In Stores Today

I have a Powerpuff Girls story, illustrated by Phil Moy in the latest issue of "Cartoon Network Block Party" (#48) available in comic book stores today. It's a whodunnit, the perfect way to get little brains in gear for a new school year.

New Project

As hinted at a few posts back, I am now writing the comic book version of "The Secret Saturdays" which appears in "Cartoon Network Action Pack" published by DC Comics every other month (alternating with "Ben 10 Alien Force"). I've never enjoyed working on a project that I didn't create as much as I'm enjoying writing "The Secret Saturdays." In fact it feels incredibly close to something I would have made up, which is what makes it so much fun to work on. I can't thank Jay and "The Secret Saturdays" producer/writer, Brandon Sawyer enough for inviting me to play in their sandbox.

Created by Jay Stephens, "The Secret Saturdays" follows Doc, Drew and Zak Saturday, a family of Cryptozoologists, and their cryptid companions Fiskerton, Komodo, and Zon as they embark on al sorts of cool adventures investigating mysterious creatures, and battling awesome villains. If you merged Jonny Quest with the Herculoids and sprinkled in some Tintin, Zacherley, Indiana Jones, "In Search of..." and even a touch of Speed Racer you'd get a sense of how cool "The Secret Saturdays" is.

The show will debut on Cartoon Network this Fall. The comic book adventures have already begun. Jay Stephens and Brandon Sawyer wrote the first two. The first issue that I wrote, "Cartoon Network Action Pack" #30, will appear on October 8th.

Scooby-Doo #135

Ever wonder what those Scooby-Doo villains were doing when they weren't busy trying to scare of Mystery Inc.? Well, now's your chance to find out in a story I wrote that appears in SCOOBY-DOO #135 which is available at comic book stores today.

To learn more about the cover I created for this issue click here

Sneak Preview

My apologies for the lack of new content of late. I've been busy, busy, busy, and have not had much time to play on the internet visiting other people's sites, or even updating my own. I have a lot of projects going right now in various stages of completion. For most of these, it's really too early to say anything.

There's one though that I'm having a lot of fun with and am thrilled to be involved with it.


Click here for a clue.

In Comic Book Stores Today

Scooby-Doo #134 goes on sale today. It contains two stories in my ongoing "Velma's Monsters of the World" series, both illustrated by Karen Matchette.

"The Foundation" in Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly has a nice article about "The Foundation" which you can read here.

New art by my offspring

My kids, after a year-long absence have taken to posting their artwork on their blog again. It will be updated more frequently with all sorts of stuff. Drop on by and encourage these young artists by leaving them a comment.

The Biggest Movie Star in the World

This weekend, my son and I made our annual pilgramage to G-Fest, the Godzilla convention. Originally we were intending to skip it this year as we'd recently spent a week in Walt Disney World. Then we saw the guest list, and decided there was no way we couldn't go.

We made it a day trip with a 4-plus hour drive in each direction. Yes, we did pick up a few things from the dealer's room. We chatted with a bunch of people.







We checked out the really cool models.












































We looked at the impressive fan-made costumes.










































But what convinced us to make the trip after all was this man here; Haruo Nakajima, the biggest movie star in the world. I mean biggest in the most literal sense. Mr. Nakajima was the man inside the Godzilla suit beginning with the original "Godzilla" (1954) through "Godzilla vs. Gigan" (1972). He also portrayed Rodan in "Rodan" (1956), Mogera in "The Mysterians" (1957), Varan in "Varan" (1958), Baragon in "Frankenstein Conquers the World" (1965), Gaila in my favorite kaiju movie, "War of the Gargantuas" (1966) and King Kong in "King Kong Escapes" (1967) among others. He was also one of the bandits in "Seven Samurai" (1954).

It was an honor for us to meet this legendary, and gracious, icon. My son kept announcing "I can't believe I'm meeting the REAL Godzilla."

Off to G-Fest

My son and I are off to G-Fest. Stay tuned for more.

My life as a fictional character

A few months ago I talked about my life as a comic book character. Now, I've been given a new fictional identity as the editor of the literary journal, "Left Coast Quarterly." This distinction was bestowed upon me by my good friend, Tim Lehnert in his very funny and (painfully) accurate story about the writer and the submission process. Tim's story is called "The Story" and appears in the most recent issue of the Canadian literary journal Descant. If you liked Nabokov's "Pale Fire," you'll really enjoy "The Story." If you've read "Pale Fire" and didn't think it was one of the finest novels ever written, please don't ever come to this blog again.

