I Am Rage Has A Cover

Progression

Pencils

Pencils

After about six hours on one page, I decided to go ahead and scan these, in case I screw up when I get to the inks.

Keep in mind these are still pretty loose, as I'll be doing hatching, feathering, and texture in ink.

Promotional Image

Two posts in one day? Truly the world is at an end.
Anyway, yeah, something that makes a nice promotional image, all texted up to be one. Now I get to go ink some more pages.

Just Because

The days of the week have strange names. Ever wonder how they got those names? You can read Wikipedia, but briefly,

Sunday - named for the sun, the Sun's Day
Monday - named for the moon, the Moon's Day since the sun already got one
Tuesday - named for the god most commonly referred to as Tyr. Those old Germanic spellings will get you.
Wednesday - Woden's day, another Anglo Saxon/Germanic/Norse god
Thursday - Thor. Did you not see the movie?
Friday - The only one named for a goddess, sometimes spelled Fryja, Freja, or even Frigg. So yes, Friday is friggen sweet.
Saturday - Saturn, apparently the only non-Germanic/Norse/Anglo Saxon deity that got a day (in English) But it seems it was actually named for the planet, which was named after the god.

A Taste

Some new artwork for chapter 4 of I Am Rage.

 Going less cartoony with this final chapter, the tone of it demanded it. I've pretty much given up on the idea of writing it as a comedy with action. This chapter is darker, but still not entirely serious. It will also work as a stand alone; you won't have to read the first three chapters to follow the story, but if you have, the exposition/summary of those is only about two pages.
It will also be 64 pages, counting the title page, but not the cover.

Deadpool and Domino Portfolio Pages

Cripple Crux

The other night, I was watching The Burn, which is Jeffery Ross' new show on Comedy Central. It's pretty funny, though some of it depends on his guests, but the bits are usually pretty good. One bit is called Public Enemies, dedicated to mocking the annoying to the their face, in public. One episodes, it was bouncer, but on this particular episode, it Spot Snatchers: able bodied people who take the handicap parking spots. Here's the clip on Comedy Central's site.
This is not a new concept, we've seen comedy situations where spot snatchers receive some sort of ironic punishment for their actions, but I don't think we've ever seen anyone confront the actual people, certainly not on a mobile roast podium, and not simply an avatar, portrayed by an actor.
After watching this, I found Ross on Twitter and sent him a little thank you tweet, "From a cripple, thank you for that bit #SpotSnatchers". Obviously, this pleased Jeffery Ross, as he retweeted it and it got a handful of replies.
Now, I am a cripple, I walk with a cane, and I'm pleased as punch to get some attention, the whole reason I joined Twitter was to get some attention for my comic that would hopefully translate into sales. However, this seems to have gotten a different kind of attention. I've gained a new follower, a lady in a wheelchair who is an actor. Her "gimmick" if you will, is a series of short films on YouTube based, in part, on her life as an actor in a wheelchair. More power to her. But, I'm concerned she might think I'm some sort of advocate that uses Twitter and my art as a platform for handicapped and disabled issues. I don't.
I might put a character in there, just as I might put transgender, gay, and atheist characters in something, as those are my "pet issues". I have no idea what it's like to be in a wheelchair. I don't think I'm the right person to be an advocate for The Cripples.
And yes, I call myself a cripple, but that's our word, you able-bodies don't get to use it.

I Am Rage 1 through 3

On Amazon Kindle store, 76 pages, full color, $3.50, no DRM. http://www.amazon.com/Am-Rage-ebook/dp/B0095QMRCE/ref=sr_1_14?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1347167041&sr=1-14&keywords=i+am+rage

I Am Rage 3

I Am Rage 3 is live.
I know it's a month late, but it's finally finished. Just uploaded it to Drive Thru Comics, enjoy.

Issue Three

I Am Rage number three is really late, but I can see the finish line. I've had a lot of delays and there's just nothing I can do but keep working.
However, number four is on indefinite hold. Instead, I'm going to go into "between issues" type of strips, on a weekly basis. I'm thinking Wordpress is where I'll put that, because I can plug in a navigation tool, which Blogger doesn't seem to have, without getting stuck on a crappy webcomics host with crudely drawn, poorly written fetish fuel types of comics. Sitting next to crap may make your stuff look like a Masterwork, in comparison, but people are still run off by the stink.

