yeah...what?

okay...

i've spent most of the morning researching all of the various names that are used for bigfoot the world over (including the seemingly endless list of names that each and every northern american indian tribe has given him--and there are a LOT of them!) and was just getting ready to get to the real writing when i checked yahoo to see if tonight's LOST is the beginning of the reruns of the second season ('cause i came in late...my friend, sharon, gave me the first season for christmas and we watched it together and now i'm just dyin' to see what's in that hatch! that's how far outta the loop i am! i've been desperately avoiding articles and spoilers all season long and now i'm READY to get all caught up...)

anyway, i'm checking yahoo and i see this;

>This undated photo provided by the International Bird Rescue Research Center, shows an X-ray taken Sunday, May 21, 2006, of an injured duck with a broken wing. The International Bird Rescue Research Center in Cordelia. Calif., plans to raise funds with an unusual duck X-ray, which they say shows the clear image of what appears to be the face, or head, of an extraterrestrial alien in the bird's stomach. Unfortunately, the duck died quickly and quietly of its injuries. (AP Photo/International Bird Rescue Research Center, Marie Travers)<



yeah...

what?!?

that is just crazy freaky.

an alien in a duck?

of course, i'm sad that the duck died but now that he's dead, let's cut him open and take a look at the alien, huh?! that's what i wanna see! stop showing us x-rays and get to it!

also, do they start out by telling us that this is an undated photo and then telling us when it was taken...?

crazy.

(i bet we never see that alien.)

more tomorrow.
todd

back to the creepy stuff...

okay...

so for the past few weeks it seems i've been gushing over all the great guys who did pin-ups for us and i just can't tell ya what a rush it is for craig and me when we get to see other people's versions of our gang! we're still glowin' about them are still getting letters and 'e's from people telling us how cool they are!

this PAST week or so, however, the person who's been knockin' me out with some just AMAZING artwork is craig himself! as we finally get a chance to get rollin' on the second series, craig has been battin' out some AWESOME covers for the new series and though we are both very proud of the first series (as an introduction to the team and the concept), this new story turns everything up to 11! Story-wise, I'm STUNNED at what these characters are letting us put them through! (if the 'haps were to visit our reality tomorrow, i'm sure they'd come after us for the roller coaster ride that Second Chances has become...) and visually, well...craig's covers have left me speechless each and every one seemingly better than the last! how you doin' that, c?!

anyway, i'll be showin' 'em to ya over the next week or so--just gotta get the artist's approval before i do... : )

so that said, i wanna move onto one last thing...that i've always wanted this blog, this perhapablog, to be about YOU as much as it's about us and the comic. i wanted to reiterate that this could and should be more of an open forum for all of us than a place for me to babble on and on each week or so. in the past i've invited people to send in their scary tales and spooky stories of the paranormal or the unexplained. let me make sure that you know that this could also be a place to showcase some artwork as well--and it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be a pic of the perhapanauts (though we'd LOVE to see 'em!)! i have a young friend who was in a recent story structure and comics class with me and he promises that he's done his own perhapanauts strip that i can't wait to see (send it over, jj!) i'm looking for any kinda stories of weird, wild, unexplained stuff, so send it in and i'll put it up here!
i wanna be creeped out!

so that's my challange to you. stories you've heard, crazy stuff that's happened to you, to a friend, to a friend of a friend...

and here is a picture of my dog.



smell ya later!
todd

kevin nowlan

okay...

sorry for the delay, it was a looooong week.

but here we are.
needless to say, craig and i are hard at work on the next perhapanauts series (rico not so much, but we'll have stuff to him soon enough!) and we're almost 100% positively certain that it's gonna be tremendously better than the first one--and we were pretty happy with that! craig is batting out some amazing covers--they just keep getting better and better!--and i'm thrilled with the way these characters keep changing my story on me! they just keep asking for more!

okay, so, for those of you who didn't go over to craig's site last week and see the awesome job he did coloring kevin nowlan's pin-up, or to see the pin-up itself--well, you're a jerk. get over there! craig's site is waaaay cool!