Available Now

SCOOBY-DOO #133 is available in comic book stores now. It contains a brief installment of my "Velma's Monsters of the World" series about monsters from myth and folklore. This time the monster is the Chilean Calchona.

The Return of Captain Cutler's Ghost

I have now been writing the SCOOBY-DOO comic book for just about 10 years and over 100 stories (I think 86 have seen print so far). Issue #135, which goes on sale August 20th, marks the first time I've contributed any art to the series.

I'd long wanted to write a SCOOBY-DOO story that used one of the very familiar episodes of the original tv series and to retell that episode from the villain's perspective, where those meddling kids in Mystery Inc are meddlesome, constantly interupting the villains meals and forcing him to put on his monster costume in an effort to scare them away from the scene of his crime in progress.

When I finally got my chance to write such a story, I sat and watched pretty much all of the first season of Scooby-Doo only to discover that none of the stories really lent themselves very well to my premise. Watching them while mentally working out the logistics of where the villain might be at all times, even when not on screen, made me realize that logistically, almost none of the stories in those episodes was remotely plausible, unless the villains were real high speed quick change artists, and had teleportation powers to boot. The only story that came close to fulfilling my needs was "A Clue For Scooby-Doo" which featured the glowing deep sea diver known as Captain Cutler's Ghost.







I was able to work out a suitable scenario for Captain Cutler that followed the plot of the tv episode while giving Cutler stuff to do when the kids weren't around, but also realized that there wasn't going to be all that much humor in there, when I was hoping for escalating "Fawlty Towers" beleagerment on Cutler's part. Oh well. You can't win them all.

While I was writing the story, I was also taking note of what reference I'd need to provide the artist. I really wanted the art in the comic book, particularly the settings and props, to match what was on the show. For some reason, when I was a kid, it always bugged me when I read a comic book based on a tv cartoon, or movie, and things didn't look the same as they did in the cartoons they were based on, particularly if characters were the wrong color. While this was occuring to me, I also thought that maybe the cover itself should match the look of the tv episode. This isn't to say that I don't like the art that graces the cover of "Scooby-Doo" each month, but since this issue was based on a well known tv episode, I thought the art should have a more painterly look to it that mirrored the look of the animation cells, as opposed to the traditional colored inked pencils. I knew from my own collage work that I could pretty easily match the look of the show using paper cutouts instead of paints, and pitched the idea of doing the cover myself.

Once the idea was accepted, it was time to come up with some rough layouts of cover ideas.










These first two designs followed the tradition of depicting Scooby-Doo and Shaggy being menaced by the monster. The second design, I felt was too all over the place. The first one, I actually like a lot, but no one else did, which is okay, because I really didn't think that either of them fit the perspective shift in the story.








This third cover idea was actually very close to what I wanted, which was to have the villain just going about his business, while the menacing forms of Mystery Inc. lurk outside of his environment--the threat to the villains machinations. The problem? There's nothing very exciting about a big close up of a featureless deep sea diving helmet that can't express itself. If I'd picked pretty much any other villain, this design would have worked fine.

I was on the right track though, and editor Jeanine Schaefer agreed, so I came up with a few other ideas.





Most of these ended up having the same problem in that they felt too soft. We know that Shaggy and Scooby aren't really menacing, and Captain Cutler can't express himself too well, so I finally compromised and came up with the solution of having Cutler and Shaggy and Scooby seperated by a porthole in the side of a sunken ship, and having Cutler posed as if trying to keep out of sight (while still watching Shaggy and Scooby), but posed in a way that also suggested menace. I also decided to give Scooby an alarmed expression as he finds himself looking into Cutler's mask.







The final image was too big to fit on my scanner, which is why this image looks a bit soft and the colors aren't true, but it does show the line work I used on Cutler to suggest his glow.








This scan is truer to the final look of the piece, though the two different yellows on Cutler have bled together a bit. The color schemes and character expressions were modeled very closely on the tv episode, and I think the result does in fact have a painterly quality to it, as if this was taken from the animation cells, or at least a hypothetical Little Golden Book adaptation of this episode.

