THE SIMPSONS NEWS

This is the last full week I have to work on the the episode I’m on. Tuesday, my work load doubled.  I have more work than I think I can do.  Still, I’m going for it.  I have to figure  out a way to get it all done.  Wish me luck.

Okay so, as of the time of this writing, this is the last of the drawings we’ve done of the superhero versus thing.  Once again, Tommy drew something I can’t put up on my site so if you want to see it, you have to go CLICK HERE.  When he showed me the pencil drawings I was planning to put it up, and then he colored it and added some details that I thought were a bit inappropriate so…

Paul‘s drawing I can’t put up so here’s my last one:

I drew Spider-man (Marvel Comics) Vs. Batman (DC comics).  Yeah, this is reeeaaally stretching it.  They fight because their main mode of transportation, in their respective comics, is swinging around the city.  Which is to say, I was using any excuse to draw these guys together. I couldn’t help myself and gave Batman “Astro Boy” boots.

Interestingly enough, after I finished the drawing and handed a copy to Paul.  He told me I should ink it.  Paul is really into inking right now.  I told him I might but I’d rather start drawing new drawings than keep working on ones I just finished.  I then said, I’d probably go back and ink all the other drawings I’d done,  just so that I can get some practice in at some point.

The next day, when I got to work, I found this on my desk:

It seems Paul had gotten a bit of extra time and decided to ink my drawing.  Not only did he ink it but since he has been obsessing over inking and he’s been studying Michael Golden‘s work, he decided to ink my drawing in Michael Golden‘s style. The thing I found most interesting about the drawing was that he fixed the things I was most annoyed about in my drawing, namely, that the black had pretty much covered up most of the details of the characters.  Paul took in upon himself to add a secondary light source when he inked the drawing, adding a new dynamic to it.  Only after seeing what he did, did I kick myself over not having thought to do it myself.  It was a good choice on his part.

COMIC BOOKS

A kinda of weird thing happened to me this weeked.  It started sometime last week.  I was listening to a Role-playing game Podcast were in there was and  interview of a game designer.  I’m not sure which podcast it was or who the designer was, but they were talking to him about his superhero roleplaying game.  He mentioned that he had made “stats” of some public domain superheroes and put then in his game.  I thought to myself, “Public domain superheroes?” So later in the week, I recalled the interview and decided to look up these superheroes and I found them.  About 100 or so Golden Age superheroes that were never copyrighten and that had fallen into the public domain.

I then discovered how there had been attempts over the last ten to twenty years, by different companies to use and revive these character, without much success.  After reading the characters’ their bios, I got excited and wanted to do a take of some of these characters of my own.

May 2nd was Free Comicbook Day.  I went to the comic store with Dante, my Brother, his wife Deborah and my little nephew Paolo.   Among the comics I picked up was a free issue of Savage Dragon by Erik Larsen, and lo and behold, one of these Golden Age public Domain characters was in the comic. That was a pretty big coincidence.  Then doing more research, I discovered that these same characters had made their way into Alan Moore‘s hands  (of Watchmen fame) a while back and he had written them into one of his Tom Strong comics (issues 11 and 12), which I owned.  I took out my copy of the comic and was blown away. I had read the thing before but I didn’t know that the characters had been  public domain. Then I discovered that Alex Ross was having a go at these guys too in his Dynamite comics run, currently on sale. So it seems everyone knows about these guys and I’m really behind the times.

In any case, I think that’s pretty cool.  It makes me want to try to do something with them.  I think I have an idea for one of them already. We’ll see if I can actually get off my lazy bottom and do it.

FAMILY

My mom got mad at me because I forgot to write about my nephew Paolo’s baptism last week.  I had forgotten all about it.  Work is really stressing me out right now.  It’s almost all I think about. It was a nice baptism.  Hurray for Paolo! She also got mad because I didn’t draw a cartoon about it.  Well, I only have so much time in the day.   I’m working on a commission right now that’s taking up all my drawing time. I wish I could do some cartoons but I can’t.

In fact, I wish I had the time to draw a cartoon about what happened THIS weekend. My Godmother’s daughter Lili, her husband John and their daughter Stella came over to visit from out of state.  Stella is the same age as Munchkin and they are both very energetic little girls.  I was really excited about their meeting.  I wanted Munchkin to meet Stella so bad.  I’d seen and read a lot about her from the photos that Lili sends my mom.  Well, I won’t go into much detail right now because maybe at some point I might have the time to do that.  What I WILL say is that the day was full of fodder for cartoons I don’t have the time to draw.  Here’s hoping I can at least get ONE done at some point in the next couple of weeks.

