Entry 150: Astonishing X-Men #52

 

Well look at what the cat dragged in-- the cover to ASTONISHING X-MEN #52!

Well done, cat.

Not your typical X-Men cover, I think. Convincing the editors to let me go with this idea took some doing. You know how they tell you to pick your battles, well I picked one. But now I'm left to wonder, if I've only got so many battles I can fight, did I pick the right one?

Entry 148: Astonishing X-Men #51

Marvel has been teasing this for months now, but now the cat is finally out of the bag!

Northstar is getting married to his boyfriend, Kyle!

Entry 147: Astonishing X-Men #53

Wolverine DONE GONE ATE A BOMB!!!

"...We got your x-ray back from the lab, Logan, and we think we know what your problem is. You done gone ate a bomb, dinja? DINJA?

... Oh, and also your skeleton is all effed up. You shouldn't cover it with metal like that. It's really bad for you. I know you have a "healing factor" and all that, but I'm guessing that healing ability and immunity of yours is supported by blood cells and lymphocytes both of which are created in the bone marrow which you have completely shut off by coating your bones IN METAL!"

RELAX, imaginary doctor person. Wolverine's a mutant. Maybe he creates blood cells in a different part of his body. What am I saying, of course he does.

Anyway. Thanks for looking at this and reading these words. This is Dustin Weaver's blog and that image is my cover for Astonishing X-Men #53. That's right, we've skipped over previewing #51 and #52. We skipped #51 obviously because it's a big secret and Marvel has big plans for it's unveiling. And we skipped #52 I don't know why. Marvel hasn't put it out for preview. I'd like to show it to you, but I guess I'll wait.

But who needs those other covers when you've got Wolver-bomb!... Bomb-verine? I'm going with Bomb-verine.

This is the most conceptual and graphic cover I've done. I've been wanting to do something in this vein recently (more on that when I talk about the cover of #52) and with the idea of "Wolverine as a bomb" I saw my chance. The editor, Jeanine Schaefer, suggested a bomb schematic idea, which is a good idea. I put it all through some problem solving and came to the idea to do it like an x-ray. I got really pumped on the idea of drawing Wolverine's x-ray. I've only just imagined how his skeleton really looks. Now I would find out-- by making it up.

 I also had to make up an x-ray of a bomb... I am certain that I'm flagged by the FBI now for all the bomb-related searches I was doing.

Here's the black and white version. I actually drew all the x-ray stuff negative to what you see here. So it was black on white rather than white on black.

And here's my sketch. I don't typically do my sketches in color, but the colors were important to this image coming off right.

And before I go-

I DONE GONE BLOGGED!

Entry 139: Astonishing X-Men #50

"WHAT IS WITH THESE X-MEN COVERS, MAN? Where is S.H.I.E.L.D. # 5?... I needs my Shield V2 #5, man. I need it! I NEED MY FIX!"

That was the voice of an imaginary Shield fan in my head who really likes Shield. To him I say: "Hang in there, ol' chum. You'll get your Shield V2 #5, and it's going to be so good. It's going to make you forget there was ever a time when you didn't have Shield V2 #5. In fact, it's going to make you forget ALL your problems."

Does such a fan really exist? I don't know.

There is another Shield fan that lives in my head and he sounds something like this:

Entry 138: Back in the Saddle.

Hi. It's me-  Dustin. Thanks for reading this! You are a wonderful person. I mean, this is a whole blog entry you're embarking on by reading these first few sentences. Do you think you can make it to the end? Has the Internet completely ruined your attention span? Can you commit to anything?

Sorry. I don't mean that as a challenge or attack on you. It's really about me. I've been putting a lot of stuff on my Tumblr lately. (Most of it has appeared on this blog, some of it is new.) But it seems like a place that caters to low commitment and short attention spans. All you are expected to do is press a button that says "like" or not do that. I find myself looking at an image for all of 2 seconds and thinking- "yeah, it's good but... no like." It's fostering the most superficial evaluation of art. My positive spin on it is that it's gut level. It's a more true evaluation... but I don't know. Just because it's good doesn't mean that I'll like it, right? But, if I don't like something, how do I know it's good?

Is the internet evil? Do I have a spiteful bias against most things I see, or just good taste? Are all the people who are not liking my stuff doing it on a gut level and revealing the truth of it not being that good? What's going on? Who am I? Why are we here? Is there a god? And if so, can I follow her/him on twitter?

At any rate, if you are on Tumblr please follow me and, for god sakes, like my shit... You don't have to like my shit. Like it if you like it. I don't want to have to add to the list of questions in my head- "are they just liking it because I asked them to?" So like it if you like it.

Anyway, I'm back in the saddle again... Kind of redundant. "BACK in the saddle AGAIN." Makes it sound like I've been out of the saddle before. How bout this- Once again I've returned to being back in the saddle again. Do the math on that.

