After reading my buddy Jeff Parker’s HEREOES CON REPORT, I started feeling a little guilty about neglecting this corner of my web site– so I thought I’d take the opportunity to update my blog at long last on the off chance that anyone still checks it. So, please let me point your attention to my OWN little record of my experience at the HEROES CON with some pictures I took of some of the folks I encountered at the show. So, if you’re so inclined, go HERE and check it out.

I’m going to try to update this blog more than, oh… say… TWICE A YEAR or so from now on.

Mike

Yesterday, when I made the announcement about returning to FANTASTIC FOUR– and how thrilled I was to be working with Mark Waid and Tom Brevoort again– I neglected to list someone who has been an anchor in the creation of the artwork on the book: KARL KESEL.

I wanted to say just how honored I am to have been working with this guy. I’ve worked with inkers who have done good– even great jobs over my pencil work. I’ve also worked with inkers who have either overpowered my efforts, or diminished the life and bounce I feel I put into my work. But Karl— boy…. Karl brings something to the table that no other inker I’ve ever worked with has. And that’s because he’s more than “just an inker”. Anyone who has seen the complete artwork that Karl has done on various projects in the past knows what I’m talking about. He’s a fantastic artist who can hold his own with anyone. That’s why his ink work over another’s pencils is so powerful. Without Karl, the FANTASTIC FOUR stuff we’ve been doing wouldn’t look HALF AS GOOD. I can’t express how happy I am to be working with Karl– and on this book again.

Thanks, Karl.

Mike

And they say you can’t go home again.

Well, I’m VERY happy to be able to announce that I’m going to be BACK as the regular penciler on FANTASTIC FOUR as of issue #509– working with my buddy Mark Waid. That’s right, we’re back as the creative team of the World’s Greatest Comic Magazine. Well, Mark will have never really have left in the first place, but you get my drift.

I’m not going to speculate on the reasons why things have turned out the way they have. It’s been a very strange (almost) four months since the whole “Mark Waid firing” incident– but all I CAN say is that I’m very glad that things have turned out the way they have. I’m back working on one of the greatest books I’ve every worked on, with one of the greatest writers in comics. And working for Tom Brevoort– one of the finest, best editors in this business. So, at the end of the day, things are back to being the way they were– only better. And that’s just fine with me.

I’m ready to get back to work!

Mike

*The new regular season of the NFL debuted last night, and it had all the drama of a hollywood production. The NEW YORK JETS went up against the WASHINGTON REDSKINS, who have four players that the JETS let get away via free agency on their team– being referred to as “JETSKINS” by the press– and all four of these players made contributions to the ‘SKINS defeating the JETS in last nights game. Laveraneus Coles (wide receiver), Chad Morton (return man), Randy Thomas (guard) and John Hall (kicker), were all a little miffed to be lost from their beloved JETS, and they were looking for a little revenge. Coles, especially, felt stung– and he had an amazing game. And the irony of John Hall, the JETS former kicker, making the game-winning field goal in the last seconds, was also pretty sharp. It’s why I love the game– there’s always something dramatic happening on AND off the field.

*If you’re not buying INVINCIBLE by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker and Bill Crabtree (published by IMAGE COMICS), well– you really should be. It’s a very sharp new superhero book (and well– I STILL love superheroes, I have to admit) that combines some of the more traditional aspects of the long-underwear genre with some wonderful, insightful and often humorous twists. It features the title character’s superpowers kicking in– a legacy from his super powered father– a dad who just happens to still be alive and around to help him deal with them, rather than the usual cliche of the superhero dad being dead, and the kid trying to live up to his memory. It makes for some touching as well as some fine comedic moments at times. Robert Kirkman’s writing is spot on. And the artwork by Cory Walker is brilliant. If I had to describe it in the “hollywood high concept” manner, I’d say it’s a combination of Rob Haynes and Dave Johnson. Very pared down with a fantastic sense of design. And I also love Bill Crabtree’s color palette and his minimal use of shading. It’s just an overall great package. Try it– and I know you’ll like it as much as I do.

