News (2)

If you’re into comics, you’re most likely already aware that today is Free Comic Book Day, and my good friend Charlie Harris, owner of Charlie’s Comic Books in Tucson, Arizona, is celebrating it by holding a charity event in his store. He asked some local artists to contribute an original drawing for a silent auction, with all proceeds going to the Primavera Foundation. This year's theme was "Arch Enemies", so I dediced to draw the final battle between Matt Wagner's Grendel and his nemesis, Argent the Wolf.

If you’re interested in buying the drawing (and if you’re in Tucson today), feel free to stop by Charlie's store! As always, the winning bidder also gets a hi-res,  color copy of the drawing.

RIPOSTE:
Riposte was released in France in late January, and I’m pleased to announce that as of this writing, the distributor AND publisher have both sold out of the 1st printing. The book has received excellent reviews, which can be read here: (if you read French, that is)

citédelaBD.org
sceneario.com
bedepolar.blogspot.fr
planetebd.com
leslecturesdares.over-blog.com
fumetti.over-blog.com
DBD.com
www.senscritique.com
bdgest.com

Chris Thompson, from London’s Orbital Comics, was kind enough to interview me about Riposte and my other projects last January during the Angoulême comic book festival. The podcast can be found here: (my interview starts around 38:00)

Riposte will be going back to the printers soon, and the new edition is scheduled for release in late summer/early fall, as I understand it. Until then, you can still find the book at French comic shops, and even on the internet.

The book has been warmly received by local French bookstores, and I’ve had the opportunity of doing some signings at some great shops, including Gréfine (La Rochelle), BD FLASH (Chartres), and Bulles en Cavale (Rochefort), among others. I don’t have any more signings scheduled until Fall, when the French comic book convention season starts (St. Malo, Creil, Rochefort, Angoulême, etc.) so in the meantime, I’ll be hard at work on…

ARCHER COE & THE WAY TO DUSTY DEATH:

Chapter 4 (A.K.A. “the horse-filled chapter that still gives me nightmares when I think about it”) is finished, and I’m currently working on Chapter 5. I'm making slow (but steady) progress. More sneak peeks to come soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

News

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have some (mostly) good news to announce:

RIPOSTE: In just a little over one week from now, Riposte will be available for purchase in finer comic book shops and bookstores everywhere (well, especially in France and Belgium). From what I’ve seen so far, the book looks fantastic, and I’m really looking forward to signing copies at the FIBD (Festival International de la Bande Dessinée) in Angoulême from Friday, January 29th, through Sunday, January 31st. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, please feel free to stop by the Scutella éditions booth and say hello. Hope to see you there! (but if you can’t make it to the festival, I’ll be announcing other dates soon)

ARCHER COE & THE WAY TO DUSTY DEATH: I'm back to work on Archer Coe vol.2! I just finished Chapter 3 today, and will be starting Chapter 4 soon. In order to finish Riposte on time, I had to temporarily put Archer on the back-burner, and I’m thrilled to be working full-time on the book once again (I kinda missed my pal Archer). Jamie S. Rich’s story is amazing (Not to mention challenging: he asked me to draw HORSES. As in, more than one. AND THEY ARE ALL RUNNING.), and it’s been a lot of fun working on this second book. I’ll post more teaser images as I make progress over the next few months. I am hoping to finish The Way To Dusty Death by early December of this year, so feel free to stop by often for updates…

DUELS: The long out-of-print book of short stories I wrote and drew for French publisher Treize étrange back in 2000, Duels, is now back in print. I had copies published through the online printing platform BLURB, and it looks pretty good. If you are interested in purchasing a copy (in French), feel free to click HERE

PARANORMAL: I am sad to say that my Paranormal trilogy, which was supposed to be published last year by Evileye Books, is currently on standby. Due to the demands of today’s ever-changing book publishing industry, Evileye Books has undergone some huge changes over the past year, and they have decided to concentrate their publishing efforts exclusively on supernatural/horror prose fiction. So, long story short, Paranormal didn’t make the cut, and Evileye has graciously returned publication rights to me. I’m not quite sure what to do with the book right now, but I’ll let you know once I’ve figured it out. Since Duels turned out so well, I may consider self-publishing the trilogy, as well as future stories, through BLURB as well. Unless, of course, some publisher kicks down my door and begs to publish it before I do.


