Pencils by Tommy PattersonInks by Michael Babinski
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
New Project
As we're go for the launch of 2010, I thought I'd share a quick peek from one of the new things I'm working on:
Pencils by Tommy Patterson
Inks by Michael Babinski
Pencils by Tommy PattersonInks by Michael Babinski
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
My annual Halloween post.
It's been a while since I posted and now that we're approaching Halloween I thought I would toss up my essay on what really scares me again as I have the last two years. It's gotten good play in the past and I think it's a fun read.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Language Warning. I get a bit potty mouth in this one.
Back in 2005, I was asked to write a quick essay for the horror blog Dark, But Shining by Newsarama blogger and all-around good guy Kevin Melrose. The piece was to be included in a series of essays by different authors describing what REALLY scares them.
Last year I jetted out to Hollywood and did a round of meet-and-greets with a few movie types and I told this story in one of the meetings. When I finished, the veep in charge of story told me, "Go home and write that one. That's fucking creepy." I've got the bones of the story down, just need to find the time to write it.
Here it is -- PEERING INTO DARKNESS:
When was the last time you were really scared?
I mean really fucking scared.
Not the quick adrenaline shock that comes when you slam on the brakes and narrowly avoid rear-ending the car in front of you, but that sick-to-your stomach, creeping feeling where you are absolutely certain that something awful and vile is going to happen.
True story –
In the year after college I worked for an apartment management company renting units and dealing with tenants. An older woman, the mother of one of the tenants, came in late one dreary September day and needed to get into her son’s apartment. We hadn’t received a rent payment in almost two months and we were fairly certain the guy had just disappeared and abandoned his apartment. The mother was there to pay the balance, remove some of his belongings, and sublet the apartment.
My boss, Steve, wanted me to go over and unlock the door and stay on site until the woman had finished and lock up behind her.
“Go now, man. You gotta see this guy’s apartment,” Steve said. The mother had to fill out some paperwork and I would have a good ten or fifteen minutes at the guy’s apartment by myself.
The guy – I’ll call him “Max,” as I’ve long since forgotten his real name – lived in a basement studio apartment right across from the laundry room of a small, older building with nine units.
Max was a LARGE guy. By large I mean HUGE – easily 6’6” or 6’7” and a flabby 250 lbs. Max was also a very odd guy. He liked to pace between the parked cars in the small lot behind the building for hours, and had taken to sticking his head out his door and glaring at each tenant as they tried to do their laundry. One tenant was certain Max was holding a hammer as he watched her sort her whites from her colors. Most tenants in the building began frequenting Laundromats.
Max’s studio apartment was the only one in the building located below ground, and it had no windows. None. No source of natural light. So, when I pushed open the door to Apartment A, the room was completely dark except for the light spilling in from the hall. The switch by the door failed to produce light of any kind, but I could make out a standing lamp next to a mattress resting on the floor. I stepped over some scattered magazines or newspapers and turned on the light.
And there I was, standing in a room covered from floor to ceiling in images of bondage, S&M and gruesome torture.
Neat stacks of cheap leather-fetish porn mags were against one wall, each about two and a half feet high. More magazines were scattered across the floor along with hundreds of pages torn from other issues and tossed casually around the room, and in piles so deep you couldn’t tell the color of the carpet.
Scotch-taped to every inch of wall was Max’s original artwork, his twisted creativity on display, where he could really amp up the action from the magazine photos and manipulate and control his sadistic fantasies.
A pencil-and-charcoal drawing of a blindfolded woman lashed across a bed of nails.
A woman nailed to a cross and hung upside down, done in marker.
He’d saved the most graphic of the images for the wall and ceiling above his bed. These were the last images Max would see when he went to sleep and the first thing he’d gaze upon when he woke up.
A crayon drawing of a woman with hundreds of small cuts across her back tied to a rack and suspended above a pit of fire.
Women with spikes through their breasts and with flesh pierced by dozens of hooks.
This isn’t what freaked me out. The explicit stuff didn’t really get to me. It was two other things, really.
One was the hammer lying next to the door, sitting there, waiting for Max to take it in hand to defend against perceived threats outside in the hallway.
The other was the small, child-like handwriting underneath the most prominently displayed and most violent series of pictures.
The writing on each picture read, simply: “SARAH.”
That really fucking got to me.
Sarah was someone’s daughter. Maybe someone’s sister or girlfriend. Someone’s mother, perhaps.
Max had decided that she suited his taste.
