CHARLATAN BALL ISSUE #2 COVER: "Staring at the Wall"

I may be jumping the gun a bit in displaying these images from issue #2's cover; you know, seeing as how #1 has a week or two to go before it's in solicitation. But I thought it would be fun to show and document the process Joe, Marc, Ben and Myself undertake with getting something like this out. Well, my process, anyway. I'd want to ask the abovementioned gentleman before I spill any of their proverbial beans.

Way back before there was even a plot for issue #1, I would amass piles of drawings, sketches and full-on marker renderings of our hero Chuck, his rabbit Caesar, their antagonist Demon Empty--and ideas for whatever other types of characters and creatures the colorful world we were creating could contain. Below was one such idea. I suppose in my own inner mind's dialogue I had cast Demon Empty introducing Chuck to various body-less convicts incarcerated and cemented into a Kirby-esque wall(s), complete with spit valves and drains for their drool (my touch).


Okay, so now that issue #2 has not only been plotted, but completed and scanned, it was time for its cover. The heads in the walls(s) had now officially taken on a different type of narrative purpose--in the type of mind-spinning way only JOE CASEY can deliver (you'll have to wait until the book comes out!). I did this sketch over Christmas, actually.


Having to explain the logistical perspectives of these massive heads-coming out of walls-creatures to my father in law, then further criticisms added from Joe, showed me the better way to showcase these gaping mouthed decaps. In fact, Joe has been the king of pushing me further and further out of my comfort zone. To think outside the box, truly--"hey, instead of making that guys cape on fire, you should make it MADE out of fire!", that sort of thing.


More encouraging from Joe to push the perspective further (see wall on left side)...



That being said, I'll be the first to point out my short-comings in the fine-art of perspective. What possessed me to use circle template guides with complete disregard for any vanishing point could be attributed possibly to the tantrum I throw any time I try and impose said vanishing point on my image.


After my buddy Ben Kalina scans my ink drawing, he adjusts the levels to find the right B+W values--then sends it to Marc Letzmann, who then does a beautiful job coloring--and after he delivers that splendid piece of finely honed hues and harmonious palette, Joe and I insist he CRANKS UP the saturation to the point it screams off the screen--and then, after he asks "why is the cover yelling at me?!" our cover is completed!


Extra credit for those of you that can spot the Don Rickles and Rick Ocasek in drag heads.

"...AND THIS TIME WITH FEELING, ER, UM--TITLE!"

For the whole, partial story, check out THIS Newsarama site
More bits, bites, tidbits and pieces as they start rolling out.

"NO ONE HAS A CRUSH ON PETER"

Amazing.

CHECK IT OUT!

This has been pretty exciting; watching my humble marker roughs come to life by the talented and able bodied Marc Letzmann...



And now it's a for real comic book page...



I am fighting the urge to post more. I don't want to spoil anyone from actually buying the book!

CHAOS!

THE CATS OUT OF THE BAG!

This is the cover art for ISSUE #1, minus the CHARLATAN BALL logo, Image banner, etc., plus I don't think this is the cropped version--but you get the idea. It should be noted that almost everyone depicted actually has a name, a story and shows up in the book(s).

Joe wants to do wraparound covers for all the books, which is a brilliant idea. Let me dig thru some of my roughs of this and post them, so you can see all the different directions and steps it took to get here. My only hesitation to doing a composition like this (besides it being fuck-all hard to fit everyone in this space), was that I did almost the EXACT drawing for Rudy Coby's LABMAN, like ten years ago--and I've yet to recover! hahaha Anyone have that to post? I think it was a promo or sourcebook. I can't find mine.

As for a release date, we were all set to do May, but Image Comics said if we waited for JUNE, they'd be able to do a bigger promotional push for it. So June it is. At least we'll have 2 books out by SD Comicon.

Check it out, pix and info are already starting to trickle out, look at this site!

How exciting, there's even a FRENCH BLOG all about Charlatan Ball...though from what I could gather, is just a collection of jpegs extracted from MY blog! "I'm big in France." hahaha

Hilarious.

I'd love to link to more of these sites, which I will, once more comes out and I compile them.

PUTTING MY MONEY WHERE MY MOUTH IS...

...or is it: "sticking my foot in my mouth"?!

I feel like between the colorist, Joe and myself--we're attempting to create a new "language". Not blaze new trails, break a mold or solve pi; mind you, but try to find that happy place with our palette and rendering style(s). We START at Kirby...but knowing how even the PAPER STOCK can change the psychology of what you're looking at, we're attempting to hybrid something that won't be off-putting to new(er) comic book readers.

Taking a shot at a page myself, if only for sample purposes; I discovered another element to complicate matters further: with technology (i.e. computer coloring and Photoshop’s WIDE RANGE OF COLORS), when do you say when. Try it. Take a page, limit your palette and with altruistic intentions, beginning with the utmost respect for old Kirby-era coloring, watch yourself slowly bastardize it, panel by panel. "Oh, he needs to POP more here." "Hmm, let's SCAN this character back so the foreground reads."--all these tricks at our disposal--in our 'arsenal'. Do they even sell DR. MARTIN'S Dyes anymore? Yes, I am a bastard, I succumbed to the siren calls of lens flares and self-colored lines. I am guilty and here is the proof...