OTHER STUFF: As if the above projects weren’t already keeping me busy, I am currently working on a series of translations for French  publisher ANKAMA (The Grocery, FREAKS’squeele), and I recently finished English-language translations for two of their animated feature films, DOFUS Book 1: The Return of Julith, and MUTAFUKAZ. I hope they hit an English-speaking movie theatre near you soon. They were a lot of fun to work on.

In other news, I'm still (slowly but surely) organizing my ideas for an espionage-themed comic book mini-series, as well as a daily online comic strip, both of which I am hoping to pitch to American publishers once I've finished work on Archer Coe vol.2.  I kinda have a lot on my plate, but I’d rather have too much to do than not enough.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to meeting some of you at future comic book conventions or bookstore signings. Talk to you soon!

RIPOSTE (2009-2015)

Well, after nearly seven years, Riposte is finally finished.

The book is scheduled for a January 2016 release, just in time for the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême. If you are a fan of film noir and fencing, this is the book for you, and I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy it.

I have some stuff to announce, but I’ll do that later, when my head is a bit clearer. For now, I’m just barely realizing that I won’t be drawing these characters anymore, nor will I be telling their story ever again… and to tell you the truth, it’s making me kind of nostalgic. I’m relieved and a little sad at the same time; it’s kinda strange. Anyway… no time to get all teary-eyed, I have other projects that I need to get back to (Archer Coe vol.2, which I’ve had to put on hold for the past few months in order to finish Riposte on time, as well as some graphic novels to translate for Ankama, among others…)

Thank you for stopping by. Talk to you soon!

Making progress...(3)

Archer Coe & The Way To Dusty Death (vol.2):

Riposte:

Stay tuned...

Making progress...(2)

Archer Coe & The Way To Dusty Death (vol.2):

Riposte:

Stay tuned...

Making progress...

Archer Coe & The Way To Dusty Death: (vol.2)

Riposte:

Stay tuned...

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone!

2014 was a very busy year for me, and I broke my all-time record of Blog Neglect by only posting new drawings 3 times last year. But I had good reasons for it. A lot of stuff happened.

For example, Archer Coe & the Thousand Natural Shocks (Oni Press) hit stores in July, and I began work on volume two in early December, right after finishing a series of interesting and challenging translation assignments for Ankama éditions.

I was supposed to finish Riposte (Scutella éditions) before the year was out, but... well... I didn't. Believe it or not, drawing two graphic novels at the same time, teaching weekly comic-book classes, and translating a series of graphic novels is kind of time-consuming. I still have two chapters to go on Riposte, and I hope to have it completely finished (drawn & toned) before summer. I really am working as fast as I can, so please be patient. :)

The Kindle version of Paranormal vol.1: The Ogre (Evileye Books) was released last October, just in time for Halloween, and the paper version will hopefully be released sometime this year.

And right before the year ended, I drew a picture of Marcus Lopez, my favorite character from the very, very cool Deadly Class (Image Comics) series by Rick Remender and Wes Craig, for the February 7th charity auction to be held by my friend Charlie Harris, the owner of Charlie's Comic Books in Tucson, Arizona.

So there ya go. I hope you all had a happy, safe holiday season. Stay tuned, with any luck I'll be posting more often this year! As always, thanks for stopping by and supporting my work. It's much appreciated.

H-U-G-E Update

Yeah, I know... it's been a long time since I've posted anything around here. But there’s a lot of cool stuff coming up soon, so I thought I’d take a minute to do a little (okay, a big) update:

The first chapter of Archer Coe, the Mind’s Arrow & the Thousand Natural Shocks, the book I created with writer Jamie S. Rich, is going to be released digitally on Comixology on Tuesday, April 8th, and the remaining thirteen chapters will be available for download twice a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) until May 22!

