Ah...Internet returns!

Wow...I just read teh last post i put up before I moved, and WOW am I full of S&*T. I mean seriously.

Anyway, I'm going to try and get back into the swing of this thing, so First I'm gonna do a real quick review probably my favorite book in the past year, Brian Azzarello, and Lee Bermejo's "Joker"

This book is friggin' AWESOME. It came out in November, and retails for about 20 bucks. It's just beautiful. Probably the best Batman Book I've EVER read.

Bermejo's takes on Harley Quin, Joker, Killer Croc, and the P.O.V of the story Johnny Frost are gorgeous.

So gorgeous in fact that a piece from this book is soon going to be adorning my right side, the close up shot of Harley Quinn from Joker Page 19.


I highly recommend this book. And if any one out there has any ideas as to what they'd like to see me draw, or re-design, hit me up, lemme know.

Stay fashionable.

Draw an A$$ Like a Pony?

Okay guys I know I said I'd start Sunday, but things happen. My bad.

Anyway, this past weekend was Texas' annual Wizard World Event, which happens to be TExas' largest pop culture convention, and let me tell ya, it was a blast.

The guest list this year was just amazing. We had John Cassady, Frank Cho, Brian Azzarello, Lee Bermejo, Ben Templesmith, Marko Djurdjevic, Matt Wagner, Terry Moore, and my favorite, Whilce Portacio.

The only person on that list I didn't meet was John Cassady, but I'm not really too bummed about that.

So yeah, I took my portfolio to get reviewed by some of comics best and brightest and I got tore to shreds, it was damned amazing. Everyone basically said the same things. My backgrounds felt fake, and I needed to watch the size of my heads, as I apparently have a bad habit of drawing the same sized head in all my shots.

The best review of the weekend by far though came from Whilce Portacio. You may remember Whilce from his work on Wetworks, and Uncanny X-men. Recently he has returned to comics with work on Batman: Confidential, and An upcoming ( has it started yet?) run on Spawn with scripts from Todd Mcfarlane.

His words were very uplifting to me, telling me that he was happy to see an artist that had a style developing, and that wasn't afraid to lay with backgrounds, adn that yes, I did have small composition problems, experience would fix them. He told me my biggest problem was that my lines were too wispy, too trepidatious, and may confuse an inker. He added that the best way to get around that is too simply be positive about that line that I put down was the one I wanted.

It was an amazing time for me.

See, My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE time of year is when I get to go to a convention. The atmosphere, the crowds, the swag. It's great, I LOVE it.

Speaking of swag, I got some AWESOME stuff this year.

I bought way too much, adn spent WAAAAAYYY too much money, but I got some really cool shtuff. My personal favorite thing though, my Girlfriend gave to me. See one of my favorite comics is Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore ( who was at the show) My Girlfriend bought, without me knowing an Artist proof edition of the Clayburn Moore Katchoo bust, (#18 of 200) and got it signed for me by Terry. I love this thing.

As to what I bought for myself, I got the new Joker Hardcover, signed by both Lee Bermejo, and Brian Azzarello, a Robin action figure I've been looking for, Evil Dead the Musical ( gotta love bootlegs) and the greatest thing I got for myself, the San DIego Comic-con exclusive Ka-Zar, Shanna, and Zabu three pack, with box art by Frank Cho, SIGNED by Frank Cho.

I also attended a great Panel hosted by Cho, on how to draw sexy women, in which he ( kind of) explained the steps to drawing attractive women. Okay so in actuality he stood up at the front of the room, where for the first about 20 minutes he explained, and gave examples of right and wrong ways to draw faces and breasts, then spent the rest of the class talking about the Arse, opening with the great line of " Okay to draw a good women's a$$...draw an a$$ like....A Pony. Big and round"

Yeah-bu-wha?

See Frank, like me, enjoys girls that have actually eaten a few times in their lives.
This guy was hilarious, at one point bemoaning the fact that very few comic artists, especially the ones known for drawing Gorgeous women, ignore the butt. At one point he pointed out probably the most prolific "Good-girl" artist, Adam Hughes, saying " Adam Hughes, best artist in the business, can't draw an a$$ to save his life, I think he might be gay"

Absolutely hilarious.

Then he did a demonstration of pulling it all together, by drawing a gorgeous Wasp. Unfortunately when I asked if I could have it, he said he had already promised the drawing to the Wizard guys.

