Your coloring gets better & better.

Looking forward to whatever is next.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid to tell you I’m only extending the sketch-a-day for the next few days. However, consider your request noted and I will get to it at some point.

I’ll explain more later.

Since you’re continuing the Sketch-A-Day, I’ve got a new request. Usagi Yojimbo!

It’s so beautiful that my eyeballs are starting to burn.

Seriously though, this is a fine piece of artwork. And yeah, for many reasons, Kiss is very lovable.

That’s a nice looking trophy, Eric.

CB&MI13 broke my heart when it ended.

I had no idea Rememder was taking over Secret Avengers. When, what issue?

Cornell is working some of that same magic on the New 52 titles Demon Knights, if you’re so inclined.

I’ve kept with the BPRD series but it has not been easy. I kind of hate that it’s a series of miniseries. makes it hard to remember where you are…

The reference I used for her costume was the design for “Legion of Three World” Final Crisis miniseries thing, and then made tweaks to it that I felt were more appealing.

There are so many Legionnaires, and most of them are fun on a bun to draw. Timber Wolf, Wildfire, Tellus, Galaxy Queen, Brainiac 5, Quantum Kid, I could go on.

And thanks! Yeah, it’s more marker work, digitally altered to be blue. The Copics are ridiculously expensive, so I’m just sticking to the cool grays for now.

Oh and that’s a sweet Abe. More marker work? I love what you did with the blue coloring.

and i’m glad you did not call her the “Red Tomato” like a certain police chief (who was later clobbered by Ma for the insult!)

Jim, it’s actually some Copic markers I bought about a month ago, cool gray.

And right now… I’M A SUPER HERO!!!

I’m pulling for him!

Shadowline can put out some interesting funnybooks. And his tenure as Image Comics Publisher was pretty cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiMZa8flyYY&

I’d love a new Muppet Show. But haven’t they tried resurrecting the Muppet Show at least twice now?

but Blob’s vocabulary is neither as varied nor as erudite.

-Quote by the Beast from Original X-Men #7, pg. 16, panel 3.

I wish I would have maybe exaggerated this more.

This character lends himself to be exaggerated to the extreme. It always disappoints me to see a comic artist draw him like a normal dude. he’s clearly a distant relation to Sloth from The Goonies!

Again, thanks for all the help getting the website set up, and hooking me up with hosting. Its really getting me (and a lot of the Savage Dragon fan community) really excited to keep moving forward with it.

*puts his shades on* *jumps off the roof*

I’ve always thought the default pairing would be Iron Man/Green Lantern. Don’t know why. Wonder Woman doesn’t really have an Avengers equal (in the “classic” sense).

I agree with your assessments for the most part, and I agree that if Batman can beat Superman, so should Cap. However, the pairing of Supes vs. Cap bothers me still. I don’t know why. Your reasoning makes sense, I just don’t like it.

Question; we all know the ‘classic’ pairings are Superman v. Thor, Batman v. Captain America, and Iron Man v. Wonder Woman (wait, is this a classic pairing? Does anyone give a shit about Iron Man v. Wonder Woman?).

But am I the only one who thinks it should instead be; Batman v. Iron Man, Wonder Woman v. Thor, and Superman v. Captain American? While some of the power levels are disproportional at a glance, it makes a little more sense thematically IMO (Playboy vs Playboy, Mythic vs Mythic, Patriotic Icon vs Patriotic Icon). And if Batman can beat Superman in a fight. Cap shout totally be able to beat Superman in a fight *armscrossed*

Seriously? That drawing was awesome and totally got me interested in the show it was based on. That’s great advertising right there.

I just went back & read the first two of the new Action Comics on your word & they were awesome. I’m not sure why i doubted Morrison enough to not pick these up.

can you draw the original (Ma Hunkel) Red Tornado with Sisty and Dinky, the Cyclone Kids?

(sorry it is an odd request, but i saw this Red Tornado and thought of the first Red Tornado.)

Again, simply making the attempt is something to be proud of, and working towards a second attempt next year sounds like a great goal.

