THE SIMPSONS NEWS

This is the last full week I have to work on the the episode I’m on. Tuesday, my work load doubled.  I have more work than I think I can do.  Still, I’m going for it.  I have to figure  out a way to get it all done.  Wish me luck.

Okay so, as of the time of this writing, this is the last of the drawings we’ve done of the superhero versus thing.  Once again, Tommy drew something I can’t put up on my site so if you want to see it, you have to go CLICK HERE.  When he showed me the pencil drawings I was planning to put it up, and then he colored it and added some details that I thought were a bit inappropriate so…

Paul‘s drawing I can’t put up so here’s my last one:

I drew Spider-man (Marvel Comics) Vs. Batman (DC comics).  Yeah, this is reeeaaally stretching it.  They fight because their main mode of transportation, in their respective comics, is swinging around the city.  Which is to say, I was using any excuse to draw these guys together. I couldn’t help myself and gave Batman “Astro Boy” boots.

Interestingly enough, after I finished the drawing and handed a copy to Paul.  He told me I should ink it.  Paul is really into inking right now.  I told him I might but I’d rather start drawing new drawings than keep working on ones I just finished.  I then said, I’d probably go back and ink all the other drawings I’d done,  just so that I can get some practice in at some point.

The next day, when I got to work, I found this on my desk:

It seems Paul had gotten a bit of extra time and decided to ink my drawing.  Not only did he ink it but since he has been obsessing over inking and he’s been studying Michael Golden‘s work, he decided to ink my drawing in Michael Golden‘s style. The thing I found most interesting about the drawing was that he fixed the things I was most annoyed about in my drawing, namely, that the black had pretty much covered up most of the details of the characters.  Paul took in upon himself to add a secondary light source when he inked the drawing, adding a new dynamic to it.  Only after seeing what he did, did I kick myself over not having thought to do it myself.  It was a good choice on his part.

COMIC BOOKS

A kinda of weird thing happened to me this weeked.  It started sometime last week.  I was listening to a Role-playing game Podcast were in there was and  interview of a game designer.  I’m not sure which podcast it was or who the designer was, but they were talking to him about his superhero roleplaying game.  He mentioned that he had made “stats” of some public domain superheroes and put then in his game.  I thought to myself, “Public domain superheroes?” So later in the week, I recalled the interview and decided to look up these superheroes and I found them.  About 100 or so Golden Age superheroes that were never copyrighten and that had fallen into the public domain.

I then discovered how there had been attempts over the last ten to twenty years, by different companies to use and revive these character, without much success.  After reading the characters’ their bios, I got excited and wanted to do a take of some of these characters of my own.

May 2nd was Free Comicbook Day.  I went to the comic store with Dante, my Brother, his wife Deborah and my little nephew Paolo.   Among the comics I picked up was a free issue of Savage Dragon by Erik Larsen, and lo and behold, one of these Golden Age public Domain characters was in the comic. That was a pretty big coincidence.  Then doing more research, I discovered that these same characters had made their way into Alan Moore‘s hands  (of Watchmen fame) a while back and he had written them into one of his Tom Strong comics (issues 11 and 12), which I owned.  I took out my copy of the comic and was blown away. I had read the thing before but I didn’t know that the characters had been  public domain. Then I discovered that Alex Ross was having a go at these guys too in his Dynamite comics run, currently on sale. So it seems everyone knows about these guys and I’m really behind the times.

In any case, I think that’s pretty cool.  It makes me want to try to do something with them.  I think I have an idea for one of them already. We’ll see if I can actually get off my lazy bottom and do it.

FAMILY

My mom got mad at me because I forgot to write about my nephew Paolo’s baptism last week.  I had forgotten all about it.  Work is really stressing me out right now.  It’s almost all I think about. It was a nice baptism.  Hurray for Paolo! She also got mad because I didn’t draw a cartoon about it.  Well, I only have so much time in the day.   I’m working on a commission right now that’s taking up all my drawing time. I wish I could do some cartoons but I can’t.

In fact, I wish I had the time to draw a cartoon about what happened THIS weekend. My Godmother’s daughter Lili, her husband John and their daughter Stella came over to visit from out of state.  Stella is the same age as Munchkin and they are both very energetic little girls.  I was really excited about their meeting.  I wanted Munchkin to meet Stella so bad.  I’d seen and read a lot about her from the photos that Lili sends my mom.  Well, I won’t go into much detail right now because maybe at some point I might have the time to do that.  What I WILL say is that the day was full of fodder for cartoons I don’t have the time to draw.  Here’s hoping I can at least get ONE done at some point in the next couple of weeks.

Love you Lili, John and Stella! It was great seeing you.

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