So all in all the show was great, and I can't wait for next year. Peace out folks,

FASHION!

Okay, SO, I fell off the map. Yep, I screwed up. No excuses, just an explanation, and a different purpose.

So, here we go. I'm no good at reviewing comics in my opinion. I research the creators waaaay too much to be objective. That and I don't enjoy it. Therefore, I'm changing the format a bit.

Scratch that.

I'm flipping the script on this bitch.

I'm just gonna post a ton of art here. Everyday some new sketch or something.

No more review, no more busting down people's designs. ( Except Porcupine. He DESERVES to be made fun of.) I always do some warm up thing or something anyway, and often it's a re-design, or a " Figure it out" drawing.

Second, No more comic reviews. I'm just gonna make suggestions, you know read this book, give this a flip through, try this trade, that kind of thing. I may also throw up music movie and book suggestions.

I'm still gonig to shine a light on a weekly artist, bit I'm also going be throwing new inker's colorists, and writers into the mix.

See, my goal in life is rejuvenate the comics industry, get as many new people to read these books as possible. Superheroes, slice of life, comedy horror, romance, whatever your into I guarantee there IS a comic that looks into it.

NOW for the bad news. I'm in the home stretch of getting my portfolio together for Wizard World Texas, which is about a week and a half from now. I'm working on a five page Fantastic four piece from FF # 60 ( 3rd series, written by Mark Waid)

I LOVE Waid's writing style. It's very smooth and familiar, like he wants the writer to have the easiest, most fun time in the world, where I've read some scripts that come across like the artists would have a hard time drawing it.

Waid's scripts move with a flourish and grace, while at the same time seem like a fun, rowdy party with a couple of good ole' boys. It's great. I'd love to work with him sometime. Of course, I'd love to work with anyone professionally.

I think the top five writer's I'd like to work with are

1 Todd Dezago
2 mark Waid
3 Denny O'neil ( I CAN DREAM!!!)
4 Chris Claremont ( on a Wolverine story preferably)
and 5 is a tie with Neil Gaiman or Warren Ellis.

So Daily updates will commence Sunday, Novemeber 9th.

And once again, I apoligize for just disappearing. I finally moved, and things were crazy-wack-funky, but we're good now. Let's rock on people.


Oh yeah, go out tomorrow, go to your local LCS ( Local Comic shop) and Buy a copy of the Scream Land TPB. It's put out by Image, and is absolutely FABULOUS. Any fan of like Behind the Music, or Universal Studios monster flicks WILL enjoy this book. It's great.

See, the premise is that back in the day, a Talent Agent offered every monster-actor in the business a life-time contract. Only a few took the offer, the big four. Dracula, Wolfman, The Mummy, and Adam, ( Frankenstein's monster). Anyway, the fifties hit, monsters were played out, and they all had a helluva hard time getting work. Now it's present day and a movie studio has gotten the rights to a Manga called something like Monster hunter 3000 or some such BS, and want to " Get the Gang back together" so the monster hunter ( of course a buxom Buffy-esque chicka)

See you in a few days.


FASHION!

Mysterio....And Quentin Beck?

Okay so this week I realized that I needed to go at Mysterio a bit differently. I needed to think about the guy under the costume, since he doesn't actually have any powers. So I thought about him. I realized that He would often be more concerned with his tech stuff, and playing with new gadgets than going toe-to-toe with a super powered crime-fighter. So I did a design of Quentin Beck and his favorite toy, a Floating Robot.


Then I thought about what it would look like. So I figured, a bit less bright colors and quilted body suit, more billowing and mysterious. And what about those weird floating Hologram projectors? Well, Mysterio always had a weird eye thing going on. So lets see what we can do with that. So here's Quentin's favorite toy...Customized.


Well, I didn't ink or color this one, because well.. I'm terrible at that stuff to be blunt. I much prefer my pencils. But the colors should be much more drab, darker, but keeping the same color motif. The floating eyes/hard-light hologram projections are in place of his Eye clasp projectors. Yeah the bubble dome shape is there still, but I elongated it, and well, now it's a Robot, not a dudes mask. So tell me what you think, love it, hate it, just fill me in.

