Fantastic Four #302 original art by John & Sal Buscema (plus color guides!)

I recently had some comic money come in, and what do I do with it?  Spend it on comic-related merchandise.  I'm a hopeless consumer.  Perhaps such consumerism can be forgiven, though, when I'm spending some cash on original Fantastic Four art - and not just any, but a page from the great John Buscema...inked by his younger brother, Sal!  After Jack Kirby left the book, John Buscema took over and put his own stamp on the characters.  John is probably, in fact, the most classic FF artist after Kirby, so I'm of course ecstatic to add some of his original work to my collection.

This art is some of Buscema's later FF work, this page coming from Fantastic Four #302, which had a cover date of May, 1987.  The cover to that issue features the Human Torch and no other FF member, but the page I got features every member BUT the Torch.  (For those who might be curious about the cover, if I remember correctly, Johnny managed to flame on again by trying REALLY hard.)

The Thing only appears in one panel on this page, and he's reading a book titled "How to Pick Up Girls".  The book is circled in blue pencil with a note about the title written in the margins.  I'd have to dig out this issue to be sure, but I'm assuming that they changed the title for publication.

Mr. Fantastic and Franklin Richards are the most prominently featured characters on the page...Franklin going through his "Tattletale" stage with the Power Pack around this time.  Franklin is a tough character to write, as he's often too powerful and thus no one can figure out what to do with him.  But it's nice when the creators try to work him in somehow.

The back of the page holds two markings, the first of which reads "hold for John Leight".  A quick Google search doesn't bring up any information on Mr. Leight, so I can't confirm that he had anything to do with Marvel or the book.  It might be the name of the original owner of the page.  It might be the name of someone in production.  Perhaps we'll never know.

Also written on back are the names of the two contributing artists - John and Sal Buscema.  If I'm not mistaken, it looks like the Buscema handwriting, so perhaps this is as close as I'll get to an autograph from John, who passed away several years ago.

I recently purchased an art book to hold all of my original art.  This page, by virtue of being the oldest and most valuable (and perhaps coolest) page in the collection, obviously gets page one.

And not to relegate this to a footnote, because it's very cool in its own right, but since we're talking about original art, here's some new production art that I purchased a little while ago.  These two pages are color guides from Fantastic Four #194.  Color guides are reproductions of the original line work that are sent to the colorist, in this case George Roussos.  He uses them as a preliminary guide to figure out what colors to use on the real thing...that's why they have markings and writing all over 'em.

I think they're a swell look into how comics were made before the proliferation of computers.  And this one has some great shots of the Thing and Alicia.

Original Fantastic Four art by Paul Ryan!

It'll be a while before Paul Ryan, the comic artist stops being mistaken for Paul Ryan, failed Republican vice presidential nominee, but to me, the name is synonymous with the Fantastic Four books of the 1990s.  I've written before of my affinity for him and his art, but suffice it to say that he's one of my favorite comic artists of all time.  This is undoubtedly the product of his classic style mixed with the fact that he drew my favorite book, but it still needs to be said - I like the guy's work.

I finally worked up the edge to e-mail Mr. Ryan a few weeks ago, and to my delight he wrote back a few days later.  Eventually, the conversation turned to original artwork and I ended up purchasing a page from the fabled Fantastic Four run.  It showed up in the mail on Monday, so I took a few pictures!

The artwork in question is page 20 (27 if you count ads) from Fantastic Four #390, part of the "No One Gets Out Alive!" storyline that saw the Fantastic Four and friends searching for the lost-to-time Reed Richards.  Paul did the pencilwork on this page and inks, if memory serves (i.e. I didn't look it up) are by Danny Bulandi, a longtime collaborator with Ryan on the book.

