Hope everything is okay

With the holiday weekend and everything, I hope everything is okay with Chris Crosby, because I noticed that Landis hadn't been updated yet. I apologize for the inconvienence, as I have nothing to do with it, but I hope he's okay and just a bit overworked...

I hope everyone had a good holiday, and the season is upon us.

Just got my two dogs their shots for the next three years (what a present)...heh, it only cost me the entire price of the TV I wanted...BOOOOOOO.....

So here's a page in progress of ARDY: CTNSthc as I guess the acronym is now, hehe.

I'm really happy with how the pages are turning out. Tim, the artist has said that the graytones really give it a new dimension that just wasn't available back in 1996/97, so hopefully it looks good enough to draw some attention.

The funny thing is I'm seeing exactly how bad the script WAS, so I've given it an overhaul, so anyone that has seen THIS page before (this is one of the pages that HAS been published before), you'll see how different the script already is. If I had a larger page count to play with, I may have put up a side by side comparison to the differences, but I don't really think that's necessary, as this is my first attempt at "being George Lucas," hehe. This is the image I want this product to have, and I think I'm accomplishing a polished product ready for print. 

Post 189: More completed pages and stuff

Well,

I'm now up and done page 15 of the book. I truly think this is going to be something I'm proud of. I'm going to ask my pro buddies if they want to contribute a pinup to the book, but I have to keep the page count down, as I don't want to incur other charges. Based on where it is right now, I believe the total page count is about 28, which means I have four more pages I can play with, so three if you don't include the page where I thank everyone...

The back cover is going to be an advertisement or Landis, and either include the cover from Ethan Van Sciver or possibly an Owen cover, unless Owen wants to do a pinup =)...

Well, if Notre Dame wins today, I expect them to go to the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. I also expect to BE AT THAT GAME if that is the case, since I have family in Arizona, and a buddy is already trying to get plane tickets.

Now all I need are two things...1) Notre Dame to win tonight and 2) Tickets to the game.

Post 188: To TV or not to TV

Well, first the update...I have RE-lettered the first 11 pages of ARDY: City That Never Sleeps The Director's Cut already, and will continue to work on it until its complete...unfortunately, I've got three days working in a row, so it may slow down this weekend. I should actually have it ready for print within about 2 weeks, if I can stay motivated.

The good news there is that I sent some of the prelim pages to Timothy Johnson, the original artist and he said that the graytones add a good bit to the art, and I told him that he can have as many copies as he'd like.

TV News: Anybody that knows me knows I want a new tv...been wanting one for about 12 months. I've decided that a 30 inch widescreen tv is more than enough to take the place of my 27 inch standard size tv, and I can even get one for about $400. The question is, do I want to spend the money when I do have a perfectly good working tv as is? Well, it does have a degauzing problem, and a large blue spot on the screen, but I want it...I just have to justify the cost, which at this time of year sucks.

Lost and Found! A long while ago, myself and artist AP Furtado (who contributed a pinup to Landis #0 print version) were going to work on an Ardy title named INDOMITABLE FORCES, where Ardy became an intergalactic wrestler in order to find a missing person. Well, only one piece of art that I know of actually ever got created, and I thought it was long gone...well, through the greatness that is the WWW, I was able to find a link to a colored version of what would have been the cover. And though AP (I call him Tony) is busy working with 01comics(.com), and contributing semi-regularly to HEAVY METAL, I still have hopes that one day him and I will work on a project we can both look upon and be 100% satisfied with...since we did a lot of cheesy books, and never really got a chance to work on anything serious together.

Ahh...someday.

Post 187: Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey all,

give thanks and have a wonderful day.

Later, I'll probably be lettering Ardy: City That Never Sleeps The Director's Cut, which I've already gathered all the pages (its now 25 pages in length, compared to the original 21), the original covers of the books he appeared in (though I'll probably need to put Landis on there, as well, hehe), pinups from all over, some never before seen sketches and more.

