And Tomorrow We Carpool

Tomorrow is the first rehearsal for my elder son's band, and guess who's lucky enough to chauffeur a group of excited 14-15 year olds about town?

Yup.

Me.

Actually, this is great. He's been talking about forming a band since he picked up his guitar, and now the next step in that dream is about to take place.

A Long Overdue Review of THE HERO BUSINESS

Bill Walko's THE HERO BUSINESS is a grand satirical romp happily skewering standard tropes of superhero comics. His art work is clean, appealing, and personable. Most importantly, the art compliments the writing and vice versa.

Walko uses a cartoony approach to his world: bright, vibrant colors, highly stylized figures and minimal backgrounds. But this choice makes the satire all the more evident. The reader is instantly immersed in the world of style consultants to the spandex set with wink, a nod, and tongue firmly planted in cheek.

The first arc admirably establishes the characters through the eyes of the newly hired receptionist, Parker (who has a few secrets of her own), working with a Paris Hilton-esque character with newly procured fire powers. Procured? Yes. Bought. Hilarity, naturally, ensues.

After the appropriately named ORIENTATION storyline, Walko treats his readers to a series of "One and Done" pages rounding out some characters while providing commentary on the goings on of the actions and antics of the print comics industry. Keeping with the theme, he calls his interludes "Coffee Breaks".

THE HERO BUSINESS has everything you need for good comics: good art, good writing and good characters. THE HERO BUSINESS updates on Thursdays.

Is This Thing On?

Been a long time since I picked up the blog again, and it's time I start writing on it.

Besides mired in rewrite hell, I've been helping my teenage son acclimate to high school, even found a rock band. He's grinding away on his ax even as I type, with me, his father, proud of the fact the goober paid for the guitar with his own cash. My tweener started piano lessons so the house is full of what could occasionally be called music.

For those who don't know already, I pay the bills as a baker, and that's been taking up a lot of my efforts and focus. Anyway, that's more excuses than anything else. Time to relax a bit and start writing again.

Starting with this very blog.

Hair pulling experience...

I decided to pick up my pencil again and start drawing a comic. As Harry Callahan said in Magnum Force, "A man's got to know his limitations," but hell, I went to art school for a while, so why not?

And.......

After a computer lock, where I lost half my work I completed page 1 of 8. Yay me, and I'm sure that an editor will be laughing soon.

Hopefully the final rename is.....

Kelly and I talked it over, and we decided to simply retitle the comic after our main character.

So world, get ready for SALOME.

Release the AWESOME!

Yes, I'm stealing a line from an Adam Sandler movie, but Kelly has just turned in some pages that have blown me away. I'm thrilled with her growth as an artist.

She's also started her own webcomic called STOMPY BOOTS.

Check it out!

The Incredible Changing Title!

It started out as ORIGINAL SIN.

But concept wise and connotation wise, the title didn't fit the story.

So, we decided on AWAKEN.

But a Google search and over 37 pages later, "AWAKEN" just isn't punchy enough.

ARGH!

Who thought that naming a comic would be so dang hard?