Idiot Style

Two Atoms Enter, One Atom Leaves

2011-06-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

While Cartoon Network is still holding off on airing new episodes, someone hasn't passed the word along to iTunes or Amazon, because they're releasing new episodes every week. Grab 'em before they notice their mistake! So this post is about episode 7 (listed as episode 6 with the online vendors), and if you want to avoid even the tiniest of spoilers, stop reading now (although the title is about as spoilery as this post is gonna get anyways).

Still reading? OK then, here's the thing - Show 7 is our Atom episode, the one where we introduce Ray Palmer. But don't fret, Ryan Choi fans, he's in it too. But by the end of the episode, only one will be the Atom. I just wanted to take a moment to say that DC's been really good with giving us a lot of leeway in our show, but they did have a specific mandate for which Atom would still be our show's Atom at the end of the episode. All the same, thanks to DC for mostly giving us free rein.
Also, for those who are interested in the behind-the-scenes kinda stuff, we switched the teasers for Battle of the Superheroes! with this show. So really, there wasn't quite so much of an Aquaman barrage in the script for this one, it just kinda worked out that way.

All art and characters ™and © DC Comics

Sorry

2011-04-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

As promised, here's an apology for Night of the Batmen! Not for the episode itself, which I think was a good one, and one I'm proud of. Also, I won't apologize for the fact that "The Ballad of Batman" is now stuck in your head forever, because that's what a good song is supposed to do. No, my apology is not for anything that was in the show, but something we left out.
In the original script, from first draft all to the final version, Joker was accompanied by his cute but calamitous companion-in-crime, Harley Quinn. But as we started to get ready to board it, I asked James Tucker if he'd mind if I replaced her with one of Joker's previous sidekicks, Gaggy - which he obviously agreed to, because in the show, we did this -

So to all of the Harley Quinn fans out there, I'm sorry I removed her from the show. But here's the thing - in an 22 minute episode with five guest heroes and six villains with talking parts already, there was no time to include Harley, except as a silent partner. And if you're gonna use Harley, you want her to have some dialogue - it's just out of character for her to hang around quietly in the background. Not so much for Gaggy. So while I don't regret swapping Gaggy in for her, I know she has a lot of fans who would have liked to have seen more of her in our show, and to them, sorry.

All characters ™ and © DC Comics

The blog that ate itself

2011-04-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

I meant to post something about Joker: The Vile and the Villainous! a while back, but I didn't want to post anything before it aired, because I couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't spoilery (even the title itself is a little spoilery for my tastes), so I figured I'd post something after it aired. But then I got really busy, and this is the first chance I've had to sit down and blog, so here we go.

So anyways, Joker: The Vile and the Villainous - this was the first story written for Season 3, and according to Michael Jelenic, the concept for the episode was inspired by none other than this very blog, specifically this post! So that was nice to hear.

We (Michael, James Tucker, Jim Krieg and I) blocked out the structure of the story over the course of a morning, then James left us with one unresolved piece of the puzzle - who would the Joker team up with? So spent a lot of time (most of a full afternoon) trying to come up with a partner for the Joker, running through a couple of candidates that weren't quite right, until James saved our collective behinds by emailing in from nowhere with the Weeper.

This Friday, Night of the Batmen!, our adaptation of issue 13 of the comic book - after which, another blog post, featuring an apology from me to one particular fanbase that's sure to hate me when they find out what we've done (or rather, didn't do)!

Image ™ and © DC Comics

Wow, you guys really like Superman, huh?

2011-03-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

This is a little unusual - I thought the Superman episode was pretty good and all, but now that it's aired, the response has been pretty dizzying. It got some nice write-ups at Wired, io9, Topless Robot, Newsarama and even the Onion's A.V. Club (although they listed Dana Delany as the voice of Lois (it's Sirena Irwin) and misspelled Mxyzptlk - how can you misspell Mxyzptlk?), as well as an overwhelmingly positive response in the usual places. Still, it's weird how they all seem to make grim note of the fact that the show's in its last season - let's focus on the positive, people!

If we knew how much everyone liked Superman, we would have... well, we would have done what we did, since we didn't have permission to use him until now. Anyways, there are a couple of folks working up some annotations - check 'em out! And yes, Michael Jelenic does know about a certain website, which did provide some inspiration for the story.

So I'm glad the show went over so well... I hope the rest of the season goes over half as well! And oh yeah, I guess Season One Part Two has been out on DVD for a couple weeks now, so go buy that if you haven't yet. And watch Bat-Mite this Friday at 6:30!

All characters ™ and © DC Comics

New B:TBatB episode tomorrow!

2011-03-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night at 6:30 on Cartoon Network - this guy!

Sometimes we dig pretty deep into the deeper recesses of DC's library for some obscure heroes to team up with Batman, but this time we outdid ourselves... we went all the way back to 1939 to dig out a hero named... lemme check my notes here... Superman! Anyways, he'll be on the show tomorrow, so check it out.

Superman and Batman ™ and © DC Comics.

Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Deleted Scenes!

2011-03-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

Cartoon Network has announced airdates for a couple of new B:TBatB episodes, starting with Battle of the Superheroes!, which is actually the fifth episode of Season 3, airing March 25th. That's the one with Superman, but I can't say anything much about that until Warner Bros. decides to let some stuff leak out, so instead, I'll use this post to gab on at further length about Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!, which also had its airdate announced. And that airdate is...

April the First!

That's pretty much the perfect airdate for Bat-Mite. Well played, Cartoon Network!

But now that an airdate has been announced, I feel hesitant about posting any more B-MP:B'sSC spoilers. So that spoiler-filled Batboy post I was planning will have to wait, but I wanted to post something more than the news about the airdates, so here's the compromise - I'll post stuff from the Bat-Mite episode that never actually made it to the air. No spoilers in footage that isn't actually in the show, right?

Normally we don't have much in the way of deleted footage, but Bat-Mite has a knack for messing up our normal schedule one way or the other. This time around, when we finished the storyboard, we found that it was a couple minutes short of a full show, so we had to scramble to make some stuff up to patch up those gaps. We put back some of the gags that had initially been cut from the Batboy and Rubin section, James wrote the bit where Bat-Mite magically adds fight scenes to the Scooby section, I wrote a shark safety PSA, and James came up with one last thing - a commercial parody that we would have squeezed into the act break during the manga section.

First, a little history - for those who didn't live in Canada in 1987, you might have missed these department store commercials (although they were being rediscovered on the internet around the time we were working on B-MP:B'sSC).

They were directed by the amazing Greg Duffel in Toronto at his Lightbox Studio, with designs by the great Ty Templeton.

That's also Greg as the voice of Robin, by the way.

As a side note, these commercials eventually led to Greg's studio being hired to do some test animation that was used to sell a little show you may have heard of called Batman: The Animated Series.

