Prophet 32 Preview

This issue won't be out until Dec. 19th, but here's a little taste of my solo Prophet issue - the first five pages (sans human text)

The Pacific Comics Arts Festival

This weekend, if you're in Victoria and inclined towards listening to Brandon Graham, Marian Churchland, myself, and the awesome dudes from Legends Comics (Gareth Gaudin and Lloyd Chesley) chat about why we love comics, come on down to the Pacific Comics Arts Festival!

Here's the awesome poster Gareth did!
 From the website:

Festival Within A Festival: Pacific Comics Art Festival               Sponsored by Legends Comics

The Comics Art Panel: Saturday, October 13, 11 a.m., Gibson Auditorium
With Brandon Graham, Marian Churchland, and Simon Roy. Local industry stars discuss why we all love comics, and what makes the synergy of words and images a unique form of storytelling both for the reader and the creator. $10


Meet the Creators: Saturday, October 13, 1 p.m. Room 310, Young Building
Talk shop with Pacific Comics Art Festival's Brandon Graham, Marian Churchland, Simon Roy, members of Cloudscape Comics Society, and Ken Steacy and Joan Steacy. $3 at the Door

More info can be found here:

Victoria Writer's Festival


See you there!

Original Art For Sale

AT LONG LAST! If you want some prophet pages, much of #23's pages are now for sale over at Robin McConnell's art sale site!

Check it out: http://www.mcconnellart.com/http://www.mcconnellart.com/

Continuum!

If you're in Canada, go over to the Continuum website to check out a couple of comics I drew over the summer! It's some army-dude battle action, written as the backstory for a TV show involving time travel and civil war in Vancouver. It was a total blast to work on with my unrivalled compatriots Richard Ballermann (colors) and Ed Brisson (editing and lettering) knocking it out of the park yet again.

So check it out.

Really, another "Starwatcher"?

YES.

Another tribute to the famous "Starwatcher" by moebius, done with a character from a secret project I'm working on... a colored version to come later! (drawn for Brandon's pal Shannon)

Oonaka Meat Baron

A character from a Prophet story I'm working on - a vice-ambassador of the Flesher's Union (or just one of the 'Meat Barons' in common parlance)
More soon(ish)!

Comix and Stories!

Later this month, I'll be heading over to Vancouver for the ever-excellent Comix and Stories, the one convention I've been (fairly) regularly attending for the past four or five years. Swing on by if you're in the area!


Also, if you're on the West Coast of Canada, you might see an illustration I recently did for Wildplay Element Parks, a cool company that runs a bunch of big crazy adventure parks full of zip-lines and tree-borne obstacle courses. Wild stuff indeed! Check out their site here: http://www.wildplay.com/letsplay

Prophet #32

It's months away, but the cover you see here is for a Prophet issue I'm taking on myself - full writing, drawing and coloring duties. Pictured here - an Earth-Empire scout watches the Fifth Army of the Crystal King decamp somewhere on the Deccan Plateau.

The Prophet Trade Soon Arriveth

 

And when it does, it's cover shall be THUS. In stores this August!

Designing Prophet

Over the past week or so, I went over to Vancouver to have a Prophet story-powwow with Brandon Graham (to figure out the issues I'll be tackling for print next year) and figure out the cover for the first trade paperback. In doing so, it made me think back to the first issues of Prophet, drawn last summer...

The first three issues of prophet were a real blast to work on. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make those first three issues last summer, spitballing the story with Brandon and seeing what we could build off of that initial premise (only with a lot more conan thrown in).
The actual making of the comics themselves, with the amazing help of Richard Ballermann, the colorist (and an AMAZING designer and illustrator outside of comics), was tough but good going.

Below I've included a handful of the initial sketches that survived from that summer of development.

When Brandon first approached me about working on the title, this was the first idea I sent back his way - John Prophet as a badass adventurer more in the vein of Carson of Venus or John Carpenter, a former marine or something of the sort.

 

These sketches were developed off of the sketches brandon sent in response - less vietnam vet and more space-ie. My main idea was to give him the kind of jumpsuit you'd see in the cockpit of a seventies sci-fi craft (like an x-wing, perhaps?) Also, by this time, the story for the first issue (or, the pile of ideas that became issue 21) was starting to crystalize a bit - thus the mold-people in the corner there.  


 

Here: The first "canon" drawing of John Prophet. It was a sort of 'proof-of-concept' piece which ended up being as a cover for the first issue when it was re-printed.
 
Here: Drawing the various termite-like castes of the mold people. 
   


This fella is a weird alien design that I've chopped up and re-used a few times - the cuttlehead. There's a few lurking in the background of the alternate #21 cover I just showed.    
 

These are a couple of those critters, re-jigged derivations of the five-leg bauplan. One of which tries to eat Prophet in the first issue...


Here: In response to a sketch from brandon outlining the caravan, this is the design that would end up going to print. If you've read the issue, you'd know - it's a caravan powered on poop.  


 

Here: John Prophet's dolmantle acting as a breather system, as well as the Qid-pids (known as poop-shovelors all while the issue was being made) and the pilgrims of the caravan. 



As an added bonus, Studygroup recently put up a story of mine from a couple years back, where a handful of the aliens that show up in Prophet made their first appearance (there are furry mold-men and cuttleheads, along with a Kzin or two hidden in there).

Take a look!

BAR FIGHT!!!!!!

A comic of mine from ancient times (I mean, from about two years ago) is awake and moving again over at STUDY GROUP! Take a read if you haven't already!

Blood Group

Nine pages from a russo-cyberpunk story I was working on from two years ago. These pages came about as a school project, but the style and process of making them informed a lot of my stuff since. I'm currently working on a project (that I can't talk about) with a similar visual aesthetic, and since I can't show off any of it, I figured it was about time to let out the pages I'd been sitting on for the past two years.

Enjoy!
(And, native Russian-speakers - forgive the errors!)