Welcome to Monday’s Daily Mega Comics Group Updates! We’re glad you could stop by.

How was your weekend? I actually got a little more rest but I got a lot of work done too. I got some Project: New Man #4 pages penciled, worked on my comics collection, got a little more done on my son’s club house, and watched a little football while I was working. By the way, the Crimson Tide did roll all over Tennessee and that was a joy to watch! I even got to watch some of the World Series. Looks like the Phillies could wrap it up in game 5. I did not have to do any yard work! YAY! The fall is here and the lawn is not growing much. I really don’t mind mowing, I just wish it didn’t take so much time to do. I also had to put a couple new tires on the Chevy Blazer, which is the vehicle I drive most of the time. That did not take too long either. I got two nights sleep of 7 hours or more. When I can sleep a little extra on the weekend it helps me get through the week when I usually get 6 hours or less per night Monday through Friday. But in another month my schedule should be easier as a lot of projects will be completed.

Okay, time to do the comics update!

Project New Man # 4:

The work on the new pages continue. I thought I would let you in on the process a bit by showing you pencils from the pages this week and then next week we’ll get back to our regular story line.

I appreciate your patience in all this. I just have had far too much going on and I did not prepare enough ahead of time to get the new pages done by the deadline. I’m still new to this web comics gig.

One thing that caught me a little off guard was how rusty at drawing comic pages I was. I have been drawing clip art and art for t-shirt designs for the past 23 years so I did not anticipate having a problem getting back into the comic book groove, but I did. It was not your typical artist block because I knew what to draw but it was the “how to draw it” that was throwing me for a loop. I wanted to continue in the same style I drew pages 7-10, but that was work I had done 16 years previously! As with most artists my style had evolved and going back, it seems, is not so easy. Page 11 may not be exactly as it would have been had I continued the pencils after page 10 back in 1992 but I think I came close. Actually by page 13 I became a lot more comfortable with it.

As I did with the October 17th Update, I’ll give you a little background on how this process works. I penciled rough thumbnail sketches of each page first and then sent these to Freazie for scripting with my story notes. While he was scripting, and he has most of the script on the remainder of this issue complete now, I started the full size pencil pages. I have a Comics Page Set-up Template in my computer I can open up in Adobe Illustrator which I print out on 11 x 17 copy paper. This is just a regular sheet of 20 lb bond copy paper, something I started drawing clip art and t-shirt art on 10-15 years ago instead of using bristol or some heavier more expensive paper stock. It has my borders and panel guides indicated. I print out my thumbnail sketch enlarged to 11 x 17 and put this on a light box. With my comic page blank over it I trace off in non-photo blue pencil the outline of the sketch I did previously. Then I take my blue line tracing to the drawing board and with a regular #2 graphite pencil go to work filling in the panels. I can pencil 2-3 pages a day in an 8 hour period if uninterrupted. I have done as many as 6 in one day but I really have to be on a creative roll to do that! It’s not something I’ve done very often. Usually I start out slow and the first page does not come together as fast as the next two. I seem to speed up the more I do on a given day.

Here’s a little penciling side tip: When penciling pages for comics in graphite it’s nearly impossible not to smudge the pencils while working over them. What happens is is the graphite gets on the side of your hand and is transferred back to the paper. To cut down on this I keep a box of Wet Ones handy so I can wipe my hand periodically always being careful to dry my hand with a Kleenex or paper towel before starting back on the next panel.

Tomorrow and the rest of this week I’ll share a pencil page with you and maybe have some comments as we go. Any questions of comments? All are welcome.

Humants #3:

Here’s the second page of our very first Legacy Letters Page we had ready to go way back in 1992 when we had to cease publication. Not only do we have some interesting fan letters from our 1991-92 publications but we have some fan art as well! These were done by a fellow by the name of Chris Seaman who was at the time publishing his own comic book called Harry Shag. I don’t remember if he showed this to us at an convention or it was something he sent to Freazie. We always got a real kick out of interacting with fans at the conventions. We never knew what we would hear or see next! Everyone was always most supportive and encouraging. One thing about our early publishing I recall is, we had almost no complaints or criticisms. This was amazing to me, but I guess folks saw we were just starting out and had mercy on the obvious warts and gaffs in our work.

