I’ll start off today with a small selection of heads that I did yesterday as warmups. I was inspired by seeing some of the same kinds of things that I’ve been seeing from Alex Toth on his site and elsewhere. They’re a series of wonderful profile sketches of interesting characters– and as with ANYTHING from Toth, they’re brilliant. I can’t hope to compare with my own feeble attempts– but one thing I DID learn is that drawing old people (and in this case, men) are MUCH MORE fun to draw than young folks. They have such interesting points of character, like larger noses, ears– and you can add fun facial hair. The one younger face I drew just serves to highlight that– it’s rather boring.

And I’ll follow up with another layout vs printed page selection– this time from TELLOS #7. Unfortunately, at the time, I wasn’t scanning my pencil pages in to document them digitally (I don’t even remember if we had a computer in the studio at the time– but if we did, it never occurred to me to actually save the pencils as files). I’ve probably got xerox copies of the page around somewhere in the house, but I don’t really have time to scramble through my rat’s nest to try to find them. I tried to choose a page that had a nice variety of the characters on it.

THE LAYOUT

THE FINISHED, COLORED PAGE

And finally– I just got this email forwarded to me by my art dealer Scott Cates– literally as I’m putting this post together. It’s always so incredibly gratifying to get an email from someone who has been inspired by my work.

“Dear Mike

This is just a letter to thank you and to let you know that your work on the

Fantastic Four inspired me to pick up a pencil again. For years I tried to

get into comics, but never got my artwork right and due to the fact that I

was slow and never worked hard enough. Now after seeing your fantastic work

I got back into it and is busy writing and designing my own 24 issue

mini-series that I’ll start to submit next year. Some people suggested

because I live in South Africa that that will count against me, but I don’t

believe that. I hope you work on Fantastic Four for a long time. So thank

you again for being such an inspiration.

Keep well

Tim”

I’ve said this several times before in various forums– but it bears repeating: Getting emails like this one from Timothy Le Roux in South Africa is not even remotely one of the reasons I got into drawing comic books for a living– but it is a wonderful “fringe benefit” that helps me to ride out the periods when drawing for a living gets, at times, difficult and trying. So for that, Tim– THANK YOU. And for those that tell you that living in South Africa will hold you back– don’t believe them. That’s the beauty of modern internet technology– you can live ANYWHERE and still get your work seen… whether it’s as a web strip, on message boards, or whatever. And there are folks from all over the globe working for Marvel and DC.

OK– that’s it for today.

Mike

It seems as though there’s plenty of folks who think that getting a look at the various stages of the creation of a comic page or cover/pinup would be an interesting thing, so I’m going to start incorporating that into the blog periodically. Deadlines are pretty tight for me right now– so I’m going to start out with something that’s kind of close at hand in my files here on this computer. It’s also something that many of you might not have seen– depending on how diligent you are in following anything and everything having to do with Paul Smith’s and James Robinson’s LEAVE IT TO CHANCE comic. Those of you who DO follow it, know it’s a wonderful book that can be read and enjoyed by kids and adults alike. And Paul Smith is one of the comics industry’s most incredible talents– who unfortunately doesn’t produce as much work as his many fans would like to see from him. CHANCE has had a rather spotty publishing history– but IMAGE COMICS has begun in recent months to collect the original series (published by WILDSTORM’S HOMAGE imprint) into oversized hardcovers (beautiful!)– and a 13th issue came out some months ago in a prestige format. I was thrilled to be asked by Paul Smith himself to produce a pinup for the new issue– and I thought I’d present the sketches, inks as well as Paul’s colors here to show the process– as well as to present it for those of you who might not have seen it. So– sketches, inks and colors, in that order….

