Tom Scioli Comics

Frankenstein

2011-10-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

Just in time for Halloween:

American Barbarian The Hardcover Graphic Novel

2011-09-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

The hardcover version of American Barbarian is on the way: http://www.adhousebooks.com/blog/?p=277

Captain America: Hail Hydra Store Appearance

2011-02-01T09:18:00.001-08:00

I’ll be at Phantom of the Attic Comics (Oakland) in Pittsburgh at 4:30 on Wednesday Feb. 2 for the release of Captain America: Hail Hydra #2.

American Barbarian's Back!

2011-01-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

After a month of drawing "Captain America: Hail Hydra" I've returned to American Barbarian. Chapter Four of Ambarb begins here.

Kirby Drawing Video

2010-10-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

I didn't know such a thing existed, actual extended video footage of Kirby drawing. Check it out at The Kirby Museum.

PIX

2010-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend is PIX, the first-ever Pittsburgh Indie comics eXpo:

http://homepage.mac.com/bem/PIX/index.html

This Week's Comics:10/13/10

2010-10-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Strange Tales 2 #1: Picked this up for Frank Santoro's Silver Surfer story. He talks a lot about the grid, but this is where you see the proof of its power. When you get to page 2 and 3 of his Surfer story, the grid just washes over you, pulling you into his orange and purple world. Only Frank could combine Jack Kirby, Moebius, John Buscema, Marc Rothko, and vintage surfboard airbrush art into a whole new think never before seen in superhero comics. His story wasn't quite located in the book's center, but it sure as hell felt like the center of the comic. I hope Marvel's going to get him to do some kind of miniseries, like Brendan McCarthy's recent Spiderman:Fever, where they let him cut loose with one of their characters.

Rafael Grampa's Wolverine story and Dash Shaw's Spiderman story were the other two standouts. Grampa even threw in a cool nod to Barry Smith's Weapon X coloring technique in one of the panels. Like Frank's Surfer story, Dash's Spiderman yarn took great advantage of the power of variation within repeated images. He compressed Ditko's Mysterio, Ditko's patron saint of movie trickery, the Spider-Clone saga, the movie kiss, and a dumpster full of decades worth of shitty Spiderman comics into four pages. Definitely worth re-reading and dissecting. Much better than his Dr. Strange story. It was a trifle, an enjoyable trifle, but still pretty disposable like much of what is in this series.

Thor #615 and 616: I'm guessing these are the first two issues of Matt Fraction and Pascal Ferry's Thor run. I was pulled in. I like Fraction's writing, and Ferry's brand of sci-fantasy is the perfect fit for Thor. It's a lot of setup. I was hoping for Thor to get into a cosmic brawl in the second issue, but I'm willing to stick around for at least a couple more issues.

Superior #1: I didn't really connect with this one, but I'll stick around to see what happens. It's the companion piece to Nemesis, which I enjoyed for the pure simplicity of the costume and the concept. It's odd that Millar is doing these DC Elseworlds series at Marvel. When I first saw the promo art for Nemesis, I thought it was exactly that, an Elseworlds story where Batman is the Joker.
Superior seems to hew more closely to Captain (Shazam) Marvel than to Superman. It'll probably unfold in an interesting way, but the simplicity of Nemesis won me over. Maybe Superior will win me over with narrative and visual clutter.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne: I've been enjoying this one. I'm a fan of Morrison's Batman run from start to finish. A sci-fi Batman is something I've always wanted to see. I suffered from narrative disappointment with the way the Fourth World content was slowly leeched out of Final Crisis issue by issue. What I'm enjoying most in Return of Bruce Wayne, is the way the Fourth World is creeping into Batman's narrative from the edges. (I was disappointed to hear that after this wraps up Morrison is taking Batman in a decidedly un-sci-fi direction). In this issue Satanists pray to the dark angel's of Darkseid's inferno pits. They're summoning Barbatos the Hunter, which I'm assuming is another aspect of Orion, using an art-deco motherbox. There's an escape via boom-tube. That's three pages in the context of an old-timey detective yarn.

When Morrsion first started talking about Final Crisis, one of the things was that Batman was going to die and ascend as a New God. Same with Martian Manhunter (who being named after Mars, the Greek god of war would be a likely replacement for Orion The New God of War). It got nixed. I feel like we're seeing tiny glimpses of the echoes of the storyline that didn't happen.

I also picked up Neal Adam's Batman:Odyssey #4 (I've been buying more Batman comics lately than I have since I was a teenager) and Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, but I haven't read them yet.

Thundarr on DVD

2010-10-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

Just got the new Complete Thundarr the Barbarian DVD set. What it lacks in extras it makes up for in content. This is Steve Gerber, Jack Kirby, and Alex Toth's saturday morning masterpiece. It was my first exposure to Kirby and sowed the seeds for making me a fan for life. I've watched 3 episodes so far and am in nostalgia heaven. When an obviously Kirby-designed character, vehicle or environment shows up, it's transcendent.

Gobzilla Part 2 by Tom and Sofia Scioli

2010-10-08T16:18:00.001-07:00

Gobzilla by Tom and Sofia Scioli

2010-10-08T15:41:00.000-07:00

Gods and M3n #12: Page 1

2010-10-06T19:56:00.001-07:00

Coming Soon: Gods and Men #12

2010-10-05T23:28:00.000-07:00

Hi Lost Mosaic: Taking Fake Kirby to the Next Level

Superman Cocoa in the Raw

2010-10-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a pitch I once sent to DC Comics. Nothing ever came of it:

Superman: Return to Transilvane
The Cowboy-Vampire Wars
By Tom Scioli

Basic premise: Superman is shrunken to microscopic size and shorn of his powers by Brainiac. To get back to normal, he enlists the aid of the nearest people he knows to have mastered the science of shrinking and expanding: the strange folk of the miniature planet Transilvane, from Jack Kirby’s classic two-parter in his run on Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. Transilvane is a garage-sized planet where its microscopic lifeforms have modeled themselves after the old horror movies projected onto their sky. If you recall, at the end of that story, Superman substitutes the horror flicks with Oklahoma, the musical western. “We’ll revisit it sometime,” promises the narrator at the end of the story. You’d expect that when Superman returns he’d find a planet of micro-cowboys. Not so! On Superman’s return visit, he will discover that his glib intervention has brought about an upheaval to the social order on Transilvane. Three races have sprung up as a result: singing/dancing cowboy monsters, cowboys with small vestiges of their former horror-inspired selves, and the old guard, full-fledged monsters who have bitterly isolated themselves from the world and its cowboy story, holding strictly to their vampiric/Frankensteinian way of life.

