Busy, busy, busy...

Alright, so, I've been busy getting the ballons made and getting the pages lettered. I am doing this the only way I have figured out on my own. Of course, since then, I have discovered other easier ways to do this and will be experimenting with these processes on future issues. Onward and upward, Here's a preview of the first 2 pages of issue#1 of Valkkadia, lettered and all. Just click on them for a larger version.

I hope you like them and if all goes right in the universe, I might even have a sneak preview of the finished cover, with inks by Walter Simonson tomorrow. I plan to approach a couple of professional colorists I know to color the cover for us. Keep your fingers-crossed as I will be doing this at Comic-Con Intl. in 2 weeks and I hope that one of them has the time for it.

Well, I have the cover setup to finish, an ad to create, and the setup of the inside covers of the book and the book will be all done. This has been quite the journey. We, Hassan and myself, started working in this project (in this form; Hassan's been working on this story in one form or another for almost 10 years!) over a year ago, and we've seen many deadlines we created for ourselves come and go. This isn't anyone's fault, things just took longer than we planned. Now, we have a better, more solid plan and have been picking up a more consistent pace on page production and we hope to maintain some competent form of release schedule.

While we our printing this book ourselves and will continue to do so as long as humanly possible, we will be shopping the book around to established comic companies in the hopes that someone may actually pay us to create it. Geez, wouldn't that be nice, huh?

Hey there...

Well, hello there. I was at the Big Apple Con's free 1-day show today with Walter and we had a pretty good time. A small show by any measure, but still a lot of quality packed into a small space. Essentially split into 2 rooms, Artist's Alley and a dealer room, the show, held at the Pennsylvania Hotel in Manhattan, was abuzz with folks when we arrived about noon. We quickly ran down one of the organizers and were shown to a good table spot in the artist's room. I set up the sales area for Square 1 Press items, which only consists of the Walter Simonson sketchbook right now, but nonetheless. I also had the print proof of the new Howard Chaykin sketchbook there on display and got a lot of good feedback on it. I think Philly should go well, possibly selling out of the Simonson sketchbooks. So, if yer there, or you haven't go yours yet, then you bettter grab one while you can, either online here or at the show in Philly next week. We also had a flyer I made last night to handout that looked like this:
We met alot of great fans of Walter's and even though he wasn't planning in sketching at all, of course, he relented and began sketching for some fans.
In the afternoon he had a 45-min panel with Gene Colan and spent the time relating great stories to the small roomull of fans alongside Gene. Afterwords, Walter introduced me to Gene and his delightful wife, Adrienne. I have to say this was a great honor for me, along with Walter, Gene Colan's artwork was another of the great influences on early comics education and it was real treat for me to meet this legend. In addition, I also got to meet the great British artist Kevin O'Neill, creator of "Nemesis:the Warlock" and "Marshall Law" and artist on the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" graphic novels.

I also met a young artist trying to break in to the comics biz. His name is Dominic Orologio and here is small sample of his work. More can be seen at his web gallery here. Some fun stuff there, check it out. If you want even MORE, then go here. Click on the "Illustrations" tab on the lower right of his homepage.

All in all, a good day. I sent the Chaykin sketchbooks off to print yesterday, should be picking them up mid-week.

One bit of sad news, albeit one with a small upside. Hassan Godwin, the creator/writer/artist for the "Valkkadia" project was let go from his job this past week. The latest in a long line of good folks from this particular company. The upside? He has lots of free time to draw now, and we're gonna get a lot of stuff done in the next couple months.

Anyways, I'm out, enjoy your weekend, talk to ya soon!

Friday-rain day-good for stayin' in

OK, I said yesterday that I had gotten the replacement page for the 1st issue of Valkkadia. Well, I spent today inking it and now it's done. I'm gonna post both the original page and then the new replacement version so you can see the changes more obviously.

In the original page, with the amount of dialogue and the way it was laid out, (reading all the way down the left side before going back up to the top) it just wasn't gonna work out properly.
That and the panel with the heads in the lower right column became unnecessary. So, the decision was made (no prompt from me) to just redraw the page and the new page is the 2nd image.
I'm supposed to get the last of the replacement artwork tonite. Which consists only of a few panel replacements. Quick re-inks and photoshop edits and the book is as good as done, artwise. PHEW!

By next week, I should have the final edit of the script and I can balloon this bad boy and have it ready to print by next weekend. If I'm lucky, I might have the finished cover as well. Then all I have to do is get it colored and setup the intro/credit pages and get one ad page squared away.

It's been a fairly long road to get this 1st issue finished, but we're almost there. It only gets easier, right?

Right?