My mom is helping me with my motorcycle seat. Yay!!!

Han n' Stormy

Han n' Stormy, originally uploaded by iaregenius.

Jeremy and I are working on a comic, these are the main characters.

The joys of scripting

Scripting, I have discovered helps in comic making if for no other reason than to give my scattered thought process an anchoring point from which to start. Jeremy sends over his written pages, from that point I set out to fit all the panels into place making sure there's room for word balloons and make sure it all makes sense visually. When all is said and done and I'm on the umpteenth page and Jeremy and I have hashed out all the re-writes and panel changes for the first few pages I have something to look at and think about. That's when my brain really goes to work and I start thinking about how I can draw "this" page differently and re-arrange things on "that" page to tell the story better. I never really messed around with planning before, it seemed like a waste of time but now I see it as one more step to being a better creator or visual storyteller.

Brandon Graham

Every now and then I get fed up with comics in general. I discover some amazing new talent, go collect everything they've done, read it and get bored all over again. It seems that since i stopped collecting for 5 years or so there's been a lot of talent that's busted onto the scene but I thought I'd found it all. Brandon Graham popped onto my radar through a buddy of mine, Jeremy Holt. I had seen King City a few times but just glanced right over it looking for something else. I think I was maybe a little burned out on the "manga" influence in American comics because that's what the flavor du jour was when comics got back-burnered (becoming a dad will do that). Sure his style does have some of that but it's a lot more as well. Owing as much to Heavy Metal as it does Shirow, while that had something to do with it's appeal so did the the fact that he put everything on display on his blog http://royalboiler.livejournal.com/. He complains about the industry, struggles with drawing outside his ability and paying rent. Thank you for being a hero.

Maybury

Maybury, originally uploaded by iaregenius.

So I was in Austin this weekend to pick up the last of my belongings and take advantage of Free Comic Book Day!!! While I was there I picked up a copy of 24Seven Vol. 2 and got Paul Maybury to sign it and sketch my robotic likeness on the inside cover. Thank you Austin for providing me with free comics, good people, good artists and amazing pizza.

El Studio

El Studio, originally uploaded by iaregenius.

This is where it all happens.

It's a little dirty, it's a little rough but I did it in 30 minutes.