Basic plot: Braniac has broken into the Fortress of Solitude and stolen the bottle city of Kandor, along with all its inhabitants. Superman pursues Brainiac to his look-alike spaceship (the one with the robotic skull and tentacles circa 1983), hovering somewhere over the Atlantic. He and Superman duke it out in what seems to be their final battle. For the first time in the pre-crisis Superman’s career, he loses! Braniac hits him with his signature weapon, the shrinking ray, and Superman is placed in the bottle city of Kandor, shorn of powers, but surrounded by friends and family. Maybe Jimmy Olsen is with him, for the added tie-in with the old JO Transilvane story, but I’d prefer he have a female companion for this adventure, maybe Lois or maybe he teams up with a young Kryptonian woman named Zora he meets in the bottle city.

Superman is a can-do guy. No powers? Shrunk to the size of a microbe? No problem. The stolen bottle city is now on display in Braniac’s trophy room. Superman knows that Braniac has all kinds of shrinking and expanding technology in his ship, just on the other side of the glass bottle. “How do I get to the other side?” The Son of Jor-el begins work, with the help of the Kandorians, on a new spaceship (similar in design to the old Supermobile toy from the 1980’s Super Powers line of toys), tricked out with the big trademarked Superman logo on the hood. It has attack capabilties, including a pair of robotic fists mounted on the bottom. It can punch a hole in the bottle wall so that micro-Superman, and his micro-companion can pilot the two-seater to Brainiac’s shrink ray, switch it in reverse, and get himself and the whole city back to normal size. Braniac got badly damaged in the battle, so as soon as he popped Superman in the bottle, he dragged himself back to his restoration/recharging station. This gives Superman and his cousins the time needed to build his spaceship. He bursts through the wall. Flying around the interior of Braniac’s ship, which looks suitably distorted from his mini-perspective, Superman searches for the right piece of equipment, the shrink/expand ray. He finds it, but Braniac, fresh from his recharging chamber, enters the room, and starts zapping away at the mini-supermobile. With no other option left to him, mini-Superman escapes Braniac’s ship. Fortunately, once outside, he finds he is still on earth, hovering somewhere over the Atlantic, and not in orbit, like he had feared.

Zora insists on joining Superman on his mission. She’s a good example of the industrious and scientifically advanced people of Kandor. She’s very enthusiastic, full of Kryptonian optimism. Superman thinks it’s too dangerous for her to come along, but how can he refuse someone the opportunity to leave Kandor. He should take somebody with him.

“What’re we going to do now, Superman?”
“Well, Zora, I know of another planet that also has shrinking and expanding technology.”
“But , Superman, how is this little ship going to get us to another planet? We don’t have enough fuel to leave earth?”
“This planet I’m thinking of is ON EARTH, a planet within a planet.”
DC Comics Presents: Superman: Return to Transilvane.

Let me take you back for a minute to Jimmy Olsen #142-143, recently reprinted in the Jimmy Olsen Adventures by Jack Kirby Volume 2 trade paperback, and soon-to-be-reprinted in the Fourth World Omnibus hardcover series. This two-parter is, for my money, THE highlight of Kirby’s wild Jimmy Olsen run. It’s a great concept with great execution. In this story, there’s a mysterious NASA scientist, who built a planet the size of a house. It was an experiment in creating new forms of life. The scientist, Dabney Donovan, was a bit of an eccentric, and is never actually seen in the pages of the story. He populated the small planet, Transilvane, with amorphous microbes, which had the ability to slowly change form. On the skies of this small world, Dabney Donovan projected the old Universal monster movies. The microbes began to imitate the images they saw. They slowly evolved into a race of vampires, werewolves, mummies, and Frankensteins. To avoid a prophesied armageddon, they built spacecrafts and traveled to the larger world, Earth. They expanded themselves to full human size and encountered Superman and his pal Jimmy. Superman helped them avert their doomsday. They returned to their small planet. At the end of the story, the King of Comics added a neat twist. Superman changed the movie that was projected onto Transilvane’s skies. He substituted the old horror movies with “Oklahoma,” the wild west musical. In the final panel of the story, Kirby writes, “Perhaps, some day soon, we’ll all take a ‘small’ trip to Transilvane—and see the changes wrought by Superman’s substitute psychology!!!”

Well, we never got to see those changes. DC has done a post-Kirby Transilvane story. It was an excellent story, reintroducing the concept of Transilvane with some new twists. But it’s been a while -- over ten years. This is one of my favorite Kirby concepts, and it’s worth re-introducing to a new generation of fans. The last time DC re-introduced Transilvane, it was part of post-crisis continuity, shorn of any direct link to the previous Kirby story, as if the Kirby story never happened. Well, I’d like to, if possible, place this story in pre-crisis “Kirby Kontinuity.” In this new story, what I’d like to see happen, is when Superman returns to this world to ask their aid in getting him back to normal size, he finds, not the race of midnight movie monsters you’d expect. As the story progresses, by necessity Superman delves deeper into the politics of this world. He finds that the movie he projected onto this world has had unintended consequences, further fracturing the society on this planet into three groups:

a. The Old Guard, who still embrace the dark side, the vampire horror way of life
b. The Halflings, who are the monster cowboys, somewhere between the horror movie, and cowboy musical life
c. The New Breed, those who are almost totally cowboy, with only the tiniest visible vestiges of their pre-cowboy, monstrous appearance.