He knew exactly with whom he wanted to dance. These weren’t random, sick thoughts on paper. The pictures were simply a blueprint for what he really wanted to do to Sarah. She probably had no idea that Max was watching and plotting. I knew damn well that she had no idea her naked image was plastered on Max’s wall, or she would have run to the cops as fast as she could.
At that point, I could feel Max there in the room with me. His presence filled the small space. A door closed loudly somewhere upstairs and I got the fuck out of there, barely remembering to lock up behind me.
I ran into Max’s mother coming down the stairs and had to descend to the basement once again to open the door for her. Before going inside she turned, smiled, and said, “I’ll be just a minute. I only need to get some clothes. I don’t like to be in there.” She knew about her son. She understood when I told her I’d wait out in the hall.
As it turned out, Max had been committed to an institution and she was taking him some of his things. I hope he’s still there rotting, frankly, and that Sarah is far away.
The apartment was soon cleaned of the filth and closed up never to be rented again.
As for Sarah, I never did find out who she was exactly. I checked the tenant list for the building and didn’t find a Sarah listed. She’ll never know how close she came to, what I believe, was a monster.
When it comes to movies that really creep me out, it’s not the flicks with demons or monsters or undead stalkers in hockey masks that get to me. It’s always the film where the human mind is the real villain that scares me. Give me a well-done and cliché-free serial killer movie, like The Silence of the Lambs or Seven. I think it’s because of my short time in Max’s apartment, where I peeked into the window of a really dark and twisted psyche. I found that, for myself, the scariest of monsters lives inside the disturbed mind
--------------------------------------------------------------
Language Warning. I get a bit potty mouth in this one.
Back in 2005, I was asked to write a quick essay for the horror blog Dark, But Shining by Newsarama blogger and all-around good guy Kevin Melrose. The piece was to be included in a series of essays by different authors describing what REALLY scares them.
Last year I jetted out to Hollywood and did a round of meet-and-greets with a few movie types and I told this story in one of the meetings. When I finished, the veep in charge of story told me, "Go home and write that one. That's fucking creepy." I've got the bones of the story down, just need to find the time to write it.
Here it is -- PEERING INTO DARKNESS:
When was the last time you were really scared?
I mean really fucking scared.
Not the quick adrenaline shock that comes when you slam on the brakes and narrowly avoid rear-ending the car in front of you, but that sick-to-your stomach, creeping feeling where you are absolutely certain that something awful and vile is going to happen.
True story –
In the year after college I worked for an apartment management company renting units and dealing with tenants. An older woman, the mother of one of the tenants, came in late one dreary September day and needed to get into her son’s apartment. We hadn’t received a rent payment in almost two months and we were fairly certain the guy had just disappeared and abandoned his apartment. The mother was there to pay the balance, remove some of his belongings, and sublet the apartment.
My boss, Steve, wanted me to go over and unlock the door and stay on site until the woman had finished and lock up behind her.
“Go now, man. You gotta see this guy’s apartment,” Steve said. The mother had to fill out some paperwork and I would have a good ten or fifteen minutes at the guy’s apartment by myself.
The guy – I’ll call him “Max,” as I’ve long since forgotten his real name – lived in a basement studio apartment right across from the laundry room of a small, older building with nine units.
Max was a LARGE guy. By large I mean HUGE – easily 6’6” or 6’7” and a flabby 250 lbs. Max was also a very odd guy. He liked to pace between the parked cars in the small lot behind the building for hours, and had taken to sticking his head out his door and glaring at each tenant as they tried to do their laundry. One tenant was certain Max was holding a hammer as he watched her sort her whites from her colors. Most tenants in the building began frequenting Laundromats.
Max’s studio apartment was the only one in the building located below ground, and it had no windows. None. No source of natural light. So, when I pushed open the door to Apartment A, the room was completely dark except for the light spilling in from the hall. The switch by the door failed to produce light of any kind, but I could make out a standing lamp next to a mattress resting on the floor. I stepped over some scattered magazines or newspapers and turned on the light.
And there I was, standing in a room covered from floor to ceiling in images of bondage, S&M and gruesome torture.
Neat stacks of cheap leather-fetish porn mags were against one wall, each about two and a half feet high. More magazines were scattered across the floor along with hundreds of pages torn from other issues and tossed casually around the room, and in piles so deep you couldn’t tell the color of the carpet.