but i felt a little gyped that i didn't get a chance to gush about what an amazing job kevin did and what a really nice guy he is.
i met kevin and his wife deann at a heroescon in charlotte about 4 or 5 years ago and was thrilled when i got to sit with them at dinner the first night there. we chatted and told stories and i did everything i could not to shift into drooling fanboy mode and i guess i did a pretty good job, 'cause when i 'e'd kevin to ask him if he'd do a pin-up for us, he didn't hang up. (yes, i know you can't hang up on an e-mail--i was just making a point.) anyway, he was kind enough to look at the books and then said that his schedule was loaded but that he would try to fit it in 'cause the book seemed fun.

well, he DID fit it in and all i can say is that craig and i were in jaw-dropping awe as first the sketch pencils came through and finally the inks and kevin made our own characters look new to us. i'd go on, but i'm realizing that the best way to show you is to show you...so here.







thank you, kevin! your perhapanauts have made these two fanboys very, very happy!

later~~
todd

guy's haps

okay...
sorry to make y'all wait so long--
i'd intended to post this saturday, but came down with a lousy cold and was busy just keeping myself upright and moving forward. better now.

and so where were we...? oh, yeah. craig posted kevin nowlan's beautiful perhapanauts piece over on his site--www.craigrousseau.com--we've come to the last of our pin-up parade.

and here it is, ladies, gentlemen, haps fans far and wide, i give you



guy davis!

i'm sure i don't have to read you guy's list of credits, but i'll tell you that i've loved his stuff since way back!
his run on sandman mystery theater alone would be enough as he masterfully brought 1930's new york to life in every issue, never skimping on detail or flavor, he sucked me into that world as no one else could! so too the klunky, wonky steam-punky world of the nevermen! his own marquis is an unsettling tale of dark deeds in darker times and his current work on the b.p.r.d. is what brings me back to that book month after month!
so i hope you can see that i'm a big guy davis fan!
but not as big a craig...
we actually fought over this, over who liked him more.
i said it was me and that was final...and then craig beat the snot outta me.
so craig's the bigger fan.
(y'happy now, ya big baby?)

anyway, craig and guy 'e' each other now and then and i've never even spoken to him, but thanks guy!
love whatcha did with our haps!

your #2 fan--
todd

ps. oh, and because i'm an ass i forgot to mention (in the first draft) that rico colored this bad boy!
sorry rico.

a guy thing

okay...

for those of you who don't know, craig has a blog of his own over at www.craigrousseau.com, and has posted the sweet kevin nowlan perhapanauts piece--colored masterfully by craig himself--over there! so head on over and check it out! and bookmark it while you're at it; craig's is a blog you should be checking out regularly anyway. he posts some pretty pictures over there and usually keeps everyone up-to-date with what he's doin'!

so with kevin's over at craig's and everyone here screaming for guy...

i'm gonna keep you in suspense and instead post this beautiful--and fun!--derek fridolfs pin-up!

what can i say about derek except that we owe him money...

a member of the tellos family from way back, derek has been so kind and patient and always ready to lend his beautiful inks to a bunch of the different tellos stories we did along the way. i say patient because derek--along with a handful of other friends (maybe they're not friends anymore...)--are on a list of people that mike and i owe money to that was promised us years ago by image. derek is one of those guys who LOVES comics, loves drawing, and loves to share his talents and experiences with kids and the community, doing programs and workshops on comics and drawing.

and so when we got the perhapanauts up and running, derek, out of nowhere, sent us this awesome pin-up! we loved it and wanted to include it in the trade, but had already promised those pages out to the other guys. so, as craig said, derek's will be the first in our second collection.

so we got that goin' for us.

it was colored by mark, but i don't know his last name.
derek?



next time: guy davis!

smell ya later!
todd

first blood

okay...

gotta be quick here 'cause i promised myself that i would just take a quick break from writing the insidious plot to the perhapanauts:second chances #1 to go on-line and check my 'e's. but here i am, throwin' down a blog and i really should be going...

anyway, a couple of things, not the least of which is that the first perhapanauts trade, first blood, is currently up on amazon dot com http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159307607X/sr=1-1/qid=1147231110/ref=sr_1_1/002-0872853-1037600?%5Fencoding=UTF8 for your amusement and pre-ordering fun! not that you shouldn't patronize your own local comic shops...but these DO make great gifts, so why not buy one from each?