Okay, I'm overall happy with the books I'm reading. Unfortunately the books I'm reading don't have my favorite characters in them. See My favorite characters are kind of off the beaten path heroes and Villains, Like Ragman, Pyro, and Cloak and Dagger.

My absolute favorite characters however are Robin (Tim Drake) and Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) and too bad for me, terrible writers are handling them right now. With Fabien Nicieza terrible is not the right word to use as I really enjoy his Thunderbolts, New Warriors, and Trinity ( Co Written with Kurt Busiek) is really well done so far.

I just don't think he's a good fit for Robin. In fact Robin hasn't been good since around issue #130, and hasn't been readable since #149. I find it very irritating. I still try to read it, but most of Adam Beechen's run went un-read as it was chock full of Fan-fictiony idiocy, complete with the superbly MarySue-ish Zoanne. Also the return of Freddie E Williams as artist on the series has really discouraged me from having any hope for this title. Seriously, why the hell did he give Tim Drake MUTTONCHOPS!?

Personally I'd really love Mark Bagley, or Tom Grummet on the title, or maybe DC should sweet-talk Sean Galloway, or a more cartoony, animated artist into doing the book. Robin's a young guy, lets see some Fun art.

And We've all heard (read) my Batgirl rant. Beechen sucks and that's all I've got to say about that. I've NEVER read anything by him that I liked, and he needs to go back to writing crappy animated television designed to destroy the free-thinking capability of the youth of America.

Also Jim Califiore, while he has his good points, is just like Frank Quitely, in that he couldn't draw an attractive female to save his damned life. UNLIKE Quitely though he doesn't have sense of page design that makes it palatable. However he can keep his deadlines unlike Quitely. I can't really think of another good point though.

Seriously folks put Kelley Pluckett back on Batgirl's Writing chores, or ( and I'm allowed to dream) Gail Simone, and give me a good artist, like Ale Garza, Pop Mhan. There are a TON of artists out there that would be great on BG, but no they pick what is probably the worst choice in the world. Except maybe Greg Land. But that's another rant for another time.

Fix my Batfamily DC. Or no biscuit, or new readers, for you.

As usual you can find books containing the stories, characters, and creators at mycomicshop.com, milehighcomics.com, and instocktrades.com.

Okay, so join me next week when I'll review Batman: Knightfall (Yes the WHOLE THING), Showcase the A fore-mentioned Ale Garza, and I'll be attempting a re-design of Former Batman Protege Jean-Paul Valley, A.K.A Azrael.

Until then this has been J.C Fashion beautifying your life one lame character at a time.

Dustin Nguyen

Dustin Nguyen

So This cat is relatively new to the Comics world, and in my mind, has the potential of being the next Jim Lee. Nguyen is going to be HUGE. His batman work right now is phenomonal, and is soon to be collected in a rather yummy looking hardcover called Batman: Private Casebook. It collects Detective Comics #840-845, the beginnigs of Nguyen's run with Paul Dini Scripts.



He got his start with Wildstorm in 2000 working on, as far as I can tell a Jet miniseries, before moving on to Authority, and his fist run on Batman. He's also drawn 16 issues of Wildcats 3.0, and issues #37-42 of Superman/Batman with Alan Burnett.

Now Superman/Batman is where I first caught on to Dustin, and I've become an avid fan of this guy. I love his stuff. It's got a very nice, technical style, adn reminds me of a less line-happy Moebius.



What I really enjoy about his art though is when he gets to play. HIs use of water color and super-deformed characters is some of the coolest stuff I've seen.



I really just enjoy this guy and wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors, and Hopefully I'll be able to add one of his sketches to my book one day.

Check him out on the web at duss005.deviantart.com, and duss005.blogspot.com.

As usual you can find books containing the stories, characters, and creators at mycomicshop.com, milehighcomics.com, and instocktrades.com.

Okay, come back Friday and check out our new look for Mysterio, and well, I'm not too unhappy with comics on a whole, so I guess they're won't be a rant. Meh, there will be something worth reading though, so tune in and give me a holler.

Until then this had been JC Fashion beautifying your life one lame costume at a time.

TO FIGHT THE UNBEATABLE FOE!!

Okay, so this week I'm reviewing what is quite possibly my favorite Spider-man story ever.
Issues 229-230 are one of Spider-man's greatest losses, and victories.



