It feels so good to be back in action, doing comic stuff. I mentioned that stupid slump I was in, right? I went into detail about it over on the Other Sleep blog shortly before I got chapter 3 online and...oh crap, I never announced that over here, did I?

That's right! A week or two before I went to HeroesCon I put chapter 3 online! GO READ IT NOW. Or um, wait until you're done reading this post, at least?

Ahem. Anyways. Yes, I was in a slump, and the trip to HeroesCon really helped to pull me out of it, inspire me, and get me back on my feet and making comics for YOUR enjoyment. I confess that chapter 4 of Other Sleep is going to be late, BUT I've got other things coming down the pipeline! For instance, I am PRINTING chapter 1 of Other Sleep for Rob-Con! I'm polishing things off and figuring out what to do for the back 4 pages, inside cover, and back cover, but I'll be putting the order out for it soon. And oh hey, what's this?

GASP! Is that what I think it is? YES. It's the logo for Burst Reach 2, which I've been slaving away at all this week! I'll be getting it finished up and printed this weekend, then I'll be bringing them with me to Rob-Con next month on the 21st! I'll be doing it the same way I did the first one last year, printing it myself, getting copies made, and folding and stapling them myself. Had I mentioned that I purchased a long reach stapler one night earlier this year on a night that I couldn't sleep? Well, I did.

Yes, I'm taking two different approaches in getting two different books printed and put together. Other Sleep is a full-color comic, and it's my real professional effort, so going through a professional printer to get it right is easily the best option. On the other hand, Burst Reach is a lo-fi minicomic anthology that's MEANT to be cheap and handmade like a punk zine or those pamphlets that crazy street preachers occasionally hand out.

(quick aside: I was once handed a Bible on campus at ETSU, and in exchange I gave the guy a copy of Burst Reach. Fair trade?)

Another reason I'm making Burst Reach 2 in that fashion is influence from my friend Sterlin, whose Pizza Flag Books you should be familiar with if you've been on this site for a while. Last week before I left for Heroes, a Nashville all-girl punk band called Heavy Cream put on a free show downtown, which was put together by Sterlin. It made me happy to see when I got there that he had a table set up selling copies not only of his own Museum For Dead Clowns zine, but Eye Alive vol. 1 (I FINALLY GOT A COPY), a NEW zine of his own called Irony & Whine, and a zine by another friend called Tune Out. I greedily snatched these up. He's also been selling copies of Burst Reach for me. It's just...man, zines are just the coolest things ever, you know?

OH. And I did this poster for that very show:
 It makes me happy knowing that they sold out there. Sterlin did a pretty sweet poster too, which also sold out.

Um...now I forgot what I was talking about? Yeah, Burst Reach is my punk comix zine thing, while Other Sleep is a little more high-quality. But I still love both and I'm putting all I've got into them.

And have no fears, that Distinguished Gentlemen/Exciting Tales! collection is progressing as well! And I'll be doing a cover for Eye Alive vol. 2 for Sterlin and contributing to the guts of the book too. I don't think I'll be doing a new comic this go around, but I still want to do something cool...You'll see.

Aaaaannnnnd I think that's it for now. BACK TO MAKING COMICS.

[Brett]

So HeroesCon was this weekend, and I teamed up with a couple of friends and went down to Charlotte for three days of comics and crowds and other fun stuff.

Things worked out so damn conveniently for us. I had originally wanted a hotel downtown, close to the convention center, but we opted instead for a significantly cheaper LaQuinta Inn by the airport. Friday and Saturday, we were shuttled for free from the hotel to the lightrail station and rode the train straight to the con. Maybe it wasn't much quicker, but it was certainly cheaper and more interesting, especially the guy who drove us back to the hotel from the station talking about extra terrestrial intelligence and stuff.

I got. So much. Stuff. And I met so many artists whose work I've enjoyed over the years. I'm not even sure where to begin, man.