Scotch-taped to every inch of wall was Max’s original artwork, his twisted creativity on display, where he could really amp up the action from the magazine photos and manipulate and control his sadistic fantasies.
A pencil-and-charcoal drawing of a blindfolded woman lashed across a bed of nails.
A woman nailed to a cross and hung upside down, done in marker.
He’d saved the most graphic of the images for the wall and ceiling above his bed. These were the last images Max would see when he went to sleep and the first thing he’d gaze upon when he woke up.
A crayon drawing of a woman with hundreds of small cuts across her back tied to a rack and suspended above a pit of fire.
Women with spikes through their breasts and with flesh pierced by dozens of hooks.
This isn’t what freaked me out. The explicit stuff didn’t really get to me. It was two other things, really.
One was the hammer lying next to the door, sitting there, waiting for Max to take it in hand to defend against perceived threats outside in the hallway.
The other was the small, child-like handwriting underneath the most prominently displayed and most violent series of pictures.
The writing on each picture read, simply: “SARAH.”
That really fucking got to me.
Sarah was someone’s daughter. Maybe someone’s sister or girlfriend. Someone’s mother, perhaps.
Max had decided that she suited his taste.
He knew exactly with whom he wanted to dance. These weren’t random, sick thoughts on paper. The pictures were simply a blueprint for what he really wanted to do to Sarah. She probably had no idea that Max was watching and plotting. I knew damn well that she had no idea her naked image was plastered on Max’s wall, or she would have run to the cops as fast as she could.
At that point, I could feel Max there in the room with me. His presence filled the small space. A door closed loudly somewhere upstairs and I got the fuck out of there, barely remembering to lock up behind me.
I ran into Max’s mother coming down the stairs and had to descend to the basement once again to open the door for her. Before going inside she turned, smiled, and said, “I’ll be just a minute. I only need to get some clothes. I don’t like to be in there.” She knew about her son. She understood when I told her I’d wait out in the hall.
As it turned out, Max had been committed to an institution and she was taking him some of his things. I hope he’s still there rotting, frankly, and that Sarah is far away.
The apartment was soon cleaned of the filth and closed up never to be rented again.
As for Sarah, I never did find out who she was exactly. I checked the tenant list for the building and didn’t find a Sarah listed. She’ll never know how close she came to, what I believe, was a monster.
When it comes to movies that really creep me out, it’s not the flicks with demons or monsters or undead stalkers in hockey masks that get to me. It’s always the film where the human mind is the real villain that scares me. Give me a well-done and cliché-free serial killer movie, like The Silence of the Lambs or Seven. I think it’s because of my short time in Max’s apartment, where I peeked into the window of a really dark and twisted psyche. I found that, for myself, the scariest of monsters lives inside the disturbed mind
Monday, July 20, 2009
San Diego plans.
Off to San Diego and Comicon on Wednesday.I will be camped out with LOST SQUAD artist Alan Robinson at Exhibitor's Table C04. We are right around aisle 600 tucked in the back corner of the convention hall.
The group I'm hanging with are listed as "Friends of Ed".
We'll have a few trades for sale along with singles issues of LOST SQUAD and FREAKSHOW, original artwork, and Alan will be slinging sketches as well.
It's Alan's first time at Comicon so stop on bye, say hello, and watch his eyes bug out at the sheer madness of it all.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
TRIGGER HIPPIE
I'm a sucker for a crime story and I've had this one percolating in my head for a while.
It's called TRIGGER HIPPIE. I nicked the title from a MORCHEEBA song, but it fits.
Here's the idea --
Meet Paul "Trig" Trigger -- lover of women, fish tacos, and a good spliff.
Trig does odd "jobs" for a specific criminal clientele, big time pot farmers, taking care of a laundry list of unpleasant duties. In exchange he gets a little walking around money and enough smoke to make it through the week.
Only problem: Trig is a pacifist.
Where an old school mook would rough up a deadbeat dealer, Trig has to cajole, beg, outsmart, and outhustle people. With his charm and wit, he just manages to keep the peace without anyone resorting to violence.
But, when a hottie with a bag full of cash takes off to spite a small time dealer, Trig and his new Samoan bodyguard Lars go looking for her before she ends up getting hurt - or worse. Things really go south when her body turns up and the money is missing and Trig starts looking good to LA Homicide for the deed. Being firmly in the crosshairs of a murder investigation is enough to turn this peace-lovin' slacker into a bad ass mofo looking for a little payback.
Trig finds that for a pacifist, he's got a mean right cross.
