STUCK IN THE MIDDLE PART 3

I've been waiting for the dust to settle, and you know what? I don't think it will. So let's get this baby rolling. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we will have posting action.

I'm gonna finish off STUCK IN THE MIDDLE which should time us nicely for my new HEROES story - also written by Jim Martin. And let me tell you it's a cracker. Main cast, great dialogue and mysterious appearances. And to cap it off, some incredible colouring by Annette Kwok.

I hope you've all had a great ushering into the new year. I had an amazing time back in Melbourne. Huge shout outs to everyone who I managed to catch up with. And to those who I missed, I can't wait to catch up with you next time. Being stranded two hours outside of Melbourne made pulling together what little I had of a social life really tough.

Also I was drawing my butt off back in Melbourne. I'm still playing catch up. So, while I haven't been blogging, I have been drawing - and I have HEAPS to show you... and unfortunately, heaps more I can't. Well, not for a while anyway.

And even more awesome, in the meantime my blog broke 50,000 hits. I was waiting with baited breath for that! Grats to me! Wooooo!!!! Thank you to everyone for all your support. That's got me fired up like nothing else.

But let's get back onto STUCK IN THE MIDDLE.

I was so excited to draw Tracy and Nathan. I noticed in the script that they weren't mentioned by name, so I had to make sure I hit some really strong likenesses. I recently read Alitha Martinez's story featuring Tracy and Mohinder. Alitha has stepped up to another level. She has a very cartoony style but she hit Tracy's likeness spot on! This is no mean feat for me, as I found Ali Larter very tough to draw. Come to think of it, all the blonds on the show are tough to draw. Peter Steigerwald commented that he found Elle tough, I was glad I wasn't the only one. But Alitha made it look easy panel after panel.

I drew Nathan in shadow and then well lit in the panel thereafter. I was stunned as to how much better the one in shadow looked. So if you look at the following panels of Nathan he's always in shadow. I also went for this stylistic choice to reflect Nathan's darker path.

On panel 6 is an Easter Egg joke between a friend and myself. Simon Sherry and I worked on our very first comic book together, called ANTHOLOGY - yes, we were young and not very imaginative about the title. At least no one can plead misleading advertising, cos if we called it, THE MOST AWESOME COMIC YOU'VE EVER READ... we would have been totally lying.

But Simon dared me to draw Johnny Luck - the character I created for Anthology into a HEROES comic. I just couldn't find anywhere to draw this genetically altered dog soldier that wouldn't confuse readers. I was going to draw it on the side of the lighter, but I thought readers would read too much into it. get mislead and confused. I mean STUCK was about genetically altered soldiers to begin with! So I shoved his name on the side of the boxes of cleaning supplies.

As an aside, years ago I wandered into a supermarket and saw a line of toys directly ripping off JOHNNY LUCK! They had made action figures of 4 of the six characters I created and even got some dude to paint over my artwork for the packaging. I was stunned. People said I should sue. I just regret not buying them as it would of (at the very least) been cool to have action figures of characters I created. I wish I could remember what they were called.

NEXT:

Monday: Stuck in the Middle Page 4.

Tonight: Ollie Grigsby's bday party.

Maybe next week will be my next HEROES story.