Out of my rather large list of people I wanted to see, Geof Darrow was absolutely one of the top five. He was the first person I looked for on the show floor after a quick stop by Becky Cloonan's table, which I had just happened to notice while on the way. I bought a Godzilla print from him, got my copy of Hard Boiled signed, and talked to him about Bojangles, KFC, and the weird orgy that was taking place at the beginning of the comic. The next day, he did a panel with Don Rosa, and I asked him about any future plans for the Shaolin Cowboy. Awesomely, there's an old-school pulp magazine called the Shaolin Cowboy Adventures that'll be coming out this year! YES! He also kept rambling about some weird Japanese manga about an island of vampires that make people piss themselves and stuff. I love that man to death.

The two coolest artists I met over the weekend were Michel Fiffe and Paul Maybury. Both of these guys were a part of the LiveJournal comics group Act-I-Vate years ago, which I was a pretty big fan of. Funny thing was, it wasn't until I saw them there and started talking to them that I realized how big of a part that group and their work played in my comics sensibilities. Both of them were incredibly nice, and I bought more from them than I did from any of the other guys.

I also met James Harren, whose recent work on BPRD and Abe Sapien has been mind-blowingly awesome. I freaked out looking through the original pages of the Long Death, and when I told him I wished I had brought one of his books to sign, he generously pulled out a Mignola variant issue of BPRD, signed it, and handed it to me for free.

Other folks I met: Becky Cloonan, Ben Templesmith, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Ryan Bodenheim, Mike Mignola himself, Bill Sienkiewicz, Toby Cypress, Nathan Fox, Robbi Rodriguez, and probably some other guys I've embarrassingly forgotten. I gave most of them copies of Burst Reach too. I was afraid that some of them would turn me down or just shove it aside, but quite a number of them seemed really gracious and interested in what I was doing.

Meeting these artists, giving them my own book, and looking at their own work and seeing what all they've accomplished was so amazing and invigorating. These past few weeks I've been in this stupid slump, so down on my own work and struggling to maintain some kind of motivation to continue working on Other Sleep, and this con was absolutely the kick in the ass that I needed. Now I'm just absolutely pumped to start working on more stuff.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS:
The panel with Dustin Harbin and Scott Campbell was incredible. Only 5 or 6 people showed up for it, so we all sat right up front, making for a rather "intimate" panel that was a blast. It was absolutely the best panel I attended that weekend.

Our hotel was dog-friendly, and Saturday night there were a number of the beasts and their lazy owners hanging around the pool, which was kind of weird. The hot tub wasn't terribly hot or even remotely bubbly, so all in all it was a little surreal and a little mundane. Still, can't complain too much, we paid just over 50 bucks each between the three of us for two nights there.

Stan Lee was there, and I caught a little glimpse of him from a distance. I think Trey and David got some blurry, distant photos of him. He wasn't looking too great, but apparently at his Sunday panel he actually RAN up to the stage and can still really work a crowd, so maybe he was just...conserving his energy?

I saw wayyyyyy too many Harley Quinns, Deadpools, and guys in Captain America shield shirts. The cosplay all around wasn't much to be amazed at. I got molested by a Tusken Raider at the 501st booth immediately after walking into the con on Friday, and kept stumbling upon a pretty amazing Silk Spectre. I think Dr. McNinja was there Saturday, which was badass, and he was walking around with Axe Cop too! I also bumped into a guy carrying Tom Servo around, and kicked myself for not getting a picture. There were two large t-shirt booths set up, and they seemed to be getting a lot of business, but the only shirts I bought were from Michel Fiffe (the one pictured above) and Paul Maybury.

We saw some TV show in the hotel room with Betty White and a bunch of other elderly folks called Off Their Rockers. It was a prank show that was...honestly kind of awesome, but pretty terrible at the same time.

Hm. I think that's it. I'm still really sore and tired from all the damn walking we did, so I'm gonna go relax and go through the insane number of comics I bought, yeah? I definitely plan on going next year, and might even try to get a table for myself. I just don't know if I can stand up to some of the awesome talent there...

