Sunday, August 25, 2013

Blue "pencils."

Here's a little peek at my process for drawing The Phantom. My "pencils" are done in Manga Studio, and printed out in blue for inking by hand. These first two panels show the drawing in progress. The balloon and caption outlines have not been added yet, and the background has not been drawn. 


Is it just me, or is a Steve Ditko influence showing in the main figure here...?

And here is the page as printed out for inking. The finished version, inked and colored, can be seen in my previous blogpost.


 Below is last week's Sunday page. As you can see, I did some of the background line work and effects digitally, leaving the figure inks to be done by hand on the bristol board print out. This, too, can be seen in finished form in my previous blogpost.



Cruise Control....

The cruise continues with a trap, a trick and an "Old Jungle Saying."



Thursday, August 15, 2013

Phantom/Mandrake Sunday pages art sale



Here are some recent Phantom Sunday strips that are available for purchase. All art is on 11x17 bristol board, and is inked by hand over printed "blue line" preliminary pencils. Lettering and borders are printed as well. Prices include shipping within the US. 

Offered for the first time are pages from the currently-running Mandrake/Phantom crossover tale. When I requested that we team up these classic Lee Falk characters, I had no idea that Fred Fredericks, artist of the Mandrake strip since the 1960's (!), would retire (leaving the daily only Mandrake strip in reruns) while Tony DePaul and I were still producing the pages for our story -- making THIS (most likely) the last new Mandrake story to appear in US newspapers! This fact makes these already unusual strips even more significant. 

Mandrake and the Phantom have teamed up several times in the Mandrake strip -- notably in the final Sunday continuity (written and drawn by Fredericks).  But aside from a few cameo appearances (Phantom's wedding, etc.), this is the only full-length adventure featuring the two classic heroes in the Phantom strip.

Descriptions and prices follow. Email me to reserve pages and get payment info (Paypal please). 


The final two pages of "Revenge in Rhodia" -- more pages are available. If there are any you are interested in, contact me with publication dates and I'll let you know if I still have them.

4-7-13: Large panel of Phantom on Hero. ON HOLD!
4-14-13: Phantom, Hero, Devil, Diana, Guran, Skull Cave! SOLD!


4-21-13 First page of Mandrake tale. No Phantom. $225.00
4-28-13 (signature box and date accidently left off the original!) Mandrake and Narda. No Phantom. $225.00


5-5-13: Phantom, Guran, Diana, the twins, Mandrake and Narda! $275.00
5-19-13: Phantom, Mandrake, Devil, Hero: $275.00
(sorry about the fuzzy pic on these two -- you can always look back at previous blog entries to see the color print version of any of these)

Not shown, but available: 5-26-13 Phantom, Mandrake, Devil, Hero,: $250.00
Also 6-2-13: Phantom (as Walker), Diana, Mandrake, Narda boarding cruise ship: $250.00


6-9-13: Sexy villain -- no heroes: $200.00
6-16-13: Phantom, Mandrake (now in tails, cape and top hat), Diana and Narda in costume (it's a costume cruise!) : $275.00 ON HOLD

 
6-23-13: Trio of villains in costume -- no heroes: $225.00
6-30-13: Phantom, Mandrake, Diana, Narda and villains: $300.00


7-7-13: Phantom, Diana, villains -- goofy guy in super-suit: $275.00
7-14-13: Phantom, Mandrake, Diana, Narda, villains: $300.00


7-28-13: Heroes and their wives in the pool: $250.00
8-4-13: Phantom and Mandrake, villains. Signature/date box missing. $275.00

Also available but not shown: 8-11-13 Phantom and Mandrake in one panel -- $225.00

Upcoming strips will be available as soon as they see print. I'll eventually show them here, but you can always contact me if you see something in the newspaper that you like.


Sunday, August 4, 2013

HEY! This is a SECURE AREA!

This week's entry in the Phantom/Mandrake crossover. Look out for that imaginary iceberg, fellas!

The Buyer's Guide cover gallery part 2

I was recently contacted by Roy Thomas about contributing some images and info to a TBG/CBG article for an upcoming issue of ALTER EGO. That reminded me that I'd promised to post some more of my TBG covers here, and figured while I was scanning some of them for Roy, I'd better make good on my promise and show some here.

Below is a Halloween themed cover, paying tribute to both EC Comics and the Warren magazines. Cover date says Nov. 5 -- but I seem to recall the 'zine was, like most comic books, dated early -- so I hope folks saw this in late October!


My tribute to Everett Raymond Kinstler. I love Ray's Western comics -- and am particularly crazy for his version of Zorro. I do wish this were better drawn -- Silvertip has some loooong legs....


My homage to Ditko. Spider-Man villains in green!


One of several Christmas covers I drew. The original art for this one is now in my sale portfolio, after residing in my "keeper" file for decades.


A tip of the hat to Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four -- the Ayers-inked-era, it seems! My tear sheet of this was a bit more tanned than typical, and had some other issues as well, so I cleaned it up in Photoshop --  printed in black and white -- might be fun to color some time.


One of several "experimental" covers. The TBG budget wouldn't allow for full four-color printing -- but three was a possibility. So I did this Steranko tribute in three-color -- making the line art a combo of all three process colors -- no actual black involved. Color and effects done with cut zip-a-tone on mylar layers.


And since we're living in the future, with these newfangled computer thingamabobs, I can now do what  I wanted to back then -- and replace that brown linework with black. Thank you, Photoshop! There are folds and smudges that are still evident, that some more work might remove -- but no time for that now.


I've been a fan of Joe Staton's work since I first saw it -- and first saw it in the Charlton issues of E-MAN. Here's my tribute. No idea what's going on with that curved border at the bottom. Can't imagine I drew it that way -- but the original art is long gone, so I can't check.


There are still at least a half dozen covers I've not shown here -- but they'll have to wait for another scanning session. In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past. If you want to get a little more background on my time at TBG, you'll find it in that upcoming issue of ALTER EGO I mentioned earlier.  I'll be sure to plug it here when it is published.