Yet More War: Pages One and Three

Here are the inked pages 1 and 3 of Red Anvil Comics' forthcoming War of the Independents #4. I completed the inks over my pencils today. (See previous posts for early pencil roughs of these pages and page 2, and more information on who all these characters are!)

Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners. 

More War Roughs:

Roughs for the top of pages 1 and 3, respectively, for War of the Independents #1. For more, see previous posts. It's fun drawing props like the Owl's Roost rye bottle and Reid's "MILK" truck with cow logo. Squashing characters is not my particular bag, but nothing that happens in the WOTI universe is binding on continuity in the respective titles.

Rusty Gilligan's Man 'n' Trouble; David E. Boswell's Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman; Oliver Simonsen's Captain Zap, Robot, and Polly Bird.

Reid Fleming; Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo; Larry Marder's Mr. Spook; Bob Burden's Flaming Carrot; Gumby and Pokey; Evan Dorkin's Milk and Cheese; Dave Sim's Cerebus the Aardvark,  Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead, and an assortment of insipid, happy characters courtesy of yours truly.

Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Riverdale Roughs: The Kids Are Back in Town!

Update: Here's the final inked version:

Further developments of the roughs for War of the Independents #4, bottom half of page 2. See previous post for more.

The pencil rough with Archie/MLJ figures added, including Sabrina, Cosmo, Josie, The Shield, The Fox, The Web, et al.

The Archie/MLJ group further refined, with a mainstreet background.

A refinement of the entire composition on tissue.

Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Next: On to the inking!

Special Delivery: WOTI #4

Here is the bottom half of page 1 of War of the Independents #1, forthcoming from Red Anvil Comics. In this sequence, The World's Toughest Milkman, David E. Boswell's Reid Fleming, is about to drop off a slew of characters including Bob Burden's The Flaming Carrot, Dave Sim's Cerebus the Aardvark, Larry Marder's Mr. Spook, Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat, Jeff Smith's Bone, and Gary Carlson and Mort Todd's Protoplasman onto an all-American small town mainstreet. What mayhem will ensue? (See previous posts on this blog for the explosive page 2!)

Blue and graphite pencil rough.

Refinement of linework with Sharpie fine pen on yellow tracing paper.

Pen and ink on Clearprint vellum.

 Here is the following page (for its development from rough to final ink, click here.)

 Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Mainstreet, USA: Reid Makes a Delivery!

Work in Progress: Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman, has just delivered our heroes to Anytown, USA, where they are in search of Cerebus The Aardvark's helmet. A page layout I am working on for War of the Independents #4, from Red Anvil Comics. See previous posts for more.

The two top tiers of page three.

Reid, Mr. Spook, Flaming Carrot, and Felix the Cat. I think I still have room to sneak Usagi Yojimbo in there on the sidewalk.

Pokey, Gumby, Milk and Cheese.

I forget the name of this character...

Zippy the Pinhead.

Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Anytown, U.S.A.: The Merry _______ Marching Society!

More of War of the Independents #4 in progress. These are the thumbnail and roughs of the bottom of p. 3, in which Zippy the Pinhead, Mr. Spook, Felix the Cat, Gumby and Pokey, and The Tick look on as Archie/MLJ characters parade down Main Street. What era will Betty, Veronica, Jughead, et al, evoke? Something retro for sure. Stay tuned...

Here is the tissue overlay where I have begun refining the foreground characters, who are onlookers to the parade. Super Duck is coming into focus. Mr. Spook, Pokey, Gumby, Felix the Cat, Usagi Yojimbo and The Tick are in the lower right.

Here is the initial pencil rough. Josie and some of the Archie cast can be made out, but need to be tightened up considerably.

Here is the thumbnail sketch of page 2 (posted previously on this blog) and the bottom of p. 3. These crowd scenes are a real challenge to choreograph, but fun (and are bound to please all three fans who still remember Super Duck!)!

Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Brands That Time Forgot: More MLJ Studies

More studies of characters I've never drawn before, from the MLJ-Archie archives, all for a single half-page appearance in War of the Independents #4. See previous posts for more.

The cast from Cosmo, The Merry Martian, and their flying saucer. (How has American popular culture survived without these characters?!)

Super Duck, The Web, and Rusty Gilligan's Mac 'n' Trouble (the latter are not Archie/MLJ characters, obviously.)

The Shield, Jughead, and Archie digging Josie of the Pussycats. Who wouldn't?

The following I've posted before, but these are clearer daylight shots:

The Toxic Avenger, The Tick, and Protoplasman.

Gumby, Pokey, and The Toxic Avenger.

Super Duck, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Archie, and The Shield.

Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

The Battle for Screen Time: More WOTI #4!

Here is the splash page from War of the Independents #4, which I drew from scratch today (September 15, 2014). The initial rough layout is in Col-Erase light blue and Staedtler Mars Lumograph H graphite pencil on bond layout; the intermediate refinement of the line work was done with a Pilot pen on canary yellow tracing paper. The final ink was done with a crowquill on Clearprint Design Vellum. Left to right, top to bottom: The Tick, Milk, Felix the Cat, Protoplasman, Cheese, The Toxic Avenger, Zippy the Pinhead, Mr. Spook, Flaming Carrot, Gumby, Pokey, Usagi Yojimbo, Bone, Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman, Cerebus the Aardvark.

Blue and graphite pencil layout on bond, 11" x 17". Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Pilot pen on tracing paper; refinement of linework. Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Pen and ink on vellum. Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Learning to Crawl: Studies for a Cast of Thousands for WOTI #4

Here are some of the sketches and rough layouts I'm doing for War of the Independents #4. It is the all-humor issue of the biggest indy crossover of all time, and I'm doing my homework, learning to draw everybody else's characters in the universe.

Rough layout for the page two splash next to sketchbook studies of The Toxic Avenger, The Tick, and Protoplasman. Above right is a print out of Dave Ryan's page one with Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkaman. Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators.

Betty, Veronic, Jughead, Super Duck, and Archie studies (along with The Shield). How to reconcile Bob Montana with Dan DeCarlo? Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators.

Pokey, Gumby, and the Toxic Avenger. Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators.

Felix the Cat, Bone, Cerebus, Mr. Spook, Flaming Carrot, and Yosagi Yojimbo, with Zippy the Pinhead and Milk and Cheese, all in an early state. Characters are ™ and  © their respective creators.

One decided advantage is I can model for The Toxic Avenger without hardly trying! Scary.

Rumpelstiltskin: A Postmodern Adaptation!

Here is the title page for my adaptation of Rumpelstiltskin for a forthcoming anthology of Grimm's fairy tales, to be published by HEF Studios, a Michigan-based imprint run by Howie Feltman. Contributors will include Bill Loebs (both he and I are Michiganders as well). I wrote the script as well as lettered and illustrated it. Since this is my first post-collegiate completely self-contained comics story (it will be a 12-pager), I've emphasized my PhD in the signature to ensure readers of the meticulous literary research and fidelity to the source material (even though I completely winged it)! At least a few more preview pages will be posted here shortly.