...Oh crap, I gotta prepare for next month's Rob-Con!

[Brett]

I have been busy. I'm nearly finished drawing chapter 3 of Other Sleep, and I'm deep into flatting/coloring it as well. I've got someone interested in me doing some drawings for a thing they're writing, I'm doing a flyer for a local show, and I've got to plan a photoshoot for a friend. STUFF IS HAPPENING.

Not to mention those collections I keep putting off on working on, and planning that trip to Heroes Con next summer.

I'm afraid I don't have anything terribly new to show you guys right now. HOWEVER. That comic I did at the end of 2011, Zimmik Looks For Love in a Barren Land, is finally online and you can go read it in the comics gallery. I was waiting until my friend printed the anthology book that it was for. Here's the first page:

Lots of weird semi-emo stuff and nudity in this one, yeah.

Oh, and here's a quick thing I threw together last week as a bit of a test/experiment:
 That's it. Back to work.

[Brett]

I'm going to do a bit of a braindump today. Things I've been looking at, listening to, thinking about, et cetera.

I keep listening to this song, because it's so good. It brings to mind imagery from Stalker, and makes me think of a What If? sequel to that film where, after another decade or two, Stalker returns to the Zone and finds that it's...changed, in a sinister, austere fashion. Give it a listen, it's remarkable.
 

I read Sharknife ZZ by Corey Lewis this week and HOLY CRAP IT IS AWESOME. I could only read it in quick bursts, a handful of pages at a time, because it's so dense with style and it's so overwhelmingly fun to flip through. Corey is at the top of his game with it, and it was so worth the 6-year wait it took him to make it. I did some fanart, I loved it so much:

This blog post by David Brothers about the Before Watchmen crap is absolutely venomous and on the nose.  I was initially thinking of buying the Minutemen series because I love Darwyn Cooke, but now, ugh, I'm just not going to bother at all.

I wrote a blog post over on Other Sleep about the bad 1980 movie Altered States and how it's kind of the backbone for the comic. I'm planning on doing posts every week over there about what's influenced it. I think next time I'm gonna write about Guy Davis and his work on BPRD.

I'm trying to figure out how I can really promote the hell out of Other Sleep and get people to check it out. I don't think it's something I can do myself. Right now I'm hopping on messageboards and stuff, and I made a list of comics professionals and critics and bloggers that I want to send it to, but I just haven't worked up the guts yet to email any of them...

Saturday the 21st, I'm going to be at the Tri-Cities Toy and Hobby Show. Basically I'll just be doing sketches, giving away Other Sleep postcards, and selling copies of the new third printing of Burst Reach for a buck apiece. The guy who manages the show is a really nice guy and is letting me have a table for free to do my thing. This is, I guess, my first "appearance," so to speak, since I don't think walking around Rob Con last year thrusting Burst Reach into people's hands necessarily counts, yeah?

(by the way, there I also dropped some copies of Burst Reach off at Atomik Comiks in Johnson City, so you can grab them there too. Tell Shawn I sent you)

Also? The third printing of Burst Reach is STAPLED BY ME, rather than saddle-stitched at Kinkos. This justifies the long-arm stapler I ordered in the middle of the night back in February with a copy of Redline when I couldn't sleep.
 

I'm also going to be at Mountain Empire Comics in Bristol for Free Comic Book Day, drawing and stuff.

AND I bought a 3-day pass today for Heroes Con. I'm really excited about that, since it'll be my first REAL con.

And finally, I just watched a really good documentary on digital sampling in hip hop that's called Copyright Criminals. It's great, you should check it out on Netflix.

Okay, back to work.

[Brett]

You read that right folks, the first chapter of Other Sleep is now online! Click the image below to go read the first chapter!

This image also doubles as a postcard I'm getting printed in order to hand out at local comic book stores and such. Woo!

