Nice Review of Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four-
A nice review of MA Fantastic Four #40. I'm pleased that they like what I did with Susan Richards, I think it's important to deal with all 4 members of the Fantastic as equal partners, and it was a pleasure to have a great script where she got to shine a bit. It was also nice to be able to reprise my stint of MA Iron Man with another shot at Tony and his clan.
Happily working on Legion of 3 Worlds this weekend.
If permitted to nerd out a bit, I want to say I have always loved Mon-El's costume. It's almost militaristic; the starched collar and jackboots have always helped to visually define his character - a bit tense and stiff, not as relaxed as some of the other Legionnaires. A thousand years in prison will do that to a lad, I guess.
One of the other things I like about the Legion is that the cast is too sprawling to adhere to the usual mix of comic-book group dynamics. Typically, a group has the big guy, the vamp, the ice queen, the leader, the smart guy (sometimes the leader and the smart guy are one in the same), the rogue, the newbie and the comedy relief (sometimes the newbie and the relief are one in the same). The Legion's got about 3 or 4 of each, so subtler shadings can be explored, usually by crossing each character with the mythology of their home planet. There are about a half dozen Supermen on the Legion alone - and all have clever spin-off's that can be explored relating to their characters (You have all the powers of Superman, but can only use them one at a time. You have all the powers of Superman, but have spent the last 1,000 years in an extradimensional prison, and are allergic to Lead. You have all the powers of Superman and you're a bit of a dick, etc.). The JLA have never been able to accommodate that sort of cast - never had more than one Superman at a time (if you count various stints with Captain Marvel in Kal-El's place).
Back to work-
More Raiders!
Bud LaRosa was very helpful and pointed out a few other Raiders-
Kevin Tinsley (Stickman)
hope Perleman
Bob Patreca
Joe Rosas
Continuing story. Still following up on a few leads-
Well, anyway-
The Marvel Adventures FF issue I worked on is out - got the last few copies from my LCS-
One page I especially liked was page 5.
I changed my mind from the first layout-
Iron Man wasn't large enough for me in that final panel - the plus side was that he was doing something exciting (flying) - the minus side was that I couldn't really fit all I wanted to do in that page. I shifted the POV in panel 2. I also made the scenes of him dressing a vertical strip and made the figure take up a more vertical posture- I've been paying close attention to how George Perez sets up a page - he often plays around with the vertical and horizontal compositions.
The final. Tightening up the perspective, I found I had to shift his right knee outward and make the whole leg larger to accommodate. Also, I felt the reveal of the armor(s) in panel 2 would have lessened the impact of the big blowout panel at the bottom of the page, so I shifted Tony's entrance and silhouetted a single armor. I wanted to put a few armors in, but I thought that might be too confusing for the narrative of the story, which is about the Fantastic Four and not really about Iron Man. Also, the near lack of detail in the next to last panel helps to give the dressing sequence something akin to a full stop.
WTF was that all about?
So - McCain scotches his campaign on Wednesday - goes on 4 different networks for interviews on Wed, leaves NY on Thursday morning, goes down to DC at noon, meets with the caucus of House Republicans and the rest from the NY Times-
" At 4 p.m., Mr. Bush convened his meeting at the White House; Mr. McCain had already met with House Republicans to hear their concerns. He later said on ABC that he had known going into the White House that “there never was a deal,” but he kept that sentiment to himself.
The meeting opened with Mr. Paulson, the chief architect of the bailout plan, “giving a status report on the condition of the market,” Tony Fratto, Mr. Bush’s deputy press secretary, said. Mr. Fratto said Mr. Paulson warned in particular of the tightening of credit markets overnight, adding, “that is something very much on his mind.”
Mr. McCain was at one end of the long conference table, Mr. Obama at the other, with the president and senior Congressional leaders between them. Participants said Mr. Obama peppered Mr. Paulson with questions, while Mr. McCain said little."
