popo

Play the cards you're dealt

Storytime!

The first time I heard the name Nathan Fox was at the Heroes Convention maybe 5 years ago. I guess Chris and I had just started really showing our work together or maybe it was as Chris' Batman LOTDK run started coming out, I can't remember for sure. Either way, our mutual friend Jim Royal told us that our stuff was kind of reminding him of Nathan Fox's stuff. When I got home from that weekend I got online and checked around and found Nathan's work. I was pretty blown away by what I saw. This crash one is the one that really burned itself in my mind, I'm not even sure if it was one of the first things I saw or if it came later but it really stuck with me. Needless to say I was an instant admirer of his work.



Fast forward to a few months ago, I'm getting files on press for printing at my day job. I see all these files labeled "nfox" and think..."naaaaah". I opened them up and it was unmistakably Nathan's work. I was crazy excited to be printing this stuff! I checked the order form and saw that the order was placed by Paolo from Cadence Comic Art. I'm pretty friendly with Paolo so I sent him an email to ask him what the deal was. He said Nathan would be sitting with him and his gang at the upcoming Baltimore Comicon and I should come by their table and he'd make with the introductions. Then, a day (or a few hours) later Paolo emails and says he has a couple pin-ups by Nathan that he'd like to get colored...for free. Now, my friends and family all know better than to ask me for free stuff, I guess Paolo didn't know my rules yet. I'm kinda glad he didn't because I said sure I'd take a crack at the art but asked if I could just do one of them. Turns out they only needed one colored (that was the Kade thing I posted a while back). So, I did the spec job hoping Nathan would be into it and would lead to more stuff with him. (I didn't really think it would since he does such an awesome job of coloring his own work.)
I met Nathan (he's a gentleman) at the Baltimore Con and it turns out he liked what I did and he said he might have a magazine job coming up that I would be right for. I guess he sent some stuff to the art director and we were on it! So yeah, did anybody read all that stuff I just typed? I hope it made some kind of sense because there's no way I'm reading it! Yeah, here's some of the art, buy the magazine it has metallic ink (not where I planned for it to be for the most part but ah well, what are you gonna do right?) You can find the whole 6 pages at the WIRED magazine website here.

truffle shuffle

wanted to have these up one at a time, but somehow ended up working on them all at the same time. which was absolutely terrifying; to whatever degree they function, comparatively each was its own little trainwreck a half hour before its finish. happy with a couple, some had an idea i didnt measure up to, and some im thrilled to survive. take care, cb.

bzzz

still buzzing from last week....wow....
...at the tail end of a chunk of pages i can't show, here's a panel (again, just grey until rico goes to town) and a couple of thumbnails. aiming for these to be real claustrophobic, trapped in an 87 crown victoria with atlanta police. always start losing my nerve when it comes to obscuring so much in shadow, once things get to the full size page it can be hard to resist deviating from a simple solid plan. but ive tried to be cagey so far in choosing when/what to show of faces and eyes, no going back. anyways. plenty more posting in the next couple weeks, have a bunch of marvel cards to do and then back to comic pages i can share. lots more on the way from rico as well.

Why is all this stuff black and white? Isn't Loose Ends a color book?!

Hey folks, it's me, the coloring half of the Kickstand Kids. I've had some non Kickstand stuff going on that I wasn't going to post on the blog but I've had some people ask what I've been up to, so here ya go!

I still color Perhapanauts every month. This image is a cover drawn by guest artist, Jason Armstrong. You've seen Jason's pulse-pounding pencils on his own Ferro City and Lobster Johnson. Fun stuff! Jason did interiors on this ish too, I'm working on those now.

In other coloring news, I met Nathan Fox through mutual friend Paolo Belfiore. They asked if I had time to color a pinup (pictured right) that Nathan didn't have the time to color himself and I said, "SURE!" Nathan liked what I did and now we're working on a 6 page comic for a major magazine! More fun stuff!

Anyway, with the help my childhood pal, Kheang Kho, I am building a blazing fast super computer that will allow me to color as many books as Dave Stewart and have time left over to take up knitting. Loose Ends colors coming soon!

One last note of congratulations to our friend Mike Capprotti, he's now the proud papa of little Sophia Capprotti!!

coffee, nicotine, draw, eat, repeat

despite appearances here,much has been produced since the last post. just hitting the final few pages of the first issue of Loose Ends, will be done at the end of the month. downside blogwise is these final nine give away a lot, so cant show much till i get to issue 2 beginning nov. argh, it hurts not to show the new batch of pages, dont seem finished til theyre out there. ten marvel cards on the way though, have artist proofs and am open to requests if anything comes to mind.
as far as whats here, all over the map, like usual. still working out how to draw some characters. the larger headshot of the fellow with glasses in the second of these two trailer/tree pages, that was intended to be the tiny silhouette in the first of the set. but then i never got the original large headshot to look right, and meanwhile hated to cover up the little one. for whatever reason i have draw out the insides of every silhouette, even though it always feels goofy doing so. at the same time couldnt be bothered to draw trees ;p guess thats half true, also just wanted to insure they were native north carolina trees, and had spent waaay to long researching trailers already ( the quest was over when i found the "nomad" model- perfect name). ah, the last double page thing is just an ad, all collaged from pages already posted here, just with zip-a-tone! i feel about zip-a-tone now the way i did about ketchup when i was a kid- improves everything.

jedi mind tricks

these'll be in zip-a-tone, still gotta cross the i's and dot the t's

ps shoot, i just noticed a continuity snafu