I've already completed changing the art to grayscale and adding tones to it. I'm relettering it, with changes to the script to help the flow and the wording to be more up to date...

I've also found a printer that although it isn't print on demand, though I would have liked that, it's inexpensive enough to do a black and white book and have 32 pages and keep the cost of the book below 2.50 per copy...so I think I'm going to do that and set up a storefront here to sell them.

So I've been working on ARDY: City That Never Sleeps Director's Cut for a while now, and though its nowhere near complete, I figured I'd give everyone a glimpse of the cover art that I intend on using.

The art itself is by Tom Nguyen (Batman) and colored by an OLD friend, Jas Ingram.

The piece was done by Tom because he really liked the dynamic of the character. Jas added the background color aspect to it, and voila!

I did the design element, and may still change some of it, but I think the simple logo gives it an almost better feel. Let me know what you think. 

Post 185...more babble

Well,

lots of weird things tend to happen at this part of the year, and its normally inexplainable (or is it unexplainable?) and it really makes me wonder if it is truly the change of weather that causes the craziness in all people?

Next week, we celebrate Thanksgiving, so if the numbers on the pages are down, I understand, because I want everyone spending time with their families and being thankful for everything they have, rather than waiting for an update on my blog, hehe, or my comic.

I am going to be seriously trying to clean up more pages of ARDY: CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS, for its release, whether its online or in print, though I really hope it comes out in both. I've got some art that can be used as a cover, notto mention, I've got some REALLY funny stuff that I may include in an ARDY retrospective.

What's weird here is that many people don't know a lot about Ardy, because he plays such a short and small role in Landis, and it was designed that way...in fact, I kinda snuck him into the story in the same way that Kevin Smith was Silent Bob.

When I found out LANDIS #0 was going to be full color and available on Free Comic Book Day (high volume, in other words) I snuck Ardy into the script, and even wrote him into following issues of the series. Although I think a series with Ardy would take off at some point, he is best served (at this point) as a supporting character, but I still want him to get his own Star.

He will. I want everyone to see him. He's popular around the comic book community (or was circa 2002), but he'll always be my first character, and the one that will be my favorite to write.

Update of sorts

I was going through my old collection of my work, and as stated previously, I want to do something special for ARDY's 20th birthday (much like I will intend to do for Landis' in 2007 (10th anniversary). Well, I located a lot of the old pages of ARDY: CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS, and since the final portion had NEVER been released, I intend to put out a printed version through my POTS AND PANS INK, through ComiXpress sometime next year.

I may also try to put it up in place of LANDIS when it goes on hiatus (unless another artist is available to take over the project).

I believe for that, I may use either the Tom Nguyen (Batman) or Bill Maus (Zen) piece as the cover...but I'll be doing the story as a director's cut that will now be in graytones instead of plain black and white, and with a rewritten script, and have not only the ending that was never seen, but also some scenes that didn't originally make the cut. Maybe even some of the original sketches from Tim Johnson, and probably a pinup gallery. All in all, I'll even try to keep the cost of the book relatively inexpensive so that anyone that wants one won't break the bank for it.

Also...although I haven't really gotten full feedback on it, but Chris Crosby (publisher of Keenspot) said that he enjoyed the treatment I wrote for the next Landis story, but it still looks like we're a good ways off from starting any movement on the story. But at least we're psat the first major hurdle. Him and I will throw ideas back and forth and start trying to move the story further.

Eddie Guerrero 1967-2005

If you know me personally, you know that I am a prowrestling fan. "Isn't it fake?" is normally the response I hear when I let the cat out of the bag. Its funny, too, because I feel connected to my childhood by a lot of these overgrown characters in these ridiculous storylines...but then I remember...I write about overgrown characters in ridiculous storylines, and it puts me a little at ease. I've met a lot of comic fans that are also wrestling fans, and I think because in main stream life, they get looked at the same type of way.

Yesterday, the wrestling world lost a brother, a father, a champion, but more than anything, a true man, and a man of God.

