The 20th Anniversary Box Sets are arriving soon!

The Special Editions have an original drawing of Fone Bone reading a copy of Moby Dick attached to the inside lid of every box (in a translucent envelope). And we shot a video of one of them being inked.

If you’ve already ordered one, We’ll start sending them out as soon as we get back from San Diego Comic Con International. If you want to reserve a copy at the show, click here for more information.

Tomorrow:  Watch Steve hand color our piece of original art!

Be sure to pick up RASL #4 on Wednesday April 29th at your local comic book shop, or in our online store!

Great news! Diamond Comic Distributors has just confirmed that RASL# 2 will be in stores tomorrow, June 18, one week earlier than we thought. Thanks to Jog – The Blog for tipping me off.

Don’t forget that RASL is for mature readers. I’m actually printing that on the book this time because at the last few events I’ve attended (BONE & BEYOND at the Wexner Center, and Book Expo America) a lot of parents and librarians were picking up copies of RASL for their kids. I thought I’d done enough interviews over the last year to spread the word about the more grown-up noir aspects of this title, but maybe not.

Anyway, I’m glad #2 is here. It’s 32 pages of comics… and here is a preview of the first three pages to wet your appetite. You can click on the images to view them larger.

If you aren't familiar with how we color these books, I start by completing each book, and then Jeff and I go through each page and make adjustments. Sometimes we change tiny details that many people won't even notice, and sometimes we change nearly everything on a given set of pages. It's a difficult stage for me, because sometimes my brain has been hard-wired to see the colors I've chosen for a scene, so when we change them I freak out! Ha, ha. It's also the best part of the process, because Jeff and I discover some great color ideas, and I feel like the story clicks into place. I have a little break from having finished the first pass to working with Jeff on the final pages, so that helps with giving me some distance from the art. Jeff is never disappointed with my colors or anything like that, but there's still a little "artist pride" that stings when thinking about having to change stuff. Ultimately I love it, because it's one of those things that really pushes me in my creative life. This book is set for release this summer, and I will be starting on the last volume of Bone soon!

Here's the cover of Walt Kelly's Our Gang 3. I'm enjoying these Fantagraphics reprints. First of all, I hadn't read that many Our Gang stories before this (they haven't been reprinted since the 1940s), and beginning with the issues in this collection, you can really see Walt Kelly putting his imprint on the charcters – - which is making it more fun from a design standpoint. These new gang members, Red and "2-by2," along with Janet, Buckwheat & Froggy are very modern and their adventures more interesting. Color by Steve Hamaker.

Above is the sketch I showed to Gary Groth and Jacob Covey, and below is the final cover with logos. 

If you'd like to see the drawing board pages about the first two Our Gang volumes, click here.

A bunch of Steve's buddies have talked him into making a How To video about coloring. You have to see the animated opening put together by Flight artist Bannister. The first video Steve made about coloring on the Cintiq (for a Shazam Monster Egg) has been viewed over 28,000 times! The YouTube video is here, but you should check out Steve's blog where he has posted a few of his on-line strips called Still Dead about zombies in the work place (this is a snippet of one of them).  

The process of making a new cover starts with a few loose sketches.  Steve Hamaker suggested Fone Bone and Smiley sneaking up the rim of the ancient Rat Creature temple, and I thought the image was so strong, that I drew four different angles of just that one idea. 

David Saylor, my editor at Scholastic, liked sketch C the best, but suggested making Fone and Smiley bigger, like they are in sketch D. The result is the new cover!

There you have it. 

Bone 6: Old Man's Cave starts shipping to bookstores this week.

Below are three stages of making a comic book panel from MSOE #3. Billy and Tawny are in New York’s Central Park.

I use blue pencils because high contrast scanners can’t see that color, and I won’t have to erase the page later after it is inked, which can harm the drawings.

The next step is to ink the word balloons, so I know how much space they will take up. Then I usually go straight for the faces.  The faces are where the acting goes on, so I want this done first while I still have the energy. Later on, as deadlines approach, and time runs short, I know this has been taken care of. You can see that I have changed Billy Batson’s dialog, and added a balloon for Talky Tawny.  Writing continues on into the final stages. Also note the smears – - after all these years, I sill put my hand in the ink…  

After a little white paint to cover the smears, I finish the figures and start on the background. In this scene, Billy and Talky have rendezvoused in Central Park. I visited the park in June to see what kind of rocks and brush were there. Using my reference photos, I draw leaves and vines around their feet.  Gl hvv gsv kslglh R gllp rm Mvd Blip Xrgb gszg wzb, xorxp sviv!

The top image is from MSoE #2.  The penciled Billy & Talky panel is from MSoE #3.

SHAZAM: The Monster Society of Evil #1 ships February 7th (less than 3 weeks!) to a comic shop near you.

And don’t forget to come see me in New York at the end of February.  I’m a guest of Honor at the New York Comic-con. They asked me to write a guest blog, which you can read by going to their website, nycomicon.com.   Bring your copies of MSoE!

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Not long ago, I described the 4 issue mini-series I’m working on as “Shazam: Year One”, but  that’s misleading. Shazam: Monster Society of Evil isn’t really a “Year One” project as much as it’s a remake of a nearly legendary comic book serial from the early 1940’s.  "Captain Marvel and the Monster Society of Evil" ran in monthly installments from 1943 to 1945 in Captain Marvel Adventures #22 – #46.

It was the first really long story in comic books, and it was full of cliff hangers and secret  messages that could be read only if you had a Secret Decoder Ring.   At the heart of the Monster Society are the monsters, of course, and my favorites from the original serial were the alligator people.

In the original, they were crocodile men, but because I love Albert from POGO, I made them alligator men.

Here's a couple panels from MSoE #1.

Yes, I know I misspelled savior in the first panel. I'll fix it! 

When it came time to draw the famous statues, there was no question how they should look. I liked the strange Tiki god quality of the original Seven Deadly Enemies of Man and I drew them exactly the way artist C.C. Beck did. The only exception was that I added fangs and sharper ears to Hatred so we could differentiate him from Pride.

The other thing I stayed true to was the death of the old wizard; a surprising and shocking end to the scene that I tried to replicate. This particular panel isn't in the short preview, but will be in the comic, and I  thought you might enjoy the comparison anyway.