Gallery Nucleus Signing

Just a heads up, on April 15th from 7pm-11pm Becky Cloonan, Felipe Smith, and myself (maybe others?) will be at Gallery Nucleus signing our books, holding a discussion panel, and displaying our original pieces. If you're in the LA area be sure to stop by and say hello!

Flight 3 in Previews

I finished the first draft of the scripts for the entire second book of S&S on Friday (I believe everyone will be blushing and smiling sweetly by the end of the book!). Saturday was spent going over some edits for an adaptation series I’m participating in, and I spent Sunday trying to get myself to do more work but failing miserably. That’s okay though since Sunday was instead spent regaining energy (aka playing We Love Katamari, re-watching Howl's Moving Castle, and making carne asada fajitas with Kazu) and rediscovering my love for an old cancelled ABC dramedy series, “Cupid”.

For those who don’t know about the show, allow me to geek out a bit. Cupid was a short-lived, 13-episode (?) series that aired on ABC in the late 90s. Its creator and executive producer, Rob Thomas, went on to create and produce Veronica Mars, which I didn’t know! I definitely have to check out VM now, as if my friends’ recommendations weren’t enough. You can also find two scripts to unaired episodes under downloads in the Cupid section on his site. I thought that was cool of him. A kind Lisa Loeb fan hosts an episode of the show as well called 'First Loves', in which Loeb guest stars. And apparantly, I can watch the pilot at the UCLA film and television archive. Is it worth it?!

Thinking of Cupid again, though, it’s no wonder I’d go and write something like Sorcerers & Secretaries. I guess I’m more of a cheesy romantic than I always thought! Speaking of romance, check out treknature.com when you have a chance...

Also, from Kazu’s blog:

“FLIGHT 3 in Previews...

According to Michel, the solicitation for Flight 3 is in this month's Previews on page 245, with a full-page ad on page 267. I'll go pick up a copy of Previews to make a proper post about the solicitation tomorrow. In the meantime, go let your local comic shop know to order it! Oh, and any images with my name on the cover are inaccurate. I asked Random House to take my name off the front since it's a group effort.”

We’ll be stopping by the comic shop tomorrow to pick up our copy and do what we gotta do. =)

Nicole the Nightdreamer

New illustration up (click the thumbnail to see a larger version), this time it's Nicole from S&S. I was flipping through a Korean fashion magazine and thought the outfit looked like something she would wear~ =)

Also, I was nominated for a Kim Yale Award along with Svetlana Chmakova, Becky Cloonan, and Hope Larson. Thank you Heidi and The Beat (and Kazu cause I think he's the one that dropped my name? >_<). Either way, it's an honor just to be nominated and I'm grateful. =)

Speaking of honor, I have some new gift art for S&S, check them out! Also, there's a call for fan art for S&S for Tokyopop's Manga Magazine. If you'd like to send some in, check out their fan art submission policy.

Some more links are up, too: Sketchblogs from friends Jen Quick, Cynthea, Christi, Alisa, Nelson, Bonnie, and the website of Jeremy Arambulo who we met at TCAF last year! Check out their stuff~ =D

Anime News Network featured Sorcerers & Secretaries in their "right turn only" column, thanks to Malroth from the forums for pointing it out! They made a nice point on my over-usage of gradients to achieve tones. It's something I definitely struggle with, maybe I should experiment with textures more often...!

And if you want some inspiration, be sure to check out Man Arenas' website full of his amazing layouts, character designs, and concept work. It'll take your breath away!

Mangaka America

Ah~ fresh illustration! After doing all this writing for S&S it feels awesome to draw again. The above picture was done for Steelriver Studio's "Mangaka America" book. It'll be published in November of 2006 by Collins Design, an imprint of Harper Collins. Similar to their "Japanese Comickers" book, it will feature the illustrations of 11 manga-influenced artists along with notes on their favorite tips and tricks, and a forward by Adam Warren. Here's a list of the other artists involved:

Christy Lijewski, Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges, Shatia Hamilton, Svetlana Chmakova, Rivkah, Tania Del Rio, Corey 'Rey' Lewis, Filipe Smith, Mary Alice LeGrow, and Jesse Phillips.

Give their sites a visit! More details on the book as info rolls in...

I also updated the illos section of the site, as well as the store section. Two of my original pictures are on sale at Gallery Nucleus online. Nucleus is also opening their Unicorn Show this weekend, March 18 from 7-11. It will feature the work of many amazing artists, including many from Flight such as Chris Appelhans, Jake Parker, Michel Gagne, Catia Chien, Israel Sanchez, Yoko Tanaka, and much more~! BE THERE!!

I just started reading Stephen King's latest, "Cell". It's pretty interesting, I'm enjoying the beginning a lot. For those that don't know, it's a horror book about how everyone who used their cell phones at a certain time suddenly became zombie-like feral beings, attacking/eating everyone they saw. It's pretty gruesome, but I hope they turn it into a film. If anyone's looking to read some fun zombie action, I recommend it along with Ross Campbell's "The Abandoned". I guess the gross horror side of me that was so in love with Clive Barker in middle school is still around!

I also watched a Korean drama called "Full House" this past week. I was curious about it because it's loosely based on the comic by Won Su Yon (one of my favorite artists!), and it also stars Bi/Rain, the kpop star that helped me design Josh's character a bit. The storyline was pretty over the top, but it was great research for S&S and really got me in the mood for romantic comedy. I also have "Sweet 18" to watch, recommended by my mother. Full House was very darling, although it did drag a big in the middle (for like... 8 episodes...). After watching the Korean dramas, though, I realized they're helping me a billion times more than the romantic comedy movies I've been watching. I even took notes!

I'm so grateful for this because writing for S&S has been a struggle lately, I keep getting stuck on rewriting things. I think my artistic training has me so visually-oriented, it's hard for me to be happy with a script and move on to the next chapter to write without seeing the solid visual results of an actual comic page. I keep going back and changing my mind on things without the physical pages to tell me to keep going... All the subtleties of the scene are worked out in the thumbnailing stage so the scripts themselves are already missing at least half of the impact. Well... I'll stick to this plan of writing first, drawing later for this book. I think it'll be worth it in the end with the time I'll save on page redraws. Maybe?

Also, for better or for worse, Tokyopop now has a forum. Check it out.

Baby-Sitter's Club and outline struggles

Raina Telgemeier's adaptation of The Baby-Sitter's Club is available in stores~! She's a fellow SVA-grad and I've been keeping up with her happenings on her livejournal. I'm lucky enough to have seen some preview pages at a comic's festival in Toronto (TCAF), I can't wait to have the finished book in my hands!

I've been writing and re-writing the outline to book 2 of S&S. My first draft was out of character, and as I wrote the scripts something wasn't gelling. So, I scrapped it and started over. The second version is much better, and it's teaching me that if it isn't solid in the outline it's going to be a struggle writing the expanded version. An obvious lesson, but sometimes when I work my nose is too close to the paper to see the overall picture! Can't wait to get to thumbnailing... scripts first though.

Kazu's Graphic Narrative Workshop

It's very short notice, but if anyone is in the Alhambra/LA area, Kazu is holding an epic 5-hour graphic narrative workshop where he'll talk about comic theory and help you make your own comics, too! It starts at 1pm at Gallery Nucleus, 30 west main street in Alhambra. See the nucleus site for more details~

Life is good but busy as we try to catch up from last weekend's snowboarding trip, which was in the works since Christmas. Here are some photos from our trip with minimal captions~ I'll update with a new illustration in the next couple days! =)