We could have a few musings on politics, tangential references to racism, homophobia, the religious right, some cool horror movie action, and maybe even some post-Brokeback cowboy jokes. The idea is to basically have a ball with this story, as Superman tries to prevent all-out war with the three sides. He needs the three of them to unite, since each faction has one piece of the shrink/expand technology know-how. Of course, Superman wants to bring peace to this world, because that’s just the kind of guy he is. But the fact that peace will give him what he needs to get himself back to normal, and possibly restore the rest of the bottle city of Kandor.

It’s a three-sided war. Dragorin gets secret intelligence regarding the location of the cowboy vampire leader and his elite guard. That will be the place to strike. Superman isn’t involved, but the Transilvane version of the Invisible Man who travels with Superman, is a spy who brings word of where the cowboy vampire leader will be. The Invisible Man is a triple agent, secretly taking orders from the Halfling leader. He brings it to the New breed, the regular cowboys, too, so that the Old Guard and the New Breed will come, guns blazing, thinking to strike at their mutual enemy, but instead, unknowingly strike at each other. The Halflings don’t show up. They stand back, waiting until after the battle to reveal themselves. The New Breed think that the Old Guard are Halflings, due to their vampiric appearance. They start shooting. The Halflings watch the battle they secretly engineered from afar. The Old Guard think the New Breed are Halflings, due to their cowboy appearance. They start hexing, biting and fireballing

Before the battle Superman pieces together the last bits of the process to get him back to normal size (and his powers back). He’s able to leave Transilvane, and pursue Brainiac and help his people, the rest of the bottle citizens. He’s tempted to abandon the hard-headed Transilvanians. Zora says, “They’re hardly even human – just microscopic blobs of protoplasm.” But Superman makes a speech about all the forms of life he’s encountered and if these creatures don’t constitute intelligent life, he doesn’t know what does. They’re every bit as human as any Kryptonian, or any earthling.

Superman is caught in the middle, trying to break the battle up, trying to avert catastrophe. Superman has a hunch, and spots the Halfling leader hiding in the distance. Superman grabs each of the leaders of the three factions. He brings them to the front lines (like the old Superman comic from WW 2). He shows how their soldiers are killing each other. He reveals the Halfling leader’s plan to get his two enemies to kill each other off. Superman forces them to make nice, realizing how much they all have in common, and how they can live in peace.

Newly-restored to normal size, Superman is on the warpath. He’s going to tear Brainiac a new one. He finds the Brainiac ship and starts zapping it with his heat vision. Of course, Superman’s quarry eludes him. Braniac knows when to count his losses and escapes into hyperspace. But at least Superman managed to bring peace to Transilvane, and get one of his bottle city companions back to normal size. Superman and Zora have a bittersweet conversation over Superman Brand Hot Cocoa back at the Fortress of Solitude, ending the roller coaster ride story on a quiet note.

Any number of reasons can be given for why Superman’s power doesn’t work on Transilvane. It could be because of Transilvane’s eternal midnight, or because, Superman and Zora are infested with a Kryptonian parasitic virus he picked up during his stay in Kandor. At the point in the story where they are testing the growth ray on Superman. It hits the kryptonian virus instead (since they are power absorbers). The virus grows big enough that Superman has got to wrestle with it. The virus, when fully grown, will look like Morticoccus from Kamandi #10.

There’s one bit I’m really looking forward to drawing. When Superman arrives, he finds singing cowboy monsters who take him prisoner. He asks to see the person he knew best from his last encounter with this planet, Count Dragorin. The Halfling cowboy monsters are shocked to hear this, because Dragorin is the enemy leader. They see Superman as being part of an enemy conspiracy, a spy. They lynch Superman. They hang him. He doesn’t die of course, but Zora watches as it happens and thinks he is dead. We’ll do what we can to make it as convincing as possible so the readers will believe it, too. When Superman shows up later in the story, we’ll treat it like a visitation from beyond the grave, a ghost, in keeping with the tone of the story, but we’ll quickly reveal that Superman didn’t die after all. We’ll go back to the scene, in flashback. During the hanging, in flashback, we see Superman wondering “Why am I not choking? Are my powers back?” We see his arms tugging at the ropes that bind them behind his back. “Nope! I’d better count my blessings and play dead.” So Superman goes into a dramatic, yet very convincing, fake death. (A big thing in the 70’s was showing covers with Superman being hung, or in other grim, real-world death situations). The reason why Superman didn’t die, is because an agent of Count Dragorin, an agent who WAS a spy, was standing under Superman the whole time, holding him up on his shoulders. The spy is the Transilvane equivalent of the Invisible Man.

Another highlight will be the distorted over-sized perspective during the flight of the Supermobile through Brainiac’s ship to the tombstones of Bloodmoor Cemetary, where Transilvane is hidden. Superman first thinks of visiting Ray Palmer, but he’s too far away, unlike nearby Bloodmoor Cemetary. He thinks he might not have the fuel to make it to see the Atom, but he knows they can make it to Bloodmoor.

Format and target audience: Kirby fans, Fourth World Omnibus readers, Superman fans, particularly of his Silver Age incarnation, fans of the animated series, people who like whimsical sci-fi, fans of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman run, fans of Alan Moore’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow Superman story (particularly in the visual of Brainiac and his ship from that story), fans of Alan Moore’s run on Supreme (and the Across the Universe trade paperback), the indie comics crowd (the same kind of people who buy the Bizarro Comics anthologies, people who want to see the DC Comics characters do things that are true to the characters, but that you really wouldn’t expect to see in their more sober in-continuity stories.

