Simon Whitelaw's fantastic fanart of GZ!

Well, I’m back.  Again.

Yeah, I know…I left Eddie (and many of you) hanging, didn’t I?  Well, I’m sorry about that…the truth is that I was suddenly deluged by other people asking me to do other work for them….and for one reason or another, I couldn’t pass it up.

First, I did some artwork for Moonstone books for some of their SPIDER character.  Now, I’m sure many of you don’t know who the SPIDER is, or why the heck I keep writing his name in capital letters.  Trust me, he deserves nothing less. 

The SPIDER is a 1936 masked vigilante from the age of pulp magazines.  He wasn’t just ‘one of the crowd’, either.  The SPIDER stories were the most dramatic, action-packed, town-destroying stories around.  Today’s movies have nothing on them.  So, when I was asked to do a few interior illustrations, I couldn’t pass it up.  Here’s a peek at one:

Ain’t he cool?  Click on him for a bigger image.  Speaking of bigger, did you see Simon Whitelaw’s (aka. Simon Pimpernel) great pic of Ghost Zero up on the left?  Simon’s got an absolute talent for those kinds of things, and I’m fortunate enough that he likes my work.  Check out his rendition of Doc Monster below:

Back to what I’ve been doing. 

Shortly after the Moonstone project, I was approached by creators extra-ordinarre Brian Clevenger and Scott Wegener, the radioactive force behind Atomic Robo, who asked me to lend my pen to a Robo short.  Interestingly, the short did have Robo in it.  Instead, it had James Forestall and Harry Truman…which apparently, they thought I’d have fun drawing.

Turns out, they were right.  Check it out.

It will appear on the web first, and then be collected into print later.  I was glad to have a part in the legacy that is Atomic Robo….and I still owe those guys a pin-up!

After that, Anthony (the Action Man) Schiavino asked me to do pencils for a short story for his Sgt. Zero character, with inks by Matt Bennett, one of the fabulous talents behind Mysterious Adventure Magazine!  I like how the results turned out.  Here’s a peek of my pencils:

It was the first time I’d ever done pencils that someone else inked, and it was a good experience for me.  You can check out the whole thing in living color over at Pulp Tone!

Did I mention that Anthony has a Sgt. Zero book for sale that has my art on it’s “Bad-Ass Variant Edition”?  Oh yes, my friends, he does.

He’s even got a freaking cool trailer!  Wow.

Anyway, after that, Matt Bennett (remember him from above?) asked me to do a last-minute pin-up for the back cover of the newest Mysterious Adventure Magazine.  I had just a day to pull it off, but it went ok.

Oh yeah, I turned 42 last month as well.

So, yeah..it’s been busy!  But I’m glad to be back in the saddle, and I’m excited to show you guys what happens next!  I’ll be away next week at a conference, but look for something soon…

-Dave

Remember your first date?  Your first kiss?  Your first summoning of a burning ghost in the middle of a deserted morgue with a dead vigilante?

Ah, to be young again.

Well, I doubt very much that Eddie will be forgetting this one.

P.S. I’m back!  I’ve been doing a lot of work for other people (which was great), but I’m very happy to be getting back to my true love again.  I’ll give more information in a post, below.

-Dave

Hey, everyone!

I’ll bet the morgue isn’t where Eddie thought he’d be a couple of days ago, eh?  Poor Eddie.

You know, I used to hate drawing backgrounds (I think most artists start that way), but the town of Secrets Crossing is such a character unto itself to me, that I don’t mind at all…it kind of helps me explore the world Eddie lives in and make it more real.  For instance, in the 2nd panel, you don’t know it, but just around that left corner is a half bathroom.  Probably not important to know that, but it’s in my head now, which may be important to future “morgue scenes”.  All part of the interesting way in which comics work.

Thanks to Anthony Schiavino again for playing letterer/editor for me…we’ve started using Google Wave to conduct our project work…which is a beautiful way to collaborate.  If you haven’t heard of Google Wave…you will soon!  Anthony has also been writing a Ghost Zero/Doc Monster one-shot called “Flight of the Radioactive Corpse”, and it is awesome!  Kudos to Anthony….it’s a great story, and I’m looking forward to putting some art to it.

Speaking of projects, I’ve lost my mind and started a new one….a graphic adaptation of the first Vampire novel ever….and no, it isn’t “Dracula”.  In fact, it predates the writing of “Dracula” by 45 years!  Go take a peek at Feast of Blood and let me know what you think!

I should also mention that my wife and I are moving, at least temporarily, in with my parents…which will be weird, but hopefully good as well.  I’m working to make my work station as portable as possible.  Let’s hope that the move doesn’t interrupt my work too much on the comics.  We’ll see.

Thanks, everyone!  You might want to use that bathroom just around the corner before the sheet comes off that corpse in the next screen….)

-Dave

Back in action!

