Dave Flora Presents:

Life Wants to Keep You From Writing

2013-05-14T10:37:00.002-04:00

BOOM, Baby!

So, I'm at 31,837 words with Ghost Zero: Spookshow and rolling right into the final conflict. Since I tend to think of my stories as action movies, it's pretty epic. In fact, here's a snippit of what GZ has to deal with:

"Then the slaughter started.

With a shriek the ghosts flew off the stage and into the writhing kids, the hanged woman’s rope darting down and snatching up a young boy, snapping his neck with a horrible popping sound. The little girl jumped to the floor and then bounded twenty feet through the air to land on a pretty brunette who screamed. As she tried to throw the slimy ghost off her, the girl grabbed her hair and pulled her face over, covering her mouth with a sickly kiss. The brunette squeezed her eyes shut and tried to jerk away, but her eyes flew open and her cheeks ballooned as the ghost wretched a spray of water down her throat. She fell to the ground, her thrashing growing weaker. A boy nearby tried to grab the spook and pull her off, but his hands passed right through as if she were empty air.

The headless man stayed on the stage, dragging the weight on the chain behind him. He raised his tree-trunk arm and swung the chain until it lifted the weight, a running engine block trailing smoke, into a lazy arc over his head and brought it crashing down on the people in the middle section like some giant hammer. The sound in the auditorium rose into a single, roaring scream."

Holy Crap. Ghosts are bad news, eh?

So, anyway, here I am running down the clock on the story, getting to the final, climactic scene when I get contacted by Evil Hat who makes really cool RPG stuff and asked if I could do a several interior illustrations for them on a tight deadline. Now, Evil Hat happens to make stuff I really love, "Spirit of the Century", the "Atomic Robo" game and "The Dresden Files RPG", so when they asked, I jumped. I'm really looking forward to working with these guys, and with the amount of work they need and the time-frame they need it by, I'll be devoting bit of creative time I have to the project for the next month.

But...but...what about Ghost Zero?

Well, that's a darned good question. I want the story to move along, and I'm just a few thousand words from being finished with the first draft, so I went looking for free time I could grab to write. You know what I came up with?

LUNCH.

I'm lucky enough to have a job that provides a lunch hour, and I happen to have a computer sitting right in front of me, so yesterday, I put on headphones, blasted some appropriate music and tried to write.

...And it worked!

It wasn't as much as I normally get to write in a day, but it was still progress, which is the important thing, and I still felt like I'd had a break from work.

So remember, life wants to keep you from writing, and will throw every opportunity in your way to stop you, but you don't have to let it. Look at the routines you normally have and ask yourself "does it HAVE to be that way?" If it doesn't maybe you could make a change that would fit some creative time in there. Even if it is just a little, it will be something.

...And you can rest when you're dead. There's cool stuff to be done!

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled writing....

2013-05-02T09:48:00.001-04:00

Do you know what wins in life? It's not talent, it's consistency.

I wasn't born rich, but we have a budget, stick to it, and we do okay.

I'm not a great artist, but I keep doing art, and I get better every year.

Similarly, a book gets written when you sit down every day and write. My creative time is every evening from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. I work all day, come home, take a walk, eat whatever cool stuff my wife has prepared, do the dishes and sit down to creative work. I do this every day, am more flexible with my time on Saturday, and I don't do anything but rest on Sunday.

It's a habit. I don't ask myself if I feel like it, it's just that thing I do when 7:00 rolls around, and it's how progress happens. As of now, I'm at 23,700 words on the novel and it's going great.

But.

I'm a little crazy about it. My wife says when I'm on, I'm on, and when I'm off, I'm off. There's no in-between. I get nuts if dinner runs late and I'm still doing dishes as the minutes past 7:00 roll by. I start spinning stories about how the writing, or my art aren't really important to me, how I'm just going to blow them off and wind up as some kind of half-person in life. "He was so talented," someone will sniff, looking down at my freshly covered grave. "If only he had finished something." Yeah.

(This is exactly how I picture it.)

Thus lies my agony. I get knotted up over not having that sacred time to devote to my creative pursuits, when usually, it winds up being okay anyway. Last night, for instance, we were talking about how there really isn't any time in the evening to 'just enjoy ourselves'. I would say "I'll enjoy myself when I'm done with the book," but my wife knows better. When the book is done, it will just be some other piece of creative obsession. Maybe, book 2.

Maybe that's just how I roll. Maybe I'm just hard-wired to be like a switch...on or off...or maybe I just worry too much. I'm betting the 'worry too much' part is probably right. For instance, I was a few minutes late starting creative work last night, but I stopped writing a full half hour early because I wanted to take time to think out what I wanted to happen next. It all worked out.

So, what the moral of the story, and what I'm trying to learn, is that it's the showing up every evening part that actually leads to success, not making sure that every minute of that time is maximized. It's tough for me to accept this, but along with writing a book, I'd like to enjoy life a little as well.

I hope you do, too.

The Importance of Place

2013-04-24T09:38:00.001-04:00

What lots of Kentucky is like. I love it.

I remember going trick-or-treating once as a kid.
Now, we grew up out in the country, so there wasn't any of this 'roaming the neighborhood' kind of thing happening. Instead, we'd put on costumes, load up into the car and drive to the houses of friends and family, where we would get fist-fulls of candy and mom would catch up on the latest small talk.
So, one year, I was dressed up in (what I imagined to be) a pretty cool ghost costume. I think I had a Casper mask on, but my mom had pressed an old sheet into service as a shroud, and the way it draped and folded looked pretty awesome.
We had just visited my Grandma and Grampa's house, and while Mom was catching up, I went over to my uncle's house next door and stood on his deck.
The house was perched on the ridge of Mockingbird hill, and you could see the valley stretching out below you for miles. A large creek curled its way through the tree-lined fields and in the growing twilight a thick mist had begun to curl along the creek bed, twining through the trees and creeping toward the small town below.
Halloween night.
I was in heaven. :)

I wanted that kind of feeling in the novel I'm working on, "Ghost Zero: Spookshow". There's a beautiful loneliness to the land that I think is the perfect setting for a ghost story. Yes, there are people nearby, but always just far enough to make you feel alone, and maybe a little bit vulnerable. Here's a description from the story:
"We walked through the fields, past overgrown ponds that muttered with frogs, skirting alongside gap-toothed and silent barns. Any cattle fled when we came near, thundering in the dark. I was completely without my bearings, trying to guess at how far we had come or even if we were going in the same direction. I just followed Pallentine in silence.

