It’s always very sad to see someone go, especially an artist as talented as Juan Romera, but he’s been getting more and more high-exposure jobs and just can’t stay on Frater Mine anymore. Of course, I’d love him to stay to the end of the “Here, There and Nowhere” arc, but he definitely deserves to be unleashed on the world so everyone can see how talented he is.

Enric Simon will be replacing Juan on issue 9. Their styles match very well, and after seeing a test page of the FM characters, I can say that Enric (like Kav) is an excellent successor to Juan.

Enric says of himself,

My name’s Enric Simon, I’m 31 years old and I live in Barcelona(Spain). I started working as an illustrator and comic book artist 10 years ago. The first work as a comic book artist that I did was political cartons in one Spanish newspaper, then I published one-shots and some covers and illustrations in magazines and indie publishers specialized in horror.

In the U.S., I have published with Incubator Press, Babylon Comix, Divine Authority Comics, Rna Brand. And now I’m working on 3 different projects with others publishers.

More of his art can be seen on his DeviantArt page. Welcome aboard, Enric!

Juan Romera has been really busy with other projects lately, so I went looking for another artist to help him catch up with the story. It took a very long time, but I finally am able to announce that A. Kaviraj will be taking over pencil and ink duty for Frater Mine #10. There were a lot of talented people who applied, but Kav’s style was the one closest to what I want for the series. As you can see, he has shadowy, black-and-white panels down:

In his own words:

A. Kaviraj is a teacher and artist who lives in Sacramento, CA. He’s been an artist all his life but only recently became good enough to draw professionally. That’s right, kids; it can take a long time! He draws 4-5 pages a week, pencils and inks, and enjoys every minute of it. He’s always bugging his editors for “More script! More script!”. What he DOESN’T like is people interrupting his drawing or watching him draw at the local coffeshop where he does his inking. His favorite artist is Sean Phillips.

More of his work can be seen here and here!

Welcome aboard, Kav!

From my brother:

My friends Mike and Jeremy will be getting married this August in Colorado. A few months ago, they asked me to draw their save-the-date cards. I balked. They persisted. I relented, because how cool an honor is that? Here’s the card I made them:

I have no future in art; however, I believe in Mike and Jeremy’s future together with all my heart. Congratulations, guys!

Juan Romera sent in his finished pages for Frater Mine #8, “And Thro’ the Field the Road Runs By”, part six of “Here, There and Nowhere”. And I have to say they’re brilliant! Click to enlarge:

The pages are going to be sent off to Ed Brisson for lettering. Look for it to be printed by the end of the year!

…since I’ve been home, I’ve been doing art projects with my nephew and brother, and they’ve shown me the joys of Sculpey. In the past week, I’ve made two characters that hearken back to my Dungeons & Dragons days – a dwarf and a beholder:

The treasure chest below the beholder was actually made by Scott, my brother. It looks exactly how I pictured it in my head, but I had no idea how I was going to shape it. When he was done, I thought, “Oh. Der.” Guess I’m going to trust my instincts from now on and just make the shapes as I see them. Like I don’t have enough to do this summer, right? Now my free time is going to be spent making clay monsters.

Maybe next I’ll do Maggie Gallagher as a harpie, however redundant that may be.

From France, raphaelB‘s gives us “the Last Spider-Man Story”. And talk about peripeteia! It’s lightboxed here (click on the graphic to see it in its full glory), but the original is on raphaelB’s site.

My French isn’t strong enough to remember what “Il revient et il bave” means. I’m assuming it’s an idiom because it literally means “He returns and he drools”. Maybe “falls”? Or “drops”? Anyone out there with a French degree that needs put to use? I’m now inspired to re-learn French for two reasons: my boyfriend has taken an interest in doing the same, and the only cartoon I really understood on raphaelB’s site had the punchline, “I’m going to stop peeing on churches.” How will that help me on my next trip to Paris, I ask you?

Last week, Ben and I watched with chilly gooseflesh the BSG preview in which Laura Roslin, cancer-ridden and decked out in her stern wig of justice, threatened mutineers aboard the Battlestar Galactica with her now famous line, “I’M COMING FOR ALL OF YOUyouyouyouyou!!!”. So, yesterday, Ben and his dog Muppet came over to watch BSG again, and he gave me this:

I think everyone in a three block radius heard my heart go “boom!“.

It’s not quite cake, but it’s surely a tasty doughnut. So to speak. PhotoFunia places visitors’ photos into any one of a few dozen scenes using facial recognition software. I don’t think the program recognizes faces like a police program does, but more along the lines of “Hey, this is a face over here! Get it in a picture!” Having very little else to do today (except grading, the bane of my teaching existence), I finally settled on these pictures with these faces:

Like the photomeme, if you create a picture you’d like to share, send it to me and I’ll post it!

UPDATE I: Jeni is money.





UPDATE II: Scott is famous.