I want the tone to be somewhat similar to the tone of my Image comic, Gødland: jokey and psychedelic, but with its serious/poignant moments. Of course Superman himself will be played straight. The pre-crisis Superman will never be the butt of a joke. I’ll use an art style similar to what I use on Gødland, a slightly skewed version of the Kirby style. I figure we won’t need to go out of our way to explain that this isn’t an in-continuity Superman story, since the Kirby-esque style will tell a reader that we’re in Silver Age territory.

With the release of the Kirby Fourth World Omnibus, the original story will be fresh in the minds of the current audience. Those who haven’t read the original story will be clued in by the flashbacks, or we could forego the flashbacks altogether and re-present the first story in its entirety and this sequel all as one complete trade paperback.

The tinier specifics of the story can be ironed out between us. I figure we could do it as a three –parter, which we could collect as a 72-page prestige format story. I’d prefer pre-crisis continuity, but If you want to place it in current continuity, that’s not impossible, or particularly difficult. We could even expand it with an extra chapter, revisiting the events of the original story. If it is going to be out of continuity, I’d like to ask for a couple of wish-list items. Playing the role of Brainiac, I’d like to use the last pre-crisis version of Braniac, the terminator-looking one with the skull dome and visible electronic brain. I had the Super Powers action figure of this guy when I was a kid. I think it’s the greatest design Brainiac ever had. Any lapses of logic in this story’s current form can be ironed out. I think the essence of the story is strong enough to work. A planet of singing cowboy vampires, cowboy werewolves, cowboy mummies, cowboy Frankensteins? Nobody’s ever done that. It’s only fitting that the world’s first superhero blaze that trail.

Image Firsts: Godland

2010-09-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

As part of Image Firsts, they're re-issuing Godland #1 today for $1.

SPX 2010

2010-09-13T08:21:00.001-07:00

SPX was great as usual. It was incredibly busy, so I didn't get a chance to see anybody who didn't come to my table. I spent Saturday at the show, went to the Vampire Weekend concert in the evening, then drove home. It was all a blur.

Collage

2010-08-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've been tinkering with animation lately and I'm finding that basically it's a collage artform. Here's a collage that spun off from one of my animation projects. The end product is reminiscent of Kirby's cover to New Gods #1, which was an atypical cover for him. I didn't intend to homage that cover, but since Kirby is so much a part of my DNA it doesn't surprise me.

E.E. Doc Smith's Lensmen Trilogy

2010-08-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

The thought struck me, has anyone ever done a comics adaptation of the Lensmen trilogy? There's the American manga series from the 80's based on the Anime movie. But that had very little in common with the Lensmen books. The reason I was wondering this was, from reading the plot description on wikipedia, the novels sound fascinating. I'd heard it was very influential, the comparison you always hear is that it's the basis for the Green Lantern. But it also sounds like it's the basis for Star Wars and Star Trek. Between Lensmen and Skylark of Space (the template for Flash Gordon) it seems like E.E. Doc Smith is single-handedly responsible for the entire genre of space opera.
I know Lensmen was an influence on Kirby. You see it in those Sun Collider super starships in the techno-cosmic war segment of New Gods #7.
I tried reading the first novel, Triplanetary, but found its prose style very off-putting. Not that it was particularly bad, but it was very much of its era, which can be good, but in this case it made it difficult for me to get very far into the book. It would be the perfect book to adapt to the comics form, if only so I could finally read it. It's got all these great visual concepts, and it would probably be an eye-opener for people who are unfamiliar with just how many new trails were blazed by this one writer.

Zombie Kamikaze

2010-07-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

This is a project I get asked about a lot, strangely enough. Just before Godland, there were a half-dozen different projects I was working on, this being one of them. At that time, I really wanted to be Jack Kirby. Working on one or two different comics wasn't enough, I wanted to draw a whole line of comics. There's that lesson of knowing your limits that I hadn't heard yet.

Zombie Kamikaze was a script that Scott Mills sent me. I loved it, and at the time I was looking to work with other writers, trying to work on material that was outside of my voice. This was a script that appealed to me. It was action-packed. Another thing that appealed to me about it was that I saw it as a way of working on a comic in a genre that Kirby hadn't tackled, which is a hard thing to find.

Once Godland started taking off, I soon learned that you can't do everything. I had to drop a couple of the projects I'd been working on. ZK was a tough one to drop, it had so much going for it. What helped is that I'm not really a fan of the Zombie genre, so drawing page after page of it wasn't fun the way drawing cosmic spacescapes is for me. Another thing, which is funny in retrospect, is at the time I thought "this Zombie comics fad isn't going to last." There've been several points since then where the zombie genre in comics has gone up and down, but it seems to me it's definitely here to stay. The other factor for me was that when I started ZK, I hadn't read "The Walking Dead" before. Once I read TWD, I realized, this is the ultimate zombie comic. It's so good, how could I ever compete with this? So that's where ZK stands as of now. I still feel that maybe at some point I'll come back to it, but there are a lot of other projects that are higher up on my to do list.

Odin

2010-07-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the photo of Anthony Hopkins as Odin is making the rounds. I do see some Kirby in that costume. The costume it's closest to, though, is the armor Odin wore when he fought Surtur in the Walt Simonson run. I'm assuming they'll use that run more as the template than the Kirby run. I hope they don't. They seemed to do that in the Hulk vs. Thor cartoon. I'm a big fan of Simonson's Thor run, it's second after Kirby's for me, but I'm not a fan of his design of Asgard. It looked like an authentic viking settlement, not the home of other-dimensional Kirbygods.

I feel like this is one movie where you can go full opera, so why not? Why doesn't Odin have an impossibly large and intricate helmet? You could really pull it off with CGI, so the actor will have no trouble moving his head (see Natalie Portman in Star Wars episode 1 for how not to do a Kirby-esque helmet).