What's great about this page - beyond the nostalgia of owning some artwork from a book I grew up reading and loving - was the sheer number of characters featured on the page.  You've got the Thing (a must) and the Invisible Woman from the FF, you've got related characters like Ant Man and the Sub Mariner, you've got a classic cosmic character in Uatu, the Watcher, and to top it all off, the first panel is a statue featuring the four original Fantastic Four members in their original costumes with Four Freedoms Plaza in the background.

The first panel on the page is actually an overlay panel, meaning that this panel was cut and pasted over what was originally there.  I love all the different production aspects that this page shows, and this is my favorite.  Of course, I really want to know what was underneath it, but I'm not going to go and pry the new panel off to find out.

This page has more than a few great shots of the Thing, which, of course, was one of my criteria for buying it.  It had to feature the Thing, and this page doesn't disappoint.  Also, I'll say that I was a big fan of this version of Sue Storm's costume, which didn't stick around for long.

Here's some exciting news, perhaps news that I shouldn't curse by giving away before the fact: I'm about 95% certain that Paul will soon be providing a cover for a future issue of Teddy and the Yeti.  This is really exciting!  I'm sure he'll do a great job - and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it does actually happen.

I picked up some similar items on eBay recently.  Above and below are color guides for pages from Fantastic Four #392 and Wonder Man #15, which features a hearty helping of the Thing (and is an Infinity War crossover book, which to my 11-year-old self was AWESOME!).  Color guides aren't original line art - it's a photocopy of the inked art that a colorist uses to figure out how he/she is going to color the originals when the time comes, hence all of the markings with different color designations.  So basically the book's colorist uses this page to practice for the real thing.

Since almost all coloring is done digitally these days, color guides don't exist anymore, or at least not en masse like they used to (and certainly not at big publishers like Marvel).  And only one copy exists of each guide, so I picked up a pretty cool, unique item of comic artwork.  Love how the Thing looks in the Wonder Man page.

Let's wrap up this original art-themed post with one more item - Rafer Robers sent me the original art for the "Yeti Rhyme Time" strip he put together for Teddy and the Yeti #5!  The board is much bigger than I imagined, and it looks great.  Every time I get original art, I tell myself that I need to frame it and display it immediately, and it's no different with this batch.  But there's nowhere near enough room to do so, so it's a matter of picking and choosing, I suppose.  It's a good problem to have.

New Teddy and the Yeti trading cards by Jeff Lafferty!

A little while ago, I posted the black and white version of the above image by the great Jeff Lafferty.  Now I'm happy to show the colored, final version and shed a little more light on the future of this art.  As I mentioned, I'm going to make this a connecting, two-card set.  I've decided that I'm going to have these printed out to give away for the first time at the San Diego Comic-Con, which is just a little over a month away.  I'll still have the standard promo card by Antonio Crespo, but this one will be a little bit special.  Once the show dates get closer, I'll reveal just what purpose these cards will serve.

In the meantime, check out how awesome this is!!  I'm pretty excited about it.  Jeff is mailing the original art, and oh man, I think I'll have to make some room on the wall for it.  It's really something.

Teddy and the Yeti: Incoming! is colored!

News of Teddy and the Yeti's demise has been greatly exaggerated.  There's work coming in at a slow but steady clip, and I'll be excited when I can announce the next issue's arrival date (believe me).  Suffice it to say that it will be relatively soon, and I can only hope that it will be worth the wait.  In the meantime, a short story, long in the making, was completed just two days ago when Leonardo Pietro (who I've worked with on a few FUBAR stories) sent me colored versions of our "Incoming!" story.  Oh my goodness is it great.  Above is one panel from the story, which features a familiar looking (and adorable) dog.  Each panel lives up to this one.  It's gonna blow people away.  It certainly did with me.

More to come.