Hey, next year the Olympics will be going on during 24 Hour Comic Day… maybe you, me and Joe can compete for Team America in the 24 Hour Comic competition?

Waitaminute… is he wearing Crocs???

Seriously, fuck that boring redundant Superboy knock-off. Lead weakness is the lamest weakness, especially since it gets hand-waved away so easily.

What I’m trying to say say here is; Ultra Boy Rules, Mon-El Drools.

Nice Psycho Pirate. The face mask seems a little ‘Cobra Commander’, which is cool.

I can’t remember how long any of them took to do.

Some really strong hatch work across all five of them. I love it.

Did you try Batman with Capullo?

Your Nightwing is awesome by the way. Great hair and nice shading on that costume!

Why are you making me want to read more comics?!?

Nice news about having your art displayed at a venue. Very cool.

And I totally agree, seeing some of your opinions on new releases is a bit exciting.

I liked Stormwatch, but not enough to buy more. Same with Batgirl. Batwoman was great, particularly for continued use of Bette Kane (did you notice that she mentioned being a member of the Titans? So what’s the timeline here, exactly?), and Frankstein and Animal Man were excellent as well.

I like that you’re reviewing comics that I’m reading. It’s exciting for me.

Second issues are where I’m going to be making my cut decisions.

Current DCnU reading list looks like: Action Comics, Men of War, Demon Knights, Legion Lost, Resurrection Man, Legion of Super-Heroes, and OMAC (digital only). Hopefully I won’t be adding any more too it. Though All-Star Western is very tempting.

What did you ink this with?

(has never really read Sandman)

You know, just moments before I read this post I’d talked with my cousin about our upcoming trip to Yellow Springs this weekend!

And I totally didn’t shower today. For real.

You see a dubbed versions of Trollhunter then? I can’t find a dubbed one!

Also i’d never even considered the connections between Shade & Doctor Who!!! Thinking about it now it seems obvious!

Well… it does depend on what your rate would be.

*his left

Stop ruining my rant.

Though responding is stumping me right now, too.

Hopefully in the next month or two we can figure out a time to meet for a meal somewhere. I’ll keep you posted.

Not sure how’d t work with the while friction while running thing though.

“I miss you to man” sums it all up i think.

Oh & “You still draw the shit out of these guys”!

I bought some of the Great Lakes Avengers books she was in, but I can’t remember them well. I think there was quite a bit of violence played for comedy, and one of her squirrels got killed.

Sorry I couldn’t help you out much.

Could you tell me if any of the comic books with her were really violent? If not, i may get an issue with her in it at Mavericks.

Squirrel Girl is probably my favorite Marvel super-heroine as of right now!
I also have her first appearance in one of my comic books from Wheeler.

Could you tell me what started the fight between her and Wolverine and if her squirrels chewed off his claws?

I sure don’t!

Are you open to sketch requests for the next 6? Cause… I have some.

The Dicks look really great in color.

Now do Earth-2 Dicks! Or Dick as Owlman! (http://image2.milehighcomics.com/istore/images/fullsize/07206180254.107.GIF)

Also, this sort of looks like Deena Pilgrim from POWERS.

But seriously, I too have been wanting to play Dragon’s Lair (and Space Ace) for YEARS, and have yet to find the opportunity. Mostly because the animation looks so slick, and I love adventure style games.

Wasn’t The Glass Sphere game Tron? Or maybe a variation of Missile Command? Its a little foggy, I sort of came into the arcade scene just before its slow death throughout the 90s started, so I missed most of the classics.

I think it was just a regular console, but it’s been decades.

Was this the game that in the arcade you had to look into a glass sphere to play?

(sorry, it is hard for me to tell; I watch the cartoons as well as sometimes read the books.)

in a 1960s humor comic book called Not Brand Echh, Beastly (N.B.E. version of Beast) hit Magneat-o (NBE Magneto) with a 63 word word balloon, and most of the words started with “M”.

my only X-titles are 1960s original X-Men, although my father’s friend at work gave him (modern) X-titles (which in my opinion are EXTREMELY stupid, and i wish the “heroes” which are sadistic nuts would get knocked off a cliff-no offense to anyone), and i don’t think they hold a candle to the 1960s original X-Men.