Well, we’ve left Charles and Eddie standing in back of the sheriff’s office long enough, eh?

I’ve been distracted by the Doc Monster run on Zuda comics, which was fantastic in all kinds of ways, but it’s nice to return to my “home” comic.  Having said that, some things are going to change.

Mostly, that change will be about quality.  I know regular updates are important, but I found that pushing to squeeze every hour into the comic that I could was making me pretty miserable, and the quality of the comic was suffering.

No more.

From now on, I’m not putting out a page until I’m satisfied with it.  I’ve got Anthony Schiavino looking over every step, offering suggestions and checking my thoughts.  He kindly suggested all of the textboxes you see in this panel, and I think he did a swell job.  Thanks, Anthony!

Also, the 1st book of the Vigilante Crypt is getting ready to go to print!  When it does, I’ll probably pull book one down from the site and post links to Indyplanet, where you can buy it.  I’m trying to keep the price as low as possible, so that everyone who wants one can have one to hold.

For those of you who loved seeing Doc Monster, fear not!  I have plans for him as well, and I won’t leave  him in limbo forever!  Heck, Doc and GZ may meet up some day…)

I’m getting ready to launch a new project (yes, I know.  I don’t have time.) that I’m pretty excited about.  It’s a graphic adaptation of James Michael Rymer’s 1845 serial story, “Varney the Vampire, or the Feast of Blood”.  I plan on reading a chapter at a time…not reading ahead, then adapting what I’ve read into a graphic form, one week at a time.  For those who aren’t familiar with it, Rymer’s “penny dreadful” was originally published one chapter at a time (and sold for a penny), so I think that a weekly webcomic would fit the format wonderfully.  Rymer also wrote “Sweeney Todd”, so I have no idea what to expect.  I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you are too!

So, let’s see what ghosts Eddie can conjure up in that morgue, and what the good professor has to say about his death, and his murderer….

Enjoy,

Dave

=Dave

First off, I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend, and took some time to be grateful for our servicemen and women.  I’ve been privilaged to serve in the Naval Reserves with some of our people that got put in harms way, and they were outstanding folks who felt very privilaged to be able to serve our country.

Next, enjoy the sneak peek of page 2 of the Doc Monster short, “Shadow of the Skies!”  I’ve only given myself 2 pages of setup before I plunge our characters into action…so the next page should be really, really cool!)

I don’t want to say too much about our main characters here, but I will say that the gent in glasses is (obviously) Doc Monster, and the gent in the hat is Special Agent Carson Clay.

True to classic pulp form, these two guys are about to get it in the neck.)  I might show a peek of this once it’s colored, or I may just move onto the next page.  Stay tuned!

Sorry things have been so quiet for Eddie lately, but I’ve been hard at work on getting the 8 pages of my ‘Doc Monster’ Zuda submission under way!  Here’s a look at the first page art….in color!  I’m pretty unsteady on my feet with color, but I’m determined to get better with it, so no time like the present to practice.  I’ll be doing the lettering too…..so wish me luck!

I plan on submitting this in time for the July competition, so I want to get as much done as quickly as possible.  I’ll keep posting updates here and I’ll get pages up for GZ as I can fit them in.  Lots to do!)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the peek.  More later!

Anyway…if you’re a Twit too…follow me on Twitter! 

Ron “the man” Fortier at Comic Related wrote a really great review of Ghost Zero, which you can read here.  Ron runs Airship 27, a company that creates and publishes great new pulp stories with titles like: “Jim Anthony- Super Detective”, “Weird Horror Tales”, “Secret Agent X”, “Ghost Squad” and more!  Check out his titles!

I landed back in Kentucky a bit under the weather from the travels (or perhaps
just running back into Kentucky’s humid environs), but my head was still
jangling with the sights and sounds of the Con. It was great meeting the fellow
Factory Workers there and putting faces to the names..Ron “Daddy-o” Fortier, Rob
“look at this and tell me what YOU see” Davis, Andrew “THE Andrew Salmon”
Salmon, Van “Sure Dave, I’ll drive you over there” Plexico, Wayne
“Poster-Master” Reinagel, and of course Doug “Yeah, I did the cover” Klauba.

The smell of pulp was definitely in the air, and though this isn’t the first
pulp show I’d been to, it was certainly the best. For me, seeing the fantastic
pulp art itself would have been worth it, but hanging out with the Factory
Fellows made it fantastic.

Special thanks to Van for hauling my butt all over Chicago, and to Doug for
sharing a table with me!

Me (complete with geek lanyard) talking about pulp, no doubt!

Van Plexico - Writer, and hitch-hiker friendly, thank heavens!

Joe Gentile, of Moonstone Books, completing a sale!

Doug Klauba, table-mate and artist extraordinarre!

Breakfast for the hungry Factory workers! Ron is hatching something..