The slow, (relatively) steady progress of Andromeda Jones

A few weeks ago, Karin Rindevall sent me the colored version of this Andromeda Jones pinup/cover.  It's been a long time coming but it's not quite finished just yet.  Chris Whetzel pencilled this about eight years ago (eight!) and I recently sent it to Alan Gallo to ink it...I'm planning on using it as a back cover for Teddy and the Yeti #5.  I've got a background option for it - an image of deep space Jason Moser put together for me probably around the same time Whetzel's pencils were originally done, but I'm not sure how that'll come together (a blank background might work better in any case).  Hopefully it won't take eight more years for us to see further adventures of Andromeda Jones.

Andromeda Jones by Todd Nauck and Karin Rindevall (what's old is new again!)

The pencil and inked version of this file has been virtually sitting on my hard drive for nearly five years now (a staggering amount of time for a single comic book page, really) - I remember being in Youngstown and sending an e-mail to Todd Nauck about something that transformed into this finished piece of artwork.  Earlier today, I got an e-mail from super colorist Karin Rindevall with this attached.

At the time, I think I was trying to jump start an Andromeda Jones series and this seemed like a good way to drum up interest.  I'm sure it would have been if I had a better overall plan for AJ and the rest of her crew - as it is, though, I'm happy to revisit the characters and the premise every now and then.  Perhaps I should just treat it like an overt science fiction property and not worry about some of the backstory and details as much as I sometimes do.

The original black and white file was lettered by Adnan Virk, who is quite possibly the best letterer I have even a passing personal relationship with.  Adnan is a writer by trade and only lettered as a convenience (which I can relate to), and I don't think he goes that route any more, so I have a decision to make when it comes to that.  I'll probably give it a try myself and see how I do.

In any case, it's great to see this piece of artwork as it brings back memories of what seems like forever ago.  Todd did a great job with this, of course, and Karin really brought the rest of it to life with her colors.  Will this see print?  I can't see how it couldn't eventually, and a story that's one page in length shouldn't be too much of a hassle.  I'll just have to see where it'll work best.

black & white

I'm a bigger fan of comics in color, for the most part, but I can also appreciate what black and white art brings to the table.  In regards to Duane Rehead's art (and I'm sure the art of most artists), the final, colored product has a different feel to it than that of the raw, uncolored version (the same is true when you compare the pencilled pages to the inked ones).  It's because of this - and also because hey, I do what I want - that I'm publishing a short run of Teddy and the Yeti #2 sans colors.  I wasn't sure about how it would turn out, but tonight as I preview the final PDF product, I'm really excited with the idea of getting this out in front of people.

Duane's art is very stark and sharp, and I think some of that sharpness is dulled a bit once colors are introduced to the product.  That's not a knock on the colorists who work on the book - I've been very lucky to have such consistently good coloring - but more of a reflection on Duane's work.

I'll have copies of this book with me at the New York Comic Con in October.  Even if you've seen the regular version of issue #2, come and check this out.

Q&A with Paul Little, part 1

Paul Little has big talent.  (DID YOU SEE THAT ONE COMING, PAUL?!)  This prodigiously skilled colorist has not only lent his time to recent issues of Teddy and the Yeti, this Niagara Falls, Canadian artist also works on such titles as Image's Bomb Queen and Dynamo 5.  Paul was kind enough to answer a few questions about his work, the industry, and, rather randomly, one of the television shows I've been catching up with recently.

Below is the first part of the interview - I'll publish the second at a later date.  So, without further ado, Paul Little!

JM: It seems that colorists don't always get the credit they deserve when it comes to artistic involvement - and I mean that literally as well as figuratively. Very rarely do I ever see a cover colorist get his or her name in print, where the pencil and ink artist will always be credited. Why do you think colorists are so late to this party?

PL: There's a really interesting argument brewing over which party is more integral to the look of a given comic book in the modern era: the inker or the colorist. In times past, it was inarguably the inker, but that was largely because a colorist's role in the old days was limited to breaking up the planes of an image into foreground, middle ground and background, while also making sure that Superman's costume was red and blue in every panel. The available process wasn't very sophisticated in the pre-digital era, so the colorist's role wasn't as important or distinctive as the inker's.

