Electricia Unmasked (Tom)

A lot of our art updates on "The Switch" have shown a lot of Electricia, naturally.  Even more recently, we've also shown her in her alter ego costume as the Switch.  She's our main character, after all, and what average comic fan doesn't like to see a pretty female protagonist in her skimpy outfit here and there?

Surely you guys remember this teaser from our campaign back in Spring where we teased Electricia out of costume

 Well I'm happy to give you guys some more sneak preview art of civilian-Electricia, otherwise known as Jenn:

Jenn eating with friend Jody

Yikes!  Some action

Praying? Eating a sandwich?  Who knows.  Actually, I do ;)

A chance meeting....

I've really been enjoying some of the "quieter" scenes with interaction that I've been drawing lately.  I have to buckle down for 3 weeks to draw as much as humanly possible before I leave for Vietnam, where I'll be finishing The Switch.  Don't worry, it's a labor of love!  Until next week....

Post ComicCard Show Wrap-Up (Tom)

Last week Keith came into Minneapolis as guest creator at the local Comic Card show in Bloomington, MN.  This would mark our second appearance together to promote our book The Switch (the first being back in June for the awesome St. Louis Comic Con/Mighty Con).  And it looks like it won't be our last as we have booked at least one show this coming May, and several stores are also eager to have us make an appearance around that time as The Switch will released to the public by then.

As soon as Keith came in last Friday, we were off to do a podcast interview with Adam Vermillion's Panels & Pizza show in St. Paul, MN (Keith's 1st time and he's the main guest; I'm just baggage this time).  We had a terrific show over pizza for dinner, and even filmed some of it for the upcoming 1-hour behind-the-scenes Switch movie that every backer will receive!  If you haven't listened to it yet, you can here....lots of fun details and anecdotes about The Switch and our careers. ;)

Adam (left), Keith, and I have a chuckle over Supreme and Cheese pizza.

As for the Comic Card show itself, it took place the next day on Saturday from 10am till 5pm.  Other guests included Kenneth Rocafort, Frank Fosco, Otis Frampton, and Dave Wheeler among others.  The show went well for us, we were pretty steady with meeting people, signing, and hawking our wares all day.  Show promoter Kevin Denesen did a great job once again, and his young son Tommy was our personal assistant all day.

Of course these exclusive Switch prints (free and signed) helped bring some of the crowd in that day.

Doing a 1970s Supergirl sketch commission at the show

Later that night, we all decompressed and had dinner at Cadillac Ranch at the Mall of America for some Juicy Lucys and more. There's a mechanical bull that you can ride there, and of course broken-leg-Keith just couldn't help himself as he was drunk with sparkling water/club soda or whatever the hell he likes to drink...

Yes, there is video of this if you're privileged enough to be on Keith's Facebook

Stolen picture from Brian. From the bottom left: Kevin (show promoter), his son Tommy, Kenneth Rocafort, me, Dave (Frank's brother), Amanda & Brian VanNierop, Adam Vermillion, and Frank Fosco.  Keith is not pictured here, probably looking for trouble near the mechanical bull.

Speaking of Brian and his daughter Amanda (who you don't really know): they actually came all the way from St. Louis to see all of us at the show.  He's a true fan and amazing supporter of The Switch.  He owns several pieces of artwork from all of us, and doesn't hesitate to travel here and there to see his favorite creators (I first met him 3 yrs ago at Alamo City Comic Con in St. Antonio, TX; he even drove to Metropolis, IL to Metro Comic Con back in January just to say hi).  So shout out to him.  He hung around all weekend with us, and we all had a great time.

Amanda, Brian, and Keith at the Mall of America

To end this week's blog, I thought I'd show one of the sketch commissions for a fan named Marty who came to the show.  He has a hilariously themed sketchbook full of original art by others:  Cthulhu as a pimp.  I present our girl Electricia getting, well, more than just bitch-slapped:

travel day

Friday the 4th is a travel day for me as I make my way to Minnesota to appear with Tom at the COMIC CARD show in Bloomington. We'll be giving away a free print to the first 100 people through the door or maybe at our table? I don't really know who we're giving them to, exactly. I just know there's no hoops to jump through. As long as you're one of the first 100 people, you're getting one somehow.

Anyway, here's what the print looks like, all finished up from the post a couple of weeks ago, for those who are wondering and can't be at the show. Tom and I had a lot of fun cranking it out and don't forget, this is actually a story page from the graphic novel so you're getting an out-of-context spoiler here.

As far as traveling goes, I'm not going to lie. If the show hadn't already paid for my airfare and hotel, I would cancel this appearance. I'm not fully recovered from my broken leg and surgery and the idea of navigating an airport and traveling to Minnesota when I can't walk yet (without crutches) makes me a bit apprehensive. By the end of each day, I still have quite a bit of swelling and discomfort. I've also developed my routines around the house that I rely on to function. My shower is set up specifically for me to use. My work area is arranged in a way where everything I need is easily accessible. And so on and so on. I guess it's a bit intimidating to leave this cocoon I've developed but dammit, nobody puts baby in a corner! So wish me luck as I tackle this journey and believe me, if I can drag my gimpy ass 1047 miles to Minnesota, I expect you all to bring some books for me to sign.