The softcover edition of Archer Coe  is scheduled for release on June 18, and Oni Press has prepared a handy little order form that you can print, fill out, and give to your local comic book shop. The deadline for pre-orders is coming up fast, (May 26, 2014) so if you're interested in the book, you might want to hurry :) !

 As you may have seen if you come around here much, a few months ago I contributed a Black Panther drawing to a charity auction event held by my friend Charlie Harris, the owner of Charlie’s Comic Books in Tucson, Arizona. He's hosting another event on May 3, 2014 for Free Comic Book Day, and this time around I drew the Ra’s al Ghul /Batman clan. Here are the black & white and colored versions :

If you’re interested in purchasing the original drawing (and if you’re in Tucson on May 3rd), feel free to get in touch with Charlie or stop by the store! The winning bidder also gets a free hi-res color copy of the drawing, and all proceeds from the auctions go to help out the Tucson chapter of the Salvation Army, who provides help and support to the needy.

The digital version of Paranormal vol.1 will also be released soon, and Evileye Books has already begun a really cool teaser/promo campaign on their Facebook and Twitter pages. Here are the first three images:

So go be friends with  Evileye Books (or follow them), because subscribers to Insider@EvileyeBooks.com can sign up to receive a 17-page digital preview of the book, which will be released in May! More info can be found on the publisher's FB/Twitter pages.

Right now I’m hard at work on my noir/fencing story, Riposte, and am making good progress. The book is scheduled for release (in France) in January 2015, and I’m doing my best to make that happen.

I may also have some good news soon in regards to an English version, too, so keep your fingers crossed and stay tuned!

The minute I finish Riposte, I’ll be getting started on Archer Coe, the Mind’s Arrow volume 2. I have a big red folder with the script inside it next to my drawing table, and every time I sit down to work, I swear I can hear it saying, "Draaaaaawwwww meeeeee!"  I dunno if I'm hearing things or not, but the sooner I get started, the better. It’s starting to get a little creepy around here.

And let’s not forget: RUN, my wordless spy story that appeared  in volume 5 of Aces Weekly last June is still available.

If you subscribe to volume 5, drop me an e-mail and let me know what name you used to create your subscription account. As soon as I get confirmation from Aces, I’ll be happy to send you an original drawing of one of the characters from RUN on an official Aces Weekly sketchcard, free of charge. I’ll even spring for postage.

Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by !

Archer Coe, the Mind's Arrow

ROBOT 6 just posted an interview with Jamie S. Rich and I, where we talk about Archer Coe, The Mind’s Arrow and The Thousand Natural Shocks, our upcoming graphic novel with Oni Press. I’m thrilled to announce that the book will be published in June (and solicited in the February issue of Previews--tell your favorite comic shop!).

In other news, the first volume of my noir/superhero trilogy, Paranormal, will be released soon by Evileye Books (official release dates to follow shortly) in both paper and Kindle formats.

I’m also making steady progress on my Riposte graphic novel,(Scutella éditions) and will be beginning work on the second volume of Archer Coe before the year is out, so I’m definitely staying busy.

Thanks to everyone who stops by the blog to look at my drawings and read my ramblings. I hope 2014 is off to a great start for you.

Riposte: Back to Black

Riposte, the fencing book I've been working on for the past few years, went through some changes last week. I was finishing up colors on the first chapter when I realized that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Riposte is a crime story, inspired by some of my favorite noir films from the 30's and 40's: Out of the Past, Gilda, The Phantom Lady, The Killers, and Double Indemnity. It's about revenge, betrayal, and murder... so why did I want it to be in color?

I decided to start over. I replaced the blue with gray tones on the first four pages, and showed them to Soline Scutella, my editor/publisher. We came to the conclusion that the gray tones did indeed fit the story better, giving it a sharper edge that was closer to the original mood I'd intended to convey when I wrote the story.

So... long story short: Riposte will now be in black & white (with gray tones)!

Here is one of the "color vs. black & white" pages I sent to my editor, so you can see the difference between the two versions: