Happy New Year!

I'm spending New Year's Eve at the art table, penciling and inking like a madman, but I did want to take a moment and say, "Happy New Year!".

2010 was a good year for me. I got to work on IDW's Doctor Who comic book -- my all-time favorite character -- which led to not only doing more art on the book, but even getting to write and draw my own Doctor Who story for the 2010 IDW Doctor Who Annual. Definitely a career highlight for me. Not to mention, I also got to write a prose story for the 2010 Witchblade Annual, my first professional credit as a prose writer.

Speaking of Top Cow, I'm closing the year working with my old friend Ron Marz on two issues of Witchblade, which is a thrill. We haven't worked together since our days at Crossgen, and it's good to be a team again, if only for a couple issues.

And I even got to do one last project with Ben Abernathy at WildStorm before they closed their doors for good -- a few pages from a FRINGE graphic novel/motion comic they've been serializing on their Facebook page. Always a thrill to work with Ben.

So, yeah... it's been a good year. And there are lots of things either already on my slate or currently in development for next year. So here's to 2010, and to whatever 2011 will bring.

Have a great 2011, everyone!

Random Bits and Pieces

Just hit the halfway point on the first of my Witchblade fill-in issues, so still buried under work, but two nice things happened this week --

IDW Publishing's DOCTOR WHO comic made MTV Splash Page's Best Comics of 2010 list as "Best Licensed Comic", with a nice mention of the work Tony Lee and I have done on the title. Big thanks to Rick Marshall and the Splash Page crew for including us in such heady company.

And the first reviews of the 2010 Witcblade Annual (which features my short illustrated prose story, "Witchblade: the Devil's Due") are coming in and seem positive so far, especially a fun review from Graphic Policy, where the reviewer ended up enjoying my story despite finding a prose story in a comic book a little jarring.

-- Both nice ways to round out the year for me. I hope to have a few 'End of Year' posts up in the next couple of weeks, and maybe even a holiday image if I can get around to actually doing one at some point. In the meantime, I hope you are all enjoying a great holiday season.

On The Nightstand

MYSTERIES OF THE DIOGENES CLUB
by Kim Newman
Monkey Brain Books

It's a working weekend for me, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned the book currently sitting on my nightstand, Kim Newman's MYSTERIES OF THE DIOGENES CLUB. Anyone who knows me know two things about me -- I like Doctor Who and I love Kim Newman's books. This is third collection of Kim's incredible short stories featuring various incarnations of the Diogenes Club.

I first encountered Kim's take on the Diogenes Club in a series of inter-connected stories in Stephen Jones' excellent DARK DETECTIVES anthology, and I've been hooked ever since. Those stories are actually in this collection, which is nice, since I'm a little afraid to touch my DARK DETECTIVES hardcover after getting it signed by both Steve and Kim a few years ago. It holds pride of place in my office, along with my signed HERETICS OF DUNE, SHADOWLAND, and my shelf of random signed F. Paul Wilson novels.

Needless to say, I highly recommend this latest collection, along with the previous Diogenes Club collections, THE MAN FROM THE DIOGENES CLUB, and SECRET FILES OF THE DIOGENES CLUB. These stories hit all the right notes for me, and each time Newman puts out a new collection, I feel a powerful urge to grab people on the street and tell them to go buy a copy.

So, yeah... go buy a copy.

On The Shelves: 2010 Witchblade Annual

Buried under work right now - please forgive the lack of updates here on the blog and the lack of any developments on the Act Three Project - but I wanted to poke my head out and let you know that the 2010 Witchblade Annual, with my short story "Devil's Due" in it, hits shelves today.

(I'm actually kind of nervous about this one, since it's a bit of a departure for me, not to mention my first professionally published prose story. Here's hoping everyone gets a kick out of it and the illustrations I did to accompany the story.)

I'll be back to regular updates on the surprisingly large number of projects I've got going on right now just as soon as I've caught up on the one I'm currently working on.

Act Three Project Update

As you know, I've been working on a secret project over the last week -- now revealed as a short prose story for the 2010 Witchblade Annual that comes out next month -- so there hasn't been much time to work on what I've been calling the Act Three Project, the personal project I'll be working on next year on top of my other assignments. Hopefully I'll be posting short story pitches for the two concepts that I've posted art for here on the blog. There's also a chance I'll be adding a third option, but I haven't quite come to a decision about that, just yet. I'll try and make up my mind about it one way or another before this weekend, but either way, keep an eye out later this week for some more posts about the Act Three project.

Upcoming Project News: Witchblade Annual 2010

Happy to announce one of the secret projects I've been working on -- a short story for this year's WITCHBLADE Annual from Top Cow. It's a prose story in the style of the old Pulp magazines I love so much, and I've also done some Pulp-y illustrations to go with the story. Definitely a challenge, but tapping into that old style of bare-knuckle writing was a lot of fun, and it's been a long time since I've written anything with an honest-to-god fight scene in it.

The Annual is slated to hit shelves some time in December, and along with my story, there's a great 'Witchblades Past' tale by Ron Marz and Tony Shasteen, some pinups, and a fabulous Tom Feister cover (which I've posted above).

I was thrilled to be asked to participate, so a big thank you to Ron Marz, Filip Sablik, and Phil Smith for making it happen. Here's hoping everyone likes the story as much as I liked doing it.

Sneak Peak: Skeleton Tree logo

As I mentioned earlier, one of the possibilities for the personal project I'm planning on doing next year is to publish it myself, digitally at first, and then in a limited print edition, if possible. I've been considering setting up an imprint through an established company for a while now, but with the advent of digital publishing, it's easier than ever to do it on my own. So I'm in the process now of forming a company that can handle my personal comic book projects, along with a few creative odds and ends that I'm considering putting out there myself. It's still in the early stages, but I threw this logo together for fun earlier today and thought I'd give you a sneak peek. More news as things develop.