Remember when season one was cool? Well, for season three, we present...season one!

I'll admit that there is something appealing to the show "Heroes".  If nothing else, it takes a bunch of really overused comic book plot points and showcases some of the more sensational attributes to an audience larger than any single comic book can hope to entice.  I'm not its biggest fan (nor am I of any J.J. Abrams project...which makes me worried about "Star Trek"), but I can at least appreciate the fact that it's an original superhero property, and not just an adaptation of the latest Marvel or DC title.

I guess I wasn't alone in hating all that took place in the show's horribly-paced season two, as last week's season premier, in which we got the first two episodes of the new "chapter", pretty much decided to ignore everything that happened  after the first season ended.

As an outsider, I guess, as someone who has never really been all that drawn into the show (but why watch it then, Jeff?  What a good question!), I find it both a little funny and a little patronizing that they've decided to revive nearly every single plot point from season one.  It's like the producers are saying "hey!  Remember all that cool stuff that made you watch us in season one?  Well...it's just like that, but MORE!"

Funny stuff.  I guess the ratings for the premier weren't quite what the network was expecting, and that's surprising given how much hype the show has been getting.  I guess season two's Wonder-Twin-themed production put more people off than I realized.

Advertisements

I find that I have a love-hate relationship with advertisements in comics.  I realize that, from an economic standpoint, anyway, they are something of a necessary evil, but I'm looking at this from a strictly aesthetic standpoint.  A few years ago, Marvel had big, two-page ads for the Honda CR-V smack dab in the front of their books, which irked me to no end, and before that they had a string of books where the flow of pages was interrupted quite demonstratively by an ad spread.  But then I think about all of the back issues I buy, and how amusing the old 2"x3" ad clips for fake mustaches and 'miracle' weight gain are, and suddenly I embrace ads as a part of the fun in collecting - a cultural barometer even more accurate than seeing the Thing and the Human Torch in Beatle wigs on one of those old Strange Tales covers (at least I think it was ST) or JFK dressing up as Superman.  "If I can't trust the President of the United States with my secret identity, who can I trust?"

Now that we're almost two full issues into the production of Teddy and the Yeti, I'm starting to think about things like page layout and how I'm going to fill those non-story pages.  I'm sure I'll throw in some staples like a letters/editorial page, maybe some of those 'anatomy of a page' features, but I keep coming back to advertisements and how fun it'd be to see one of those in my book - almost like a validation that this is a "real" comic book.  I honestly don't know how I'd even approach someone about placing an ad in the book, and I especially don't know that anyone would be willing to fork over cash for an ad in an unknown quantity like T&Y.

Because I am a nostalgic collector at heart, I'll probably end up trying to give away some ad space to places like the Hero Initiative, a comic book charitable organization that has a real fancy logo.  That way, I get what I want - cool ads that make the book feel legitimate without disrupting the story flow.

Dibs on the back cover?  Line 'em up.

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.

Where have you gone, NFL Superpro?

It's not like I'm not used to corporate sponsorship in comic books, but nothing's stands out quite like the short-lived NFL Superpro.  I was a little young to get into it at the time it was first published, but now that I've come to be aware of it...man, how did this ever make it to the spinner racks?

Now that the 2008 NFL season has begun I've thought a little bit about the NFL Superpro, and on one hand, I wish the character had never existed in the first place.  But on the other, I'm just glad that he didn't survive to go through the '90s "grim and gritty" era like so many other books.  Could you imagine this guy with guns and stab wounds and a patch over one eye?  It was almost to be, I'm sure.

I'm not sure how the NFL is received in other parts of the world, but Pittsburgh always gets flipped inside out every time the Steelers play, and I'm not immune to the Sunday ritual in any way.  Ever year I think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl, and I've only been right once in my life - so this year, of course, will be a sixth championship for the 76-year-old franchise for sure.  I can just feel it!

I look forward to going undefeated and crushing all opponents.  Just like the NFL Superpro.

Popgun

I just received a copy of Popgun vol. 1 from Amazon.com (along with the fourth season of Entourage and Weird Al's "Polka Party!") and I have to say...it looks great.  There was so much hype surrounding the Image book - especially for an anthology - that I had to pick it up, and I'm glad I did.  Anthologies tend to be exciting in theory but sometimes disappointing in practice, but this one might break that trend.

One of the neat things about anthologies such as this is that you get to see styles that you wouldn't normally get to enjoy if you just picked up a monthly stack of Marvel and DC books.  There are so many great artists and writers out there that don't fit into the superhero niche, and that's a shame.  Another fun thing is getting to see a lot of up-and-coming creators...every once in a while I catch a name of someone I know.  It's a good place to scout talent, and I plan to do this, too, at least to some extent.  I'm looking for a colorist for one of our eight-page stories (Karin's still the regular colorist - I'm just getting a different look for this particular story), and I'll probably try to get in touch with one through their work on this book.  There's certainly a number of them to choose from.

Flipping through the book, I thought about submitting a Teddy and the Yeti story for a subsequent volume (the second just came out, and I think they're working on a third as I write this), but I doubt I'll do it - I want to keep the characters to their own book for a little while, and I don't want to heap more work on the rest of the creative team, as they're busy enough with this initial three-issue run.  But honestly, if Viper Comics decided to go ahead with another volume of the Josh Howard Presents: Sasquatch anthology, I'd probably break that rule.  It's just so...specific.

How did I miss this?

How this slipped on by me is anyone's guess.  A few weeks ago, the news of a real live (well, real dead, I guess) Bigfoot showing up in rural Georgia captivated the country for, oh, a few days or so.  The men who found the body of the beast, tired of being mocked for what so obviously looked like a halfway decent Halloween costume shoved into a freezer, told the world that their naysayers would soon 'eat their words' once they were vindicated with sophisticated DNA tests and exams.

So, naturally, no one was surprised when the results came back and what was in the freezer turned out to be a Sasquatch costume and animal guts.

Stories like this are typically pretty funny (though I do wonder where they got all of those animal guts from...), but the fact that this hoax was so ballyhooed from coast to coast gives us an idea of how popular Bigfoot - or at least the concept of Bigfoot - still is and how much people may want to believe it exists.  It may be a myth but it speaks, I think, to our desire to believe in something ancient and mysterious, a gentle sentinel lurking in our still-wild forests.

What makes the Sasquatch (or the vastly more cultured Yeti) so intriguing?  Why do we continue to look after so many years?  There's the visual appeal, but...

Regardless, it seems like a great marketing opportunity for Teddy and the Yeti has passed us by.  "In this issue: See! A frozen monster and her best friend!  See! A Yeti in a refrigerator!  See! How to use opossum guts as garnish!"

...colors!

I haven't yet made much of the international crew we have here on Teddy and the Yeti (I will at some point, I'm sure), but I do often think of how fortunate I am to be creating comics in the age of Internet access.  As you can see on my profile, I'm a Pittsburgh transplant living in Wilmington, North Carolina (please don't stalk me).  Duane, our artist, is from the UK, and the colors you see at the top of this posting come from Karin Rindevall, who hails from the far reaches of Sweden.

I just got a batch of pages back from Karin and wanted to share a peek at one of the panels that I particularly love.  Look at that sunset!  A thing to behold for sure.

You can see more of Karin's work (on various projects) on her website, http://www.karrey.com.