Of course, early production stills of actors in costume is a lousy barometer to use to judge whether a movie will be good or not. I thought the Spiderman costume looked bad in early stills, but the movie ended up being awesome (IMHO). The early shots of the Hulk looked like an inflatable pool toy, but I thought the film was phenomenal. Brandon Routh as Superman looked absurd in the stills, but the movie ended up being great. So maybe Thor will end up being my favorite movie of all time? Of all the Superhero movies thus far, this is the one where the source material is dearest to me. Those Kirby Thor comics are some of my favorites. They're my favorite of his sixties work for sure.

The only superhero movie I can remember where I really though the costume stills looked good was the Tim Burton Batman. I could not wait for that movie. The silhouette was just like the then-current Jim Aparo Batman. As we all know the movie ended up being just okay. So here's hoping in the case of Thor, bad costume stills equals great movie.

Kirby's Barbarians (Part One)

2010-07-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

Though most people never think about ghis work in this regard, Kirby is the father of the barbarian comic. His Thor laid the groundwork for all that was to come. Kirby's Thor is really the first fully realized sword and sorcery comic. It started out with the default sci fi ties that go with the superhero genre, but as more and more mythic elements were brought in you ended up with this really neat combination of sci-fi, mytho-fantasy, and superhero. With New Gods Kirby combined these elements in a more purposeful way to achieve the effects he waqnted to get, a reevaluation of the self-image and dreams of 20th century culture, as opposed to the on-the-fly cobbled together sensibility of Thor. New Gods arrived of one piece.

Toxl the World Killer was Kirby's post-Conan fantasy character. A throwaway character, but hard to forget once you've read it. Nothing Kirby did was truly throwaway.

Kirby's other big outlet for barbarian stories were the early issues of 2001: A Space Oddyssey which would feature some imagined primitive ancestor of ours in some pivotal situation in Kirby's view of our early development, then flash-forward to their ancestor in futurespace dealing with some related peril, whether it's thematically or just visually linked.

Painting

2010-06-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

Here's an old painting. I used a photo negative for reference. The best-executed part of this painting is the patch of pink on the lower right corner.

Pencil Sketch

2010-06-28T02:05:00.001-07:00

Here's a pencil sketch of a classmate.

Pastel Drawing

2010-06-28T02:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a pastel drawing of the kitchen sink in my parents' old house.

Old Painting

2010-06-28T01:54:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning out a closet, and came across some artwork from my school days. Here's a self-portrait.

Godland #32

2010-06-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

I just got my comps for Godland #32, so it should be in stores next week. I approached the art a little differently this issue, with 8 double-page spreads. But don't worry, they're not the "let's waste some space" kind of DPS, they're very dense, with a ton of storytelling information.

Godland #33

2010-06-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a clip from Godland #33.

Godland #35 Cover (In Progress)

2010-06-16T16:56:00.001-07:00

Here's a piece of the not-yet-colored cover to Godland. This was just one approach to it. The final cover will probably look very different. By the way, I'm on twitter now. Look for "tomscioli".

Batman stole his tricks from Wally Wood

2010-06-11T07:31:00.001-07:00

Remember this scene from The Dark Knight:

Bruce Wayne said something about it being technology that the C.I.A. used in the 60's to extract agents. Turns out it was for T.H.U.N.D.E.R agents.

Dark Knight and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents are property of DC Comics.

American Barbarian TM

2010-06-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

This is the American Barbarian piece that was auctioned off this past weekend at HeroesCon.

If you want to check out the daily adventures of American Barbarian TM, check out http://www.ambarb.com/.

American Barbarian:The Series is now online!

2010-06-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

Follow the continuing adventures of American Barbarian TM here:

http://www.ambarb.com/

The Myth of 8-Opus is now online

2010-06-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

Check out the serialized adventures of 8-Opus here.

HeroesCon

2010-06-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

I attended HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC this past weekend. It was a life-changing show--one synchronistic event after another, with one epiphany after another.

More on that later...

Iron Man

2010-05-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Iron Man, or Arn Man as we call him in Pittsburgh, that I drew during a Free Comic Book Day event at the local comic store, Phantom of the Attic in Oakland. Iron Man is the intellectual property of Marvel Comics.

Summit City Comic Con

2010-05-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Summit City Comic Con this past weekend in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was the first year for the show, and it was pretty great. Usually the first year is really difficult for a new convention, but this one had the attendance and energy of an established show.

Godland #32

2010-05-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

I just finished the art for Godland issue #32 last week. I got this page back from the colorist, Bill Crabtree. I can't wait to see the rest of it. This issue has a bunch of double-page splashes, each one weirder than the one before it. This is the first double-page splash.

TCAF 2010

2010-05-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. It's a great, well-run, friendly show in the heart of a beautiful, fun city. I didn't get to experience much of the show except from my side of the table, but things were really popping. Part of the beauty of the show is that it's in the middle of Toronto's library, so you're getting a whole different crowd than you would at a show with an admission price. Mixed in with the usual comics crowd are lot of casual browsers who are genuinely interested in comics but didn't know they still exist. It's one of those shows that, after it's over, I'm exhausted, but my interest in comics is reinvigorated. I couldn't wait to get back to work on my next project.

Toronto is a great city for long walks. Unless the weather doesn't cooperate, which it didn't Friday night. The long walk down Bloor to The Beguiling was great. Visiting the store is always a highlight of the trip. I had to special order the new Jim Starlin Dreadstar hardcover because none of the stores in Pittsburgh had ordered a copy. The Beguiling had a nice stack of them on display. That shows you the kind of store Chris Butcher runs. And he runs his convention with that same curator's attention to detail.

