Daredevil & Frank Miller

Working my way through the Daredevil Omnibus (omnibus means "big stinkin' book"). Weighing in at about 800 pages, it's taken me a month to get halfway through so far. I'm not that slow of a reader, I just get distracted by things like work, and eating. I had read Frank Miller's Sin City for the first time this year, and was blown away by the stark black & white art! I thought I'd go and read through Miller's other works I haven't seen for a while. I started reading comics in the 80's and knew a lot of his work, but mostly his later writing on DD, and his Batman work.

I started with the Wolverine mini-series which I had on the bookshelf, and realized it had been so long since I read it last, I picked up on a lot of the story I didn't realize was there. I thought from there I'd try to read pretty much in order, so next up was Daredevil. This was Frank's first comics work that I know of, and it reads just as well as any modern comic today. In my opinion, a lot of older comics don't read as well in story as I remember as a kid. Even though I know the basics of what happens (spoiler: Elektra dies!), I'm still really interested to see how the story plays out!

Last night's plunder. Nice cheeses, yogurt, bag of dog food my dog won't eat (she holds out for table scraps), toaster pastries.
Time- about an hour
Value- $35 (possible upwards of $50, I usually lowball)

Should have stayed home to rest, but was having allergies all day and thought it would do me good to get out of the house.

Invincible Iron Man

Been a while since I did a comics review. One of my favorite reads lately has been Invincible Iron Man by Matt Fraction (writer), Salvador Larocca (penciller), and Frank D'Armata (colorist). I'm usually an occasional Iron Man reader, sometimes finding it hard to relate to the character of Tony Stark. He's a billionaire, I'm broke. He's a genius inventor, I just figured how to text on my phone. He drives to work in one of the most powerful weapons on earth, I drive a '91 Olds.

The current storyline is what grabbed me the most. Tony Stark was not only the aforementioned billionaire playboy, but was given charge of the US's top peacekeeping force, SHIELD. An alien invasion led to Tony losing everything, and being hunted for precious information stored in his brain. Stark begins deleting information from his technology-enhanced mind to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. This causes him to slowly lose his greatest weapon, his intelligence. As a result, Tony experiences an examination of his life as he needs to use less advanced versions of his armor developed through the years.

I've had a year of trouble and loss to put it simply, so I find I can understand what Tony Stark goes through in this past year's worth of stories. It reminds me of a storyline from the 80's where Tony's alcoholism caused him to lose everything he had, even giving up his Iron Man identity to a trusted friend, while we slowly watched Stark rebuild his life. When we hit rock bottom, we usually find out who we really are as we rebuild ourselves, hopefully stronger than before.

Last night's haul

Great haul of non-damaged goods, this is only about 1/2. Lots of different breads, wraps, donuts, fruit pies, cupcakes. I piled it up in the van and sadly still left a lot there. A lot of the good bread went in our freezer. Out of these shown on the floor, 2 boxes went to our friends at Scouts, and 1 box is going to my neighbor to pay for a favor. Sorry for the bad picture quality.

Had a great night of diving yesterday, check this out:




Many cans of organic split pea soup, gourmet chips, 2 garbage bags of cookies. 2 apples (need more good produce!), fancy crackers, 2 big packs of ground beef. 1/2 doz eggs. Purchase price would have been well over $100. Not bad for 2 hours work!

Wife has been going out with me the past few times, it's nice to have "backup"! I had been going solo a lot, and always felt nervous, being my own lookout. Diving isn't illegal in Akron, but I like to watch out for crazy people or zombies. Strength in numbers is good.

After all that, I was still disappointed in no books from the bookstore. Selling books we find on Amazon has turned into a 2nd part-time job!

What else...working on a re-mastered edition of Children of Light #1. Re-written and lettered, the parts I was least happy with. Tedious work!

Gone diving 3 night in a row, goin to bed early tonight, I think!

Blast from the past

I recently re-connected with a friend through Facebook, that had worked with me on an early version of Children of Light around 1994 or so. They were called the Light Brigade, with a different story, and mostly the same characters. The thing that looks like Igoo from the Herculoids (Google it if you're under 30 or don't get Boomerang on cable) is Paul, Scott is on top of him (I had a white version of his shirt!), Kris and Jen are below. On the left is a shadowy girl who was cut, and replaced with Tasha. The guy riding a tank thing was also cut, but may show up sometime later, too.