So he just sat there, mouth shut, while everybody thought there was a deal and waited for House Minority Leader "Boner" Boehner to scotch the deal with a 11th-hour counter proposal after the doors closed.
I think... I think he flew down to DC to scotch the deal.
Trying not to get inot stuff from the Election, but it's.. soo... hard!
The Odd Lies of Sarah Palin! She's been in the public eye for less than 3 weeks! Imagine the next 4 years of pathological lying we have to look forward to-
1.
Troopergate2.
The Bridge to Nowhere3. F
iring the police chief and librarian4.
Polar Bears5.
The Oil Pipeline6.
Gay people7.
Climate Change8.
Habeas Corpus9.
The extent of Alaska's Energy Contribution10.
Asking her kids if it was ok to be Vice President11.
The Teleprompter
AIG's woes-
Here's a pretty good
explanation of why AIG might fall under the bus in a few weeks.-
Remember, "credit default swaps" are the cornerstone of the unregulated Derivatives Market, and the real reason for the freeze in liquidity related to the housing bust.
If it were just housing prices, everything would work itself out, but it the newly (Nov. 2000) unregulated Derivatives Market (that no one seems to know about) that is the real source of this mess.
60 Trillion dollars in unreported assets all frozen up and in freefall are the real source of the problem here - not stocks or bonds or housing prices.
Remember - the Derivatives Market - your key to understanding what will be going on over the next six months.
Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #40!
I'm working on a Captain America custom comic this month, when I find out more about when and where it comes out, I will post it here - it's a great script and I get to stretch out a bit with a few different scenes and some interior changes in pacing.
In 9 days my issue of MA Fantastic Four hits the stands, Chris Eliopoulos wrote a fantastic script! On the same day, a second-printing with a variant cover for FC:Legion of 3 Worlds #1 will hit stands.
My Local Comic Shop (LCS) sold out of the Legion book in a matter of days, so I'm glad they're printing up a few extra copies. All new Legion fans will be welcomed with open arms - remember, the tryouts are only for potential Legionnaires, not their readers. I think everyone will be pleased with issue 2; a ton of work and research is going into each issue, quite a thrill to see it all come together. I remember vividly the first day I read Geoff's script for issue 2 - it was an absolute joy, and I got a better understanding of the overall structure of the series, which is just brilliant.
Marvel usually posts some preview pages online the week before their books go on sale, so when they pop up for MAFF, I'll post them here. If I can think up some sort of commentary, I'll do it-
This post is stolen, but it remains true-
"We're down to the last few precious hours in the HERO INITIATIVE's auction for its latest batch of one-of-a-kind hand-drawn HULK #1 covers, including the other one that I did.
For those unaware, the HERO INITIATIVE is a charitable group dedicated to providing financial assistance to those members of our creative community who have fallen upon hard times. They've helped out any number of pros in dire straits time and again--and their head guy, Jim McLaughlin, has served tirelessly and without much in the way of thanks, in the service of those in need.
To take a look at the latest flight of 10 HULK #1 covers up for sale, including mine,
go to eBay right now.And if you want to bid my little entry up a bit, hey, who can fault you for having such good taste for such a good cause?"
i just didn't have the energy after today to write it, so I found Tom Brevoort's explanation of the same auction and posted it here. It's accurate. The link goes tot the proper place, and you can find my auction there.
You can find my address to everyone at Gettysberg
here.
Whew-
I just inked a double page spread with 51 characters on it (although, to be fair 6 of them are duplicates of two women).
I think the way to look at FC:Legion is kinda like watching two master jugglers - Geoff throws out three balls to George, they pass them back and forth for a few second, George throws in a bowling ball and three eggs. they juggle the balls, eggs and bowling ball for a page or two. Geoff tosses in a chainsaw, a brick and an elephant, George heaves a barkalounger, a car and backhoe, and on and on it goes. It's fascinating to watch.
All I do is just keep the barkalounger and the chainsaw passed on to the colorist (making sure the elephant has got his Legion ring on the proper finger on the right hand.)
