Monday, June 25, 2007

The Beast vs. The Living Vampire

Welp... the news has finally leaked out about the Marvel Comics 'indy' anthology, so I might as well officially confirm my participation. Rather unsurprisingly, my short piece features a couple of characters from the '70's 'monster-hero' phase that Marvel went through during my childhood. Anyone who read the original run of Son Of Satan will get my drift, here. Monsters fighting each other seems quintessentially Marvel to me... as do extended monologues and villainous boasting, which are also featured in decent doses in my offering. I had a fun time drawing Beast and Morbius, I admit it. But it's mostly because I was allowed to draw the vintage versions. Big kudos to Aubrey Sitterson for his ambition here...

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Horribly Delayed

So sorry for the long wait between posts. I've been working hard on both the third drawing book (this one about Robots), and the Secret Saturdays cartoon, which became much more stressful and problematic once the Department Of Homeland Security refused me entry to the U.S. to oversee the production in person. Despite the fact that I'm not an employee of either Cartoon Network or the production company Porchlight Entertainment, and I was paying my own way down, I was harrassed, fingerprinted, and photographed at the border and a 'flag' was put on my passport preventing me from "trying to enter the States illegally in the future". All this because they felt I needed a work visa. Well why not just say so? I'm still steamed about it, especially since the recent news that our joint 'border security' effort requiring all Canadians and Americans crossing the boarder to show their passports was recently relaxed for Americans. Only Canadians need the extra scutiny, it seems. Sigh... At least I'm not the only one. After my Gitmo experience, I was told a multitude of other stories by fellow Canadians like myself who had been travelling back and forth from the U.S. for many years suddenly finding their rights and livelyhood under attack since the inaugeration of the DHS. Looks like Canadians are no longer welcome in the land of Freedom, folks. Their loss, I say. Unfortunately, the travel ban caused me to miss my seat at the Daytime Emmy Awards where my show TUTENSTEIN won it's second Emmy for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program. My wife had a dress picked out and everything. Oh well, c'est la vie. The production for the Saturdays in full-speed ahead, and looking great. I'll try and make this a bit of a production blog for the show whenever I find the time. Until then, stay spooky!