Once Steve Oliff came along and kicked open the door to everybody's mind with his digital work on the Epic reprints of Akira, however, all bets were off. Coloring as an art form grew up fast, and it's my opinion that the average colorist today has a much greater impact on a finished page of comic art than the inker. Much of the value or tone apparent in a page of finished comic art is supplied by the colorist, and the most visibly dramatic step a page takes on the assembly line isn't when it goes from pencils to inks, but from inks to colors.

JM: Do you think it's just a matter of time before colorists get their due?

PL: There's a sophistication and attention to detail present in coloring today that would have been unfathomable even 20 years ago, and I thnk that's the main reason why attitudes have been slow to catch up to the times. Preconceived notions are often hard to shake. Things are starting to look up, though, due in no small part to Marvel's efforts.

They've been giving colorists cover credit on most of their books for a few years now, and I believe they're also giving them royalties, as well. Of course, I've heard that DC still groups colorists under the "production" umbrella rather than "creative," so it's clear to me that there's still work to be done and perceptions to be challenged.

JM: A few years ago, colorists coloring directly over uninked pencils seemed to come into fashion - perhaps due to Cary Nord's art on Dark Horse's "Conan" series. Is this a fad, or a legitimate step in the evolution of sequential art?

PL: I think it's a legitimate approach, but it's not one I'm keen on myself. It really adds time to the process, since you're forced to bring a painterly touch to the sometimes messy art and ensure that it looks finished. Artists are creative problem solvers by definition, and I think it's natural to want to combine traditional drawing styles that have been available since the inception of comic books with new approaches to coloring that have been made available thanks to technology.

I've seen some really beautiful pages put together in this style - most recently in an issue of Captain America drawn by the legendary Gene Colan and digitally painted by the great Dean White - but even the pretty ones don't scan as "finished" pages to me. I think a lot of it is down to personal tastes - having spent 25 odd years reading inked comic book pages, things just don't add up for me when such an integral component is missing. My brain kicks up the same sort of fuss when I see fully painted comics by artists like Alex Ross and Dan Brereton. They just don't look like what comics ought to look like. That doesn't mean they're bad by any stretch, just that they don't really meet my own sort of Platonic ideal for comics. (laughs)

JM: How does coloring over pencils affect how you approach your job?

When this style was really coming into its own a few years ago, I was actually really concerned about what was beginning to look like the diminished role of the inker in comics - would there still be a place for inkers in the industry if publishers and audiences agreed that colored pencils were the way of the future? In time, though, we've seen this sort of illustrative work fall by the wayside a little, and I think it's simply because it's been explored pretty thoroughly by a wide range of creators at this point, and some the luster has understandably worn off.

The history of comics is filled with this sort of artistic experimentation, from the old school approach of of hand-cutting rubylith to print faded colors on newsprint, to the painted blueline and multimedia books of the 1980s, to the computer-generated colors of the '90s and beyond. Like every art form, comics is constantly evolving, and I think it's generally a good thing to add another tool to the kit as long as it's used sensibly.

JM: What style of coloring do you prefer - traditional or computer mediated?

PL: I honestly don't think I have it in me to create a page of traditionally colored comic art that is of a publishable standard. I'm kind of ashamed to say it, but I came of age in the digital era, and that's more or less how I learned the trade, apart from a few middling attempts at painting with gouache in college (laughs).
JM: Are hand-colored comics a thing of the past?

PL: It's looking more and more like hand-colored comics have gone the way of the dinosaur, for sure. I think it's a shame, given that there are so many artists out there who are so adept with watercolors and dyes, but most of the top flight colorists working today are able to mimic traditional media with such accuracy and skill that a layman wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

But I think the rise of technology has largely been a great boon to comics - I don't think I'll ruffle any feathers if I say that the average computer colorist in 2010 knocks the socks off most of the guys who were doing this 15 years ago. The software is becoming cheaper, more diversified (although Photoshop is still the industry standard, as well as the only program I use) and easier to run, the styles more entrenched, and the work itself more sophisticated as a result. There are a lot of advantages to working digitally, from being able to make corrections easily and quickly to receiving, coloring and sending files to publishers without even having to leave your chair!

