LOST returns with new episodes this Wednesday– and I almost decided not to return to watching the show. I was absolutely livid when I learned that they’d be taking so much time off from the season and inserting a new show– DAYBREAK– into the LOST time slot to keep people ‘placated’ while they were doing… whatever it is they were going to be doing during that period. Of course, no one wanted to watch DAYBREAK… they want LOST– and so DAYBREAK was quickly canned. I can only hope that the LOST folks have been brewing up some great twists and turns and interesting character stuff for the show– because, frankly, I’ve felt like the 3rd season has been rather flat. I’m not loving the storyline dealing with the imprisonment of Jack, Kate and Sawyer. It feels as though the writers and producers are treading water with this stuff. My biggest fear for this show is that it ends up like THE X-FILES in that it becomes some big cumbersome, convoluted mess with no wrap up– leaving LOST fans feeling cheated. I can’t express how frustrated and unfulfilled I felt at the end of the X-FILES series run. I didn’t need a neat little bow on everything they were exploring, by any means…. but the way the show ended was just confusing and wasteful. It was as if Chris Carter ran out of ideas and just got bored and called it quits.

I’ve decided to go ahead and watch the rest of this season of two halves of LOST– even though the layoff tempted me to just drop it altogether. All I can say is that they’d better have some great stuff in store if they want to keep THIS viewer.

OK… gotta get to work.

This is Entry 335.

Mike

I’ve written a lot about the dearth of fun, engaging and interesting comics in today’s market. Alan Moore’s ABC (America’s Best Comics) line of books from WILDSTORM a few years back was one bright light in the gloom of ‘grim and gritty’ superhero comics. Titles like PROMETHIA, TOP 10, THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and TOM STRONG were all so very fascinating and wonderful to read. Of those, my favorite was TOM STRONG. TS was a pastiche of influences like DOC SAVAGE, FANTASTIC FOUR and SUPERMAN. It had a terrific science ficiton base, and the characters from the book were constantly getting caught up in multi-dimensional spanning adventures. Fun and high-concept were the rules of thumb for TOM STRONG. Chris Sprouse’s art for the book was always great… he’s one of the most overlooked, amazing artists in this business.

During the period back when Mark Waid had been removed by Bill Jemas off the FANTASTIC FOUR assignment, and I had left in support of Mark– I got a few offers from folks for books they thought I might be interested in. One of those offers was from Scott Dunbier at Wildstorm. He called me during that time to ask if I’d be into drawing a TOM STRONG arc with another writer than Alan Moore. By that time, Moore was winding down the ABC line, and he had turned TOM STRONG over to other creative teams to finish up. I was very enthusiastic about the opportunity, and conveyed that to Scott. He told me he would work up a list of possible writers for me to choose from and get back to me. That return phone call never came. I tried to get back in contact with Scott a few times, but never could get him on the line peronally– I only reached his voice mail. So that opportunity died on the vine. I never knew why Scott didn’t get back to me– but I still think about it from time to time. Now, the ABC line is a thing of the past– it no longer exists. Moore and Kevin O’Neill are still, thankfully, doing LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN at Top Shelf Productions….. but the others are just memories.

At least I’ve still got those great comics around to read and enjoy when I need a ‘fix’.

OK… have a great weekend, all.

This is Entry 334.

Mike

ULTIMATE CIVIL WAR SPIDER-HAM CRISIS #1 (that’s a mouthful) hits store shelves today. I have to say that of all the various projects I worked on last year, this one is the one I had the most fun with. I was never a huge SPIDER-HAM fan… but I always thought he was fun character– and he was a lot of fun to draw. There are so many great artists involved with this book– the legendary John Severin, Jim Mahfood, Ariel Olivetti and Skottie Young among them. It’s an honor to be in this book with these great folks. I have been privy to seeing a lot of the work done by the other artists ahead of time– and I think folks are going to enjoy this book if they decide to pick it up.

Some one made a comment over on my DEVIANTART gallery that the silhouette of my SPIDER-HAM looked like CEREBUS. It’s a great observation. When it came time to sit down and start drawing the cover and pages, I felt like I didn’t want to emulate what artists had done before with the character.. I wanted to go in a slightly different direction with him–and Dave Sim’s way of drawing his signature character gave me a bit of inspiration. It’s a trend that I’ve notice over the years that fans want to get sketches from an artist of the books they’ve worked on in their careers. I was never asked to draw commissions of the THING very often before I began working on FANTASTIC FOUR. The same goes for most of the other books I’ve worked on. And I get the feeling that now that this SPIDER-HAM book is hitting today that in the future, I might be asked quite a few times to draw him. That’ll be just fine… he’s certainly a blast to draw.

OK… gotta get back to work– if you pick up the book, leave a comment here and let me know what you think.

This is Entry 333.

With the recent release of the strange TEASER IMAGE from DC a couple of years back, it seems that the dark days for superheroes will continue. I could see the covers with “NOW WITH EVEN MORE ADDED DEATH!!!” blurbs on them to attract readers. It seems as though with all the death and mayhem going on at both DC and MARVEL combined with the super-heavy continuity element to the stories, the Big 2 may have given up on attracting new readers to the comic book marketplace. I don’t see any 13 year old picking up CIVIL WAR or whatever this upcoming DC book will be and being particularly drawn to all the darkness and death. That’s why I think that books like ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN are such a good idea. Much of the ULTIMATE line is about as dark as anything going on with the original versions these days…. but I think ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN has had a pretty big impact not only in the direct market… but also in the brick and mortar book stores where the trades are very popular with new readers.

I was thinking that the ALL STAR line at DC might buck the dark trend… and the SUPERMAN title seems to have done that, but the BATMAN AND ROBIN title is as harsh, if not more so, than other superhero books out now (not that it’s anything more than an annual these days… I think it’s vying for the title for latest comic in the world). I would have loved to see a small line based on their major icons that featured the characters in very young versions. Young heroes coming into their own and discovering their limits and foibles as they grow as people as well as champions is something that’s very appealing to me, even as an older reader… and I can’t help but think it would also be attractive to potential readers as well. I would think that a small line of books, not handled in the ‘ADVENTURES’ manner, could be very popular.

So with that in mind, I did today’s SUPERBOY sketch. Of course, with the legal battles between DC and the Siegels over the ownership of the character, a SUPERBOY title would not be possible, but it could still be titled SUPERMAN, even with the character being a teen. Anyway… it’s not something likely to ever happen.. but it’s fun to think about at any rate.

This is Entry 332.

Mike

As I’ve said many times in the past, I tend to need to do development sketches of most everything that’s going to be ‘on screen’ in the books I work on. So for today– which will be just a quick in-and-out because I’ve got so much work to do– I thought I’d post a few of the sketches I did for various things that appeared in the FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD stuff I worked on. From issue #2, there’s Mary Jane wearing a short little night-shirt. From issue #4, there’s Tony Stark and the scientist/lab guys who were doing research on Peter’s new powers. From issue #5, there’s the disturbed young girl who had delusions that SPIDER-MAN was stalking her. And from issue #9, there’s the guards that were trying to keep HOBGOBLIN 2211 from escaping her confinement.

OK… that’s it for another week. Sorry for the quick post–but duty calls.

This is 331.

Mike