Twice, I wondered about stopping and getting help, maybe trying to find Todd and I imagined telling him the story. Of course, Todd lived miles in the opposite direction to where we were traveling, and even if I did go to him and he believed me, what was to keep another ghost from popping up and killing him? I ached for his company, for someone…living…to talk to, but I wasn’t sure how dangerous I was. I had to find out more about things before making decisions. I didn’t want more blood on my hands.

After what seemed like forever, I saw the angular shape of a rooftop rising from the tree line ahead of us. I could see fairly well, almost like there was a full moon, though the sky held nothing but stars.

We passed by a shed containing a small, red International Harvester tractor and suddenly realized where we were.

“The old Horton House?” I whispered, and it seemed like a shout after so much silence. “We’re going in there?”

The Horton House, as it was known locally was the largest place in the small town of Secret’s Crossing. Sitting on the outskirts of town, it resembled something like a southern plantation house with large, square columns supporting 2-story high porches. It was squat and wide, with ornate carvings that were once elegant, but now the white paint was peeling and the yard was high with weeds. The old Widow Horton was the last person to live in the place, shuffling alone behind shuttered windows and talking to no one. They say she went crazy at the end, screaming at ghosts in the walls and stabbing through the thick, textured wallpaper with knives.

It’s been empty for years, kids daring themselves to go inside on Halloween…to see her ghost.

And here we were."

And here I am.

I'm 17,876 words into the novel so far and everything is rolling along well. I've got a small, dedicated crew from Grave Digger's Local #66 (I love you guys) on board to point out when things are a little off or don't make sense, and so far, none of them have waved me off...telling me it was a hopeless task. I honestly don't know if I could write the thing without them.

I'll turn 45 this weekend, which I'll be spending in a silent retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani. See you all next week.

15,000 Words

2013-04-17T09:49:00.000-04:00

So, I'm closing in on 20,000 words now in "Ghost Zero: Spookshow", and so far nothing awful has happened other than mispellings and bad punctuation. Some of the few, early Grave Diggers (God love you) have given pretty positive feedback. One actually said "my first impression is that you've been published before". Very cool.
But the coolest part is being the first person ever to actually "see" the story I'm writing. I'm a very visual person, so I see everything happening like a movie. It lets me describe things in very vivid detail. That this snippet where Eddie encounters his first ghost:

"I turned my head to look behind me, just in time to see the brick wall burst into flame. I wasn’t even sure what could be flammable about a solid, brick wall, but the fire spread, yellow tongues of flame growing and then appearing in other places…connecting together to form the rough outline of a man.

“Ma! Fire!!”

I took a step back and reached for a blanket from my bed to smother the flames, but before I could get close, something walked through the wall and fire and smoke. It was a small, bald man whose skin looked like it had been blasted and melted by a blowtorch. I had heard from G.I.’s who told stories of burned corpses they saw in the war, and this looked like one. Flames crackled down his arms and I could hear the skin sizzle as black smoke carried the smell of burning fat into the room. He looked like the fire was coming from inside him…the skin lit up like a lampshade, all of the veins showing through in red. His closed eyes snapped open and focused on me, roasted, bloodshot things with sticky blue irises. His face cracked open in an awful smile full of blackened teeth, and he came toward me."

Yeek. Poor Eddie.

Those of you who are familiar with my Ghost Zero comics may remember that I had a burning ghost in there, too.

What can I say? I can't let a good idea sit idle. Actually, I'm throwing in all kinds of cool things that have been mentioned in some stories, and some stuff that I've been dying to tell a story about, but haven't had the time.

Right now, for instance, I'm writing a part where GZ is rocketing along a back road when he get's ambushed by.....

...oh, wait, that would be cheating. Let's just say it's pretty fun. :)

Can I say what the BEST part of writing this story is? It's being able to tell a complete story about the kind of stuff that I imagined as I was growing up. I placed the story in a rural setting because when I was a kid, I'd look out the window of my parent's car, look down at a creepy, overgrown patch of land and think, "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a shack down there with a murderous ghost? Or maybe a vampire is using it has a secret hide-away?"

What can I say? I'm weird.

I just hope that this story finds its way into the hands of other people who enjoy weird. :)

More soon,

-Dave

Ghost Zero: Spookshow

2013-04-08T12:02:00.000-04:00

Working Cover

Um....so....

I'm writing a book.

See, a funny thing happened several weeks ago. I was in the local public library and saw a copy of "Fugitives", one of the "Escape from Furnace" young adult books by Alexander Gordon Smith. I didn't know anything about them...I just saw the cover, thought the premise was interesting and took it home for a look.

Now, I'm fan of 1930's pulp fiction, and I know it when I see it. This stuff read like that...fast action, heaps of trouble, and the main character has to do something about it.

What WAS new was that it was written from a teen's perspective. I'm not a teen by any means, but I enjoyed the character and the story enough to keep the pages flying by. Then, I had a realization. Well, two of them, really.

Ghost Zero IS a Young Adult novel.
I was pretty sure I could write it.

One of the really frustrating things about turning out Ghost Zero in comic form is that it takes so...freaking...long to tell a story. Honestly, it would take me a year to complete a 32-page comic book. A whole year.

If I wrote a novel, I could knock out a rough draft in a couple of months, polish and revise the thing in a few more and have it ready for publishing in maybe 3-6 months. A whole novel of 50,000 words of GZ, while keeping my day job. Win.

So, I pulled out my Ghost Zero moleskine (Yeah, I have one of those) and started jotting down ideas, mapping characters, and shaping plots. I came up with a novel that tells the Ghost Zero origin story. I'm calling it Ghost Zero: Spookshow. I started writing it last week and am roughly 7500 words in. I've got a small group of "Beta-Readers" who I lovingly call "Grave Digger Local#66" who are looking over the bleedingly-raw words and giving me reality checks.

Grave Diggers. Gotta love these guys.

So far, it's been a hell of a ride.

One of the things I realized quickly is how much more I had to know about....EVERYTHING...when I was writing the novel than when I wrote the comic. It's actually been really cool to come up with back-stories for all of the characters...I mean, I've had plenty of thoughts about them, but writing a novel means you have to have them DOWN.

It's also an incredibly intense and exhaustive experience. I've lost sleep because I've been so excited and involved in the story.

