Capping Off 2016 (Tom)

2016 has been a crazy year for Keith and me.  For the first time in my career, most of the year was spent promoting a non Marvel/DC project--and a co-creator-owned one at that--more than than any other professional project I had worked on previously.  Obviously, The Switch's birth in 2016 will hold a special place in time for us.  With the book halfway drawn, I feel 2017 will be even crazier since it will finally be published.  What does that mean?  Maybe Keith can elaborate with plans/predictions next week in the New Years update.

As Keith mentioned last week, the book started in the US and will finish in Vietnam.  Pretty cool/funny to think about.

Speaking of Keith, remember the GoFundMe campaign that I had set up to help with his broken leg medical expenses?  Last week I updated all the donors, and I have corralled all of the names and addresses for people at the $25/$50/$100 level to send to Keith, as the campaign promised they'll get something in proportion to their backing level (including an original page at the $100+ level!).  So we are working on that--please be patient.  But the campaign itself is left open for any who feel like padding Keith's stocking as a late Christmas gift! ;)  So thank you to all again who helped make and break the initial goal!

Finally, a few more sneak peek pieces of art before I get back to working this Saturday morning here in Saigon...

Have a happy and safe New Year! :)

Holiday greetings from The Switch

Hey everybody, how we all doing this week? Things are as hectic here as I'm sure they are for all of you this close to the holiday. In fact, as soon as I finish this blog entry, I'm going to go start my shopping for Christmas. 

I've spent the past week finishing a job for Marvel that, for some reason, I was only allowed to refer to as Codename: Duckling. I'm not sure what all the secrecy is about, it certainly wasn't a big deal and there were no ducks involved at all. Not even Howard The Duck. I think the comic book industry is just weird most of the time, that's the only explanation I've got.

There's not much new in the land of The Switch. I know from his Instagram posts that Tom has been working on the book from his Vietnamese love nest (fun fact: Tom is a minor celebrity in Vietnam because of his success as an artist in America. They've got NO standards over there.) Aside from that, there's been some chatter about the release date with our publisher, Dynamite. There's a chance it might be pushed back to June because the printer in China apparently needs more time to set up the files for a hardcover of these dimensions. I'll keep you all posted as to how that develops. Tom and I have a convention and three in-store signings scheduled in May to promote the release of the book. Changing the ship date would be a major headache at this point. 

What's not a headache is the page of art I'm going to show this week. your first look at a fully lettered, fully colored piece of beauty from the graphic novel. In the spirit of giving during the holidays, this is what I give you. If you don't like it, well...it's the thought that counts.

Thanks as always for everyone's support. We're wishing you all an amazing holiday season. See you next week.

Hello From Vietnam (Tom)

Shout out to Keith for last week's update as I was in the middle of settling into Vietnam having just landed at the time.  Other than a couple picture posts on my Facebook, I didn't make too big of a deal on my trip to Vietnam. But here I am, writing to you from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where I'll be for the next couple of months.

This is a big deal because Vietnam is where The Switch is going to be finished.  Who woulda thunk?  Certainly not me.  But we are where we are, and I guess Electricia and co. are now going to have a Vietnamese home base.

So for this post I'm going to give you a quick look at my "studio" work space in Saigon.  I've got a rented little hotel room/studio apartment thing with a balcony so I can have as little distractions as possible while working.  In fact, this clip will be a part of the 1-hour behind-the-scenes movie about the making of The Switch for all of the Kickstarter backers.  Take a looksee:

Ok, fine, I'll show you another sneak peek at some art....this time an unconventional character:

 

Until next week--!

An early Christmas present

Hey, happy Friday everybody! Hope no one is getting too overwhelmed with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Christmas is in 15 days so that means in typical fashion, I'll start my shopping 13 days from now.

But don't worry, I've got an early Christmas present for all of you. An entire page of Switch art, previously unseen (although you may have caught a glimpse of a panel last week). Hope everyone digs it. Let me know if you don't and I'll kindly ask Tom to draw it again.

Speaking of Tom, this week finds him relocated to Vietnam where he'll be gorging on Soft Boiled Duck Fetus and spending the winter in 80 degree humidity which, in my opinion, beats the bejeezus out of the -80 degree winters in his home state of Minnesota. 

While he's there, Tom will also finish the art on our little graphic novel. 

From my side of things, I need to figure out how I want this book to end. So far, I've written three different endings but am having trouble deciding which one feels the most 'true' to Electricia and her attempted road to redemption in this story. It's a tricky balancing act trying to find an ending that  a) I hope all of you will be satisfied with and b) that isn't a cheap cop out for Electricia's arc. Maybe when the book comes out, I'll drop the script for the two unused endings on the blog so everyone can have a better idea of what I'm talking about. If anyone even cares, that is.

Tom should be back on the blog next week, he was having trouble getting wifi up and running in his Vietnamese Love Shack today. So we can all look forward to his triumphant return to the Internet together.

Take care, thanks for your support.

Keith

Welcome back to the blog! I'd like to claim that we skipped last week because of the Thanksgiving holiday but the truth it, it was my turn to update and I totally flaked on it. So apologies, hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday, and allow me to take you on a guided tour of some new art this week.

So this little snipped below is actually the back of the head of Jody Levy, who was a reward winner and has a speaking role in the graphic novel. What is that mysterious electrical hand doing to her? You'll have to wait and see on that one!

And here we have The Truth (and Happy Birthday to The Truth's mom, Donna, today!) taking a bite out of...something. It's not an apple. Let's just say she's taking a bite out of crime and leave it at that for now, shall we?

And here we have Electricia in the middle of a violent disagreement with fellow villain Omerta. Could they be disagreeing over Lover Boy? Ladies do love his mullet, after all. Or could they be fighting over something more personal? I wish I could tell you but then Tom would have to shoot me.

Tom made me laugh out loud with this one. One of my favorite supporting characters in this book is the ghost of Ronald Reagan, who fights alongside the team of heroes keeping the world safe in the pages of The Switch. I gave Tom the option of drawing young movie star Reagan or older President Reagan and wasn't sure which way he'd go until I saw this. I think we can all agree our plucky little friend Tom made the right call.

And here we have a full body shot of The Truth in her final costume. She's a lot of fun to write and hopefully you guys will enjoy the character and her role in the graphic novel as much as I do.

I've gotten a few messages from backers over the last week wondering if the graphic novel has come out yet. I guess this coming week I'll send out another, official kickstarter update to all the backers in case some of you missed the one announcing the revised schedule. I'm toying with the idea of including a preview of the first ten pages, all completely colored and lettered. Maybe it's too much to give away at this point, Tom and I will debate the pros and cons. But if you see the update in your email, I'll include something you haven't seen before either way.

I stress about this project every day. Luckily, we're having a ton of fun producing it and it all balances out.

See you guys next week!

Keith