Mind your P's & Q's - T&A Thursday

Today we’re looking at two pretty T-iful ladies we did for the Stormbringers villain group, Black Sabbath. ‘Stormbringers’ is the series we’ve been doing all the recent color work for, but we started with them by designing a handful of their villains.

First up is Adam’s Hex. She’s a magic user, and so he went with something a little gothy, with the corset and fishnet. The only real guideline we had for these guys is they wear a lot of leather, and the color scheme was primarily black, red, and gold. Coloring leather always takes a while, but in the case of the Sabbath group it was worth it. These characters turned out really nicely, and Hex was one of Adam’s favorites of the characters he did.

Second up is Comf’s Hydra. Most of these had very little as far a description goes, but when Comf read about Hydra, the super-hot snake-laden seductress, she knew she had to do it. Comf worked hard to make sure she was wearing as little as possible – which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because, as we said, all that leather was a pain in the butt to color. If you look close, you can see that the snakes have a slight texture to them. This was made possible with the magic of Photoshop and the ability to make your own brushes. The one Comf made for this process was created through the use of concentric circles. All in all, Comf was pretty happy with this one and is proud to show Hydra’s breasticles for all of your viewing pleasure.

Oh, and Adam was constantly making Samuel L. Jackson/Snakes on a Plane jokes while Comfort was coloring this.

Constantly.

--The Bookshelf--

Alright, so yesterday we were ragging on the new Gen 13 a little, and said we probably wouldn’t be buying any more. Frankly, while it had a strong opening, the middle got a little slow – a minor problem exacerbated by a way below-average fill-in artist (though, as artists, we’re always much more critical about that stuff).

So last night, at the end of a long day of work and teaching, we snuggled into bed and both took turns reading it and the other comics in our small stack (it’s a New Comic Day tradition). You know what? It ended pretty strong. For all the uncertainty in the middle, the finale was pretty tight, had the best art of the series, so far, some great dialogue, and felt like a nice, concise finish. It doesn’t move the book to a ‘must buy’, but it does mean we’re gonna keep picking it up for another arc.

See, origin stories are really hard. It’s something you kinda have to do, and yet it can often be the least interesting part of the story. The whole reason we're bringing Gen13 up again is because the trouble of the Origin Story is something we’re grappling with, ourselves, as we write the beginnings of our own comic, The Uniques. As a writer, you really just want to get to the meat of the story…and yet, you have to get that pesky origin out of the way. Sometimes the beginnings of a story are the best part, but that’s both rare and unwanted. After all, if the part of the story that interests you the most is over after six issues, why bother sticking around for more? But if you don't nail the beginnings just right, you can lose readers before you get the chance to tell the stories you most wanted to tell-- the very stories that made you want to write these people in the first place!

So Gen13 stays on our list for a while longer. Perhaps it helped that the J. Scott Campbell art showcase comic came out the same day and revved up our nostalgia for the team, but so be it. In truth, the origin Gail Simone went with was a big improvement over the original, but time will tell whether the story can reach the potential we see in the characters.

--Today’s Tidbits--

Adam was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. It’s the Armpit of America (sorry Battle Mountain, Nevada!), and a place he was happy to move away from. Of course, his family and oldest friends are there, and he misses them often and deeply, but he’d rather they all moved to the West side of the state, rather than staying in that sad little sinkhole.

Adam compares moving away from Flint with a space shuttle reaching escape velocity. You have to burn hot and fast and get as much speed as possible, because if you don’t break free with full-force, you’ll wind up toppling back down to Earth in a crash so big you might never get off the ground again. Adam has issues with his home town, as you can see. Sort of a love/hate thing - love the people, hate the place.

While we’re there, we’re going to visit his parents, and see some of his Flint-town buddies and have as grand a time as possible in that run down old city. But never fear, we’ll be back again tomorrow, same PQ time (like we ever post at a proper time), same PQ channel (er…web address).

Anyhoo, see you all tomorrow for some more crappy old art for Flashback Friday!

-Adam & Comfort