Love you Lili, John and Stella! It was great seeing you.

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Happy Easter everyone!

He is risen…

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Stressing out this week.  This is my last week on this particular crew before I go on to the next one.  We need to get done with this show this week, no exceptions.  We are officially two weeks late on it.  It either gets done this week or it gets done this week.  Meanwhile I’m making up the hours I missed because I had to stay home on Monday with the kids.  Daycare was closed on Monday.  If it doesn’t seem like I’m going to get done, I need to stay and do overtime.  We aren’t in a good place right now. Man, I hate the pressure.

Meanwhile, our crazy superhero drawing thing continues.  Here are some more drawings we did a few weeks ago.  I’m not putting up Tommy‘s  drawing because I wasn’t sure it was appropriate for my blog but if you want to check it out you can go to his by clicking here.

Paul  drew Man Thing (Marvel Comics) Vs. Swamp Thing (DC comics).  Not too sure what exactly is going on but I think they are trying to squeeze each other’s hands real tight.  They fight because they are pretty much the same archetype.  Both are swamp monsters with the word Thing in their name.

I drew Dr. Fate (DC comics) Vs. Dr. Strange (Marvel Comics). Again, these guys are fighting because they are also the same archetype.  They are the masters of magic in their respective universes and both have a Doctorate.  I always wanted to draw these guys and this was a great excuse.  After trying to figure out what I could have them doing, this obvious silly idea struck me.  Most of the gags we’ve come up with haven’t really been all that funny, but we actually care less about the gag and more about the excuse to draw the characters.  Technically I could just draw them actually fighting without the gag, but it’s just not as entertaining for me.  I want to tell a story, even if it’s a light hearted one. 

Wanted to draw some pretty women for this one.  Black Cat (Marvel Comics) Vs. Catwoman (DC comics). Same archetype (ex-female cat burglars with a cat themed costume, who turned into good guys. Or at least aren’t exactly bad guys anymore).  This drawing was a complete failure on my part as far as getting the idea of what’s going on across.  This was meant to represent them both coming into frame at the exact same time and being surprised that the other person was there grabbing the same thing.  Unfortunately, the drawing doesn’t read that way at all.

FAMILY

This was the first Easter that my daughter was aware it was Easter.  She had a blast.  Saturday, we woke up early, went to a park and went on an Easter egg hunt that was organized for little kids there. It was my sister-in-law, Deborah’s, idea.  My mom and dad where there as well.  Munchkin had a lot of fun. Dante didn’t really know what was going on.  He hung around and looked around.  He mostly just got tired.  I came away with the realization that I need to take Munchkin to more parks.  She was so happy just running around on the grass and seemed to find all kinds of thing that would entertain her.

Later that night, after coming home from my parent’s house (which is were we went back to, in order to have lunch).  Alesha went to Easter Vigil Mass while I stayed and took care of the kids.  Three hours later, she came home with a big smile on her face.  By then the kids where asleep and I was at home watching The Passion of the Christ.  A movie I should have watched on Friday but I didn’t get around to.

The next day, Munchkin and I went to Mass together.  On Good Friday, when she discovered I was going to church, Munchkin asked if  she could come along.  I told her she couldn’t, mostly because if was almost her bed time, but I did tell her she could come with me next time if she wanted.  Well, Easter Sunday, she said she wanted to come with me so we went. The Mass was an hour and a half long and by the end of it, she was ready to leave the church but she was pretty well behaved through out most of the Mass.  She especially likes the “kiss of peace” because she likes shaking everyone’s hands. She’s asked to go to church with me three times now and one time, when we were playing with her toys, she played that her toys left the house to go to church. I wonder what’s going on in her two year old head?

Later that day, we went to the house of one of my Wife’s best friends and Munchkin spent her time there Easter egg hunting, playing and eating candy.  We left in the afternoon in order to give Dante and chance to nap.  We went to my aunts house where we spent Easter with my family.  There, Munchkin spent her time Easter egg hunting, playing, and eating candy.  She had a great time and was crazy high on sugar all day.  Dante was miserable because he was tired and uncomfortable. Mostly because he’s teething again, his gums were swollen and he had a blister on his tongue.  Poor kid.  I spent pretty much the entire time taking care of him.

