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Who the hell is this?! ;)

Michael Bay's Awesome Book of the Week

This was at the front desk when I went to pick up my Deadpool stuff at Comics R Us in Melbourne. This was cool because the dude behind the desk (not the usual dudes in there either) was saying that they'd had people start ordering the books recently because of my last couple of stories. Before this, the stores (there are two of them here in town) hadn't been stocking Turtles.

Can't... Contain... Fangasm...!

Paul has already started work on Tales of the TMNT #56, the issue that introduces Hun into the Mirage continuity, and I couldn't be more excited. I'm actually more excited about the next two stories than I was about my first issue, and MORE excited than I was when I was told I could bring the Turtles to Australia (this week's issue!).

You've seen my concept bit of Hunter "Hun" Mason, now here's a glimpse of Paul's first rough.

Tales #50 On Shelves This Wednesday!

Dan has told me that their copies of TMNT #50 have hit Mirage, meaning that it is definitely hitting shelves this week!

Can't wait! Tell your friends to order a copy! Order a copy for someone else! Let's make this sucker sell out!


Hey, I can dream right?

The World According to Dan aka #50 Release Date

My good friend and boss (not sure too many people can say that these days) Dan Berger has informed me that Tales #50 is due at Diamond on the 16th of Sept. which means it should be hitting the shelves that week, if not sooner (depending on how fast Brenner get it printed).

Been hyper-busy this week so sorry about the lack of updates.

Here's a monsterism:

Monster: T-Rex
Movie: Orgazmo

Now you have been scarred as I was.
Once you come to terms with the scarring, this is actually one of the most hilarious things you'll ever see/hear.

Tales #50 Preview

The preview for Tales of the TMNT #50 just went live on the Ninja Turtles website, so hopefully that means it'll hit shelves in the next couple of weeks. It's a bigger than average issue, with a fantastic back-up by Ryan Brown, who came up with much of the direction for this story.

Check that out right HERE.

In other news, Tyrant Earth FINALLY has an artist attached and I could not be happier! His name is David Vazquez. If you hit up DeviantArt and check out 1ithium you'll find some more dinosaurs! Very excited, this means I now have two of my own books on the go, both of which I've been planning for a long time. Dinosaurs seem to be something of a bugbear for artists, along the same lines as the devil (right Ross?), and I'm glad that after looking for so long, someone this awesome has stepped up to the plate! Kind of reminds me of Humberto Ramos, or Chris Bachalo.

#50 Update

Paul just shot me an email... the art for Tales of the TMNT #50 is finished! Now it goes to Eric Talbot who will put all the finishing touches to the book... Can't wait!

In other news, I think I may have contracted some sort of alien virus. Yesterday I was coughing some kind of blackish, viscous substance, that trend continues today with some bizarre form of bloody slime gestating inside my nose. I am convinced, based on these anomalies that I have contracted a virus of extraterrestrial origins. Or I have a chest infection. Either way, both are as bad as each other.

Peace!

Almost Done...

The art for Tales #50 is almost finished, I think Paul only has a couple more pages to go and it's print time baby!
Above is probably my favourite panel. It's just such a creepy image!

Good News

As things stand at the moment, I will be writing 3 Tales of the TMNT comics in 2009. All three are already in production, one of which (actually two of which) I have been teasing here. At the moment, the three stories are tentatively titled "Expose`", "Them Again", and "Scarred". The last title is likely to change though.

All can be read on their own, all link in to Tales #36, and one will be loosely linked to #50 (which will in turn, link #50 to #36).

I know for sure that Paul (Harmon) is going to be tackling two of these stories once we finish up #50.

Stoked...

My next comic made the Previews Spotlight! Probably no biggy to a lot of others out there, but this is boss for me! For those who don't know what this means, Previews is like a big, chunky magazine/catalogue for retailers, dealing mainly with comic books. It comes out every month, two months in advance (this months advertises what's coming in September). Anyway, whoever puts the mag together picks out what I assume are books they think are worth checking out. It could have more to do with the numerical significance than anything else, but still, spotlight on the second comic rocks me on this night of nights. Just had a game of DND too, and dominated a couple of fights, so I'm on a roll. Had a job interview, should be interesting to see how that goes.
Picked up my comics too. Am officially broke now. Also bought Smash Bros. Brawl, which finally came out here (may have been a contributing factor to my financial situation). I wish tax time were sooner -- the return should be joygasmic.
Peace!

Postscript: Thanks Jake for filling me in on the Previews inner workings!

