Spookytown Production Update

Man, I'm going blog crazy today. Look at all these posts, I don't know how I do it. Maybe because I'm too lazy or too busy to do this on some sort of regular schedule, then I dump a half a dozen on here in one day.

Anyway, just a quick update on how the production of my Spookytown graphic novel is going. It's going good. There. No seriously, I just finished the second draft, as seen here. The story has expanded from 60 pages to 66 pages since the first draft. A couple of scenes seemd rush before, so I fleshed them out. And I added one more scene to explain some things. My lovely wife and I are gonna give it another read through and then I may pass it on to a few friends to read, I'm no sure yet. But I think it's in pretty good shape. It's obvioulsy not gonna be the best comic book anyone's ever read because (and I'll repeat this to my grave) I am not a writer, I think it'll be a fun read.

Also, I've been doing a lot of sketching in preparation for drawing the darn thing. I've been trying to nail down all the characters before I start in order to keep them consistent throughout the book. I thought I'm share some here. Below are a bunch of ones I recently did. You can see the main characters Jack and Emma, also Jack's dad, his buddy Ben and couple of other folks too. Hope you dig 'em.

FUSION - Art, Music, Poetry Show - April 28th

I'll be appearing at a show this coming Saturday, April 28th. Click on the image below for all the information...

ArtLoveMagic.com

Fanboy TV Appearance

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to be the in-studio artist on the 3rd episode of the all new Fanboy TV. It's a live internet tv show that's taped in Dallas twice a week. They have the artist come on first and interview them. Then the artist goes off and creates a drawing while the rest of the show goes on. The guest after me (via webcam) was only Joe Quesada, no pressure right? Then artist comes back, participates in the "Sub of Flub" segment and then reveals the peice they created. And the cool thing is, they give away the artwork in a drawing of people from their message board.

Here is my interview segment.They have problems getting my mic going at first but it kicks in pretty quick.

Me participating in Sub or Flub.

Here's the reveal of the peice I created. They have technical troubles at first, the screen is stuck on their website, but it eventually comes up.

Below is the peice I created and a shot of me with the guys on the set.

Podcast Mention

The guys over at halfhourwasted.com told me they talk about me on episode 3 of their podcast.

They wrote and said "The topic starts at the 5 minute 20 second mark if you want to scroll right to it. I met you at the Richardson, TX fan appreciation con a few months back."

Thanks for the shout out guys. You're too kind.

Direct link to the episode.

Welcome (Back) to Spookytown

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I'm itching to get back into doing some comic book work. Well, in 2002, I created a comic called "Spookytown" and published a short mini comic as an introduction to the concept. The concept being...

In Spookytown, you’d swear every day was Halloween. It’s always a little dark and ominous and you never know what’s lurking in the shadows. Almost every place is haunted, the moon is always full, every cat is black, there are graveyards around every corner and it's filled with odd and mysterious citizens.

Jack Brannon and his plucky assistant Emma, run Gum Shoe Investigation, specializing in supernatural cases, which seem to be the only type in Spookytown. Business is good for two reasons...he’s the only private eye in town and there is no shortage of dark and dangerous cases in a place like this. It’s Phillip Marlowe meets Buffy and the X-Files, mixed with a bit of Scooby Doo and Kolchack the Night Stalker.

So, after five years, I've dusted off the sketch book and revisited some of the characters and ideas I created back then and I'm happy to announce that over four day stretch, I've got the first draft of a 60-page graphic novel on my desk. Granted, I also have a red ink pen and a lot of notes scribbled in too. I was planning to have my lovely wife read it, proofread it and give me some feedback on it, but I'm thinking I might do another draft first. I'm not sure yet. There are still some kinks that I'm not completely happy with, so I need to works those out.

I've made the original mini comic available in a pdf format, if you've never read it and are interestd in it. But beware, as I say in the back of it... I am not a writer. So, try not to judge it too hard. If you want to check it out, just click on the icon on the left to download it. Anyway, with any luck, I'll finish the script, draw the book and get it published. Should be that simple, huh? Ha ha. And if no one wants to pick it up, I may just publish it myself. Who knows what the future holds for Spookytown?

Drawings from Dallas Comicon Fan Day

I had a great time as always out at the Dallas Comicon Fan Day convention. Thanks to Ben and Mark for having me out. And as always, I did a ton of commission pieces, but I think this show I did more than ever. It was definitely my most successful con. Gabbed with David Hopkins and Tom Martin most of the day. Here are some of the pieces I did over the weekend.

As usual, after these events I get fired up to do some comic stuff. So, the other night, I broke out a comic I created five years (in mini comic form) and I got to work writing a graphic novel based on it that I plan to draw and hopefully get published. Look for some posts coming up about that. I'm kinda excited about it.

I'd love to do some pin-up or covers, free of charge for anyone out there that meets these criteria:

A. You're actually interested in me doing it. I know I'm not as good some artists, so you may think "Dude, no way would we want your stuff."
B. It's a book that's actually being published. I've done too many covers for books that are "being shopped" or "once we do (insert action) it's getting printed"
C. It's something that I think I could pull off.
D. The deadline works with my schedule.

Anyway, the offer is out there.

Todd Carruth, Good Day Team Traffic... Mark Your Calendar!

Todd man, you missed another show. A free one at that! Well, now you have no excuse. I'm giving you 2 months advance warning.

Another free show - CAPE 3, May 5, 10:00 - 6:00, Zeus Comics in Dallas. It's Free Comic Book Day and there will be tons of comic creators. You must come out Todd Carruth. It is your destiny. Put this on your calendar! Hey, maybe you could talk Fox 4 into covering the event?

Click here for all you need to know about CAPE 3.