And maybe carry me around piggyback-style.

Thanks as always for your attention. See you next week!
Keith

Oh Just More Sneak Art

This will be a quick update since I'm getting ready to head over to Fanboy Expo for this weekend in Knoxville, TN (hope to see some of you there!!!!).  In the meantime, Keith handed in the flats to the exclusive Comic Card print from last week's post update.  So I'll be wrapping up the color rendering by Monday so that we'll have our shipment in time to pass out to all who see us next week at the show. ;)  For now, here is some art!

The extent of my layouts before I go in and tighten...

Do you recognize these two? ;)

sexy boob shot

umm..

So next week Keith will be in town, and hopefully we'll have some cool pictures while he's here for Comic Card show as well as the finished color print!

MEOW! Switch versus Nasty Cat...but for a good cause

In last week's thrilling update, Tom mentioned that we were going to be producing an exclusive Switch poster for a convention we're appearing at in Minnesota in a couple of weeks. So, yeah...we did. Here's Tom's pencils for the piece:

 Tom and I are working hard to produce the graphic novel so when something extra like a convention poster comes along, it's hard to create enough time to crank out the extra piece of artwork. Being the incredibly brilliant fellows we are, we killed two birds with one stone here and will also be using this page of art as a story page in the book itself. On this page, Electricia (on an early adventure in The Switch identity) has a painful encounter with her fellow villain/friend Nasty Cat. Can you say awkward? I wish I could show you what happens next, I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the sequence.

Anyway, here below is the finished artwork, my inks over Tom's pencils. Tom hasn't even seen this yet, by the way so SURPRISE, TOMMY!

I stuck pretty close to Tom's art on this. Really, the only subtle change is in trying to add a bit more irregularity to the brick wall patterns on the left and right. He drew the page digitally and laid the brick pattern down with a white-on-black perspective grid and then added the vertical white contour lines to create the brick pattern. I just tried to make it a little more organic and less precise. 

I still need to go in with some white ink and play around with both Switch and Nasty Cat's hair as well as add a little texture to the brick walls. And then we'll color it up and BOOM! That'll be all she wrote.

The original artwork for this page/poster will be auctioned off for a charity benefit at the Comiccard show we're appearing. If you live in Minnesota, I expect you to buy it for a good cause! You can hit their website (comiccard.net) for details, I'm sure. 

Thanks for reading, everyone! Tune in next week as our adventure continues!

Keith

More character art! Plus Lover Boy Changes Clothes again

So this past week I've been having a lot of fun drawing some Switch pages...a lot of characters (many introduced the past couple updates) with a lot of crazy interaction.  We have another character peek to introduce, so here's this week's batch of art clues:

Lover Boy looking sketchy/creepy as always.  His ever-changing wardrobe is now a too-tight Under-Armour-type shirt.

And yet a new character, this one easily the most handsome of our universe so far

A better look at Snow, introduced last week.

Our girl Electricia is not too pleased in this shot

This weekend Keith and I will be working on the exclusive art print for our upcoming appearance in Bloomington, MN for Comic Card on Saturday, November 5th.  Attendees will get the print signed!
Till next week...

Meet The Gang!

I thought this week, I'd take you through to meet a handful of the other members of Murderer's Row, Electricia's cohorts in crime and villainy.

If memory serves, I believe last week Tom showed off Putin, Omerta, and Komodo so this week, let's meet some more of the gang!

First up is Nagenghast. She's the ghost of a German espionage agent that was killed in the 80's. She's named (with slightly modified spelling) after my childhood friend Liz Nagengast, whom you can see hawking Spanx on QVC quite often. IF you remember, the Ghost Of Ronald Reagan is a member of the team of heroes in this graphic novel so that gives him two natural enemies on Murderer's Row. Nagenghast and Putin.

Next up, we've got Walking Fred. He's the zombie crime boss of the criminal underworld and a snappy dresser to boot. He's also telepathic and speaks only in thought balloons. 

And the dapper Asian gentleman below is our good friend Snow. He's a bit like Marvel's Sandman except instead of being able to turn his body into sand, Snow is able to transform into pure cocaine. As he tells Electricia at one point, he's worth millions on the black market. 

Snow's goons are called Snow Angels, by the way.

And meet Tom's design for Nasty Cat. If you remember from a bunch of blog posts ago, my character design for this one was a human body with the head of a cat grafted onto her neck. Tom decided to take her into more of a Catwoman direction which was a nice surprise. It's always cool to see how he interprets my ideas his own way.

And finally this week, we have Crom The Barbarian God. He's either the evil God Of Barbarians or a beefy, insane gym rat who played too much Dungeons and Dragons when he was younger and now believes he's the evil God Of Barbarians. Either way, Crom spouts off one of my favorite lines of dialogue in the book when he advises another character, "All women are born to vex. The electric bitch is no different."

I asked Tom if I could ink the spread on which all these new characters appear for the first time so I promise I'll try not to ruin it.

Hope you guys enjoyed meeting these new members. A lot of them sound a little absurd but I swear, it all works in the context of the book. 

Catch everyone next week! Thanks for reading, as always and by all means, share this blog with your friends. We've got a loyal readership but we can always shoot for the moon.

Keith