Some may wonder if I need a "man card check," but I assure you everything is intact. I made a deal with my wife: I told her if I she read
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, I would read
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. A few reluctant nods and it was
on; we each worked through our respective first books like picky eaters trying to acquire a new appreciation for hagus or some other foreign dare food. Surprisingly, we both found we enjoyed our first samplings. So we moved on to the second books: she cracked open
Ender's Shadow and I proceeded forth with
New Moon. We both enjoyed those books, too. She ended up getting the better of the deal as I continued on with the third book in the Meyer series,
Eclipse, but I couldn't really recommend the next book in the Card series to her as it was just good, not great.
The outcome of our reading challenge was a win-win. My wife can now see why I love the
Ender series. And, I have to admit, I share her fascination with the
Twilight series. That being said, I will not be attending the
Breaking Dawn party at Borders Books on August 1st when the fourth Meyer book is released; I've got to draw the line somewhere! However, my wife and teenage daughters will be on hand sporting their "Team Edward" t-shirts, ready to pitch their speculative theories on Bella's future with the vampire hunk.
I can appreciate the buzz about this Meyer series. It wasn't a
Buffy rip-off as I had thought. It was really well written, filled with clever twists and turns, albeit skewed to feminine sensibilities with the romantic content. Case in point: the upcoming movie adaptation of
Twilight caused a bit of a stir at Comic-Con recently. Apparently 6000+ female fans (soccer moms with daughters in tow) rushed the
Twilight panel the other day. Hah! That's a new demographic for the world's largest comic convention.
Okay, I've geeked out way too much here. But I can wholeheartedly recommend the Meyer series to the male species. Just wrap a Louie Lamour dust jacket around the books as you secretly read them. And you don't have to give up the man card, just find that middle ground between your dark macho side and your lighter sensitive side. That
twilight if you will ... (oh boy).
Here's some preliminary penciling for one of the last few pages I have left for the premiere issue of The Peck. Here Cornelius recounts (in flashback) how he first met young Dent. He discovers him in his own home, the city landfill, beaten, and left for dead under a pallet-load of toxic chemicals.
Just got my first trade paperbacks of Usagi Yojimbo (volumes 1 and 2). You can really see the influence of Sergio Aragones in Stan Sakai's work (Stan has done lettering for Sergio's work since back in the day). Not a bad thing to have rub off. I think I naturally tend toward these more cartoony stylizations in my own comic work. Blame it on my earlier work as a gag cartoonist through my college years. To picture Usaji Yojimbo, basically take the old Japanese tales of Lone Wolf and Cub, Yojimbo, etc and cross them with cartoon animals and you have the jist of the comic series.
I walked into A-1 Comics today looking for a copy of Alan Moore's Watchmen. Nada. On backorder. Apparently the trailer for the upcoming movie has caused quite a spike in the paperback's sales. The clerk at the comic store says he's never seen anything quite like it for an older title. Not bad considering it came out in 1995.
Here is the t-shirt design I put together for my wife and daughters' party excursion to Borders this Friday for the premiere of Breaking Dawn. I'm sure there will be more than a few book fans with the Ts of Edward's headshot there, so I tweaked it a bit to hopefully set it apart. I duotoned the orginal photo, cranked the curves a little in P-shop (to increase the relief off the black T) and increased the warm ochre in his eye for contrast. Kind of reminds me of someone ...
Some may wonder if I need a "man card check," but I assure you everything is intact. I made a deal with my wife: I told her if I she read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, I would read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. A few reluctant nods and it was on; we each worked through our respective first books like picky eaters trying to acquire a new appreciation for hagus or some other foreign dare food. Surprisingly, we both found we enjoyed our first samplings. So we moved on to the second books: she cracked open Ender's Shadow and I proceeded forth with New Moon. We both enjoyed those books, too. She ended up getting the better of the deal as I continued on with the third book in the Meyer series, Eclipse, but I couldn't really recommend the next book in the Card series to her as it was just good, not great.
My buddy, Mach Mahn, is at Comic-Con doing portfolio crit duties for Arch Enemy Comics this week. He's developing a comic character with them right now called Solo. To view an animatic of a concept he and Dennis Long are working on click here. Mach reports he's meeting a lot of people and enjoying being on the biz side of CC. Give 'em heck, man!
It's official. Gone are the days of the "zany" Tim Burtonesque superhero adaptations. Waste that kind of cartoon stylization on boys in chocolate factories and bad dreams before Christmas. Things have moved toward a more sober note. The convincing evidence is portrayed in the most recent installment of Batman: The Dark Knight. What an intense, psychological romp! Sure it has all the action you expect in a super hero flick, but director Chris Nolan takes the possibilities of comic book adaptation to a new level in this one. It is the maturation of a genre: the infusing of complexity---humanity (and in some cases, insanity)---into super hero/villain personalities.
