This going to be a big month.

Summer, cruel summer, is finally dead!

In all seriousness, now that I don’t have to spend 90% of my energy fighting the heat I can feel that energy flowing to where it needs to be. At the keyboard.

There is just something about Autumn, it is energizing. Summer makes me lazy and bitter, but Autumn sharpens me. Maybe it is some sort of primal preparation for winter. Who knows?

I can tell you this, we are all feeling right now. Like some huge shape over our heads, behind our backs, about to slam down around us.

Ok, back to work! 

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Today (Sunday) was the day of Boston’s 99th Comic Book and Toy Spectacular.

These shows are great and I love doing them. However, I awoke this morning to find that my lower back (after 31 years of loyal service) was demanding a day off.

On the one hand, I let Micah and Jason down and missed opportunities to further market Rapid City. On the other hand, I missed the chance to hang out all day in a cool place and meet cool people who like cool comics.

Simply, I want to apologize to anyone who was counting on seeing me and MONOLITH at today’s show. I’ll be at #100 in November with lots of cool stuff to show off. Promise.

My back is already feeling much better.

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So, I have been butting my head against a wall for the past few days trying to get this scene just right.

I knew that the scene would be in the book a long time ago. It is a great scene between two characters that I really like. They are almost complete opposites, so it really gives each one a chance to show off who the are.

Then, a little while back I needed the drama to go a certain way at a certain moment, and this scene popped back up. It moved the plot along perfectly, and gave just enough information about the characters.

So, I started re-writing it to fit its new place and found that it just didn’t work.

It sounded wrong.

As I set out to the coffee shop this morning, I put my MP3 player on random and just let my mind wander.

Two songs into my walk, the answer was given to me.

Henry Rollins.

The dude talks like Henry Rollins.

Not 100% Rollins, but it gave me a place to start with him that was really a departure from what I had been doing before. And it works.

People usually picture “the muse” as a delicately beautuful sprite, sprinkling inspiration into the minds of artists. In this case, my muse is a shirtlessly eloquent, tattooed, thug with a menacing glare.

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Well, Jason and I attended Skottie Young’s class on “Acting in Comics” when we were at the WWC. It was a lot of fun. 

Skottie reminded me of an important part of the learning process in drawing: gesture drawing.  As any artist with some training will tell you, gesture drawing is the quick scribbly sketches that teachers make you do in figure drawing classes.  Unfortunately, since we artists are an inherently lazy and undisciplined lot, we tend to stop with the scribbles as soon as the teacher stops asking for them.  At least, I know I have.

Anyway, Skottie reminded us that it’s easy to fall into a position slump. We all have fall-back positions that we tend to put our characters into. Warming up with a whole lot of gesture drawings can help break that habit. 

In turn, I have bought a couple of newsprint sketchbooks and have devoted my mornings to scribbling in public. I won’t post them here because, like I said, they’re just scribbles. But I’m getting a lot of new poses from you citizens unbeknownst to any of you. So keep your eyes open, you might see me out on the street some morning soon.

I’ll be the one scribbling.

Love,

Micah

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Well Wizard World Chicago has passed. Was a great weekend. Had a really fun time. Met a ton of people, went to dinner with Jason Howard and friends and bought way too many trade paperbacks. The important thing was that we were out and spreading the word about Rapid City.

Diamond Comic Distributors also stopped by and I had a good conversation with them. I think he put some of my concerns with Diamond at ease. We’ll see how that “relationship” develops.

One thing that was just incredible to see was a gentleman stopped by the booth who had some of our earlier books from when we published under Blue Comics. He had stuff that was published 10 years ago! That was very cool to see and talk with him briefly.

We are certainly looking to return to Chicago next year.

Me sketching away for Jordan who purchased a Teaser book. (Photo by Charna)

Micah finishing off his White Castle meal.

Near the end of Sunday there was much frustration with the people behind us. They were encroaching on our space and just sleeping in chairs. (Photo by Charna)

The table banner by the end was taking a beating. (Photo by Charna)

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I created the character of Red Lion to represent all of the good stuff that Viper encounters when he leaves Rapid City. He is big and fun and a little bit tragic.

He was one of the first characters that Jason sketched out when I told him about this project. One of Micah’s very first sketches was also of Red Lion.

They each drew the character in their own way, but the basics remained the same. And one other thing. Red Lion looked like the artist. Micah’s drawing of Red Lion looks like Micah, and Jason’s looks like Jason.

Maybe his non-human nature makes him easier to project your own personality on to. Maybe he just resonates with artists. Who knows?

On that note, it is interesting to see that when Jason has been having a rough few days, the sketch that comes out of his pad is a distinctly frustrated Red Lion.

Jason, here’s hoping that your next sketch will be of Red Lion calm and relaxed and kicking back for a well deserved nap.

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It was great to meet so many of my fellow Bean Towners in a non-shoving-for-space-on-a-train setting.

I really had a great time and met some super-cool people who also seemed to be having great times of their own.

If you are one of those visiting this site because you met me on Sunday, please say “hi”.  I would suggest that you tell us what you thought of the teaser book and our presentation at the show, but everyone knows that New Englanders (especially Bostonians) are shy and do not readily share their opinions.

I suppose the folks I meet at the show next weekend in New York City will be more forthcoming.

Thanks!

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