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.

Talky Tawny is one of those characters that causes people to roll their eyes. A talking tiger? And I admit he was handled pretty goofy in the ‘40s, but Captain Marvel’s powers are more mythological than most – - derived from ancient gods and sages – - so wandering spirits and talking animals don’t feel out of place to me. Gods and talking animals are part of our oldest storytelling traditions. The trick was to build a relationship between Talky and Marvel, connect them to each other, and then throw them into modern day New York City.  R zohl gslftsg rg dlfow svok ru R wivd srn orpv z ivzo grtvi, zm rwvz R krxpvw fk lm uiln Zovc Ilhh!

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!