Reading some lately:

I have been reading some lately. I thought I would comment.

ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #5

I had such very high hopes for this series. I am a big fan of Jim Lee and Frank MIller is a personal hero. Then they started to come out. I wasn't a big fan of issue 1. Then issue 2 arrived and I was less impressed. I was getting nervous. Issue three came and went with even less regard for the series on my part. Issue four was my stopping point. If issue four wasn't great, I was giving up.

Issue four was ok. It ended with a line that made me think that the series was going to be ok.

"Alfred just told me to take a flying leap. This kid is going to ruin everything."

Or something like that.

Then a year passed and issue five fell in my hands last week.

I love being the Goddamn Batman?

I love this goddamn book.

Frank is back and he never left. When this is a trade, it will read so much better. He has been setting us up for this and he delivered. The art is, as usual...Jim Lee awesome. I love this series now.

Kudos to the creative team for bringing a series back from near death.

NO OTHER GODS

My first series under my new banner next year will be NO OTHER GODS. I am co-writing this one with Brian Augustyn. Alessandro Scacchia was going to handle the art, but unfortunately, his Mother is ill and he needs to spend some time with her. This created a need for a new artist and now fellow Shocktraumanaut, Fredd Gorham is handling the art. He has told me that he has a number of pages ready and I am chomping at the bit to see them! Fredd has a very col style. Here are a couple of character sketches based on Alessandro's designs:

BOB

I have had this in my head for over twelve years. I created this character with my old pal, Tom McKeon. He is a multi-talented artist and animator. However, he is not able to do a full on book and BOB has therefore been dormant. That is now over. Tom is going to do covers and I am self-publishing BOB in my line-up next year. My fellow Shocktraumanaut, Aaron Guillespie is going to handle the interiors. I'll figure out a colorist soon.

Here is a very preliminary cover for BOB by Tom.

NO OTHER GODS changes next.

And here are some character sketches from Aaron:

Man...I wanted to do this every day. That's not gonna happen. I have been so busy. I've done some signings, mad plans to self-pulish, wrote about 13 scripts and took on a day job.

Wow...what changes in just a short time...

Anyway, I thought I'd catch up on the projects I am working on.

Firstly, my wife created a story while my little boy was potty training. You see, when a little one is learning to sit on the toilet, a parent has to sit in there for long periods of time. So Chris spent many hours sitting in a bathroom with Luke and consequently, ran out of stories to tell from her arsenal of stories from when she was small. This meant making up some stories.

One of those stories was THE HONCKEYBUM MONSTER. I thought it was fantastic and we teamed up. I punched up the stpry a bit and wrote an outline and then in Chicago last year...I found Nicole Polack. Nicole has a creepy, scary stryle and it fits te story to a tee.

THE HONCKEYBUM MONSTER is a children's book and not really a comic book. We will be shopping it when it is complete.

Like the rest of the titles I am going to talk about here, I am refraining from writing about the storylines as thee may not be out for a while and I do not want to either get ripped off or believe someone ripped me off when in fact they didn't.

Here are preliminary layout pages for some of THE HONCKEYBUM MONSTER, created by Chris Satterlee and me and Cpyright Chris & Chuck Satterlee and Nicole Polack. The pages will ultimately be full color.

Next up is KONG!

Issue zero of KONG: KING OF SKULL ISLAND is pretty much wrapped up.

Here are some inked pages. The scans are a bit rough. I have better ones but I thought, since there is so much time before it is released, (October from Markosia) it is best to leave some room for anticipation.

Dan O'Connor on art. I am so jazzed to be working with Dan. He was certainly born in the wrong decade and I love his style.

Now...onto a project that I am very honored to be a part of. Phil Hester is probably one of my most respected creators in comics. I was blown away when he asked me to co-write a book with him. 13 STEPS is that book and when Kevin Mellon (GEARHEAD from Arcana Studio) came on board, things were quite frankly...perfect. Here are the first couple of pages from this series, debuting in August from Desperado.

Onto Free Comic Book Day...

I signed at COMIC FUSION in Flemington New Jersey. Stacy and Bill, the owners were very cool. Chris Dibari, who is drawing the ongoing STARSHIP TROOPERS series at Markosia, was there as well.

Here are some pics:

This is my son, Luke...doing skecthes! :)

I did a signing at Krypton Comics in Omaha, Nebraska in April with Bruce McCorkindale, the artist of HERETIC. Here are some pics from the signing and some pages. The large, framed covers of #1 are a gift from Bruce's girlfriend, Jen. She's a find! We sold out of 52 copies of HERETIC #1 That day. #2 should be out any day.

I'm gearing up for a new trade this summer (OF BITTER SOULS V.2) and a bunch of books this year but I mostly looking forward to self-publishing next year. More on that next time.