I did forget to take one factor into account when I made this cover; licensing needs. Even though I could pull up screen grabs that exactly match the way Scooby and Shaggy look in my collage, it was determined that their likenesses weren't quite right, and so their faces were changed and no longer quite match the rest of the artwork, which is my one real gripe about this being done, even though I think Scooby appears too calm now.

This sort of model sheet matching is something that happens pretty regularly. I remember either Charlie Adlard orGordon Purcell telling me about an issue of "The X-Files" comic book that involved Mulder and Scully wearing, I think, Hazmat suits, but that all of the shadows that would have naturally fallen on the characters' faces under such conditions needed to be removed so that the reader could tell that it was Mulder and Scully in those suits. It looked really odd, especially since none of the other characters needed to have the shadows removed from their features.












The finished cover also had some colors changed (which I like, even though Scooby-Doo's wetsuit no longer matches the one he wore on the show) and a glow effect added to Captain Cutler's Ghost, which I also like.

Available Now

"Cartoon Network Block Party" #45 is available in comic book stores now. It includes a Powerpuff Girl story that I wrote.

Indiana Jones meets Star Wars

With today being the 25th anniversary of "Return of the Jedi" and with a new Indiana Jones movie out, I thought I'd celebrate by posting about where the two franchises created by George Lucas intersect.

Aside from sharing a number of cast and crew members, Star Wars references make several appearances in the Indiana Jones movies. Sound effects such as the one used for both the Millennium Falcon's failing hyperdrive (right before Princess Leia asks if it would help if she got out and pushed in "The Empire Strikes Back"), and when the plane engines sputter out early in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" can be found in both franchises. Certain scenes mirror one another as well. Just before Indy strikes out onto the rope bridge near the end of "Temple of Doom," he chases off two thugees, and then runs back as their dramatically increased numbers chase after him, paralleling a similar scene involving Han Solo and Chewbacca aboard the Death Star in the original "Star Wars."

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is not exempt from the Star Wars references. Indy mutters the Star Wars tag line "I've got a bad feeling about this" near the film's climax, and earlier in the film, he speaks Quechua to some Peruvians. When asked where he learned the language, Indy replies "It's a long story," pauses then continues to mention his time spent with Pancho Villa. I liked the pause without explanation better, since Quechua was the language used for Huttese in the Star Wars movies and is spoken by Greedo in "Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope" as well as by Jabba the Hutt and his major domo, Bib Fortuna.

There are also a number of visual Star Wars references slipped into the Indiana Jones movies. This kind of tribute was not new, and Steven Spielberg, director of the Indiana Jones movies, directed the first movie to visually reference Star Wars. In "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" released the same year as the original Star Wars movie, R2-D2 was incorporated into the model of the mother ship and can be seen hanging upside down with his eye glowing red as the mother ship first appears rising up ober the cliffs of Devil's Tower. You can see R2-D2 hanging like a bat at the top of Melinda Dillon's sight line in the shot below.












A year after the first Indiana Jones movie, "Raiders of the Lost Ark," another movie starring Harrison Ford, "Bladerunner" would also incorporate familiar Star Wars iconography into its visual effects. Here are three shots which reveal the location of the Millennium Falcon reconfigured into a building with a number of communication towers jutting from it.































In "Raiders of the Lost Ark" the Star wars references begin with Indiana Jones making his escape after his first encounter with Belloq. The plane flown by his friend, Jock, is numbered OB-CPO, a reference both to Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and the droid C-3PO.









C-3PO returns, along with R2-D2 a number of times in the Well of Souls, where the Ark of the Covenant is discovered. This time the droids are incorported into the heiroglyphics through out the chamber.















I don't know if this large panel showing both droids is visible in the film, but...








... a smaller version of the two droids can be seen on the collumn on the left side of this frame, between Indy's right hand and the top coil of carved snake. This occurs just as Indy and Sallah are about to lift the ark out of its container.









R2-D2 can also clearly (though out of focus) be seen here right at the end of the loop extending from the handle to Indy's whip. This moment comes just after Indy tells marion to wave her torch at anything that slithers and before she mistakenly takes the whip for a snake.









There is also some geographical spillover from Star Wars as well. In the scene where the nazis carry the ark through a canyon towards the spot where its opening ceremony will be performed, Indiana Jones threatens to blow it up, rather than let the nazis have it. This scene was filmed at the location in Tunisia where R2-D2 wound his way into being captured by the jawas in the original "Star Wars." By the time this scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was filmed there, the canyon had officially been named Star Wars Canyon.









