San Diego Con - In Review Of: Travis Charest's Spacegirl

Back early from San Diego this year, just getting to Preview Night and Thursday and Friday in 2008. Can you pack a whole lotta crazy con-ness into two days? Heck yeah. Wore my Nike's out strolling the Con, and packed a whole bunch of craziness into those two days. We've got a bunch of books to review as well.

First off, I had the fun of hanging with Bully at the W.H. Norton Booth, which is was great, as Bully is one of the few devotees that love the current Doctor Who franchise as much as I do. My only sadness was not getting a picture with the extremely photogenic stuffed friend. Bully's Comics Oughta Be Fun blog is one that I always love reading. They also had a new book on Jews and Comics that I forgot to go back and pick up, but fully intend to get my hands on.

Over at Steve Morger's booth in the illustrator's section, there were a great group of artists, and one of the fun little delights was seeing Travis Charest's Spacegirl in hardcover form. Simplified into a single strip per page format, with only 55 total, Travis plunges us into the story of Spacegirl with nary a thought of world building, over wrought narration or even annoying intro. Spacegirl is that cool sci-fi movie you stumble on to in while channel flipping and you fall in love with. What universe are we in? don't care! Gimme some more cool stuff!

Travis an amazing artist, one that JG and I used to marvel over while he was doing WildCATs with Alan Moore. With his insanely delicate lines and detailed, layered approach, I can hardly imagine anyone less suited for the horrendous grind that is monthly comics. If there was anyone that I wanted to see do a hardcover european album, it was Travis.

Coming up, reports on JH Williams and the single best book that DC is going to publish this year that they decided to not promote, San Diego layout and useablilty, Steve Rude and oil painting, and enough reviews of make you wish that you had more time to read!

In Praise Of: 52 The Covers by JG Jones

Disclaimer: It was my pleasure to work with JG on more than a couple projects, and to get the chance to watch his artwork develop by leaps and bounds from its first days on Dark Dominion at Defiant to Shi: The Series to his current amazing work. I stumbled across this hardback two days ago, while starting in on the hell that is holiday shopping. Imagine my happiness then, to see his work collected and put out in such a wonderful package. Yowza!

In the current landscape of simply horrendous comic artists who couldn't draw their way out an old issue of Ambush Bug, it should be a joy to go through and see the weight and heft that JG's people have: when Black Adam stands up, gravity pulls at his heels. When Batwoman spins around, there are real hips moving under those tights.

It also should be an interesting lesson for many young artists to read the sidebars and realize how diverse the influences are that inform the art for these covers: 14th century painters, old movie posters, dog-eared paperback book covers, old soviet propaganda posters. The lessons here: go the Met once a month, keep your eyes open and always bring your sketchbook with you. Perhaps I'll add: spend a little time studying Tiepolo's use of cloth.

It is also interesting to me to note that this series of covers simply couldn't have been done as fast to make the deadlines had Photoshop not been invented. Certainly JG could have painted in color, but it would have taken longer and been harder. The computer has certainly taken over, hasn't it?

For a hardback, 52 The covers is a great deal at $20 whole dollars. Do yourself a favor and get it. And spend some quality time poring over it.

Unseen Art: J.G Jones and Yoakum Wildcats

Was digging through the files for something and ran across the "what the heck do I do with these" section that I keep. Plenty of oddities that I've built up here, but a few little gems as well.

Thought that some people might like to see this one, part of a three page WildCATS piece that JG Jones and I did back in the mid-90's. Jones' pencils, my inks and tones. This was the third page, and the only one that I didn't finish as you can see.

Kinda fun. Shows that before he became a big star, JG was already a huge talent. It just took years and years of work for people to catch on so that he could become an overnight success. Funny how that works isn't it?

Also funny to see the twin towers as the focal point on this page. Never thought that those two buildings that I didn't really like would be a such a generational touchpoint, because they always will be for this ex-New Yorker.