So along with all of the other stuff, James wrote a script for our own fake commercial, and we whipped this little number up (pardon the crudeness of the drawings, I had to bang it out pretty quick)-

But then, a funny thing happened - when we added all the new stuff into the show, we were actually a minute OVER. So we cut the commercial, since it was easiest to lift out and also, it saved us from doing a bunch of new designs in an episode that already had to be completely re-designed three times over already.

That's it for now - the show will finally be on the air in a month, so everyone will be able to enjoy all the stuff's that's actually in the show, and I'll be more comfortable posting some more spoiler-heavy Bat-Mite stuff again. Superman news before that, hopefully!

Batman characters ™ and © DC Comics

Zellers logo and commercials ™ and © Zellers, probably

Zigglers logo and commercial ™ and © Warner Bros Animation, maybe?

Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Comic Book Pages (Manga Edition)!

2011-02-11T19:59:00.000-08:00

WARNING! Big Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Scariest Cases! spoilers in this post!

Sometimes people ask me how to get into animation. Mostly I encourage them to keep drawing, preferably from real life to get those fundamentals solid, and that's pretty good advice, I think. But the curmudgeon in me just wants to warn them away, because the truth of the matter is that animation is, by and large, a lot of work for very little reward.

By way of example, lets consider a sequence from Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases! As a transition from Bat-Mite's lair to the manga section of the show, we had to come up with a few fake pages of a Japanese Batman comic, based on the old comics by Jiro Kuwata. Legal wouldn't let us just use scans from the originals, so we had to cobble together some fakes, made to look enough like Jiro Kuwata's art to be recognizable, but not enough to exact duplicates of the original.

So I spent a couple weeks coming up with these 6 fake pages -

-and then we sent it off to legal, who had some tiny changes. Next up, inks-

-so with the legal hurdles cleared, we got Craig Cuqro to colour the pages, and added a layer of aged paper texture from Bill Dunn. We also got some dialogue translated into Japanese by Toshi Hiruma (I can't remember what it says any more, sorry) -

-and wrapped it all up in this cover, drawn by Lynell Forestall, inked by Robert Lacko and again coloured by Craig Cuqro and aged up by Bill Dunn -

All told, the whole process probably took about a month. Now watch it go by onscreen -

And that's after we duplicated the cycle to extend it. So in a nutshell, we compressed a month's worth of labour into three seconds of screentime. So there's my advice for aspiring animators - always remember that animation is a medium that will drain years off of your lifespan and leave you mere snippets of footage in return.

And keep drawing!

All characters and art ™and © DC Comics

Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Spoilers!

2011-02-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

I wasn't going to post anything about Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases until Cartoon Network at least decided when they were going to air it for fear of spoiling things. But now that's it's aired in the UK, it's starting to spread, so anyone who wants to see it probably has. In the meantime, if you're avoiding spoilers, and even if you're not, our background supervisor Bill Dunn has started posting some of his paintings from the show. He's working chronologically, and so far he's only up to episode 2, so it's spoiler-free. Check it out here!

As for Bat-Mite, just to be safe -

(LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD)

That should do it. The spoilers will be pretty light-to-non-existent here in the first B-MP:B'sSC post, but it will get spoilerier with each following post. The details are leaking out across the internet already, what with Paul Dini and Weird Al already tweeting about their involvement with it (plus, tweet-wise, I got a nice shoutout from superstar comic book writer Tom Peyer), so I'm assuming anyone reading this far has seen the episode.

First up we have a look at the posters on the wall in Bat-Mite's lair. These posters were all drawn by me, inked by Robert Lacko, and coloured by Hector Martinez. The first poster commemorates Batman's teamup with Sherlock Holmes. You might expect a nerd like me to use the cover to Detective Comics #572 -

- and know that I tried, but legal wouldn't have any of it. In fact, the closest that I could get to an image depicting a teamup between Batman and Sherlock Holmes is this -

Long time fans of the show will probably now ask, "Hey, why not just use a screengrab from Trials of the Demon!?" to which I can only say that the legal issues surrounding the use of Sherlock Holmes are complex, labyrinthine, self--contradictory and ever-changing. In short, I tried that too, and legal said no.

Next up we have the Elongated Man. I'm glad Paul Dini put him in the script, because I actually like Ralph Dibny. He gets written off as a Plastic Man ripoff, but like many characters that have been around for four decades before being needlessly slaughtered in a company-wide crossover, Ralph's character picked up a few interesting aspects over the years, like his status as the JLA's #2 detective, and his rare-for-comics idyllic marriage. I also liked the running gag started in Justice League Europe (I think) about how all the other characters are kinda weirded out by his mystery-sniffing nose, so I tossed that into the poster.

The next three posters weren't called out in the script, but there was a lot of dialogue to cover and I wanted to keep Bat-Mite moving, so I had to make some stuff up for him to float past. Now, DC has a lot of detectives we could have used for these posters - Slam Bradley, the Crimson Avenger, Roy Raymond, Rex the Wonder Dog, and so on - but we didn't have designs for any of those guys, and this show was already pretty design heavy, so I just pulled three detectives from the characters we already had designed. Detective Chimp was a pretty obvious choice. You can see the tracks he's following transform from human to simian, so maybe they're tracking a victim of Grodd's E-Ray, or a were-ape, or something.

Our next detective is the Question - for his poster, I leaned more towards his portrayal in JLU than our show. I mean, he's still a detective and all in our show, but by that point, we'd only seen him tied up in a giant scale and breaking into Darkseid's lair on Apokolips. Here we have him sneaking around in a much more Earthbound environment, probably uncovering some nefarious underhanded crimes by a shadowy conglomerate. Or a 32nd ice cream flavour.

And finally, the Martian Manhunter helping Batman solve some sort of mystery on the moon. J'onn, of course, is a police detective in his civilian ID, and debuted in Detective Comics, so he's certainly qualified for the wall of detective teamups.

And that's that for that. Coming up, more B-MP:B'sSC posts, unless work gets crazy again, in which case, I hoped you liked this one, 'cause I won't have time for any more.

All characters and art ™ and © DC Comics, except Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes ™ and © don't even ask

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S., Eh?

2010-11-11T17:39:00.000-08:00

So there's a new episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold airing tomorrow! This one's overflowing with more patriotic spirit than any half-hour of television ever. Check this out!

Naturally, when the time came to hand out this most American of scripts, it somehow landed on the desk of the show's only non-American director, me. To compensate, I have tried to jam it full of those vivid Stars and Stripes that you Yankee Doodles are so fond of.

It's also a rousing adventure full of as much of the usual B:TBatB mayhem and whimsy as ever, so even if you're not in the USA, check it out! It's also got this guy in it -

If you can't wait for tomorrow, there are video clips and more pictures here to whet your appetite. They'll make your computer smell like Mom's apple pie!

All characters ™ and © DC Comics

Hey, Bat-Mite, what's new?

2010-10-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

Emperor Joker is on Cartoon Network this Friday? Awesomesauce!

Coincidentally, at least 3 of the characters on the cover of that issue of Who's Who will be appearing in upcoming episodes. Watch for 'em!