Eddie Guerrero wrestled his heart out, and it seems that ultimately, he truly did. He seems to be one of the men that while at the peak of their life, it was all taken away, way too early.

He was 38, and had a wife and three daughters. He worked along side his real life nephew, Chavo, who in actuality was more like a brother...only three years younger.

Its upsetting when you see someone who tries so hard to not only make it in the business, but the same with life. Eddie had personal demons, in the form of drugs and pain killers, but had been clean for four years. It seems the demons found him and did their worst.

It saddens me to see one of the funniest, best and hardest workers not there to entertain me, but I can only imagine how hard this hits the men, women and children he had a direct effect on. I'm sorry he's gone, for partially selfish reasons, but at the same time, for his family and loved ones.

As a true fan of his work, he will be missed.

A treat for all of you LANDIS fans, today...

This is actually the second page that ELISA LANDIS ever showed up on in a comic. I've "remastered" it, since I could only see it in a very bad gray and newsprinted page, so I've cleaned it up and placed it here. The comic in question is SCORN: HEATWAVE #1, from SCC Entertainment.

It's a little funny. She has gone through SO many changes since her first appearance here (January 1997). The whole idea was that the characters live on multiple Earths (similar to DC Comics...but more similar to SLIDERS). Some of the characters would be evil on some Earths, while some would still be heroes no matter the world they were on.

In this particular world that Scorn showed up on, Landis was a mystic and helped TRAIN Scorn to be a better hero. The funny thing was, that this issue was created during the height of the BAD GIRL craze, and due to that, Landis was an almost Gothic girl, wearing weird headpieces and such.

If Chris wants to, as a very special EXTRA to the print version of LANDIS, I'd love to reprint the story, since it was fifteen pages of...well, not great writing, and interesting (to say the least) art. I'm still proud of it, because I was able to write the last fifteen pages of that book in less than 7 days, but now, when I look back, you can tell.

I guess that's what I get for being a cocky 19 year old when writing it. 

Alrighty. After being told that people loved the color scheme I picked out for the cover of THIEF #1, some people told me that they didn't care for the simplicity of it. So what I've done is also placed on here the Todd McFarlane "Swipe" cover concept.

The idea here is simple. The book is called THIEF, so what better way to truly show the THIEF aspect, then by stealing the covers off of other famous books?

I really like the idea of doing that, as long as we pay homage to who originally did the piece, so even here, I've put "After McFarlane" on here because it was a direct copy of Amazing Spider-man #300's cover (which was a swipe from I think Amazing Spider-man #298's cover, but I'm not sure of that...)

Let me know what you think. 

A Further Updating of the cover idea...Which does everyone like more? Let me know. 

Alright, With this piece, I want to take absolutely NOTHING away from Eric. He did an amazing job penciling the art. I took the liberty to ink it (without his okay, but I don't think he'd mind too much), color it, and label it as the cover for the first issue of THIEF. And yes, as the product continues to step forward, and if I can continue to do work like this...(yes, I impressed ME), it won't be too long before this is actually a full book.

I even have proportioned it already for standard comic book size. Colors were done in Photoshop 7.0 and the graphic design aspect was added in Microsoft Publisher.

PLEASE, let me know what you think about it...this project means almost as much as Landis does, to me. 

Post 178: Laying some ink down...

Well, I received the pages for THIEF #0 and #1 yesterday (so Eric if you are reading this...hehe) and I gotta say, I'm liking them lots...There are some spots where they definitely need some backgrounds, and I'm gonna see if I've got any buildings or things that can go, or some night falls to put in...

But I am going to play around with inking some fo the pages, scanning them in and possibly lettering them so that everyone can see where they are going. If Eric doesn't want to ink everything himself, maybe he'll like the pages I do...who knows. I'm leaving the art side up to him, but I still thought I'd play with a couple of them...

I may one up as early as tonight, too.

My first attempt at a sample cover design for THIEF...and I hear that Eric has through issue 2 completely penciled, which actually means that three issues are in the can. I'll try to get some good resolution scans when I get copies of the art this week.

