comicart – LeeFerguson.Art

SHORT AND SWEET…(?)

Hey everyone!

Thanks for checking this out. In this day of doom scrolling, I always appreciate it when somebody takes a bit of time to read something I’ve put out into the void.

This newsletter is going to be a bit shorter than usual, just because of the bad combo that’s been kicking my butt lately … I have too much to do, and I’ m pretty run down. It’s been a busy few months, and that’s nice…

But sometimes it catches up to ya, that’s all.

Part of the reason I’ve been so busy is because the MALICENT BLACK: MUNDICIDE KICKSARTER is live! We’ve hit he magic number we need to fund this book, and are working on our stretch goals right now. The first of those is a custom trading card, and it’s something Drew and I are really excited to get to do, so I’m hoping we make it. If you haven’t checked it out yet, here’s the link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2119707413/malicent-black-mundicide

Speaking of Malicent, Matty has lettered the first half of the book, and I’m plugging away on the colors (along with everything else I have to do) … here’s a peek at a new page-in-progress.

Sometime soon, I’ll start coloring Gary Frank’s variant cover. I find it, uh, pretty intimidating to color the work of somebody like Gary … I never worry about messing up my own stuff when I start coloring it, but look at this…

Dammit, Gary.

Still, it’s also pretty exciting, you know? I mean, it’s a gorgeous illustration of a character wholly created by Drew and I by one of the very best in the biz. You step up to bat and take your swing, y’know? Despite some nerves, I’m looking forward to starting in on this.

That said … I’m really glad Colin colored his own cover. If you haven’t read The Ballad of Gordon Barleycorn yet, do yourself a favor and do so. Drew told me about this book when it came out, and as soon as I read it, Drew and I agreed that we wanted Colin to do a cover for Malicent at some point…

Oh, and while we’re approaching my favorite time of year (it’s always Halloween deep in my black heart) I should remind you that you can preorder our new DREAD THE HALLS comic right now! I got to look over the entire book in PDF form the other day, and it really is a treat.

https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/7681974/dread-the-halls-2025-1

Meanwhile, I’ve been TRYING to take a little time for myself here lately, to kind of reset from a pretty tough deadline grind. Part of that always involves me getting away from my drawing table for at least a little bit and reading, watching or playing something that kinda recharges the batteries. After pouring so much out, I always feel like I need to pull in some new creative energy, if that makes sense? It probably doesn’t. I’m weird.

But! Drew and I went to see The Black Phone 2 a few nights ago, and we both really enjoyed it. While I liked the first one well enough, I preferred the short story to the movie. But the sequel takes some of the added threads from the first movie and gives them a payoff that, personally, worked for me.

Speaking of Joe Hill … I started King Sorrow. About a hundred pages in. Man, have I missed having a new Joe Hill novel to crack open. And this one … whew. It’s off to a great start. I really want to just take days off to read this thing and not do anything else. Alas…

Okay, that’s all for now … thanks again for taking the time to read this. If you haven’t yet, please take a look at the new Malicent Black campaign, and have a Happy Halloween!

Best,

So … how much time ya got?

Here we are again … glad to have you back! I know I say this a lot … but thanks for reading these. There are weeks where I’m really excited to get started on the newsletter, and other weeks where I’m busy, run down, or simply unmotivated … but I’m always happy I put one of these things together in the end.

First … hey, now that the story from DR STRANGE #450 has been out for a bit, I’ve added the black and white art to the gallery here on the site. And if you want to check out the unlettered pages with Carlos Lopez’s fantastic colors … here you go!

Meanwhile, I’m getting into the colors for the next issue of MALICENT BLACK. I’m not showing anything quite yet, but in future newsletters? Sure 🙂 I’ll also be able to share a bit of news on a couple of variant covers we’ll have on this one. Right now the campaign is planned to start at the beginning of October and end on my favorite day … Halloween. It’s a bit later than I had hoped for, but sometimes life gets in the way, and my insistence on having the colors almost finished before hitting that launch button … well, here we are. It’s important to me to have the book ready to go to the printer as soon as we receive those funds from Kickstarter. We’ll keep you posted and share that prelaunch page soon.