It's like your imaginary friend comes over to stay for a month. It's a little weird.

But, it's fun, too. It's great to have such awesome things to think about, and to push such depth into a world I've been running around in since 2007. My task now is to cross the 50,000-word finish line, and I'm pretty sure it won't be pretty. That's okay...pretty will come later.

So, here we go. I'll be putting out a general call soon for more Grave Diggers, so if you'd like to be in on reading the novel and giving feedback, keep an eye out.

More soon!

Batphone RED

2013-03-07T11:21:00.000-05:00

Coming home from (read "escaping") school when I was a kid was something to look forward to. I'd come home, starving, fix myself a peanut butter sandwich and sit down in front of the TV. I'd catch "Gilligan's Island" reruns, "Flash Gordon" serials and maybe, Batman.

There's nothing that sticks in a child's mind like something imaginary made real. That's what Batman was to me...a comic book come to life. Sure, there was campy humor rampant (and to be honest, the comics weren't that great), but that didn't matter to me...Adam West and Burt Ward WERE Batman and Robin. They were the heroes I wanted to be like. I mean....the Batcave and Batmobile were AWESOME!

(Every kid in America should have one of these!)

As I grew up, I took a dim view of the 1960's Batman series...they seemed like stupid things that poked fun at my love of comics and my heroes.

Then, I grew older and realized something.....Adam West is a genius. Seriously. He took a campy character, embraced it, and delivered the most hilarious lines with a straight face that made it all look easy. I don't think anyone else could have done it.

(As an aside, if you want a SERIOUS hero tale from that era, go watch the GREEN HORNET series.)

So, where's this all going, Dave? Well, I'm glad you asked.

I belong to a group of artists that post on a website called PLANET PULP. There are seriously talented people there who, every month, take on some pop culture topic to bust their chops on.

Jayson Weidel , who runs the collective, came up with the idea of Planet Pulp to have its own, physical show. People got really excited about the idea, and it looks like it will be happening in June (expect more from me on this later). The theme of the show is RED. You can do any pop culture subject you want, but the color red should figure prominently in the artwork.

So, I started thinking about Batman. I went to a small convention once where I stumbled upon Yvonne Craig who was selling autographed photos of herself as Batgirl from the 1960's series. She was a wonderful and lovely lady, and my framed picture sits on my book shelf ("Best Bat-wishes, Dave!"). I decided that, since I had Batgirl, I should have Batman, shouldn't I? So, I tracked down Adam West and ordered an autographed photo from him.

The photo became the reference for my creation for the RED show. I call it "Batphone RED".

I like how it turned out.

The image is not of a gonzo Batman, but one that is somber and reflective..even though the color scheme does have that "mod" sort of sensibility. It feels moody and intimate, and I can almost imagine that blinking, red Batphone sitting on a table in front of him.

Although it wasn't intentional, the piece also reminds me of the wonderful portraits by one of my favorite Monster artists, Basil Gogos...which isn't a bad thing at all.

So, there you have it...my effort to give this version of our caped crusader a little justice.

I'll see you all next time...
...same BAT time...
...same BAT channel!

The Artist: Failing Accidentally vs. Failing Intentionally

2013-03-05T14:57:00.000-05:00

Hello all!

This is a strange post. Typically, I post artwork that I have done, or post thoughts on art that have been blubbering around my head. Seriously. They blubber sometimes.

Today, it is both.

In the small town where I live, there "has always been" (ie. that I can remember) at a local car dealership, a vintage, 1950/60's neon sign dedicated to the Oldsmobile Rocket.

Now, for those of you too lazy to take time to Google "Oldsmobile Rocket" before reading the rest of this article, The Oldsmobile Rocket V8 engine was an 8-cylinder motor that had some modifications from the traditionally produced engine design that delivered more power. It really was part of the birth of the "muscle cars" that we think about in the 50's, and like all things 50's, had a cool, space-age name "The Rocket V8"!

So, imagine me as a boy, if you will. Other than time spent in a small, elementary school, I spent most of my time in pastoral beauty....green trees, tractors and happy cows.

Then, on a ride into town for come ice cream at the local Dairy Queen, I see something like this:

(only the sign I saw was mounted on a taller pole)

Pretty space-age, right? That thing looks like it was ready to launch at the moon....or the Commies. You know. Now at night, the thing is completely different....lit up in pulsing light, shining like a pink, neon star.

And it's still there.

So, stupid me, who never learns from other people's mistakes thought "Hey, I'll bet getting a photo of that rocket sign at night would make a really cool watercolor!" Idiot. But what the heck, right?

So, I go down with my camera and tripod and snap a few shots of that neon beauty. I work it up in watercolor, and after a few days of work, come up with this:

(Click to view it large)

So...it's ok. I actually thought I was done at this point. I knew the background wasn't dark enough to really pop the neon light like it should, but I enjoyed the blue color and the texture of the otherwise blank, night sky. I was just going to leave it alone and move on.

And I would have Failed Accidentally.

What I mean, is that there comes a time when an artist needs to know when to leave a piece alone to keep from ruining it....before he pushes the thing beyond the hope of salvation.....but there's also the danger of stopping BEFORE going far enough.

Tricky, isn't it? I mean, how far is far enough?

Well, this piece nagged me. I wasn't happy with the outcome. Sure, I liked PARTS of it, but on the whole it wasn't doing much. In short, it was failing.

So, what to do when a piece is failing? Well, the great thing is, since it is ALREADY failing...what's the harm in pushing it?

So, that's what I did.

(Again, bigger is better, so click!)

I slammed the background into black. Well, it's not ENTIRELY black...there's plenty of subtle colors and textures back there...but it's definitely dark. I also pushed some of the darks in the sign itself to bring out the angles and to fade the top into the sky.

Maybe I destroyed the thing, but I think it focuses the eye on the bright, electric lights of the piece instead of bouncing around the background. There is less motion, perhaps, but it has that icy stillness like that frozen moment before a rocket makes its jump for the stars.

So, it may still be a fail, but at least it is a fail because I did TOO MUCH and not because I lacked the guts to DO ENOUGH.

My advice to you is to be gutsy. If you screw it up, you can always do more art.

More later,

-Dave

The Artist - Developing that "Signature Style"

2013-02-21T08:52:00.000-05:00

Style.
Supposedly, this is what sets you apart from everyone else. What can get you noticed instead of blending into the crowd. 007 has Style. Will.i.am has Style. Heck, even Peewee Herman has style...but it's not the kind of style that most people feel comfortable being around.