Art and characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Doomed

2010-10-12T03:42:00.000-07:00

Now that the Doom Patrol episode's aired, I thought I'd post a closer look at the sideshow banners from the circus, since a lot of work went into them. That's kind of the nature of animation - working for weeks on images that flash by in seconds. But in this age of DVD extras and blogsa and what not, there's no reason that work has to zip by unappreciated, is there? Let's all linger over this fine art, drawn by Lynell Forestall and Steve Jones, inked by Robert Lacko and coloured by Bill Dunn. They're all clickable for larger versions.

First up we have the bountiful Baboushka and Romulus and Remus, both background characters from Doom Patrol v.2 #37. There's not much to say about these guys, they're just there to fill empty banner slots.

Next up we have Lodestone, also from that era and that same storyline. Lodestone was also a member of the Doom Patrol in one of its less celebrated incarnations.

Following that we have a strongman, because every circus sideshow needs a strongman. This one was drawn by Steve, for some reason doing his take on the style of Frank Quitely.

Then we have Dorothy Spinner and Shasta the Living Mountain. Both were members of the Doom Force, although Dorothy is portrayed here in her Doom Patrol version. Shasta used to have a lot more line work on his tragic self, painstakingly rendered by Steve, but James pulled us back.

And here's the much-anticipated Brave and the Bold appearance of Beast Boy - this is all the Beast Boy you get this episode. Sorry to those wanting him to be a part of the Doom Patrol, but don't be sad - if we put him on the team, we would have had to kill him. Is that what you want? Beast Boy's blood on your hands? I didn't think so.

For similar reasons, we kept Mento off the team - if we killed him, it wouldn't have seemed like a tragedy. That guy is such a jerk!

Next up we have Crazy Jane... wait, I didn't do a poster for Crazy Jane? What the heck is wrong with me?

To finish off, here's Negative Man himself. I wrote that banner copy myself, and I am as proud of those six words as anything I have ever written.

All art and characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Hey, look at this!

2010-10-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

I would've plugged it sooner, but I didn't know they were putting it online - a brand new Super Friends short, directed by Ciro Nieli, with boards by four of the world's top board artists and also me!

It was made (I was told) to be packaged with a Fisher-Price toy, but thanks to the magic of the internet, everyone gets to enjoy it for free!

Also, the Doom Patrol is on B:TBatB tomorrow - get your piping-hot images and clips here or here!

DOOM (Again)

2010-10-03T01:28:00.000-07:00

OK, as Brianne has reminded me, {SPOILERS FOR SIEGE OF STARRO} Starro is dead now, {SPOILERS OVER} so let's move on and ~~plug~~ talk about my next episode, The Last Patrol!, which is airing this Friday for you lucky Americans with Cartoon Network. Of course, Australia has already seen it two weeks ago, so if you're the type who likes to spoil stuff for yourself, you can find info about the episode all over the internet already, including the special appearance in the teaser of {SPOILERS AGAIN}Batgirl{SPOILERS OVER}.

In non-spoilery news, The Last Patrol! stars my favourite superhero team, the Doom Patrol. I got to direct an episode featuring them (half of a two-parter) for Teen Titans many years ago, but I was still very eager to put them in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Fortunately for me, James was too, so here they come. The story is loosely adapted from a very famous DP story, although we had to change the ending for television, but I think we did a great job capturing the tone of the Doom Patrol all the same. I'll have a post with more stuff after it airs.

In other B:TBatB news, kind of mid-spoilery to non-spoilery, it seems like a lot of info is trickling out about Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!, our big crossover episode. Not so much from me, I think - I've been pretty good about not leaking stuff. Here's what I didn't leak - the episode will have three stories featuring 1/ a teaser with Batboy and Rubin from the MAD Magazine parody, 2/ a story featuring a version of Batman based on Jiro Kuwata's Japanese Batman comics from the 60's, and 3/ a crossover with Scooby-Doo.

Like I said, none of that got leaked by me - I've kept quiet for all these months. It hasn't been easy! So I don't think anyone will mind if I leak one frame from the show, right? So here it is - a genuine exclusive still from Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!

Man, I hope that doesn't get me in trouble with Warner Bros. I'm just so proud of this episode that I couldn't help but share!

It's a pity it wasn't finished in time for San Diego - I mean, the episode that we did screen there, Emperor Joker!, was great and all, but B-MP:B'sSC (as I have decided to abbreviate it) is tailor-made to be screened at a comic convention surrounded by hundreds of the fans who would've appreciated it the most. But it'll probably air before the next San Diego Comicon (even with Cartoon Network's scheduling shenanigans), and who wants to premiere a cartoon everyone's already seen? I guess the timing just didn't work out, so that opportunity is lost.

If only there were some other comic book convention between now and the theoretical airdate - one that would maybe fly me out and put me up for the night - why, then all I'd have to do is square it with the powers that be at Warner Bros and we could screen the guaranteed fan-servicingest episode of any Batman cartoon ever produced! Ah, but that's just a pipe dream, I suppose.

Batman image ™ and © DC Comics.

STARRO LIVES...

2010-09-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

STARRO LIVES...

...at 7:00 tonight on Cartoon Network, that is!

And while I'm here, there's a bunch of spoilers for the last season and a half of B:TBatB here.

All characters in picture © and ™DC Comics.

Bat-News

2010-09-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

So much happening all of a sudden! Well, just three very tiny little tidbits of news, but enough to rouse me from my blogging slumber.

Anyways, Cartoon Network is "tentatively" scheduling Siege of Starro! Part One for September 17. That's tentatively good news for those who haven't already seen it via itunes, Amazon, On Demand or just by being in the United Kingdom 2 1/2 months ago.

And in other news breaking on the internet, we're doing a crossover with Scooby-Doo! Actually it kinda got leaked at San Diego, but the Comics Continuum article has a couple extra details, so check it out.

And finally, there's this, a little promo I directed for the upcoming video game. And when I say directed, I mean "watched Michael Goguen storyboard the whole thing then sat back and waited for Moi to do the animation". Either way, it turned out pretty sweet, so why not check it out? Hopefully it'll tide you over until September 17 (tentatively).

Post San Diego Wrapup!

2010-07-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

Mostly I spent the whole Comic Con either chasing after my 2 year old or stumbling about in a daze, but it turns out a bunch of Brave and the Bold stuff transpired over the weekend with or without me anyways.

First, let me address the rumor accidentally generated at the panel - Batman: The Brave and the Bold is NOT cancelled. The show will come to an end after the third season, not after the second season, as reported on many comic news sites. So the tally will be -

Season 1 - 26 episodes (all have aired)
Season 2 - 26 episodes (12 have aired* + 10 more in the can + 4 more in production)
Season 3 - 13 episodes (all in various stages of production from being-animated-overseas to still-just-a-germ-in-James-or-Michael's-head)

Anyone reporting the show's ending at 52 episodes is misinformed.

Also announced at the panel is the upcoming appearance of two new characters - James dug deep into DC's Golden Age and scrounged up some Depression-era strongman and a World War Two era princess with a magic rope or something, and they'll be appearing in Season 3. The crowd seemed pretty excited about that, even though they lack the star power of, say, Ultra the Multi-Alien, who will be appearing very soon in Season 2.

How soon?

Tell you what - ~~go to the~~ ~~itunes~~ ~~store now and you can buy both parts of "Siege of Starro", our big Season 2 two-parter~~. Never mind, they pulled it down again. Too bad, Ultra's in there somewhere. Shoulda grabbed when you had the chance!

But hey, if you're looking for more spoilers, check out this promotional video of a Season 3 voice recording. If you have sharp eyes, you can spot my face through the glass in the background around 0:42, looming over the proceedings like a pale giant-foreheaded ghost.

To top it all off, when I got back from San Diego, I found this interview with none other than Grant Morrison, in which he says he's a "big fan" of our show. Wow! That's pretty gratifying, what with him being one of my favorite writers and all. Hopefully he'll appreciate our little nods to his Doom Patrol and Batman R.I.P. runs in upcoming Season 2 episodes.

*not counting either the episode that aired only in the UK or the episode that aired only in Australia.

Mid-Season Update

2010-07-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

Nothing big, just a post to gather a bunch of little nuggets of news while waiting for the network to start airing new episodes again (no, I don't now when that will start happening).

Nugget 1 - Brave and the Bold got a third season! This is old news, but maybe someone out there hasn't heard it yet, so there it is. We've got 13 more episodes to follow the 14 you haven't seen yet from season 2 (unless you live in Australia or the UK), which will eventually bring us up to 65 altogether.

And what news can I spill about Season 3, you may ask?

Nothing.

Sorry.

But there may hope if you check out...

Nugget 2 - There's going to be a B:TBATB panel at the San Diego Comicon ! I'm not on it, but producers James Tucker and Michael Jelenic, executive producer Sam Register, voice director Andrea Romano and Batman himself, Diedrich Bader, all will be! Plus we'll be screening an as-yet-unaired (even in the UK and Australia) episode, and there will also be a preview of Young Justice!

Friday! 10:30! Be there or be sad when you read about it online afterwards and realize what a swell panel you missed!

And if you still have questions that weren't answered at the panel, there's always...

Nugget 3 - I started up a formspring account, why not! If there's an internet bandwagon, I'll find my way onto it, usually as everyone else has grown bored and is already leaving. But come feel free to come ask me questions before I forget my password! It's right here.

Shazam!... again

2010-04-01T01:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, Power of Shazam! is back on the schedule, set to air this Friday. I didn't talk much about the Captain Marvel parts in my last post, which is a shame, because this episode is stuffed to the gills with Captain Marvel.

Unfortunately, there's not really that much I can say without getting into some spoilers, so I'll just say that we worked pretty hard to capture that very specific Captain Marvel tone for this episode. If you're a Captain Marvel fan, I think you'll be pleased.

Not that Batman's not in it too, but really, it's primarily a Captain Marvel story with a light Batman glaze. Plus, it's got these happy fellows-

So check it out!

(All characters ™ and © DC Comics.)

Shazam!

2010-02-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

So here's the scoop - even though Cartoon Network has been messing around with the schedule, delaying new episodes until March, itunes has been sticking to the original schedule, meaning you can download The Super-Batman of Planet X! and The Power of Shazam! right now if you want, and presumably the much anticipated (and deservedly so) Chill of the Night! this upcoming Friday.

Now, as big a fan as I am of Captain Marvel, who guest-stars in The Power of Shazam!, I want to talk here about something else that happens in that episode. Something that took me five years to finally accomplish, after repeated failures. In its own way, the culmination of a lifetime's obsession. I'm talking about...

Blowing up the Red Tornado.

I became a comic fan back in Nineteen Seventy Something, reading Justice League of America comics in what has retroactively been dubbed the Satellite Era. Back then, the Justice League had anywhere from ten to fourteen members, half of whom had their own titles. So usually the writers focused on the other half for character development, and pre-eminent among these B-listers, to my young eyes at least, was the Red Tornado.

Now, the Red Tornado was an android with wind powers and a Pinocchio complex. Pretty straightforward comic book stuff. But what drew me to the character was his tenacity. In the era I was introduced to the character, he blew up at least three times, returning from the grave a few issues later each time. It was almost like his secondary superpower was dramatically sacrificing himself in that gruesomely explosive way that you can only achieve in a Comics Code Approved book with robots.

So many years later, I ended up picking up a little freelance storyboarding work from Justice League. The episode was Panic in the Sky, and I was boarding a little sequence where the Justice League satellite is under siege from an army of superpowered clones called the Ultimen. In the middle of the fray, taking up a solitary sentence in the script, was a showdown between Red Tornado and a bunch of Ultimen. Here, I thought, was a chance to pay homage to my favorite hero in the appropriate fashion - by killing him in a blaze of exploding glory.

So I boarded it that way - Red Tornado beats Wind Dragon but is then overloaded by Juice, and dies in a big electrical explosion. Unfortunately, Panic in the Sky happened after The Return, in which the Red Tornado also blows up, and James Tucker, producer of Justice League Unlimited, felt that blowing the Red Tornado up twice was once too many. I argued that blowing up heroically was basically Red Tornado's whole schtick, but James didn't buy it, and Reddy remained unexploded that day.

A few years pass, and I get a call from Sam Register about a new show James is developing called Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and am I interested in working on it? Of course I'm all for that, especially when Sam, knowing my weaknesses, mentions the prominent role that Red Tornado will be playing as one of the most frequent guest-stars. In short order, I was on the Warner Bros. ranch drawing Batman and Green Arrow dangling over a pit of acid.

Now, here's how they decide which director directs which show - it's pretty much just left to chance. But if there's a script coming up that you have a special interest in, there's no harm in letting James or Michael Jelenic know that you wouldn't mind if that script happened to fall into your slot. And when I got there, in the first batch of scripts was a perfect chance to blow up the Red Tornado in classic style. So I dropped a few hints about how I sure do like the Red Tornado, and if nobody else wanted that particular script, maybe I could have a go at it? Which everyone was fine with, so show 4 was to be Invasion of the Secret Santas! starring the ever-exploding android, Red Tornado.

Unfortunately, the reality is that the scripts each have their own challenges, so they get done when they get done, and sometimes that means a script will get delayed or pushed forward to stay on schedule. Secret Santas wasn't going to be done in time to be show 4, but Day of the Dark Knight! was ready, so that became show 4, and Secret Santas got bumped to show 5.

And so it was left to Brandon Vietti to explode Red Tornado. And a bang-up job he did - it was a classic Red Tornado explosion, easily one of the character's best. As proud as I was that Red Tornado got his moment to explode in the spotlight, and as much as I enjoyed watching it, I was still left with the nagging feeling that I wanted to be the one with my finger on the detonator.

