WATCHMEN THE SERIES

February 5th, 2010

Watchmen 2

Wow that’s simply horrifying.

I can almost understand DC’s (or DiDio’s or whoever) idea of folding in another pocket universe of heroes. It worked well for them several times in the past.
The difference is that they bought that stuff out of probate and no one was putting Fawcett on a pedestal.

I can also understand a lot of writers and artist wishing that they could play in the Watchmen backyard and have it be published. It is the same as working on your childhood favorites like Batman or Spider-Man except that Watchmen has been a finite and closed system for twenty years.
It was also a bone of contention between Moore and DC. So all of this has elevated Watchmen to a different category in a lot of consumers as well as creators minds.

I think that if the individual creators (and DC) had the story’s best interest at heart when creating a new chapter it could work. I probably would not want to see prequels showing a happy functional super team if only because we all know how poorly it ends up. I don’t think that you could sustain that illusion especially through rose colored glasses. Considering how that is the mainstay for superhero comics I am also not sure how long a run of vignettes with glimpses into characters’ darker frailties could be sustained.

I guess I am on the same fence as when I heard that they were making a Watchmen movie in the first place. Hoping for a great adaption but fearing for the opposite.

HAPPY NEW YEAR/ROSEBOWL SHOW!

February 4th, 2010

I will exhibiting again at the upcoming “Comics and Collectibles” venue at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Febuary 14th. Happy new year!

More books, more sketches, same t-shirts!!

STUDENT PAINTING

January 28th, 2010

Here is a partially finished painting by one of my watercolor students. He has had six lessons in all. Not too bad.

SKETCHBOOK

January 22nd, 2010

And now a little Nick Fury sketch action.

SKETCHBOOK

January 19th, 2010

Here are some design sketches for some spot illos for a proposed sci-fi book.

WHO DOESN’T GET A LITTLE NERVOUS WHEN THE BEGINNING OF A SCARY MOVIE START HAPPENING?

January 12th, 2010

First the link.
Now the full article

By Ian O’Neill

A near-Earth object that could be human-made has just been discovered hurtling toward us. On Wednesday, the object called 2010 AL30 will fly by Earth at a distance of just 80,000 miles (130,000 kilometers). That’s only one-third of the way from here to the moon — that is, very close.

It will miss us, and if it did hit us, it wouldn’t do any damage anyway, but I managed to pick up on some chatter between planetary scientists and found out that the “asteroid,” or whatever it is, gives us a new standard: A 10-meter-wide (33-foot-wide) asteroid can be detected two days before it potentially hits Earth. A pretty useful warning, if you ask me.

Expert astronomers will be able to observe it shining with a brightness of a 14th-magnitude star (the approximate brightness of Pluto’s weak glow as seen from Earth) as it dashes through the constellations of Orion, Taurus, and Pisces. (Further details about the orbit of 2010 AL30 can be found on NASA’s Solar System Dynamics Web site).

What makes this near-Earth object, or NEO, special is that it has an orbital period of almost exactly one year. This fact has led some scientists to speculate that 2010 AL30 could be an artificial object and not an asteroid. After all, there’s a lot of space junk up there. There’s every possibility that it could be a spent rocket booster or some other chunk from a spacecraft.

But it could just be coincidence that the NEO has the same orbital period as Earth; it might just be another asteroid.

According to Alan W. Harris, senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute, apart from 2010 AL30’s coincidental orbital period, there is nothing else to suggest it’s anything other than a naturally occurring near-Earth asteroid.

“[2010 AL30 is] unlikely to be artificial, its orbit doesn’t resemble any useful spacecraft trajectory, and its encounter velocity with the Earth is not unusually low,” Harris said in a posting to The Minor Planet Mailing List. Harris also points out that 2010 AL30 has a “perfectly ordinary Earth-crossing orbit.” In other words, it looks like any other near-Earth asteroid.

In reply, Andrea Boattini of the Catalina Sky Survey made the interesting point that 2010 AL30 is a great example of how much of a warning we’d have for an object of this size that’s headed for Earth. After all, the discovery was only announced on Monday, two days before its Earth encounter.

It is worth noting that even if 2010 AL30 did hit Earth, it would most likely explode high in the atmosphere (with the energy of a small nuclear bomb), posing little danger to anyone on the ground. Impacts of this size happen every year.

The discovery of this 10-meter-wide object is testament to the increasing capabilities of the international community of asteroid hunters. When 2010 AL30 does make its closest approach on Wednesday, they can take a more detailed look at the small visitor, verifying whether it is indeed an asteroid or an artificial object. However, the consensus seems to be that it’s a natural inhabitant of our solar system, passing safely through our neighborhood, providing asteroid hunters with an interesting target to study.

Sources: Spaceweather.com, Remanzacco Observatory. NASA estimates that the object will make its closest approach to Earth at 7:47 a.m. ET Wednesday

SKETCHBOOK

January 9th, 2010

A doodle from my sketchbook. It is a little hard to read, but the character has a harness for his .45’s.

SKETCHBOOK

January 8th, 2010

Just goofing with a brush. Inking in my sketchbook on very absorbant paper is a little harder to pull off.

SKETCHBOOK

January 8th, 2010

Here’s the inked version of something I posted the pencils to a while back.

SKETCHBOOK PAGE

January 6th, 2010

Yep, another warm-up page.