as i've said, there's a buncha new stuff inside! not just the gorgeous pin-ups from nick cardy, guy davis, rich woodall and matt talbot, david williams, chris brunner, and yes, kevin nowlan, but an introduction and pin-up by mike wieringo, all new bedlam files (with secrets and surprises galore!) and the newly--and beautifully--colored early stories "7 months earlier" and "fiepick"!

and amazon is only asking 10 and change for it...?! oh, buy two!

okay, moving on...

i ran david antione williams pin-up last week without really giving him all the props i could 'cause i was racing. my apologies, dave. aside from a lot of card work and pieces in dc's who's who back in the day, david has done a considerable amount of work for warner bros. and is even more proud of his upcoming creator project, "hail".
here's his pin-up again, for those you you who may've missed it or have been dying to take another look at it again.
thanks david, for the pin-up and your patience.

and rico colored it.



more tomorrow--
todd

on with the show...

okay...

i said we were gonna showcase more of the incredible pin-ups that we (and rico) lined up for the trade and so here's another...

this one is by chris brunner. as with the one by david williams (a week or so ago...), this is another great rico get. rico and chris have worked together on a number of projects and, help me out here, rico--do you guys comprise the kickstand studios? i dunno. here's the loop. here's me.

we had wanted to include a sweet credits page in the trade to not only thank the guys who turned in such nice perhapa-pieces, but to also pimp 'em a little bit, list some credits and stuff like that. unfortunately we filled this baby so full of visual goodness that that page got squeezed out. here though, is what rico sent me for chris.

"Christopher Brunner worked on Batman Legends of the Dark Knight 172-176 and is currently working for Upper Deck, responsible for the design of their All Star Vinyl line."

check out that legends arch--you'll be glad you did! chris does a really nice batman and, in these times when the character has been totally lost in his own books (to me at least...) chris nailed the essence of the dark knight in body language alone. nice work!

and so here is chris's molly.
i have a soft spot for molly.
chris nailed that too.
beautiful!

thanks, chris!



thanks, everybody!
more in a day or two...
todd

scott weinstein and dreams come true

okay...

when i was a kid, waaaaay back when, i was fortunate enough to be sleeping over at a friend's house the night that saturday night live debuted. ordinarily, i wouldn't have stayed up to watch it, but because i was hangin' with kevin, we were instantly hooked. and continued to be for the next 5 years.
over the years, i've watched it pretty religiously, good times and bad, mostly for the comedy (especially when it was good), sometimes simply for nostalgiac reasons (which carried me through those...painful seasons). something about the show, to this day, evokes memories of that golden time when i was 13 years old--and belushi was god.

i met scott weinstein almost 10 years ago, introduced by a wonderfully funny girl i'd done a play with, when the two of them were interns on the show. overwhelmed by the fact that dani and i were getting to see a honest-to-god saturday night live dress rehearsal, i wasn't ready when mary ann raced up to me and excitedly (she was always excited, wasn't she scott?) shoved this wide-eyed guy at me telling me that his name was scott and he was a huge spider-man fan! we shook hands and talked a bit, but they had to rush off to get the show ready and i was still agog that i was actually in the building where all that magic had happened!
we lost touch.

here we are 10 years later and scott is still a huge spider-man fan and now a segment producer on the show! we got back in touch last year (thanks to scott!) and have not only become fast friends, but have begun working on a few writing projects together that i couldn't be more excited about! we have traded back and forth the typical books, cds, dvds, comics as we expand out common influences and introduce one another to stuff we might've missed.
plus, scott has been kind enough to score us some tickets to the show not once, but twice!
and i can't thank him enough.

last fall craig and i went down to nyc to see the eva longoria show and had an awesome time! it's amazing to watch the craft and coordination of the show's well-timed crew and scott showed us around the offices,, etc. afterwards. (we also got to go to the after-party which was cool 'cause we got to meet a lot of the writers who were more interested in our comics careers than in answering our questions about theirs...!) we had a great time!

