece comes along but, for now, I thought it would be fun to share the promise of a new piece.

Have a great Monday.

From the Vault - HeavenFall 1999/2001

Back when I worked a regular 9-5 job I used to take naps in the afternoon. I'd get off of work at around 4pm, go home, and crash until around 7pm. Then I'd get up, eat some dinner, and do art all night long. I'd end up going to bed around 2am and getting back up at 7am to start the day again. In essence, I split my day into two work days, waking up for both "days" at 7am and 7pm. One day for the job type job and one day for my art. It seemed to work for me.

A lot of "regular" people said I was messing up my sleep cycle and probably wasn't getting the REM sleep I needed. How did I go into a deep sleep in such short spurts of sleep? How did I dream?

How did I dream?

I actually dreamed quite well, thank you.

The concept of Heavenfall came to me one afternoon in a dream, almost fully formed and ready to go. The dream had a gateway to Heaven, angels and demons, and Heaven's chosen champion, a kid with nothing left to lose, as the main character.

I woke up and wrote the whole thing down. In the months that followed, I fleshed out the story, did research into angels and demons, did character sketches, and wrote out a full story. I did sample art for the project and a few pages. I sent the project proposal out to every comic company I thought of to see if anyone might be interested in publishing it.

And I was rejected by every single one of them.

This is one of the pieces I did in 1999 as a sample for the proposal. It sat in my portfolio for two years before I dusted it off and scanned it into my computer to play with Photoshop. It was the first image I fully colored in Photoshop and I think it took me three days to complete. I figured, as a final touch, I'd make it into a movie poster. At that time the project seemed dead and I had nothing left to lose so why not?

I still really love the story of HeavenFall and would love to revisit it someday. After having so much fun writing an OilCan Drive film script last year I always thought, if I write another script, it will be a HeavenFall script. So, yeah, someday something more will be done with this idea.

And, the dream...I still have fond memories of that dream. One of my favorite parts was near the end. Like most of my dreams my perception shifted from watching the story, like a viewer watching a movie, to me actually inhabiting the main character. Near the end of the dream the main character, or I, was standing on a scorched desert-like landscape. The sky was covered with beautiful, fire colored red and orange clouds. It was like the end of a movie. Above me, a group of angels alit and flew into the sky.

As I looked up at them, they whispered to me from the sky...

"Just remember, we love you...we always have..."

Monkey Versus Robot

It wasn't until I took this photo today that I realized that one of the elements behind the latest OilCan Drive story is the classic battle between monkey and robot. Well, Henry's not really a monkey, more like an ass kicking, bass playing gorilla, but you get the idea.

And, in my story, at least where Henry is concerned, the poor robot just doesn't stand a chance.

This is the first page I've done in a while that just felt right. Up until now, I let a few comments about my work invade my brain. It actually slowly drove me crazy to the point where I was being super critical of every pencil line and brush stroke I put on paper. Art was no longer any fun. It was just something I did to pass the time during the day.

But, today was different. Today two pieces of wisdom came my way and made all things right with the world.

One was from a podcast interview with Brian Stelfreeze. He had two really great pieces of wisdom about art.

One was that the only one who cares if the line is exactly right or if an eye is a touch too far to the left is the artist themselves. No one else cares. As long as the art serves the story than all is well. One of his observations was that, to most people out there in the world, Rob Liefeld and Adam Hughes look just the same. Now, I don't know about that but I can understand what he is saying.

The second piece of wisdom is that, somehow, what the artist is feeling and what they are trying to convey comes through in their art. An example he used is when he opened up a book of Japanese Manga with an immensely detailed cityscape. His first thought was, "wow, that looks difficult!" and his thought was that somewhere, sometime, the artist who did that piece was probably thinking, "wow! this piece is difficult!" So, his thinking was that if you put your heart into your art and have fun, that will show, even if the technical side of the art might be lacking.

So, that got my mindset back into just having fun. Especially with my own work. There are enough art directors and clients out there who are ready to tell me what is right and wrong with my art. Enough people out there with a million ideas of how to "fix" my work and make it better. So, why should I be one of those people when there are more than enough of them out there ready to do that job for me?

