After a fan asked me at this weekend’s Motor City ComicCon, I rooted around today in my stack of original artwork to find some old pages to scan and post. Imagine my surprise when I found a small stash of pages form my 1990 Batman Annual! This was one of my very first jobs in comics–possibly my 4th or 5th story–so I can typically barely stand to look at them! Still, it was a neat surprise. I don’t really need to keep them anymore, though, so I’m posting them on the art sales page of this site.

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The artwork above started out as an idea for one of the many commissions I’m working on at the moment, but the person who commissioned the piece changed their mind about what they wanted. Not a problem, but I had already pencilled the piece and liked it quite a bit, so while finishing up two other commissions over the last two weeks, I decided to go ahead and ink this orphaned drawing. After all, the ink was out and I was in the groove…

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I can at long last announce that the first issue of the new Tom Strong mini-series, Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril, will be released on July 31 of this year. This project has been in the works forever, interrupted by dozens of other smaller jobs I took on, such as my Action Comics backups and the Legends of the Dark Knight Digital First story I drew. Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril was written by Peter Hogan (a veteran of the original Tom Strong series and writer of Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom as well as the wonderful Resident Alien comic for Dark Horse Comics), inked by my long-time collaborator Karl Story, and is being colored by Jordie Bellaire (colorist on my Rocketeer Adventures 2 story and my Action Comics backups). You can see the final color art for the cover of the first issue of Planet of Peril above (early uncorrected colors were used in the articles and the DC Comics solicitation notice, a link I’ll post below as soon as DC puts it up).

If you’d like more info, here are some links to the original story that broke the news as well as a few other sites that have picked up the story:

http://geek-news.mtv.com/2013/04/05/tom-strong-vertigo-dc/

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/04/tom-strong-returns-in-july-with-planet-of-peril/

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/04/05/tom-strong-hogan-sprouse-moore-vertigo-dc/

http://comicsbeat.com/vertigo-to-publish-tom-strong-the-planet-of-peril-in-july/

And speaking of that Legends of the Dark Knight story I drew, it’s also been slated for (physical) publication in July, as Legends of the Dark Knight #10.

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Action Comics #18 is out today, in time for Superman’s 75th anniversary. The 40 page comic features Grant Morrison’s last story for the series, as well as my last backup story, once again written by Sholly Fisch, inked by Karl Story and colored by Jordie Bellaire. We created a nice little tale about the power and meaning of the Superman myth. A few samples of the pencil art can be seen above and below.

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I’ve just finished cleaning up the art sales part of this site, fixing many, many broken image links and adding some new pieces. The last two pages of my final Action Comics backup story are now listed, and so is the complete set of layouts for all the backup stories (the huge stack of layouts is pictured above and some sample pages can be viewed on the art sales page). More pages will be listed in the coming weeks. Also, expect some Tom Strong news soon!

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Believe it or not, my name is actually associated with another Superman book this month: Action Comics #17, which is on sale today. I illustrated another really nice little 8-page story in the back of the comic, again written by Sholly Fisch, inked by Karl Story and colored by Jordie Bellaire. It’s a sweet little piece (even though it does contain the panel above) centering on Clark Kent and his adoptive father Jonathan. This issue was supposed to be the last of writer Grant Morrison’s run and my last as artist on the backup stories, but Grant extended his stay by one more issue. So, we’ve got one more 8-pager, but that will be the final one.

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Action Comics #16 goes on sale tomorrow. It features my third short story for the series, this one a Legion of Super-Heroes 8-pager, written by Sholly Fisch, inked by Karl Story and colored by Jordie Bellaire. The finished product is my favorite of the three so far art-wise (a tough call, since I really liked how the Mr. Mxyzptlk story turned out). Some pencilled panels from the story can be seen above and below.

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The final part of my three-part digital Batman story was released today.  Legends of the Dark Knight #29 is available from Comixology, DC Digital, the Amazon.com Kindle Store, and at Barnes & Noble’s Nook Shop. This story was written by David Tischman and inked by Karl Story.

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