Categories: Comics

Payload 2…?

A couple of years ago, I did a story called Payload for Tom Dell’Aringa’s second Marooned collection. The story dealt with Lian Fischer’s mission to Mars, and detailed how she became stranded on the red planet. The story met with a decent amount of success, and so I’ll be doing a second part to the story. This second story will deal with her interactions with the mysterious underground glowy-eyed rockosauruses, The Dark Ones.

The second story will be around 8 new pages, and appended to the first 6 pages, to really flesh it out.

In this new paper and digital release, Payload will be joined by new stories by Tom Dell’Aringa, Denver Brubaker and James Anderson. Called Dr. Ugofandian’s Unbelievable Adventures, the book should be a whole lot of fun. Look for it in Spring 2012. More details at Tom’s Marooned site.

Tales of a Checkered Man – he’s back!

by Og
Categories: Art, Artists, Comics
Comments: 1 Comment
Published on: December 6, 2011

My buddy Denver Brubaker has ended his hiatus from Tales of a Checkered Man, which means you can go over and join this great comic tale already in progress. Go!

 

Moon Town book #1 – FREE with inking

by Og
Categories: Books, Comics, moon town
Tags: ,
Comments: No Comments
Published on: December 2, 2011

You – or someone on your Christmas list – has been waiting, waiting, waiting for Moon Town book #1. Maybe this is the time for you to pick it up?

I bring it up because believe it or not, some long-time readers of Moon Town didn’t realize there *was* a print version. And so, there is. You can get it at WishTales, where there is a regular version for the low, low price of $4.99. OR you can get an original inking by the artist (that’s me) for the low-low price of $13.99, and get the book FOR FREE!. (See the sort of inkings you can get, below…)

I know you care about these books. You don’t want them to be homeless, do you? Won’t you please make room for them in your home? Imagine the tears of sorrow these books spill every night as they cry themselves to sleep.

Now, imagine the tears of joy you will experience when your Moon Town book comes to live with you. You can make the world a better place – just click the link to WishTales Publishing, where you’ll find Moon Town and more - operators are standing by.

Spider-Man

by Og
Categories: Art, Comics
Tags:
Comments: 5 Comments
Published on: November 9, 2011

A quick Spider-Man drawing tonight. I was never a big Superhero guy, but I did like Spider-Man. The drawings of him were always so fun, contorted and unnatural.

I meant this drawing to be a little more stylized, but the drawing had its own ideas.

(SPIDER-MAN copyright Marvel Comics. All rights reserved.)

Creaturebox

by Og
Categories: Art, Artists, Comics, News
Comments: 3 Comments
Published on: September 15, 2011

One of the guys at work pointed me at Creaturebox yesterday, and I spent a pleasant, inspired and pretty jealous half hour browsing through their site. Creaturebox is the home of two fantastic artists, Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin. They are really great character artists, and their designs are just pure fun to look at. They are the guys behind Ratchet and Clank, which I’ve always enjoyed.

Go check ‘em out when you have a small chunk of time to spend:

I also have a little comics section which is an embarrassment of riches of Creaturebox style and artistic flair. My favorite, I guess predictably, is Morton the Bad Luck Bot. How much do I love that!?

Scott Hallett

by Og
Categories: Art, Artists, Comics
Comments: 2 Comments
Published on: August 4, 2011

Scott Hallett is a full time web developer and part time comics creator. I’ve seen him developing a great style over the past few years and I was recently reminded how fun it is to look at his art at his blog. So I thought I’d share.

I love his dead-line ink work, part Mignola, with a good dose of Flight Anthology Artist-style Indie Aesthetic thrown in for good measure. He’s also developing a great color sense. His work has recently been featured in Fablewood and Popgun. He’s one to watch.

Enjoy!

InkOutbreak

by Og
Categories: Comics, News
Comments: No Comments
Published on: August 3, 2011

If you have a webcomic and are trying to get more of the right kinds of readers (you know, people who actually come to your comic to read it, instead of the kinds of readers who are trolling the internet hoping for images of teh nakeds) or if you are a comics fan looking for the best webcomics (with or without images of teh nakeds) then you owe it to yourself to visit InkOutbreak. Join up, and if you have a comic, submit it. Join hundreds, if not thousands. Heck, even Moon Town is there!