In issue #229, Black Tom and Juggernaut are coming to New York with the goal of kidnapping Madame Web in order to use her to increase Black Tom's powers.

Across town, Madame Web has a vision of a giant coming and killing her, after fighting off a wuld be hero. Sensing she needs help she calls Spidey. What follows is Juggernaut walking through the city, ignoring Spider-man trying to stop him.
Arriving at Madame Webs hide-out Juggernaut unknowingly yanks Madame Web from her life-support chair, sending her into a catatonic state. The Issue ends with Juggernaut leaving the scene while Spidey cradles the near lifeless body of Madame Web in his arms, vowing that Juggernaut will NOT leave Manhatten.



In issue #230 Spidey throws EVERYTHING Including several kitchen sinks at Juggernaut ( literally. Spidey is on a roof, using a makeshift web sling-shot to hurl bricks at Juggernaut, who gets irritated and yanks a corner of the building OFF, collapsing it on himself and our Hero) This is also during one of JJJ's bids to turn the City against Spidey, as seen when Spider-man stops to take a quick breather and try to think of ANY way to stop Juggernaut, he perches on the front of a Eighteen Wheeler. The driver gets out brandishing a large tire-iron, which, in a great "Scram kid, Ya Botther me" moment, Spidey snatches the tire-iron away, and ties it into a bow-tie.

As the driver runs away, it occurs to Spidey, " Hey maybe if I hit him with something big. Like a truck!" Spidey jumps into the truck, driving full-speed ahead into Juggernaut, causing it to explode, engulfing the Juggernaut in a raging inferno. As Spidey begins freaking out about having killed another person, Juggernaut casually walks out of the flames, exclaiming that Spidey was toast, having finally pissed him off.

The issue climaxes with Spider-man leaping onto Juggernaut's head trying to pry the helmet off, only to discover it has been welded on. Yet the little Web-head persists, covering Juggernaut's eyes as the Behemoth relentlessly pounds on him, while walking blindly into a 40 foot pit of wet cement. Spidey leaps away while Juggy exclaims that he'll escape, that nothing can stop him.

Cut to a Hospital where Peter Parker bursts into Madame Web's room, only to discover she has no recollection of him, what happened to her, and apparently, no powers. The issue ends with Black Tom back on the boat, looking for Juggernaut, wondering where he was, commenting that nothing could possibly hurt him...Or could it?

I LOVE this storyline, it's fun, it's over the top, and it's Great early John Romita Jr. His art now is still highly influenced by his dad, but in the beginning it was like reading a more daring John Romita. JRJR is much more willing to use more adventurous layouts, while John SR's pages are a bit easier to read. So breaking it down, it goes like this.

ART: I love the art in this book. It's fun, it's easy to read, it honestly doesn't even NEED word balloons or captions. John Jr was great then, and he's gotten better since. His original run on Amazing was great and every run since has delivered wonderfully.

STORY: It's just a good, FUN read, everything a Spidey book should be. Totally out-classed, but he never ever quits.

SATISFACTION: This is one of the more satisfying Spider-man reads for me, simply because it always makes me feel like a little kid again, sending me back to that place of wonder and happiness that I felt when I was just getting into comics, back when I was in third grade.

Do whatever you can to read this issue. It been collected in 3 trades, Marvel Visionaries: John Romita Jr., Amazing Spider-man: Murder by Spider, and Amazing Spider-man: Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut.

FASHION VICTIM

Okay, so this week's Fashion Victim is a Reader's Request, by Joe Bloke.



MYSTERIO.

Quentin Back was a Special Effects genius who decided to embark on a life of crime to, what else? Get famous. See, he always thought his destiny was to be famous, but he didn't have the looks to be an actor, the patience to be a director, and thought Special Effects were a dead end. So when one of his friends said " Well, take out on of them there Super folks" He thought it was a great idea, and became Mysterio.

Though he has a TON of great gadgets to use against Spidey, like a gas that negates the Spider-sense, and a webbing solvent, He constantly aims low, and gets trounced, even by Karma.

See come to find out the chemicals he used to create his signature cloud of smoke have riddled his body with Cancer. Yet when he decided to make a grand run of Driving Spider-man mad, and then killing him, he realized that this Spider-man was not HIS Spider-man, and set his sights on Daredevil ( Daredevil: Guardian Devil).