I really enjoyed X-Men First Class w/ the exception of the terrible actress who played Emma Frost. Beast was… not awful, but I was hinky on his new Flash powers.

In other Beast related news i just recently saw X-Men First Class & liked it for the most part. It was fun. The Beast did confuse me a bit in it… I guess his mutation was big feet & he could run fast on gravel. Also he could fly a jet…

Eric; are you doing the halftone patterns in Photoshop or Manga studio or what?

And that goes for your draw-er-ings too! I really dig the square shield on Bizarro Cap… you should submit a story featuring him for the next Strange Tales series… course you probably couldn’t call him “Bizarro” or Dc Entertainment would sue.

This Bat-Mite, on the other hand, totally kicks ass. Also, I appreciate you publicly shaming me about not updating my blog.

Everyone should do themselves a favor and read a couple volumes of the Astro Boy manga (available from Dark Horse), if only because Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka is one of those incredible Writer/Artists that basically invent an entire artform. He’s pretty much the Japanese equivalent of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Only he’s one guy. Much of his non-Astro Boy work is also deceptively mature and cutting edge for its time. The guy was a real trail blazer in terms of comic making.

Or his noisy shooting keeps Auntie Mayhem, her piranha and her big, vicious attack dog awake so she throws down a flowerpot or brick to knock him out!

What i would really like to see is Wolverine fighting the actual animal he’s named after and get utterly defeated by the actual animal.

You doing sketch cards now?

Metalocalypse has been all around amazing since its premier, the fact that it’s graduated from a 15 minute Adult-Swim toon, to a 30 minute toon since its last season was wonderful. It now stands shoulder to shoulder with Venture Brothers and Archer as one of the best crass animated shows on TV.

Which explains the Toy.

PS: Check out Usagi Yojimbo when you get a chance, the first collection has floored me. Stan Sakai’s art style is inspirational. Make for a good Gutter Trash episode IMO.

The only Absolute Edition I ever bought was New Frontier, and it is my precious baby. Though I have thought about picking up Absolute Editions of Kingdom Come, Watchmen, and Promethea. But then they’re 100 bucks, and I say forget it.

I’ve seen a handful of 3-D movies, and yeah, the glasses are awful, especially when you wear glasses. The best use of it I’ve experienced was Avatar, which was a goddawful movie, but was incredibly immersive and wonderfully done, visually. My Bloody Valentine was fun enough, since it was clearly just 3-D done for shock value. Green Hornet was ok, but it was a post-conversion and didn’t really add anything to it. I saw it for free and there was no choice to not see it in 3-D, but I definitely would have preferred the normal version.

And then there’s Tron: Legacy. Not only was it not a good movie, but the 3-D was terrible. Black costumes on black backgrounds, the landscapes were flat, half of the time it wasn’t even in 3-D. I would take off the glasses and the movie would be normal.

I’m done with 3-D. Movies have done pretty well without it for a very long time, and even continued to thrive after the first wave of 3-D back in the 50s.

But yeah, Thor. I got to the theater at around 6:50 for a 7:20 show. Apparently they knew the projector had shut down at least 10 times during the previous showing, but they still sold tickets (also, while I would have missed some previews and not gotten a beverage, there was an additional 2-D showing that had started at 6:50 that I could have gone to). At around 7:13, the usher came into the theater to kick us all out and were going to “upgrade” us to the next 3-D showing. I’m stubbornly sticking to my “no 3-D” principle, plus my friend has something wrong with her eyes that she can’t watch a 3-D movie. All the glasses do is “flatten” it for her.

I was pissed that I was inconvenienced and had wasted my time and money and I hate that they tried to tell me that 3-D was better anyway. They gave me a refund for the tickets and some free passes, but I had already spent 15 bucks on snacks and drinks since we weren’t going to get dinner until almost 10pm, so I think I mostly pissed about that money being flushed down the toilet.

I dunno, I’m an idiot, and I threw a shit-fit and almost ruined my friend’s night due to my “principles”.