So yeah, I'm back to drawing again! I spent a few weeks there just taking it easy and I gotta tell you it was nice... Did you know that I have slippers? That's right. I've also got some very comfortable pajama pants. I have CASHMERE SOCKS! I didn't even know that. All of that, along with my bed and a borrowed Kindle Fire made those 2 weeks not bad. The pain killers were also good. There was a moment there where I thought- I could see why someone might want to do this all the time. But really, I'm super happy to be back to working. To be back in the saddle again, once more, for the 7th time.

The image above is my cover for Astonishing X-Men #49. It's the first thing I did after my 2-week break. I wanted to do a cover image that wasn't the ol' "running at you looking fierce" or the "standing there looking fierce" or the "jump attack on an unseen foe... looking fierce" (which was my cover for #48). If you look at the history of X-Men covers most of them will fall into one of those "fierce" categories, which, at best, only tell you who's in the issue. I ended up doing the "hero in danger at hands of villain" cover, which is just another super hero cover trope, but it's one with a bit more storytelling to it. The problem is that you just don't get a lot of info on what's in the issue when making these covers. It's hard to get specific with the storytelling of it, and make it a better, more compelling cover. You end up getting a lot of covers that are characters standing there, looking fierce, on a pile of rubble or rocks, with a dusty hazed out background... Which brings me to my cover for #50...

Till then-
blogged and blogged

Entry 137: gallbladder ATTACK!!!!!!

Oh, hi. I didn't see you sitting there. It's okay, you're not bothering me. Sure I'll tell what's up with me.

Well, you see, it all started about 6 months ago. I was sitting there at my desk in Periscope Studio one bright Portland afternoon drawing my little heart out when out of the blue I was struck with the worst pain I've ever felt in all my life. At first it felt like a gas pain just under my ribs, but within no time the pain had grown to consume my whole abdomen through to my back. I twisted and stretched trying to undo the pain. I paced, I pressed my muscles onto the corner of the wall for a deep massage. There was no escaping it, there was no massaging it away. At that time I was under a very tight deadline. I was stressed. I had been working long hours and not sleeping much. I was essentially running on caffeine. I figured I needed rest.

That episode did pass within a couple hours and I went on with my life not thinking too much of it.

Months later it happened again. The circumstances were similar. Deadline, stress, tired, caffeine. This time it happened just as I was waking up and this time I threw my guts up. And I threw them up hard. Nachos. That's what I had eaten the night before. A big plate of cheesy black bean covered nachos with sour cream and jalapenos. And after a whole night of being in my stomach it was still recognizable. Gross, I know, but clearly my digestive system wasn't working right.

A friend of Lauren's had said she had had the same kind of pain happen to her and that it had to do with the gallbladder. When I had had only the one attack, I thought the gallbladder thing was a possibility but I didn't think much more about it. After the second attack, I took the idea more seriously. Then Travis Charest posted on his blog that he just got his gallbladder removed after a trip to the e.r. due to what he could only describe as "unspeakable pain".

That's when I realized, "oh shit, this could get real". And, my friends, REAL it did get.

2pm on New Years Eve- I was struck with that horrible gallbladder pain and what was a nice day became the crappiest of crappy times. I twisted, writhed, gritted, threw my guts up, whimpered, meditated, achieved a state of calm, threw my guts up again, decided to believe in god for someone to beg to, dry heaved, started sweating, felt the need to remove my clothes and climb onto the ceiling like some kind of gecko. At 6pm we decided to go to the hospital. Why did I wait so long? Well, I don't have health insurance, plus, I really wanted to wait it out so that I could go to Steve Lieber's New Years Eve party.

Lauren and I had our new years kiss in the e.r. while my head was swimming in dilaudid. I was in the hospital for 4 nights. I didn't eat during that time (unless you count a little chicken broth one night). I had a lot of pain meds, i.v. fluids, and watched a good deal of junk t.v. They found enough evidence to cut my gallbladder out and that's just what they did.

I hurt now. I'm spending a lot of time in bed. I'm catching up on seasons 1-4 of Doctor Who. (I've only seen seasons 5 and 6) And I'm really looking forward to hitting the drawing board again.

The piece at the top of this entry is the cover I recently did for Astonishing X-Men #48. I was working on the Astonishing X-Men #49 cover when this all happened to me. I was really happy with how it was coming out. I can't wait to finish it up so's I can show it to you.

Hopefully we'll qualify for financial help with the medical bills. You might see me start to sell off a bunch of artwork in the next few months. We'll see.

Now back to my aching abdomen, oxycodone, bed, maybe some tea, and Doctor Who.

Love
Dustin

blogged and blogged



Oh, here's the sketch I did for this cover.