Style happens in art as well. Most people can pick out a Picasso from Van Gogh..there are obvious differences that make each unique.

Young artists are obsessed with this. I know I was. This comes from a couple of different places:
1. You are young and don't know much about yourself. You're still inventing and experimenting, not sure what you want to become or exactly how to get there. This stretchs on for decades for some people.
2. If we have a formal art education, we are taught HOW to do art. Hold your brush this way. Use these colors. Don't use these materials. (And don't forget the "THAT's not ART!" thinking).

So, the combination of not knowing anything much about yourself AND being told to do art the way someone else is doing it pretty much fills your head with uncertainty. You are inspired by other artists, so you wind up doing art that looks just like theirs. Until you find someone ELSE who inspires you....and you change again. When will it end? When will you find your voice? When will you know WHO YOU ARE and WHY.....

...wait. I've got you covered.

First of all, you DO have a style. No matter how much you are forced into some other mold, you are a different creature than anyone else. The way you sign your name is different from someone else's just as much as your fingerprint is different from another's. It's in there, trust me.

But how does it come out? What can you do to foster that smoldering ember until it bursts into a raging flame of Style? Well, it's a two-step process:

1. Do Art.
2. Do Art again.

See, two things are happening if you follow those steps. First, you're becoming comfortable with material and technique, and second, time is passing. It takes both of those things.

You see, if time is passing and you AREN'T doing art, you never gain mastery of the medium so that IT is doing what YOU want it to do.
Similarly, if you are doing TONS of art but now allowing TIME to pass, then you aren't allowing yourself to reflect on the experience and to assimilate what you have learned.

So, what I recommend is that you build a HABIT of practicing art....every day, if you can. You don't even have to make lightning progress...just sit down and do something. Pretty soon, WHO you ARE will show through the materials and process, and instead of someone saying "Oh. It looks like he's trying to be like...." people will be saying "Oh! I THOUGHT that was X's work!"

Try to think of each piece as a step toward discovering who you REALLY are as an artist. Because you'll be also discovering who you REALLY are as a PERSON.

That's Style.

The Broken Boy

2013-02-12T15:03:00.003-05:00

Recently, I was approached by Jay Jenkins, the editor of Valancourt Books to re-create the cover of a 1959 novel called "The Broken Boy" by British author, John Blackburn. Here's the 1959 cover:

(Click for larger view)

It's a novel that starts like a murder mystery (dead prostitute found in a river), evolves into a spy novel (she's a Russian spy?) and then shoots off into Weird Mystery (..part of a satanic cult!). So, pretty cool...kind of like a Scooby Doo mystery gone haywire. Right up my alley. :)

Jay wanted an homage to the original cover. Something that had the main elements of girl, statue, and skyline, but with my own take on it. "Maybe she could look more dead?" and "Can the statue be more evil?" were his only requests. I like publishers that ask those kinds of questions. :) Here's how the cover art turned out:

(Click for larger view)

I thought, "heck, it's an homage piece, all of the elements are pre-determined...how tough could it be?" Stupid, stupid Dave.

It was tough. First off, there are plenty of images of tribal fertility statues out there on the web...and they're all silly looking. Well, maybe some are kind of creepy, but in that "weird guy on the subway" vibe, not "creepy-evil" way. So, I took another look at the original art, and did some reading on how the story describes the statue. Turns out, the statue is supposed to have arms and legs with joints the bent the wrong way (hence the "Broken Boy" title), so I started thinking "deformed-creepy-evil" and worked with emphasizing that. The woman was easier as there are plenty of pictures of drowned people on the internet (BLEH!) to help out regarding reference. Like that creepy, skull-like reflection in the water? I do.
So, there you have it. My interpretation of a weird, 1959 cover done in watercolors, grayscale markers, and colored pencil. It took about a week of evenings to finish.

Oh yeah, he's got a penis. That was a bit weird, too. I mean, the 1959 cover has a penis as well...it's just not very noticeable, and I am not one to back down from a challenge. It's a fertility statue, for crying out loud, and that part HAS to be there.

When I showed the mock-up to Jay for approval, he sent me back a reply that said "The dead hooker looks great!"

Life as an artist is weird sometimes. But, it's better than not being one. :)

I'll let you know when the book is available for purchase and when the original is available as well.

The Artist - Sell or Show?

2013-02-06T10:30:00.001-05:00

I think I've mentioned before that, as an artist, your job is to see the world, react to it through art, and then sell the dang thing. Maybe you're one of those artists who envisions filling their home with beautiful pieces of their own work, but for me.....I can't stand the stuff. I get maybe 3 days of delight out of a finished piece and it needs to go.
Because of this drive to produce and sell art, I've been pretty focused on moving things as quickly as possible.

Then, for some reason, I decided to do a one-man show at a local art gallery.

Now, in my opinion, an art show serves two purposes:

To back up your claim of being an artist, and
To sell art.

Okay, okay, it could ALSO be to enrich the local community by having cool art up for display. That encourages other artists and creative activities, but if you focus on the two reasons I listed above, it creates a bit of a problem for the artists.

Namely, if you're selling all of your art as quickly as you can make it, you don't HAVE any art to put up for a show...or, you've sold all of your best pieces and all you have left is crap. Who wants to see that?

The only alternative that I can see is to create a bunch of awesome pieces and sit on them for months until the show comes around. Ugh. So, let me see....I'm not selling a bunch of work in the hopes that I CAN sell the work later....after the percentage the gallery takes and the framing, and the expense of food and drink at the opening day.

Seems like a bit of a loss every way around, doesn't it? I mean, if I could sell a piece online, and just have the cost of shipping to cover....isn't that better? Wouldn't I have that money NOW to buy more art supplies so that I can keep doing art instead of investing in framing?

Well...yes. If money was the only thing you were going for.

You see, I spend my days working with a group of people doing one thing, and spend my nights making art. In most cases, the people I work with have NO IDEA that I am an artist. They may not CARE, but they don't see the stuff I put online to sell. I'm just that nice guy who can help them with their online class.

But, being an artist matters to ME. And nothing says "I'm an artist" like standing somewhere and being surrounded by your art.

I suppose it is a bit like being gay and in the closet. Being in the closet is just fine, but there must be times when you just want to stop pretending to be something and show the world what is most true about you. People may not like you, or they may not care, but at least you're being HONEST.