This project has me jazzed, for the fact that it'll be the first recent work I'm doing that is getting completed, since Landis was finished a long while ago. 

This is an attempt by me (June 15, 04) to get back into drawing some of the characters from Landis. I don' t think I've posted this piece here, before, but I may have.

You'll notice a huge stylized difference between how I draw Ardy and how Owen does.

Oh, as a notice of something I just remembered, and can't believe I forgot it in the first place...next year is Ardy's 20th birthday. That's right, Ardy was created by me while I was in 3rd grade, and that was the fine year of 1986. What does this mean, exactly? I'm not sure...but I'll be attempting to release ARDY: CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS the Director's cut, if there is any way I can get the art, otherwise I'm going to have to "remaster" it myself, and hopefully reletter it all, as well...

Other than that, I've been putting A LOT of thought into doing an Ardy one-shot... written and penciled by me...and then I'll probably have Eric ink it (and fix all my bad art, too, hehe). I just really want to show why people like Mike Weiringo, Doug Mahnke, Bill Maus and even Dave Finch have attempted to catch his likeness. Well, enough of this mindless chatter...go on about your night =). 

Post 175: THIEF UPDATE

Well, in totally unrelated news to Landis, its time to fill people in a bit about current OTHER projects.

Eric has sent me the pages via UPS for the first issue of Thief and he is still claiming these are his best pages to date. Some seeing early prelims, I can't dispute that, since he's putting A LOT of effort, heart and soul into them.

With THIEF, Eric and I are not going to publish ANY of it until its all completed... meaning that if I don't get off my ass and start writing more, it might not get done. The book is done in a different format than normal American/Western comics, as the chapters or issues (trying to tie the terminology all together for both online and those that read paper books only), as the stories only consist of 16 pages each, in an effort to give most bang for the buck, the main story would be 16 pages, and the rest of the book would consist of things like script pages, sketches and other, and keeping the cost to the consumer down.

It'll be interesting because I intend to publish the story myself, but if Crosby wants to bring the final project to Keenspot, since he's been real nice to me, we'd probably do that, as well.

Post 174: PSP and other things.

Well, I triedto use the new web browser on my PSP to view LANDIS, and although the site comes up, it didn't show the actual comic, which was a bit disappointing, but the file is probably too large for the browser on it.

I've been looking at a lot of other web-comics recently, and one that I give my highest recommendation is EATKITTIES.COM, a manga that is just wonderful on the eyes, and another called INTERLOCH, both of which are on the TOP Web Comic listing.

I guss part of me feels that I may be able to sway a great artist off of their current web-story, and get them on Landis, and I think very similar to Marvel's idea of changing totally on art style from their last version of ULTIMATES to the Joe Madureira version for the third installment is the only way to do things.

If I can't get Owen to come back for another run on Landis (even just penciling), then I want to change it dramatically, so that it stands on its own.

I guess you've heard it hear first, hehe.

Post 173: Final Numbers and Records for October

Well, the final numbers are in for October, and needless to say, they were outstanding, as it was an Amazing month for numbers.

As we look back here were our records for Largest week, Largest Week including reloads and largest month and largest month including reloads... And then I'll show where the new record stands...I'm very excited! The largest week is NOT INCLUDING ANY ADS THAT RAN that bring in readers.


Largest Week: 8449 (week 42)
New Record: 8637 (week 43)

Largest Week (Inc. Re) 67920 (week 34)
New Record: 82426 (week 41)

Largest Month: 28337 (Sept. 05)
New Record: 41627 (Oct. 05)

Largest Month (In. Re) 91645 (Aug. 05)
New Record: 141292 (Oct. 05)

These ARE HUGE! Wow! Now if we could get Landis on the Top 100 Webcomics listing, that would make my year! Hehe...I'll look into what it takes and hopefully get some help from you readers!

Thanks so much for your continuing support on this...and if you know someone that MAY want to be an artist for it, have them send me an email...

rpotchak@gmail.com

Thanks again everyone!