last week, scott called me and told me that he could get tickets to last night's tom hanks show, would i wanna go? WOULD I WANNA GO?!?!? whadda you, kiddin?!? craig couldn't make it and my best mate and current boss (i guess) was practically drooling over the idea (i work with jeff doing carpentry sometimes and light construction), so i asked scott if i could bring him and he said sure!
we had a great time and with tom hanks, the red hot chili peppers as musical guests and the usual high energy of the cast, the show was a blast! the place was electric! i dunno how it looked at home, but we in the studio had a lotta fun!
thanks, scott! you da MAN!

i'll post more pin-ups tomorrow, but just wanted to jot down a little something while i'm still exhausted...

later~~
todd


(i was looking for an image from last night's show, but i'm just not that good at tracking that stuff down...)

rrrrrrrico rrrrrrenzi!

okay...

before we go any further with our "pin-ups on parade", i think this would be a good time to stop and give some solid props to our colorist extraordinaire, rico renzi. while rico didn't do the coloring on all of these magnificent pin-up pieces for our upcoming trade, he did do most of 'em! and, just as importantly, rico's the guy who lined most of these beautiful pictures up, asking several of his friends if they'd be interested in doing something for our book.
and we're thrilled that he has such talented friends...

but more of that later. this is about rico.

so more than doing all that, rico is the colorist on our book. when craig and i were putting this thing together, i naturally left the art choices to craig who, without too much deliberation, said that rico was our man.
now there are rare times when i'm writing that i actually surprise myself, many times when craig sends me the pencils that he surprises me, but when it comes to the colors it seems like rico ALWAYS surprises me! his color choices are incredibly unique, unconventionally vibrant...and deviously well-thought-out. rico not only sees the pictures, he sees the story; something very rare in colorists these days. he studies the script and uses his unique palette to add to the story that we're telling, utilizing color to bolster the suspense, the humor, the drama. he brings our gang to life in ways that no other artist could.

it might seem that i'm going on about color more than i should, but i think that it's one of the overlooked aspects of comic book storytelling. when it's done right, it can make your story sing. done wrong, it can actually destroy it. (i know, i've been there.) and rico, of course, makes it sing.

and just to give a couple examples of my favorite ricos; check out page 14 of perhapanauts 4. when craig drew it, it was scary. when rico colored it, it was terrifying! the dark browns and purples and reds all seem to be there just to make those bright yellow eyes burn! you can feel her, that half-bodied bitch, just hanging there in the air above arisa.
two pages back, i had asked, in the plot, for the aswang to screech down on arisa out of the dark, black shadows. rico knew better and lit up the background with orange, backlighting her to horrifying effect! genius!
another rico favorite of mine is the cover to perhapanauts 2. craig and i were just transfixed by the amazing choices/samples that rico sent over and when it was done...it's just brilliant! we love it so much, we're using it as our banner for upcoming shows (which >ahem< actually, rico is making for us too...)

anyway, just thought i'd take a mo' to point out our unsung rico. next time you finish reading another perhapanauts, take a second look through at what rico brought to it. great stuff!

more pin-ups next time!
todd

ladies and gentlemen...the fabulous nick cardy!

okay...

i am now and will always be a fan boy...

i love comics! i love the art, love the stories, love the characters, and especially, i love those people who have, do, and will entertain me with their talents, their dreams, their visions.

and i love nick cardy.

for those not familiar, nick drew teen titans, aquaman, bat lash, and brave and the bold in a series of impressive runs throughout the 60's and 70's. he is a cartoonist, an illustrator, an amazing storyteller (both as an artist and as a conversationalist) and he is now my friend.

i've written this before; about how mike and i met nick at heroescon back in '98. how we continued to hover around him and thank him for all the years of enjoyment he gave us with his wonderful, imaginative art. how we became fast friends and make it a point to (try to) take him to dinner whenever we'd see him at a show. we added craig to the mix in, when? 2000?

since then, nick and i chat on the phone from time to time and, with the commission of the perhapanauts pin-up you see below, at least three times a week. the conversation does not stay on comics for long. we talk about movies, history, life, relationships, dogs, ghosts, and everything. he has become a mentor to me and he's just a really great guy!

if you're smart you'll pick up the teen titans showcase (now on sale!) and see the fun and energy he puts into all his work, then and now!

thanks, nick!

this pin-up was, of course, colored by our incomparable rico renzi. i'll be talking more about him next time!

todd