*The BALTIMORE COMICON is just a couple of weeks away, and I’m starting to get pretty excited. The last show I was able to attend was the HEROES CONVENTION in Charlotte, NC a few months back. I had to miss out on the SAN DIEGO COMICON again this year, but I’m determined to get there next year. The BALTIMORE show looks like it’s shaping up to be a great one. Lots of really great guests, and I get the feeling that it’s one of those shows that isn’t so huge that you can’t enjoy yourself, but not so small that you get bored. So, I’m hope that as Golidlocks says, it’ll be “… Just right…!”

Mike

I usually use the TV summer re-run season as an excuse just not to watch television for a few months (other than the news and some favorite old syndicated shows like Seinfeld)– but this summer, I’ve been watching shows that I passed up during the first-run, or didn’t even know about. Most of them have been entertaining– in that “I’ve got nothing else to watch that I haven’t already seen, so this’ll do” kind of way. But I don’t think I’ll be heading back to them for the upcoming new TV season.

But there have also been a couple of NEW shows that have debuted this summer that I caught the beginnings of just recently that I think will become new favorites that I’ll have to add to my “must watch” list.

PLAYMAKERS just debuted on ESPN this past Tuesday night. The network has begun in recent years, to air original dramatic programming based on (of course) sports. Now, I’m not a huge overall sports nut– but I love to watch football, and especially professional football. The game, with it’s high speed, powerful hits/impacts and strategies has always fascinated me. And I’ve long played with the idea of doing a comic based on professional football teams– but whenever I would talk to one of my friends about that idea, I’d usually get a blank stare, followed by a “…Ehhhh. Don’t think it would work” response. Usually, because it would be tedious and difficult to deal with showing the action of a football in comic book form. Well, PLAYMAKERS– at least this first episode– does what I would have in my oft-discussed, never realized comic. It focuses on the individuals who play the game of professional football– their hopes, desires, fears, lusts, addictions, and every other character foible that seems to get magnified when you’re under the microscope of being a professional football star. The games are merely a colorful backdrop for the human drama. The writing on the show is crisp and well done. The first episode focuses on a couple of players from the fictional “COUGERS” team–an aging running back recovering from a blown out knee who sees his starting spot lost to a younger, faster back acquired from another franchise; and a linebacker struggling with his anger at his father/high school coach who pushed his brother/team mate to the point of death, and the fact that that anger has made him a juggernaut on the field who specializes in demolishing the opposition. The episode deals with his anguish over crippling a player from another team. There are a few awkward, unbelievable moments in the show at times (such as the scene where the new, hot-shot running back for the COUGARS is pulled over for speeding on the way to the Big Game– is discovered possessing cocaine, and immediately released because he’s the COUGARS’ “playmaker”. I’ve seen far too many actual star athletes arrested for drug possession, NO MATTER HOW valuable they are to a team. Many have their charges swept under the rug– but they still get arrested)– but overall, it’s a show I’ll keep watching. Maybe I’ll even do that comic now.

NIP/TUCK follows the story of two Miami plastic surgeons. This is one of those shows that you go “Aha– why didn’t anyone think of this before…?”. In a society like ours, where youth and beauty are valued over almost any other “quality”, the bizarre quest of people to go under the knife to either attain or MAINTAIN that pinnacle is a fascinating and compelling spectacle. One of the surgeons is an uptight idealist, who wants to help people who really NEED corrective surgery with his gifts; while the other surgeon is more of the playboy type, whose main goals are to get rich and famous while creating as many beautiful women with HIS skills as he can (often sleeping with many of his patients). Mixed with the oddities of the personalities of their patients– this is a wild, fascinating show that often leaves me feeling very uncomfortable and voyeuristic. It’s as though the things that are happening weren’t MEANT for outside eyes to see, they’re so strange. And the show has some of the most realistic surgical scenes I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how they do it, but it looks as though they are operating on ACTUAL LIVE PEOPLE during the scenes. It’s amazing. And it’s on FX– which has a much more lax view of the use of our common “blue language”, shall we say– so it has a more natural feel to the dialogue without seeming forced.

In a sea of TV sitcoms and cop dramas, it’s good to see two new shows that revolve around something different. You can find good stories anywhere you look– and these two shows prove that.

Mike