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I'll stop there and continue within the next few days.  In the meantime, check out Paul's DeviantArt page at http://zepsloan.deviantart.com/!

Colors by Carol J.!

Above is a page from Teddy and the Yeti's second issue, which, now that I think about it, is fast approaching being shipped off to the printer (meaning I have to get moving on lettering, dammit).  Karin Rindevall was a little behind with this issues, so I found Caroline Jamhour ready and waiting.  I hope you'll agree that we haven't lost a step - Karin is a tough act to follow, but I think that Caroline keeps the quality of the book very high.  I'm thrilled to be working with her.

Caroline is an artist located in Brazil, which also means that Teddy and the Yeti has become even more multicultural.  We've now had people from four different continents work on the book: North America (United States and Canada), Europe (England, Sweden, Germany), Asia (Philippines) and South America (Brazil).  Africa, Australia and Antarctica need to start picking up the slack!  Seriously.

You can see more of Caroline's work here, and marvel at juuuust how girly it truly is.

And now...Paul Little!

New to the Teddy and the Yeti team is colorist Paul Little, who's helping to pick up some of the slack on a few of the pages in issue #2. Paul is something of a lifesaver - he's stepped in and kept things moving when the book could be mired in some fairly serious delays. Thanks to him and his great work, I'm confident that the second issue will be in stores on time.

Let me qualify that, I suppose - there was NO way I was going to let issue #2 slip from its in-store date (February 2010). But Paul has made it simpler for me, and with him at the reins I don't have to do an artist search and wade through samples to find someone whose style fits the book, and thank goodness for that.

In any case, I'm doing my best to make sure that each aspect of the book (writing, art, colors, letters, bananas) flows together as seamlessly as possible. While that's not always 100% possible, we're not missing a beat with Paul on colors. Welcome aboard, fella!

My favorite panel

We're seeing more progress made with our illustrious Teddy and the Yeti.  Colors are nearly done and letters (which I'm learning a great deal about) are coming along, albeit a bit slowly.

Along the way, certain aspects of the process stick out, but perhaps none more than the panel you see on the right.  This panel has fast become my favorite of the book.  Why?  I don't know, truthfully.  I guess I think that the expression sums up the Yeti pretty well, the colors are spot on, and...I just like it.  I don't have to explain myself to you!!!  Or, maybe, I do.  But that's the best I can come up with right now.

When I need inspiration for a script or the motivation to open Illustrator and letter some more, I look at the panel, and all seems right.

Strange, yes, but true.

Q&A with Karin Rindevall, part 2

We'll wrap up our interview with Karin Rindevall today, moving from more Teddy-and-the-Yeti-centered questions to more general, and perhaps more personal, ones. I really can't reiterate enough what a great job Karin is doing on the book or how grateful I am to have her involved with this project. Karin has colored a short T&Y story for issue #3 and a backup "Andromeda Jones" tale for issue #1 (as seen above), is working on all the covers, and (if I can twist her arm hard enough) will be coloring flashback scenes for issues 1 and 2 in the very near future. I know I've said the before, but I'd put Karin's work against any other in the industry with confidence. But enough sucking up (for now) - let's get to the conclusion of her question and answer session.

JM: Are there any artists you particularly admire, both contemporary and historical?

KR: Well, one of the online artists that first got me into digital drawing was Emily Gregg. She mysteriously vanished back in 1999 with a simple "goodbye" message on her homepage, which was a really sad day for me. I wish she knew how much she inspired me, and how she got me into drawing. Another artist from that time that has kept on inspiring me until now is Vanessa Adams. Her pieces are truly something "more." They always have some sort of feeling or message in them. It's never just a drawing; there is always something to tell from her pieces.