I'm excited. I've been working my ass off on this and it makes me so happy to see it now up for public consumption.

Things have been set in motion. Gotta keep the momentum going. I've already got almost half of chapter 2 drawn now, I'm still writing the later chapters, and putting together other ideas and stuff. 

I also made a page specifically for it on this site, so you should check that out.

That's it for now. There's yet more work to do. SO MUCH WORK.

[Brett]

Maybe I should start titling all of my blog posts after Wu-Tang Clan songs.

SO! After an 8-day drawing binge, I have FINISHED drawing the first chapter of my graphic novel!

This is one heck of an accomplishment for me. It's a huge step forward. Massive progress.

I'm also excited to announce that I have a website set up for it and everything already!
 YES. The comic is titled OTHER SLEEP, and the website is up and running! All you gotta do is click that picture. CLICK IT.

I'll be posting OS-related things on the blog there, and I've got a 3-page preview for the first chapter set up for you to ogle too. AND YOU CAN COMMENT ON IT. Go go go!

The complete first chapter will be up sometime in mid-to-late April. My self-set deadline is end of the month, so I can print some copies of it for Free Comic Book Day. Rob, the man who runs Mountain Empire Comics and Bristol's own Rob-Con comic convention, talked me into making a FCBD appearance at the store, and I don't want to show up empty-handed now do I?

I've also got a table for this year's Rob-Con, of course. I plan on having quite a few things there for people, including Burst Reach 2!

Exciting times, these are.

Also, in between all the drawing and planning and website tomfoolery, I did another photography thing:
The copy machine at work is old and does those wicked looking, lo-fi punk prints like you see in older textbooks, and I'd been dying to do something with it for a while now, and thus this was born!

And that's it. I got more work to do tonight. I'm just about finished lettering those pages up there, yeah...

[Brett]

I realize it's been some time since I've shown off anything I'm working on. Some of you, my theoretical fans and avid readers, are probably thinking that I've been sitting around on my butt, picking my nose and watching Trailer Park Boys. That's only half true, I was watching Mad Men and Breaking Bad, actually.

God, I can't believe I typed that.

But no, here's a quick glance at what I've been doing:
 I've been churning out pages like mad. The top row of pages is for a short supernatural comic I'm working on for Burst Reach 2, tentatively called GRICE. It's inspired by Hellboy, witch house music, and the Wu-Tang Clan, and I think it's the coolest comic I've ever drawn so far. The bottom half is pages for the graphic novel in progress. I'm on the cusp of making some sort of announcement regarding that, as soon as I figure out where I'm going to be hosting it and stuff.

Here's the first page of Grice, colored. Click to embiggen:
 And here's a finished image I did for the graphic novel, as the uh, cover I suppose, to the first chapter:
Finally, here's a photo I took in January and messed with the other night on a whim which was brought about by feeling kind of down in the dumps over silly emotional things:

Her pose kind of captured how I felt, heh. Plus, I haven't done anything actually photography-related in a while, so it was nice opportunity to use a different part of my brain.

Also a quick pencil sketch from the same shoot. I drew this after I finished reading a weird, awesome sci fi romance novel called As She Climbed Across the Table:
Other things: Been reading lots of comics, particularly older volumes of the BPRD, which I'm kicking myself for not getting into sooner, watching some good TV shows on Netflix, and some good movies too. The Social Network, the Man Who Fell to Earth, the Game, just to name a few. Also I've been replaying the crap out of Bioshock. 

So, all in all, things are moving right along, as they should be, right? OH ONE MORE THING:
 
I wish more movies looked this good. I'm trying to keep my expectations in check, but it's just too hard, man.

Okay, that's it. You can go now.

[Brett] 

"I’m an artist, I do comic strips, and my main preoccupation is doing drawings."

Two days ago, at the age of 73, Jean "Moebius" Giraud died. The world is poorer, dimmer for it. It's a devastating loss.

