A new photo shoot; new Magic Bullet; Thing vs. Hulk; Franks and Beans and more!

- I think I'll just post the above picture to all of my blogs, or on anything I publish, anywhere.  That way when readers see it, I'll create a level of intimacy by virtue of my gentle staring from in front of a wall of comic books.  That's soothing, right?  A picture of Jeff McClelland looking at you from a comic shop?

This image is part of a project being undertaken by my friend Vicki, who is creating a portfolio of images of people doing what they do at work.  Apparently, I stand around reading comics, which is terrifyingly close to real-life truth.  You should all check out Vicki's website here: http://morisuphoto.blogspot.com/

The picture was taken at McMurray's Pittsburgh Comics.  On the wall behind me is a copy of IDW's Hawken by Ben and Tim Truman.  I wish I had a segue for my next item, but, oh well.

- Oh, look!  It's IDW's Hawken by Ben and Tim Truman!  Both gentlemen have contributed to FUBAR at one time or another, and now the crossover runs the other way, too, as Jeff McComsey (layouts, colors), Dominic Vivona (pencils) and Steve Becker (inks) put together the above incentive cover for Hawken #3, which is on sale very soon!  The book is a western horror tale and it's worth picking up.  So pick it up!

- I initially thought that the above strip (of which I'm showing just part) would be appearing in the soon-to-be-released Magic Bullet #4, but it now looks like it instead will be part of issue 5.  It continues with the theme of one page stories that the publication is becoming known for; its title is "The Naked Man at the Edge of Time".  The story deals with a naked time traveler.  And yes, that's Gandhi in panels 2 and 3.  My apologies, India...I know that you can be sensitive about that sometimes.

Art for this story, which was very fun to produce, is by Kurt Belcher (pencils) and Jon Sawyer (inks).  I'll post more once the publication date draws near.

- A little while ago, I posted some initial art from a Charles Atlas ad parody that Duane Redhead and I were working on.  As you can see, there's been more progress on this front, as the monster design as been tweaked and an old-time coloring scheme has been added by Rafer Roberts.  I've got the text just about done, and then the page is off to be rendered.  It's turning out very well so far, in my nowhere near objective opinion.

- One of the reasons the Thing is better than the Hulk is because the Thing isn't just some raging, mindless brute.  He's a tough guy who knows how to fight, but he's also no dummy.  The above image is just further proof of that.  My friend Mike Adams took my suggestion for "the Thing beating up the Hulk" (which I suggest often) and put this piece together.  Great work, Mike, and finally, some truth!

- A few interesting website stats caught my eye recently.  First up is this phrase that I found among search terms; that is, someone (obviously I don't know who) found this blog by typing in the phrase "teddy and the yeti promo card 1 price".  If, by some stroke of fortune, that person is reading this post, let me say this: I...I don't charge anything for the promo card.  Seriously, if you reply to this post with a comment, I'll send you one.  For free!  I will.

Now that I sit back and think on this for a moment, another explanation might be that the person searching got a card at a convention and is looking to see if it's worth any money.  Hrumph.  That would be the less desirable explanation of the two.  So I refuse to believe it.

The next interesting search term is above.  Someone found this blog by searching for fellow Franks and Beans collaborator Larry Franks, and we know this person was looking for our Larry, because they even added information on the city and state.  That's weird.  Larry, are you searching for yourself online?  You know I plug www.franksandbeansonline.com all the time.  See?  I did it again!

- Lastly, and speaking of Franks and Beans, here's the highly (?) anticipated and painstakingly produced 54th episode of the probably hilarious Internet comedy show.  Seriously, we worked a long time on this and our entry to the Comic-Con film festival.  I'd like to think that this is one of our better ones.  You watch and decide!  That was not a suggestion.

My own Charles Atlas ad parody

Charles Atlas's comic book ad - that promised to make any 98-pound weakling able to punch people in the face and get away with it - has got to be one of the most parodied comic book ad of all time.  Perhaps it's because the ad is mostly in comic form, or its ostentatious essence, but whatever the reason, a Google search will reveal parodies almost too numerous to count.  The famous bodybuilder must have made a killing from putting ads in comic books, because the ad below, or something similar, graced the pages of comics for years on end:

It was only a matter of time, then, as a lover of old comic book ads and a creator in some sense, that I put together my own version, which you can see at the very top of this post.  I hope to get this ad in a monster comic that I've been contributing to, which explains the theme of my parody.

Art on this beauty comes from a familiar source - fellow Teddy and the Yeti creator Duane Redhead, proving that he is a man of many styles and many talents.  Duane put this together in no time at all and he captured the feel of the original ad like few other parodies have.  Rafer Roberts - he of the Magic Bullet publication - is graciously coloring this short piece, which I'll show off when the time is right.  I'm fumbling my way through lettering, trying to sufficiently capture the older style you see in the original ad - I'm attempting to hand draw the balloons, which will probably be a horrible failure, but I've got my fingers crossed on that front.

You may recognize the monster in the top image as the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and while that monster is 100% fit for this parody, Duane went ahead and made some tweaks to the design to avoid any pesky lawsuits (I'm unsure that we couldn't have used the character as we're putting together an obvious parody, but whatever).  The redesign is below, and it looks like Duane added some great Dr. Zoidberg elements to the monster this time around.  "Who's intimidating who now, Big City?"