True Colours

The final colour (color) cover for #50! Steve did a fantastic job - looks wicked! I really love the colour choices for the Mothman and the Bunyip! Gotta love all the reds, yellows and browns too -- very Aussie!

One last monsterism in honour of this moment:

Movie: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze
Subject: The Super Shredder

I don't think anyone saw this coming and I think every kid that saw this reacted with the same half constipated, half stupefied, back straight, eyes-in-the-spotlight look of total amazement and shock that equated to the simple "Holy Shit!" response in adults. The technical aspects of Shredder's super transformation are as flimsy as those old 5.25 inch computer disks, and the fact that he gets completely owned in a matter of screen-seconds doesn't really hamper the fact that he looks cool in the shot above. Looking back, you can imagine him being 200 feet tall and fighting the Power Rangers... man the 90's were terrible!

Do-Over

Well, I'm home, back into uni, working on comics and some art projects, generally settling back in. Time to prioritize and get down to business. What am I working on right now?

1: Rewriting the second and third issues of The Return of the COWBoys of Moo Mesa.
2: The final batch of art pieces for Cereal:Geek's Tobin's Spirit Guide.
3: A Carebears art piece (you read right!).
4: A short for Heavy Metal Magazine.
5: A Marvel Comics Presents pitch.
6: Tyrant Earth.
7: Dreamland - an Australian horror piece set in rural Victoria, dealing with racial tensions between Aboriginals and a white settlement. Incorporates elements of Aboriginal mythology.
8: Morning of the 4th Day: Another horror piece about a group of recent college graduates reuniting for a weekend on a quiet, holiday island. Probably will be set in Australia.

I'm also working up a couple of ideas for more Turtles stories, including something big which I figured would be worth pitching with the 25th Anniversary coming up.

Anyway, Mirage has just put up the cover and official synopsis for Tales of the TMNT #50, so check that out here.

Here's another teaser for the issue...

Proverbial Cats and Bags

I'd been sitting on it a while now, until I could say something about it, but the big news (for me at least) is that Paul Harmon will be providing the art on Tales of the TMNT #50! Unfortunately, Jim Lawson - the artist I was originally set to work with - was unable to take on the job to to his own massive workload, so Paul was asked to step in just a couple of weeks ago.

I know the roughs of his Leatherhead design are now up on Murph's blog and Ryan's, but bear in mind that they are just that - roughs. They're close to what we're going to have in the end, but having just seen th rough for the cover, they don't really do the colossal scale of our Leatherhead justice. There are some very noticeable differences in the latter design changes, so keep an eye out and hopefully I'll be able to post something soon! If anyone knows how physically massive some of the characters in the Capcom fighting games can be (I always think Birdie, for those in the know, but he's almost on par with the Juggernaut from X-men and well... Marvel vs Street Fighter).

Oh, and the creature in the post below is part of the same project!

Peace!

T

Final Approval

Just got word back from Dan Berger at Mirage - Peter Laird gave final approval to my script for Tales of the TMNT #50! What does this mean? The art can finally start going ahead! Still not sure who will be working on it. From what I hear, Jim's deep into the Mikey mini-series (should be sick!) and still has some issues of Tales AND the ongoing in the works, so there's a chance someone else might be doing the art...

Never been so exhausted after anything in my entire life. Not the script revisions, no, no, no - last night I went and saw the Chemical Brothers with my cousin Kayne who I get to see once in a blue moon. Easily the most stunning show I've ever been to! Easily! Kayne, Jeremy, Cass and myself were cutting sick out there (general admin of course)! I was suprised to see how few people were getting into it - I mean really getting into it. The four of us were dancing mad crazy and everyone else, even the chicks seemed kind of... well... lame.

These two dudes came up to me afterwards and made the same observation, having recognised me as "one of those dudes going nuts out there!"

Massive props to Kayne for setting the whole night up and for making the trip down to Melbourne. He's off to India at the end of this week to begin six months worth of sound design on a film, which sounds like it'll be a total blast!

I'm going to try and get back into the habit of things too...

Here's some Monsterism...

Monster: The Toy Factory Spook
Movie: Scooby-Doo

Much like the aforementioned Elmo in Grouchland, I was the only person above the age of 8 in the cinema when I saw this. I'm a mad crazy fan of the old cartoons - I hated Scrappy-Doo and I do a pretty good Shaggy. Anyway, say what you want about this movie, I loved it and though it wasn't the old 'toon, it was still a lot of fun! The monster designs were particularly cool, and I thought the opening sequence managed to capture the show perfectly. It's still a pretty creepy lookin' dude to!