Even if you're not aware of the man and his work, you've at least felt his influence in comics, movies, and videogames. Moebius single-handedly redefined science fiction art, and inspired many artists and creators, including, but not limited to, Ridley Scott, Katsuhiro Otomo, Hayao Miyazaki, Brandon Graham, Paul Pope, Geof Darrow, Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, and Jim Lee.

The man was a giant, a legend, and it's staggering to think about the massive body of work he left behind. What's even more staggering is that, even in his old age, Moebius could still draw better than most artists half his age, and was producing still greater work. Unlike a lot of artists and creators, the talent of Moebius never wavered. He was one of the greatest living artists, and his work will continue to inspire others for generations to come.

The internet is flooded with obituaries and tributes to the man, most of which are much more eloquently written than what I'm trying to type out here. I spent all day Saturday reading them, watching videos of him drawing, documentaries on his work, and flipping through my collection of his comics. I was incredibly lucky last summer to find all six volumes of his work that Epic Comics had published back in the late 80's and did not hesitate to buy them all at once, and I flipped through them all yesterday. I found my copy of the Fifth Element on DVD because I knew he was interviewed in one of the special features. I watched Blade Runner with Ridley Scott's commentary because I knew how big of an influence his comic the Long Tomorrow played on the look of that film. I just drank in as much as I could about him and his art.

And I cried. I've never cried over someone's death before, but my respect and admiration for Moebius is just so great, and I can't think of a single artist involved in sci fi or comics who wouldn't say the same.

You've seen this little tribute I did before, probably, but it's worth posting again:
 And here's an attempt I made in December at copying a panel from his comic Marie Dakar, published in Dark Horse Presents:
 

Like I said, we've lost a giant. The world will not be the same without him. My mind is still reeling from it.

Thanks for the amazing art, the great comics, the inspiration, for everything. Godspeed, Jean.

"At one point I truly believed that I could be a prophet, a saint, whose medium was drawing. But no, I’ve become…well, now I’m a 67-year-old man. And I’ll die in some truly banal manner, the same way I live. But I still draw, I put all of my energy into my drawings, to make them vibrate. I would like people to say, “oh, he’s really bizarre, but he’s there all the same.” That’s all."

A few days ago I finally finished up Cyberpunk Blues 2: Your Fan Club Sucks, and threw it up on the site. You can read the whole thing HERE.

I jumped back and forth when working on this. While drawing it, there'd be one minute where I loved it and another where I hated it. I tried putting some Paul Pope influences into it, as well as Kirby and Gabriel Ba, who were the big influences in the first comic. I also came to a realization that there's a bit more Jaime Hernandez to it though, which isn't a bad thing at all.

The original script was 12 pages, the Little Shockers had FIVE members, and there was just a lot of fat that had to be trimmed off to make it work. It still feels a bit urgent, but that's okay.

The idea came about pretty easily. I've been reading a lot about absurd and obsessive fanbases doing crazy shit, nothing new there, but I started thinking about like, a hit squad. Like, what if, say, someone did something that scandalized um, Nicki Minaj? She's pretty dang popular right now, right? Anyways, what if that happened, someone practically ruins her reputation, say, uh, the guy from some lousy band, I dunno, and so her fans go after him?

Casey came about...well, I once saw this video of a topless Japanese girl with a surgical mask and tape over her nipples dancing BADLY to some anime theme song or something. Oh, wait, here it is. Yeah, no, I don't know why it fascinated me so much, aside from being stupidly absurd and well, going back to the theme of crazy things devoted fans will do...

...Man, that's the first time I've seen that video in months. Her dancing is just...so bad...

ANYWAYS.

I'm a bit sad that Gail only shows up in two panels this go around, but in keeping with the themes of the first CB story, I had to go reference the leaked nude cellphone pics of Scarlett Johannson. HAD TO.