The walk back from the Beguiling was not so great. By then the heavy rains that ended up dominating the weekend had rolled in. Usually at TCAF, you walk down Bloor or you walk down Yonge and you'll end up running into friends. Your group keeps growing and growing. Didn't happen this year. Not a lot of people were out for a stroll. There were plenty of great bookstores, cafe's and restaurants to duck into though, so it still ended up being a really fun evening.

There's a great burger (whose name escapes me) place right across the street from the library that we went to last year and just had to revisit.

TCAF again had heavy foot traffic, the kind of density you would see at San Diego.

I didn't get to see a lot of the show, being tied to my table for the most part. There were signs all over the library saying "Please visit our Arthur Conan Doyle room." I went to check it out only to find out that it was closed sundays. Next time! The friendly librarian gave me a nice full-color brochure about it, though.

The social aspect of the show is another thing that brings it above the rest. The party on saturday night was a lot of fun. The venue was great. I'm not a drinker, so I appreciated the great food they served at the pub.

This is the third time I've attended the convention, so I've gotten to the point where I have favorite places to revisit, and places that looked good last time that I got to try this year. I travelled from Pittsburgh with fellow cartoonist Pat Lewis and my friends Dave and Rob. Dave and Rob were there mainly to enjoy Toronto, so they were able to tell us about all the things the city has to offer that we missed by being at the library all weekend. The museums sound pretty great.

Sunday was packed, but not as crazy as saturday. I brought some "American Barbarian" art with me. It may sound self-serving, but people at the convention seemed genuinely excited about it in the same way that they were when I was working on drawings of Basil Cronus at conventions before the release of Godland. Sometimes you're working on something and the reaction of people around you tells you that it's going to be something special. Basil ended up being the standout fan-favorite character of Godland. Hopefully this means good things for American Barbarian.

I spent the convention in the "Jim Rugg Block" surrounded by Jim, Cecil Castellucci(his Plain Janes collaborator) and Chris Pitzer (publisher of Afrodisiac). It's definitely a good place to be since Jim is usually a center of energy at conventions. I definitely benefitted from some of that residual cool, and we got to "talk Kirby" during the rare slow moments.

By the end of the show, my non-cartoonist friends were ready to leave, being all walked- museumed and restauranted-out. Pat and I were also ready to leave being all conventioned-out. Pat had never been to TCAF before and didn't know what to expect. I told him he'd be welcomed with open arms, since I think his work fits the TCAF scene perfectly. That ended up being the case and Pat was anxious to return again next year. This was the first time TCAF was yearly rather than every-other-year. The consensus was that this is one of the best comics shows in one of the best cities. I think we're all going to be up for it again next year.

We headed out of town immediately after the show on sunday. It sounded like the sunday night closing party was going to be a lot of fun, but we were all anxious to return home.

Black Racer

2010-05-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Here's my rendition of one of my favorite of Kirby's New Gods, The Black Racer. Kirby used this character to break the fourth [world] wall and speak directly to the reader, "Is he coming for...YOU!?" I thought it would make sense to have him pointing his death staff directly at the viewer, making good on that threat.

I recently saw a drawing of The Black Racer that Kirby did for the eighties' Super Powers toy line which showed that BR, like many gods of destruction, also had a creative, life-giving aspect. I assume, had Kirby been able to continue the New Gods, that would've been one of many surprise reveals. Every new piece of Kirby New Gods art I see further compounds the tragedy that he was never able to continue this series beyond a dozen-or-so issues.

The New Gods and The Black Racer were created by Kirby, but are property of DC comics, just in case you're wondering.

American Barbarian TM

2010-04-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

At this past weekend's S.P.A.C.E. (Small Press and Comics Expo) I premiered my new comics series, American Barbarian TM, with a special mini-comic. After having worked on two multi-year, multi-volume comic book epics (Myth of 8-Opus and Godland), I learned a lot about this type of storytelling. American Barbarian is the apotheosis of the lessons I've learned working in this genre. It's sort of my funnybook graduate thesis.

S.P.A.C.E.

2010-04-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

I'll be at the S.P.A.C.E. convention this weekend in Columbus, Ohio. I'll have a special limited edition mini-comic featuring a new character I'll be premiering at the show. I'll have more details later, but it's the first appearance of an all-new character I've been working on for a while. I'll also have 2 new "Myth of 8-Opus" mini-comics.

This is it!

2009-09-29T07:55:00.000-07:00

"The Myth of 8-Opus: The Labyrinth" will be in stores this wednesday.

Heroes Con 09

2009-06-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

This is only my second year attending, but it's fast becoming my favorite show, both as a pro and a fan. Lots of great people. The folks who run it are great and the fans are incredibly friendly. I was able to track down some long-sought-after comics at a reasonable price. It was a great way to spend a weekend.

First New 8-Opus Graphic Novel in 5 years!

2009-06-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

There's a new volume of 8-Opus coming out on August 27, 2009. It's called "The Myth of 8-Opus:The Labyrinth" and it tells the story of a star-spanning odyssey to expose a conspiracy of cosmic proportions. It'll be available for $24.99 in comic shops on August 27, 2009. Ordering info is on page 186 of Diamond Previews. SKU# JUN090687

Check out my website

2009-04-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's tomscioli.com.

Space Smith: Episode 2

2009-02-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

Since it will probably be a while before the story sees print, here's a preview of my second Space Smith story, for the upcoming "Next Issue Project:Fantastic Comics #25" from Image Comics. No date's been announced for it yet.

