new tellos

okay...

as i announced a couple of weeks ago, i've been both privileged and thrilled to be working with motionworks entertainment on what are sure to be a trio of very cool--very different!--motion comics!
though we're not completely locked-in on release dates at the moment, the first will be an all-new project called katie greaven and the engine-men, a steampunk adventure by myself and the legendary bret blevins!
second up--and scheduled for it's debut on halloween--will be an all-new, done-in-one perhapanauts yarn that craig and i are working on as we speak, utilizing the new motion works elements to make it more fun...and more scary!!
and finally, there will be an all-new tellos tale--the first of many, hopefully--which will be the first new tellos story in quite some time~! many people have been asking for more tellos and i think that this is a great opportunity to ease everybody--myself included--back into that fantastical, frenetic world!

ah, but who to draw it, who to draw it...?

back when i first started working on the marvel super hero squad book--about a year or so ago--i quickly fell in love with the wild, wacky, animated style of the artist, leonel castellani, and though i was trying to write the silliest stuff i could imagine, found that leonel always brought a little bit more to every panel, in the body language, the facial expressions, added props and clever comedy slipped into the background. his highly animated characters revealed a love of all things warner bros. looney toons and harvey kurtzman's early mad magazine strips! when we first e-mailed one another, the volley of back-and-forth's were voluminous and we went on for days 'talking' about the things we dug and how much fun we were having working together...you can see where i'm going with this, can't you?

in one of those emails, leo told me how much he had loved tellos and especially, of course, mike's designs and artwork on it. he had been moved, he told me, several years ago to do a drawing of our two main characters, koj and jarek, and send it to mike and said that he had been both nervous and amazed when mike replied, telling him how much he liked it and how much he liked leonel's work! (but wee all know that that's what mike did--always encouraging, always so generous...) leo sent me the pin-up and i always thought that he would do a nice job on the characters...




i won't say that returning to tellos has been easy for me.
i have sat down a number of times over the past almost 5 years and found that it wasn't there, i wasn't ready.
i know mike would want tellos to go on--hell, we talked about it! and matt and i have talked about it a million times since...
the problem was that i needed to ease back in slowly, nothing too heavy, nothing too emotional. something light and fun and silly. and so, for this first tellos outing, i went to hawke and rikk--my go-to guys when i need something funny--and that made it easier, they made it easier...

and, immediately, leonel was the first guy i thought of!

though dublin and alexis were holding out for a big name, a comics legend, to re-launch the world of tellos--and we talked to quite a few--i had my heart set on leonel and, once he could breath again after i asked him, he dashed off these character sketches which i quickly sent to alexis and dublin and he had the job instantly...
i think you can see why.













stay tuned and i'll keep you posted on, not only the progress of this all-new tellos project, but all of the motionworks coolness coming your way!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

oh, and i should remind you again--

craig and i will be at the BOSTON COMIC CON this coming weekend, april 30-may 1







and i will be hanging out and signing on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, may 7th at




with cartoonist/satirist/humorist/volleyball virtuoso FRED HEMBECK~!
that will be fun!


gotta go~!
smell ya later!
todd