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My Gal Wants to Dark Horse All The Time
I think everything I’m working on for Dark Horse has been announced at last (internet says so), so now I get to talk about it. A little. I’m always skittish about these things, because contract lingo says, “Thou shalt not show any portion of thy work prior to release of yadda yadda”…
The great thing is, one of these books is already out in stores, so I shouldn’t have to sweat showing you a morsel of my artwork.
I’m on art duties for three new projects with Dark Horse, from layouts through final color. I started them all pretty much simultaneously this October/November, alongside the release and promotion of my two graphic novels, Dear Creature and Green River Killer. Sheer madness.
Two months and almost fifty color pages later, my first baby girl arrived (January 14th), and I promptly took a month off of nearly everything. Most people say the first few weeks with baby are the hardest. Maybe it’s just the contrast with this last season, but it’s been (new dad smug alert) the best vacation of my life.
Anyway, the smoke has cleared, and I can talk about work again.
The book that’s out in stores now is the 4th issue of House of Night, by Kent Dalian, P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast. Joëlle Jones and Ryan Hill provided art and color (respectively) for the main story, while I got to do a juicy back-story about Antony and Cleopatra (as vampires). It’s what the kids want, you know.
Here’s a bit of my art. It’s my first color comics work to come out since 2008′s Comic Book Tattoo, and I had a lot of fun with it. Cleopatra has a costume change every page or so, because, you know, she’s Cleopatra.
The next project is something I’m doing with John Arcudi. We’re bringing back a character he developed for Dark Horse back in the day, The Creep, and starting a new story off with Dark Horse Presents #11. That should be on sale April 18th. It’s a fabulous modern noir with a great range of material to draw. From the press release:
In the summer of 1987, a young teenage boy commits suicide. The boy’s mother is unsatisfied with the police’s lack of interest in the motivation behind it, or what connection it might have to the suicide of the boy’s former best friend. She remembers that she heard an old college boyfriend of hers, Oxel, is a private detective. What she doesn’t know is Oxel suffers from a debilitating condition called acromegaly. Will the contact from his old flame be all that Oxel needs to take the case?
Finally, I also did something with Dark Horse for Free Comic Book Day, but I’ll save details on that for another time. I’ll just say the art style is a whimsical new direction for me, and I very much enjoy whimsy. Yes.
And speaking of Free Comic Book Day, imobethere, signing books at Portland’s Things From Another World, May 5th, from 12:00 to 2:00 PM.
And that, my friends, is the Dark Horse Shuffle.
