Project Waldo

Quickie post (because darn it, I should be drawing right now). My interview with Ben Peirce over at the NEAR MINTerview podcast went up today. If you're interested in hearing the details about how Nonplayer evolved from pictures on this blog into a full-on Image comic, you may find our chat illuminating! We also talk about the reasons for the issue 2 delay, as well as what's being done to get it finished. Plus lots of other stuff. Ben's a great interviewer. I really enjoyed doing this one. BACK TO WORK.

At around 1 p.m. PST today, Variety magazine reported that Nonplayer had been picked up by Warner Bros., which is a company that makes moving pictures. We (or at least I) had not anticipated this leak, so I was a little unprepared for the new experience of sailing Nonplayer out past the sheltering breakwater of the comics world and into the choppy seas of the Internet at large. Over the past twelve hours, Nonplayer has become something of a lightning rod for certain angry constituencies inside and outside of the comics world. Probably most common is the "one and done" critique, which suggests that I have cynically created a single comic book with the express intent of selling it off to a movie studio, never to draw another comic again. Some see a dark portent in Warner Bros.' eagerness to sign on the strength of a single issue -- is this the moment when Hollywood's comic book strip mine hits the water table? And still others just think Nonplayer isn't developed ...

It takes the same amount of effort to make bad art as to make good art, and you won't know which you've made until you release it into the wild. You can continue to refine a work until it doesn't set off your own quality alarms, but that's no guarantee that what you've made will touch anybody. A lot of artists, including many of the best ones, don't particularly care whether their art is "good" or whether anybody else appreciates it. Regrettably, I am not one of those artists. The way that I deal with this uncertainty is to assume that everything I make is bad, which prevents me from being surprised by negative criticism. But a side effect of this stance is that I feel like a fraud when someone says something nice about my comic. That doesn't mean I won't revel in the attention -- I've developed quite a little addiction to praise. But I have trouble shaking the sense that the world will someday realize, en masse, that my work is crap. A...

I've been making noises like I wouldn't be making it to San Diego Comic Con this year, but it turns out those noises were inaccurate. I'll be at the Image booth next Friday from 3:45 to 4:45. Feel free to swing by and say hello -- I'm happy to answer questions, talk shop, smile at babies, sign stuff, talk with babies, shop for questions, quest for answers, and sign babies. See you there!

While helping my mom move to a new place last week, I discovered a portfolio full of old drawings. Most of it was pretty iffy stuff, but I did find this unfinished Captain America sample (please excuse the smudginess and crappy scan quality): The year was 1995. I'd just driven back to school in Chicago after having my portfolio shot down by the Marvel editors at San Diego Comic Con ( that story is told here ). As soon as I got my drawing table set up, I funneled all of my embarrassment and anger into this new page. I wish I could find the sample I'd shown at the con, because it would make a nice contrast -- this version is sort of a watershed moment in my development as a draftsman. It's definitely got some problems (Cap's musculature is... creative), but it was a giant leap forward in quality from what had come before. For the first time, I told myself to forget about speed and to just work on a drawing until it felt right. Until that point, I'd prided myself ...

I've been seeing lots of pretty art lately. How about I pull a royalboiler and just, you know, show some of it? Here's M.C. Barrett : You have to see this guy's sketchbook . Watching him go to town on that thing last week, I felt simultaneously inspired to start a sketchbook of my own and ashamed to even make an attempt. I love his composition instincts. It's like he's constitutionally incapable of making an uninteresting image: One more by Mr. Barrett: Next up,  John Kantz . One day I want to write a comic and have him draw it. But can he draw environments? Yes. Here's Marcel O'Leary , who is going to be famous someday: Check out this page from his 24-hour comic. I can't believe this guy graduated from art school this month. This next thing is from  Clement Sauve , a brilliant artist from Montreal who passed away a few months ago. He left us some rare gems: What a tremendous loss. It's all so beautiful: Oh, and I found B...

I'm in Vancouver -- Canada's life-sized Sim City map! You can find me at the  Vancouver Comic Con  today from 11 am to 5 pm. I've brought a few stacks of Nonplayer #1 to sell, as well as  some new posters  (the first four pages of the comic are now available in poster form). My studio mate Moritat (The Spirit, Elephantmen) will also be attending. If you're in a gift-giving mood, I quite enjoy donuts, while Moritat prefers alfalfa sprouts.  See you there!