Tuesday 24 February 2009

Random Roundup Recovery


Well, even though I'm back a work, I still feel too grotty to hunch over and get any art done. The office exacerbates my congested nose mightily, which isn't half so bad outside of those walls. I've been lucky not to have a runny nose as all the congestion has stuck in my nose and all the elephantine blowing I've been doing has made my ears pop considerably and also damaged a sinus. After very slight occasional traces of blood when I blow my nose, my left cheek right under my eye is pretty tender, presumably due to some sinus problem. Even coughing hurts, not in my throat but under my eye!


So, while I should have finished Rol's strip by now, here's the last panel I completed, one of the Tippex rescue jobs. I'm eager to get cracking on with this but that probably won't be for a while.


Also above is Zatanna from Smallville, looking pretty accurate. New episodes resume next week, with my long-awaited Legion episode two weeks later, hoorah!!


Heroes was also back last night and started off fairly strong, with Nathan Petrelli playing Civil War-era Tony Stark. Peter's powers are slightly altered so when Hiro inevitably regains his powers, hopefully he won't have to push one out to activate them. Pushing Dairzee's Bryan Fuller has indeed rejoined the show, replacing Jeph Loeb who's still involved in the current episodes. A running mystery is bound to be "Who is Rebel?" and apparently the producers have said that there are 9 obvious choices. I just hope it's not bloody Micah, whose main trick is communicating with machinery so he could quite easily be Rebel.


With very little in the schedules to entertain me when I was vegging out in front of the TV, I ended up watching the Wes Craven werewolf movie cursed. I recall the trailer being some angsty Twilight-looking thing but it's actually an enjoyable piece off fluff, notable for a bewigged Michael Rosenbaum and a bequiffed (and closeted) Milo Ventitagliatelli off Heroes.


I also managed to get through the lush Dave Stevens book, which is obviously gorgeous to look at but also quite bittersweet by the end as the editors continue the book after his death. Lots of fun info though: how'd have believed that Darren McGavin was set to reprise his famous role in a Kolchak: the Night stalker cartoon?


Finally, Cinebook are one of the companies hit by Diamond's new policies and they're also receiving some flack for retouching some of the art to remove nudity and wotnot. I'd rather see the original art but as long as it's done well, I don't care. I'm still chomping at the bit for the third Aldebaran collection, as well as upcoming books like Alpha and Orbital. Let's hope Diamond doesn't end up wiping out half the industry again as it nearly did in the 90s during the ludicrous distributor wars.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Only saw the first Heroes ep, so you confused me with all this Rebel stuff. The usual funny Hiro bits, but Kring's dialogue was well dodgy, particularly in the painful Petrelli bros scenes. And how deaf & dumb were those guards on the plane? I'm hoping they crash land on the Lost island for a crossover.

I know Diamond have upped the sales cut off point, but banning naughty bits? eh what?

Nige Lowrey said...

Diamond didn't do the cuts, Cinebook did as they wanted to appeal to as wide an audience as possible outside of Europe, where nudity is less of a concern. I noticed in the indicia that Cinebook had done this but I had no idea of where the editing was done in IR$ (unless it was quite drastic drapery over naked bums) and suspected a bra may hve been drawn into Aldebaran, but at least it was a pretty bra that went with the look of the art. Nothing immediately jumps out at you, although I suppose the edits may be quite heavy if you see the originals.

Well, there's nothing much to spoil as it's a mystery but Rebel isn't a significant element yet, but may come to be (seconds of screen presence only). Fugitives is not as strong as Villains' opening episodes but still better than Season Two and intriguing enough with the heroes on the run idea. Sylar's great though, especially one sequence in Ep 2...

I know you're supposed to root for Peter but I wish Nathan'd just kill the whiny git. Even though he's misguided, I still like Nathan (well, more than the rest of his clan anyway).

Nige Lowrey said...

Actually, HRG makes sense as Rebel too but could be too obvious... start your theories once you've seen the episode!

Rol said...

That strip's looking far too good.

BTW, I had an idea for a 6 panel "lunchbreak" strip called First Man, basically about the First Man on Earth (and his better-spoken wife) discovering how to do things we take for granted. Like drinking milk, starting a fire, eating eggs, etc.

All I need to do now is write it.

Unknown said...

The one that always gets me is how they found out which animals were for milking. Trial and error I spose...

Nige Lowrey said...

Rol, I dunno how good the strip's looking. I wanted it to look like the MJ pages but it mostly looks like mynormal stuff except in a "can't-be-arsed-to-render" mood!

I also realised after starting inking that my decision to put coats over the blazers was stupid for two reasons.

1. We used to get into trouble if we were seen walking home without our blazers (as it looked bad on the school!) so we always stuffed ours in our bags and wors coats in the winter to get around having to look poncey.

2. Which is fun but when drawing these characters in coats, it loses the immediate schoolboy flavour. I've worked around it for later scenes but I'm also not sure whether to go in and make the blazers all solid black or to keep them as they are. The sole reason for keeping them as they are is that the difference between the schoolkids in the foregound (with shadowed blazers) and the lighter figures in the background evokes an illusion of depth.

I may post a full page soon to see what you think.