Well, Dan Buckley and MARVEL let the cat out of the bag about Mark Waid, Karl Kesel and myself leaving FANTASTIC FOUR at WIZARD WORLD TEXAS. Obviously, they felt they had to begin the hype around the next creative team– and it seems to have worked. The comic book message boards are all abuzz with speculation over who the next team will be on the book. This is the most activity that I’ve seen in relation to FANTASTIC FOUR the comic book in months. Even with the “widescreen” epic alien invasion story that has led into the GALACTUS arc we’re working on, the message boards have been really silent of late.

Joe Quesada called me back in June about rotating off of FF– the day I was heading out to attend the HEROES CONVENTION. It was a bit eerie, since it was at LAST years HEROES that I heard from Matt Brady that Mark Waid had been pulled off the title in favor of a new direction. But this time was different. Mark and I had been discussing a growing desire to move on to something else, and so my discussion with Joe was a very positive one in regards to the book this time. He made the point that in today’s market, the only way to keep any kind of “heat” or “buzz” on a long-running ongoing title was to bring in a new creative team from time to time to reinvigorate both the book and the fan base. With all the evidence I’d been seeing about this over the past many years, I couldn’t argue. So– the die was cast.

And as I said, from the heated activity on the fan message boards, Joe was obviously right.

My tenure as artist on FANTASTIC FOUR has been a wonderful experience. I’ve learned a lot about myself artistically– what I can do… and what I CAN’T. There have been many incredibly challenges working on this book. Some uplifting… and some very frustrating. But it’s always been a great opportunity and experience overall. Just like life. The FANTASTIC FOUR is one of those titles that I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that I’d ever get the opportunity to work on. I’ve been so lucky in my career to work on some of the biggest icons in comics– SPIDER-MAN, SUPERMAN, THE X-MEN, BATMAN AND ROBIN– and now FANTASTIC FOUR joins that list. I’ve had more success than I ever thought would be possible when I got into this business. I’d like to take the time to thank Joe Quesada and Tom Brevoort for believing that I WOULD do a good job on the book, despite my own self doubts. They really helped me overcome them. I’d like to thank Mark Waid for writing some of the greatest stories I’ve ever gotten to draw– Karl Kesel for making my pencils look like they actually BELONG on the book (Karl, you are the best, man…!) and Paul Mounts for always going above and beyond with his incredible colors. The special effects work that Paul has done have been mind blowing.

And a big THANK YOU to everyone who has read and enjoyed our work on the book. I can’t thank you enough for your support. I hope you’ll follow us to our next big project at MARVEL. I can’t tell you what it is right now, but I CAN tell you this…..

It’s going to be a blast.

Mike

I hope everyone exercised their rights as a U.S citizen in what is probably the most important election in a generation. Fortunately for me, my polling place is very close, and there was no line, so I zipped in and out very quickly.

Sorry there haven’t been any new posts in over a week– I’m so overwhelmed with my FF deadlines that it’s almost impossible to find the time to sketch on the side these days.

I’ll leave you with a belated HALLOWEEN sketch I did for a thread over at the Robert Kirkman board at the IMAGE COMICS site. It’s in honor of his great book THE WALKING DEAD.

Hopefully I’ll have something more substantive soon.

Mike

I took CHARLIE to the Vet clinic for a booster shot and general follow up checkup Friday. Doctor King gave his shoulder a thorough examination, and she gave me the go-ahead to give CHARLIE free run of the house. Her only stipulation was that he be kept from jumping on (and off…) of elevated surfaces such as the kitchen table and counters that might re-injure his shoulder. So it’s been so funny to hear CHARLIE running “Boogity boogity boogity” throughout the house– and to hear him stealthily exploring every corner he can get into, sniffing and snuffing around everything as he expands his knowledge of the confines of his new home.

It’s a sheer joy for me to have CHARLIE around. He’s such a sweet little guy– and so much fun. He’s full of that kitten energy that has him in perpetual motion when he’s awake– and he’s absolutely adorable when he finally burns through that energy and crashes for a long nap. He can really fall asleep in some hilarious positions. Having him here has sort of jump-started my memories of CHARLIE’S predecessor BUTCH, though. But– not thoughts about her last year or so when she was so sick, old and in constant pain from her arthritis. No, I’ve been remembering things about her from when she first came to live with me. Things from those early days after she walked into my house one fine afternoon and said to me with her eyes “I’m going to be living my retirement years here with you, just so you know….!”

