WANTED page 2

I've been hosting Aussies in LA and my blogging has gone to the dogs. My buddy, Jason and I have been revelling in the gay overtext of ARMY OF TWO to the chagrin of our girlfriends. For those who want the funniest review of Army of Two which will explain exactly what I'm talking about, click HERE for the brilliant Zero Punctuation. When you're finished being distracted there, don't forget to come on back and read this post.

I'm writing this now as a warm-up to drawing. I'm not quite ready to get started. I'm sure you know what I mean. The cogs need a bit of time to get oiled and I'm sure a blog post is the perfect antidote.

This page was one huge cheat. What I can't figure out is why I repeated the same picture of Thompson! I drew an original picture of Thompson Jr on page 1 and blurred the hell out of it so no one ever saw it. I could/should have used it here instead of recycling the one picture of him three times from the first page. As they say, "E's lovely, but e's not very bwight."

This may seem like such a cop out, but I think it got the job done. I actually drew the Micah separately and just pasted and resized him into the panels. The beauty of this page was that it allowed me to spend more time on other stuff.

If time is my budget, I found I was able to save a lot to spend it elsewhere. I think you got your money's worth... especially given it's free!

Alexandre in one of his recent comments mentioned my guns and how I try to depict them accurately. Several people have asked about this. My secret is the lax gun laws in LA. Not the gun laws in LAX. The relaxed gun laws in LA. We all the same page yet?

In Australia NO ONE has a gun. If there's a shooting it's in every paper even if the shooting occurred in another state! You can't even get paintball guns in most places and toy guys don't resemble anything like real guns. But LA... In my first few months here I went down to the awesome army disposal story on Hollywood and grabbed myself a bunch of pellet firing replica hand guns. They've got a little orange nib on the end of the barrel so you know they're fake. But they look, feel and weigh like a real gun. When I give these props to a model, the performance I get is phenomenal. There's a real feel of respect for the weapon, and then they just get an evil grin (no matter how pacifistic they are) and just go for the performance with real gusto.

So there you go, another secret exposed!

Ollie just asked me if I wanted to do the 8 page finale of REBELLION written by James Martin esq. Of course I said, "Hell yes."

My 22 page script is being looked over by the kind folks at SUMAJIN. It's a covert action thriller that puts the characters in some very interesting places. Ollie Grigsby and Alex Hammond gave me such great feedback. They really helped me crank it up a heck of a lot. Man, I learn so much working with writers I really admire. It seems that the company funding the idea is very happy with it so far. I'm just waiting on final approval. Then I can start on layouts and character sketches. It's gonna be tight but fun!

I also finished my four issue mini-series of an unannounced project. At least you know it will released on time, right? Or if it doesn't, it's totally not my fault. I will word you up when it hits the mean streets of your local comic shop.

APPEARANCE: I'm doing a panel for Digital LA on digital comics being held by MELTDOWN COMICS on July 9th. I will be there from 7pm.

Here's the link:

http://digitalla.net/

There's also a Facebook page and you can join the other 235 people and sign up for:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=91736912490

The panel will go for an hour and a half starting at 8pm. I will bring along my silver pens to sign graphic novels, but I apologise, I won't be able to do any sketches. Sorry! Hit me up at San Diego for the sketching action.