June the 29th marks the launch of newcomer publisher Funnel Cloud 9´s brand new title GENIE.
Written by Jim Keplinger (Shadowhawk), pencilled and inked by me, colored by Kevin Volo with letters by Ray Dillon and cover by David Michael Beck,GENIE follows the adventures of a boy who finds a genie and is granted three wishes.
"Three wishes. Three chances to change anything about yourself or even change the world itself. Legend has it that a Djinn would grant all that power to any person that freed them, but it's just a myth... just a story. Or is it? "Genie" brings the legend to life and shows you what really happens when you set a Djinn free."
I must confess that Genie scared me at first.
When I first received Kep!´s script and read the words "think Braveheart in the sand", my Muse jumped on her seat.
The thought of going back to the days of drawing with the help of heavy picture reference had me staring the ceiling above my drawing station for a while; scimitars, camels, turbans, Baghdad streets, female victorian attire... it sounded just like homework.
OMG, It was homework.
I haven´t drawn using heavy picture reference in ages.
Sure I reach for a photo everytime I´m not sure how a P90 looks like or how many catapults there are aboard an aircraft carrier but if there´s one thing I learned over the years is that resorting to too much of it takes away from the most important aspect of comicbook making: the fun of it.
So I engaged the auto-pilot and started researching.
Encyclopedias, the internet, the History chanel, anything I could get my hands on.
Work, work, work.
I knew I was doing it the hard/wrong way and had to do a 90 degree turn fast.
So, I made my wish. I sat back, looked up and uttered the magic words:
"I wanna have FUN!"
I looked left, I looked right, and on a shelf, buried in dust, there it was the old Lawrence of Arabia VHS tape starring Peter O´toole.
There are films I never get tired of watching.
Groundhog Day, Shall We Dansu, The Incredibles... I can watch them all day, over and over and over again.
Lawrence of Arabia is one of them, watching it always feels like the first time.
Halfway through and I had already been swallowed by its universe.
I was there walking alongside Xanda through the bazars or battling Shakar´s armies in a forgotten oasis. Words like falafel and pomegranate were now familiar.
Drawing Xanda, Farris and Shakar now felt natural, I could actually picture them in my head arguing or trading jokes.
By the time Jeffery releases her, I had already fallen in love with Xanda.
I have a riot over the fact that the girl simply cannot sit still for a moment, she hovers, she twirls, she´s fluidity incarnate, an angel with the smile of a trickster.
I often catch myself giggling over the back and forth between the two of them as I draw some pannels, there is literally magic betwen them.
I find myself filling Jeffery´s room with all the toys and the cool posters I wish I had when I was his age or rooting for them when they face hardship.
I did get my wish.
But if I´m not mistaken, I believe I have two more.
My second is easy:
"I wish this book does well."
The Third one?
I think I´ll keep it a secret. ;)
(Moonstone Books´) Revenge of the Mummy has been solicited and will be in the upcoming Previews.
It´s a two-part mini-series in B&W written by Justin Gray and drawn by yours trully, with cover by Kalman Andrasofszky.
Working in this book was a blast, Justin is an amazing person who gave me free reign to go wild with the art.
Revenge of the Mummy tells the story of a scientist, a young woman who is murdered and returns to life to hunt down the man who betrayed her.
Him and anyone who stands in her way.
Going into the book, I admit it took me a couple pages to shift gears.
Initially I didn´t have a clear picture of Jenna in my head.
I knew what I wanted her to be but I didn´t have a mental image of her.
I wanted her not to be Lauren (Cloudburst).
One could say I felt in love with Lauren, she was a bright, sweet gentle creature caught in extraordinary circumstances and trying her best to survive facing the events that were thrown at her.
There´s nothing gentle about our undead Jenna.
She doesn´t react to the events, she´s the one who creates them.
Jenna takes the initiative; she´s proactive and hunts and kills almost rituallistically.
Where Lauren was feminine and voluptuous, Jenna is feral.
Through her body language I tried to convey her savage drive and thirst for revenge.
Up to this part, however, Jenna was just a concept.
She hadn´t been born yet.
You could say I was sketching her on auto-pilot.
I can pinpoint the exact moment and page where she was born; page #4, pannel#2.
I was trying to envision how she´d hold a gun at a thug´s face and no matter how much I tried, it just didn´t look right.
Something was missing.
Justin would later comment that I was trying to draw Sadako (of japanese horror fame) and he was right.
Then, lightning struck me as I was toying around with their poses: Cats and mice.
Jenna´s an undead.
She can fall from a 50 stories building and walk away whistling.
This wasn´t a thug at her mercy, it was a little mouse; a defenseless little rat caught by a cat.
When I looked down at the sheet, my hand had drawn a smile in her face.
It´s the only moment where the unstoppable killing machine smiles in the entire series.
The moment of her conception.