WANTED page 6, 7 & 8

Well it looks like my next HEROES story is going up tomorrow. I woke up last week like a kid on Christmas morning all ready to see my story lettered and there was still Dennis Calero's train crash. Oh well. Apologies to anyone that I mislead. It should be up tomorrow.

I love reading it for the first time, it's a totally new experience. I'm finding that the better I do, the closer the finished product is to what I imagined it to be. Before there used to be a huge deviation between what I planned and what I saw. These days the gap is closing and any deviations are usually pleasant surprises from the collaborative process. There's something really satisfing about seeing the lettering in place. It's like it becomes a real comic when there's words.

It's funny looking back on the way I depicted the characters. In 141 written by Timm Keppler on page 3 panel 4, the agent says, "This ain't no place for you kids...". Now, I'm not sure if Timm is intending on being funny, or the characters are actually kids. In which case, I feel a little bit weird (a lot weird actually) drawing them wearing this stuff! See, I thought that the characters of Sparrow and Abby were based on Kat and Abby, Zach and Ollie's girfriend and fiance respectively. I mean, wouldn't it be a bit weird if Abby is getting married to Lee and she's underage? I'm hoping that the agent is just being casual here. Otherwise it's all gone a bit weird.

Regardless, when you see 142, which should be up tomorrow, you can see how I've really toned down the outfits. The main reason is that apparently they were very distracting and generated too much discussion in an area that I didn't want people to be considering. Therefore, it was a poor costuming choice on my part. I hope you find their new outfits cool, sleek, simple and a lot more appropriate.

I had so much fun with these pages though. Harrison recommeded the tavor that Thompson Jr is carrying and while I normally hate drawing guns because they're so damn tedious, I really enjoyed drawing this gun. It's so different and so modern. I also particularly like the dust particle effect all over the place from the caved in wall. I don't really like movement lines (I find them a bit guache), so I like to try and create movement in other ways.

Page 7 was a blast. I hadn't really drawn many action scenes before HEROES and I'm really enjoying them. I like going wide, especially when there's a bunch of people running around. Panel one is a good example of me trying to set the scene. Originally Sparrow just punches Thompson and knocks him to the ground. I was concerned that if he was just lying on his feet in front of them he would stand up and just attack them again. By knocking him down through the floor it not only shows that he is literally "beneath" our main cast, but that he has no recourse against them. I mean, what is he going to do there? Throw rocks at them?

The panel where she punches him through the floor with a big rock fist turned out extremely well. It's the sort of widescreen action that I love to try and get away with. You're going to see some more widescreen stuff from Sparrow in the next story too. It gets very fun.

I promise to start showcasing all the sketches I did over Comic Con (both good and bad) right after this. I might attach a couple at the end of every post after the next installment of Rebellion that goes up.

I will also talk about the preview pages that are up for BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (http://www.barkit.com/) after the next 8 pages of HEROES: Rebellion.


I've also been offered my first long-term writing gig courtesy of http://flexchampion.com/. I was asked to write and draw the first issue for their series ORBIT. The plan was that they wanted to approach a different artist and writer for each issue to get totally different takes on their characters. Marcus, the creator of the Flex Champions wanted me to create personalities and a world for his characters. I worked closely with him and came up with a world and a first issue script. He then asked me what ideas I had for future issues and I shot some back at him. He liked the ideas so much he asked me to write the next 4-5 issues. My brain has been ticking away and I've got some really exciting and fun ideas. The stories are about children and the pressures from their parents, choices, a love triangle, a top secret covert black ops organization and a dash of terrorism. Shake it up, serve with lime and you have my pitch for ORBIT.

The problem is that I can't draw all the issues. So if you think you can draw similar to my style and have 4-5 sequential pages you can show me, email me at grael23@yahoo.com with the subject line "ORBIT SAMPLE PAGES" and I will have a look and see if you're appropriate for the gig. Or maybe you know someone that might be able to do the job? Put us in touch. You never know, you could be a part of making the magic happen.