When I think about it, Cyberpunk Blues isn't very cyberpunk in the traditional sense, is it? Nor is it bluesy. It's more about celebrity musicians screwing with each other. I mean, nude photos and sex tapes are leaked all the time, but I'm a little surprised no one's used it to their advantage in the way Vince did with the first comic. It's bound to happen eventually, right? And when it does, I can be there to obnoxiously shout "I CALLED IT" at everyone.

Well, okay there is that one Rammstein video, but I don't think it counts...

Coloring this was a tough deal, taking three or four separate attempts, but I think I finally got it where I wanted it, and I hope you enjoy it.

Next up? Working on the previously mentioned collection of East Tennessean strips, 90+ pages thumbnailed for the big graphic novel project, and I've got a few more pages to fill for Burst Reach 2. I've got my ideas, it's just a matter now of hammering it into gold, yeah?

That's all. Keep being awesome, kids.

[Brett]

I'm gonna follow up on something I said in that last entry, regarding Marvel, DC, and creator-owned comics.

There's an inherent conundrum here: I'm angry at both companies, yes, so you'd think the natural thing to do would be to stop buying their comics altogether and to encourage others to do so. But it's not quite like that.

Look, most of DC's stuff is so bland and, well, corporate, feeling way too much like their books were put together on an assembly line (because they were) and pumped out like McDonalds hamburgers or something. But at the same time, they have Alberto Ponticelli drawing the crap out of Frankenstein, Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato have made the Flash into one of the greatest all-ages superhero comics ever, and OMAC is like an experiment gone violently wrong that somehow escaped the basement and got to run free for 8 months before DC finally got their shit together and put it down. Which is a shame, because I love OMAC. I will continue buying those books until OMAC is canceled and they inevitably play musical chairs for the creators on the other titles.

(that's one thing that always annoys me: Marvel and DC juggling artists and writers around so much that getting a nice team doing a long, solid run on one title is almost impossible these days)

Daredevil is hands down the best book Marvel is putting out at the moment, and anything that Jerome Opeña draws can gladly take my money.

What I'm saying is, yes, I hate the companies, but they've got some great, talented people working for them, and I like those guys and I don't want to see them lose their jobs. 

So here's what you do: Buy the good stuff, don't buy the crap. I don't care if you've been reading X-Men religiously for years, if it's really sucking, STOP BUYING IT. I wasn't saying to stop buying anything Marvel and DC related altogether, I'm just saying be more selective and go for the quality stuff. 

Nevertheless, you should still buy way more creator-owned comics than anything the big two are shilling. Here, let me help you with a nice long list of comics and graphic novels that you need to buy:

Butcher Baker, the Righteous Maker
Fatale
Prophet
Glory
Haunt
Scott Pilgrim
Wasteland
Hellboy
BPRD (hell, ANYTHING involving Mike Mignola)
The Goon
Nonplayer
Orc Stain
King City (the collection is out next month, and this is my single favorite title in the list. BUY IT)
Godland
The Walking Dead
Chew
The Strange Talent of Luther Strode
Casanova
Criminal
Parker: The Hunter & Parker: The Outfit
Sharknife ZZ (out next month!)
Sweet Tooth
Locke & Key
Saga
DMZ
Northlanders
Old City Blues
Anything by guys like Paul Pope, Mike Allred, Warren Ellis, and well, any of the creators involved in the above titles.

I'm sure there are a shit ton more than this too, that list is just off the top of my head.

The biggest company represented in this list is by far Image, whose publisher Eric Stephenson seems to be the only man displaying intelligence when it comes to publishing comics, but don't count out Dark Horse, IDW, Oni Press, Archaia, and others. Hell, Vertigo and Icon are respectively owned by DC and Marvel, and they put out creator-owned titles. If Marvel fails, then Icon fails, which means no more Casanova, which is the single best science fiction comic being released right now. I don't want to see that happen.

So there you have it. Now go forth, buy awesome comics, support your favorite writers and artists, damn the spice, save the men, and fuck the police.

[Brett]