This time it's personal....

A piece I did for myself. This one has had a funny effect on me. It began as just a way to draw subject matter that interested me. A world where I controlled every visual element. Awfully masturbatory but I think it served it's purpose and then some. Hopefully it will turn into something down the road. I've got a story for it that seems pretty decent. It's a slow burn, the writing process, though. Having wrote the script for the graphic novel I'm currently working on, I can say that it only get's harder. The first one seems like puppy love. It's innocent and awkward, easier than you thought....but only because it ain't meant to be the love of your life. The second one has been all sloppy, hands where they shouldn't be and overly moist. Learning.

In all seriousness, I really like the idea of doing more personal work in the future. I feel like the first ten years of my career have been about learning to ride the bike. Hopefully the next few will be about traveling.

Back on track...

We're really getting into it now with Wednesday Comics. The series is past the mid mark now, and I'm pretty excited for people to see the coming week's strips. Gotta get back up to date here with the black and white pages, so here are pages 6 and 7. After the last strip is released, I plan on showing some of my preliminary work for the story as well, kind of a behind the scenes look at some of the pages in their early stages.

More goofiness...

My take on Captain America and the Red Skull for a variant cover. Not much to say here except this: Drawing chain mail is a pain in my ass! I found this cool Versace dress that was made out of little metal disks and thought, 'Perfect!'. It had that regal look and was interesting at the same time because the pieces in the 'armor' were all of varying sizes. It seemed like the perfect solution to my chain mail dilemma, until I actually had to sit down and draw it. In the end, I think it looks a little messier than I'd like. I finally get why people draw all the little disks the same size. Story of my life. See, I have to walk backwards into knowledge for some reason. I will find a way to Forrest Gump my way through almost anything.... Still, what a cool assignment. PLUS, kudos to Marvel for being so cool about letting me draw Cap the way I wanted.

Favorite bit: Red Skull's right eye.

Least favorite bit: It's pretty much a tie between the chain mail and Red Skull's glove.

Unpublished

... for good reason. Another oldie. This one was done for Marvel a few years back and never used. I think it probably has something to do with the weird interpretation of both characters. I wanted Wolverine to be really small, more like the height Byrne always seemed to give him where he really was a runt. As for Spidey, I just really love the fact that his costume is supposed to be home-made. I always thought it would look much goofier than a lot of artists draw it. More random, uneven webbing and a non-perfect fit. Personally, I think it makes the stuff he does even cooler. Just imagine the bad guys reaction to seeing a guy who looks like he just walked out of a cosplay convention. Basically, you would laugh your ass of at the guy, then he would jump fifteen feet in the air, do some crazy acrobatics, move his limbs in a completely inhuman way, and cover you with webbing. Scary :)

All in all, I consider this piece to be an earnest failure as far as 'cover image' goes. Still, it's nice to play around with character's I don't often draw. There's still a 12 year old in me that would love to do a Spider-man story... the problem is that I'm not sure there would be an audience for it. It would be a far cry from Toby Maguire. PLUS, having to draw all that webbing..... yeah, I dunno.

Page 5

...in black and white, complete with chubby Super-baby. Sometimes I still have to pinch myself at the fact that I got to do my version of Superman's origin. It was definitely a blast. I've heard the criticism that almost everybody knows Superman's origin so why does anybody need to see it again. Funny thing is, I've found, though, is that some people outside the world of comics still aren't quite sure. Contrary to popular belief, not everybody out there has seen the first Superman movie, and even more, other people I've spoken too get his origin confused with those of other super heroes. Sometimes even I forget that a large percentage of people aren't into this stuff ,).

All this aside, it was fun just trying to re-visualize the world and people of Krypton. It brings up interesting questions about Supe's costume. Is it supposed to be Kryptonian, or did Ma Kent stitch it up for him? I've seen both explanations, and I like to side with the supposition that it's Kryptonian clothing, hence all the other Kryptonians walking around in what essentially look like superhero costumes. Barbara really did a bang up job coloring this one. She brought that last panel to life.... If any of you were bothered by the printing, be sure to check out the file on the USA Today page.

That's SO old....

OK, maybe not that old but this sucker has a couple years on it at least. Did this for my pal Ale Garza. He and super talented, writer extraordinaire Allen Warner created a book called Skyrunner for Wildstorm and I was tapped to do a variant cover.. probably more because I was cheap and available than my ability to sell books ,). This cover was a blast!!! WAAAYYY more fun than I thought it would be. See, I've never felt like I had a thing for fantasy. I was never particularly interested in it as a sub-genre.... it just never grabbed me the way it did many of my friends. This cover changed my mind and I hold it directly responsible for this hankering I have to do some sort of weird fantasy project. Damn you Ale.... first you allow me to be comfortable with my love of eighties cock rock and then you turn me on to elves and orcs and shit..... bastard.

Catch up

Been a couple of weeks, which means it's high time for a few new posts. Got some stuff I did in San Diego to show in the coming weeks as well as some older unpublished pieces to share. First order of business, though, is to bring people up to speed with Wednesday Comics. Posted here are the black and white versions of pages 3 and 4. Gotta clarify that posting these by no means takes away any of the respect I have for the AMAZING work of Barbara Ciardo who is just kicking ass on the colors. Hopefully, people will dig seeing both versions. I'm very pleased, to say the least, with the work Barbara has done. Can't really say enough about her other than I want to work with her for some time...

Got to finally hear some feedback about Wednesday Comics in San Diego. It's always informative to find out what people think of the work, both good and bad. What's more, working in this weekly format has really taught me a few things about what people expect from the project. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but it's been a real peep-hole into the mind of the reader. Main thing learned: People are far less patient with the stories in this format. I would have thought that you could do more with your space, play around with the tempo of the overall story a bit more, but it seems as though most readers prefer the pace to remain fairly constant to feel like they've gotten enough bang for their buck. I could totally understand this if we were doing something ongoing, more along the lines of a classic newspaper strip that is fairly open ended. I personally see what we're doing as a finite story, with an ending clearly in sight and that the story should work to satisfy the needs of a WHOLE, not the individual pages. That said, I would love to hear what you guys think about this subject.

Other big thing I learned: Newsprint seems to have darkened almost every body's work. Chi was totally right. Modern comics are far too heavy with their coloring. That said, this sucker is going to look BEAUTIFUL in a big, collected coffee table book.

Oh, and here is an interview I did for ComicVine at the convention. It's really a great site. I was totally unfamiliar with it but hopefully you'll get a kick out of checking them out:

http://www.comicvine.com/san-diego-comic-con-09-lee-bermejo/112-341/

More to come....