What's New for the Box 8/22

It has been a strange year here for the Box and it shows no sign of letting up either. As you have been reading up, Johnny Vega has been on a indefinite hold for several months. this was never my intention but life and other smaller projects took on a life of their own that I wasn’t ready for when I came up with them. This means Corpse Cop.
I’m sure that people are wanting to know why if any new books are EVER going to be printed with Black Box’s predominate space hero?
Well the answer is yes.
After talking to my new editors it has been made clear to really show Johnny from the beginning of his career.
This means his birth to his entry to the Rangers as a cadet. And how he has to fight his way working to the top student hierarchy before getting tapped to be trained by the legendary Captain Ix Triskelion.
Most heroes always have humble beginnings (at least in my opinion they do) and Vega is no different.
This character means a lot to me and has been around for ten years. That's a long time to be working on one character but it does one thing that I like, it makes things constant through out the run of Vega. The other is that it makes working on him fresh and that is a major thing for an artist and creator.

OTHER NEWS: CORPSE COP
the 16 page scratchboard epic is nearly complete at this time meaning that a new mini is under development and a October show is in the works for a small few places here in the Portland area.

Good stuff!

News Flash for the next week

Al here with the latest:
NEWFLASH next weekend Black Box Comix along with Neo trash comics and Darkslinger Comics will all be traveling up to the Emerald City ComiCon.  In the Emerald City known as Seattle.
A two day event that should be fun and marking a return for the box back to that city after a two year hiatus from '08 show. 
I am keeping my fingers crossed that the economy is little more forgiving with buyers this time around.
But this show will also be the unveiling of the newest Black Box Comix mini comic "Corpse Cop". I am hoping that that love of zombies will illicit more interest in the comic company this time round showing that Black Box Comix is not strictly a sci-fi centric comic book company.
I will be looking to see peoples reaction to this little guy until the release of the Ghost Assassin Johnny Vega cross over later this year that I have been working on for the last couple of months.
I am sure that Adam of Darkslinger Comics will be happy about that.
By July, I am hoping to have the forth issue of Vega and the conclusion of “The Rock Apes of Xandar” done and off to the printer.
So begins the year of shows.
Where's my big top.

Updates -Finally

I apologize for not getting back here with the amount of things that cropped up at the end of 2009 and Christmas and all that which comes with that. But as I have learned that is no excuse.
So here I am with some new stuff so you all could see for the crossover with Darkslinger creator and owner Adam Watson. He had asked many months about if I ever had any problems with working with any body else.
No I have worked fine with most people in the past ever since I was associated with the Eugene Comics Guild and the comic known as Guilded Edges and most recently Pandora's Garage.
so here you are a few images of those pages.





On the other side of the fence, so not to become bogged down by doing a piece like this I have also been keeping a practiced hand doing illustration in scratchboard and getting paid for those small projects and also planning out my game for doing scratchboard illustration in the comic book medium as well.





So I haven't been doing nothing in these last couple of months but have been extremely busy as you can see.

The Christmas time of year!

A lot of things are happening for the Box and Johnny Vega . Issue 4 is in a holding pattern until I am finished with the crossover with Darkslinger Comics. This is to say that that #4 is not been edited or anything, far from it.
The base colors have completed but the finishes and the back grounds are now being held up on.
But that’s okay.
Work still progresses. Currently issue ten is being scripted and thumb nailed out . that say a lot when a series is being looked forward that far in advance.
But hard work and getting thing printed is where I am at right now.
Fun stuff but hard work as well.
There is also a Corrax solo story that I have been working on as well.
But that will be set up long in advance and won’t be seen for a while.
Johnny is the focus for now.
Have a good Christmas.

