Children of Light- Paul

Paul Taylor was the first Children of Light character I created. It was in high school, I had made him for an art class project. At that time, he could transform into earth, air, fire or water on contact. I settled on him controlling the elements instead. He’s pretty much based on me. I think a lot of writers put part of themselves into their characters. I decided to go all the way and just make Paul me. Not all the details are the same, though. My parents are both alive. Poor writing? Maybe. Maybe not. I know James Robinson did it for Starman. So there!

Anyway, here’s a bio:
Paul James Taylor’s parents died when he was 12. He moved out of the city to live with his grandfather, who owns a large piece of land in the country. He graduated from High School, and works as a delivery driver. He wants to be an artist, but lacks motivation. He became a Christian after going through some troubled years after his parent’s deaths. He’s friends with some girls from his church, and made friends with Scott Barker while working together.
Age:18
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Heritage: Irish-German
Favorite drink: coffee. Has to be good, strong stuff. He's a coffee snob.
Talents: drawing and painting.
Pastime: reading comic books.
Powers: Paul has the ability to control earth, air, fire or water on contact. The upper limits of his ability aren’t known, but are limited by his confidence. Like all the Children of Light, Paul’s powers come from God, who gave them powers to fight demonic forces.

Hospitals

My poor wife was in the hospital last night. Kidney stones. 3rd time in 3 years. Ugh. It's a pain I never want to have, from what I can tell, but I would have taken it all on for her. The hospitals are very crowded lately around here. Flu is going around like crazy. I swear half the people I know are sick lately. My father-in-law has been in & out of the hospital the past few months for pneumonia, my brother is in with a bleeding ulcer, right after getting out for heart trouble, my grandpa was in with some nerve damage in his mouth, A co-worker's husband had a heart attack, another co-worker has colon problems. I decided to go to the doc on Friday to have the dreaded prostate check. Too much sickness, man! God protect my family and friends from sickness!

As if I didn't have enough of hospitals, here's a preview of the upcoming hospital scene from Children of Light by Mike Auban.

The Uniques!

My favorite new comic: The Uniques! Independently published by the husband & wife team of Adam Withers & Comfort Love, who are as unique a team as their creations. Adam & Comfort both wrote, drew & colored together on every panel in the book! I won't tell you much, except the art is stunning! Treat yourself for a measly 99cents, and download the comic over at www.uniquescomic.com
They also do a twice-weekly blog to show off their commission work and other neat stuff!

snowed in

Got a lotta snow in Akron yesterday, so I believe we'll be staying in! I'm going to stay in my pajamas until noon. That's what I love about Saturdays, my one day to be lazy, read comics, and be with my family. Doing some laundry, and gonna try to get some CoL work done today. I'm starting to pencil a new page further down the line, and need to fill out the script for later pages. There's a few guys who are waiting patiently for pages to do for me. I appreciate you guys!

Comics review: 52: 52 is a weekly comic series that fills in a missing year in the world of DC Comics. at the conclusion of a universe-shattering event (Infinite Crisis), all DC Comics jumped forward 1 year, aptly called One Year Later. It gave every DC title a fresh start, and in my opinion, a brilliant marketing move! 52 fills in this missing year, where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are missing from the action.
I passed on the series when it came out, mostly due to the extra weekly cost. I'm now reading the paperback collections from the library, and am halfway through the year. With writing by 4 of comics top talents (Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, and Geoff Johns, this should have been a sure thing in my pull list! The series spotlights some of DC's lesser known heroes like The Question, Steel, Black Adam, Elongated Man, Booster Gold and policewoman Renee' Montoya. Quite a good read so far!

Waiting patiently for the next pages of Children of Light (love ya Joey!) in the meantime, here's his sketch of Kris, starring in his pages.

S-s-s-s-stutterin'

Have a new favorite song; Stuttering by Ben's Brother. You might have heard it in the new Dentine Ice commercial (or some type of gum like that). I think it's the only song using stuttering as a method of singing that I like. Bad to the Bone- George Thorogood-Hate it. Ain't seen Nothing Yet-BTO- Hate it. Shakin'-Eddie Money- Didn't hate it, but we thought he had a disability when we saw him sing, so I excused it. But something about this song is really good. Maybe it's the fact that the singer admits his stuttering problem in the song. I like his honesty. You be the judge!

Home with the kids for 2 days while Mom is in Indiana for a funeral. Hope to get some drawing done. You'll see it here first!

Comics review: Doom Patrol

Hey there! Thought I'd give an occasional review of favorite current & past comics I've liked. I don't buy many new comics anymore, so I've been reading things from my collection.

First up is Doom Patrol, volume 3 (2001). Written by John Arcudi & art by Tan Eng Huat. Doom Patrol began in the 60's by DC Comics. The deal was a group of misfits that became a family and beat on weird creatures. Robotman is Cliff Steele, former race car driver, whose brain survives in a robot shell after a racing crash. Elasti-Girl is Rita Farr, a model who gained the ability to change size. And pilot Larry Trainor became Negative Man, who contains an energy creature inside him while wrapped up like a mummy from head to toe. The Chief was their wheelchair bound leader genius, and somewhat manipulative and eccentric. After some adventures, they got blown up and died. But they got better (that's the norm for comics).

After a few different incarnations of the team, rich guy Thayer Jost decides he wants to buy a superteam. He gets the rights to the Doom Patrol name from Cliff Steele, who at the time is the only living member of the team. He recruits some new members: Kid Slick, slacker with a frictionless force field, Fever, excitable girl with heat & flame powers, Freak, who has a mysterious creature living within her, and Negative Man, pessimist A-hole who can see 1 minute into the future (yeah, that's it).

The book only lasted 22 issues, and I felt the story suffered from that. Some subplots were started, and then dropped as cancellation loomed to wrap up the series. Like what the thing inside Ava(Freak)was. And Ted pushed his powers so he could see further into the future, but that was dropped as well. The writing was good, however. Robotman's humanity was examined, and the tem's constant fighting (mostly started by Ted's attitude), made for an intereesting team dynamic.

The art was unique and I loved it. Similar to Manga, with cartoony characters with high amounts of detail in mechanical and background objects. You could see every nick and dent in Robotman's body, and he could look expressive at the same time. A treat was the 2 issues done by the late Seth Fischer (Fantastic 4 & Iron Man: Big in Japan). Tan is currently doing a Silver surfer project for Marvel I hope to check out.

At the end of the series, Cliff and the others went their separate ways. Robotman starred in the next DP series a few years later. I'd love to find out what happens to
the others, but just like in life, we never get to meet up with friends that go away.

No more car trouble!!! Please!!

Aah, glad I got that out of my system! Lets see, got car wrecked 2 Fridays ago, spent the weekend trying to find a reliable car for under $1200 (not as easy as it sounds), got locked out of the car while running last Friday, wouldn't start on Saturday, spent all day Sunday trying everything I could do & check in vain. Got it towed this morning to the garage, it turned out to be a tiny electrical connection. A $10 part cost me $200 in towing, diagnostic & repair. Poop. Could have been worse. I am blessed to be able to pay for another car so quckly.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow!

Listening to: Tobymac (portable sounds)
Reading: Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker, M.D.