I saw Toy Story 3 in iMax3D, and thought their use of 3D was excellent. Everything had a wonderful sense of DEPTH, like the movie screen was a window and everything behind it spread out with lifelike depth. I hate movies that throw in things to ‘fly out at you’ (and Thor had quite a few of those), 3D is best used to create that sense of depth and thickness.

BUT, the fucking glasses just ruin everything. The Nintendo 3DS is AMAZING in that its true 3D without the glasses. Its a marvel, and I expect some impressive technical achievement in the coming years. But it only goes to prove that if 3D is going to ever be more then a gimmick, it needs to be glasses free.

But Thor the movie? Damn good. Like Iron Man good(not Iron Man 2, which was a HORRIBLE let down).

Formatting is a huge issue, like you brought up. Back when my friend and I invented webcomics (I’m only partially joking. We also invented podcasting, but it was typed) we formatted the comics to fit the common, lo-res monitors of the time, and I tried desperately to eliminate scrolling as much as possible. At first it was stifling, but sticking to that format helped up learn a lot about storytelling and made for better work when we would do print stuff.

I think the iPad and any other type of Pad-formatting is where the future of digital comics is going to lie, but that’s still down the line until the prices become more reasonable.

Original content would help a bit, but my biggest problem is pricing. Most of the books I see on Comixology are 1.99. I’m definitely not paying that much for something I can’t physically own and that’s as much a pain in the ass to read.

I did however gladly plunk down 99 cents for the Double Feature Action book that Mike Norton & Tim Seeley put out. I think they designed it soley for the iPad, but a PDF for my desktop is good enough. The art was great, the stories were fun, and yeah, I’d prefer a printed book, but for original concepts by artists I enjoy & respect, for that low a price, and I know it’s going to them and supporting them, I’d gladly do that every month.

But your biggest complaint about how no one is trying anything different, I’ve gotta blame the majority of comic fans on that one. Your dyed-in-the-wool hardcore comic fans don’t like change, don’t like anything that’s not superheroes, don’t like anything that’s not Marvel & DC, and completely don’t want to support digital books at all. Anything that Marvel & DC would try would most likely just scare people away.

I dunno. It’s 2:30am. I’m rambling and not making any sense or any good points.

But what really really REALLY is bugging the shit out of me is the complete lack of support for digital comics. “Oh but Marvel and DC are putting out hundreds of new comics a month Jim!”, you say. “Yes, but they are ALL REPRINTS OF EXISTING MATERIAL!”, I scream back like a loon.

As of right now, there are no, or very very few, original new comics available on ComiXology. Everything Marvel/DC/Image/Everyone else puts out is a comic that already appears in print for traditional comic book format. Nothing is taking ADVANTAGE of the digital format. Panels don’t fit the dimensions of the iPhone screens, black bars and constant twirling of the device are necessary to see anything in legible size. ‘unnecessary’ chunks of panels are routinely chopped out to better fit the panels, art is lost. Everything is formatted for the 6 ?” x 10 ¼” comic book page. Nothing is formatted for the 3.5-inch diagonal size of the iPhone screen. Well, I say nothing, there is ComiXology’s own Box 13 series. Which is nice and free to read. It is formatted with the iPhone screen in mind, and it is a DREAM to read. With all panels fitting the screen to the corners, no art lost and never having to rotate to see ‘tall’ images. Why aren’t more comics destined for digital designed for this format?

The biggest mistake this new medium is making is trying to replicate print comic books of right now. Not to mention everything put out has a print equivalent. Marvel and DC should be producing exclusive, digital only content, formatted for the device its being viewed on. Only then can the new medium of mobile device comics really take off, repackaging everything that already exists in print is incredibly pointless.

I wont even go into how I feel how the MONTHLY format itself might be dated and pointless on a digital medium. and that maybe 10 page weekly comic series might be the future over the monthly 22 pager. Nobody is trying anything different in terms of format! Its driving me bonkers.

Okay, rant over. Nice pic btw.