And then, 32 episodes later, purely by chance, the script to Power of Shazam! landed on my desk. And there in the teaser was the moment I had been waiting years for - a chance to explode my childhood hero. You can believe I boarded that part myself!

And so, after five years and two failed attempts, here it is - I have finally exploded my childhood hero, the Red Tornado.

There's also twenty-one and a half other minutes of stuff in the episode too.

So 2 measly bucks will get you early access to a full Captain Marvel episode, steeped with Captain Marvelly goodness. Or wait 'til March, whatever.

All characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Oh yeah new show!

2010-02-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

Friday!

Firestorm!

Versus Double X!

Plus these guys!

And... this happens!

Also, surprise villain in teaser - spoil it yourself by watching the first five minutes here!

Friday!

All characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Big Announcement!

2010-01-05T03:10:00.000-08:00

I don't know if this is the appropriate venue for this announcement - I should probably post it in some forum about Quantum Mechanics or something, but I don't know enough about science to find a reliable one. Anyways, here it is - it turns out that, somehow, in the natural course of making Batman: the Brave and the bold, we have made contact with a parallel universe.

I know, I can hardly believe it myself.

There was a weird accident in the editing bay, and before we knew what was happening, we had opened up a portal to another earth, very much like ours, but with one minor difference - Aquaman is the world's most popular hero there!

I know, I know, it sounds insane, but to prove it we arranged an exchange - we couldn't send people or things through the portal, only editing bay data - so we traded the episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold that we were working on for an episode of their hit show Aquaman: The Awesome and the Outrageous. It's a show where Aquaman teams up with a new hero every week! Here he is with Green Arrow-

Unfortunately, we lost their teaser and the main titles, so we just dropped our own in, but after the title card, you're in for a treat - an episode of the Aquaman team-up show from another world. I'm very excited, so tune in and check it out! We'll be airing it this Friday!

Oh, and if anyone from Earth-Aquaman can read this blog, enjoy the episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold that we sent you!

Aquaman images ™ and © DC Comics of Earth-Aquaman. Batman images ™ and © DC Comics of this Earth.

3 Days notice this time

2009-12-09T01:15:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to get better at plugging my own stuff - maybe blogging about new episodes the day they air isn't the best approach. So, for American Brave and the Bold fans, check out Cartoon Network this Friday (the 11th) for a brand-new episode starring this guy!

Okay, I guess it's truer to say it stars Plastic Man, but this episode was meant to introduce Woozy (that's the heavy-set guy in the picture above for the younger geeks) to the Brave and the Bold universe, but they've already aired Woozy's second appearance in "Death Race to Oblivion!" two weeks ago. Don't be too confused, though, it should work fine either way. Plus, this -

That's from the teaser, which was boarded by Andy Suriano, a name that should be familiar to any self-respecting Plastic Fan.

All characters and images in this post are ™ and © DC Comics.

Tonight's the Big Night!

2009-10-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

If you're in the States, that is - if you're in the UK or Canada or Australia, it's already aired, I think -but here in the US of A, tonight at 7:30, Cartoon Network will be airing "Mayhem of the Music Meister!", a.k.a the musical episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, directed by me (I posted about it in my last post, which was... wow, over 3 months ago). You can get some previews here, but really, I'm posting this so late, just wait a few hours and you can watch the whole thing on TV. Even if you miss it, it's on again Saturday at 10 AM. I guess I should have been plugging it sooner, but the episode's already getting plenty of attention, like this and this and this, not to mention a soundtrack release already (buy it here!).

Anyways, check it out. I've been wanting to do a musical episode for like 5 years now, since we did Bunny Raven on Teen Titans. We were going to follow that up the following season with a full-on musical episode, but we ran out of money and time, so we made Mother Mae-Eye instead (which I still like, but I know it's not on a lot of fans' lists of favorite episodes).

As always, Batman and Teen Titans characters and images are ™ and © DC Comics.

Coming soon... Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Musical!

2009-07-15T00:45:00.000-07:00

I'm not even kidding... we actually just finished a full-on musical episode of Batman: Brave and the Bold. And if you can make it to the San Diego Comic-Con Friday morning at 10, you can watch it for free! I know it's hard to believe, but look at this (or this or this).

If you can't make it to San Diego, I think they'll air it in the fall, so please be patient. I'd love to post a teaser of some sort, but I don't think I'm allowed to, so here's something entirely different.

Big night tonight!

2009-05-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

Hey, new Brave & the Bold tonight - check it out! Starring Bat-Mite!

Also featuring cameos from a wide range of Bat-villains, from the A to the Z list. If you can name them all without having to look it up, you deserve a Bat-prize!

I think at least 60% of it is viewable online already, but please, do try to catch in on Cartoon Network tonight at 8:30. Or it'll probably air again tomorrow morning if you miss it tonight. But try and catch it sooner or later, it's pretty bizarre even by our standards, and it was a ton of fun to make, so that means it'll be fun to watch too, right?

Piles of news

2008-11-10T14:46:00.000-08:00

Really just one big thing with a few attached footnotes, I guess - this Friday is the premiere of the new Cartoon Network smash-to-be, Batman: The Brave and the Bold! Which, I might have mentioned, is the show I've been working on for the last year. Rather than going on at length here, allow me to link you to a few interviews I've done in various corners of the internet, and when you're done with those, be sure to tune in to Cartoon Network this Friday at 8 (or Teletoon in Canada, November 21!)!

Not the show -

I think that was made by someone named Grimbot.

Oh, in other news, I don't know if you heard, but there was an election here in the States last week and the good guys totally kicked ass.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2008-07-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

I went to San Diego for the Comic-Con, natch. Okay, it was just three days, but that's all the vacation I get this summer. But the fun I had! After a interview for Batman: Brave & the Bold (check it out here), I went down to the belly of the nerdy beast and sat on a panel (recapped in a couple different places), did a signing and another couple interviews (like this one), walked the entire floor in four hours, and spent the next two days either drinking or resting. For those who couldn't go, here's what you missed-

Higher-res version here.

All characters in video ™ and © DC Comics.

Brave & The Bold development

2008-05-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

It's always so exciting when the first animation test comes back from overseas. The culmination of months of development and hard labour crystallized into a moving image for the very first time - finally, glimpses of the finished show are available, and you can see if the animation meets, or in some rare and happy occasions, surpasses the vivid tableaus that have been playing in your mind for up to a year.

Anyways, it'll still be a while yet before anything comes back for Batman: Brave & the Bold. But I sure am looking forward to it.

Meanwhile...

2008-04-06T01:20:00.001-07:00

I figured since my blog is getting a little extra traffic from unusual sources these days, I thought I'd mention a few other things I've been working on that you can all enjoy while you're waiting to see Batman: The Brave and the Bold air this fall on Cartoon Network.

First, I'm sure you're already watching Transformers Animated every Saturday morning at 10:30 already (also on Cartoon Network). On the off-chance that you haven't been, next Saturday's a great time to hop on board the Astrotrain* - Season 1 just wrapped up in an explosive climax, and that leads straight into season 2 on the 12th. Even if you haven't watched the show before, now's a perfect time to check it out, because this episode establishes a whole new status quo for the show.