Joe Kubert Cover Homage

With Joe Kubert's death, I wanted to do a cover swipe homage. I was also wanting to experiment with a different kind of coloring and to do something for Erik Larsen. So I shot this out in record time, yesterday.

This coloring method is much faster and I'm applying it to the comic, now. Which means it should only be a month late. Look, shit happened, it's late, but I've hit a stride, now. Should be done, soon.

Prologue

Princess Plum

Movie Bob was on about why wasn't there a bad girl version of Princess Peach, a la Wario and Waluigi. He mentioned a few parameters, so I decided to do up a design as a warm up. The line work is for shit, because I wasn't warmed up and my hand was behaving like a child in a supermarket. I still thought it was cute, even if it does kinda look like a Bratz doll.

Warren Ellis' Commentary On the Opening Ceremony

I've been following Warren Ellis (the comic book writer) on Twitter. He's a funny guy.
Here is his commentary as he watched the opening ceremony for these Olympic Games.

Points to Danny Boyle for a genuinely creepy start to the opening ceremony. It's all some kind of hideous fucking Summoning
I will pay serious money for it to end with Ken Branagh inside the Wicker Man. 
Ken Branagh now stands in a glowing Circle Of Power as giant smokestacks rise up and fuck the very sky. This is deeply odd.
Oh, it's time to be sad. Animatronic muttonchops on Victorian gentlemen deploy to "sad" position. Ken Branage is eating a baby. 
It appears that the One Ring has been forged, in Birmingham.
Victorian industrialists are dance-miming beating poor people to death with their penises I think 
The Olympic Rings are forged, raining torrents of scourging fire down on the peasants who were forced to make them. Good message there.
Wait, James Bond has come to shag the Queen 
He's going to bend her over a corgi any second now
I see Prince Philip couldn't fake another bladder infection to get out of this one. Maybe he can ask James Bond to just shoot him. 
The Queen has summoned the armed forces and is announcing that everyone in the stadium must die to activate the hidden gods of Albion.
Okay, she's not, but that would have been right in character for this show. Did I mention I'm quite ill? 
Somewhere in the background, Ken Branagh is riding around in a cart made entirely of black people, setting model villages on fire
And now, a tribute to the National Health Service, entitled "Here's Another 27 Million Pounds You Can't Have." 
I somehow always knew that the soundtrack to the apocalypse could well be "Tubular Bells." Next up: child sacrifices!
Here comes a performance of the music from Chariots Of Fire. Stage is of course aptly decorated with dead marathon runners. 
Rowan Atkinson, folks, keeping comedy dead.
Okay, now a house full of people is being surrounded by glowing worms. I'm not sure who I'm rooting for. Possibly the worms.
mod dalek-loompas 
i swear to christ "Tiger Feet" by Mud was really not a cultural pinnacle we needed to reveal to the rest of the world
i don't feel very well and i don't know how much of what i'm seeing is actually happening 
My daughter just said: "Underage sex! Another great British pastime!"
During the 90s sequence, if you looked carefully, you could see Shaun Ryder selling the audience dodgy E's from a Sainsbury's carrier bag 
And now we celebrate the forthcoming red-giant phase of our dying sun. I think.
What if this whole thing was the intended original ending of the Danny Boyle film "Sunshine"? 
BBC commentators have informed us that Burundi is where tea comes from and that names from other countries are strange and exotic.
Sadly, the North Korean team may not walk on inside a giant inflatable political punishment camp. But, given the show so far, I have hopes. 
Am holding out for the final part, where the Tardis appears in a five-ring halo of purifying flame and John Barrowman has sex with everybody
Lord Coe of Cola has turned up to give a strangely Nietzschean sermon on the mount, only with more business motivation. 
Oh god that was heartbreaking. Muhammad Ali is there. His tender is saying "Wave, Muhammad," but he's not in there any more. He can't.
In happier news, it seems the United Nations have elected a female "champion of the earth." 
Okay, they did this right. The flame lit by seven young athletes, both genders, mixed races, sent on their way by medallists of the past.
And that cauldron of flame is a magnificent piece of engineering. 
All it needs now is for Paul bloody McCartney to turn up and ruin everything. OH WAIT

More Teaser Art

Jason Pearson does Norman Rockwell

I like Jason Pearson. I think he's one of those artists who's never gotten enough attention. It's not the most famous of Rockwell's paintings, but this little homage makes me smile.
Hat tip to I Love Comic Covers, for the side by side.

