Back in 1998 (or thereabouts… I’m not sure of the exact year), I was sort of in limbo, career-wise. It was a time when Marvel was in upheaval with their bankruptcy problems, and I was in the middle of a dispute with them over an exclusive contract I was on with the company. I wasn’t doing any work for them at this time, and yet no one else could give me work, because I was under that contract. And so Todd Dezago and I began to talk with each other about doing a creator-owned project together. I had been playing with an idea I called DARK SANDS. It was a story set in ancient Persia–about a young man who didn’t know that he was really a prince… the rightful ruler of his country. His father– the former King– had been assassinated when he was a baby, and he had been spirited away by a loyal bodyguard, who over the years, trains the young (unknowing) prince in the arts of combat with a mind toward helping him one day regain his family’s rightful place on the throne. In the meantime, the young prince is somewhat of a free spirit, and is constantly getting himself entangled in all manner of adventures that involve fantastic creatures, magic, treasure and beautiful young maidens. In essence– a sort of Alladin and the Magic Lamp or 1001 Arabian Nights inspired adventure comic. But during the extensive conversations that Todd and I had over the course of a couple of months, DARK SANDS– the idea I initially proposed we do together– turned into something completely different….. something called TELLOS. You can even see some of the threads of similarity running into TELLOS: the young boy who doesn’t know he’s got a hidden secret of great power and importance (the prince/Jarek); the big companion bodyguard (the prince’s companion/Koj); and even the element of a Genie that I wanted to use in DARK SANDS filtered over to TELLOS. It’s funny how one idea will some times morph and bleed into another.

I may, one day, pull DARK SANDS out, dust it off, and actually do something with it. It’s still floating around my synapses, haunting my imagination– whispering “Let us out…”.

This is Entry 132.

Mike

Today’s sketch came about from thinking back on my time on FLASH with Mark Waid. It was my first regular, monthly (or as close to monthly as I’ve ever been able to get– that is to say, not very. But I try real hard) assignment– and there couldn’t have been a better way for me to jump into the monthly comics pool than working with Mark on that book. I’ve said this in many interviews I’ve done about FLASH and my career in general– but it bears repeating again here…. the wonderful thing about getting a Mark Waid script for me (especially at that time, being thrown into the crucible of a monthly head first, heart racing and mind screaming “WHAT AM I DOING HERE….??!!?”) was that from the first word, I was drawn into the world that Mark was writing. The characters seemed immediately real to me and therefore, even though my skills were not always up to the task–ESPECIALLY on those first couple of issues– I never balked at anything that Mark asked me to draw. And he asked me to draw a LOT of things that I’d never had to draw before. Things that were immensely difficult to compose and render…. but the stories were always so fresh and the characters so vivid that although I tore out more than ONE hair in frustration at times, I was never resentful of anything Mark was asking for. So, working with Mark was a terrific training ground for everything that was to come later. Drawing those wonderfully crafted, and highly challenging stories on FLASH prepared me for all the work I would be doing from then on. I’ve worked with a great many different writers since that time– and many of the stories they’ve written may have been equally challenging as those early FLASH scripts… but few have been as enjoyable or pushed my limits like they did.

I’ve been getting reports from various comics pro buddies of mine who attended COMICON INTERNATIONAL in San Diego this past weekend. And all of them have told me that they enjoyed themselves totally. I had actually sworn off attending COMICON anymore because of its size and the fact that they seem to be moving so far away from comics and putting a greater emphasis on Hollywood and video games. But after reading Steven Grant’s PERMANENT DAMAGE column over at COMIC BOOK RESOURCES today— as well as hearing how much fun all my friends had at the show, I think I’ve changed my mind. Grant makes some very insightful points about comics and their place in popular culture… especially as they relate to movies and video games. So after all that, I’m thinking I might just have to make the trek to San Diego next year myself. We’ll see.

OK… that’s it for today.

This is Entry 131.

Mike

It’s still (barely) Monday morning…. and I just got up. I was up until 3 a.m. working on a page for FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN. And I spent the entirety of the weekend at the drawing table working on the book. This morning, I’m sleepy, tired and my back and neck both hurt like mad. I’m starting to realize the even though I’m only on the first issue of this book (only 5 pages left…!) I’m already weary of the grind. I’ve heard it said by others in the comics biz before– and now I’m starting to believe it: monthly comics is a young man’s game. It’s such a physical (yes, sitting at a drawing table all day CAN be physically taxing) and mental drain, I’m not sure I can keep it up anymore. We’ll see.

Today’s sketch is just a hodge-podge of images I threw on the page as a warm up this weekend. I’ve really been loving the work that Stuart Immonen has been doing for Marvel lately– and I wanted to play with that thing he does of having a thick, bold line around the images he draws. He’s a brilliant artist, and it was fun to try to emulate his technique, if at least for a sketch or two.

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And over the weekend, Marvel released a second cover image I did for the first issue of FN SPIDER-MAN. They decided they wanted to run some trade dress down one side of all the covers for the crossover event that our book kicks off– so they had me work up another cover. They say they might use the first cover I did as a variant– we’ll have to see what they decide. But here’s the image in case you haven’t seen it yet….

OK…. that’s it for today.

This is Entry 130.

Mike

Just a quick post today. SPIDER-MAN is taking up a lot of my time now….. and as I feared would be the case, I’ve got a lot less time to devote to the blog now. I’m going to try to make a habit of putting up a sketch with some color added over the weekends when I’ve got a bit more breathing room– but I’ll unfortunately possibly be posting a bit less during the week for a while. But here’s another SPACE GAL for you to look at in the meantime– done as a warm up this morning.

OK… that it today.

This is Entry 129.

Mike

Actually, every sketch I’ve ever posted here has been for fun, really. I’ll let you in on a little secret: a lot of the every day nature of drawing comics for a living can tend to get tedious at times. (OK… maybe it’s not so much a secret. I’ve cried on your ‘virtual shoulders’ more than once about frustrations with the freelance life….). There might be certain scenes that aren’t very much fun to draw. Perhaps they’re a little mundane. Perhaps they don’t seem to make much sense. Some days I just get tired of drawing other people’s scripts and story ideas. So this sketch blog has been a wonderful release for those frustrations when they build up to the boiling point. At times, it’s been cathartic– like a form of therapy. And today’s offering is something that was exceptionally fun to do. I just sort of turned my brain off and let my hand go. Usually, I try to go into a sketch with at least some vague sense of what I want to put down on the paper. This time, I let my mind wander and just went with whatever strange thought flickered over my brain. And then I had some more fun by laying a few simple colors on the line work. I get a real kick out of the end result.

See you next time…..

This is Entry 128.

Mike