I don't really have any historical artists in mind. Don Rosa is truly fascinating, though, and I loved his comics when I was a kid (and still do).

JM: When I think of Sweden, I think of yodeling and snow-capped mountains. How far from the truth am I?

KR: I think you are far from the truth, but not entirely! I don't know of much (if any!) yodeling here. When I hear yodeling, I think of Austria or Switzerland (now *I* am probably far away from the truth!). And when I look out of my window, I see mountains but no snow (yet). We tend to get snow in November (October is we are lucky) and it disappears in March or April. In southern Sweden, the winters tend to be pretty wet and the snow doesn't really come to stay until January or February.

But I do remember that we had more snow when I was a kid, but that could be because I lived more north [compared to] where I live now, and in a more mountainous place with huge valleys. Or it could be simply be that as a kid everything is "more", "bigger" or "longer" in that time span.

I do know that winters in Sweden are longer and colder than in a lot of places - and during winters, the sun rises really late at sets really early. When a good friend of mine from the USA visited me back in 2005 to celebrate New Year's, she was really excited and pleased with the amounts of snow - but less excited about how short the days were (the sun came up around 9:00 am and went down around 3:00 pm). It's the other way around during the summer. Where I come from, it's only dark two-to-three hours during "midsummer's eve", and in Lulea (far north in Sweden) the sun never truly sets...which basically means the sun never really rises during "midwinter's eve". Pretty inspiring, huh? Even though I love snow and love to snowboard, I think the Swedish winters could get pretty depressing because of the lack of sun.

JM: If you were stuck with one color (and all of its shades) for the rest of your life, and you had to use that color and no other, which one would that be?

KR: I don't really know; it all depends on my "period" in drawing! Usually, since it is my favorite color, I would say 'blue', but I am kind of bored with that color right now. So I'll have to say 'orange'!

Q&A with Karin Rindevall, part 1

Karin Rindevall lives in Sweden, speaks more than one language, and colors Teddy and the Yeti. We met online some months ago and since then I haven't stopped being amazed at some of the work she does - and that's not just lip service. I would put her work on Teddy and the Yeti up against anyone in the industry today, and I'd feel confident in my choice...which is why I'm so very lucky to have her working on the book.

I sent Karin a few questions about her work and her life, and what I received was unabashedly detailed and thorough. Because of this I'll split up this q&a into two sections, which just gives us all more to look forward to.

I very well might publish some of this correspondence in an issue of T&Y, but for now, it'd be criminal of me to keep these to myself any longer. And so I give you the first part of a question and answer session with artist Karin Rindevall.

JM: Tell me about your art...what are you working on now? You've done some colors for Teddy and the Yeti, but you have more on your plate, I'm sure.

KR: Right now I am working on my own comic project called "Forsupen" - a plot based on a story I wrote when I was 13. It's a hobby project and since I am a full-time student, the progress is pretty slow.

Forsupen means "drunken" in Swedish, in a somewhat "abandoned/fallen" kind of way. The comic's story is really wide and follows a lot of characters from casual everyday problems to really critical issues like surviving in war. It begins with a man with alcohol problems, which is why I used the word "Forsumen", because the word is old fashioned and fascinates me.

Aside from coloring Teddy and the Yeti, I am taking on other freelance commissions once in a while. Sadly, I don't have much time to draw on other projects than [those] these days because right now I try to focus a lot on my studies, so I am trying to stick to coloring Teddy and the Yeti and working on one or two other commissions. Usually I am the multitasking type - I like getting involved with as many projects as possible!

JM: So you study art in school?

