Monday May 06th 2013, 3:30 pm
Update: Proceeds will be going to the Hero Initiative
I can finally talk about a cool little project I’ve worked on with Jake Wall, a friend of mine. It’s a limited edition suit lining for Artful Gentleman out of San Francisco, a company Jake has a major hand in. This specially designed project was an amazing opportunity to try something different. I’ve been wanting to do projects that reach beyond comics for quite some time. Doing work for music recently for The Sword’s latest release, and the upcoming Blondie album as an example. So why not fashion. This is exciting to do and exciting to talk about finally. Artful Gentleman do such amazing work. Everything is custom and highly detailed, their work is addicting to wear. I have two suits from them myself, with a third on the way. So when they approached me with this new concept of exclusive suit lining designs, I had to say yes. Just to see what the possibilities would be. And as an added incentive, a portion of the proceeds that Artful Gentleman garner will go to the charitable organization Hero Initiative. I’ve been a major supporter of their efforts of a long time, and this seemed like another cool way to do that. For now, you can see examples of Artful Gentleman’s craftsmenship through their kickstarter campaign at the link below. And at their website, we’ve listed contact info for anyone who is interested in getting one of these limited edition linings I’ve designed. The image and photos below show what it looks like on a vest, but this design is offered in multiple ways, just ask about it from the Artful Gentleman crew. Visit their kickstarter campaign page to see more of what they are all about for further inspiration.
Artful Gentleman
Their kickstarter
Their Facebook and Twitter
Contact:
Artful Gentleman.
415.527.7611
secretagents@artfulgentleman.com
Saturday April 20th 2013, 2:33 pm
Arrgh and hell! Apparently somewhere along the way we, the Batwoman team, goofed up the spelling of Jacob’s wife name. We’re not sure how it slipped by the last two issues, but it is a “duh, what were we thinking” moment. So yes, her name is Catherine with a C, not what got printed, Katherine with K isn’t right. The odd thing is that this literally slipped passed everyone. But you can expect the next issues to be correct, and the published 18 and 19 will be corrected for the collected editions ;^)
The joy of typos.
Tuesday April 16th 2013, 7:43 pm
And here is the Mad variant cover, and the fold out cover by Trevor McCarthy. I return to cover duties next issue.
Wednesday March 20th 2013, 12:29 pm
Batwoman 18 has hit the shelves. We hope you enjoy it. We begin a new arc where we will be defining the idea of Family for Kate more. Not only with her own, but also what can be expected from the supposed “Bat-Family”. Below is the cover by Trevor McCarthy. I return to covers with issue 20.
Thursday March 14th 2013, 1:06 pm
A recent interview for Comic Book Resources has been posted this week.
here at CBR
Tuesday February 19th 2013, 1:57 pm
This week sees the release of Batwoman 17. It’s a bittersweet thing for me. I’ve been living with Batwoman for a good 3+ years, maybe 4. I’ve been heavily immersed in her world visually for this entire time.
Back when we (Haden and I) were offered to take over Batwoman’s direction after Greg Rucka’s departure, there was a certain sense of elation and trepidation in saying yes, and a certain kind of responsibility. Batwoman is an important character, and a socially important one that has meaning that extends well beyond the printed pages of the world she lives in, reaching out into ours possibly affecting those who encounter her story. At the time, we quickly said yes to telling her story, but then had the arduous task of putting that puzzle together, while having it be an expansion from what Greg and I had already set in motion.
After weeks of planning and plotting, figuring out just how those pieces moved and fit into a bigger construct, we knew where we were going with her, where the bigger fantastical story interacted with more personal aspects of Kate Kane’s life. So the current few issues of the tale have all been set up since the beginning, since Batwoman’s first Issue 0 (yes, there has been more than one). And it’s all culminating now, into issue 17 that is out now. It’s an important issue in many respects, not just to Kate’s story, but to ours as well. But this is really only phase 1, while this new chapter brings lots of things to a head, it’s also the beginning of phase 2.
