Terry Moore's Blog, page 17

Note to Retailers: Rachel Rising sales update

Retailers: Please up orders on Rachel Rising a bit. Reorders vs overprints are still upside down and so hard to judge. We hate to miss a sale and leave a customer without. We're out of Rachel Rising 2. Diamond reordered 780; we sent our last 700, 200 of which were lost at their warehouse somewhere. So grab what you can in the pipeline while it's there.

Yeah, it's fun to say, oh sold out, but in this day and time, we REALLY hate to miss any order or run out of stock for something still being ordered. We've been overprinting Rachel a bit more than we did Echo by a few hundred. The strong reorders have been a blessed surprise. Now just trying to get in sync with them. Still trying to decide if we should reprint #2.

This is the hard part of publishing, the reorders. We have a number of books that will have to be reprinted before years end. The printing cost for this kind of stock maintenance comes out of our pocket. Sometimes we can relist the book and offset printing costs with some Diamond orders, but not always. Keeping the SiP Pocket Editions in stock, for instance. 6 of them, always in print… that's expensive to maintain. And it's time for us to reprint the ECHO Complete books, both HC and SC. That's the trick to publishing I guess; maintaining stock that is selling through.

We're so grateful for your support over the years. We want to be in sync with you like a well-oiled machine; supplying you with a good book, on time and always in stock. That have-it-in-stock part is tricky for both of us! But you know I will keep making books and I really appreciate you all being there for me and the fans, and comics in general! Can I get an "Excelsior!"?

3 Unused ECHO pages-explained in full

I promised when my Twitter followers reached 4,000 I would post 3 unused pages from Echo. Here they are.

In the original version, Ivy was a very bad girl. After I drew this scene, I realized maybe she was too bad. Only SiP Parker Girls are that bad andI thought readers might find them too similar, so "we reshot the scene" with Cain, and the rest is history. I've been stuck with this wonderful scene in a drawer ever since.

I love Ivy's look when she tells the hacker off, but, again, I should… because it looks a lot like a favorite scene of mine in SiP 13 years earlier, where Darcy Parker tells off a captive Francine Peters. This page from SiP #8…

It's different, but it's similar, and it bothered me. So, I made the change to Cain and I think it was the right choice. That leaves just one chad hanging… the cover.

The cover art of Ivy torching the house was designed to go with this issue (#3). When I realized I wasn't using that scene, I scrambled to make a substitute cover. Much later, when it came time to turn in issue 15 to the printer, I was so tight on schedule that I just grabbed this unused cover and used it. It didn't make sense, but it was pretty. Yes, I am a little ashamed. And there you have it, the untold story of the path not chosen for Ivy Raven and the Echo crew. Here you see it as it was originally laid out, for issue 3, the issue that never was.

 

Rachel Rising #2 In Stores Now

Go get your copy and read it so I can show you issue 3!

Black Canary & Oracle art

Black Canary & Oracle cover art for an issue that will never, ahem, come out, titled One Magic Night.

 

The last of the 2012 summer cons pics…

Cleaning my laptop today. Which means I'm saving the year's photos to dvd and getting them off my hard drive. Found a few worth sharing.

Charles Vess and I at the Baltimore con, plotting world conquest, which is going rather well, thank you for asking…

A Kixie sketch for a kid at Comicpalooza in Houston…

 

I drew a trilby hat sketch this summer and had to look that up… I've never heard of the term before. Found these pics. Who do these two look like to you?

Yeah, I know. Amazing, huh? You don't have to squint too hard to see Katchoo and Francine from my first series, Strangers In Paradise. Cute.

— — —

You never know where the original art will end up once it's sold. The pages tend to either find a good permanent home or travel the world from one owner to the other.  For instance, the cover art to SiP #5, found a very loving home. Here the owner shows her off in a new custom frame. I have a feeling she's not going anywhere for awhile.

Useless knowledge: I drew this cover at a store signing in Houston… my 2nd ever… and nobody came. It was awful—the only way I can draw a crowd is with a pencil. To pass the time, and keep my head down from hot shame, I drew this cover for my next issue. There's a lot of detail because I had that much uninterrupted time. To this day, when somebody asks me to do a store signing, my heart skips a beat. No, thank you, I smile.

— — —

Photo of me ranting at the Harvey Awards. I tried begging for one but it didn't work. Next time, I'm trying cash and free Cheetos. This pic is an outrage by the way. I don't really look like this. Somebody's played a cruel photoshop trick. They made me look bald and fat, when in fact, I'm neither.

Here is the truth:

Yes, I have a pet sloth who lives under my shirt. I call him Skippy. This may give me a rather unflattering outline at times, but take my word for it, under that shirt… and Skippy… I'm ripped like a bad contract, as my confidant-kiss-my-swimsuit expression will tell you.

— — —

A line of pre-ordered sketch requests due for the convention that weekend.

— — —

My studio: on the left are the north-facing windows and my computer desk. Robyn's desk is in the foreground. If your book is on that bookshelf, it means I love it.

The right side of the room and my drawing board. Anything I drop on that dark busy rug disappears and is never found again. I'm pretty sure my innocence is down there somewhere.