We’ll finish out this issue with some pin up pages and a couple of unused covers. Next week Humants # 4 will burst on the scene! Stay tuned!

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Monday’s posts for Project: New Man and Humants’! CU2morrow!

Welcome aboard! It’s time for Tuesday’s Daily Mega Comics Group Updates!

Wow! The World Series got suspended! First time it’s ever been delayed this long and they are not sure when it will resume because of all the bad weather. I remember a few delays in the past for maybe 30 minutes. This has been a historic year in so many different areas.

Did you know? Web Comics are supported mainly by advertising and merchandising and also with new web comics through donations. If you like what you see on this site or if you think we have potential please consider a donation through PayPal. It’s fast easy and secure. If you don’t already have a PayPal account it’s also easy to sign up for one and takes only a few minutes. You can then send money anywhere you have an email address. You can find the link in the Left Side Bar right under the Mighty Mega Checklist. If donating is not your bag then maybe you would like to check out some of our advertisers or affiliates located in the Side Bars and on the Project: New Man and Humants main pages. We have some great book offers through Amazon in the Right Side Bar. Soon we’ll have some MCG merchandise to offer you as well so stay tuned! Remember, your support could help out a starving artist near you!

And so with the message for our sponsors out of the way, time to do the comics update!

Humants #3:

Today for page 30 we have a very nice pin-up of that Martial Arts Master Humant known as Sojourner. Freazie White, Jr. did all this one on his own back in 1991 just prior to our big convention tour. Great job, Freazie! We wanted some pin up style art to have on hand at the tables to sell so each of us did a few of various Legacy characters.

Sojourner comes from the middle east. We’ll have a bio on him in the next issue.

Coming up next: we have a special pin-up of The Herald in store for you tomorrow, then a look at Christopher Torres Humants pencils for the cover of #4 and our next issue preview and the color back cover. Next week Humants # 4 will make it’s World Wide Web debut! Stay tuned!

Project New Man # 4:

More pencils for you to see. I started knocking off some of the rust with page 12 and started picking up some speed to boot.

I could have just penciled these last chapters of The Haunted Man in my current style of drawing but I wanted to have as much consistency as possible in that issue. Freazie and I tried to do that in each issue but often fell below expectations.

The original Image Comics style which actually started at Marvel with Art Adams, Jim Lee and Rob Liefield was a hot prospect in the early 90’s. They were actually better when they started, unfortunately as time went on the artists over did the trend they had begun. As on friend of mine said, who had been an art instructor, “There is only so much detail the human eye can pick up”. His point was they were over working the art, which to some extent I believe was true.

Something for artists to keep in mind where comic books and comic strips are concerned is the focus should be on the story telling more so than the art. Sure we want good looking art but not to the point it distracts from the story. All the pros I ever had access to prior to the 1990’s would tell me to strive to achieve a balance. The late, great Alex Toth said over and over, “It’s not what you draw, but what you don’t draw.” I may be paraphrasing slightly but the essence is there. An artist must make use of everything at his disposal including negative space to keep a reader interested. One of the complaints I heard about the Image Style was it would not hold the readers interest. Still, they sold a lot of books, at least early on. But as I eluded to earlier I think they did it better when they started before they got so involved with the detail. Some of their early art was simpler but still rich in detail and easier to follow. One of the best examples of this and most consistent of the Image artists was Eric Larson.

Well, I’m out of time for rambling today. More tomorrow. See ya!

Any questions of comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Tuesday’s posts for Project: New Man and Humants’! CU2morrow!

Welcome back! Hope you enjoy Wednesday’s Daily Mega Comics Group Updates!