SKETCH 1 (not used )

SKETCH 2 (used as pinup)

INKS

AND PINUP COLORS

For those of you who have been sitting on pins and needles waiting for the always incredibly funny and detailed CON REPORTS that Steve Leiber and Jeff Parker create after every show they attend, Parker has at last posted the report of their experiences at COMICON INTERNATIONAL in San Diego for all to see. I suggest that everone who is into reading these reports (and they’re always great!) go read THIS one– because it just may be Parker’s last. He has experienced immense frustration at the amount of time that they entail to put together, and as he stated on his blog, “That don’t feed the cat!” I really couldn’t blame him for not doing them anymore (as a freelancer myself, I understand exactly where he’s coming from)– but I sure would miss ’em.

I’d also like to direct your attention to the wonderful PVP online comic strip created by Scott Kurtz. As you’ll notice in my links section, it’s my favorite strip on the web– and Scott put out a call for guest strips to run while he was away at COMICON out in sunny San Diego (see how these two link items tie so neatly together…?)– and I couldn’t resist throwing my hat into the ring to take him up on it. The strip that I did is running today. I would like to take this opportunity to point out someone whom Scott forgot to credit for the colors and letters on the strip, and that’s my good buddy JAMAR NICHOLAS. Without Jamar’s colors and letters, the strip would have looked like a rushed, amateurishly lettered pile of junk– so to you, Jamar– I give my deepest thanks and respect. You are the MAN. Be sure and check out Jamar’s site– he’s one hell of an artist (and writer to boot)– and he does the super cool DETECTIVE BOOGALOO strip over at MOVIEPOOPSHOOT.COM. As Jamar is fond of saying, head on over and “holla at your boy”…!

Thanks again, buddy.

OK– that’s enough for today– the FANTASTIC FOUR are calling me to get my butt to work.

Mike

I got home too late last night for trying to post anything on the blog to make any sense– so for that, I apologize. But I had a wonderful time with my parents. The trips to visit them usually revolve around food and watching TV– and the food consumption didn’t change this time, but instead of gluing ourselves to the television as is our habit, we spent the weekend talking politics, local events and doing a lot of joking and laughing. It really was a fun time. I always enjoy visiting my folks– but I usually go in with the realization that hanging out with them is going to be kind of like hanging out with your couch potato buddy or something (which I could do here)– and it was a great suprise that we skipped the TV this time. I think the highlight as far as a “feel good” moment was when my father and I drove to the local STAPLES to pick up their incredibly cheap yearly “BACK TO SCHOOL” supplies sale items. My folks do this every year and donate the items to my old Elementary school, YELLOW BRANCH ELEMENTARY. With government budget cuts, and the fact that most of the kids in the area my parents live come from VERY low income families, the school can use all the supplies it can get. The teachers usually end up spending some of their OWN MEAGER SALARIES to buy these kinds of things (like spiral notebooks, pencils, crayons) for the kids. It’s a sad reality of the state of our public education system these days. Hell, they’re still using double-wide trailers as classrooms at YELLOW BRANCH, just as they did when I attended there some 30 years ago. But it felt good to contribute in some small way, at least.

Thanks to everyone who left comments about the kinds of things they’d like to see here. I’ll definitely be throwing all that into the blog in future posts. It HAS been rather superhero-centric, and it’ll be fun to break away from that as much as possible. In that spirit, I’m posting a page of pen/marker sketches that I came across– something that I used to do for fun and warm ups some time ago, but quickly fell out of the habit. It was neat to try to draw a bunch of quick sketches without many pencil guidelines beforehand. It really brought out the cartoonist in me, I think. So– here it is…

Back around this time last year (before I started making regular blog entries– more like when they would come about once every month or so….) I posted a link to a prototype sculpture of what was to be a SERRA action figure sculpted by the husband and wife team of Gabriel and Terri Marquez of GWIN SCULPTURE WORKS. I remember lamenting on how incredible it looked (and still DOES) and how sorry I was that it never actually went into production. Well, in combing through all my digital files recently, I actually found a file of what the figure would have looked like COLORED as well. It’s only served to make my lament at the figures not being produced that much deeper. And with how utterly beautiful the SERRA figure was looking, I can only imagine the thrill of seeing how they would have handled KOJ and JEREK. As I said in the original post about this figure– maybe some day.

