Entry 290: Venom Rider & Teenage Mutant Ninja BATMAN?

Dustin's Blog: Stardate 123456789 10 11 12...13       14

I've been watching a lot of Star Trek Next Generation lately. I'm having a great time. It's a great show! 

Okay bye.

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Dustin's Blog Supplemental:

I’ve spent most of the past year working on my upcoming creator-owned comic series, Paklis, which has been great. It's so creatively fulfilling, but I'm making no money. I won’t be making any money off Paklis until it’s published. To stay focused, I’ve been turning down all work-for-hire. So, I’ve basically just been living off savings, which is okay I guess. I did save it for this purpose. But it is stressful to watch funds dwindle as I work on a project that a big part of me fears people wont even like.

Anyway, immediately following the election, I guess the future just seem too uncertain and I had a moment of weakness and I excepted 2 paying cover jobs. So here those covers are!

Entry 288: Bebop & Rocksteady TPB

Everyone is following me on Twitter and/or Tumblr right? I'm just making sure because I know that I've not been posting as much here. So, to keep up on the up to the minute news from me, you'd need to be following me in those places.
My Twitter is: https://twitter.com/DustinWeaver12
My Tumblr is: http://dustinweaver.tumblr.com/
And, not long ago I actually started using Deviant Art here: http://dustinweaver.deviantart.com/
You can talk to me at any of those places, if doing it here doesn't work for you. And, of course, keep up with what I'm doing, because, yeah, this blog is nolonger the place for that. This post I'm doing right now? I should have done a long time ago, but oh well. Here it is now.

Entry 286: Bebop & Rocksteady ARE DESTROYING EVERYTHING

Issue 4 of Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything! is out and we're down to less than a week until the last issue!

It's been really fun to have these issues out each week and see the response. As a creator, having a book out each week is satisfying. It's nice not having to wait and the readers seem to like it too. I think the schedule has made the experience more satisfying for everyone.

My concern with the weekly schedule has always been for retailers. I imagine a weekly book might not sell quickly enough and start taking up too much shelf space. Or that readers wouldn't want to buy this many comics in one month. I don't know if these have been problems for retailers. Retailers, let me know what your experience has been.

I'm currently putting together an "art-of" type section for the TPB. I did the image you see above as a pin-up to put in the book and here is a page from the "art-of" with two designs by Damian Couceiro, a design by Ben Bates, and one by me.

I'll be doing another post about B&R next week when the last issue is out.

Thanks to everyone buying this series. See you next week.

Entry 284: Fan-Art

Hahaha I just started writing this blog entry and it went way off the rails. I wanted to simply talk about fan-art and I went down a path where I started philosophizing about art and shit. And I looked up, saw that I'm posting a picture of a Ninja Turtle, and thought, "what am I doing?"

So anyway, I deleted all that.

Hey look. I drawded a Ninja Turtle!!

Working on "Rocksteady and Bebop Destroy Everything" gave me the urge to draw a turtle. In fact, in B&R DE! I am drawing the turtles a little. So that puts this piece in almost a work/warm-up category rather than fan-art... but whatever. The last time I drew a Ninja Turtle for fun was probably in 2003. I think I would really like to do just one issue of the Turtles-- if I could write it, draw it and color it. I think that would be a blast.

Speaking of "Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything!" Ben Bates and I did a short interview about it you can find here:

Dynamic Forces Interview: Bebop & Rocksteady

 How bout some more fan-art?

Entry 282: BEBOP & ROCKSTEADY: DESTROY EVERYTHING!

YEEEEEESSSSSS!!!

That's my first time actually drawing Bebop and Rocksteady. After having spent a lot of time and thought on them with the Bebop and Rocksteady Micro issue and now with this, it's great to actually draw them.

So yes, this is mine and Ben Bate's big return to Bebop and Rocksteady. A few years ago we got to establish their personalities and how they function in the IDW Turtles universe when we collaborated on the Bebop and Rocksteady Villains Micro Series. That issue was well received by fans and ever since then there's been a possibility of us returning to do a mini series. This is actually the third incarnation of the idea. We never got far with the first two ideas because nether Ben nor I could fit the project into our schedules. I guess the third time's the charm. Bobby told us that, with the new movie coming out in June, they wanted to have a Bebop and Rocksteady mini. He asked if we wanted to do it and it was good timing for us, plus we were into what he was looking for. Bobby put forth the idea of it being a time travel story, much like their Turtles in Time story, with a different artist each issue, and he said we could call it something like "Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything." I'm a big fan of time travel stories. I found the idea of sending these two idiots through time to be instantly appealling. And, though Bobby was just throwing it out, I thought it that title was great!