To Puyallup and back again

Well there sports fans Al here with the latest:
The third issue of Pandora’s Garage is finally out and ready for sale. And in my opinion, it’s about time too! Having missed a show in Washington to sell I was a little bugged that the books could have not have been here sooner but that is why you have to plan in advance for these problems, this one was just another learning step along the way of doing things.
But it is here and here is the address for it and the previous two for the collection. I still have to find what happened to the website that I had posted Pandora’s Garage is at because they are not showing on the site for Ka-blam.com
It is at times like this that I wish the on line companies would keep us vendors appraised of the changes taking place in their system that might keep people from seeing the product.
Having empathy for your customers is something everybody needs to keep in mind.
But aside from that glitch, thing have been pretty good. I had a blast traveling out of town to the land north in Puyallup Washington. Again it seems like this is the place to sell artwork at, whether it be comic books or actual art but all of it good.
An original piece of art was handed off to Adam of Darkslinger Comics and then shortly there after another page of scratchboard (page 10 out of the Pandora’s Garage Volume 5) took off to find another home. that makes two page from that book to venture out into the world from it’s creator.
The Destination was Comic Evolution with the catch phrase “Have you evolved?” being on the lips of several people. Again it has to be one of the coolest shops I have been in and the owner Chuck is one of the nicest people you ever meet.
One of the big change ups for this show was the two readings taking place in the store one by Tony Morgan and his collaborator Anthony and the other from an editior of Planet Lovecraft reading a bit from a zombie story.
I will have to say that the most interesting part of the trip was the end part as both Adam and I sold a few comics at a rest stop as we were heading home.
Again a great time!

Printing Woes (again) and other Projects

Is there something in the air?
I have to wonder sometimes with all the cascading things going on right now with printing.
One of the worse things a comic creator and company ever wants to ever hear from a printer is “You have corrupted files”.
Well this was something I as wanting to hear for anyone else let alone for myself but here it is.
One of the key issues of working with others is communication and I have tried desperately to get that point across to others and only a few people really understand that concept.
I wish I could get that point across to printer. Some of less savvy artistic types aren’t blessed with the mathematical mind set to deal with code or understand the techy talk.
But that aside, the third issue of JOhnny will be printed up one way or another.
That is good thing the worry of having printed up and here before the 7th of November is a whole different thing.
Also in the news, the Box will be meeting up with a possible new editor to help with the transition of the issues of Pandora’s Garage into it’s new collection. That I have high hopes for.
Amongst all that, work is being prepped for the commission piece for Darkslinger Comics and work on fourth issue of Vega and layouts for the gothic horror story “Dreams of Elysium” have both worked on at the same time.
A busy time for me.

Another Month down and New Stuff

Well sports fans it has been nearly a month since I last posted and I have been under a great strain to get things done as well as move the office of Black Box Comix to a new location here in Portland Oregon.
Actually not that hard to do really when a lot of things are already done digitally but there are some new thing to rave about:

1) The third issue of Johnny Vega goes out today to the printers at Ka-blam printing. Yeah! Finally after a long look at a lot of the pages and the urging of a fan, there needed to be more backgrounds in the book so I took nearly two months (not counting time for other art projects to be worked on) reworking these images as well as adding more depth to the characters. Definitely a few steps up from the days when I was working on Johnny Vega in color #1.


2) Nearing the completion of The Garage Chronicles: A collection of Pandora’s Garage Volumes 1 though 5. This project has been a major undertaking as I have had to resize the format of the book and and add more pages to the book. The funny thing is as I was redoing the format I came across printed oddity, I had early on with Pandora, managed to reprint a duplicate page twice! The first true page appears in volume 2 on page 23 and then reprinted in volume 3 on page 14. You can imagine my shock that of all the people who have read and bought the book never made mention of it to me. Of course this has lead to speculation whether or not I I should have my own version of a Johnny Vega “No Prize” like marvel use to have back in the sixties and early seventies.
That is still under work.


3) Grand opening of a new comic Shop here in the PDX area called All About Heroes. Took place off of 107th and Holgate. If there was ever and action figure that you were looking for this would be the place to go.

4) Emerald City ComiCon beckons to the Box again for next year. As we have been working closely with Darkslinger Comics over the last year, we have doubled up and sharing the table cost and splitting the fees since times are tough. Show a little solidarity for each other. But this has turned to be a very cool partnership with the ride being supplied right to the place where we need to be and and the company along for the ride as well as co pilot. Though this kid does have a tendency to nod off early in the evening.

So there you have it. New news and events, new comics! Go read!
Alan