All I'm saying is this---I was nine panels away from finishing a specialty script for the Department of Energy (featuring Iron Man and Modok) and then suddenly I lost all power. Coincidence?

Just finished my most productive month ever for the merry ol' folks at Marvel Comics. Here's a complete listing of what I've been up to.

PAUL'S "WHY I HAVEN'T RETURNED YOUR CALL / E-MAIL OR DONE MY DISHES" LIST OF PROJECTS COMPLETED IN MONTH OF AUGUST. (In order of completion)

Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four 42: (22 page script)

Age of Sentry 4: (10 page script)

Sleepy's Mattress Ad Piece: (4 page script) did this for a chance to work with Steve Lieber!

Digital Iron Man Part One: (6 page script) Exclusive material for Marvel's online site! Extra fun because I got to work with the Iron Man movie folks.

Marvel Adventures: Avengers 30: (22 page script)

Goom's Fairy Tales: (2 page script) Just a short piece for a Hulk special.

Super Hero Squad: (3 page script) Actually, 3 pages worth of gag strips for a fun project linked to some upcoming animation work.

Hulk's Daughter: (8 page script): A piece for a different Hulk special, this one the "Hulk Family" special. I love this character, and want to work more with her.

Thor comic for Taco Bell: (10 page script) Taco Bell will be giving out comics (real ones...not just advertising comics) and I took this one on because I wanted a chance to work with Thor.

Digital Iron Man: Part Two: (6 page script) Another installment for the online Mavel site. They're fun, because I get to play with character a lot.

What If: (27 page script): Yeah...a larger than normal script size (normal full length comic is 22 pages) on this project, and I can't remember if it's been formerly announced, so I'll stay away from extra info.

Whew! That's it. 120 pages of script in one month. Also, I've been developing a new series at the same time, something of my own. And I've been working, as always, on the novels. And, ha ha, jokes on me...I'm still working a full-time day job for some reason.

Recently I got a bike and have been riding it happily around (sunburning my head) in order to clear my thoughts. I'm hoping it will help me become more productive!

The Pulse put up a recent interview with me. It mostly concerns my work on the upcoming King Size Spider-Man Summer Special, but there's also a rundown on what all I'm writing these days, which helps to explain my glassy-eyed looks and how bulked up my fingers are from typing.

http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=007261

Not a bad weekend. Finished a lot of work, including two scripts for a comic that hasn't quite been announced. It's fun stuff---I like to play with superheroes, and for this title I get to play with (among others) a certain Jade Giant who was my childhood favorite.

Past that, Colleen and I wandered through the Portland Art Museum, where there's a current exhibit of works by Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Jean-Louis Forain and others. It was an amazing exhibit. I'm always struck by how stunted Degas made his dancers. Lautrec's work is never quite as impressive up close as I want it to be---I think part of my attraction to his career is the topics he chose to portray, and also the man himself, such an interesting little bastard.

The little man himself.

For me, the best part of the exhibit was the wealth of works by Forain, who I confess I'd never really known of before---but now's he's vaulted to the tops of my favorite artists. He seems to be about 25% Impressionist, 25% Classical Painter, and 50% Cartoonist. A very palatable mixture. The majority of his works on display were of "gentlemen" negotiating the favors of ballet dancers, a not-uncommon occurrence during the period Forain was active. Forain worked in a variety of styles, as he was a painter, a newspaper illustrator, an editorial cartoonist, and so on---matching his style for the purpose. Incredibly versatile.

An example of Forain's work---during his more Impressionistic period.

This work was actually in the exhibit, and was one of the first to really make me stand up and take notice of him, rather than hurrying on to the "greater" artists.

Before the museum, Colleen and I dined at a jolly little restaurant: Isabel Pearl. There, I sated my recent lust for pancakes with a concoction called "King Pancakes"---perhaps the most decadent thing to meet my lips since my last mistress. A triple stack of pancakes, slices of bananas cooked within, smothered with peanut butter (yes---I said peanut butter) with accompanying fruit garnishes and so on. Yee gods, I was forced to push away the plate with some pancake uneaten. Simply admitted, I was defeated. What a treat.