UPDATE III: Scully gives us new ideas for Harry Potter slash:

From my brother, “Dude, Do We Have a Magic User Back There?” is a confection whom several guys (and some women) I know wouldn’t mind meeting in a dark alleyway against the better advice of their party members, flaming sword and feet that don’t touch the ground or no.

Prints are available in time for Christmas!

Benjamin Ruth of Rebel Comx is making my nephew’s birthday (maybe Christmas, if the timing doesn’t work out) gift this year. I commissioned him to do a poster of Dominic as a Sith Youngling, and so far, it looks like this:

Stunning, right? Ben works as an artist for a gay greeting card company. Keep an eye on him because he’s gonna be famous before too long.

My brother sent me an email that was dictated by my nephew, who apparently loves all things Spider-Man:

Sean:

Dominic has Spider Man questions:

1) Can Sandman be killed?

2) Does Spider Man have a Spider Car like the one you can ride in the arcade in Niagara Falls?



Us

To which I responded:

dear nephew and brother,

so far in the comics, the sandman has only been captured, not killed. i’m not even sure how someone made of sand could be killed. maybe he’ll just get old and die that way. plus, spider-man isn’t big on killing.

and

spider-man never had a spider-car in the comics BUT there was a toy spider-car made for action figures – http://www.megomuseum.com/wgsh/playsets/spidercar.html. however, superman had the supermobile for a while when he lost his powers – http://sayitbackwards.blogspot.com/2007/06/supermobile.html. cool, huh?

oh oh oh! did you see the pictures of the puppies i’m taking care of?

lovelove,

uncle sean

Tired then of my brother as an intermediary, my nephew addressed his questions to me directly:

Uncle Sean:

Thanks. How did Superman lose his powers?

I gave my best answer, only vaguely recalling the origin of the Supermoble and how it tied into the activation of Amazo:

kryptonite dust got caught in the earth’s atmosphere and robbed superman of his powers. he built the supermobile to continue to work for good. the supermobile had all his powers – strength, heat vision, x-ray vision, flight, super breath – and was pretty cool

lovelove,

uncle sean

But Dominic loves Spider-Man, not Superman, so his next email got the conversation back on track:

Uncle Sean:

Why does SpiderMan not have the Spider Car? What if SpiderMan lost his powers? I was just wondering.

Love,

Dominic

*whew*! The kid asks some pretty good questions for a four-year old. My part is to answer them without overwhelming him with information, knowing that the questions will keep coming if he’s unsure about something. Also, I know my brother and Dominic do arts and crafts like their “monster specimen jars”:

…and “Good Guys of Oz”:





…so, I thought he’d be up for an art challenge:

dominic,

peter parker, the guy under the spider-man mask is not wealthy. he usually rides the subway everywhere or walks or rides a bike. a car is too expensive for him. also, in new york, there is a LOT of traffic. imagine if spider-man got stuck in traffic driving to help someone. oh oh! and one of spider-man’s powers is to climb walls, right? it would be hard to make a car climb walls.

HOWEVER, i think YOU should come up with a story about a spider-car then draw it for me. we can read it together the next time i see you

i think spider-man DID lose his powers in the comic book one time. a friend of his, a superheroine called “the black cat” helped him get them back, but i don’t know how he lost them or how he got them back. i’ll ask my friends who love spider-man what happened.

love you THIS MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!

uncle sean

My challenge was ignored, but sure enough, he wanted to know more:

Uncle Sean:

Why did SpiderMan have to lose his powers in the comic book? Spiders never lose their powers.

Love you, too.

Dominic

God, I love this kid! So, I respond:

dominic,

what hapened was the two of spider-man’s foes – the scorpion and tarantula – created a machine that took away his powers. eventually, with the help of the black cat, he got them back. you’re right, spiders never lose their powers, but spider-man was born a person, not a spider. he got his powers through an accident.

lovelove,

uncle sean

I’m sure this kid knows I’m a pushover. He knows his Mom is a pushover, so why should any other adult be different? So he turns the challenge back on me BUT he gives me a script to follow:

Uncle Sean:

Could you make me a comic book of SpiderMan? Can you put The Sandman in it trying to kill Peter but SpiderMan caught him in the net with his Spidercar and then the Green Goblin shows up and Peter tries to catch him but he can’t because his net is all full and Venom shows up and then MJ throws a brick at Venom and he goes “Nnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” and then SpiderMan tries to kill Dr. Octopus and then there is a fight and Dr. Octopus dies? He thought he couldn’t but he could. And that’s it.

Dominic

I took a few creative liberties because my art skills have gone down the toilet since I stopped practicing years ago, but also because I’m not going to be the one to introduce him to killing and death (even though he seems to have some awareness of it already). I finished the other day and send this back to him:

For which I got back a simple but lovely:

Uncle Sean:

Thank you!

Dominic

(He had me read it to him twice.)

Awwh! And of course, here’s my little superhero dressed up as his hero:

I love this little guy THIS MUCH!!!!!!!!!