So, after debating about it, I've decided to go ahead and have the show this October. I've also kind of found a way to keep my art AND make enough money for art supplies and framing.

It's called illustration.

See, there are tons of folks out there who would really love to have a piece of cool artwork for book covers, magazines and so forth, and they are willing to PAY...just a little...for it. Fortunately, I have a nice day job that covers expenses like rent, food and utilities, so I can afford to be picky about who I choose to do illustrations for. That's the joy that the day job brings...the power to say "NO".

You saw the "Black Monk" book cover I did recently (if you didn't, scroll down a bit..I'll wait), and maybe the "Dene Hollow" book cover I did way before that? Well, I get paid to do those AND I still have the original art. Imagine going to a show, seeing the framed, original art with a note that says "If you buy this painting, you get a signed copy of the book FREE!" Ooo...that's added value!

So, doing illustration work gets you paid up front, with a nice piece of art you can sell later WITH an added incentive to buy. Not too shabby.

Of course, it's not too shabby IN THEORY. I'll let you know how it works out when the actual show comes around.

So, I consider an art show to be my "coming out" party for all of my friends and coworkers. I'll stand in the gallery with a brave face on and inflict my art on whoever comes through the door.

Maybe they'll turn up their noses. Maybe I'll sell a few pieces.

But, at the end of the day, I will have been HONEST about who I am. I will have had the guts to say I AM AN ARTIST.

And if I never do another show, maybe that will be worth it all.

Looking In

2013-01-28T20:14:00.000-05:00

(Click the image to see it LARGE)

Ah, the self portrait.

I don't think you are officially considered an artist until you do a self portrait. They are certainly strange things to do...artists spend so much time looking at the world, so when they eventually turn that artistic eye upon themselves.....it gets weird.

I mean, we are, strangely, the best and the worst of subjects.

We are the BEST subject because we are infinitely patient with the artist...because we ARE the artist. We don't complain about having to pose for yet another reference picture, moving to another location, nor do we demand payment.

We are the WORST subjects because....well...who the heck ARE we, anyway? I mean, I've always wanted to paint myself brooding over some incredibly dark and weighty topics, but people who know me as the person with a smile on my face would see that scowling person and say "Who the heck is that?"

I don't really know.

So, I took a page from a watercolorist I admire a great deal, Andrew Wyeth, and photographed myself looking away from the viewer, staring at whatever caught my fancy outside the window. (I also took one looking out into the evening sun....my face all but obliterated by the glare...but that is a portrait for a later time.)

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. It does actually LOOK like me, the solids are pretty solids and the lights are interesting in an abstract kind of way. I'm enjoying using Copic markers to adjust the hue and value of the watercolor..punching in the solids a bit more and unifying color. While I enjoy the bright, blossom-hued, watercolor paintings that most people think of when you say the word "watercolor", I prefer to have a bit of a darker, neutral turn to my paintings. Maybe it is my attempt to be broody...maybe it's just a guy thing. I mean, I have antelope antlers on my wall, for Pete's sake.

So, I'm going to call my first, watercolor self-portrait (well, my second if you count the one I did 20 years ago) a success.

And I'm going to hang it on the wall of my studio.

Right next to the antlers.

Eighteen

2013-01-23T14:02:00.001-05:00

Landscape number two.

This piece is a tribute to the kinds of things I love about living in the country. Often, there are these ordinarily mundane buildings...a shed, a house, a store...that are made electric by a dash of snow, fall leaves, or in this case, the evening sky. I like the contrast..a chunk of Americana dropped into a Maxfield Parrish painting. I hope it's not just me who sees these things, because they are astonishingly beautiful.

I'm enjoying painting with watercolor, particularly when it is anchored by the solid, abstract darks like in this piece, which I call "Eighteen". The solids let me be more playful with how I lay in color and texture without worrying about losing how the image reads. This is only my second-ever watercolor painting, but I feel that it was successful in conveying what I was looking for.

Why "Eighteen"? Well, I grew up just outside of the little crossroad town that this store sits in, and when I was a kid, I made a game out of counting the buildings as I went by...a special way of naming things that a kid doesn't have a name for. This is the last of the buildings I counted...."Eighteen". I still remember counting them.

I decided to put up an Etsy store to sell my originals, posters, and whatever art-related goodies that come out of my head. You can find it at DaveFloraArt. I've only got a couple of pieces up there now, but more will be coming soon.

Right now, I'm working on a watercolor self-portrait. If it turns out to be anything worth seeing, you'll see it next week.
Till then, have a good one and stay safe.

-Dave

The Artist - The Muse

2013-01-16T09:28:00.001-05:00

Ah, the artist and his Muse.
We have the Greeks to thank for the idea of the Muse. They were thought to be goddesses (there were apparently 9 of them) of inspiration to the various arts. The word "Muse" is the source word for "music", and was associated with the arts to such a degree that the word actually meant "art". You can check out Wikipedia for more information.

Inspiration is important to artists. It is as if each artist has a guiding star that leads him or her in a particular direction...that quietly coaches them to pay attention to some aspect of the world while ignoring others. In a very real sense, artists "see" the world through our Muse. It doesn't seem to be a conscious choice on the artists part as to what they see in the world. There is a feeling of being led to it by some invisible hand. We only know we are there when we arrive...led by our silent Muse.

And she's a bitch.

I say that because, while she will definitely lead, she will not ALWAYS lead. In many cases, she is completely absent from your perception...usually when you need her most. It's like she gets you all excited to go on a road trip, you spend the night packing your things, the car is running.....and she doesn't show up that morning. She's not returning your texts.

Maybe this is because there are only 9 of the things and your particular Muse is in Hoboken at the time, teasing some other slob into waking up in the middle of the night to slap paint on canvas. I don't know. I just know she's gone.

Now, in the past, there have been many famous artists who would spend their time drunk or wacked out on drugs when the Muse was gone. They would waste away, pining for her like a fixated teenager, occasionally rushing to their easel to frantically work on some incredible masterpiece, finally collapsing as their life breath whispers away saying, "It's...finished."

Give me a break.

That kind of "suffering artist" idea has left a bad taste in the mouths of countless should-be artists over the decades....folks who could have had satisfying artistic careers except that they didn't want to be "an artist" and die alone after drinking themselves blind on too much bad absinthe.

Well, you don't have to.

