THE PHANTOM "Power House Gang": Week Five

The tale of the Power House Gang continues.  A few extras can be seen below.

 I "pencil" the strip in Manga Studio.  Below is a very early rough -- I'm just figuring out the storytelling and composition at this stage.

 After shooting some quick reference photos using Photobooth (with me as the model -- hey, I work cheap!) -- to check pose, drapery and lighting -- the drawing continues. I'm concerning myself with the characters here, knowing the backgrounds in this strip will be fairly simple.

 Here, ready for me to print on bristol board for inking, are the finished pencils -- backgrounds added and drawing tightened and revised.  Lettering and borders finished as well -- all digital.

After inking, this is scanned, the blue dropped out, and then colored in Photoshop.  See the first image up top for the finished results.  Hope you're enjoying the "extras" I post here -- if so, please leave a comment.  Thanks!

New Adventure!

Okay, I'll admit it -- I've not paid as much attention to this blog as I should have lately.  But I do have a rather snazzy announcement to make.  As of January 29, the art on the Sunday episodes of The Phantom newspaper strip will be by me!  Paul Ryan will continue to draw the daily strip (as he has for a good many years now) -- but the Sundays are mine. 

As a long-time fan of Lee Falk's  "Ghost Who Walks," this is a dream assignment for me and I'm thrilled to join writer Tony DePaul and colorist Tom Smith in continuing this classic feature.  I'll post links where you can see the strips once they start appearing.

I can't show you any of the Sunday strips yet -- but I can show you this quickly knocked out sample drawing I did, which caught the attention of King Features.  I'm drawing the strip a little "grittier" than this -- and while that's a good looking wolf -- I must admit it doesn't quite look like Devil -- but I'll make sure he looks right when he next shows up in the strip.

My original Batman Adventure samples weren't quite on model, either -- but that didn't keep me from getting it right once I was on the books -- and I stuck with that for eleven years.  I wonder how long I will draw The Phantom...?

In other news, I'm illustrating the next book in Max Allan Collins' "Jack and Maggie Starr" series for Hard Case Crime.  Glenn Orbik has painted the cover -- but I'll be doing the same comic-style panel chapter headings as the previous series entries.  More on that when we get close to publication.

Max and I are also hammering out the details of the Ms. Tree reprint series and new graphic novel slated to come from the new First Comics.  This has been a long time coming and we want to make sure we do it right.

In personal news, we are a few weeks away from adding a new member to our family -- and you can be sure I'll announce the details here when baby arrives.

For now -- see you in the funny papers!