January 2012
Now this is a rockn' New Year's Eve
Wonder Woman and Cheetah battle as the ball drops from the 1977 DC Calendar. Who wins?
December 2011
Some New Year's resolutions for DC (and a look back at last year's)
It’s the last day of 2011, a year that has seen a lot of changes in the world of DC Comics. Last year I suggested some New Year’s resolutions for DC. I thought I would take a look back at those and see how DC did. And I also suggest a few for 2012.
Here are the resolutions from last year with my thoughts from today in italics.
1. Hire more female creators/writers. I am not asking for a quota or for “affirmative action”. I just ask that you make an effort to expand the writing bench past Gail Simone. Marvel has managed to hire a few great female writers, why can’t you?
Gosh, I wish this issue had been discussed more this year in the comicsphere. DC now has two female writers - Ann Nocenti is now the head writer on Green Arrow. And both Amy Reeder and Nicola Scott will have gigs in 2012. But DC is still way behind other comic companies in creator diversity. DC, you can do better, I know you can.
2. Don’t kill any more minorities or children. Don’t fake us out with the death of minorities. You don’t have the credibility to say, “we treat them like other characters.” You need to add more characters before you start subtracting them.
So far, so good. In fact they undid one of their deaths as Ryan Choi is soon back as the Atom.
2011 Women of DC Unleashed Calendar
I put all the quickie month drawings together…
Happy New Year Everybody!
Making it up as I go along.: New Year Commission →
bevismusson.tumblr.com
OK, I’m feeling like giving something away, so the first new commission I get for 2012 also gets free copies of The Dead Queen Detectives and The Dead Queen Detectives 2: International Queens both with a headshot of whichever queen you would like drawn in them. I’ve signed copies of DQD before,…
So it's 2012 here and all of you should be happy to know that no Mayans interrupted the transition.
All safe here in tomorrow. Nothing to see. Move along and catch-up please.
DC Women Kicking Ass: Happy Birthday, Steve Rude! →
dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com
Much good wishes to Steve “the Dude” Rude as this year draws to a close. I’ve featured many of Rude’s pieces of DC women this year and I thought it was time to show them again in one of my birthday salutes. Whether he is drawing women in heroic poses, everyday poses and even cheesecake poses,…
“
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
” —http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/12/my-new-year-wish.html (via neil-gaiman)haniemohd replied to your photo: Turhans’s Bey Company tried a new roll tonight:…
avocado in anything makes it a win for me :3 I wish I can reach into the screen!
He really liked it. And avocado makes everything better! (Well, almost.)
The ‘specialty’ roll I usually get is called the ACA: avocado, cream cheese & tempura-d asparagus.
Batgirl by Cat Staggs
I love these faux magazine covers that Cat Staggs does with female heroes. Here’s her newest.
Ladies Making Comics: Diamond Getting Behind Womanthology and Other Female Creators →
ladiesmakingcomics.tumblr.com
It looks like Diamond Comic Distributors is as excited for Womanthology as we are!
For one, they are giving retailers special deals on Womanthology and other select comics by female creators in January! Including such stalwarts as Marjane Satrapi, Alison Bechdel, Lynda Barry, and Jill Thompson,…
Batgirl and Nightwing: date night
Artist StudioMia has put together a very sweet set of page layouts for a comic called Gotham Nights that focuses on a date night for Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson. I’m not a fan of that particular pairing but the artists’ pencils are so charming and fun, I really enjoyed this.
The story opens with Barbara getting ready for a date with Dick. The story is simple enough that you can follow along without me narrating.
Wonder Woman's Matthew Wilson gives his thoughts on coloring the book
Yesterday, I named Wonder Woman the top DC book for 2011 for female characters. The art on the book has a lot to do with the book’s success. But while I’ve spent a lot of time discussing Cliff Chiang’s pencils, mention should be made of Matthew Wilson’s coloring which has given the book a edgy feel and perfectly complements Chiang’s style. If this Wonder Woman feels bold, Wilson deserves a lot of the credit.
Wilson has posted some of his thoughts about how he colored the latest issue specifically the bar scene and it is fascinating reading. Here he discusses the technique he used:
I want to talk about a scene in Wonder Woman #4 that was set in a night club/bar and that presented two challenges that could be addressed with color. The first is that we have our group of characters split up, and in different parts of the club, and I knew that I could use color help the reader understand which part of the bar each character occupied. There are also quite a few panels with a lot of people drawn in them, and if I were to do my job poorly the art could flatten out and become hard to read. I had to make sure that I did a good job of separating planes (foreground, middleground, background) to properly show the depth of space in the club. In this case coloring different areas of the club with different color schemes solved both problems. These different colored “pools” of light include the blue-green seating area, the yellow bar area, the red stage area, and the crowd being a transition between red (stage) and blue-green (seating area) ending up a pink-ish/purple.
Here’s how his technique was used on the first show of Diana.
Here’s the page with the original colors:
Wonder Woman is lit by red-ish light but I needed her (and the crowd) to separate visually from the guys on stage. So I took the red from the stage, and the blue-green from the rest of the club and met in the middle (sort of) with pinks and purples…
He also writes about Cliff Chiang’s direction for the pages including what the band should sound like.
