Tales From A Drunken Soldier

Just saw that it's been over a month since I've posted on here. Ouch. Guess I'm not blogger material. But, I have been working in that month--working writing, that is, at least a little. More on that later. In the meantime, I've finished the rough letters for one of the stories in Undertow #1 and thought I'd throw it up here for some feedback. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Kord and Harley

When I signed up on Facebook a couple of weeks ago one of the first people that friended me was a fellow writer and comic creator by the name of Matthew Adams. Matthew has self-published two issues of a book called the Mortal World Compendium, and he pointed me toward a cool website to check them out--Indy Comic Creators Worldwide. The ICCW is a group of independent small publishers, and the website is a place for them to correspond with each other, advertise for their projects, and also to sell their book.

Matthew is one of these guys. He's currently working on a graphic novel titled "Kord & Harley," that is a collection of short pieces featuring his two characters, and it's going to be a monster when it comes out--200 pages. That is a ton of work. Roman Morales III and Greg Harms are currently working on his newest short for the book. I've pulled some of Matthew's cover pieces for the individual stories that will appear in the book and posted them below.

The picture above was penciled by Jonathan Rector, inked by Greg Harms, and colored by Matthew Adams (he's artist artist also). As for the images below--I'm not sure who did what but thought they deserved to be displayed. Maybe Matthew will get on here and line me out so I can edit the post and give some credits.

The Drunken Soldier

This next one is a story told to me long ago by a friend who has a gift for weaving a tale. The poetry of his oration can't be reproduced by my abilities, but I tried. Whether I succeeded or not, it's still a funny story about an experience that maybe no one else on earth has had.

All the artwork done here is from Greg Harms--pencils, inks, and gray-scale colors. He does a beautiful job setting the tone with his gray-scales--his idea, and also a lot of work. It puts the jungle in the jungle. I love it. Just found out the other night this one was Greg's first paying job, circa 2003.

So whoever is checking this out, enjoy. And Kimball, wherever you may be--this story is for you. Hope I get to put this book in your hands someday. Here's page one with more to follow:

A Couple of Things About GQ

Okay, just one actually. He's a bit of a perfectionist. This morning I received an email from GQ with a link to a forty-page PDF file titled, "Tips to Make Your Lettering Not Suck." Or something like that, perhaps not so subtle. No big deal--we're good like that because we both want the best possible finished product. After reading the article, I went back through the pages and fixed some things and I must say I am considerably happier with the results. Perhaps I'd missed an earlier email attached to the article, "Get That F-ing Balloon Off of My Art," which I'm pretty sure is rule number one. I also Photoshopped in some musical notes which I'm hoping gives a little better of an effect to an otherwise pretty open page. Here's page one:

Spirit Medium Works!

No, I'm not out spending money again. But I found the right font! It's called Spirit Medium. I downloaded it at Blambot--thanks, fellas. I'm getting the hang of lettering in Comic Life--it's a wonderful program and both it and the fonts cost me ZERO. That doesn't happen too often these days. The right font for the lettering makes a huge difference--I've also reduced the space between the text and borders in the captions. Here are pages 2 and 3 thrown up again--I think Rick Hudson would approve, if I can ever find the guy.