First month of the year down!

Well sports fans, Al here with the latest:

THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO SPACE FOR JOHNNY VEGA!:



It looks like Johnny Vega #4 is off to the races! As of this evening the last finishing touches were placed upon the forth installment of Johnny Vega. An ending a two year story arc. A number of things have happened in that time. A major move to a larger city a number of crossovers with other small time publishers here in Portland. And the advancement of Johnny through the ages beginning with his origin and his eventual end and the beginning of a new story with a sidekick Corvis Corrax.

CORPSE COP NEWS:

A new story call “Arctic Wolf” has been written and has begun the drawn process of thumbnails. Nothing beats a good thumbnail like a zombie does.

A TALE OF TWO JO(H)NNYS:



Speaking of thumbnails the crossover with NEOtrash Comix creator Jason Z. Pott has culminated in a story crossing the story of Vega with his character Jonny Morbid. 44 pages of absolute mayhem is about to be unleashed of the comic book world! Watch for it.

STUMPTOWN COMIC FESTIVAL:
For the first time in 6 years that Black Box Comix has been going to the show we have unfortunately found ourselves not being able to gain entrance in our own backyard for a comic book show. Now like with some many things the comic book field is fill lots of back biting and back stabbing as good as any soap opera out there, but being better than point fingers at people in this small community, the BOX will be moving forward to better thing places and more prominence with better quality comic books than a garage sale of comics can offer.

ECCC LOOMS IN THE FUTURE!
Even though it is saddening to us that we will not be attending the local Portland show which had been a stapled for us, the Seattle show, 9th Annual Emerald City ComiCon. It is taking place March 4th - 6th, 2011 | Washington State Convention Center :: Seattle, WA. MORE INFO CAN BE FOUND AT http://www.emeraldcitycomicon.com/. We hope to see you there.

And that is it for the kid- for now!

A strange thing to look at

Have you ever just sat back and looked at the volume of work you have done?

Well as I putting together the back inside cover page I realized HOLY CRAP, how many books have I worked on? 16 separate books and not including the ones that I had worked on with the Eugene Comics Guild. Seven to be exact with them. It is staggering when you think about the vast volume of artwork and hours(!) and money(!!) to put into something you love so much.
I just kinda had to stop and take stock in what I have been doing for the last 12+ years doing this work and that some would call insanity.
Things are getting closer to being finished for the Fourth installment of Vega and then onto the (final for this year)crossover with NEOtrash Comix. Also staring Johnny Vega back in black and white format.
That should be fun.
So keep an eye pealed for this as it develops.

Art City Weekend

This has been the week for busting out the artwork.


JOHNNY VEGA #4 MOVING AHEAD.




As you can see three finished pages from Johnny Vega #4 pages 17, 18 and 19. A collaborative effort on my part for all the computer color on the previous work on Vega. Many thanks to Adam Watson and Kat Meyers for editing the book.

WEEKLY DRAWINGS AND SKETCHES



On top of that here are a couple pencil drawings that I have done one in reference to Corpse Cop and the other Corrax the Seeker.
Corpse Cop might be turned into a scratchboard poster for a later date. the Corrax piece just gets filed under Sunday drawing/ Dental Bus Ride.

SCRATCHBOARD NEWS


The others are two scratchboard pieces. One was a quick down and dirty one for my friend Aron for his birthday and the other “Trust Me” is a for a Valentine’s Day art show yep you guessed it, “The Love Show”. That piece is a 11”X14” for $175.00.
All in all a busy couple days for this weekend.
And I am out of here and back to the drawing board.

The Family Portrait Scratchboard Style -Part 2

Well here it is sports fans, the latest from the box. Two days time in total I believe. I think that I should have my own personal time clock to really keep track of the amount time that I spend working on these. But it had to be done. There are two other projects that I can do but focus on a fewer characters and smaller sizes. This was a big one 16”X20” piece.
That’s big for this kid to work on but it does say that the detail that is involved on this is pretty good compared to say three years ago when I started playing around with the idea of doing scratchboard as a comic medium.
But now onto other project that won’t nearly be as long.

CORPSE COP NEWS: FINALLY BEING PRINTED!
Over the last several months this book has been put on hold because of financial constraints but now is looking to be completed and printed. It should be ready for the Emerald City Comicon 2011 this year.

JOHNNY VEGA #4 IS CLOSE ON THE HEELS OF THIS RELEASE!
By the end of this month “The Rock Apes of Xandar- the conclusion” will be heading off to press. Much excitement as this story gets the pressing that it deserves. But it does mean that when a collection comes around there will be much to be added to the work a redrawing of nearly all of the pages of issues 1 through 3 and a introduction and the official origin of Johnny Vega called Humble Beginnings.
How long this will take I am not sure but I do know that after the completion of “Tale of the Two Jo(h)nnys” crossover no other work with other creators will impede the work on getting Johnny back to where he needs to be.

And that is it for the kid.

The Family Portrait Scratchboard Style

The Family Portrait of the Vega Universe is taking on another take of the same image. Fun but time consuming.

It's all in the coffee!

Parallel Team Up ROUGH CUT! As there is no team up books these days I, Alan Bennett of Black Box Comix have dubbed myself King of the Crossovers! In true old school Marvel Fashion I decided to work on a few ideas at the end of last year and the Crossover that has been worked on my me and my friend Adam Watson of Darkslinger and the current crossover of Tale of Two Jo(h)nnys with Jason Z. Pott of NEOtrash Comix I have a hankering for another.
Then my friend Ben Perkins (who is a god of painting LARGE SCALE) had to hit me with a character he calls Heavy Horse. And then it hit me while we were both raving why don’t we work on a crossover.
Damn before I knew it, there I was banging away on keypads of my PVA at work writing whatever came out of my head for a story.
This image is of Heavy and Corrax: The Seeker working to topple a tripod complete with a floating brain inside!
You can’t beat that! I love that stuff!
Next for images is a Corpse Cop pic that I am working on for press.
Looking good for the first of the year!

In the First Week

Well Sports fans the first week of 11 is already over and things are moving fast now as new work begins on the last of the crossovers (for now).

TALE OF TWO JO(H)NNYS CROSSOVER
The two pages that are featured are from the crossover with NEOtrash Comix’s creator Jason Z. Pott. Jason and I have been friends for about 3 years now and has a very quirky way of looking at life and we both share a lot of the same kind passion for the 70 movies and TV shows.
It was decided that we as small companies could work together on a project and just have a lot fun doing it. A Tale of Two Jo(h)nhnys came out of that.

JOHNNY VEGA #4 SOON TO BE DONE!
The conclusion of the Rock Apes Saga will wrap up by the end of this month! It’s about time.

And that's about it.

Welcoming in 2011

Well Sports fans Al here with the latest here on New Year’s Day.
JOHNNY VEGA #4 IS BEING WORKED ON!
Truer words have never been spoken by this kid as work on this long project are beginning to see fruit as this project grows to it ultimate conclusion.
Vega will be completed nearly half of the goal last year was to try to get the book done by the end of 2010 but that was not the case because I did not want the book to look bad. That's the truth of it with all the you always to make the best of what you’re working on .
And Vega is exactly that. So even though it may seem like a step backwards doing illustration but with the strength of the black and white along with the color backgrounds and everything.
So there you have it a nearly finished project. Good Times to be had by all.