I actually kind of enjoy this costume, in the same way I enjoy Pimp Suits. Ya know you shouldn't but you just can't help but smile. This guy had a good idea, but bad execution. And once again with Steve Ditko, we get the Green and an accent color, this time Purple. This color scheme was very popular with Spider-man villains, Used, three times that I can think of off the top of my head, with Mysterio, Prowler ( designed by John Romita Jr), and The Variations of Beetle ( designed by I believe Carl Burgos)

The Giant Purple cape really reminds me of something Don "Magic" Juan would wear while accompanying Snoop on stage, and the gloves are a really nice touch, and reminiscent of Oriental paper lanterns.

This costume simply does not work on all levels. It's Memorable, but in a " Hey, that guy was so much fun to make fun of" kind of way. Lets see is we can make him a bit more menacing and maybe a little spooky.

As usual you can find the stories, characters and artists reviewed here at mycomicshop.com, milehighcomics.com, and instocktrades.com

Alright the rest of this week is going to be mush easier as I did some prep work this time. Come Back Wednesday when I give a review of a relatively new cat that is rocking the holy blue hell out of Detective Comics, Dustin Nguyen, and come back Friday for a hopefully spookier, less fish-bowly Mysterio.

Until then this is JC Fashion Beautifying your life one lame costume at a time.

Pyro's (very late) Redesign

Okay, so Yeah, I know I'm late. Lots of stress lately, and the next few weeks may be a little...shaky.
Things should smooth out rather nicely here pretty soon though. I'll be moving in he next oh, two to three weeks, and then things should get much better.

Anyway on to things that aren't me making bitch excuses. For Pyro I decided to go for a bit more practical in his fire starting abilities. Since he needs a fire-source for his flames ( which I think is a mental block, since he was able to create flames before succumbing to the Legacy Virus), but not a huge source, just a few sparks, I put pieces of Flint on his vest, which I figured would be made out of Kevlar, and bits of ridged steel on the palms of his gloves. Also, I kept the flame throwers, but like in the movie I decided to down size them a bit. With Pyro's flame system, less is more.

I also changed his mask up a bit. While he's able to control the flames and smoke, and not be burned, I've never heard mention of him being able to breathe smoke. So I added a gas mask design to his head gear, and goggles to keep with his current mask. The rest is more inspired by functionality and ease of movement, especially when trying to get away when a battle turns against him



So Here it is.

Now, this weeks topic was going to be me complaining about the current state of horror comics, and then I realized that to do that I'd have to complain about horror movies as well. Both have moved away from the cool monster, or artful dispatchment of victims in slasher movies, to full on shock-shit. So I'm going to avoid that.

Instead I'm going to bitch about Writers of comics that seem to not really want to write comics but movie treatments. The first one that springs to mind is actually a pretty big name.

Mark Millar.

Besides the fact that his penchant for ignoring continuity unless he wrote it making him a bad writer, It's becoming fairly obvious he wants to use comics as a stepping stone for moving to movies. TWICE he has written creator owned properties and signed away the movie rights before the comics is even finished being published. Wanted, which I haven't seen but I have read which comes off as a venomous "Screw You" to comics fans, and Kick-ass, a horribly written, violence just because I can piece of garbage. I've TRIED really TRIED to like that series as well, but not even John Romita Jr penciling it can make me like the rag. It's utter trash, and shouldn't be published. It's just another in the long line of things Joe Quesada should apoligize for.

THe problem I have with Millar selling these movie rights before the book has finished, or at least gotten established is that there is absolutely NO WAY the movie can be accurate to the book, which in my experience is a comic movie-goers biggest complaint about comic movies.

However now that I think about it I can't think of another writer who has done this kind of thing. Kevin Smith comes to mind, but he did the oposite. Wrote several movies, then went on to do comics. However, because of this he often gets very behind writing his comic scripts, and has trouble keping deadlines.

Damon Lindelof is another television/movie writer that came to comics. However the one book he's done started in January of 06 and still has not wrapped up, though it is confirmed that all six issues have been written and turned in.

Okay, I'm not as passionate about this gripe as I am about attracting new readers because comic movies CAN and DO attract new readers. So, that's it for this rant.

Monday...I have no idea what I'm reviewing, so tune and find out.

This is JC Fashion, beautifying your life one lame costume at a time.