KR: I am not entirely an art student. I study a game graphics program, specializing [in] animation. I love to animate! I went to a 2-D animation college where I developed a lot of my artistic skills before entering the University of Skovde. Within the university's courses, I take part in projects that develop games in real development settings (six-eight hours a day). Thus far I have been part of four different game projects during my time at the university, one of them being "official", and my current fifth project soon to be official/commercial (in a year). I will graduate in May and hope to be able to use my artistic talents within a game development team really soon!

JM: What's the process that you go through while creating your art? How much of what do you depends on technology and how much, if any, is by hand?

KR: When it comes to coloring Teddy and the Yeti, I am working entirely digitally. I work in Photoshop, which is standard for me when it comes to work in high resolution (like comics). Even though I have been working digitally since 1998, I haven't learned until recently that it is very important to use references for coloring to make it look more "real". This is important even if you don't necessarily want [the artwork] to look photo realistic because you can learn a lot from studying colors, shading, highlights, different mood settings, etc. - even if you intend to color or draw in a cartoony way.

As an artist, I actually started digitally and learned to respect and handle natural mediums after that. Computer graphics and art fascinated me as soon as I got the Internet, and I started experimenting with it way before I practiced to use real pencils and brushes. Things I learned in digital drawing were really useful for me when I started to paint on real canvas - like how to blend colors by hand by remembering the RBG values and how to mix layers in Photoshop and such. Traditional mediums were not really appealing to me before I learned to paint on the computer.

JM: So which do you prefer? Computer-mediated or traditional?

KR: If someone would ask me to pick computer tools or traditional tools when it came entirely to drawing, I think I would have to pick traditional tools because there is just something about them that you can never achieve on a computer (the feeling of it?). However, this choice all depends on what period I am in, because sometimes it's easier to sketch and color on the computer and sometimes it's easier on paper.

I am also very dependent on the computer because it's so easy to find references for colors or objects/creatures I need to paint. And these days, since I work a lot in 3-D, I could never live without a computer.

JM: What do you like best about the creation process?

KR: The freedom in storytelling. Don't get me wrong, I love to write as much as I love to draw, but when I find a really, really amazing piece of art, I could really agree to the phrase "a picture could tell more than a thousand words." One of the moments I like the best about creating art and comics is the moment I can achieve something [in relation to] that phrase; to show something other than simple colors and a motive in a piece - to show a story - to show something that means something to someone else, even if it means something different than it meant to me creating it.

JM: What's your level of involvement with Teddy and the Yeti?

KR: Right now I do all my best to color the pages of Teddy and the Yeti. I have a pretty tight schedule, but I always enjoy coloring and I think working on Teddy and the Yeti is a good way for me to develop my coloring techniques. I get to work with other professional comic artists and that is a great experience for any artist, I think.

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I'll stop there for now...the remainder of the interview will be posted in the next few days. Be sure to check out Karin's website at http://www.karrey.com!

Colors! Links! Progress! Exclamation points!!

As I've mentioned before, the third issue of Teddy and the Yeti will feature three different, self-contained stories (the cover serves as a fourth story, as well).  While it's sometimes true that too many cooks spoil the broth, there will be three colorists involved with this issue, and I've just landed number three.

I do this for two reasons - first, it gives Karin, busy in her own right, a reduced workload and more time to spend on the first two issues.  Second, it allows for a little bit in the way of different artistic interpretations of our characters, which I think can only be a good thing.  I mean, Duane is still providing all the artwork and I'm writing all the stories, so it's not like there's THAT much in the way of deviation, but hey, it's a compromise.

Our third and final colorist for this issue's T&Y stories is Omi Remalante, Jr., who hails all the way from the Philippines, thus increasing our impressive global feel (I think we've covered four continents so far...crazy!) and bringing, I hope you'll agree, some great talent to the book.  Above is a sample of his work over the pencils and inks of Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines.  Where have I heard of those two guys before...?

You can also check out more of Omi's colors at http://www.spidey0318.deviantart.com.  As always, it's great to see more progress as we push toward our big release date.