Well, here we are … a couple of weeks since wrapping up another successful Kickstarter campaign for MALICENT BLACK. Drew and I are well into the planning for the next book, and I’m also into drawing a new project that I can’t really talk about yet, as well as writing a new thing that’ll probably be a surprise for some people once it gets to a point where I can talk about it and show it off a bit…
Also putting the finishing touches on MALICENT BLACK: MUNDICIDE, of course…
But really, after having spent last week away from my desk, exploring the keys with my amazing wife while we celebrated our anniversary, it’s just kind of nice to ease my way back into a normal routine.
So aside from a lot of work that I can’t share right now, what else is going on..?
Well, I read GYO by Junji Ito over the weekend, and now it’s my mission to read everything else by the man. I loved it. The pacing, the storytelling. If you’ve read any of these newsletters, you know I’m a sucker for horror, so … yeah. Much more Junji Ito ahead for me.
Still working my way through KING SORROW by Joe Hill. Joe is a favorite, and this book has been great. It’s been slow progress for me, simply because I didn’t read a thing while we were on our trip (I had expected to read quite a bit, honestly), but I don’t mind … I have a feeling I’ll be sad when this one is over.
What else? I’m looking forward to this year’s DREAD THE HALLS one shot, of course. It comes out on December 3rd (so soon!) and if you’re interested in a preview of the story I did with Chris Ryall, Daily Dead has you covered:
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:
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.
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!
Hey, nice to have you back. Hope everyone had a great time at NYCC … I kinda felt like Robert Nevelle here, holding down the fort while almost everyone else…
Disappeared off the face of the Earth.
Anyway, in case I haven’t mentioned it, we have a Kickstarter going! I’ve probably mentioned that. The second issue of MALICENT BLACK, officially called MALICENT BLACK: MUNDICIDE is off to a great start. One week in and we’re at 80%!
Considering that NYCC took up so much bandwidth on our first weekend, I couldn’t be happier. And to be fair, we knew this first weekend would be a tough one in terms of getting eyeballs, but our other option, with the holidays approaching and other things planned, was to wait until January to launch. We didn’t want to do that because first of all, Drew and I are dying to get this book out there … and second, hey, who knows what things will be like by the time January rolls around?
Here’s the link to our campaign … if you’ve backed it, we thank you. It means a TON to us. If you can’t back it, hey, we understand. All we ask is, if you could, please share this link around. This sort of book only happens when people spread the word and support it, and we need your help for that:
Now would be a GREAT time to check out our campaign, since Drew’s update just went live…
We’re also joined by my pal Matty Ryan this time … Matty and I have known each other for a long time. I honestly can’t remember how we initially met … maybe on the Event Comics Boards back in the day? That might be it. Pretty sure Matty reminded me at HeroesCon and here I am, forgetting again. (My brain is fried, back off.) I do know we actually met in person on my first and only trip (so far) to New York City, when he took me to a great little Irish pub for lunch on one of the days I was spending at the old Marvel Bullpen, meeting editors and working on my craft. Since then, Matty has lettered and designed FREAK at Image Comics (where he coached me through so many production obstacles – I had decided I was writing, drawing and coloring a book on my own and had QUITE the learning curve in front of me 🙂 as well as THE MANY ADVENTURES OF MIRANDA MERCURY, so it’s been very cool to get to work with him again.
And speaking of Matty, how about a peek at the first lettered page of MALICENT BLACK: MUNDICIDE..?
I think Matty is going to beat me to the finish line, here … I’m still coloring this issue of Malicent, along with this year’s DREAD THE HALLS story with Chris Ryall. It’s been a pretty, uh, intense few weeks around here. I have a week off planned for November, and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to that week 😉
I DID finish off the pages I had as part of the ULTIMATE UNIVERSE: TWO YEARS IN #1 story I worked on … did I show anything from that, yet? I don’t think so. Here, a tiny peek … don’t tell Marvel.
Okay, I think I also mentioned getting back to sharing some of the art I’m lucky enough to hang in my studio awhile back … how about this one?
Yeah, that’s obviously by the amazing Amanda Conner (inked by the also amazing Jimmy Palmiotti) on the Power Girl story they did for JSA Classified back in the day. This was another gift, and I love this page. Amanda’s characters never seem like drawings … they’re just people, you know? And I mean that in the very best way.
I’m afraid I don’t have any new books to share with you this time … I’m trying to work my way through THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT and it’s been great, but man, most nights I am too tired to make much progress. Maybe I’ll finish it up in that week off in November 😉
Thanks again for your time, and if you haven’t yet, please take a look at our Kickstarter campaign!
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.
LeeFerguson.Art 