Also, an aside, despite how Colleen and I were to soon lamp our eyes on works by Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Forain---the most beautiful sight of the day was our waitress there at Isabel's Pearl. Her name was Elizabeth. Long hair with green streaks. Deep poignant eyes. A smile more filling and decadent than the pancakes on my plate.

So...all in all, a very good weekend. Workable pleasures and pleasurable works. Satisfying.  

Working on novels is the work of a fevered madman, and I've been taking a break from it of late, recharging my batteries by having fun doing comics. Actually, working on novels IS fun too...it's just that it's such an intensity that sometimes I begin to whither.

So...I've been working on comics for Marvel. My latest to come out is an issue of What If, starring Spider-Man and Wolverine. My wife did a lovely update of some of my other projects, and that can be found here: http://colleencoover.livejournal.com/

Now...I shower! Sorry, no photos of that. Instead, here's this....

My pal Jeff Parker and I were interviewed for our work on an upcoming "What If" comic from Marvel. Here's the link to the talkin'

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=139409

In other news...here is what I did last night.

And here is how I feel right now.

Newsarama, the damn fine comics site, has posted an interview with me, wherein I say some good n' smart stuff, and more or less don't come off sounding like too much of an ass. Always a plus! 

Here's the link:        Paul Saying Stuff

And, for a bonus, here's a visual three-stage representation of being interviewed.

 

Today, idling through pictures on my camera in hopes of finding naughty photos of a friend, I ran across a run of photos from this year's Stumptown convention. I'd pretty much forgotten I even took most of them; no doubt a mental block brought on by how ridiculously inept I am with the camera. For instance, the camera had a slew of short films on it...all of them footage of various friends uncomfortably posing in front of the camera saying variations of, "Are you sure you're on the right setting? No flash went off. Check the setting."

So...in order to get this embarassment over with as quickly as possible, I'm not going to do a whole bunch of recounting the convention. After all, it happened over seven millenia ago, now, and many of the photo's subjects have now been transformed into oil.

Here's what I got.

 

Here's one of Colleen Coover, my absolute best gal. Please note the bee sting on her right forearm. When that bee stung her, she swore louder and more often than I'd ever heard before.

Here's Steve Lieber, who gets a lot of attention since the White Out movie deal. He deserves the attention not only for his talent, but also for his overall good-guy-ness.

For the sake of posterity, and because I can't remember what's really going on in this picture, I'm just going to say that here, cartoonist (and bosom pal) Jeremy Tinder is asking the convention organizers to provide babies, so that he can eat them.

I'm almost positive that I didn't mean to take a photo of Jacq's bosom, but I'm even more positive that I'm okay it happened.

Publisher Greg Means flexes some muscle while pointing out some of his publications. I would like to state, in his defense, that I snapped this shot just before he flexed, and that if I would have waited a mere half-second we'd be looking at a rock-hard mountain of meaty man-muscle.

Another one of Greg. He was one of the prime, "Will Tobin hurry up and take the damn photo??!!" victims. Here he's trying to look studious for the nine minutes it took me to figure out my camera.

Joe and Randy from Oni Press, one of my publishers. Here they stand as sentinels, keeping watch over the flock. Oni has some really good material and everyone should check them out. For a "small" publisher, they have the most varied line.

"Bill Mudron, the Cartoonist"......OR....."Davy Crockett, the Later Years." Your choice.

Jeremy gleefully shows everybody something on the computer, and everyone is intent on watching. Everybody that is, except Jacq, who's only seconds from standing up and unleashing some whoop-ass on the poor photographer, that being me. Look out, me!

 Cartoonist Sarah Oleksyk (center) talks with my gal, Colleen, who cannot be seen in the photo as anything other than a photo on the back of the book in the foreground. Incidentally, Sarah is super talented and will some day be a giant who crushes us all, so we should all get on her good side now.

We are all secretly in love with Dylan Meconis.

I didn't get any usable pictures of cartoonist Joseph Bergin (of "Fistman" fame), but I did take a photo of the beer he gave us. Thanks for the beer, Joseph!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it must be over, because Steve Lieber has left the building.

 

 

 

Colleen and I went and saw the Rembrandt exhibit at our local museum yesterday. We've been meaning to do it for a couple months, but we cleverly put it off until a few days AFTER Colleen's museum membership expired.