Currently working on re-lettering CoL #1 for re-print. The lettering I did by hand was quite horrible! I would have liked to do a totally re-mastered version, re-drawn and touched up, but maybe another time.

Ugh!

I was looking over Children of Light #1 today, wondering if I should reprint. Wow. This is pretty bad. Granted, it was my 1st effort at comics, but it does seem to get a little better as I go along. If I just reprint, there's information that's horribly out of date. One day, i'd love to do a totally re-mastered version. Maybe after #3, which wraps up the "origin" storyline. For now, I think I'll just do a 2nd print with some updated credits and "extras" pages. Get the original print while you still can over at Comixpress!

A little better scan, but not the whole thing (I miss my 11x17 scanner). About 2 hours in. Pencils done. I'm pencilling much looser, and tightening up in inks. My style I've been doing lends to a more sketchy/loose style in ink. I've never been good at doing really tight, slick art. So I try to go with a style that suits my strengths.

Progress

Sorry for the sucky quality, takes too long to set up a scan, so I just take a pic with the Macbook! Worked for about an hour on this today. It will be pages 1 & 2 of Children of Light #3. I'm drawing it at pretty much print size because I didn't want to mess with 2 art pages.

New drawing! kinda

Just a thumbnail, but that's progress, right? Right? In case you're trying to figure out what you're looking at, this is a very rough sketch for the 1st page of Children of Light #3. There's a huge monster thing at the top crushing building tops in its hands, and the kids are below peeing their pants looking at it. I had a little trouble figuring the layout because of the perspective. I started with a 1-point perspective shot, but that made the monster look way bigger than I wanted, like it was at the horizon. I solved that by changing the street view like you're looking across the street at it. This is going to be a 2-page spread. What a way to get back into work!

Had a good night's dive the other day. There was almost 2 dozen boxes of cereal (an organic raisin bran and a kid's puffs thing) I took about half, since I had seen others diving there before. We could have used it all, but the half I took is a great find. I don't mind sharing, especially since we're not desperate. This is where I disagree with Master Diver John Hoffman. He says take everything you find. If competition approaches, try to keep them away.

The great part about that find is, Wife said to try to get some cereal as I was leaving. I had never found cereal before, and kinda rolled my eyes at her. It's not out of the question to expect cereal, I had just never seen any. Finding more than we could use seems like a small miracle to me. After having what seems like a crappy year, we're beginning to see God blessing us and answering prayers. We also received a financial answer to prayer we thought would be near impossible. I think God likes us:)

Satisfied

Not a lot of diving lately. Sunday, wife and I went together, and didn't get too much. I tried this morning to see how that would go, but nothing to interesting. Really haven't needed much. Our freezer is pretty full, and we are lacking nothing. So I'm being satisfied in that. God is a great provider.

Matthew 6:25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"

Moving out of the valley and towards the mountaintop, getting motivated to start drawing again. Next post, I'll show you something, promise!

Food poisoning!!

Just kidding! Yes, we do eat most of the food I bring home. In the dark, I grab what looks good, and we sort when I get home.

"But isn't that food diseased?"

No. Places throw stuff out when it hits the sell-by date, gets dirty or crunched, is discontinued, sometimes no discernable reason. I'm reminded of the Seinfeld episode where George ate the donut from the top of the trash. What was wrong with that dounut? Does moving it from the counter or refrigerator to the trash change the chemical composition of the food?

200 years ago, maybe even 100 years ago, we ate fruit that had imperfect spots, drank milk with no sell-by dates (they used a fancy system where they opened the container and smelled the milk), and ate meat that hadn't been in a constant refrigerated state.

So sarcastic rant aside, we test our food using our brains and senses. If it smells bad, away it goes. Many times fruit is past the freshest state, but still perfectly fine and safe to eat. Meat I bring home is still cold from the store, and if still in a sealed package, is cooked thoroughly. For example, I found a 5-pound tube of ground meat. There was a small break in the package, but the meat was still cold, so had just come from the meat case. We saved everything except the portion near the break in the package, and didn't die after eating it.

If there was a ridiculous amount of the same item in the trash that hadn't expired yet, that could be a suspect of tainted food. Often these scares aren't as serious as they're made out to be (bird flu, anyone? Swine flu?). So again, common sense, sound judgment.

I'm not an expert on food science. I just use common sense, and that's gotten us by so far.

Peace!

