Hey all! I’m back from Wizard World in Chicago, which was a wonderful time. I’m dying to tell you all about it…but I’m catching things up here at work and will have to get to it later. So, for now…here’s the color image of GZ that I made into a poster for the Con. It really made a very nice impression on people…as only a masked, skull-headed person can!
-Dave
Forgive my Star Trek-isms, but I just wanted to post an update to the Wizard World Con I’ll be attending this coming Saturday in Chicago.
The last big convention I attended was GenCon in the early 90’s, so you can imagine that I’m pretty excited. I’ll be talking to some people about publishing Ghost Zero, and I’m really looking forward to seeing some great art.
If you’re going to be there, and you’d be interested, I’d love to meet you! I’ve been offered a temporary home at friend and artist Douglas Klauba’s tables. We’ll be in Artist Alley around tables 4600 - 4616 all Saturday.
-Dave
I love pulp. Now, that may not come as a big suprise to many of you, but along with the fun, action-packed stories, the art was something that really inspired me. Especially the covers.
So, I worked and worked on my art, trying to come up with something that was fitting, illustratively, and paid sufficient homage to what I saw as a pulp style, and it worked.
Sort of.
I mean, I really enjoyed the strong graphic blacks in my work, and adding the marker greytones punched it out a little farther…giving the the flexibility to really describe an image.
But I always, ALWAYS fell short in the color area.
It was so frustrating to me to see gorgeous pieces of pulp art by classic artists like Bama, Basil Gogos, and others, and amazing color pieces by Douglas Klauba, Steve Hickman, Adam Hughes……and to personally experience failure after failure with color personally.
Well, suddenly..about a week ago, everything changed. I experienced an epiphany in Photoshop that suddenly changed everything. Suddenly, not only could I color my own work, but I was pretty damned happy with it!
It’s hard to explain to someone what that’s like. It’s like being able to write music but not being able to play an instrument, only to come along one day, pick up a cello and experience that “oh..I get it!” moment that takes you from a floundering failure to compentent. Just like that.
So, instead of having a page of the Vigilante Crypt here for display, I have a couple of color pieces that I’ve done that I feel turned out pretty well (I’m still keeping the colored GZ print under my hat until next week, though). The first is a piece for Anthony Schiavino’s story “Cowboy Tony and the Savage Chimps of Cannibla Mesas!”, which is just as over-the-top fun as it sounds. The second is a colored version of an earlier piece I did to pay homage to one of my favorite pulp characters Captain Spectre, created by my good friend Tom Floyd.
Anyway, this is a whole new world for my art, and I’m really looking forward to exploring it!
Folks,
I had the urge this week to do a full-page piece instead of the sequentials…partly because of spending more time with my wife, and partly because I was inspired by artwork my friend Doug Klauba had done on his Phantom covers.
Anyway, this is….part of the result. This is the b/w/greytone version that turned into an underpainting that I digitally painted over to create my first ever successful (in my opinion) colored piece.
So, where’s the colored piece?
Well, that’s something I’m keeping under my hat for now. You see, I’ve been talking to a publisher about a home for GZ, and I’m heading up to Wizard World in Chicago this month to visit and talk. I’ll have some prints of the colored version with me to show them. Rest assured, when that’s done, I’ll be posting a pic of the colored piece on the web, along with (hopefully) news about a publisher for GZ. For now, I thought you all might want to see this part. It took me 3 evenings to get this far…probably 6 to 8 hours.
I am curious, though…do you think GZ is taking the mask off…or putting it on?)
-Take care,
Dave
Welcome to page 16! Eddie’s playing catchup with what’s going on still..which is to be expected, because being chased by immolated ghosts isn’t exactly in the realm of most teenager’s experiences.) If only this story were about acne, right? Poor Eddie….
Well, take heart, because Eddie gets to take some initiative next page…with interesting results!
Also, as an FYI, I re-drew that image of Eddie in the first panel at least 15 times before I was satisfied..)
-Dave
Friends,
I just happened to stumble by a wonderful little pulp gem that I think all you true-blue pulp fans would be interested in. It’s a site called PULP SUNDAY, produced by the very talented comic artist Francesco Francavilla. Apparently, this super-busy artist takes time (nearly) every Sunday to post some great gem of mystery/horror/action/sci-fi pulp from the past! He’s got links to some great Shadow radio shows, and accompanies them with his own illustrations….incredible!
So go ahead and check out the site…you can send me a check later!)
-Dave
I enjoy several things about this page. I thought that the burning ghost in panel one came out very well, I like the shot of Charles and Eddie in panel 3 and I like the shot of the extinguisher in the closet. Most of all, I really like the lettering and the dialogue that is going on. Whenever I send the finished art and the script off to letterer/designer Anthony Schiavino, I’m always amazed with what a huge difference the lettering makes to the page.
Overall, I’m pleased with the story and the feel everything has. I have several areas I need to work on, specifically some basic anatomy and consistancy, but I figure it isn’t anything a few hundred more panels won’t fix…)
Anyway, Enjoy!
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