But it was still worth it. I have to say that I really was impressed by his work. I've never been a huge fan of the Old Masters. Too stiff and formalized for my tastes, and while I give them slack for working under the constraints of the time, I still like what I like, and what I like are the Impressionists.

And now I like Rembrandt too. It was this particular painting that sold me.

See...here that wiley old master is putting me in my place. There's nothing at all stiff and formalized about this painting. In fact, it has a lot of the elements that I so embrace in the Impressionists: the soft focus, energetic lines, the personality, an artist that is madly creating rather than methodically executing a technique. So, I bow down to you, Mr. Old Master.

Two thoughts that stuck out...Colleen and I both agreed that one of the paintings (not by Rembrandt, and I'm afraid I've forgotten the gentleman's name) had simply the best candle flame we had ever seen painted. How's that for an obscure category? And the awards for best candle flame go to....

Another moment, this one on a Rembrandt painting, had me suddenly looking at a stack of books that Rembrandt had added near the bottom of the painting. As I was looking at those books, it suddenly struck me how incredibly collectible books from that time period are. It was my collector's heart coming to the fore. And, as I was thinking of those collectible books, a further sudden thought struck me....just how goddamn DUMB could I be. I was thinking of the collectible value of old books, while looking at, yes, AN ACTUAL PAINTING BY REMBRANDT.

Damn, talk about losing focus.

 

Well....I'd meant to do a great big ol' blog about my experiences at the San Diego Comic-Con, but a good deal of deadlines and other detritus of life intruded, and now that I'm finally getting around to the blog I honestly don't remember much. So here's my Vastly Reduced Convention Blog.

My gang stayed at an apartment rather than a hotel, which turned out just fine. It wasn't as expensive, and it was far better. Most people, at conventions, take photos of scantily clad ladies waltzing about in scanty costumes of curious sexuality. Me---? I took photos of our apartment.

Here's a view inside the apartment. Note that we have James Brown on the telly. Nothing better to get one in the convention mood.

Another view of the apartment. Colleen Coover and Steve Lieber lurking in the darkness.

This is a view of San Diego, as seen from our balcony. Out there lurks a million stories. Most of them mundane, and only three involving leprechauns.

Our apartment had an actual kitchen, which is fantastic during a convention.

In an actual kitchen, you can make actual dinners.

We spent extra so that our apartment would have a nice view of cartoonist Jeremy Tinder's ass. It was soooo worth it!

Here's what the other end of Jeremy Tinder looks like.

ooooo~~~~looky the sexy shower man! What's really great about this photo is how the reflections on the glass make it look like I'm wearing a flouncy bra. Go cross-dresser, go!

Witness the pile-drivin' arms of a woman-lovin' writer-man!

Following now is a few photos of the Periscope Studios crowd. In this one Ron Randall is creating something. Either a fantastic view of blood-thirsty aliens kidnapping a beautiful princess, or perhaps some directions to the International House of Pancakes.

Here, Colleen Coover and David Hahn share a table. Colleen is my wife and David is a good friend. I hardly ever get them mixed up.

Novelist Sara Ryan, cartoonist Cat Ellis, and then what seems to be two mafiosos....namely Steve Lieber, who is apparently ready to have his ring kissed, and then Jeff Parker, who is ordering a hit on me.

An action shot of cartoonist Rich Ellis. Colleen sez, "Rich looks like an annngel."

The following three photos are from a panel I did, entitled "Comics Are Not Literature." It was a hoot, and without a doubt my all time favorite panel. The panelists were Dan Nadel, Sara Ryan, Cecil Castellucci, me, and Austin Grossman, and it was moderated by Douglas Wolk. Douglas and Sara are longtime friends, but I'd never met Cecil or Austin before. I'd been told that everyone who meets Cecil falls in love with her, and I proved no exception, and Austin was completely off-kilter in the way that I find comforting. I never knew what he would say or do next, and liked him immensely.

Sara Ryan, Cecil Castellucci, me, and Austin Grossman.

Here's me being pleasantly bewildered by Austin.

Here's me offhand quipping some wisdom of vast import while Cecil looks on in well-deserved admiration. Meanwhile, Austin is pondering the best moment to reach forth and crush us all.

Whew. I'm tired of posting pictures. I quit.