I Am Rage - Amazon Edition - updated

Amazon's Kindle store is kind of poorly set up. I can't put free items on it and if I want to sell something for less than $2.99, I can only get 35% royalty on it. I wanted to price my comics at 1.50, which I think is a fair price. But 35% of that is jack shit, so I decided to upload to Kindle in a bundle deal. I Am Rage one and two will be sold as one item for $3 on the Amazon Kindle site.

I could have just waited and put the entire thing on there as an anthology, but I'm hoping sales will pick up, being listed on Amazon, because, frankly, sales have been shit. Lots of downloads of the freebie prologue, but not the full issue.
At this rate, I may just say fuck it, put it on the back burner, and go look for freelance work.

I Am Rage 2

I Am Rage issue two, is going live.
I just finished uploading the second issue to Drive Thru Comics' website.

Why did it take 60 days, instead of the comics standard of 30 days? Because I don't have a team. I'm writing, penciling, inking, scanning, lettering, and coloring on my own. And because I was impatient, I didn't wait and build a page buffer, before I released the first one.

Still at Work

 Passed the half way point on issue two, but still behind. I'm hoping I can make the 60 day mark, from when the first issue went live.


 Anyway, here's a couple teaser images from issue two.

There's some good character development in this one. I just have to finish illustrating it.

Female Faces

Ugh, every time I get used to something's layout, it gets changed. Google/Blogger has changed the layout, so now I'm probably going to screw up, on this post. Enough bitching, for now...

Most comic artists are men. Most men, kinda suck at drawing women. Obviously, I'm not the first to make this observation. One of the theories as to why, is men try to make their female figures too perfect. You'll see a wide variety in the male figures, generally. While there is a standard heroic male body type, these guys clutter their universe with women that all look like centerfolds. On the rare occasion that they are asked to specifically draw a woman who isn't of that body type, the guys typically screw up.
Learning the three basic human body types is a helpful tool. Look at real people and you'll see plenty of examples of the endomorph, some of the ectomorph, but rarely the mesomorph. If you're not familiar with those terms, just have a quick search, because right now, I want to focus on faces.

Too many artists just draw the same handful (if that) of faces with different hair and maybe some scars or something, over and over. This is particularly true of women's faces.
It takes practice to draw faces. It takes even more practice to draw faces that look different. And, it takes a lot more to draw faces that are attractive, yet still have unique features.
Scarlett has a pointy chin. Sofia has big eyebrows. Laverne has a bulbous nose. Lindsay has a cleft chin. Lucy has a tiny chin. Thora has deep set eyes.
These features jump out at you. None of them are "perfect", but does it make them any less attractive?

Misconceptions

The line in the ad, in case you haven't seen it, is "People have a lot of misconceptions about California, but they really aren't true." If they were true, then they wouldn't be MISconceptions.
I'm guessing Kardashian there couldn't say "preconceived notions."

First Issue is Live

The first issue of I Am Rage is available, here:
http://comics.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?&manufacturers_id=4438

Read the seven page prologue for free, full issue is only $1.50.
Next issue should be out within 30 days.

First Issue Done

First issue of I Am Rage is done, the PDF is uploaded, and I'm just waiting for conformation from Drive Thru Comics. I will probably upload to the Kindle store, also, but I'm tired. I've been making PDFs and going over legal stuff and reading regulations and requirements and torturing myself over the description, so I'm a bit worn out. I don't feel this drained after a 12 hour work session of writing, drawing, inking, clean up, and/or coloring.
I really wish I could pay an assistant; someone to do all the tedious jobs like scanning, color flats, lettering, etc.
Tomorrow, I'll probably torture myself some more with the Kindle store set up (at least this time I'll have a little better idea of what to expect - this is all new to me) and try to get some writing done. Though I'm still kicking myself because I had a really good idea that I didn't write down, and I forgot it.

Been Busy

Doing the color rendering (where it goes from flat to fully highlighted and shaded) on the last few pages of the first issue. I should have a link up, some time next week.