At the moment, aside from the colors for the next MALICENT BLACK, I’m laying out the short story I’m doing with Chris Ryall for this year’s DREAD THE HALLS special, doing a bit of writing on something brand new, and thinking a lot about the stories I want to tell over the next few years. Long story short, I did a podcast last week (it’s not out yet but I’ll warn you when it’s time 😉 and the podcaster noted what a wide variety of projects I’ve worked on. And I don’t tend to think back on what I’ve done too much … I generally think ahead, to what’s next.

But…

Yeah.

I mean, I have done a really wide variety of stuff. And I guess in some ways that’s kinda cool? I dunno. I always – always – try to find my way into a character or book. I always want to find something, some connective tissue, that I can work with. I try to make even the most commercial stuff have a bit of a personal hook if I possibly can. So it feels less like mercenary work. It doesn’t always work out.

But there’s also the fact that … man, drawing comics is how I pay the bills. So while I might have some stories that grab me more than others, the fact is I’ve done a lot of comics and looking back … some of them, I’d probably turn down if I could do it all again. Okay, scratch that. There are a few that I’d definitely turn down if given a do-over.

I’m only going to get to draw a certain number of pages in this life. I can only tell a finite amount of stories in the time I’m given. If we don’t manage to burn this planet down too soon (I remain skeptical) then the stories you tell will outlive you. That’s one of the cool and sad things about telling stories. So your choices matter. The stories you CHOOSE to tell … matter.

I guess all of this is just a way to say I think I’m getting pickier and pickier about what I do as the time goes by. It’s a big part of why MALICENT BLACK is so important to me. This series, despite all of the monsters and ghosts and spaceships, is about the things that matter to me. And I think the world is a better place when creative people find ways to tell the stories they care about, rather than just cashing the checks for remixing the same stuff we’ve seen a million times. It’s also another in a long list of reasons why AI sucks and will never replace art, but hey … you’re reading this, you know that too.

Anyway … before I go, I’ll drop one last thing here. It’s the process for page one of the DR STRANGE story above. I’m happy with how it came together, but it didn’t start with the same shot … panel one was a different view:

I really liked the idea of starting with that shot you can see in the thumbnail, and again in the pencils … this story is about the origin of Doc Strange’s cloak, so I thought having it be the focus of the very first shot, before the reader even knew what this story was about, was kinda sneaky. I like doing things like that.

But I also knew that with this being the first shot of Doc Strange in this story, there was the chance my editor would want a cleaner shot of the guy whose name is on the front of the book. So I went ahead and laid it out with the cloak dominating the first panel, but prepared to go to Plan B if I needed to…

And as you know by looking at the final art, I needed to 🙂 And I totally get it. Heck, not only is this the first shot of Dr Strange in this story, this is the first story in the book, so it’s the first time the reader lays eyes on Strange in this, his big anniversary issue. So I penciled a new shot of Strange on a different sheet of paper, scanned and digitally dropped it into the page for the inks. The one complaint I have is that I think the first pass had better depth … it felt like Dr Strange was going someplace, while the new version feels more like he’s arriving at his destination. It’s a small thing, and probably only bothers me, but I’d adjust that background now if I could.

Anyway, I tend to not save the various scraps of paper or layers that go unused in the course of making a comic, but since I actually have this one, I thought I’d share 😉

Alright, that’s it for this week. Be nice to each other.

See you again soon!

-LF

MALICENT BLACK work-in-progress! DOCTOR STRANGE #450 final order cutoff! And should I maybe start numbering these things..?

Hey, welcome back (unless this is your first time reading one of these newsletters … in that case, thanks for taking the plunge!)

So there’s a variety of things going on … let’s see how many I can get through. This newsletter is, as usual, brought to you by coffee and stress, the freelancer’s best friends!

First … the final order cutoff for DOCTOR STRANGE #450 is upon us! I drew a story in this – written by J Michael Straczynski – and I really enjoyed this one. If you’d like a copy, it’s a good time to let your comic shop know! I’ve had a chance to read the entire thing and it’s a proper celebration for one of my favorite Marvel characters.