The poor boy has had quite  a difficult weekend.  Monday night was a terrible night for him.  He’s slowly getting better now. Still, I feel so bad for him. Dante didn’t have a good Easter.  Maybe next year.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I’ve been really enjoying my job the last few days. Mostly because of the non-job related drawing I’ve been doing during my free time (see last week’s post).  Somehow, after all that other drawing, when I get back to doing work, it’s a lot more fun.  It feels like I’m drawing the characters in a new way, or maybe doing the other stuff has helped me approach the characters different.  In anycase, I’ve found myself enjoying drawing the Simpsons characters immensely.So here are some more drawings my friends and I did:

Tommy drew Submariner (Marvel Comics) vs Aquaman (DC comics). They’re fighting because the are both fish controlling, Kings of Atlantis archtypes.  Ironically, Aquaman is more famous but Submariner is actually a much older character.

Paul drew a Mad Magazine inspired drawing of Green Arrow (DC comics) vs. Hawkeye (Marvel Comics).  They’re fighting because they are basically the same arrow shooting superhero archtype.  I like the way that Green Arrow‘s arrow went through Hawkeye even thought it was his boxing glove arrow.

I drew Silver Surfer (Marvel Comics) vs. Dr. Manhattan (DC comics).  They fight because they are both naked, cosmic, bald guys.  Silver Surfer doesn’t quite appreciate Dr. Manhattan’s  exibitionism. Not quite sure why I don’t like this drawing much.

My next drawing was of The Hulk (Marvel Comics) vs. Solomon Grundy (DC comics)  They fight because they are both the big, strong, dumb, monster archetype. While drawing this one, I made a small brake through on how I could best approach drawing hands.

Tuesday I was told that Friday the 17th was my last day at work. After that day I would be on hiatus.  Couldn’t have come at a worse time.  A few weeks ago, I spent a lot of money because one of our cars needed a tune up and then two weeks later I ended up paying our property tax.  Our bank account hasn’t recovered yet and the next two paychecks weren’t going to help at all.  They won’t even get us out of the red.  Like I said, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.  I was told they will try to find me some work if they can.

The next day, I got an e-mail from the show’s new producer asking me if I can jump on another show.  I told her I could. Man, that was just too close.  Guess the praying I did the day before helped out a bit.

FAMILY

Had a good time the last few weekends with the kids.  The weekend before, I took out their little electricity powered Hummer my Father-in-law got them (click HERE to see what happened the last time) and they rode around the housing complex. It was very funny to see them driving around in that car so I took video of them. They ended their drive by the playground, got out, and played for an hour or so.   They had a great time.

Last weekend I took them to the playground again and on the way back, I told Munchkin that, if the weather was nice the next day, we could go swimming at the pool.  The next day (Palm Sunday) was a very hot sunny day and Alesha, Munchkin, Dante and I went swimming.  Munchkin was very excited.  Unfortunately the pool water was freezing.  It was so cold that no matter what we did, our bodies couldn’t get used to it.  We ended up spending the whole time in the jacuzzi.  THAT water was boiling hot, but we were at least able to get used to it.  Dante loved the water. He couldn’t get enough swimming.  Munchkin, is usually afraid of the water but she became very brave this time around and walked around in the jacuzzi.  She even asked to get picked up so we could help her “swim”, which consists of us holding her up and moving her around. This is something she hasn’t ever done before.

She even had a scary moment in the pool. She was walking around the jacuzzi, which has a step all around for sitting which is just right for her to walk on, and she took a step off it.  At that moment I happen to be looking away at Dante “swimming” with his mommy. When I turned back to look at her, I saw her go under, in that very same second, I gently picked her out of the water.  I didn’t make a big deal out of it. She just stared blankly not realizing what had just happened.  I held her and told her it was okay and that I had her.  I wiped the water from her face and carried her back to the jacuzzi steps.  I thought she was going to start crying or something.  She just began coughing. It was all an act. She’s a bit of a drama queen.  It was obviously fake coughing.  After I put her on the stairs, I waited, expecting her to leave the pool or at the very least, not leave the stairs. To my surprise, she got up, went back into the jacuzzi and began walking around again.  She was a little shaken, but overall, she was okay.  I’m very proud of her.

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