Long before I’d ever heard of Jake Parker I was a fan of the artwork created by Agent 44.  I felt like Lois Lane when I finally connected the dots and found that these two were the same person!

I feel a certain kinship to Jake.  You see, he’s doing the things that I wanted to do.  He got that job at the animation studio and used the opportunity to learn everything he could.  He realized early on that the only work that is going to be steady is the work that you make for yourself.  He’s taken all of this talent and all connections and has put it together in his very first solo graphic novel. The following video was put together by Darren Rawlings.

you can hear the podcast below or click on the image to visit the site.

You can also head over toAmazon and pre-order this book.  I’ve got mine!

There has been a bit of a fuss lately about Star Wars Zombies. Several of us artists were involved in Zombie Week on the main site at StarWars.com leading up to the release of the Dell Ray book Death Troopers. This was followed by the Clone Wars episode “Legacy of Terror” about the Jedi’s return to Geonosis to face the Queen and her horde of undead warriors. I had mentioned this trend to my friends the Fillbach brothers to which they replied, “Well, we did it first.”

Matt and Shawn are quickdraw cartoon cowboy guns for hire. They have been working on many different comic projects including the Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures digest sized books. In volume 9 fist printed in Oct. of 2007 there is a story written and illustrated by the Fillbach brothers called “No Way Out”. In this story Mace Windu is looking for a missing squad of Clone Troopers and comes across the Countess Rajine and her ZOMBIE ARMY!

So I went over the Old Navy to get some new shirts (I left some hanging up in my last Hotel room and SURPRISE! the can’t be found by the hotel staff).  While I was there I notices some really fun t-shirts with Marvel characters printed on them.  I’ve been looking into obtaining the license to create some new art work from a movie, so I found myself wondering how much Old Navy paid Marvel to be able to make the shirts.  I haven’t found anything about the amount for the deal, but I was surprised by the comic book that they gave me.

So, there is a promotion going on that coincides with Marvel’s 70th anniversary.  From Aug. 8-17 shoppers who purchase a Marvel T-shirt will receive a limited-edition reprint of the first appearance of Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15.  (I actually got the book without the Marvel purchase.)  Here’s the comic reprinted exclusively for Old Navy.

So I’m reading through the story, remembering how in the original story Peter Parker made his own webslinging equipment and then I see it.  Peter Parker in his room working on his costume, just hanging out in his OLD NAVY T-SHIRT!!!!  I always thought that Petey was a bit geeky and wore a lot of button up shirts with pocket protectors, but there it was starring me in the face.  The revisionist history of Spider-man clearly shows that Pete was a fan of Old Navy.

It reminds me of this subtle bit of Product Placement from the 1992 film Wayne’s World.

Here it is!  I’ve just finished the mini-poster for my own personal project titled, “s.a.m.M13″.  I’ll have 100 of these 5.5 x 8.5 prints to hand out next week at the San Diego Comic-Con.  If all goes well, I may even have some prototype toys as well!  The series production will begin after next weeks convention with the initial focus being on the production of a game.  I know it sounds like a big deal but the truth is that it’s going to be a TON of work doing this all on my own.  I’ll be posting more about the production here as I develops samM13’s site.  Wish me luck!

*because it’s a spy themed series, I couldn’t help but use the movie poster for Thunderball as reference.  :D 

I found this link on the World Superhero Registry’s website under the section for Tutorials.  I think that this animated gif is going to give me a headache.

Hero at Large is a 1980 comedy film starring John Ritter and Anne Archer.  Ritter plays the part of Steve Nichols a struggling actor.  He takes a job posing as comic-book hero Captain Avenger at comics stores and conventions.  On his way home from one of these appearances and finds his life unexpectedly complicated when he stops a robbery while wearing the costume of Captain Avenger.  He’s feeling pretty good about helping people and continue trying to be a superhero only to discover that the superhero life is more complex than he initially thought.

I’ve always thought that the idea behind this movie was pretty interesting.  Anybody can see the news and see the crime going on all around us.  It would appear that there are real life super-villains, so why not have some real life super heroes?  This leads me to the World Super Hero Registry.

I saw an article on Gizmodo about people dressing up to help out with patrolling and protecting their neighborhoods.  Both Rolling Stone and the Times Online have written about the US’s superhero phenomenon. Labeled by some as a post-9/11 response and apparently spurred by Obama’s call for “active citizenry,” everyday people are dressing up in spandex to patrol the streets in a manner reminiscent of The Watchmen.

The Novel Ender’s Game written in 1985 is one of the best-known novels by Orson Scott Card. In the book, mankind has barely survived two invasions by an insectoid alien race called “buggers”.  In order to find and train the eventual commander for the anticipated third invasion, the world’s most talented children, including the extraordinary Ender Wiggin, are taken into a training center known as the Battle School.  It turns out that all of the Battle simulations that Ender has been going through were real battles taking place in bugger space as the human ships sent long ago reached their destinations.  He discovers that he is responsible for completly wiping out this alien race.

The website io9 has an article about the book being adapted to a Comic with the help of Orson Scott Card.