The Presidential Election is less than a week away! This is possibly the most important election in our history, not because of who is running but because of the time frame we are in. We are at a Juncture of Change and regardless of who wins the change is going to come. We have been in it for several years now, we are moving from one age to another. On the surface is the obvious change of moving from the Industrial Age into the Digital Age and all the facets of it. On a deeper level we are changing as a people, a culture, a nation and most importantly as individuals. It is the individual role which is key and how the individual is accountable to the people, culture and nations. Politics as usual are dead on every level. We won’t take any more excuses. We won’t accept any more scape goats. Our leaders will either stop the blame game and accept the responsibility to do what they promised, as we have, or we will vote someone in who will. Individual character will be the guide for accountability, not Party Affiliation, race, gender or any of the Old School stereotypes. People everywhere are realizing these things and you can bet it will be apparent come November 4th, but it won’t stop there. Whoever wins will be under constant scrutiny,  this is after all the Digital Age. Every second counts, ever vote counts, and we are all accountable.

End of soapbox, time to do the comics update!

Humants #3:

This pin-up of The Herald was done while we were on our 1991 Convention Tour. I penciled it in the motel room the night before we were to make one of our appearances. I don’t remember which convention it was. I sat at the table the next day inking it as comic fans came by to talk with Freazie and I. I got a lot of compliments and interest in what I was doing. We made copies and sold them at the next convention and planned on using it as a cover on one of the Humants books. It would have been the cover on issue 4 but Christopher Torres came up with something we felt was more appealing for the time to use as the cover for number 4.

Coming up next: We’ll a look at those Christopher Torres Humants pencils for the cover of #4, then our next issue preview and the color back cover. Next Tuesday Humants # 4 will be unleashed!

Project New Man # 4:

These pencils are for page 13. I had 3 panels at the top of this page which showed an action I wanted to zero in on in the story telling. The drawing of Cyber-Tech is actually the background, the main action is what’s happening with his eyes and the circuit jammer module which was attached to him in issue 3 to render him immobile.

I could have have penciled each panel just as I did on my original breakdowns, but we live in the age of PhotoShop, so to save time and to create a stronger sense of continuity and even motion in these 3 panels I copied and pasted the drawing of Cyber-Tech I drew in panel one to panels 2 and 3. The same thing can be done at the inking stage as well.

Some artists don’t like this, they think every panel should be drawn out as an original. My question is always “Why? What is the purpose of what we are doing, telling a story or doing a piece of art to hang on a wall?” First of all it’s to tell the story and as I wrote yesterday we don’t want the art to become a distraction from the story. We need balance.  I think it would be more distracting to draw Cyber-tech in the same position, as best I could, in each panel because each would be different. To bring the action of the story to the forefront I only wanted to change the key elements. Plus it speeds up production so I can do even more stories if I take advantage of all the tools I have at my disposal!

Any questions of comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Wednesday’s posts for Project: New Man and Humants’! CU2morrow!

Welcome to Thursday’s Daily Mega Comics Group Updates!

The winner is! Well, it was the first time a World Series game was ever suspended halfway through only to be finished a couple days later. The Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays set up shop last night in the bottom of the 5th Inning to settle the unfinished business from Monday night. By 9 P.M. Central Time it was over. You know the outcome, Phillies 4, Rays 3. The Phillies are World Champions of Baseball! Not a big surprise I’m sure. I was really pulling for the Rays but it just wasn’t their time. Congratulations to the Phillies!

Legacy News: Freazie White, Jr. and I will be re-uniting over in Humants # 5 and 6 to finish up that saga in a similar way to what we are doing to wrap up Project: New Man with issue 4 of that series. It will be the first time Freazie and I have worked together on art in 16 years! He will not only be writing but also penciling the story which I will then greedily ink and letter! I’m looking for to that! First we have to let you read all of # 4 and then 20 pages of #5 before you get to the 2008 version of Humants. Of course we will still be in the 1992 storyline but that’s just to finish the current saga. We are talking about bringing back Humants in issue 7 with an all new story as well, after a brief break to get Epoch 2012 A.D. going. Stay tuned!

Now, let’s switch over to the comics section!

Humants #3:

Here’s one of Christopher Torres first masterpieces for Legacy Comics. This is the penciled version which I later got to ink for the cover of Humants #4. I think this may have been a sample page Chris sent in with some sample New Man pages as well. You’ve already seen Christopher’s awesome pencils over in Project: New Man #3 & 4, right? If you haven’t seen them what are you waiting for? Click the link in the Menu Bar above and head on over to the PNM site! After our little visit here, of course.