It's two parts Raymond Chandler and one part Cheech and Chong peppered with a little Tarantino humor and an oddball cast.
Artwork is by the man-with-the-skilled-drawing-hand Ulises Carpintero.
Again, this another project we hope to drop in San Diego.
Feedback welcome.
It's called TRIGGER HIPPIE. I nicked the title from a MORCHEEBA song, but it fits.
Here's the idea --
Meet Paul "Trig" Trigger -- lover of women, fish tacos, and a good spliff.
Trig does odd "jobs" for a specific criminal clientele, big time pot farmers, taking care of a laundry list of unpleasant duties. In exchange he gets a little walking around money and enough smoke to make it through the week.
Only problem: Trig is a pacifist.
Where an old school mook would rough up a deadbeat dealer, Trig has to cajole, beg, outsmart, and outhustle people. With his charm and wit, he just manages to keep the peace without anyone resorting to violence.
But, when a hottie with a bag full of cash takes off to spite a small time dealer, Trig and his new Samoan bodyguard Lars go looking for her before she ends up getting hurt - or worse. Things really go south when her body turns up and the money is missing and Trig starts looking good to LA Homicide for the deed. Being firmly in the crosshairs of a murder investigation is enough to turn this peace-lovin' slacker into a bad ass mofo looking for a little payback.
Trig finds that for a pacifist, he's got a mean right cross.
It's two parts Raymond Chandler and one part Cheech and Chong peppered with a little Tarantino humor and an oddball cast.
Artwork is by the man-with-the-skilled-drawing-hand Ulises Carpintero.
Again, this another project we hope to drop in San Diego.
Feedback welcome.
Monday, May 04, 2009
CRESCENT CITY
As promised, here's a glimpse of one of my new projects - CRESCENT CITY.
Here's the quick pitch:
The Musso crime family, kings of New Orleans, is in trouble.
The competition is moving in on their corners, a shipment of uncut product is missing and the new hotshot District Attorney is working the Grand Jury for indictments of the mob’s top people.
But, worst of all, the family shaman has lost his mojo.
Antony Musso is the family voodoo priest and it seems that his spells and rituals may not be as potent as they once were. A terribly superstitious lot, the Musso family has run New Orleans’ crime rackets since the mid 1800’s using intimidation, business savvy, violence and voodoo. From protection spells to calls for good luck to the blackest of arts - voodoo murder - the family has employed the occult to further their fortunes.
Now, someone has whacked Antony’s Uncle Nicky using a bit of the old school juju and the top suspect is someone who’s been at the bottom of the Gulf for 30 years. If Antony can’t protect the family from the forces aligned against them, the family’s karmic debt – years of murder and magic – is going to come due with one hell of a vig on top!
Artwork is by the amazing Damian Couceiro. Here's a preview of the first six penciled pages.
We're buttoning the extended pitch down and polishing the project bible to take this out to publishers. You can see by the artwork if we fail to get a publisher it'll be because the writing stinks. Damian's stuff is fantastic!
Drop me some feedback,
This will be a part of my creative neutron bomb I plan to unleash on San Diego Comicon. Run for the fallout shelters, editors!
More project previews soon.
Here's the quick pitch:
The Musso crime family, kings of New Orleans, is in trouble.
The competition is moving in on their corners, a shipment of uncut product is missing and the new hotshot District Attorney is working the Grand Jury for indictments of the mob’s top people.
But, worst of all, the family shaman has lost his mojo.
Antony Musso is the family voodoo priest and it seems that his spells and rituals may not be as potent as they once were. A terribly superstitious lot, the Musso family has run New Orleans’ crime rackets since the mid 1800’s using intimidation, business savvy, violence and voodoo. From protection spells to calls for good luck to the blackest of arts - voodoo murder - the family has employed the occult to further their fortunes.
Now, someone has whacked Antony’s Uncle Nicky using a bit of the old school juju and the top suspect is someone who’s been at the bottom of the Gulf for 30 years. If Antony can’t protect the family from the forces aligned against them, the family’s karmic debt – years of murder and magic – is going to come due with one hell of a vig on top!
Artwork is by the amazing Damian Couceiro. Here's a preview of the first six penciled pages.
We're buttoning the extended pitch down and polishing the project bible to take this out to publishers. You can see by the artwork if we fail to get a publisher it'll be because the writing stinks. Damian's stuff is fantastic!
Drop me some feedback,
This will be a part of my creative neutron bomb I plan to unleash on San Diego Comicon. Run for the fallout shelters, editors!