Things They Don't Always Tell You In Books

There are a lot of how-to books for drawing and even making comics. I've read a few and most seem to be lacking in practical advice.  Things like,

Often, the oldest advice is the best.
If a book has been in print for 20, 50, 80 years, good bet it's what the newer books are based on. Norling's Perspective Made Easy, is a good example. I've flipped through a few books on perspective, and that one is best, in terms of comprehensive and easy to follow. I think some of these writers mistook themselves for Pythagoras.

When you're starting off, work cheap.
Those fancy comic boards with the measurements marked off and printed are nice, but they end up about a dollar a board. When you're starting off and just doing practice stuff, it's better to just go get a ream of 11x17 paper from the copy shop. The measurements on those pre-printed boards help a lot, so maybe get one pack and use them as guides, using masking tape to tape down a piece of the regular stuff. Or you can find some templates, online, to print out (like these http://elfkin.deviantart.com/art/Comic-template-kit-1-215257523 ). If you're planning to paint on it, then you'll want a book of watercolor paper (or something similar) and to use a lightbox.  Which brings me to the next thing...

Learn how to build your own lightbox.
A good lightbox costs a small fortune. But building one is not big deal, because it's really just a wooden box with a Plexiglas top and a light inside. If you're not secure in your construction skills, you can jerry rig one. A couple ways to do that: turn an empty fish tank on its side and stick a table lamp inside, or get a glass top drafting table and get a flat light to put under it (like the kind they put in fish tanks).

Kill your ego (and don't take it personally).
When someone offers you a constructive criticism, they aren't trying to make you feel bad, they saw some sort of potential there, and want to help you get to the next level. If your stuff is just that bad, they won't bother criticizing.  Sometimes, the only way to learn, is to fail. So if you failed, get over it, and don't do it again - learn from your mistakes. But when your failure isn't obvious, it takes someone with experience to see it. One of the biggest favors you can do yourself, is to kill your ego and listen to advice from someone who's been there, done that.

Don't be afraid of the pros.
They had to start somewhere, and if they see a talent, they may just latch onto it and try to guide it to the next level. That's what happened with Neal Adams and Frank Miller - Neal recognized the potential that Frank had, and tried to guide him, and eventually helped Frank get into the industry. And don't get discouraged because your favorite artist didn't respond. Often your favorite artist is a lot of people's favorite, and just doesn't have the time to take you under their wing. Most comics artists are really nice people and they'll help you, if they can, but they just don't have the time to go over everyone's portfolio and give them critiques.


Special thanks to Eric.

Extras

More character design and an unused page with black and white/color comparison.

My stuff always focuses on the disenfranchised in more positive roles. I'm not the "every-person" so I find stories about them, usually, boring. I also have my "liberal agenda" of inserting transgenders as positive role models, not ew jokes or porn. Not that I have anything against porn, but there's a time and place for everything. There's a lot of positive gay characters out there, not so many transgender. Ugly Betty was the only thing I can think of, off the top of my head. And it's cancelled.

I like to do these comparisons between color and black and white. Originally, this was a prologue page, but I went in a different direction. You can also see how the way I draw the characters has evolved. I've gotten more loose and cartoony with them, which is the idea. These were very conservative and still too bound to illustration.

Church and State

Next time someone complains about Planned Parenthood, I'm going to bitch about the Catholic Church.

Catholic Charities is one of the nation’s most extensive social service networks, serving more than 10 million poor adults and children of many faiths across the country. It is made up of local affiliates that answer to local bishops and dioceses, but much of its revenue comes from the government. Catholic Charities affiliates received a total of nearly $2.9 billion a year from the government in 2010, about 62 percent of its annual revenue of $4.67 billion. Only 3 percent came from churches in the diocese (the rest came from in-kind contributions, investments, program fees and community donations).
In Illinois, Catholic Charities in five of the six state dioceses had grown dependent on foster care contracts, receiving 60 percent to 92 percent of their revenues from the state, according to affidavits by the charities’ directors.
- from a New York Times article 

 And don't think for a second that because it's a charity, doesn't mean it's religious. Ever been to one of those church-run free clinics? They make you pray for your medicine and send church officials around to harass you.
Also, those "many faiths" mentioned, excluded single, unwed, and gay parents.
You don't get to act like a private organization and a public one, whenever it suits your needs.

I Am Rage Cover Mockup

A cover mockup, with logo, for I Am Rage.

Pages!

Enjoy this teaser of I Am Rage.