Next, more MALICENT BLACK! A few things … while I’m still inking those interior pages, I also decided that the cover I did a few months ago didn’t quite hit all the notes I wanted to hit. I actually like the piece of art on it’s own, but I’m not sure it’s quite the right piece to grab newcomers on Kickstarter. So yeah, I decided to do a second cover. I love to do extra work! I guess that previous one will be a variant. Anyway, here’s a look at the sketch for the new cover…

I’m also writing (yes, that’s write … er, right) a prose story to go in the next issue of Malicent. I really, really enjoy writing (heck, I only started drawing my own comics as a kid so I could tell the stories I wanted to tell), but I make my money drawing, so I have to take my shots when I can. Drew was originally going to do another prose story for this issue, but he’s been extremely busy with The Gamer and a few other things lately, so I decided what the hell.

It’s a fun story (well, I think it’s fun but it’s actually kinda dark) and it sets up something for the THIRD Malicent Black book that Drew and I are really, really excited to get to. I was going to include a peek at it here, but … I dunno. Should I?

Oh what the hell. Here you go.

…

The thing that was Malicent Black and yet was not Malicent Black stood still in the quiet room, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Thin tendrils of ink touched by magic crept out from her, seeming to taste the stale air before returning to their mistress. Finally, Not-Malicent stepped forward, walking over broken glass and dead bodies. As she reached the only dim light in the room, she bent and picked up a small clear cube. It seemed to be filled with constellations of stars. And one of the stars in the bottom back left corner of the cube was pulsing with a slow red heartbeat.

Not-Malicent smiled and left the room.

…

I’ve also decided to go and put a proper store on my website. I knew I’d have to at some point, but didn’t take the time to do so when I first set it up simply because I wanted to have the site ready to roll as quickly as I could. It’s a character flaw, I know. I tend to push something I don’t want to do off for as long as I can, but then once I decide to do it, I act like it has to be done RIGHT NOW. Sigh.

On an unrelated note, my wife is a saint.

Anyway, yes, one of these future newsletters will have an update on the store. Honestly, I have way too many things I’m trying to get to this week, and I’m beyond stressed about most of those things, so the webstore won’t be ready right away … but it is coming.

Speaking of stress … apparently one of the ways I manage (or more likely, just ignore – again, I have character flaws, okay?) stress is to work long hours and then stay up way too late playing, say, Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

I have a big love for turn-based strategy games, and then when you add in about a million of my favorite Marvel characters, well, yeah, it’s like this thing was kinda made for me. And while I can go weeks (or months) without playing, it’s kind of become a cozy home away from home I enjoy getting back to from time to time. As long as I’ve had this game (and as much as I’ve played overall) I’m just into the beginning of Act 3 and having a great time.

I also just finished reading this book…

That classic Englehart/Rogers/Austin era was over and done with by the time I really discovered monthly Batman comics, so it’s been a newer revelation for me, and I really didn’t know much at all about Marshall Rogers’ work before I picked this up. This book does a very nice job of taking you back to that time and showing you just how influential that (amazingly brief) Batman run was, and gives you some insight into a talent that left us way too soon. It seems like we say that sort of thing far too often when it comes to comicbook creators, doesn’t it..?

Alright, I think that’ll do it this week … but I’m gonna leave you with one last thing. I showed off the beautiful Cully Hamner page I bought a few weeks ago, and decided I should also start sharing some of the other art that hangs in my office. I don’t have a ton of stuff, but I like what I have…

Here’s a Big Barda that I got from Gary Frank when we met at a con in London in 2016, I think? Time flies. I actually wanted to buy a piece of art from him, but Gary insisted on an art swap instead. Clearly, I made out on this deal. But he knew I was a huge fan of Kirby’s New Gods (yes, we’d just met, but since I introduce myself “Hi I’m Lee Ferguson and I love Jack Kirby’s New Gods how about you?” I guess somehow he figured it out…

Best,