Entry 292: Image Tributes

Long ago,

and, oh, so far away
I fell in love with you 

before the second show

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 280: Blast From The Past- Part 20

In my next Blast from the Past entry I'm going to finally talk about my first Star Wars comic. It'll be the start a of a whole new phase in my professional progress. But for now, I've got one last thing to talk about from my days at Wildstorm.

So, once again we go back to 2003 when I was interning at Wildstorm studios. I've done a bunch of entries about this time period so I wont rehash, but when I was there I learn that Wildcats Volume 3 was coming to an end. As a long time fan of Wildcats, I get it in my head that I should pitch a relaunch. That's right, I thought there was some possibility that they would let me write and draw a new Wildcats series. It's only their flagship title and I was the intern, but I thought, "why not try?" I figured if I present something that is good enough, my lack of experience and career status wouldn't get in my way. It just had to be real good.

I talked to my friend and collaborator on many ideas since 7th grade, DJ Bryant, about the idea of tackling this. DJ has a fantastically creative mind and I knew, I've always known, that having his creative powers in on a project is an advantage. Also, both DJ and I were fans of Wildcats when we were young and just getting into comics. This collaboration would be a lot of fun for us. So, I asked him to develop something with me and we both got pretty pumped on it.

(DJ is currently working on a book to be published by Fantagraphics. You can see his work here http://sequentialmonitor.blogspot.com/ )

The image I've posted above is from early on in this ambition. I did this while working on The Tenth Circle. It looks a lot like Tenth Circle stuff to me. So that means it was probably done in early 2004. I eventually used this image for the cover of our pitch. Most pitches don't come with covers but, then again, most pitches aren't nearly as long as what we ended up producing. We wen't way overboard.

Entry 175: Blast From The Past- Part 13

Greetings, False Skeptics!

Dustin Weaver here. It's time again for another Blast From The Past entry, and this is an important one. In this entry I'm going back to 2003, back to when I quit my job at Blockbuster, moved from Dallas to San Diego, and started my intern ship at Wildstorm studios. This period of time was exciting, surreal, and, well, frustrating. Sounds like fun, huh? Let's do it.

Entry 90: Blast From The Past-Part 7

Well it's high time I did another blast from the past post, and as you can see it's more WildC.A.T.S. stuff. (see even older wildcats stuff in blast from the past part 4)

Why Wildcats? Well it's obvious that the Wildcats were a kind of X-Men rip-off, but since they were new they didn't have all the convoluted continuity that the X-Men had. They also seemed a little darker and cooler than the X-Men. It was one of the first series that I collected starting with issue 1. During it's first few years it was my favorite comic book. And as I mentioned in past posts, Working for Wildstorm and drawing Wildcats had been a goal of mine from the age of 13, and at this point I still hadn't shaken that desire. This was in 99, so I was 20. It would be several more years till I actually realized my dream of working at Wildstorm and eventually worked out my Wildcats fandom with a very ambitious pitch. (things to come in a future blast from the past post)

At this time Travis Charest's Wildcats volume 2 was just getting started. I was excited by the prospect of the relaunch and it inspired me to do this story. I figured I could use these pages to submit to companies as I went along.

(edit: this material has now been repurposed and published in PAKLIS #0)

Entry 49: Blast From The Past- Part 4

 Back in Entry 25 I posted about Rat Bastard. It was a short comic I drew in my Senior year of high school. This time I'm posting something I drew almost right after that.
 These pages are from a short 4 page WildC.A.T.S submission I did and they mark my first real attempt at drawing something to appeal to a publisher. Of course the publisher I wanted to appeal to was Jim Lee's company, Wildstorm. If you go back to Entry 8 you'll see why working in Jim's studio was my goal from the age of 13.
 The story for these 4 pages involved Grifter and Voodoo undercover in a restaurant where a Yakuza deal is going down, but of course they're not just Yakuza they're Daemonites. It wasn't a very complex story or a very good story, but it didn't need to be.
 I sent this to Wildstorm along with a copy of Rat Bastard but I don't recall ever hearing anything back. I honestly think I got the address wrong. But less than a year later I got a chance to show it directly to the editors at Wildstorm when I went to my first comic book convention.

In 1997 when I was 18 I moved with my dad from Alaska to Orange County CA. After the move I started drawing a short story that took place in Anchorage. I wanted the story to be in real places that I knew so I used photos I had taken for reference. I ended up  kind of making Anchorage look a lot more interesting than it is. I guess living there I liked to imagine it being a lot more interesting than it was and I think that came threw in my depiction of it. Thees scenes were inspired by Tardi's Manhattan story that was printed in Raw magazine. I didn't own the book, I had only seen it because my buddy DJ had it, but it made an impression on me.

 Now that I was living in Orange County I was only 2 hours away from the San Diego Comic Con. So in 1997 I went for the first time to a Comic Convention. I really just wanted to show my work to someone but really didn't know how it worked. I went just for one day and had time to only do one portfolio review. So it was this short WildC.A.T.S story and these few Anchorage story pages that I showed to Wildstorm editors Scott Dunbier and John Layman. I got a really good response from them and John Layman gave me his card. It seemed really encouraging. How naive I was...

(edit: the story set in Anchorage has now been published in PAKLIS #0)