ANOTHER ONE OF THESE THINGS..?

Hey everyone! Hope you’re all doing well…

I thought about handing this newsletter off to my robot assistant while I did something else, but then I remembered that I don’t have a robot assistant and AI is for suckers and losers and it’d be a shame to waste somebody’s drinking water for a frigging creative endeavor.

It’s been a little bit longer than I’d planned for this one, but I’ve had a deadline looming, and we’ve had a lot of added misadventure in our lives lately. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a calmer stretch…

Right.

Anyway … I just wrapped up the art for NIGHT MOVERS, so Matt will be putting on the finishing touches and before you know it, it’ll be off to the backers.

As for me? Well, I’m gonna take a few days, get some things done around the house, catch up on a bit of reading, then get back to work on the next issue of MALICENT BLACK…

This one is a bit tricky. Drew wrote a page and a half of plot, and I’m taking that and breaking it down into a 30 (ish) page comic. We’ve done some scenes or sequences Marvel style before (both in previous issues of Mal and in the final issue of Sam and his Talking Gun), but this book is pretty complicated, so Drew thought it’d be best to give me the plot and let me set it up however I think works best.

On the one hand, that’s great! I love the collaborative nature of comics. I know some artists prefer to have EVERYTHING in the script, but while I don’t mind a full script … I do enjoy having some wiggle room. It’s a visual medium, after all.

For this book, though, it’s possible Drew just thought it’d be funny to see if he could kill me with a single plot 🙂

I’ve also got a bit of writing to get to (I mean besides this newsletter), and some character designs to polish up for the project that’ll probably take up the biggest share of my time over the coming year (I can’t talk about it yet, but it’s gonna be a really good series with a writer I’ve wanted to work with for awhile now.)

Another series is in the works (however, we’re still waiting … and waiting … and waiting … for final word from the publisher), as well as a short story that will be very cool … a bucket list job, honestly. Sorry that I can’t talk in any detail about this stuff, but publishers have their own time frames, and even beyond that … I tend to be a little superstitious about these things. I’ve had ‘sure things’ that went up in smoke after it was well past the point where you’d think a project COULD go up in smoke. Trust me. Projects can get canceled at any time, and for any reason.

So … I’m superstitious. But I’ll talk about these things as soon as I can 🙂

Anyway … I mentioned reading over the next few days. And what am I reading? I’m glad you asked…

I’m in the middle of re-reading IT for the first time in years. I thought it’d be a good book to revisit for the lead up to Halloween … but I’ve not been getting to read as much as I usually do, and IT is a really long book, so I have a ways to go before I can get to the next two…

CRONE, by Keith Rosson. I don’t remember if I mentioned reading COFFIN MOON before, but holy shit is that a great book. It was an impulse buy at the bookstore one day, and it’s a favorite. So I’m very much looking forward to his newest novel…

OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE, by Stephen King and Peter Straub. I mean, come on … if you don’t know by this point I’m gonna read every Stephen King book then I don’t know what to tell you. And the Dark Tower is my favorite book series, so with a title like this … yeah, I’m there.

And as for the late Peter Straub … have you ever read Ghost Story? You should.

What else? Man, I got this WONDER MAN: THE EARLY YEARS omnibus awhile back for like $25 and I’m enjoying the hell out of this thing. I don’t know why, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Wonder Man (and yeah, I have a plot in a notebook for a Wonder Man story I’d REALLY love to do someday, Marvel) … and this has been a ton of fun. A million creators, since it picks and chooses stories from the early days of the Avengers all the way through to some West Coast Avengers (West Coast Avengers FOREVER!!!) issues. It’s a blast. I’m just getting up to the buddy stuff with Simon and the Beast now, and like I said … I’m enjoying the hell out of this.

I haven’t had much time to play any of the million or so games that have come out lately (a bit of Wolvie, but I’m not even close to being through it) even though I was thinking about maybe finishing a Resident Evil game off around Halloween. That’s looking unlikely, but it does remind me to throw some love at the Resident Evil movie that came out a few weeks back. Loved it.

Okay … I think that’s it for now. One more reminder about the con I’ll be doing just outside of Orlando next month, and then I’m on my way. Take care!

-LF