Let's say that you were inspired to create a really cool, new piece of work. You've gotten a promising start, but when you go back down and look at the thing, instead of feeling inspired passion, you're like...."meh". The Muse is gone! What do you do??
Well, you sit down and work anyway.
"But..I don't even FEEL like...."
Do it.
"But what if I mess it...."
DO it.
"Maybe I should look for inspiration! Then I.."
DO IT! DO IT NOOOOOOOOW!! (Imagine Arnold Schwarzeneger saying it like that.)

I'm serious. I actually have my wife to thank for this, and I've wrote about it before: The 15-minute rule. What you're doing when you sit down to do art anyway is making a nest. A nest for your Muse. Instead of wishing she was there, instead of trying to chase her down, make a spot for her by just sitting down and doing something. I can only think of ONE time when I sat down in a foul mood and the whole project went off the rails. Most often, I sit down, thinking I'm a lousy artist and not knowing what the heck I was doing.....and two hours fly by and I'm a happy artist again.

It happened last night, actually. See, I completed that watercolor of the "Stockwell Sycamore" and fell completely into depression....mostly because I tried to sell the piece (I TRIED ONCE) and failed. Immediately after that, I got sick and it knocked me out of a week of work. During that time, I was absolutely despondent. I was sure I wasn't an artist. I was some kind of half-breed wannabe who was better off in a cubicle instead of doing art.

To put it bluntly, my Muse had checked out.

So, I forced myself to start a landscape painting and I still wasn't feeling good about it. Last night, I came home, crabby from lack of sleep and depression. I looked at my wife over dinner and asked "What the heck am I going to do? I'm a horrible artist!" She didn't even look up from her plate. "Just show up, dear. 15 minutes, and then you can quit."

"Ok," I grumbled. "15 minutes." Maybe I could read more of that Jack Reacher book I was enjoying afterward.

And then, I was an artist for two hours. It wasn't crap after all. Maybe I DID know what I was doing. My wife came over and said "Have you ever done this sort of stuff before? It's pretty cool."

Don't wait for your Muse to show up. Just make sitting down to do art a habit...rain or shine. Not every piece will be a shining star, but more will be if you do something than if you don't do art at all.

Make a nest.

Branching Out

2013-01-06T18:36:00.000-05:00

Different is good.

Most of you know me as an illustrator of all things weird and spooky, which I really do enjoy, but not many know about my deep and abiding love for the place where I live. Well, I suppose if you enjoyed my stories you might...they all center around the same rural, small town, agricultural area where I grew up. I love this place. I understand its rolling hills, tree-lined fence rows and billowing sky like I do the back of my hand.

And well I should.

My mother and father are from this place. They grew up not more than ten miles from each other, were sweethearts in school, and married just before my dad was drafted into the army. Dad ran a dairy/tobacco farm, so I spent countless days (and nights) in the fields exploring, wandering and...looking.

See, that's what artists do. By whatever weird gift of God or brain defect, we SEE things, and struggle to reproduce the essence what we see. Even when I do fiction, I try to write, draw or paint some of what I see into it. I suppose that idea is where the old writer's adage "write what you know" comes from. If you put what you know..or see...into your work it somehow becomes more real or true. And people can sense true, my friend. They know when they are reading or seeing something that is from a genuine experience, and something that was false. They tend not to like the false works so much.
Anyway, that brings me to my latest project. I decided to try a landscape.

GASP!

Now, I know it doesn't sound that exciting, but here is how it came to be. Two years ago, I was walking through the streets of my hometown (Flemingsburg, Ky) enjoying the Fall colors, when I happened upon a tall sycamore tree that was reaching up, out of the shadow of the valley, and thrusting its branches into the last, bronze rays of the evening sun. "What a great picture this would make", I thought, and quickly snapped a picture.

Now, TWO YEARS LATER, I was dissecting the past year in my mind, and the thing that really stood out to me is that I had grown more artistically and gotten more attention (and sold more pieces) by doing large, colored work than by working on my comic. I decided that it may benefit me as an artist (and financially) to do more large, color paintings and less sequential work.
So, I sat down and painted a watercolor. Well, it's actually a mixed medium, but the watercolor is what makes it interesting, primarily, so watercolor it is. I call it "Stockwell Sycamore".

(Click to see it larger...it's worth it.)

I'm pretty encouraged with it.

So, expect to see more of these types of pieces this year. I'm going to set up an Etsy store where I can sell my original work and whatever I can think of to make prints of...both of my weird stuff, and this.

Because, in my head, they're all about the same place, anyway.

More soon.

The Artist - Be It So Resolved

2013-01-02T11:07:00.000-05:00

So, it's a new year. It is a time for looking back to see what we have accomplished, and for looking forward to see what star we want to steer by.

If you are, like most artists, striving for something, this can be a particularly challenging time. Most artists, serious ones, that is, are borderline neurotic when it comes to trying to decide what sort of steps they should be taking to further themselves artistically in the coming year.

Well, for those of my neurotic brothers and sisters, I have good news and bad news:
It doesn't matter.

This is bad news because when all is said and done, there is an inescapable quota of damned luck that takes place that will either skew whatever result you have into being successful or unsuccessful. No matter how carefully planned and plotted, no matter how closely you follow your scheme, your wife gets pregnant, or you break your leg, or lose your job, and the whole thing goes to hell.

This is also good news because, in spite of your pitiful efforts, despite your (to you) obvious flaws, incredible and magical things, lucky things, will happen too....putting you into places you could not have foreseen and doing things that you never expected you would be doing.

So, now that you are staring down at your notebook scribbled with plans or your hopeful production spreadsheet in Excel with tears in your eyes after having read that last bit, what CAN you do in spite of such relentless luck? It's actually simpler that you think:

You make art.

That's all. That's your plan. Do the work, show it to someone however you can. Don't waste time obsessing over the best place to showcase your art for maximum visibility....concentrate on creating the sort of work that fills you with joy. Learn from your failures and move ahead with each new piece leaving you feeling like you're going to ask that really cute girl out on a date. Nervous, hopeful, full of dread, but determined to do it anyway. Because after that piece, success or failure, is the next. And the next. And the next.
Don't worry about luck. Play the odds.
Sooner or later, you'll have successes. You'll learn from your failures and make fewer of them. Slowly, piece by piece, you will become more of the artist you want to be.

And when the next year rolls around and you look back, you know what? YOU WILL HAVE BEEN AN ARTIST. That's all you need to be.

Now, go do art!

The Black Monk!

