I’m leaving this afternoon to drive to my brother and sister-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving. It’s a yearly tradition that they host Turkey-day for the family for… what…. over a decade now, Matt….? It’s not going to be the most pleasant drive to Richmond this year… it’s very rainy and windy, with a storm system slowly churning off the Carolina coast. I just heard a huge limb crash in the back yard after a heavy gust of wind. It’s almost as if Mother Nature is making one last feeble try at manifesting a hurricane– albeit a very weak and wimpy one– before winter hits full-on. Everything around here is thoroughly waterlogged and my yard is absolutely full of soggy leaves and a literal sea of pine needles. I’ve got a lot of raking to do when I get back home. My roof’s covered with the pine needles as well, so I’ve gotta get up there this weekend when I return. It’s going to be warm and sunny…. so that’ll be the perfect opportunity.

I’m not going to let the dreary weather (and the fact that I’ve come down with a mild cold) get me down, though…. I’ve been looking forward to this holiday break for WAY too long. I’m burnt out and need this. I can’t wait to get together with the family.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you here next week.

This is Entry 206.

Mike

Today’s sketch is of a medieval/fantasy version of COLOSSUS that appeared in X-MEN 1/2. Years back, Wizard Magazine and Marvel offered Todd and me the opportunity to work on an X-MEN 1/2 project. I had always wanted to draw THE X-MEN, as they were a huge favorite of mine back when I was starting to read comics– so I was very excited about the opportunity this project offered. I was very disappointed, however, when I learned that the editorial folks for this one-shot wanted to steer the focus of the story into an ‘Elseworlds’ kind of direction. These would not be the X-MEN I was so fond of and had long wanted to take a crack at. This adventure would instead be in a fantasy or sword and sorcery setting. My disappointment was short-lived, though. Once I got down to the task of designing the clothing and surroundings for the story, I began to really enjoy myself. I should have known going in that it would be enjoyable, since I’ve always been such a huge fantasy fan…. but I had my heart set on the ‘real’ X-MEN. Todd wrote a really wonderful story that was a lot of fun to draw… and we ended up enjoying working on this ‘X-MEN as D&D’ type of tale so much that when things went completely South with my relationship with Marvel at that time, Todd and I immediately began to have discussions about creating our own property that would be something that would allow us to continue our enjoyment of the type of subject matter we had just worked on.

Those discussions are what led to our beginning the TELLOS book at IMAGE. I don’t know if I’ve written about this before… it feels like I might have. My last post about THE MANNITES came from looking at an old folder filled with the original designs I had done for that proposed series…. and the designs for the X-MEN 1/2 were in there, too…. so I thought it would be fun to re-interpret one or more of those sketches.

OK…. that’s it for today.

This is Entry 305.

Mike

Back about 10 years ago, when word was passed to Todd and me about SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN’S impending cancellation, Marvel began to try to find things for us to do. Keep in mind, this was during their initial period of bankruptcy, which I’ve written about here before– so things were rather tumultuous at that time. One of the potential projects that the folks at Marvel were interested in doing went by the working title MANNITES. This was a group of characters… a team, really… that were to spin out of things that happened in the ONSLAUGHT epic that was being published around that time. My memories are pretty fuzzy about stuff happening then– but I remember my buddy Randy Green drawing a one-shot called ONSLAUGHT EPILOGUE that featured a young female character named NINA who was one of a new race of beings cloned from mutant DNA. The MANNITES would have been the evolutionary apex of these beings. The MANNITES had three different levels of ‘power manifestation’– the primary level was a humanoid form– the secondary level was an organic armored form like the one in the sketch I’ve posted today– and the final form was a more…. extreme… armored form that covered the face as well that was used in times maximum peril.

I made the suggestion that the book be called SYNTHETIX– to give it that tie to the X-universe and hopefully maximize sales potential… but I never heard back about my suggestion. Ultimately, the project never happened back then at all… so not hearing back on the name might have been a warning sign. Oddly enough, the project never completely died on the books– and ultimately saw life recently as the LIVEWIRES miniseries done by Adam Warren and Rick Mays. I’m sure the concept for LIVEWIRES was nowhere near what it was as originally planned when it was code named MANNITES … but I think it’s funny that the slot for that book never completely faded into oblivion– especially through all the upheaval that was going on from around 1996 to now.

OK… I hope you all have a great weekend.

This is Entry 304.

Mike

Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag. Anyone who has read the news item over at COMICBOOKRESOURCES.COM already knows that there will be a hardcover collection of the 10-issue original TELLOS series Todd and I produced as well as the one-shots and the 5-page bit from the back of SECTION ZERO back when GORILLA COMICS was launching. All the variant covers and sketchbook material will be included as well– and if I’m not mistaken, some new sketch and design material that hasn’t been printed before. A lot of it is stuff I’ve posted here from time to time, but there will also be stuff that’s not been seen before anywhere. It’s tentatively scheduled for a late-spring release.

The thing that’s most exciting for me (and there’s a LOT I’m excited about with this project) is that it will be an “Omnibus”– or oversized– format when released. I’ve had this treatment with a couple of other books I’ve worked on– most notably FANTASTIC FOUR and the ‘OTHER’ issues I did of FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN. Those were a real treat for me to see… having my work printed in that larger format was wonderful– but this is so much more special in that I co-own these characters. TELLOS is still the achievement I’m most proud of in my career… the nearest and dearest to my heart– and to have this oversized hardcover coming out is absolutely thrilling. So– it’s in honor of the release of this news that I produced today’s sketch.

This is Entry 303.

Mike

Has anyone seen much of the animated LEGION OF SUPERHEROES series that just started recently? I’ve been wanting to check it out– but I keep forgetting to look for it on KIDS WB until it’s too late each Saturday, which results in a firm whack to my forehead with the heel of my palm. Being the big LEGION fan that I am, I’ve been very curious to see it. I was finally able to catch the last 5 minutes of this past Saturday’s episode, but that was just by accident. I just happened to be scrolling through the channels while drinking my morning coffee and stumbled on the end of an episode where the LEION were taking on the FATAL FIVE in an arena. I really liked the animation and the design work. I think it’s very, very cool. I couldn’t judge too much of the story since I didn’t get to see much– but it certainly looked cool.

I haven’t heard much about fan reaction to the show– but the little I have has been relatively negative. But that’s the same majority of reaction I heard to the TEEN TITANS cartoon series— and I love that cartoon as well.

So– anyone else seen the LEGION series? If so, what’s your impression of it?

OK… that’s if for today.

This is Entry 302.

Mike