Typical

Heh...It's funny, I give mass updates all at once, and then I'm gone for a week or two. I have to apologize for that...I'd forget my own head if it wasn't attached at this point. Going through mass trauma at the day job. Hopefully it will get better, but the 48 hours I stay away from the store during the week just isn't enough.

As we move closer to June 6th, I'm expecting us to start LANDIS #0 being offered from Keenspot, where I'll have to get my free access set back up to the premium site, since it boots me off everytime, now.

Similar to SORETHUMBSONLINE.com, I want to include a blog in the site (haven't talked to Crosby about who is doing the design or whatnot for it,) but we're talking a launch in 8 days from what he originally said, and well, I'm plum out of info to give. If we put a blog atmosphere on it, I'm not sure if I'll integrate this blog into it, or if I'll continue to run it seperately, but I'm leaning to the latter.

The reason this blog was set up was so I could discuss things I like and do, much like my new projects and all. The blog there would discuss "Director's Commentary" of certain scenes and such as well as update the readers from both my side and Owen Gieni's side, like upcoming projects and whatnot, but in a lot quicker way.

I'll probably be doing another "Swipe" cover for an idea for THIEF, so it'll be interesting which one I decide on. I'll take suggestions, too...if anyone has a cool former famous cover they want me to try.

Infinity - After McFarlane - This piece is what I have intended for the character when it comes to doing the covers for THIEF. Though I haven't sent this art to Eric yet, It is one of the most recognized Spiderman images of all time, from both Amazing #300, and #301, both issues involving Venom. The eye catching aspect of doing this homage covers is with a book called THIEF, I think its cool to swipe the cover art. 

LANDIS v.1 Update

Well, this morning, much to my surprise, I received an email from Chris Crosby on the status of Landis volume 1. Though some of the news was upsetting, a lot of it was good, as in, the book will finally see light of day...only at first, online, and then in a director's cut of the story in print form (meaning with commentary, extra pages of art, maybe even a whole new story, and test art). All in all, I take this very well, and hopefully without him getting TOO mad, here is some of what Chris Crosby had to say.

"Rob:

With regards to the LANDIS book, the release date is (surprise, surprise) up in the air because of a couple annoyingly minor issues, but I can tell you that we do still plan to publish it, and it'll be exactly how you'd like it to be. Whatever extras you want to add is A-OK, you and Owen can go nuts. We're also open to publishing it in the standard comic TPB format (full size) instead of "manga-sized." We should probably wait until we have a definite final cover before submitting it to the online sales sites.

On the LANDIS webcomic (which we believe will be key to the book's success), I've probably done this before (*sigh*), but I believe I CAN now give you a definite launch date: Monday, June 6th. We'll start it off on a Mon-Wed-Fri schedule, which means the #0 issue will run from June 6 to July 20, followed by #1 and #2 and etc. You'll get an appearance in the Keenspot Newsbox on launch date and it'll hopefully get exposed to even more people than the FCBD issue did. (SORE THUMBS had over 23,000 unique visitors on our first day, mostly from the Newsbox appearance, and has since had over 30,000 unique visitors in one day.) We'd like to use the domain name "elisalandis.com" for it. Sound OK?"

See, now all BAD news. Hopefully we can move forward with the launch date of June 6th, and actually get this bad boy off the ground...or bad girl? Good girl? ehh, forget it. Stay tuned, I'll keep you all updated.

The final one for right now, This is Raccoon Man, '05! I really liked this piece, as I showed it to Christy and she thought it was really cool of me to find drawings from 1993 and re-draw them in my art style of today. Max Houston, seen here in full raccoon transformation, was a Private Investigator that I believe was bitten by a genetically enhanced raccoon who he originally thought had rabies. Turned out, in much the werewolf fashion, it made him into a monster of mammilian proportions, hehe. I really liked this piece, since it was an inspiration to draw the other characters...and I have a few more coming soon, I'm sure. 

Good ol' Raccoon Man. This is such a classic character, you may see him show up in one of the books I'm working on, but not in this form. Created by Anthony Seymour when we were in highschool, I always enjoyed having him show up in my book. He was our Wolverine character as much as Ardy was our Spider-man. He showed up everywhere, and you can tell why, hehe. 

My favorite of my re-drawings...I gave Cipher a nice haircut, but kept him without a face, and think I did alright with the shadowy features. This character was always fun to write, but I always found him really difficult to draw. I'd say my art has taken a nice turn for the better in making it look a little more like a person. 

This is Cipher. He was originally called, "THE BLANK" because no one was supposed to know who was under the mask, and I'm not sure we ever revealed it. You can see some 6th grade Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld in there, but that's only because I couldn't draw AT ALL.... 