Dumpster-Diving 101: Where & when

There's some good books you can read on diving, most notably JOhn Hoffman's The Art & Science of Dumpster-Diving. A pretty entertaining read even if you're not interested in applying John's lifetime of knowledge, but you probably will be after reading it! I'd like to offer some basic, quick lessons I've learned so far. I'm still an amateur at this, hopefully to one day gain the rank of Master Diver, but I have learned a lot quickly.

Where: Well, depends on what you're looking for. For us, we like food & books (more on food saftey later). So we target local markets that don't have the big trash compactors that I don't care to try to get into. I think that might count as breaking & entering. So smaller chain stores, and health food stores often have regular dumpsters. But whatever you're interested in or like to shop, shop their dumpster! It's usually a good idea to scout your location during the day.

When: After store hours, preferably at night for me are the best times. You could get away with looking through a dumpster during daylight store hours, but you risk being hassled by employees or managers. If they see you, you risk having them lock the dumpster or something. My favorite place is next door to a bar, and often employees come out the back door & can see me. I think they called the cops on me, but the cop didn't care that I was lookin'. Still, I don't like the hassle risk factor. Sunday evening they're closed, so I pick at my leisure that day! Ideally, I would go out after midnight every time, but I do work a 9-5 job. Gotta sleep!

Last night was good (Sunday!) Got 3 half-gallons of milk, 1 chololate!, lotsa yogurt, but some turned out skunky, 4 boxes of donuts, a little ice cream, broccoli, a few bunches of bananas, a few dozen small quickly-ripening tomatoes that I made yummy sauce out of today! Nummy! 6 cases of discarded books, too. Some light reading!

Sleepy

Didn't go last night, too tired. Physically and mentally- stuff is getting me down.

Forgot to mention a great find the other day- 2 cases of cookie dough- ready to bake. From some local vendor who must have had a promotion at the store, then chucked his leftovers! Yum!

Instinct?

Diving night tonight! I usually go Sunday night (good 'cause a lot of places close earlier sos I can get to bed earlier!), Tue or Wed, and Fri. or Sat. Notable stuff from the past week:
2 computers (possible ebay sales. I've gotten $20-30 before)
1/2 gal & 4 pints ICE CREAM!
a good boxful of organicish cookies & crackers
2- 1/2 gal organic milk
2 5lb roasts
gift-worthy notebooks, pens, stationary-type stuff
about 30 bath/shower soaps

I need more produce, especially bananas- I feel potassium deficient!

There's an excitement & thrill about going out hunting through dumpsters. Did I talk about this already? o well. I feel like it goes back to man's primal instinct to hunt. There's a thrill of pursuing the game, and a slight hint of danger (apparently not from the police in my area- cops have seen me twice, and passed on by), and the satisfaction of having a successful score. I feel pretty alive and proud after a successful few hours of hunting! Beats sitting in a tree stand waiting for the food to come to you!

The greatest commandment

Hey there! Not a lot of diving the past week, it's been so rainy & hot & muggy here, makes it hard to get out. Did have a great find of books & neat things from bookstore. Another big bag of dog food. Our dog is small, this would probably feed her for 6 months! We are able to find enough to supplement us so we only need about $200 a month for groceries. For a family of 4, I think that's really good.

We've been through a lot over the past few months. Without wanting to go into much detail, we ended up in a situation where we were left feeling unloved by our church family. It's strange that it took that to truly start caring for others. It took unforgiveness to teach me how to forgive and love unconditionally. This has possibly been the hardest 6 months of our lives, but I'm thankful for where God is leading me as we go through it.

On a related note, during this time, God had been working on my attitude toward gays. I had always felt funny, or uncomfortable around gay men. I can't explain why, but I think it was from judging them, and not loving unconditionally as I should. All men have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. I'm a sinner. Is my sin worse than a gay man's sin? If I can sin and call myself a Christian, why can't a gay man (or woman)? A week or so later, I reached out to a friend in need, and he ended up telling me he was gay. I was quite shocked, but also quite accepting. We ended up having a great talk, and a great time! Yes, God loves gays, too! *gasp* if the church would just love gays (or anyone else, for that matter), you would not be able to keep the gays our of the churches. It's not our job to try to change anyone, God does that! Our only responsibility is to love. It is the greatest commandment.

Anime mania!