2012-12-21T18:44:00.002-05:00

Been quiet around here, eh? Well, rest assured, I've been busy. I was working with Dr. Curt Herr, professor of Gothic and Victorian fiction at Kutztown University to produce a cover for his latest collection of an 1800's "Penny Dreadful" titled: "The Black Monk; or, the Secret of the Gray Turret". "The Black Monk" is apparently a delightful little tale about a Benedictine Monk who sells his soul to Satan and is involved, along with other characters in Brandon Castle, in a mysterious secret in "The Gray Turret", a tower whose door has been locked for centuries....
Anyway, Curt approached me because of the cover work I did for a previous book of his (Dene Hollow), and said he wanted something that was an old horror comic feel to make the book seem attractive and accessible to new readers (Victorian fiction can be daunting). I first worked up the cover art that featured the Monk and the Gray Tower...something that evoked mystery and sinister purpose. Here it is:

(Click for BIG! It's worth it.)

Then, it was my task to put together the cover design, including some portraits done in classic comic style representing the main characters. After some back and forth, this is the result:

(Again, click for BIG!)

I'm certainly not an expert at design, but I have to say that this is the sort of cover that would make ME pick up a book! "The Black Monk" will be published shortly by Valancourt Books....I'll make sure I put up a link to it when it's available.

I've also agreed to put together another cover for Valancourt (interestingly enough, ANOTHER satanic monk story titled..."The Monk". What was with the Victorians and those monks?), and I have another project to knock out in a couple of days, which you'll see shortly, as well as some GHOST ZERO goodness! Stay tuned, and.....HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

-Dave

Here Comes the Bride!

2012-10-31T20:03:00.001-04:00

Back to art! Sorry to have been away for so long, but I was wrapped up in the production of the stage play "Bloody Rowan", and immediately got sick afterwards.

I love Halloween, and felt like the thing to get my artistic gears moving again was a Halloween piece. I asked around for a subject on Facebook, and the first I got was "The Bride of Frankenstein", so I went with it. It's my first attempt at "pin-up" art, and I felt it turned out pretty nicely. I learn lots when doing large pieces like this, and, as I sold this one before even finishing it, it's lucrative as well...so I expect I'm going to be doing more large, finished work. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy your tricks....and treats tonight! Scare you soon......

-Dave

Calculating the Odds

2012-08-21T20:00:00.001-04:00

(Click on the image to MONSTER size it, or click here to read from the beginning!)

Thoughtful kind of cuss, isn't he? I'm very aware that there's an awful lot of text up there, but I wanted to give folks a snapshot of how much and how quickly Doc thinks. Also, how cold and calculating he is. In a single thought, he sizes up his opponent, decides that he'll kill it if he needs to, and weighs the odds that someone is going to get hurt if he proceeds.

Somehow, I don't think that "62 percent" figure is going to slow him down much, do you? Ah, science.

I had a good time drawing this piece, though I struggled mightily with it. I originally wanted to do one side of Doc's face, with the shadow bleeding into the creature, swooping down on the gang. It looked stupid. So, I did the natural thing of having half Doc, half creature look, with the idea that Doc was almost looking into the creature with his assessment.

Now, I'm afraid the strong visual division makes it seem like the thoughts on the left are Doc's, and the ones on the right are the creature's. Sigh.

Maybe, like Doc, I think too much.

If you're interested in buying this panel, it's for sale for $25.00 at my Comicartfans gallery!

The Artist - The 15 minute rule

2012-08-20T06:31:00.000-04:00

So, you've had a crappy day.

You've been in meetings all day at your job, your allergies are making your head hurt, and the last thing in the world you want to do is to sit down and make art.
It's OK, we've all had days like that.

You've got to make art anyway.

Remember that day when you decided that you were an artist? Well, the only thing that makes you an artist is if you DO art. Not doing art and calling yourself an artist makes you a wannabe. No one wants to be a wannabe. You want to be the real thing, right? Well, the only way that happens is if you sit your butt in that chair and do art.

But let's say you're like me.

I come home to my wife, dragging my feet across the floor and collapsing on the couch. I heave a dramatic sigh and say "I really don't want to have to do anything tonight. I've spent my whole day doing stuff I didn't want, and I'd just like an evening to do nothing for a change." (This happened last week.)

My wife smiled sweetly and said, "Just show up for 15 minutes. If you don't like doing it after that, you can quit."

This is a devious rule that my wife developed when her son was 5. You parents know what it's like..."Mom, when's food ready? I'm HUNGRY!"
"Soon," you reply.
"But, I'm hungry NOW!"
"Tell you what, wait 15 minutes, and if you're still hungry, I'll give you a snack".

He never was hungry.

You see, feelings are like the weather. You can feel one way one moment, and another way the next. You CAN'T let feelings decide if you make art in the evening, because...well, to put it nicely, they don't think long term very well. As in, ever.

So, here's what you do when you feel like crap and are angry at having to sit down and make art:
Give it 15 minutes.

I swear, if you honestly are doing art for 15 minutes and it hasn't captured your creative spirit and imagination, you can quit. I'll tell you a secret, it doesn't happen very often. (I can only think of once for me.)

And DON'T worry if you're angry and grumbling when you sit down and smugly tell yourself "I'll show her, I'll only do 15 minutes and then I'll quit." Feelings change.

And when the evening is done, you'll have been an artist, which will feel very, very satisfying.

Your Plan Stinks, Doc.

2012-08-13T20:28:00.000-04:00

(Click on the image to MONSTER size it, or click here to read from the beginning!)

Yep, things are getting a little crazy...for Doc and for me.

Well, for Doc for very obvious reasons..he's got an alien...thing... barreling down on him.

Me? Well, I agreed to be part of a play written and directed by a friend of mine. It's a very good play, and I'm honored to be asked to be a part of it, but rehearsals start this week and I have no idea how that's going to impact Doc's production schedule.

This will be my 18th play, for those who are interested, though I haven't been on stage like this since 2004. Don't wish me luck...actors hate that.

Don't wish me broken legs either because...well, that would suck.

Just wish for me to find time to do more art! :)

If you're interested in buying this panel, it's for sale for $25.00 at my Comicartfans gallery!

Enjoy.

The Artist - Calling a cow a cow.

2012-08-02T09:56:00.000-04:00

When I was a boy, I used to think that everyone knew how to milk a cow.
I mean...don't you?