I can’t say enough about the work Chris did for us. Not only was he great at doing the art and could tell a story with it, he was fast too. We wanted to really utilize his talents and would have if we had had the money to continue Legacy Comics back in the 90’s. But regardless of that we are here now! Maybe we’ll be able to track Christopher down soon. We just heard from Thomas O’Connor yesterday, so anything is possible! Heck! We might get a full fledged Legacy Comics Reunion going here! It could happen!

Coming up next: Our Next Issue preview page and the color back cover for issue #3 on Monday. Next Tuesday Humants # 4 will be begin!

Project New Man # 4:

Pencils are for page 14. As I go along on penciling these pages I’m really getting back into the groove. See, Freazie, I told you once you get back on that bike it all comes back to you!

Even though I created Cyber-Tech, he is one of my least favorite characters to pencil. Christopher Torres seemed to enjoy doing him and I think was better at it than I am. But this is the last time we see him for a while this issue so that won’t be a problem for another 10 pages or so.

Any questions of comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Thursday’s posts for Project: New Man and Humants’! CU2morrow!

A TGIF Welcome to the Daily Mega Comics Group Updates!

Friday! Payday! First day of the weekend! Yay! Actually I enjoy everyday not just the weekends, and since I pretty much work 7 days a week it’s not like I’m taking any time off just to kick back and relax. Although I do get to sleep a little longer, almost until 6 A.M.! But I do like the change we get when we enter into the weekend, it helps to break up the work, shift into another gear, you might say.

Hope everyone has a nice and safe Halloween! Eat lots of candy and watch some College and Pro Football. It’s good and so good for you!

Oh, and by the way… ROLL TIDE!

Let’s see what we have in the ol’ comics bag today!

Humants #3:

We saw the pencil version yesterday of Christopher Torres first cover for Legacy Comics. Here’s Mark Poe’s inked version for the inside back cover of Humants # 3 previewing issue #4. We’ll see the full color, full size version Tuesday!

It was right along the time we were about to bring out issue #3 we started re-designing the look of our cover logo and corner logos. Looking at other comics of the time which were really hot like the Titans, the X-Men and others we came up with something we hoped would grab more attention on the comic store shelf. Unfortunately we never got the chance to see if it helped since we never got to print issue #3. Knowing what we do now about the old Comic’s Direct Market, we may not have seen any changes at all.

The Direct Market was a good concept in the beginning which was short lived. The new distributors became as bad or worse than the old Newsstand Distribution method. Proof of this was easy to see when such comics field giants like Neal Adams, Jack Kirby and John Byrne titles were canceled only a few issues into a run. John Bryne had his Danger Unlimited series only last 4 issues back in the mid 90’s. And if the big guys can’t make it, what chance has the little guy got? At first the new distributors we’re encouraging independent publishers, but soon the independents were discouraged as much as possible. Eventually 9 or 10 distributors became monopolized into 2 main distributors which soon even devolved into only one huge monopoly.

I think we were on the right track commercially and had we had just a little more time, or better yet, a lot more time, we would have broken through even in that hostile market of the day. We’re trying to pick up where we left off and go beyond those expectations as well. If not for the New Direct Market we call the World Wide Web we would not have any chance at all. We are far from perfect but we’re willing to be imperfect until we can be perfect!

Monday we’ll have the color back cover for issue #3 which is actually the original front cover we had slated for  that issue. Tuesday Humants # 4 will be begin!

Project New Man # 4:

These pencils are for page 15. The design of the Fortress Foundation’s Aircar is loosely based on a concept I saw either in Popular Science or Popular Mechanics several years ago. I probably still have the magazine some where but the design in this issue is based on my memory of the images I saw and more so on just the concept.

New Man is looking out the window of the Aircar at the Power Plant which is copied and pasted into the windows from the panel above. Pretty neat, eh?

Monday we’ll start the story up again with Freazie’s script applied to the inked and lettered pages you have been seeing all this week.

Any questions of comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Friday’s posts for Project: New Man and Humants’! CUMonday!