Hit the local wasteful book store trash the other night, what a great find! several boxes sealed up (a good sign there's something good inside), containing returns & slightly damaged items. Quickly loaded into the van was:
Anime series boxed set ($100 value)- a tag said 1 disc wouldn't play, but played fine for me
Scooby-Doo boxed set
Several dvds & cds
Anime series wall scrolls (big fabric posters)
2 Twilight hoodies (why=?)
2 boxes of books
a few book lights
I thought there was something else exciting, I can't remember what it was.

So some of this stuff we can sell, some can be used as gifts. If only I was an Anime fan, I would have been in heaven! Where is the super-hero trash at?

Forgot to say the other day, found a case of frozen mashed potatoes just past sell-by date- still cold in the dumpster! I wasn't greedy, only took half in case someone else "shops" there.

Found some competition at my favorite spot, and had to pass it up. Maybe there wasn't a good find for them, and they crossed it off their list.

Had a strange blessing today- I got a call from a local radio station saying my Incubus tickets were ready to pick up- ok, I didn't remember winning any tickets. They had my name, address & phone, just my last name was wrong. After showing my ID, they released them to me. Not enough of a fan to go, and we could use the cash, so I managed to sell them for $50 on Craig's list just a few hours later. Thank you Lord, for orchestrating such a unique blessing!

And now...peanut butter!

Continuing the trend of a big score of 1 item, I got about 30 or so single-serving organic peanut butter cups! o yeah! If only I had got some jelly! Actually I did bring home about 20 jelly packs from McDonalds that were left over, so there you go. Last night's score also included:
9 yogurt cups
2 large yogurts (fat free, don't care for it too much, maybe add some of the bananas!)
2 large cottage cheese (one of the few foods I don't eat even from the shelf, everyone else likes it)
6 nice cornbread biscuits
another dozen apples (we actually have too many apples, don't know if you can freeze 'em?)
5 single serve juices
4 bags of bbq chips :9
1 hummus dip (never had it, but my chips look lonely)
2 more corn on cob
1 can kidney beans
1 celery bunch

all from 1 dumpster- time: 1 hour -I know this one is always pretty good, if I went straight there & back, I would only be 1/2 hour.

We've gotten some surprising positive reactions from some people who know we do this, what do you think?

Bananas are the new yogurt

Went diving again last night, couldn't go all weekend because my wife was in the hospital, no one to be home with the kids if I went. She's OK, though. Last night's tally:
Bunches of bananas
2 great organic juices I like
1/2 bag of sugar
lots of strawberries
a few loaves of bread
3 packs hamburger buns
3 boxes of mini donuts
1 big box of greeting cards from our local wasteful bookstore. We may never have to buy cards again (for certain occasions!)

I brought home more bananas than we could reasonably eat before they crossed the line from browning to brown mush. Along with the more questionable strawberries, we can make some nice smoothies! It seems I can find large quantities of certain items one day, and a different item the next. 2 days in a row I found about a dozen or so yogurt cups that had just hit the sell-by date.

I've been wanting to start on the next Children of Light pages, but want to wait until some drama gets resolved around here. In the meantime, I offered to letter Joey Endres' Colossians comic.

It's Thursday like a Friday

Hey! Show was pretty good Sunday, made about $24, talked to a lot of people, did a few sketches. I'll do some reviews of what I bought later.

Good dive the other day, found a 30-pound bag of dog food! Turns out it was senior dog food, so we were worried Sushi wouldn't like it (like she would notice). Turns out she gobbled it up, when she usually won't eat her regular food. Score! I'm not sure how much a big bag of food like that costs, I should go in the store & price it. I'm sure it was worth my whole 2 hours out. Also found a new favorite spot, just a block or 2 away from my #1 spot. A name-brand bakery thrift store was just filled with awesome! It was funny, there was vaseline or something along the rim of the dumpster to deter diving. I grabbed one of my trusty garbage bags and placed along the rim, and hopped right in. I'm off tomorrow, so I'll head back there tonight to get some goodies for the weekend.

Happy 4th!

Last minute stuff

Why, why, why do I always wait until the last minute to get stuff done? Tomorrow I have to have a sign printed for the show on Sunday, have cards printed and cut, and get everything I need together. Also going to see Transformers with Sam! Can't wait.

Had quite a prosperous dive Thu. night! Fridge is full!
7 loaves of bread & hot dog buns
13 yogurt
2 coffee cream
4 tomatoes
3 jello cups
bottle steak sauce
1 small broccoli
1 cauliflower
4 corn
2 dz. eggs
cup of roasted peppers
Value- $40 ish
Time- 2 hours (did a lot of scouting)

If only I was allowed to bring onions in the house, it was onion genocide in one place! Oh, the onion rings I would have made!