I only thought this sort of thing because that was what my dad did twice a day, every single day of my life. I got to help lots, so it was a complete surprise that, when I would talk to my friends at elementary school about cows, I'd get lots of blank looks.

Eventually, when you realize that you're involved in something that not many people around you are, a funny thing happens.
You stop talking about it.

It's more because of social reasons than anything else, I suppose...you get the standard questions about how to milk a cow, and then....there isn't much to talk about. So..you talk about something else. About television, or something.

An interesting side effect of this is that you stop THINKING about it. It becomes essentially invisible and goes underground. When people ask you what you do for a living, you tell them about your job. You don't mention cows at all.

Or art.

When you do something that not many other people do or understand, not mentioning it becomes comfortable. You avoid the same pointless questions and the "not-quite-fitting" answers.

You're also denying what could be the most important part of yourself. You may not realize that you are ALSO denying the other person the knowledge that there are even artists AROUND.

Don't do that.

Being an artist is like being a priest or a poet. It is a reminder that creative power is REAL in the world, and that people are born into this particular faith all of the time. You aren't honoring your gift or yourself by sheltering it from the world. You and your art were MADE for the world. Your art NEEDS the world.. The world NEEDS your art.

The world needs you.

So, why not start by calling yourself one? Why not, if only in a whisper before you turn the lights on in the morning, you tell yourself "I am an artist"? Instead of being someone who works a job and does art on the side, why not be someone who is an ARTIST with a day job?

Who knows....you might even remember that you used to think of yourself as an artist once. That you were one of the kids whose hand shot up when a teacher would ask "Do we have any artists in the class?"

Remember who you are. BE an artist.

You have nothing to lose.

Doc Monster meets the FRANKENSTEIN Astronaut!

2012-07-31T20:56:00.000-04:00

(Click the image to see it bigger!)

Bam! Oh, come on...how could I resist the idea of Doc meeting Frankenstein's monster on a 1960's rocket launch pad? You would have stopped everything to do it too! This is a landmark piece for me, as there is exactly 0% Photoshop coloring going on here (well, aside from the lettering). It's done on comic board with pen and ink, copic grayscale markers, watercolor and colored pencils. I was going for a kind of homage to the great James Bama, Doc Savage book covers...tightly limited palette of color, with lots of atmosphere. I'm pretty pleased with it. :)

Here's a look at the original art, which is for sale in my Comicart Gallery.

Alright. Play time is over. Time to get Doc, Clay and Carol out of that alien jam!

-Dave

Doc Pin-up in Progress

2012-07-18T21:01:00.000-04:00

Well folks, I'm working on something nifty to show you instead of the next panel in the story. It's an idea that just grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let me go until I was working on it.

This will probably be the most ambitious piece that I will have ever done...and it's got me anxious. So far, I'm super pleased, though..so I'm hopeful. I'm getting ready to disappear from the interwebs for a week to work on a special project (more on that later), so I won't be able to finish it this week.

So, here's a peek of it in-progress. Doc is looking good and he's got a pretty spiffy raygun. Oh yes, there MUST be rayguns.

I want SO bad to tell you more about what the piece is about....but I want it to be a surprise. Just one hint, though....expect to see one of the Universal Monsters in there.....

The Artist - Learning to Love your Crap

2012-07-18T08:49:00.000-04:00

Your art is crap. You know this to be true.

What you may not realize is that Norman Rockwell, Van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso thought the same thing. AND they were right.

See, here's the thing. Being an artist is the act of chasing after the impossible. You're trying to bring an idea to life. Not. Possible. At best, all you can do is give the impression of the idea to others, so they can look at your art and say "Huh. That's a cool idea."

Unfortunately for us insecure, introverted, creative types, giving someone a garbled idea of what we meant isn't what we were striving for, and that's depressing.
In fact, if you are thinking about seriously pursuing art, then you're in for a long-term relationship with disappointment.

And so, we give up. It's the only rational choice, after all.

I mean, who wants to live a life full of disappointment?

Well, you do, actually. I mean, if you are in fact an artist, you'll be miserable if you're NOT making art. Heh, heh.... Caught, aren't you? Unhappy if you make art and miserable if you're not. There's nothing that you can do about being miserable because you're NOT making art, but there IS stuff you can do ABOUT making art.

What you can do is to learn to love your crap.

Here is why you should: taking a crap idea or inspiration and putting it out where it can affect others (even a tiny bit) is 100 percent better than thinking a great idea and doing nothing.

Think about everyone you know who is writing a book. Or, I should say, everyone who SAYS they are writing a book, but in fact don't have anything more than part of one chapter and a crummy outline.
If you do ONE piece of crap art and put it out where people can see it, you have catipulted beyond where your friend is....from the hopeful creator to the REAL THING. Yes, it's crap, and you know this, but the sheer fact that you have actually DONE anything sets you apart. It makes you an artist. (You might actually be able to make some money off of that crap.)

And here's the sweet part: The more crap you make, the better you get at making it.
I'm not saying it won't be crap, mind you, but it will be improved. And maybe, if you keep improving, then every once in a while, you'll do something that isn't crap.

Won't that be worth it? Isn't that what you really want....to NOT make crap?

Well, there's only one way down that road, my friend, and that's by making a bunch of crap and trying like hell to make every piece the best you can.

Do NOT be subdued or sidetracked when you have failed. If a piece is a failure, it does NOT mean YOU are a failure.

YOU are an artist. And if you have made crap...you have proof of that.
Now, carry on.

Vmmmmmmmmm

2012-07-13T06:30:00.000-04:00

(Click on the image to MONSTER size it, or click here to read from the beginning!)

Have you ever had something annoy you so much, you wanted to just whip out your alien sceptre and blast a retro, scifi beam through it's engine?

No?

Well, then you probably don't understand this panel. Understand it or not, though, I felt sorry for that poor guy hanging out the window when I drew this. I had some decisions to make about what kind of alien beams these guys had. The obvious choice was the ever-popular disintegration ray, but that was a bit too cliche. I do want to do somethings to surprise readers! So, this is more like a force beam. I imagine what is happening to the poor guys in that car is like they were driving along at a blistering 45 miles an hour when suddenly someone sticks a telephone pole through their car hood.

Bam. Poor guys.

The question now, is what Doc, Clay and Carol going to do to an alien that wants to eat them while wearing bulletproof armor and can project force-beams that destroy cars? Yow.

If you're interested in buying this panel, it's for sale for $25.00 at my Comicartfans gallery!