Every "New Comics Wednesday" I feel a little guilty because what I'm talking about is 80% Marvel and 20% Darkhorse, Image, IDW, or other publishers.  While I occasionally talk about one of the half dozen DC titles I pick up off of the stands to support and/or just can't wait for, I don't get to point out the wonderful stuff I'm reading from the company.  Truth be told, probably 60% of what I read is DC.  Every month when my comp box arrives on my doorstep, I'm like a kid at christmas.

My son has taken to sitting with me excitedly picking out all of the DC kids titles.  He's a nut for Tiny Titans and the rest of em.  ...and SOMEHOW, his stack of stuff has gotten bigger and bigger.  Books like Teen Titans, Superboy, and others have been making their way into his pile.  I sense a fight coming on within the next year: "That's MINE!"  "No Dad, I READ THE FLASH!!!"  :)

I thought I'd go ahead and throw out a full list of the stuff that came this month that I'm adding to my bedside "to read" pile. So many books... I'm going to need to get to reading soon, if I want to be caught up by the time the next box arrives. :)

I'll just list these by title. These are books I'm reading month in and month out.  My favorites are in bold!



FABLES



DETECTIVE COMICS

BATGIRL

BATMAN AND ROBIN

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS

BIRDS OF PREY

DOC SAVAGE



ZATANNA

SUPERBOY

AZRAEL

I ZOMBIE



THE UNWRITTEN

THE SPIRIT



SWEET TOOTH

JONAH HEX

HOUSE OF MYSTERY



FREEDOM FIGHTERS

STEEL

BRIGHTEST DAY

ASSASSINS CREED

WONDER WOMAN

BATMAN

WILDCATS

GREEN LANTERN

THE FLASH



NORTHLANDERS

FIRSTWAVE

SUPERMAN

SECRET SIX

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA



AMERICAN VAMPIRE



DMZ



HELLBLAZER



SCALPED

JACK OF FABLES



BATMAN: STREETS OF GOTHAM

RED ROBIN

So there you have it.  My rather long list of the DC books I'm regularly reading.  Come to think of it, that doesn't really include various one shots, specials, trades etc...  Oh well, I'll do better to feature ones that I particularly love in the near future.

One other thing, out of all of these books, the DC Vertigo books like Scalped, DMZ, Northlanders, and Sweet Tooth deserve a special mention.  These books are CREATOR OWNED and deserve more attention.  Sure, they're put out by Vertigo, but they're the babies of Jason Aaron, Brian Wood, and Jeff Lemire.  If you're not already reading them, check em out.  You won't be sorry.  They're some of the best books on the shelves today.

Thanks for checking out another one of my rambling love letters to comics. I'll be putting up the usual New Comics Wednesday soon and expect to see a couple of fun desk shots later this week!

Thanks

-Jeremy @ 6:18 PM No Comments »

As I wrap up the last few touches on this Avengers commission, I thought I'd throw another sneak peek at the process up here.  This one is a a few days old.  You can see I've laid down my initial underpainting and have moved on to building up the color depth. It's been a slow process.  As I near the end, I've probably made five or six passes over the whole thing building up layers of color and texture.  I love this shot because you can still see the wet lightly shaded areas on Spider Woman's eyes and under arm webs.

Well, that's it for today.  I'll have a few more fun posts and desk shots as the week progresses.  As always, thanks so much for checking back at my work.  I appreciate it!

Thanks

-Jeremy @ 5:38 AM No Comments »

Well, it's time again for another New Comics Wednesday!  This time around I'm typing this late Friday night.  In case you haven't heard (which I really doubt) most of the country got hit by one of the worst snowstorms in decades. My local shop, Hurley's Heroes (and pretty much EVERY store in town) was closed on Wednesday.  In fact, even if Hurley's shop had been open UPS wasn't open so that they could even pick up books.  That said, I didn't manage to pick up my books until around 10pm on Thursday evening.

This was a fairly light week, but a lot of great stuff came out.  I'm going to keep it pretty short and sweet this time around, but here is what I picked up.





HELLBOY: THE SLEEPING AND THE DEAD #2

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN  #500.1

NEW ULTIMATES #5

INVINCIBLE #77

ULTIMATE THOR #4

MARVEL SUPERHERO SQUAD SPECTACULAR #1 (for the boy)

OZMA OF OZ #4

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #653

WITCHFINDER: LOST AND GONE FOREVER #1







I've talked lately about supporting independent and creator owned comics.  This was a great week for some excellent creator owned books.  Any time I can get a double dose of Mike Mignola in the same week, I'm a happy camper.  Add such amazingly talented artists as Scott Hampton and John Severin and I'm pretty much in heaven.  Issue #77 of Invincible pretty much wrapped up the epic "Viltrumite War" storyline.  Invincible is such fun stuff! Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley certainly haven't lost any steam after 77 issues.  It's a hell of a good read.