Walking with Dinosaurs

2008-12-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

Saturday night I saw the "Walking With Dinosaurs" show at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. It was maybe the coolest thing I've ever seen. Robot dinosaurs. What more do you need? The show had a lot of the same appeal that Jurrassic Park did when it first came out. Jurrassic Park gave you a chance to see the closest thing to actual dinosaurs walking around. It also had a second draw, maybe as important, that it was an opportunity to see the greatest computer-generated visual effects of the time.
WWD had the same appeal. This really is the closest thing to real dinosaurs, and the technical achievement of these things is equally interesting. I wasn't sure what to expect from the show itself. Walking dinosaurs was enough of a draw for me, but the staging of the show was really good. The level of interaction between the dinosaurs was a lot more than I expected. I assumed they'd be very precious with the handling of these robots, but they were fighting, swinging tails at each other. It was at times a robot dinosaur gladiatorial pit. There were no actual collisions, (except for a velociraptor eating a baby dino) but lots of close calls. I can honestly say that, for now, I've seen the closest thing to live dinosaurs.
Incidentally, the above artwork is a panel from the Freedom Force miniseries I did for Image Comics in 2004.

Happy Birthday, Jack Kirby!

2008-08-28T19:50:00.000-07:00

Every day is Jack Kirby Day as far as I'm concerned.

The Myth of 8-Opus Prologue Graphic Novel:Expanded Edition

2008-08-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

It's back in print! August 20th is the date it'll be in stores. I got this back from the printer last week and it looks great. The paper stock is really nice and the ink printed nice and dark. They did a great job on it. I look forward to having seeing the next 8-Opus volume.

Godland's New Colorist

2008-07-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

Issue #24 is going to be the last one for Nick Filardi. He brought a cutting-edge sensibility to the comic. This issue's due out soon so be sure to check out Nick's swan song as Godland's colorist. He goes out in high style.

It's sad to see him go, but I'm excited to say that our new colorist will be our original colorist, Bill Crabtree. It'll give the series a nice symmetry, that it'll end with the same coloring with which it began. I was very sad to see Bill go when he left the series way back in 2006, and I'm overjoyed that he's rejoined Team Godland.

Check out a sample of what's to come. This is from issue #25.

HeroesCon 08

2008-06-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

I had a great show, minus a few small issues (some problems with the hotel, the scarcity of chairs every day of the show, out-of-control gas prices). It was my first time there. The fans were great, really enthusiastic, and the show drew a big crowd, all of them excited about comics. The retailers had a wide range of back issues at good prices. The guest list was excellent, in spite of a few last-minute cancellations.

I was sketching pretty much non-stop on friday and saturday. Lots of Kirby characters, and a good number of Gødland characters. A lot of people had questions about the end of Gødland. There were a number of people checking out 8-Opus for the first time, and some returning fans looking for the issues they missed, which will be coming soon, now that I'm getting everything back into print, starting with the 8-OPUS PROLOGUE next month. I've been bringing some of my old pre-8-Opus fanzine comics to shows lately and the reception's been really good. There seem to be a number of fans that are interested in that kind of early raw stuff.

Sunday things started out strong, but got really slow, so I took the opportunity to walk around and see the show and pick up a few things. Roger Langridge had a mini of unpublished cartoons he was giving away that became the talk of the show. I got a copy of AquaLeung and Paul Maybury did a great sketch in the book for me. I picked up a couple Cold Heat Specials from Dan Nadel at the Picturebox table. AdHouse's Chris Pitzer gave me the new issue of Superior Showcase. I haven't had a chance to read any of my hauls yet, (with the exception of Frank Santoro and Jim Rugg's evocative COLD HEAT newspaper comic and Pat Lewis's hilarious AAAA mini) but I can't wait.

Excessive gas priced took a bite out of the trip. It's a long, but beautifully scenic drive from Pittsburgh to Charlotte. I'm also disappointed that I didn't get to experience more of the city. It's something I was looking forward to, but found difficult. Charlotte is similar to Pittsburgh in that, when you arrive downtown you think you're at the center of things, but you're really not. There isn't much in the way of coffee shops, restaurants, or book stores, and most of what is there closes early on weekdays and is entirely closed on weekends. Downtown is very much a business district. The real heart of the city lies just outside the downtown area, although I get the feeling that might change a bit by next year. Lots of new construction downtown gave the impression of a rapidly growing downtown area. By the show's end I talked to some people who knew the area better and gave me some leads on where to go next time I'm in town.

Gødland

2008-05-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

You might've heard that Gødland will be ending with issue #36. That's more than a year away, so there'll be plenty of time for a lot more cosmic fun. Issue #22 just came out last week. Here's a panel from Issue #23, which should be out in a couple of weeks.

The Myth of 8-Opus: Prologue

2008-05-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

The Myth of 8-Opus:Prologue is now listed in May's issue of Diamond Previews, which means it'll be out in July. Here's the cover graphic. This is the first of the 8-Opus volumes I'm reprinting. This'll be a chance for anybody who just knows me from Gødland to check out my solo work.

Godland Nominated

2008-04-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

Big news today! The Godland Celestial Edition Hardcover was just nominated for an Eisner Award in the category of "Best Graphic Album-Reprint." It's my first nomination. Here's hoping.

8-Opus #8 MiniComic

2008-04-13T14:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a panel from the 8-Opus #8 minicomic which will premiere at HeroesCon. The 8-Opus #7 minicomic, which premiered at S.P.A.C.E. will be there, too.

Nickelhead

2008-04-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

I just finished the art for issue #24 of Gødland, so I have a little bit of a breather between now, and when Joe sends me the plot for the next issue. I figured I'd use this "break" to put up some new posts. This image of Nickelhead enjoying all the city has to offer is from Gødland #22 which should be out this week or next. I'm really happy with the way this issue turned out. As usual Joe Casey's writing is top notch and Nick Filardi's coloring reaches new heights.

SPACE 2008

2008-03-03T07:08:00.000-08:00

The Small Press Alternative Comics Expo was this weekend. I had a lot of fun there. I "talked Kirby" with a lot of people, which is one of my favorite things about attending conventions. I was at my table most of the time, so I didn't get much of a chance to walk around and get a sense of what else was on exhibit. What little I did see was very interesting.