BUTCH immediately started sleeping on my bed. She took to the upstairs area of my house from the start. It was her favorite area, and the place she spent most of her time. I bought her one of those cat beds to sleep in, but she wanted to sleep in the bed with me, and who was I to argue…? She quickly developed a funny bed-time ritual that happened every night without fail. I would start each night before falling asleep with some reading– maybe a comic book, maybe a novel. But I really didn’t get all that much reading done, because after only a few minutes of laying in the bed, I could feel BUTCH walking up my leg on her way to my chest. She would force her head under whatever I happened to be looking at, and nudge it aside and settle in right in front of my face– staring right into my eyes with her big, soulful peepers. This made me more than a little nervous when she first did it, because I didn’t know her personality fully, and I was afraid she was setting me up for a good slashing with her claws or something. But she would just lay there and look into my eyes. I could stare back at her for as long as I liked– she never averted her gaze. I think she was bonding with me in her own way. She was perhaps letting me know that we were stuck with each other. Whatever her reasons for doing this, I soon got over my nervousness and started to look forward to it, actually. It was very sweet. And she would lay there like this until I started moving to turn off the light to go to sleep. Then she would pad past my head, over my shoulder and onto the pillows I lay my head on. She would curl up around my head and bump hers into mine– purring like crazy the whole time– over and over until I stopped chuckling about what she was doing (it seemed so odd, but so very funny) and fell asleep. I never did feel her getting off the pillow. Her purring always put me to sleep so deeply I never noticed.

Eventually, BUTCH added beard grooming to this ritual. I wore a short cropped beard for years, and after a nice long period of gazing into each others eyes, she would scoot her way forward and begin to lick my chin whiskers. She was almost obsessive about his once she started. It would go on for so long, that her sandpaper-like tongue would begin to hurt my chin….! I think she would happily have licked until my chin was bald if I had let her. But once it began to hurt, I would gently move her away from my face, and she’d settle back onto my chest until I was ready to go to sleep. This was our ritual for a long time– until her arthritis got to the point that it was too painful for her to lay on my chest anymore. I missed our little “sessions” from the moment they ended.

I still miss them.

Mike

It’s been a week since my last post– and I’m sorry for that. Between spending time with young CHARLIE (who’s settled in nicely, but needs lots of attention) and working on the next issue of FANTASTIC FOUR, it’s been almost impossible to find time to do any extra sketching.

So for this post, I’m just going to offer another of the sketches I did at the BALTIMORE COMICON last month– I recently stumbled on this on the web. I hope the person I did it for doesn’t mind me sharing it here with you. It’s a sketch in ink and grey marker of CATWOMAN.

And– as I promised a while back, I’m putting up some pictures I took of CHARLIE recently. He’s not all that cooperative a photo subject, I have to say. I took probably a dozen or more shots, and these were the only ones that were decent enough to share. He’s stubborn about not looking into the camera. At all other times, he’s constantly staring at me– whether it’s to stalk me and jump at my face, or just laying there and looking at me like I’m some kind of creature he’s never seen before. I thought that the common wisdom was that cats didn’t usually look you in the eyes because they view that as a sign of aggression. With CHARLIE, it’s like he’s got to be looking at my eyes, and have me looking into his at all times when we’re together. Even when he’s playing with one of the tons of toys I’ve gotten him, the whole time he’s doing his level best to shred them, he’s looking at me….! Kind of odd.

Unless, of course, I’m trying to take his picture.

OK– that’s it for now. Gotta get back to the FOUR.

Mike

When we lived in Germany, my brother and I had some big, stuffed animals that we liked to play with all the time. Our parents indulged us in just about every and any toy we ever wanted. We had SO MANY toys that now, if in mint condition, would bring a small King’s ransom on eBay. Alas, we weren’t very careful with them (as most kids are not) and we put them through lots of abuse.

One of the stuffed toys we had that got probably more abuse than any other toy we had combined was a huge (at least to we small kids) blue stuffed snake. One of my brother’s favorite games was to sit at the end with the head– to help keep him stable while sitting on the snake– and have me grab the other end and whisk him up and down the hallways in our apartment. The apartment had hardwood floors in every room (which was absolutely great for kids wanting to play with toys that rolled and needed to be set up like little plastic army men) except for the kitchen (of course)– and this made for the perfect conditions to blast down the hallway and into various bedrooms at top speed. We would careen into rooms, taking crazy U-Turns and head back out and down the hallway into the living room… only to turn zag back around and do it all over again. Sometimes Matt would fall off as we took one of those ultra-sharp turns, but that was just part of the fun. He’d play up the “crash” angle and go rolling into whatever was handy to make it look more “dangerous”. It was tons of fun.

Unfortunately, Matt wasn’t big enough or strong enough to reciprocate. Every time I would sit on the snake, he’d pull and pull with all his might, but even on the well waxed hardwood floors, he couldn’t budge me without me using my hands to push us along. And that just wasn’t the same.

Somehow, that Big Blue Stuffed Snake never came apart in all that. He must have enjoyed it as well.

I’ve got CHARLIE home with me now. He’s a spunky little fella, as I knew he would be. Unfortunately, I have to keep him confined to an empty bedroom for the next five weeks to give his broken shoulder time to completely heal. He keeps bolting out of the room each time I open the door. It’s going to be difficult and heart breaking to do this to him– but it’s for the best. I let him wander around at times as long as I’m watching him and supervising his movements so he doesn’t jump up and down on anything which would aggravate his injury. I’ll post some pictures soon.

Mike