From the start, Ben and I knew that we didn't want to do the "Turtles in Time" structure of a different time period with a different artist each issue. I put forth the idea of having the story jumping around in time and having a consistent artist for each time period regardless of what issue it was in. I was inspired by my my experience working on the Infinity crossover for Marvel. On that I was one of 5 artists all working in tandem. We had an email chain that was constantly updating with art and I found it really inspiring and exciting. I wanted to reproduce that with this project. I also liked the idea of coordinating the and overseeing a larger project where I could work with artists. And it's been really fun seeing this thing come together. All the artists involved are doing great work.

Check out these covers.

Those are variant covers by me, Sophie Campbell, Damian Couceiro, Kevin Eastman, Ben Bates, Ryan Browne, and a super cool connecting covers image by Nick Pitarra!

For more info here's an article on the AV Club.

Also, if you haven't read our Bebop and Rocksteady Villains Micro issue check it out here.

More on this project to come.

I leave you with my original sketch for the logo.

Entry 200: BEBOP & ROCKSTEADY Preview!

"...and you will be reborn as the mutants... Bebop and Rocksteady!"

That's right, you little creeps. This Wednesday 10-30-13 mine and Ben Bates's Bebop And Rocksteady issue hits the stands and I've got a 7 PAGE PREVIEW for you!

Here you go...

Entry 183: ROCKSTEADY & BEBOP!!!!!

WHAT IS THIS? and WHY HAVE I POSTED IT?

Well this was drawn by my good friend, Ben Bates, and it is a variant cover for the ROCKSTEADY AND BEBOP issue of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles VILLAINS Micro Series.

And I'm posting it here because... I WROTE THIS!

That's right, I wrote the ROCKSTEADY & BEBOP comic! That's crazy right? I mean, I really doubt you could have seen this one coming. Maybe you're not surprised that I've ventured into the writing side of comics, but BEBOP & ROCKSTEADY? That, you couldn't have seen coming.

I've mentioned Ben Bates a few times before on this blog. In the last few years Ben has been one of the best things to ever happen to the Sonic the Hedgehog comics. He's also worked on Megaman, Star Wars Adventures, New Crusaders, My little Pony, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Though our published works are very different stylistically, Ben and I have a lot in common regarding our thoughts on the art of comics and the philosophy behind what drives us. Like I said, we're good friends.

How this comic came to be was: Ben heard from the Turtles editor at IDW that they were open to pitches for their upcoming VILLAINS micro series. Ben went to our mutual writer friend, Jeremy Barlow (They'll Bury You Where You Stand!) to see if he wanted to pitch something. We were all excited about this opportunity. I was excited because being close friend with these guys often means I can have some influence over their work and I was looking forward to throwing around ideas for Ninja Turtle stuff. But Jeremy had schedule conflicts and couldn't do it. That's when I said to Ben "let's pitch something ourselves. What have we got to loose?" Ben was thinking the same thing. Nether Ben nor I have ever written a comic for anyone other than our selves, so we thought our chances of pitching something and having it be picked up were slim, but we decided to try anyway. So we started brainstorming.

We didn't pitch a Rocksteady & Bebop story right away. We thought that maybe the B&R issue was going to be too important and that we wouldn't be allowed to write it. So we opted to write a pitch for the character SLASH.

Our first pitch wasn't excepted because it didn't fit with where the series was headed. So we wrote another Slash pitch. Again it was shot down. Bobby, the editor, told us that they were more interested in a B&R story. So we decided to give it a try.

Ours wasn't the only B&R pitch Bobby had gotten, and at first, it didn't look like he would be going with our story. After the three pitches we had done, if he didn't go with our story we weren't sure we would pursue it any further. But, he did decide to give us a chance! And just like that, we had the job and the pressure was on.

So yeah, Ben is drawing this comic, the story has been collaborative, and I wrote the script. 

I've got a whole lot more to say about this. It's been a learning experience, I'll put it that way. It's been positive. More about all that later.

Anyway, this is exciting, guys! This is a big deal for me... I hope it doesn't suck.

This issue will be out in October. Stay tuned for more ROCKSTEADY & BEBOP news!

Oh and here's the main cover for this comic. Our cover better represents what this comic will be like, but this one has our names on it which is cool to see.

Blogged and blogged!

PS-- AMNIA CYCLE-- first installment-- tomorrow