I also forgot to mention in my last post that I did the artwork for the Hero Initiative's new t-shirt which they have for sale on their website: www.actorcomicfund.org

The proceeds go toward helping the great artists and writers of the comics we grew up with who currently find themselves in need.

Lots of New Stuff

2008-02-29T07:15:00.000-08:00

There's a bunch of my stuff out currently. There's Fantastic Comics #24 aka The Next Issue Project featuring my Space Smith story. The current issue of the Comics Buyers' Guide has a cover I drew of The Fantastic Four. The new issue of Godland, number 21, is in stores, and the March issue of Diamond Previews has the solicitation for The Myth of 8-Opus:Prologue graphic novel. I also have ashcans of the all-new 8-Opus issue 7 that I'll have at this weekend's SPACE convention in Columbus, Ohio.

New Issue of Gødland Out This Week

2007-11-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

Issue #20 will be in stores this Wednesday. Here's another panel from it.

Space Smith

2007-10-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of panels from the story I'm doing for Image's "Next Issue Project" anthology. It's my take on the 1930's comic character "Space Smith." I'm writing, drawing and coloring it. I tried to make the story as wild as possible. It's been a while since I did a whole story on my own, and I feel like I've learned a lot. I'll post some of the finished/colored/lettered art as soon as I'm done.

Gødland #20 Preview

2007-09-13T19:25:00.000-07:00

I just got back the colors for issue #20 from colorist Nick Filardi. He always does an amazing job, but this time he went above and beyond. I wanted to post a panel from the issue, but there's so much crazy stuff that happens this issue, there weren't too many non-spoiler images to choose from, so I picked this one. This issue is my favorite so far. I feel like it's going to be a memorable one. I'll post some of my b/w line art from issue #21 soon, which is shaping up quite nicely, too.

Also, I just got back from having a great time at the Baltimore Comicon. Prior to that I had a blast at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival and before that I had the time of my life at the San Diego Comicon. It's been a great summer thanks to all the fans.

Godland Celestial Edition Hardcover

2007-04-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

This is the cover to the Godland Celestial Edition. I'm pretty excited about this book. I think it'll be a really nice showcase of what we accomplished in the first year of the series. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that'll give readers some insight into our creative process.

8-Opus in France

2006-12-23T18:27:00.000-08:00

Here's the cover to the first issue of "Strange", featuring 8-Opus, which will be published in January in France. It's going to feature a serialized reprinting in full-color of the 8-Opus "Prologue" graphic novel.

This cover is the first new piece of 8-Opus art that's been published since 2004. The character 8-Opus is holding in his hand there is Mikros, a superhero who appeared in the original "Strange" comic magazine of the 70's and 80's. The old "Strange" was an anthology that featured a lot of the Marvel and DC superheroes, and also some homegrown heroes, like Mikros, for the French comics market.

This issue has a new Mikros adventure, and an interview with his creator, Jean Mitton. Comics fans stateside who aren't familiar with his work should definitely check out his "Death of the Silver Surfer" comic. It's never been translated into English (as far as I know) but the pictures tell the story beautifully.

Also in "Strange" is a story by the King himself, Jack Kirby. The story's called "Galaxy Green." It has been printed before in The Kirby Collector, but this is the first time it will appear in color. I always feel very honored whenever my artwork appears in the same book as Kirby's.

New 8-Opus Page

2006-12-23T18:06:00.000-08:00

I'm currently scanning in a bunch of 8-Opus pages. I was in the middle of the next 8-Opus graphic novel, just before I started work on Gødland. I've been so busy, I haven't had time to finish it, so it's been about two years since the last 8-Opus comic came out.

This was going to be a big 200-some page epic. I have about 80-some pages of it done, so I decided I'm going to put it out in smaller 50-page chunks instead. Trying to finish a huge graphic novel's worth of material is just too daunting. A 50 page book is way more manageable.

The good part is that I've found a printer who can do color at a reasonable price, so the next 8-Opus comic is going to be the first one ever in full-color (at least the first one in America, since the French translation of the 8-Opus "Prologue" graphic novel will be out next month).

This new story picks up where the "Doomed Battalion" GN left off. Here's a page from it. I'll post a couple more in the coming days.

8-Opus Overseas

2006-11-05T10:55:00.000-08:00

8-Opus is being published in color in France. The first 10-page installment will appear in the French comics magazine "D.C. FLASH" starting next month. This will be the first time an 8-Opus story will be published in full-color. Here's the double-page splash, colored by French comics sensation, Reed Man. I'm really excited about this project. Hopefully I'll have some more 8-Opus news to report soon.

Gødland 14

2006-10-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a page from issue 14 of Gødland, colored by the great Nick Filardi. I was really happy with how this page turned out. I think it's a good example of Joe, Nick, and myself bringing our best. I hope you agree.

Godland TPB Volume 2

2006-09-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

The second Godland trade paperback will be out next week. I'll be scanning in the art for issue 14 over the next couple days, and will post a page or two of the artwork. After this I'm going to get to work immediately on issue 15. I'm also going to find some time here and there to finish the scripts for the first three issues of a new 8-Opus series.

Godland 13

2006-08-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

The next issue won't be out until October, but here's a preview of the opening splash page. The coloring is by Nick Filardi. I'm looking forward to this issue hitting the stands. It's a pretty special one. It's a break from our normal way of doing things. More on that later.

Gødland T-Shirt

2006-08-24T17:45:00.000-07:00

Here's the picture that will be on the Gødland t-shirt. It'll be available in October in comic book shops. It's listed in the October Diamond catalog with the rest of Image's products. I did the art, along with the coloring.

Hello

2006-08-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

This is my first post to my new blog. I'm planning to use this as a place where I can showcase the various comics projects I'm working on. I'll have scans of works-in-progress for my Image comic Godland, my self-published series The Myth of 8-Opus and various other stuff. I'll try to post to it as regularly as I can.