More project previews soon.
Friday, May 01, 2009
"So where the hell are you???"
That's from an email I received. I'm touched that people still care.
So where the hell are we?
Here's what I know -- Alan and I have severed our relationship with Devil's Due. We'll no longer be putting out any LOST SQUAD comics through them. All rights have reverted to us going forward.
I want to thank Josh Blaylock and Sam Wells and everyone at Devil's Due for all their support and hard work.
We are looking at other opportunities. That's about all I want to say on that for now.
Rogue Pictures still holds the option for a LOST SQUAD movie until early 2010. At this point, I have no news on that front. The development process has been hampered by the writer's strike and by Universal's sale of the company to Relativity Media. Things could still change and the ball could get rolling, but it's not looking good.
I'm sure we will be shopping the project around if rights revert back to us, but it would be great if things got rolling with Rogue Pictures.
So where the hell are we going?
I have a TON of new projects in the works including a horror idea with Alan Robinson.
Artwork has been steadily coming in and I should have at least FIVE new projects to pitch for San Diego.
In the next week or so I will toss up some sample art for the new projects just to give a taste.
So thanks for hanging with us. There will be more artwork and news to gander at both LOST SQUAD related and info about new projects.
So keep checking back. More posting as time allows.
So where the hell are we?
Here's what I know -- Alan and I have severed our relationship with Devil's Due. We'll no longer be putting out any LOST SQUAD comics through them. All rights have reverted to us going forward.
I want to thank Josh Blaylock and Sam Wells and everyone at Devil's Due for all their support and hard work.
We are looking at other opportunities. That's about all I want to say on that for now.
Rogue Pictures still holds the option for a LOST SQUAD movie until early 2010. At this point, I have no news on that front. The development process has been hampered by the writer's strike and by Universal's sale of the company to Relativity Media. Things could still change and the ball could get rolling, but it's not looking good.
I'm sure we will be shopping the project around if rights revert back to us, but it would be great if things got rolling with Rogue Pictures.
So where the hell are we going?
I have a TON of new projects in the works including a horror idea with Alan Robinson.
Artwork has been steadily coming in and I should have at least FIVE new projects to pitch for San Diego.
In the next week or so I will toss up some sample art for the new projects just to give a taste.
So thanks for hanging with us. There will be more artwork and news to gander at both LOST SQUAD related and info about new projects.
So keep checking back. More posting as time allows.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
NYCC - Robot 6
The ROBOT 6 blog over at the Comic Book Resources site has picked up on my pal Neil Kleid's Lost Squad recommendation. I slipped him a copy of the trade on Sunday. Thanks for the shout out Neil and Robot 6! Click over and check out the blog.If you're new to the site, take a look around and if you're looking for a copy of the trade, click on the Amazon button I've set up over on the sidebar.
Tell 'em I sent ya'!
A longer con report is forthcoming starring Tony Lee, Kody Chamberlain, Neil, and other good pals. Special guests -- Jon Stewart, Ethan Hawke and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton.
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
New York Comic Con
Thursday, I'll be jetting to New York for Comic Con. My first time in NYC in forever. I won't be setting up anywhere and I'm not on the signing schedule at the Devil's Due booth at the moment. I'll update that if something happens, but for now it's all about networking.I will be the guy stalking editors, pimping artwork, and hanging with friends. I am also looking for an artist for a new project. I've had to amicably part ways with an artist who wasn't able to put the time on the gig as he's busy doing work for BOTH Marvel and DC. So, if you're an artist looking to do some darker capes stuff (yeah, I know. It's capes), then drop me a line at mailcall {[at]} lost-squad dot com. I'd love to see who's paying attention to this blog.
If you see me, stop me and say hello. I'll be the guy trying to ride the coattails of Tony Lee and Kody Chamberlain.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
An interesting take on WATCHMEN
Here's a thought provoking essay from Jonah Goldberg over on the BIG HOLLYWOOD group blog dissecting where Alan Moore got it wrong in WATCHMEN. Good stuff even if you're political leanings don't swing that way.Don't miss the comments section with intelligent discussion and featuring comics' own Bill Willingham, James Hudnall and everyone's favorite "Mad Alaskan" (and Lost Squad letterer) Kel Nuttall.
Haven't posted much. Personal stuff going on that I'll relate to in a post shortly. December 2008 sucked. And, that's being kind.
Enough gloom, here's to a better 2009!
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