Soon after, April 18th at 8 PM in fact, Cartoon Network (You know what? Just turn to Cartoon Network and throw your remote away) will be premiering the new Ben 10: Alien Force, which I did a few storyboards for. In fact, you can check out a brief sequence that I boarded here. Again, a great episode to start watching even if you haven't seen the original series - it's the ground floor for a whole new take on the characters.

Or if you're still focused on Brave and the Bold, I added some more obnoxious teaser material to the post below, and revealed one secret name. Enjoy!

*Astrotrain not appearing in this episode.

NAna Nana Nana Nana NAna Nana Nana Nana BLOG POST!

2008-04-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

Once again, the Internet has unmasked my latest [secret project]. This one's called Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and I'm one of three directors on it, along with Brandon Vietti and Michael Chang, working for James Tucker, of Legion of Superheroes/Justice League/Batman/the-drawing-at-the-end-of-this-post fame, and Sam Register, executive producer of all kinds of awesome shows that you've spent so much time enjoying like Teen Titans, Transformers Animated, Clone Wars, Ben 10, and so on.

Of course, at this early stage, I can't post any actual images from the show, which are being kept under wraps, but there's nothing to stop me from posting this crude scribbling of Batman I did three or four years ago which (I must emphasize) has nothing to do with the show.

Also, here's a list of characters and guest-stars that will be appearing in the show - self-redacted, because 1/ I'm not allowed to spill these particular beans yet and 2/ it will annoy Colin. Keep checking in from time to time, though, and I will be unredacting names selectively, as I have been doing for my previous Transformers and Legion posts.

I wish I could talk about it, because we have [secret character], Black Canary and The Huntress appearing. How awesome is that? Also Blue Beetle (psst - it's Jaime in the suit) and the new Atom. We also have Green Arrow and Aquaman, rocking a decidedly more Silver Age appearance than they have in the comics currently. I also get to draw Speedy, who I haven't drawn since Teen Titans. We even have some really obscure characters popping up, like Adam Strange, Kamandi and fan favorite B'Wana Beast. Also James has promised that we'll finally see the return of Firestorm to the world of animation, which makes me happy, since I thought he should have been in JLU. Not to mention tons of Green Lanterns, including one who's never been animated before. And of course, my favorite, Red Tornado.

Oh, and the guest star voices! Can you believe we got R. Lee Ermey? We also got Tom Kenny, reprising his role as Plastic Man, and Michael Rosenbaum, but not in the role you might expect (he'll actually be playing Deadman). Plus the return of many familiar faces from shows I've worked on in the past, like John DiMaggio, Greg Ellis, [secret guest star], Wil Wheaton, [secret guest star] and [secret guest star]. So you can see why I would be excited!

Anyhow, the show is apparently airing Fridays on Cartoon Network, but not until the Fall. I will probably forget to remind you when it airs, but please, check it out!

Publicity drawing by James Tucker.

Batman, Blue Beetle, "Brave and the Bold", Green Arrow are all ™ and © DC Comics.

My poor neglected blog

2007-07-13T20:17:00.001-07:00

I've been busy working on the new show Transformers Animated, and I'm only going to get busier. So here's a toy by way of apology. And as an added bonus, here are some pictures of Bulkhead that are NOT in the new show.

I can't put up any drawings that are actually IN the show, so this batch of doodles from the recording session for show 10 is it for now.

Show 10 is the one with Soundwave, so that was a fun recording session, as I'm sure you can imagine. Sorry there was no Laserbeak, but Hasbro sprung that on us as a surprise well after the board was already done.

Actually, as far as recording sessions go, the Transformers sessions have been among the most enjoyable of my short career of sitting in recording booths and doodling on scripts.

The regular cast are all seasoned pros with enough experience to goof around and make the sessions fly by while still delivering knockout performances for every single line.

On top of that, we've had an amazing selection of guest-stars already - Townsend Coleman, Lance Henrickson, [secret guest star 3], John Moschitta, [secret guest star 4], [secret guest star 5], [secret guest star 6], Peter Stormare and Weird Al Yankovic! All in just the first 2 seasons!

So far, a very fun couple of seasons. Hopefully all that fun will get captured on the screen.

This, that, and the other thing

2007-02-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, NOW you can buy Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo. Here's a link. I've been boycotting my own blog until it got released, so now I can post again (it's really not because I've been too lazy to post - how dare you even suggest such a thing?)

In other news, Kid's WB is running new episodes of Legion of Super-Heroes again, all through February. Finally, a reason to wake up on Saturday mornings! And speaking of Saturday mornings-

I painted another painting! It's for this show! How 'bout that? That brings my lifetime painting total up to 3. Here it is, in case you can't make it out to Alhambra this Saturday (after you watch Legion and buy Titans: Tokyo, of course)-

It's called "GNAP!". If you don't know why, watch this little video clip here.

November at last!

2006-11-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

You know what that means - Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo is available on the 7th! Wouldn't it make a great Christmas present for all your Titan-loving friends and family? Sure would! And look at that temptingly low SRP!

Or not - apparently, they moved the release date again, this time to February 6th. Grinched again! Oh well. In the meantime, here's a page of sketches I did for the DVD cover.

The actual finished box art was done by some guy named Glen Murakami. All Teen Titans characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Hey, American Titans fans, since you can't buy the Titans DVD this Tuesday, make sure to go out and vote! I know you have 70 minutes suddenly freed up, so no excuses!

Guess who's coming to breakfast

2006-09-23T00:42:00.000-07:00

If you're awake by 10 AM, there's a new show you'll be wanting to watch on whatever channel airs Warner Bros stuff in your neighbourhood. That's right, Legion of Superheroes starts today. Check it out!

If you miss it, don't panic! Apparently they'll be re-airing it Oct 14. Oh yeah, Validus is ™ and © DC Comics.

Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo airs tonight

2006-09-15T01:04:00.000-07:00

At 7:30 on Cartoon Network. We made it a long time ago, and it's been sitting on a shelf for a while now. They dusted it off for San Diego, but if you didn't get a chance to catch it there, it finally airs tonight at 7:30. If you miss that, don't worry, it airs again at the same time tomorrow (Saturday). And if you miss that, apparently you can buy it November 7th. Really, after that, you're on your own.

Here's a little script doodle - including a little section of the script! So watch out for spoilers.

I think I was inspired to put big feet on Cyborg by Irineo Maramba. Cyborg, big feet and all, ™ and © DC Comics.

Attention all horror fans

2006-08-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

I don't normally do this, but I want to recommend a movie. I only mention it because I haven't seen any ads for this yet, and I'd hate for people to miss it because they don't know about it. It's called The Descent, and it's coming out today. I happened to get lucky and see it a few weeks ago, knowing nothing about it, and enjoyed it immensely. I don't want to give too much away, but it's about 6 spelunkers who go down into a cave, and things go wrong. It's tense all the way through - it's already scary before the horror movie genre stuff kicks in. If you're tired of slow-moving Japanese ghost women and/or scratchy-looking torture-fests, and just want to see a finely crafted horror film, check out The Descent.