By the way--it should be noted that Marc's colors are so much better and refined than what I've done above. I chose this page not for any overall, harmonious composition, but found it's individual panels included the "how-to-sell-expression-thru-color" as their subjects. Hence my qualifier: please don't squint your eyes and take in the whole page at once. I failed in that aspect--and me with meager clicking mouse in hand, hadn't the patience or time to go back and fix panel #2! hahahaha

Someone PLEASE buy me a Centiq!


And then here are some scenes I did with MARKERS many years back. It is world's easier to 'limit' yourself, color-wise, when you are holding only 4 Prismacolors! hahaha










I'm going to wait on posting actual pages until I know the three of us (Marc the colorist, Joe the writer and myself), are happy. I also don't want to take away from any would-be fanfare that might occur with promos that have yet to be seen.

COLORING KIRBY Part1

Ahhh. To color Kirby. What an honor. What a weight to shoulder.

As issue #1 of CHARLATAN BALL is currently being colored; I've attempted to provide the colorist with as much information in terms of my own personal color theorie(s) and "tastes", however tasteful, or palettable they may be. (hehe, get it?) Well, beyond my own scope of marker comps, digging thru older French Graphic Novels and such--nearly all my JACK KIRBY reprints and collections have been earmarked and flagged. Granted, some of these newer albums have been modified, colors and line adjusted (like in those DC ARCHIVE EDITIONS or MARVEL MASTERWORKS)--but some pages remained close enough, which saved any further damage to my old, original pages of the individual issues.

...and I know I may be in the minority; but I love the way color comics look on newsprint. Classic. Bold. Expressive when needed. Pure pop pulp.


I've always loved this page (I should scan the originals, I know--), I love the way the entire page is in complete chaos, ink darting all around, lines everywhere--but the colorist was able to bring it all back. The foregrand characters are grounded and simplified.



Before Magnola...





Such a great example how color can really set mood...


I know, I know, this is a modern coloring of a classic. But they didn't kill it--and I sort of like it:



This is a sample of the "classic" coloring. I LOVE the subtle blush on the cheeks, adds a bit of life--withought the horrendous "photo-real", FX-laden pages of today's books.





These next two are probably my favorites...


So simple. Brilliant.

STAN, THE (TAILOR) MAN, LEE!

Post (Sweet) Christmas has been a busy one. I'd love to actually post ALL of the work I've done from then until now--but some I want to keep under wraps for the time being.

The piece (below the guy with the 'piece') was a marker and pencil drawing JENSEN was kind enough to squeeze into the GALLERY 1988 show: "Under the Influence: Inspired by Stan Lee". My inspiration was all those amazing 60's comic books that depicted The Silver Surfer or The Thing (among every other hero AND villain in the Marvel Universe)--disguised only in a khaki trench coat, anonymously walking down the street like "one of us".

One instance...


This guy NEEDS a trench coat, stat!


My contribution...("Thank You, Jack Davis!"):


I was mere minutes too late to get a photo with Stan the Man; but intrepid boy reporter, TODD CASEY--sporting what could only be referred to as an uncanny likeness to Peter Parker; managed to snap THIS photo of the living legend, pointing and actually LAUGHING at my piece! How cool!



Peter Parker or Jimmy Olsen; guess that depends on if you're a MARVEL or DC guy.



'Nuff said!

"SWEET CHRISTMAS!!!"*

*Luke Cage ('Nuff said)

Happy Holidays, folks!

"IF YOU CAN'T HAVE PLASTIC MAN..."

That was a questioned posed to me and Tom Kenny a few years ago--about a year or so prior to finally getting the rights (away from the Wachowski bros. and Steven Spielberg, believe it or not--here, read their script. ), to give birth or squeeze one out, as it were--of our vision of the goggled, goofy, pliable paladin we all recognize....except when he's disguised as a lamp post!

"Screw WB, screw DC!!!" cried our executive at the time-and albeit AT times, an ardent antagonist, but also our staunch supporter when it came to this crazy, crimson crusader. It was then our task to completely plagiarize Plas, recycling what we could from our already sizable development.

THIS is what we came up with. Well, I should spare Tom from this embarrassment. He was dead against doing anything other than Plastic Man. I didn't have Spongebob money, so I sang. I sang loud and I sang off-key.



It should also be noted I wanted to give SILLY PETER PUTTY here, a sidekick...named BABY BATTER.

This could be the closest thing you'll see to our PLASTIC MAN pilot, that is, unless you VOTE FOR AN ARCHIE BRONSON SPINOFF!

"OLDE TYMEY"

--that title was for Darrick to appreciate.

Anyway. I am SOOO happy so many of you have watched CIRCUS PEANUT and commented on it. Thanks!

Thought I'd attach a couple of recently rescanned images that were used in the pilot blogged below.







This last one isn't a new scan, but a bad xerox; I wanted to put it up because I've always felt it hit the mark in terms of what I always strived for with my markers...

A CIRCUS PEANUT NAMED CARL

A long time ago...in a year called 2003...there was a pilot that tested waaaaaay better than anything on TV today. In a land called WB and oversaw by an overlord that's had many faces and names called CN, there walked but a tiny Circus Peanut who had dreams as big as his best friend Francis.

It's champions, albeit "Davids" in David and Goliath proportion to the powers that be were Matt Danner, Aaron Simpson, the boys of 6point Harness (before they were), Kim Olds...and yours truly.

Enjoy.



This video is for portfolio and resume use only. Copyright Warner Bros. Animation and to all others that apply.




...although I've reacquired the rights to the character(s) themselves.