Also, not creator owned, but I should definitely mention both Ultimate Thor #4 and Ozma of Oz #4.  Both are excellent reads.  Hickman can pretty much do no wrong by me as a writer.  His take on Ultimate Thor is damned good.  I've been a fan of Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's Oz books from day one.  They're faithfully written and beautifully illustrated.  You can definitely tell that these are books by creators who love Frank Baum's work.

So that's it for this week's New Comics Wednesday.  I still need to do my DC-centric blog about what I'm reading every month from over there.  It's going to be a LONG list.  I promise to have it up soon!

Until next time, thanks for checking in!

-Jeremy @ 3:57 AM 1 Comment »

Time for another desk shot!  I decided to start numbering these things.  Another idea I swiped from my buddy Kevin Mellon.  He's been doing the desk shot thing for years.

Anyway, this time I have a desk shot featuring me working on the underpainting for an Avengers watercolor commission.  It's been equal parts a real challenge and a lot of fun.  With five characters on the page and me just getting back into messing around with painting it's going a lot slower than I'd like.  Still, I'm really happy with the way it's turning out.  I should be finished with it any day now.  When I do, I plan on doing another in depth process blog.

Until then, this quick close up shot will have to do.  Hope you dig it!

Thanks

-Jeremy @ 1:27 PM 4 Comments »

Wow...this edition of New Comics Wednesday is LOOOOONG overdue.  More than a week.  Sorry about that.  Between working on pages and SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011, I've been pretty busy.

Another reason behind the delay is I wanted a little time to think on Fantastic Four #587 and Marvel's choice to leak the reveal of who died in the issue.  I'll talk about that a little bit later.

Needless to say the last week of January was a big week.  A LOT of stuff came out.  Well over three fourths of the Marvel titles I buy in a month.







ARTIFACTS #5

CONAN: ROAD OF KINGS  #2

SPIDERMAN: MARVEL ADVENTURES #10 (for the boy)

DETECTIVE COMICS #873

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #11

UNCANNY X-FORCE #4

ULTIMATE SPIDERMAN #152

ULTIMATE DOOM #2

ULTIMATE AVENGERS #6

THE 6th GUN #8

SECRET AVENGERS #9

PUNISHER: IN THE BLOOD #3

THE NEW AVENGERS #8

CAPTAIN AMERICA #614

AVENGERS #9

AGE OF X: ALPHA #1





FANTASTIC FOUR #587

I'll just go ahead and get this out of the way.  It pissed me off that the ending of Jonathan Hickman's epic "The Last Stand!" storyline and the death of  one of the FF was ruined for me.  After spending $2.99-3.99 for the past four months, to have one of the best FF stories in years ruined for me had me fuming last Tuesday.  I'd been careful to avoid news outlets and talking to anyone that might blab.  Still it managed to happen.

I understand marketing.  I understand the need for media coverage.  I get all of that.  This bugged me as a reader.  I don't like spoilers.  I avoid them like the plague.  I just feel like the way this was handled was kind of shitty.

Now that I've had my little bitchfest, I have to say that FF #587 was EXCELLENT.  Even having the issue spoiled, it was SUCH a wonderfully crafted issue and arc.  Hickman is an amazing writer. He did something with the Fantastic Four that isn't easy.  He made me care about them.  I can't recommend Jonathan Hickman's work on FF...and in general for that matter, enough.  Great stuff.

So while I'm not happy about the way everything was handled, I'll live.  If I'd written this last Wednesday, I probably would have raged more and just ended up looking sillier than usual. Oh well.  Cest la vie. :)



THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME (TPB)

On top of everything else, I picked up this little gem.  I already had all of the issues of THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME, but couldn't resist having this on my shelf.  Rick Remender really outdid himself with this one. I've known the dude for a long time.  He's really been bringing the awesome over the past couple of years.  THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME is one of the best examples of that.  If you haven't already, check it out!



Before I wrap up this long overdue New Comics Wednesday, I wanted to bring up one more thing.  There has been a lot of talk, this past week about supporting creator owned comics.  As much as I love reading and working on DC and Marvel superhero books, I wanted to do my part to point out how important it is to support good creator owned books.  There really are so many excellent ones out there.  Behind each end every book is a creator (or two...or three) working their ass off to write and draw a good story for you.

Here are a few creator owned books that I love and strongly suggest to you:

The 6th Gun, The Walking Dead, Hellboy, The Goon, B.P.R.D., Morning Glories, Chew, The Bulletproof Coffin, Locke and Key, King City, and Echos.

These books need all of the support they can get.  Buy a copy.  Hell, buy two.  I'm forgetting so many there, but still, you get the point.  There is a lot of great stuff out there.  Don't be afraid to check it out.  Moreover, tell someone about them.  I'd love to hear what creator owned books you're reading and love.

Alright, that's it for this  round of New Comics Wednesday.  ...just in time to do a new one.  Truth is I don't mind.  I love comics. :)

Thanks

-Jeremy @ 3:15 AM No Comments »