Coincidentally, I recently recovered a painting I did last year for a show at a store called Robocon. I think it demonstrates quite vividly why I'm not making a living as a painter, but I enjoyed painting it. It's cel vinyl on illustration board, for those that wonder about stuff like that.

Zombie Future ™ and © me.

DOOM

2006-07-06T02:02:00.000-07:00

Here's something weird about blogspot - if you start a post in, say, February, and don't publish it until July, it'll still post as a February post. Just sayin', is all.

Any ways, here's an old page of scribbles from the days of the second Doom Patrol episode of Teen Titans. Glen had designed a bulky Robotman, and I was messing around, trying to get a feel for it.

At the time, someone had suggested Mr. T as a potential voice actor for Robotman. But then, that same someone suggests Mr. T for just about every voice being cast, so I don't think there was ever any serious consideration of the idea.

This drawing is just for fun.

Robotman, Negative Man, Robin, Elasti-Girl, Raven, Slade, Cyborg and Robin ™ and © DC Comics.
Mr. T ™ and © Mr. T.

Doom

2006-06-21T01:45:00.000-07:00

I know I keep saying I'll post more than once a month.

I am one day early this time.

Negative Man © and ™ DC Comics.

See you in July.

Gamecock fever

2006-05-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

Almost let a whole month slip by again. Oops.

I'm not sure how to apportion the blame for this one. Derrick was the one who found the Gamecock entry in the Marvel handbook, but Canete was the first to draw him. Soon enough, everyone was drawing Gamecock, and I got swept up in the tide (this happens from time to time - it's how I started the blog in the first place). So here's my Gamecock-

And a coloured version too, why not -

For those Legion fans checking in for Legion news, rest assured that even though we are spending so much time drawing Gamecock, the show is looking great and does not feature Gamecock in any way (since Gamecock is ™ and © Marvel Comics).

Spammed!

2006-04-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

So a spammer decided my comments section was a great place to plug their internet survey. No thanks. I adjusted my blog to moderated comments from now on - that means that when you post a comment, blogspot has to email it to me for approval before it can be published. Which I will do, as long as it's not spam. But that does mean when you post a comment, it won't appear right away. Please don't let that stop you from posting, though - I don't reply to comments very often, but I do read all of them (especially now).

For those that are in the direct mail business, please, do me a favour - go get a real job. Sell drugs. Become a whore. Overthrow a small island and set up a banana republic. Whatever, just do something with more dignity than spamming or junk mail, okay? The rest of the world knows what it means to sleep soundly - feel free to join us sometime.

(I know I'm probably directing these comments to some program that randomly posts on blogs automatically, but on the off-chance that there's a human being responsible for spamming up my blog, please, rethink your life. Everyone hates you. That can't be any fun.)

In the meantime, for those who've been having problems loading the Quicktimes in my previous post, don't trouble yourself - they deliberately reveal nothing about the show. I can't post any Legion images until the show's already aired - the movies I put up are cropped too close to see anything, really (although hard-core Legion fans could probably deduce which character is in at least half of the movies - hint - each movie features a different individual Legionnaire). I thought it was funny, but my wife thought it was mean. Maybe she's right, and the spam is karmic retribution for my little prank. Although it was really as much a parody of all the secrecy surrounding the project as anything else. Sorry to anyone who got their spirits up.

In the meantime, I've dug up an old drawing I did in my Titans days. It has nothing to do with the new Legion show, even though it bears a strange resemblance to a certain green hero. Rest assured that in the show, that particular green character looks nothing like this drawing.

Strange green character © and ™ me, although I certainly have no plans to ever draw him again.

Unmasked!

2006-04-26T00:58:00.000-07:00

If you're here for the Watchmen drawings, scroll on down to the next (previous) post. For everyone else, some news-

Somehow, the fine folks at titansgo.net have figured out that the [secret project] I'm working on is Legion of Superheroes. Not a terribly big secret, but credit where credit is due.

Anyways, now that the secret (such as it is) is out, here's some Legion stuff. Sorry about the low-res, I don't want the blog to load too slowly.

This is all stuff we put together to give some idea of the feel of the show.

Hey, Warner Bros marketing people! If I'm not supposed to post this stuff, let me know, and I'll take it down.

The show's looking great so far, as you can see. This is all early footage, though, so some things have changed.

We've got some great stuff lined up, too. There's a story with Starfinger lined up that I'm really excited about (Taylor Negron is playing Starfinger).

Also, the Legion of Substitute Heroes guest star in the episode, and Starboy and Matter-Eater Lad join the team.

And that's not our only guest star, either. We've got Cosmic Boy and Ferro Lad, one of them joining the team, with voices by Wil Wheaton and Dave Wittenberg. Also, we're doing the Sun-Eater story - that should be pretty amazing.

Legion of Superheroes characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Just don't ask, please.

2006-04-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

So I drew these today.

Please don't ask me why.

It just came up at lunch, and I had to get these things out of my head so I could get back to work.

That's all.

Please don't read anything into it, is all I'm asking.

Of couse, all Watchmen characters are ™ and © DC Comics.

So how's everyone been?

2006-04-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

I've been extremely busy lately. But now I'm finally just really busy again, so I can post infrequently on my blog.

Not "often" or "occasionally", mind you, but "infrequently". Which is more than every two months or so. I'll try to get back onto a weekly schedule.

But in the meantime, please check out the many awesome (and much more frequently updated) blogs on my sidebar at the right. Michael Chang has a swell new post with storyboard images from "Things Change", which is an idea I'm absolutely stealing.

You know what, I almost forgot the copyright stuff. So Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, Slade and Starfire are ™ and © DC Comics. The gorilla might be Monsieur Mallah (I can't remember whether I meant it to be or not), and if he is, then he's ™ and © DC Comics. Otherwise, he's ™ and © me. Also, I guess the donuthead guy is ™ and © me, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to draw a guy with a donut for a head.

Pufnsmudge

2006-02-16T23:44:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted in a while - I've been working on a nice little post that is turning out to be extraordinarily large. In the meantime, here's this -

I drew this during the Bunny Raven recording. Or was it Mother Mae-Eye? No, it was Mother Mae-Eye. Those were probably the two most enjoyable records I sat in on - Bunny Raven because Tom Kenny kept ad-libbing hilarious stuff (some of which we kept - the "You're great, I love you" bit from the Stagehand was ad-libbed) and the Mother Mae-Eye one because of Billie Hayes. Now, I didn't grow up on Sid & Marty Krofft stuff like some people, so for me there wasn't the nostalgic resonance when Ms. Hayes was recording, but when she did the evil Mother Mae-Eye laugh, I got chills up my spine. Seriously.