Goodwill to all

Went diving last night, thought I made out great, but ended up being disappointing. Looked like a foreign grocery cleaned out their freezer, and I filled a box with still frozen meat & fish. Turned out the stuff was years old. Years, like 2-5. Someone call the health dept! Sometimes there's a reason things are thrown out. There was a package of Chicken wings from somewhere else only a few days expired, so we kept that. Sell-by dates don't mean the food has become instant death, just cook thoroughly. Not much good produce. Got a leaky bottle of cooking oil, a few things Melissa made me throw out: a few dented cans, a broken bag of sugar & flour. I guess every day won't be great finds. There was a good "mystery" can (no label). I guess it would be safer (and fun!) to stick with those.

Behind a Goodwill store is a trash dumpster filled with discarded things. Definitely not a donation dumpster. I made sure! There are lost of good & semi-good things in there I guess the store thinks they won't sell. Yard sale stock for us! I almost feel guilty because there's so little effort.
Rescued was:
A nice baby stroller
a computer that can probably go on ebay for parts.
baby mobile floor play thing
electric hedge trimmer
oil lamp (Melissa might want to keep)
Princess Barbie for Melina (looked like Sarah Furgeson doll-she got a bath)
electronics experiment toy for Sam.
a small gift basket of soap (keep!)

Getting ready for comic show on Sunday, my 1st one in a few years. I've learned you need to do more than sit there and hope people make eye contact with you. I started doing some sketches to sell cheaply that can work as promotional material and act as conversation starters. Artists that have familiar characters on display attract more customers to their table, and people standing in front of you instead of looking as they walk by from a safe distance on the other side of the aisle so they don't have to talk to you is a good thing.

Thanks to my friends from Crashland who are sending me great stuff to have on the table!

Take a Dive!

Results of 1 hr. of diving last night including driving time:
2 boxes of magazines
a watermelon
9 eggs (I know how to test eggs, don't worry. Also I eat a few raw eggs almost daily, and have never gotten sick. So there.)
2 bags potatoes
2 packs fresh green beans
couple tomatoes
1 bottle Aussie conditioner
1 bottle salad dressing
1 bottle chicken stock
a big broken dresser mirror (for a wife art project)
possibly a few things I forgot
1 hour of work= enough food to feed my family a couple meals.

Am I crazy for doing this, or crazy to keep working a "real" job? Talk to me.

New jobs, and comic show

Hello friends! Lately I've been preparing for a comic show in Akron, Ohio. June 28th. come by and say hey and get a high five! I've been practicing some sketches to do while there, check out the Hulk above. I'll also be selling some books from my buds at Crashland Studio. Can't wait!

I had decided to get a part-time job, seeing how the money situation was going to look soon. I put in 8 or so applications for easy things like pizza delivery, but who is the only place that calls me? You guessed it: McDonalds. I worked for McD's for 6 years after high school, 2 years as a manager, and swore never to go back. I usually don't even eat there. So I swallowed my pride, and worked there for 2 weeks before I quit! Not as easy as when I was a younger man.

Around the same time, we started getting interested in Freegans. Freeganism includes vegetarianism, living off the land, dumpster-diving, etc. Basically living an anti-consumerism lifestyle. I respect that. I like free stuff. As a kid we always picked through the trash, and always loved it! After reading more, I became more aware of the waste that we have in America. The average store throws out hundreds of pounds of usable and edible items that are at their "expiration date" (just a "better safe than sorry" date), simply unattractive to buyers, or slightly damaged, or even nothing wrong at all!

So I thought I'd try this out. I targeted one of my favorite bookstores, and found 100 one pot sample packs of coffee. good coffee, too! I couldn't believe it! I peeked in the neighbor's dumpster at work and found a microwave that looked brand-new. Are you kidding? It was missing the turntable plate, but you don't really need that. Turns out the thing is possessed or something, it beeps strangely occasionally, and we had to unplug it. Oh, well. It still cooks, someone might want it in a yard sale.