OK– that’s it for today. It’s nice to be back and posting again. It’s odd how much I missed it after only one dey.

Mike

I’ll be honest– I’m beginning to run out of sketch stuff that I can post that hasn’t been seen by lots of people already. I didn’t think it would happen so soon because I have such massive stacks and files full of paper with sketches and layouts that I’ve accumulated (read: hoarded) over the years. But for the most part, these are largely layouts of comics that have been published or sketches for covers and pinups that have been published. NEW stuff– character designs, warm up sketches, doodles– is getting harder to find. The BRIGHT side is that it will force me to sketch more to continue to have stuff to post. That’s a good thing. But just for fun, I did a GOOGLE search for images connected to my name– and I came across a FEW things that I thought might be fun to put up. My apologies to everyone that I “pinched” these files from. Hope you don’t mind.

The first piece is a FLASH sketch that I did in marker. It looks like something I did at the ACTOR booth at WIZARDWORLD PHILLY last year– I seem to have a vague memory of doing it there.

The second piece is, I THINK, something I did specifically to sell on eBay a couple of years back. I don’t know why I didn’t make a scan for myself, because I was doing that pretty consitantly then– but who knows. At least I found one on the owner’s (I assume…) site.

I’ve got a couple more that I’ll save for another day. I don’t know if anyone would be interested in such things, but I could certainly begin posting some of those layouts I was referencing earlier if folks would be interested in seeing them. Maybe you’d be into seeing the process of what the layouts look like to compare to the printed page….? Maybe not. Leave me a note in the comments section, and if enough people think it’s something they’d like to see, I’ll certainly put that in the mix here.

I’m off this morning to go visit my parents for the weekend. So for those who actually check this blog out daily, there won’t be anything up early tomorrow. I’m only at the parental units place overnight– so maybe I’ll make a post tomorrow evening when I return. As addicted as I’ve become to this thing– I probably will.

‘Til tomorrow, then.

Mike

Today’s sketch is of the original IRON MAN armor. It’s my favorite of all the myriad versions that Tony Stark has worn over his long tenure as the “man in the can”. It’s simple– and oh so clunky… but that’s it charm. I loved the concept of a man who had it all– fame, wealth, women… but had to wear a chest plate to keep his damaged and failing heart beating– and used his genius with technology and as a leading weapons designer to build a big, powerful suit of armor. In his original armor, he always reminded me of a modern day knight. I even enjoyed some of the later versions that he designed (here I am talking about him as if he’s real….! I guess that’s the beauty of a well concocted character…)– but the recent trend to put him in more convoluted and “manga inspired” armor has left me cold. That’s the thing about the original designs of the MARVEL characters of the 60’s– they’re timeless. They never seem dated to me. It’s the simplicity of it that keeps them fresh.

The second “item” today is a real oddity– but a fun one. Not too long ago, a friend of mine John Gallagher, creator of the fun and incredible BUZZBOY asked me if I’d draw the cover to a custom comic he was putting together for a mall called the WESTFIELD MALL. John does custom comics as well as his OWN wonderful creations. The mall mascot looked fun, so I agreed. It was skillfully inked up by another friend named Rich Faber. It was a fun experience all around, a chance to draw some “funny animals”, which I really enjoy doing– and a piece that I figured wouldn’t get much exposure beyond the mall itself– so here it is now.

After seeing this link to THE SQUIRREL NAME GENERATOR over at Jeff Parker’s MYSTIFYING ORACLE, I just had to go and see what my squirrel name was. Boy, am I glad I did… because it’s the super manly name… ummm….

Fluffy Smallnuts…

*Cough*

OK– another day down. Time to finish up FANTASTIC FOUR #518 today.

See you tomorrow…

Mike