Now a more streamlined version, and definitely hipper =). Now you can actually see a brain in his helmet, but since that had been done many times before, I only made it a very SMALL portion of the safety helmet. I also gave him more of a round face, with big ears, because someone with the name Brain Bender could NEVER be a popular guy with the ladies. I thought about keeping him bald, but drew some sideburns in there for a little more effect anyway. 

So I decided after going to MikeWieringo.com and Mike's blog, that I would grab some of my old art, and then post reenvisioned versions of the characters from the old Illusion Comics days, and more specifically, CITY OF ILLUSION, my first published comic, back in 1993 from Fifth Panel Comics. This drawing is of the vile Brain Bender, and WOW... look at that head. I've never been good at drawing bodies, but back then, I even had problems with faces and heads, hehe... 

quick update...

Well,

Besides my dog eating my Wacom mouse...a mouse used to digitally color and ink comic pages, as well as for other artistic purposes...I really haven't had much time to complete anything.

Anyone who knows me knows that my time is used wisely in most cases, but I lose steam and have to take time away from everything if I'm stressed by anything, and right now, this means my current employment. Though I'm truly not looking for another job or anything, and am in the process of interviewing for a managerial position with Suncom, I almost wonder if its worth all the time and effort. I almost wish I had a way to go back to school full time and still pay all my bills. IF anyone knows a way to make this work, please, I'm all ears.

I'll probably get a little time this weekend to be able to write more of either Atomic Teen or of THIEF...I think I'm hitting that spot in writing one story where you need to take a break from it, but keep creative. I think I may enlist my buddy, Derek Hutchens to take a look at some of the scripts, plot out some stuff and see what he can come up with while staying true to the image of the characters.

If I were to do this, I'd probably do it with AT, because I think THIEF is a property I would like to just keep my name on as the writer behind it, but AT could probably use his experiences as another former highschooler that lived an a-typical life.

Who knows...he may even relate more to the characters than I do =).

Anyway, I just figured I hadn't been on in a while and didn't want anyone feeling left out.

Lata

Verizon and update.

Anyone out there know who Alias Entertainment is? Mike S Miller created a company with a pretty good initial sales idea...75 cent first issues on series. Card stock covers, full color interiors...these are quality books. Because of this, I think I'm going to submit both THIEF and ATOMIC TEEN to them and see if the feelers are looking to grab hold of anything. I think they will on BOTH projects.

On a different front, I have this thing called a job interview tomorrow. It is with another little wireless provider called Verizon. I think they are one of the smallest players in the g....er...largest players in the game, and no, believe it or not, I did not use my connections to a manager or a friend of a friend's sister to get this interview (amazingly enough, they finally friggin called me!). It's for a sales position, and I told them I'd be interested in full-time, since I don't think I can survive on a part-timer's salary, unless I got another part time job, which is always possible.

I told a co-worker of mine to send me their resume, and I'll make sure that I take it with me to give them, as well, if they are still looking for qualified candidates.

Hopefully if it works out (and I should get offered something), they'll be understanding of the two weeks I need off (family trip and honeymoon), and I'll begin making some serious money...well, decent money.

Anyways, just figured I'd give a heads up, since I've been kinda sporadic, again.

Quick Update

Well,

After winning two poker tournaments this week, I feel its time to go pro...nah, just kidding, the the thrill of winning is nice.

Actually, on the comic front, Eric and I had a little chat this past week and the first issue of THIEF is fully penciled and it looks like I'm going to try sending it to some smaller publishers and hell, maybe even Image and Dark Horse, because I'm getting psyched up about the idea.

I truly believe, as I always have, that the idea is bigger than one person, one writer, and one initial concept. I just need someone higher up in one of the big companies to take notice, because this story is THAT good.

Eric will be sending me some of the pages to play with and I'm going to be sending all the penciled pages to the publishers with the concept.

Other than that, Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there.

Rob

This is a little Sample cover I did for THIEF #0. Obviously, I'm going to try to give full color covers, but I've been playing with MS Publisher, so hopefully they'll look great when we get them all squared away. 

Update on THIEF

Well,

Eric tried to get in touch with me about two days ago, and well, I wasn't able to get back in touch with him. Instead of complaining and not being able to get anything done because of that, I went ahead and finished and edited the script for THIEF #2. That now puts me three full 16 page scripts into it, and I think I may want to do a backup story to totally give people what they are looking for the most, good stories and bang for the buck.

As Countdown to Infinite Crisis proved, a good story at a reasonable price will sell. Its just, in this industry, without advertisers, an 80 pg comic for $1 is darned near impossible without taking a HUGE loss. As much as I want to give everyone what they want, I do on some occassions have to look at a bottom line perspective.

I'll also be doing some sketches of the other characters from THIEF, like the other super humans that show up in issues #2 and #3, as soon as I get the drawing bug to work on them.

Writing has been slow, mostly because of all the crap at the day job, but I am looking to start remedying that.