First off, I’d like to thank The Johnny Bacardi Show for the link to this blog. It’s nice to know that people are stumbling on this little space in the overhwhelming cacophony that is the Web. And as always, thanks to my buddy Jeff Parker for the constant plugs/shout outs and links to my blog. Parker’s the guy who’s been gently chiding me for months to start updating on a regular basis, so I owe him for the inspiration.

A few posts back, I put up a picture of the original LEGION team that I did as a Christmas picture for Mark Waid last holiday. What I DIDN’T say was that it was also a little nod to something that ALMOST happened. Back when there was the incredible internet furor over Mark being “fired” (or removed– depending on your perspective. “Fired” if you’re Mark Waid or any of his fans– “removed” if you’re a misguided Bill Jemas) from FANTASTIC FOUR– Mark was in talks with DC about taking over LEGION of SUPERHEROES as the ongoing writer as a replacement for his lost FF gig. I had removed myself from the FF title in support of Mark– so I was ALSO in talks with DC about DRAWING Mark’s upcoming LEGION run. I’m not going to bore everyone with all the minute back-and-forth details of what actually happened. But as everone who followed this little episode already knows, I ended up BACK on FF (with Mark, of course) when all the dust settled anyway. But I wanted to put up just a little example of a SATURN GIRL sketch I did at the time as a warm up in anticipation of working on the book. It would have been fun– but I think everything worked out the way it was ultimately meant to be in the end.

I’m still looking forward to Mark’s run on LEGION. I know it’s going to be great– it’ll just be without me.

Mike

I just finished a page of FANTASTIC FOUR. It’s late at night (at least for me….), and I’m tired and sleepy. Still– I wanted to keep up the pace of recent days of posting new stuff for anyone who’s still coming here from time to time to look at. It’s fun to do… and hopefully anyone watching is enjoying. (You COULD let me know if it’s something you’re into by going to my message boards/forum and let me know). Anyway, I worked up a quick sketch of a barbarian of sorts to get something up tonight.

So– that’s it. I’m heading off to bed.

Mike

Mark Waid, my “partner in crime” in FANTASTIC FOUR is one of the most generous and thoughtful folks I’ve ever encountered. He’s always sending me wonderful gift baskets full of exotic fruits and cheeses each Christmas–and I consider myself a very scatterbrained kinda guy, and I always end up losing track of time and not sending ANY of my great comic buddies (like Mark, or Todd Dezago and many others….) ANYTHING for Christmas. Not even a card.

So this past year, I decided to do something for Mark to try to make up for all those years of neglect. So, knowing that Mark was going to be taking over writing one of his all time favorite titles– LEGION OF SUPERHEROES– I thought it would be a nice touch to do a pencil piece for him of the original core characters.

And now, I present it for your perusal.

That’s it for today.

Mike

This is part test of something that Parker, did to improve my blog settings– and partly to see if he messed something up. It seems as though if things go the way I’m hoping, this might become more of a “sketch blog” than anything– since I’m not much on having a ton of things to say about “stuff” most days. One NEAT thing that happened not TOO long ago was that the incredible artist Kevin Nowlan told me that his son was a big TELLOS fan. So– I thought it might be fun to work up a KOJ sketch for him, since that’s his favorite character from the book. It’s cool when an artist who’s work I’ve been drooling over for years tells me his son is a fan of MY work. So, anyway– here’s the sketch:

That’s it for now, I guess.

Mike

I thought I’d post this image (OK, well, my buddy Jeff Parker posted it and showed me how to post images) of Erik Larsen’s SAVAGE DRAGON and MIGHTY MAN I did for a Jam over at ShaneGlines.net. Just for funzies.

Mike