So back to why this is bittersweet. Although this issue is a culmination of many things that we had set out to do at the very beginning, it is also the marking of a change creatively. It serves as my final duties on Batwoman interior art for quite sometime to come as I move over to handle Sandman with Neil Gaiman for awhile. But it’s not the end of my love affair with these characters that inhabit Batwoman’s world by any stretch. I’m remaining as writer along with Haden, so we will still be her voice, telling more of the bigger picture. And I’m still doing art for the covers beginning with issue 20. Joining us starting with issue 18 will be Trevor McCarthy, we would like to give him a big warm welcome to our team, visually chronicling her story starting with issue 18. Trevor is no stranger to Batwoman’s world, having brought scenes to life during arc 2 and 3, To Drown The World, and issue 15′s Interlude 2. So we’re happy to have him on board.
And that said, I felt the cover to this issue needed to be in answer some way visually to the cover of issue 1, acting as it’s companion, but thematically opposite in some ways. Issue 1 was water, this new one is fire. Giving it all a sense of change, an ending of an arc, while setting up drama and presence, that Batwoman more firmly than ever before, stands her ground.
Here is the rough for editorial approval…
Here is the black and white…
Here is the color version. This is where I needed to add and enhance a lot of the elements. Bring in more snake bones, paint colors over the black backgrounds, add intensity and detail to fire effects, and add flecks of floating burning embers…
Here is the logo version. I needed it to mimic the logo position of issue 1 as well, to further sell the idea of them being companion pieces…
Wednesday January 23rd 2013, 12:09 am
Batwoman 16 hits all finer comics shops now.
Here is the cover in process stages…
Editorial approval sketch…
Black and white rendered version…
My color version. Here, whence I saw it in color I felt the the noseless Medusa didn’t really work in this version. So I digitally painted one in very subtly as to not interfere with over effect…
My logo placement version. The print version of this has another one of those annoying Arrow TV show banners across the top. But here you can see it as it its meant to be seen…
Wednesday January 09th 2013, 11:36 pm
Batwoman Volume Two of the ongoing series is now available in hardcover at all finer comic shops and bookstores. The cover image below has one difference from the printed version, on the print version the logo is transparent allowing the art to show through…
Tuesday December 18th 2012, 3:36 am
This week sees the release of Batwoman 15, sort of a sidetrack interlude issue into the main story focused on Detective Maggie Sawyer. And below is the cover process for this issue.
This cover has gone through an interesting evolution and will ship with quite a bit of a different cover than what was solicited. And this particular cover didn’t go through the regular editorial approval sketch process due to running out of time to get something done in time for solicit catalogue printing. So I described the basics of the cover concept and it was approved from that. It was then completed and everyone was happy, but then at the 11th hour it was decided it was all wrong. I’ll explain as we move along through the images…
Here is the original black and white version…
This is the original color version…
This is first version of the logo placement…
Now what comes next is the result of that 11th hour problem of the cover being wrong. The goal of this cover design was to showcase Maggie Sawyer since the issue really is about her. The concept that you saw above was the approved version of that idea, and we all thought Batwoman was adequately represented by use of the giant red bat that the action and Maggie sit within. But at the last minute it was decided by upper editorial management that featuring a cover without Batwoman herself present was the wrong thing to do. This posed a conundrum as I really had no time in my schedule to create an entirely new cover. So I asked for their trust in making dramatic alterations to the existing image by figuring out a way to sort of insert more of a physical Batwoman presence while still keeping the design purposeful. This could really only be done with digital manipulation. So I took the below patch image, which was hand drawn then scanned and colored to use as the add in element…
This new image piece was then inserted into the cover, but things on the original image needed to be shifted around to accommodate the new element fitting properly. This is the result of that. And finally because so much had to be moved and shifted and ghosted, I thought it best to shift the colors slightly and then significantly alter the logo and text placement for a final design. Even though it was all sort of by the seat of our pants this time, I like the end result of the piece…