Encouraged by these great finds, we've gone out several nights, and found the following:
4 loaves of bread- there was lots more than we wanted in 1 find
2 kolochie (probably spelled that wrong) pastry loaf things
4 bananas
2 bunches of grapes
4 rolls
1 pack of dinner rolls
bag of apples
2 lemons
8 tomatoes
3 green peppers
2 dozen donuts (2 trips-there was more, don't take more than we'll use right away)
several boxes of books- only took 1
golf bag
bags of restaurant chips
3 bottles of dish soap- tops were cracked- messy but almost full
bottle of hazlenut creamer-goes good with my free coffee & donuts :9
a CD radio
2 board games
old records & direct TV reciever (thought these might have high value, but not really)

All the food we kept after inspection was mostly mixed with a few bad ones, lightly bruised, whatever. Perfectly edible. Meats I've stayed away from so far. Maybe winter diving would be safer for meat.

Being newbies, we did a lot of scouting to find out what's good, and what's not. Trial & error. I think the value of what we've found so far has been more than the time spent working a minimum-wage job. It's addicting, too. Even though it's not quite illegal, there's still the thrill of it. Plus I'm being green, saving the landfills, and providing for my family at the same time.

I'm going out tonight! I'll let you know what I find!

Yeah, DMZ is good!

Quicky comic reviews

A little late to the party on these, but I thought I'd try some stuff I've heard good things about.

Fables: The concept grabbed me right away: fairy-tale characters forced out of their homeland into the modern world. Snow White is the leader of the Fables, and Big Bad (Bigby) Wolf is the sherrif. The first arc seemed to drag a little. I'm giving the 2nd trade a chance to pick up.

Pride of Baghdad: An original graphic novel by Brian K Vaughn, with beautiful art by Niko Henrichon. During the American invasion of Baghdad, a family of lions escapes the Baghdad zoo. Very thought-provoking.

About to try DMZ- maybe review later.

Nextwave- Agents of H.A.T.E.- Explosions! Kicking bad guys! Giant monsters in underpants! A robot in a bra! I haven't been a fan of Warren Ellis yet (haven't read much of him either), but this one sold me! Marvel B-list characters work for a knock-off SHIELD run by a guy having a nervous breakdown. Need to find vol. 2!

It's here! It's here!

Yay! Children of Light #2 finally here after 5 long years! Take that, Battle Chasers! Art by 11 great artists! Free preview here!

Take that, i tunes!

I recently had one of those online music subscription services, Rhapsody. For 15 bucks or something a month, I could listen to pretty much anything I wanted from my computer or mp3 player. Turns out I could never decide what I wanted when faced with nearly unlimited choices. I canceled the service to save money, and decided I'm happier with whatever CDs I can find at the exchange store, or at the library. Part of the fun is having to search and find something good to play. Plus, studies have shown that CD's sound better. And they sometimes have neat pictures inside!

Starting to prep for a big Akron comic show in June. I haven't gone to sell in a few years, so I'm getting excited!

Done!

Finally finished Children of Light #2! Man! Took me 5 years, and I feel bad about that. I've been working hard the past few months to get done, and I feel I've improved my work ethic some, we'll see. If it's 2 years until the next comic, that'll be more than doubling my speed, right?

Last night the files went off to the printer, and it may be about a month before I get them (they're not too slow, I just chose the discount turnaround time). I'm paranoid there will be some problem with the files, I did them all wrong or something, and have to start over. I'm having the printing done at Ka-Blam. They're super-friendly and do great work, I just got a sample of Timmy from them that I sent to Image Comics. Lots of excitement going on!

I realized I forgot to give proper credit to one of the artists who helped out on CoL#2. Bijoy Raveendran is an artist from India who volunteered 1 page. I had lost contact with him for a while, and he finally e-mailed me back, but I forgot to put his updated profile in the comic. Sorry, bud! His art can be seen at Deviant Art.com

As soon as I get confirmation that I didn't totally screw up the comic, I'll start taking orders for #2. In the meantime, I'm taking a short vacation from comic making!

Here's 2 pages from the book my buddy Eric Merced put some tones on. Drawn by Mike Auban.

Getting closer

Drawn by Papa Nate, ink by me. I still need to fix the guy's pants, I know!

This is the last page of Children of Light #2, but not the last page I have to work on. I think I'm working at a better pace lately, at least a few times a week.

Oh, yeah, we were robbed on New Years Day, and among the stolen items was my laptop with some finished pages on it. Not too much was lost, I only have to re-work parts of a few pages. So left to do is inks/tones on 3 pages, then lotsa letters.

Been listening to Around Comics podcasts. They do a great weekly comics show!