Anyways, this was drawn with a black Sharpie, then coloured with highlighter pens (yellow, orange, pink and green). I really like the way the highlighter pens smudged the Sharpie, making the costume look old and filthy. I don't really care for the drawing on the back of the page bleeding through, but what can you do.

I don't remember why I drew Derrick Wyatt in the costume, or why he is so unhappy. HR Pufnstuf is probably ™ and © Sid & Marty Krofft. Derrick Wyatt of East Gotham City ™ and © DC Comics.

In search of a gag

2006-02-13T01:01:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I promised to post an example of an idiot-style drawing that had a practical application. Of course, I also promised a moratorium on the Super-D - but I'll still keep the first promise. Here's a page of idiotic scribbles in search of a gag for "X".

Sometimes it helps to feel your way through a scene like this before you storyboard it. Most of this was in the script (probably not the multiple SD Starfires), but I can't find a copy of the script around, so take my word for it for now. I still wonder if the gag would have played better with a full-sized Starfire standing on Robin's head. Also, it looks like I forgot to include the drawing of Robin with an X in place of his eyes. Oh well. Another X gag lost to the pressures of deadlines. Remember kids, haste makes waste. I think we hid enough Xs in the show as it is. In any case, that becomes this -

And then we make this (this is my only character design for Titans)-

Then Derrick takes a pass to make it actually look like the rest of the show, Chris Hooten colours it, and we get this-

And then Tom McLaughlin adds the timing, and it gets sent overseas, where Lotto subjects it to their mysterious and wonderful processes. Then they send this back to us-

Then Joe Gall plugs that into his avid and turns it into this (I don't know why this is the only version I have in widescreen)-

The next step is very mysterious to me, since I'm not involved in any way. Someone writes some music, someone else adds some sound effects, Scott redubs a line or two of dialogue, and they all get mixed together to make this -

I guess I kind of lost track of the point in there somewhere.

Say hello to a guest Idiot

2006-02-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

And I mean that in the best way possible - Ladies and Gentlemen, Derrick Wyatt!

Here's a stupid collaborative effort that dates all the way back to our days on ¡Mucha Lucha! For reasons I won't get into, I scribbled an ugly mess of a drawing of Jean-Luc Picard in a fat orange marker on a post-it, and left it at Derrick's desk. Soon after, he gave it back to me, with a layer of black ink added by him - thus creating a brand new style of drawing that I intend to use some day to illustrate my gangster comic. Some day! So the true value of the Idiot Style is revealed - it may not create beautiful drawings, but it's unbeatable as a means of springboarding fresh ideas that can be incorporated into a finished production (not that I've finished (or even started) my gangster comic). I'll post an example of Idiot Style drawing that led to something useful next post.

Oh, if you just got here from Titansgo.net, the Super-D's are just below. Scroll on down, and check out some of the other blogs in the sidebar - lots of Titans staff with amazing stuffs (may I recommend Norm's Mignola-style Raven drawing?).

Also, I guess Jean-Luc Picard is ™ and © someone or other. Probably Paramount.

Okay, enough of that for now

2006-02-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

Somehow my Idiot Style blog is becoming the Super-D theatre. Not that I'm knocking Super-D style drawing, which I obviously love doing, but it wasn't really my original intent for this blog. I'll transition slowly, though - first, here's some more Super-D:

And now here's some more drawings of the same character, not in Super-D.

I think these were at least partly inspired by Juan Bobillo, who's drawing She-Hulk for Marvel right now. He draws a strangely fluid Spider-Man, probably more in tune with the original Ditko version than any other Spider-Man artist that comes to mind. Speaking of Marvel, Spider-Man is ™ and © Marvel Comics.

Unlimited!

2006-02-01T01:15:00.000-08:00

More Justice League stuff from the same batch, rounding out the original seven. Still not scanning too well (especially poor Hawkgirl), but it'll have to do until I get a new scanner.

All characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Justice League!

2006-01-30T00:49:00.000-08:00

Just got back from the Bruce Timm retrospective thing at the Egyptian, which was fun and awesome. Hooray to Jon Gibson for putting it on, and Hooray to Bruce for making so many amazing cartoons. If you're too young to remember how crappy superhero cartoons were before Bruce got his hands on Batman, consider yourself lucky. In honour of Bruce, here are some Justice League Unlimited (+ Firestorm) doodles I did in San Diego last summer.

I'm not sure why it scanned so terribly. All characters ™ and © DC Comics.

"No, Wobin, I won't stop."

2006-01-27T20:38:00.000-08:00

Not now, not evew. I am the evow that haunts evewy dawk cowa-nah of yowa mind. I wiww nevah west - and neither wiww you.

Slade ™ and © DC Comics.

Boo Hoo Hoo

2006-01-25T21:50:00.000-08:00

Hey, look, Cyborg's sad about something.

Is it because of all of the messed-up Cyborg heads in last Sunday's post? No, it's because he just found out that he's my girlfriend's least favourite Titan. At least, that's what she told me a year or so ago, so I drew this. It didn't do anything to change her mind. Better luck next time, Cy. For the record, you're not my least favourite Titan (that would be Jericho). Here's Cyborg in colour.

Coloured by Glen Murakami, but I'm sure the colours are all messed up, what with being copied, scanned and adjusted. Oh well. As always, Cyborg © and ™ DC Comics.

So much for Plan A

2006-01-23T20:21:00.000-08:00

I was planning to update this weekly at first, and then gradually drop off to semi-annual posts, but I forgot that Brianne Drouhard's magic internet ninja skills would alert her to my blog the instant I made it (her blog is linked in my sidebar). I also neglected to anticipate that she would then set up a link, drawing people here when all there is to see is one page of messed-up Cyborg heads. So here's another post, and I'll post, say, every other day for a while, dropping to twice a week, then weekly, and eventually forgetting my password and drifting away, as originally planned.

This one is a drawing I did with a red Sharpie during the recording of Haunted.

As you can see, it totally encapsulates the somber atmosphere of the episode. Here's another version of the same idea, this time going over the rough red layer with a black Sharpie, while still failing utterly to achieve a finished look.

Robin and Slade ™ and © DC Comics.

New blog, first post

2006-01-22T23:33:00.000-08:00

I'll admit to totally hopping the bandwagon here - everyone at work is starting up a blog, so I am too. To give mine something a little different, I'm going to use it primarily to post "idiot style" drawings. That is to say, unpolished drawings, crude but amusing, that are more about exploring some weird idea than being a good finished drawing. Sketches and scribbles and so forth. I do a lot of these, mostly because I am lazy and easily amused.

Most of the drawings I'll be posting were done during meetings or recordings or generally any time I should be paying attention to something else. As an example, my first post is a page of messed-up Cyborg heads I drew during the story break meeting for Wavelength. Teen Titans being the show it is, a surprising number of these actually turn out to be useful.

This was drawn with a fine black Sharpie on animation paper. Cyborg is ™ and © DC Comics.

I'll try to post something new every week.