Lately I’ve been trying to sit down and do a lot of writing. Trying to get a sense of where I want Adam to go in his universe. If you don’t know by now, Adam is based on a real person and the world he inhabits is a real city. This doesn’t mean that I’m absolutely fixing this story to reality however. The absurd is going to be just as much a part of this comic as anything else.

What I have been trying to do, is figure out the overall direction that I want to take with the story. The challenge will be writing this thing open ended. I’ve always made these mini story arcs, with a gag ending and then moved on to a new story from there. Now I need to move these characters in and out of these jokes, and not finish the story on those climaxes. Who doesn’t like a challenge though? Comics are fun. I think I have some good ideas. I just hope everyone else will enjoy.

I’ve been looking into the whole gaming system thing lately. Will I ever get one? Who the hell knows? Probably not. They’re not the most efficient way of spending time. However, there is a temptation there for sure.  With HD TV’s and wireless remotes, excellent graphics and usually some decent hours of game play ahead of you, well, there is enough reason to never leave your couch again I guess. Just make sure you are well stocked up with food.

Last night a couple of new screen prints arrived into the house. Man. I have far too many things I need to get framed now! Here are the two new ones that arrived last night. This first one: King of Crabs, I saw the “making of” process online. Screen printing is fascinating, and it was really cool to see the breakdown of the printing process. Plus its a great colourful print, and will look amazing on the wall. Win/win!

Details:

I also picked up this bad boy. Nuff said about this one!

Finally, at the top of the post is a custom cover I started. I actually finished it last night, but the person I have drawn it for has not yet received it. I will make sure to post the finished result later in the week after they have viewed it.

Thanks for reading!

Marc

Slowly but surely I am recovering from the shows from a couple of weeks ago. The plan was to do the comics weekend and then Armageddon Expo, and then take a couple of weeks off to relax before getting back into the grind of making more ActionMan Adam comics. Unfortunately the first week “off” was spent trying to recover from a cold. So while that was technically time not spent making comics, should I count that as one of my relaxing weeks off or not? Heh. I’m trying to get my writers hat back on. It’s weird when you are the writer/artist sometimes. It’s like doing two very different jobs. The upside is, I can draw what ever I want to draw. The downside is, I still have to come up with all of those ideas and worry about making it work. Finding the right balance is still something I need to get used to. Gaining confidence in my art, is slowly letting me focus more time on trying to refine my writing. For years I had been focused, really, on improving only the artwork. I’ll be honest. I’m the art nerd. I got into comics because I like pretty pictures. It’s not until you start writing, that you appreciate a really well crafted story, because it is really hard to pull off. I have some ideas going on. I just need to refine, and make sure they are all golden. I think I am going to do well on some, and maybe not so well on others. You aren’t going to win them all, but hopefully you learn something along the way right?

How was your weekend? I spent my Saturday with my brother. Something I don’t get to do a lot of, just because we both live our own very busy lives. It was cool. I picked him up and we headed down to a beach here in Auckland and had some ice cream. You can’t beat that really. Is there anything more satisfying than an ice cream on a warm spring day? Later in the afternoon we busted out some PS3. I’ll be honest. I’m not much of a gamer. I used to be into it, in a big way back when I was younger. Around the same  time I got into comics actually. I guess video games people and comics people are basically the same crowd. Or they were then. These days video games are mainstream, but comics still find it hard to compete. In 94 though, you could find me in front of the Sega system totally rocking out on the X-men video game. Or Sonic or something.

Things have changed! We hooked the PS3 up to my TV, and with the wireless downloaded a playable demo of that Batman: Arkham Asylum game. It was dope. I liked that they took the best parts of Batman and made that the game. It was reminiscent on Metal Gear Solid in that you have to be stealthy to get around your enemies. Unlike that Wolverine game (which was awesome for almost the opposite reason) you can’t just charge into any given scenario.

I loved the fact that they got Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill back for the voice character acting. After the animated series, there really was no other choice but to go with those guys. They own those characters. Just perfect for them. It was awesome hearing them again. It’s a shame the demo was so short. A lot of the download seemed to be the animated setup sequence. Which was cool to watch – once. After that though, obviously I just wanted to continue playing the game. Still it was free.

Now that I have seen the HD console on a proper HD TV, I can see why people are into their gaming. I could totally get into it. Maybe one day. For now though, I have comics to make.

Hope you had an awesome weekend too.
Thanks for reading

Marc!