Perhapablog

Thursday, November 27, 2008

perhapablog 500...and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

okay...

first off, HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYBODY!!



i hope that you all are able to spend time with family and friends and are able to take a moment to think of all of the things we should be thankful for.
i am, of course, thankful for all of you. thank you for your friendship and your patience, your kindness and, well, for showing up here every week so that i don't feel like i'm just sending messages off into the ether. i appreciate each and every one of you--thank you.
sharon and i will be splitting our time between our families today--early dinner with her family, later on with mine. we are just thankful that they don't live so far away from each other...
(jake will be waiting for us at uncle jeff's and watchin' football with his grampa...)

our pal, russ burlingame--you know, the guy who does the "what's perhapanin'?" column as a follow-up to each issue--gave us a very pretty write up over at associated contentin his latest piece entitled
The Best and Worst Comics of 2008

"If there's one book that deserves its audience to triple next year, it's Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau's The Perhapanauts (Image Comics). A smart, funny book about a group of supernatural characters (a bigfoot, a ghost, a chupacabra, a mothman and more) who investigate paranormal phenomena for the government is part Hellboy, part NBC's Chuck. Each member of its sprawling supporting cast has their own subplot, yet none of them overpower the narrative that's been chugging right along since these characters were first featured in a pair of Dark Horse Comics miniseries half a decade ago."

the rest of the list featured a bunch of other books that aren't the perhapanauts, so i didn't copy the whole thing.

if you'd like to check out the rest of this finely written and compelling article. i hope this link works...

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1247764/the_best_and_worst_comics_of_2008.html?cat=38

thanks, russ!

as a little thanksgiving gift, i thought i'd give you a glimpse of some of the gorgeous covers we have lined up for the next few issues, fantastic covers done by some really talented friends of ours.
take a look.


here's an early version of one of the covers to the halloween issue (perhapanauts no.6, out sometime early next year) by aussie artist, matt pott. craig has the finished one, but i couldn't find my jpg of it anywhere.

check out more of matt's kooky, quirky art at www.mattpott.com



our pal, francesco francavilla--artist on such great books as the black coat, frazetta's dracula meets the wolfman, zorro--is such a super nice guy and was kind enough to paint this spine-tingling cover for an upcoming issue!

and, of course, you can see more of francesco's work at www.francescofrancavilla.com



and here's the cover to perhapanauts no.7, a high adventure 'haps story told from a totally different point of view!
it's the origin of the cricket!--and bedlam will never be the same...!

oh, yeah, and craig did this.
see more of his art blah, blah, blah at www.craigrousseau.com



and by special request from the leaf--though, at press time not yet completely rico-ized--here is matt's cover--inked by christian--that will accompany their interiors on a back-up story in perhapanauts 7. i'm not sure who's good, who's bad, and who's ugly, but i think the whole thing is just beautiful!


"five for friday"
men of letters

sure we remember chris claremont, john byrne, and terry austin on the classic x-men, but what award-winning letterer made that title look so crisp? it's all about giving a little thanks for those unsung heroes of the balloons and fonts--the letterers!

1. who was the letterer on byrne and claremont's uncanny x-men?

2. on walt simonson's thor?

3. on the sandman?

4. on dave sim's cerebus?

5. what is the art of (hand) lettering called?

bonus: name three other comic book letterers with distinctive styles.




so there's your 500th perhapablog--hope you liked it!
i did.
have a great thanksgiving, a great weekend, and
smell ya later!
todd

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Het Todd,
Happy Thanksgiving to you & everyone who stops by.

Is that your hand turkey drawing?
I haven't drawn one of those since 3rd grade.

Very cool write up by Russ. Those covers look so great, I can hardly wait for them. It's awesome that Francavilla did a 'haps cover. I'll check out Matt's page later. So far, I'm liking how his halloween cover is looking.

Best to you & yours.

Matt Wieringo said...

I'm going to guess at these without cheating so don't laugh at me.

1. Tom Orzechowski (I know I butchered that.) He was the first and, really, only letterer whose work I could recognize at a glance.

2. Rosen?

3. No idea.

4. Gerhart?

5. Calligraphy?

BONUS. John Workman...umm...damn!

I recently read a roundtable discussion with a bunch of comic book letterers in one of the Two Morrows pubs and I'd left it for last because I really wasn't interested. Boy, was I an idiot. After the first page, I was mesmerized. These guys love their work and it's a wonderful craft that deserves to be preserved. Computer lettering is slowly doing away with it but, like inking, it's so much better when done by hand. A big pat on the back to Todd for giving letterers the attention they deserve.

Dewback13 said...

Happy Thanksgiving and Gratz on blog numba 500!

Sandman was Todd Klein. In fact, next to this blog, Peter David's and his are Blogs that Gretchen and I MUST check multiple times each week.

Not only does he talk about lettering and have some amazing hand lettered prints, there are some great recipes to try out too!
If you like comics, food or just plain cool people check out his site...
http://kleinletters.com/Blog/

On a side note to help ring in the holidays I decided that we needed to listen to "Christmas in the Stars," the Star Wars Holiday album. As always it was fun and festive. Following it up with the Star Wars Holiday Special from '78... not what I remembered. In fact I think my 3 and 7 year old children thought they were being punished. A four armed Harvey Korman in drag??? Instead of trying to finish that we watched "The Secret of Nimh."

~ Wendy ~ said...

Happy Thanksgiving Todd, Sharon, Craig, Jake and everyone else too!! I hope one and all are full of turkey with the trimmings and now resting and napping or just happily chillin' - Love the covers!! Nice write up too, though truth be told - would we expect anything else - after all, it IS the Perhaps, right?!!
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

~ Wendy ~ said...

oops - and CONGRATS!! on your 500th blog posting.. Wah - hooo!!

Christian D. Leaf said...

A very happy big 5-0-0, Todd! Love Francesco's cover. It's so nice it hurts my feelings.

Happy Turkey Day to one and all. Here's to indigestion and elastic waistbands!

Leanne said...

Happy 500th, Todd!

Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. I ate too much. But it was good eatin' so I can't really complain.

I'm really loving all of these new 'Haps covers! Francesco's reminds me of Hammer's The Abominable Snowman film. Love it. And I can't wait to see Matt and Christian's cover Rico-ized-- it looks fantastic!

Cooper said...

Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day!

Brian said...

First and foremost congrats on post No. 500 and I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

Mine was filled with food, family and pie and I could not be happier or more full . . . of pie. (Say, doesn't a certain member of the 'Haps like pie.)

I love, love, love that Matt Pott cover and I will definitely be checking out his page.

As for the five for Friday, I only have Calligraphy.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Brian - A Cricket, but not The Criket.

Anonymous said...

Man! What a post!!! So much awesome stuff!!!

Thank you for putting a spotlight on Letterers! Nobody realizes if lettering is good because it just blends in, but everyone sees bad lettering!

1. Tom (had to look up how to spell his last name) Orzechowski

2. My favorite (sorry Artie) John Workman!

3. No idea... was it the same throughout the series?

4. Dave Sims?

5. Lettering?

Bonus : Artie Simek, Nate Peikos, and Russ Wooton (although I think he's got to thank Workman for a lot)

Unknown said...

Well Thankyou, it was certainly a Pleasure to do something for this Wonderful Book and to finally work alongside Todd in some capacity after being a fan for so long.

Alot of Love went into the Finished cover and I certainly hope its not the last time I work with the Perhapanauts!

I have the completed cover on my website and hopefully Todd will post it up here at some point closer to the release. :)

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