Brian King and his Merry Band of Comics Addicted Wizards have created a portal that serves up your favorite comics with all the mind-reading magic of Pandora, and it can serve your comic up to a ton of fans, too.

Are you still here?

League, 1969

Author Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and my personal favorite, The Ballad of Halo Jones) was recently interviewed by Wired as part of their ComicCon 2011 coverage. The interview is of the incredibly in-depth variety for which I so love Wired, and it is of course laced with the profanity and genius for which I so love Alan Moore. You can read the article here.

The subject of most of the article is Moore’s forthcoming new episodes of League, one set in 1969 (above) and one set in 2009. Since the last time we saw the League in all their Victorian finery, I would love to see what adventures await them in the next century, but of course Moore gives us a glimpse into what he’s writing in the graphic novel he’s building toward, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century.

By the time you get to 2009, I think there will be little disguising of the fact that [artist Kevin O'Neill] and I are perhaps not that fond of the current era and its culture. We’re informed about it, so yes there are tons of references as you might expect. But in looking over the three books, readers are going to see a contraction of culture into a much more mean, starved and possibly diminished state than when we started Century in a great blaze of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. I think that will be one of the most striking things about Century, once you can read it straight through.

One of the best things about Moore is that he has a point of view, and a sense of humor, and both come through his writing (though not always at the same time, which may be the worst thing about his writing).

Still, I’m a fan, and I will eagerly devour Century as it comes out.

Best of Baltimore, 2011

by Og
Categories: Comics, News
Tags:
Comments: No Comments
Published on: July 30, 2011

I am honored and somewhat surprised to announce that Moon Town has been named by Baltimore Magazine as the Best Online Graphic Novel in their annual Best of Baltimore issue. The magazine is on newsstands and available for your iPod and other eReaders right now, and it appears you will need to purchase the issue in order to see the entire list of 280 restaurants, businesses and artsy things that have been selected as the Best this year.

Shameless Plug: Moon Town books are still available from WishTales Publishing while supplies last!

For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting the next installment of Moon Town, this was just the kind of shot in the arm I needed, so stay tuned for more Moon Town resuming this week!

Thank you, Baltimore!

A Call to Quality for Webcomics

by Og
Categories: Art, Artists, Comics
Comments: 2 Comments
Published on: July 29, 2011

Evan Dahm, the amazingly prolific artist behind Riceboy, Order of Tales, and Vattu, recently weighed in on the value of webcomics… GOOD webcomics, that is, in this article.

He begins simply enough:

A medium gains legitimacy and respect when people making work in that medium legitimize and respect it.

He lays out a short, and compelling case that webcomics will continue to gather more artists and readers, filling the role that “indie” comics used to fill. Now that the medium is free to share and free to read, the bar to entry for both artist and reader is much lower.

Unfortunately, so is the quality bar.

As I’ve remarked before, now that anyone with a computer, some time, some software and website can slap something together and put up a webcomic, the webcomics world has become flooded. Some of it is crap. OK, let’s be honest – most of it is crap. There is simply no guard at the door. Each well-written, well-drawn webcomic shares the same platform with dozens or even hundreds of poorly written attempts, scribbled on notebook paper during algebra class, scrawled on napkins on the bus to work, or clumsily thrown together on a state-of-the-art Cintiq and written with all the care of a hastily-composed drunken mobile text.

If Evan’s thesis is correct, then the corollary is also true, that when people who disrespect and delegitimize a medium work in that medium, it’s hard for that medium to find respect and legitimacy. At the same time, we’ve seen professional artistic and comic heavyweights like Doug Tenapel and Michel Gagne making entries into the form. The quality level of webcomics, as with indie comics previously, stretches from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Evan supposes that the market will decide, that people will naturally gravitate toward excellence. I hope he’s right. We live in an environment currently where popularity has very little to do with quality, and we are all the poorer for it.

My advice, dear reader, because you can really help here – seek out and patronize quality work. Help others find it. Ignore the crap. If you’re making a webcomic, don’t make a crappy one. Respect the form, and who knows? Maybe what Evan suggests could come to pass, that eventually the prefix will drop, and we’ll just call them comics, and they’ll all be enjoyable.

Here’s to that.

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