4:30 AM October 28, 2006

Busy as hell. As people keep pointing out to me....at least I'm busy doing something in a field I enjoy (lettering comics) and being busy means making money. Valid points....but I'd still rather be spending the bulk of my time writing. I have a few big things coming up that are going to be keeping me lettering a LOT through the end of the year and maybe a month or two beyond but I'm starting to trim down my lettering jobs.

Going to be more selective and asking more money. If it's going to keep me away from writing, it better be good or filling my wallet or both! NOT that I haven't enjoyed my recent jobs! That's surely NOT the case. But for the sake my my writing "career"...can you really call it a career when you're at the point where it costs you more than it makes you?...I just need to set the bar higher to keep myself from taking more jobs than I should. Future jobs should be really cool, or fun, or see me working for a big company or on projects with extra cool talent involved...or they should at least be paying me my new minimum rate. I can almost hear JD from Imperium saying "Oh, $#*@!! What does that mean??"

Anyway, moving on...it's 4:30am and I've been in bed a few hours, just miserable sick with a messed up back and dealing with a touch of his flu we have going 'round around here, but I feel a bit better so I figured I better get on the computer and finish one last page of lettering an a short story for a fella. Checked my email and found pencils for a Black Watch cover...or variant cover...or poster...or something. The pic on the left is a quickie mock-up with the logo.

Also got some sweet headshots from the artist doing Life of Riley with me. LoR is a mismatched group of teens bouncing around realities trying to find pieces of an artifact, trying to find Riley's mom and brother who they learn are out there reality-hopping too, and trying find a way home. Maybe I'll post those up later.

Well, time is a'wastin'...I better crank out that page and get back to bed.

Letterin' fool...

That's what's taking up this week...and most of last week....and probably a good chunk of next week...LETTERING. But I MUST get some writing in when I can.

Two short stories for Digital Webbing Presents...Ian Ascher's Codename: Wicked Angel (click the pic to the right) and Rick Evans' Canadian Legion (click the pic below). Pistolfist #1 recently came out and I wrapped up issue #2 a little while back, Lost Squad #6 should (I assume) be headed my way soon, one more Digital Webbing Presents story to do. Empty Chamber #2 needs to be done, as does Psychosis (Two 48-pages issues). I also have a couple of graphic novels to letter in the coming months, more on those when I can.

Final material for Trailer Park of Terror #5 is coming in. Including stuff for the story I wrote for the issue, Lost Highway. I'm excited about getting more writing in print and I hope to get the Trailer Park guys many more stories soon.

Hopefully soon you'll be seeing some bigger writing projects from me as art starts to come in and I get the books out there. At that point I'll be begging for you to rush out and buy.

More....

Things continue to move along. Lots of lettering to do but I wanted to give you something for popping in here!

More Black Watch characters from ....that artist I'm not naming yet. :D (click to enlarge)



Don't think this is the exact style the pages will be in, he said he was going to experiment with a little more "edge". Hopefully I can show you some of that soon.

Two days in a row!

Just a really quick post before I get back to lettering. I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the new Black Watch artist until I see how things go and I wasn't going to post any of his art for a while either. But I got some character designs today and wanted to share one. (Click it to make it bigger)

Hello??

Hello? Anyone still even looking in here?? :D

I've been wicked busy with lettering and trying to write. All sorts of cool stuff going on and most of it I can't really talk about yet. Of course work on my own books goes in fits and starts and truly tests my resolve to do this comic-making thing. But I'm either too stuborn or too stupid to throw in the towel.

The eternally delayed Black Watch has just moved on to it's NINTH artist. This book should have been done three years ago but I have repeatedly had artist delays turn into artist changes. Everyone who knows details is chomping at the bit to see the book done, all the artist who have been on board have claimed to LOVE the material....it just always falls apart. I'm going to wait to announce who is on it now...wait and see how it pans out. He's seems like a serious pro so I have high hopes. He's done work at Image and Dark Horse and is quite a talented dude. If things start moving I'll eagerly post some art.

One of my big Nothingface miniseries has been canceled...or maybe just postponed. The artist and I talked and decided that we'd transfer our collaboration to something completely different. There were some issues with how he felt he was doing, how his style was meshing with Nothingface. Nothingface remains the book that is closest to my heart (for now, I guess that could change) and I sincerely hope to do a LOT of it down the road. For now, one mini is still being SLOWLY worked on and a one-shot is still planned with another artist as soon as he finishes up his current book. It's honestly starting to feel like I need to try and make a name and THEN go after getting Nothingface out there in a big way.

Okay, back to work for me. Hopefully, I'll be back soon with more info and art to post.

Oh, that image up there...Evanescence - The Open Door. The new album is fantastic. It's so rare to have an album be so good and so successful and have the follow-up be just as good...they did it. It's the same kind of stuff but a little different...definitely does NOT feel like you're just listening to the same album again. I've listened to it 3 or 4 times since I got it off iTunes yesterday.