Knuckleheads is the main project I’ve been working on for the last few months. The image above is an early page from issue #1. Knuckleheads is a superhero-adventure-buddy comedy, which is quite a departure / stretch for me. A big reason why I am excited about Knuckleheads is that I am working with two really talented, cool guys. Brian Winkeler is writing the book and Jordan Boyd is coloring. It’s been a real pleasure collaborating with guys as talented as Brian and Jordan. With any luck, you should be able to read knuckleheads some time next year.

While you are checking out my colaborators, why don’t you follow Brian and Jordan on twitter?

I also finished my little zombie short story, “Day One,” a few months back. I’ll post it on here as soon as I figure out a readable way to post it in one chunk.

Oh yeah, this is page 3 of my short zombie survival story. More to come shortly.

The above pages where for a pitch I did for the Popgun anthology that Image comics publishes. Unfortunately the pitch was rejected because they felt it was to similar to an existing story. This was pretty disappointing for me, and I have a hard time not beating myself up about that kind of thing.

I have reacted to perceived rejection in two pretty opposite ways throughout my life. The first was to indulge in my hurt feelings, take my ball, and go home. The second reaction was to pour myself into my work at the expense of everything else in my life. I made a lot of progress artistically in these periods of artistic hermitude. However that isn’t a healthy or sustainable lifestyle.

Now, I’ve decided there’s a much healthier and more productive ways to handle these things. I’m finishing the story regardless of the outcome. More for myself than anything else, but I also want to share it with you. Hopefully something will come of it, at the very least I will be better at drawing comics.

So what is the point to all of this? Discipline. It isn’t fun, but the results are indisputable. For me discipline means running every day with my dog, planning date time with my wife, and planning a work schedule for myself and sticking to it. This is especially important on those days when I get home from work at 6pm and don’t feel like drawing (most days). I want to make a name for myself in comics but I realize now that that might take some time. I am becoming ok with that. I have the passion, I just have to stay disciplined.

So the point is, I LOVE Black. I have an unreasonable passion for a story that I came up with, and I want to do everything I can do to make it as succesfull as possible.  However, I gotta just do it and move on. Black is not the only or even best idea I will ever have, and the idea that is your baby that you are waiting on to be “good enough to pull off” isn’t your only or best idea either. Let’s get our work done and move on.

Here is a big version of the image above.

I started working on Black again. My tentative plan is to draw one whole issue (about 22-24 pages) and then either pitch to a few publishers as a creator owned book or just self publish (If anyone has positive experience with a specific publisher let me know).

Being Intentional is my theme for the year. I realised that I get really distracted really easily which leads to me starting a lot of things and finishing almost nothing. It isn’t a very satisfying way to live and I bet that there are a few of you with similar struggles. This is where the whole intentioinal thing comes in. I can’t work on my comic 8 to 10 hours a day, every day. However, I can work on it every day, So that is what I am setting out to do.