I would never get mad at you drawing Wally West. I do really like his new costume. I just wish he would show up wearing it in comics sometimes.

http://shonborn.net/images/art/flash-on-can.jpg

Currently he is being Awesome in R.E.B.E.L.S. Tony Bedard own zone.

Oh, and who does he think he is? He thinks he’s awesome, that’s who.

Those short pants.

Also the drawing is balls-out awesome.

Joe: Greatest! Donna Troy’s NTT costume is pretty snazzy too.

I like my lines to be black. Like, ultra mega black.

Looking at your sketches, seems like some exquisite corpses between you, Jason, Pat, and Brian would have been kind of neat. Sometimes they suck: one artist can’t follow the rules or tries to get too fancy and the transition between artists is too abrupt, etc. Most of the time the results are pleasantly surprising, or hilarious, even creepy (two artist draw similar things or continue the same train of thought).

Though it seems the current Earth-3 seems have suddenly sprung up a host of ‘super-heroes’ that are good versions of Earth-1 villains. Which I find to be counter intrusive to the whole Earth-3 concept. The whole point is, on Earth-3 evil wins. So… eh.

Good idea though, actually making Earth-3 type characters is actually pretty tough.

And 2) A super genius.

@ Steph – Thank you, ma’am! Y’know I’m gonna hafta stab you now, though, right?

And I agree with your wish that Matt Lukacs was doing stuff now.

Steph – I think it’s 3.5 liters.

And yeah, Human Torch. Dies in issue 587. Book will be relaunched as FF # 1. I’m guessing that book will last for 10-12 issues as is, and when Fantastic Four is supposed to have reached #600, that book will return with the revival of Human Torch.

Do yourself a favor : check out what’s going on in Dragon now. It’s so the shit. The “let’s homage Kirby’s Kamandi in every issue and have a double splash of a giant animal on pages 2 and 3 all the time” vibe is dead and gone. The book is now a perfect mixture of what made it good back then, and the new stuff that makes it good right now. Also, in case you remember it was a mystery : the Dragon’s origin has been revealed, it kicks ass and it’s the basis for the latest arc, and it rocks the cock like nobody’s business.

The media is making all that fuss about the death of the Torch from the FF, but who gives a damn? Johnny Match Head will be back in no time when the next movie’s released. Shit that goes on in Savage Dragon is real.

Don’t take my word for it, check it out. Don’t just stand there, go grab the last ten issues, read them and weep. Larsen’s gotten much better than what you might remember. It might even motivate you to produce your ass off for the next decade.

If you ever want to check Dragon out again, I recommend starting with the ‘Back in Blue’ TP reprinting issue #145-150. Which leads into Identity Crisis, then Dragon War, and Emperor Dragon.

Then there’s issue 169 which will be out the 23ed of Feb. Which launches the bold new direction of the book. Seriously, if you dropped the book 6/7 years ago, where the book is now will BLOW YOUR MIND.

Also, a little disappointed that you didn’t draw NFL Superpro.

Jason – Thank you! And I think you mean 364. Unless you’re predicting that I’m gonna miss 10 days?

I’m kinda psyched to get into it, but figured I’d wait for a good milestone.

I have never drawn Astro Boy, but I will add it to my request list!

365 daily art posts?! You’re a mad man. (in a good way!) Good luck with that.

Requests eh? Have you ever drawn Astro Boy?

Good luck with your project! Can’t wait to see what you throw at us this year!

I appreciate your comments about Black Panther, however, that definitely isn’t “next time”. That drawing is a few years old, and is actually the very first post on this blog, held over from my old (and first) blog page.

This is great! I really enjoy Superman’s face.

And thanks again!!!

Noob question – why are lens flares a no-no?

Excelsior!

Now, I know, comics fans either hate Identity Crisis or love it. I love it because it made me want to read comics again.

But that’s all beside the point. I bring it up because your Deathstroke incorporates the best parts of Morales’ and Bair’s Deathstroke from IC – the way they render the eyehole, the chainmail on his arms and legs, the long shorts (I hate the Superman-tight, bikini-brief like shorts that a lot of artists give Deathstroke), and the big, floppy boots.

Nice job!