So, step one....have fun again.

The second piece of wisdom came from a six hour long interview I've been reading with Jim Steinman, the man who wrote all the music behind Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" albums (which, by the way, take on a whole new meaning when you learn the ideas behind almost all of those songs comes from Steinman's concept of a futuristic, x-rated, Peter Pan).

He was telling tales of his life in the music business and his dealings with Jimmy Iovine (head of Interscope records and the guy who recorded and mixed Springsteen's "Born to Run" album). It seems Jimmy Iovine always had little pearls of wisdom. And this is one of my favorites:

"You know, I always describe it as, and I'm referring to Jim Iovine again, 'cause another thing that always has stayed with me when he was mixing with me one time, every time at the same point in the song he'd get up, he'd suddenly pounce up and he'd go to one of the dials of the console and he'd turn it wildly from left to right.

He did it like eight times in a row. Every time we'd do a mix of the song. I finally said, Jimmy what are you doing? Every time that comes around you go, oh I gotta do that. He'd turn the dial left and right. He goes, oh that, well that's for the kid in Wisconsin. Every record I do I figure you should put in one thing for the kid, the teenager in Wisconsin who's in bed listening on headphones 'cause his parents don't want to hear the music and he's got, he's smoked a little dope and he's got the covers over his head and he's listening in the dark.

I think you gotta have something where it goes fast, left to right. He goes, holy shit, wow. That was the first thing for the kid in Wisconsin. To this day I've metaphorically expanded that to every song, anything for theater or a film or music that I do. I always think of the kid in Wisconsin. There's gotta be something for him and basically I always think the kid in Wisconsin still exists in the widower in Miami, the nurse in Kansas, the 50 year old business woman in Texas.

I just, thus again the teenager who never dies. I think it's the kid in Wisconsin. That's the metaphor for me. With the covers covering his head, the headphones on, escaping in the dark and you want to put the little thing where he travels back and forth, and that came from Jimmy."

So something about idea of having some kid in Wisconsin digging what you're doing resonated with me. Maybe it's the idea of the audience out there who, someday, will really enjoy your work, and doing it for them.

So, from now on I am trying to do my best to have fun with my work and put a little something in their for the kid from Wisconsin.

After that, everything seems easy.

Full Circle

The new Yamaha digital piano I bought a week ago has finally found it's home in the house.

We had to do a little bit of rearranging but it's found its place in front of the blocked off fire place (that badly reproduced Back to the Future poster was good for something...keeping the wind out). It's not perfect but it's out of the way yet still close enough to play anytime I want to hit the ivories.

So, I've slowly started learning how to play. Most of the stuff I am doing is using what I know on guitar and transferring it to the keys. The keyboard, which once looked like a mess of black and white keys that I would never understand, is finally making some sense to me.

I've also started looking for songs and albums that feature piano riffs that I can learn. Right now, stuff like Bach and Beethoven don't do much for me and, honestly, seem a bit out of my league. So, I've looked into my own record collection to find a few albums that turn me on.

And, I've found two. Two albums that feature piano riffs that I love and am eager to learn. Two albums I came to know in an odd way.

When I was a teenager and living back on Peaks Island, off the coast of Maine, I held a job at the local grocery store. I would stock the milk, beer, and soda coolers. I would take out the trash, man the small video counter, and stock the shelves.

And, I would do the deliveries.

Now, the delivery truck was the first real standard transmission vehicle I learned how to drive well. It was this huge old bread truck and the only thing I can compare it to these days is the big UPS trucks. It was awesome. The gear shift actually came out of the floor so you'd have to do these massive moves to get the truck from second to third gear. I loved it.

The stereo system in it was another matter. It had this stereo that someone had probably ripped out of an old car and rigged to work in the truck. It was an old system that had only an AM/FM radio and an 8-track tape player. Yep, you heard me, an eight track.

And, it only had two eight track tapes to choose from.

What I find funny is that now, all these years later, is that these two albums that I was introduced to on eight track tape, the same two albums that kept me company while driving this behemoth of a truck around the island, are now the same two albums I am looking to for piano playing inspiration.

Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" and Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell".

Power chords and single note riffs, here I come!