I don't recall any Star Wars references in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," the third movie, but the second movie "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" had one of the best known, and easiest to spot. All of the action in the opening sequence takes place in Club Obi Wan. Signage on the exterior of the club can be seen a couple of times following when Indiana Jones and Willie Scott exit the club via the window.

In Stores Now

Available at comic book stores now is SCOOBY-DOO #132, which not only has one of the cool giant ants from the movie "Them!" on the cover, but it has two stories written by me between its covers. One of them is the 10th installment in my regular, informative, series "Velma's Monsters of the World" which details the exciting world of monsters of myths and folklore. This month the monster of choice is the Manticore. This story was drawn by Karen Matchette.

The other story is a mystery involving a werewolf and a classic car. This one was drawn by a frequent visitor at this blog, Mr. Robert Pope.

Robots for Writing

Last week, as a side project, using a bunch of plastic storage bins, buckets, kitchen utensils and assorted odds and ends, I cobbled together this trio of robots as decorative "staff" for the new robot store based at, and benefitting, 826michigan which runs a lot of writing workshops and tutorials for kids.

The robots were fun to make, and pretty easy to put together, though those plastic storage bins are really difficult to cut without causing them to shatter. These three robots were built over the course of about a day and a half. The taller two stand at about three-feet tall, which fit the requirements of the space they'd be occupying.

I wish I'd had the time to make more.

For information on the 826michigan program go here. For more information on the 826 project in general, go here.

Tagged

Lucky me.

I recall seeing various versions of this throughout the blogosphere in the past, but haven't seen examples of the phenomena in at least a year or two. Alas, being tagged, the blog equivalent of a chain letter, is not extinct. Unlike chain letters, a tag could actually provide some enlightening answers when the questions are not too inane. Fortunately the one that landed in my email box courtesy of my friend, Max the Drunken Severed Head is pretty painless (compared to some examples I've seen in the past which included 10 wide ranging and often stupid questions), otherwise I'd be referring to him as my FORMER friend, Max.


What Max's email requested I do was this:

1) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing...
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.


Of course some people might posit that comic books only have 22 pages making me ineligible to answer such a question. Yes, there are comic books in my immediate vicinity, but there are other books as well, though this proved to be tricky as well.

The nearest books to me are a stack of YA and children's books, foiling me by either being too short, having illustrations on page 123, or chapter finishes less than 5 sentences long.

Expanding the range of the nearest book, brings two equal contenders.

I'm a bit unclear on steps 3 and 4 so I'm going to interpret it as I see fit, since I'm not sure if a sentence which begins on page 122 but ends on 123 counts as the first sentence, or not, and also because I'm unclear on whether listing the next three sentences includes sentence 5, or begins with sentence 6. I'm beginning with sentence 6.

At any rate, here are the three sentences from the first book:



I hope my gamble works!

Apes often imitate what they see.

If Titano sees me putting this human-size puppet down, he may put Lucy down, too!




Here are the sentences from the second book:


Her bones, they say, were turned to stone.

Still she hides in the woods and is seen no more in the mountains.

But everyone can still hear her, since her voice, and only her voice, is still alive.





I'm tempted to leave everyone hanging and not name the books, but in the spirit of kindheartedness, the first book was in fact a comic book; a collection of some of the greatest comic books ever published, "The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen."




















The second book was "Men and Gods" by Rex Warner with illustrations by Edward Gorey. The story that my sentences came from should be pretty obvious.








As for the 5th step in Max's instructions, I really hate the idea of inflicting this sort of thing on anyone, but since I'm one of those people who immediately start scanning people's bookshelves when I'm let into their homes, I'm always curious about what people are reading, so beware. When I decide who's getting hit, I'll update this post letting you know.

The Foundation Finale

"The Foundation" comes to an exciting finish in issue #5, iits final issue, on sale today.

Tiger

I found this in a box of paper where it had been misplaced and completely forgotten for the past couple of years. This was a quick exercise I did to use up a bunch of paper scraps I had left over from another collage. I think the entire collage took me about 20 minutes.

It's not a spectacular piece, but finding it has made me reconsider taking on other spontaneous smaller scale collages using left over scraps.

For a different tiger collage I made look here.

Available Now

There's a "Dexter's Laboratory" story I wrote in CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #44 which is on sale in comic book stores now.