— — —

Here are oversized covers printed on vinyl for the display backdrop for our convention booth. Brian (my colorist) and I extracted the characters from the background, who were then printed separately, cut out and placed on top for a diorama effect. I spend a fair amount of time at printers over the course of a year.

Seriously, I have no idea how many tattoos there are of my art, walking around on the planet. It's a treat to see them, but also a little scary, because somebody has made such a permanent commitment to something I drew. I'm almost ashamed to admit, I don't even have a tattoo of anything I've drawn. Nevertheless, they're out there and they're fantastic. The last one I saw was this one of Katchoo in her pose from the cover of SiP 55. The pose is actually inspired by Eminem's Angry Blonde cover.

In January of any given year, I don't know what I'm going to sketch the next twelve months. So when I stumble upon fun sketches, I'm delighted and surprised, as if somebody else drew them and I just discovered them. This was my favorite of the year: Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. You know me, I love nice ladies with dirty little secrets.

— — —

Weirdest photo of the convention summer: most people read about zombies, I actually meet them. Nice folks. Not a lot of questions or anything. Messy and, I gotta tell ya, not big huggers.

— — —

My buddy Adam Hughes painting live at Heroes Con this summer. I was so impressed. What a serious talent. Adam would have made his mark during any art movement in history. I'm glad I get to see him work. I've said it before and I'll say it again, watching Adam Hughes draw is like watching Eric Clapton play guitar.

The final product… (this sold at auction that night for about $12,000. You'll be able to add a zero to that price in ten years)…

And this little guy has nothing to do with me or comics, I just like him. He reminds me of Freddie. I've seen Freddie make the same expression when arguing with Katchoo.

That's it for the convention pics and summer misc. It's all going to archives now to clear way for the fall, New York con, and the winter stories. Now if it would just turn cold for me.

Wonder Woman Art for Charity

Super Hero Weekend is coming, October 29-30. Shops all over the country celebrate with sales and charity auctions. This new sketch of Wonder Woman will be up for auction at ComicFusion.com Go for it—it's for a good cause!

My visit to JFK's assassination site

I'm going to go off-topic today and post this because I'd like to share what I saw and I have a blog to do that. Tomorrow I'll get back to work, I promise.

A few years ago I was in Dallas, Texas and my hotel room had a perfect view down onto Dealey Plaza, where President Kennedy was shot. Although I'd seen a lot of documentaries about this place and what happened here on November 22, 1963, the problem with video footage watched on a screen of any type is the difficulty in judging distance and real time speed. Looking down on Dealey Plaza was a chilling experience because it was obviously a perfect sniper's choice. The angle and line of sight were perfect and the distance is much smaller than you might think. You've seen movies where they trap the enemy and gun them down from a higher vantage point. That's Dealey Plaza. Looking down at the street, the school book depository and the grassy knoll gave me the chills, because, from my vantage point looking at the layout, it looked so easy. This pic off the web was similar to my hotel view. Maybe taken from the same hotel, if not a helicopter.

The memory of that stayed with me. Then last weekend I was in Dallas again and found myself with a free afternoon, so I did something I've wanted to do for very long time, I went to Dealey Plaza and spent a couple of hours walking the crime scene. I've driven through it many times because I used to live in Dallas as a boy, but I'd never stopped and spent time looking at the place carefully. Here's what I found.

Like The Ford Theater where Lincoln was shot, the Texas School Book Depository is a museum. There's a gift shop on the 1st floor filled with conspiracy books and post cards. I paid $15 to ride an elevator to the 6th floor and see the spot where Oswald kneeled at a corner window looking out on the intersection of Houston and Elm. Between the elevator and the window is a mouse maze of photo exhibits leading you through the day's events. I walked that route listening to the headphone audio, then circled back and looked at Oswald's window for a long time. They've reconstructed the way they found it that day, with boxes stacked to form a rifle rest on a wooden floor. The 10 X 10 foot reconstructed area is behind plexiglass walls, but you can easily look through the window and see Oswald's point of view. Two things struck me: how close the street looked to me—the distance to cars below is nothing for a gunman of even moderate ability—and even though the view down Elm Street is perfect, the shooting distance to Houston St. is even better. If I was a sniper, I would have shot the target as he came towards me on Houston. Why wait until they're heading away, where the first shot, if it misses, might alert the driver to speed away easily down an open road to the freeway a hundred feet ahead. Approaching on Houston, there is nowhere for the car to go quick enough to avoid more fire. It is the most dangerous place for the car.

From Oswald's window you can see all the way down Elm to the freeway because the distance is just not that far, and you can the grassy knoll. I would show you the view, but there were no photos allowed on the sixth floor. You have to see it for yourself and burn it into your memory.

I left the building and walked the route on Elm Street. There are two "X"s painted on the road marking where the first and last shot occurred. Standing by the roadside at the first X, just after the 3 overhead street signs, and looking up at the 6th floor window is a scary experience… because, and I can't stress this enough, the distance is so short, especially when you're talking about shooting something with a rifle.  Walk fifteen seconds and you're at the 2nd X. Here tourists walk out onto the street between traffic clumps and have their picture taken because this is where the infamous kill shot occurred. I stood on the spot and looked up at the window. Clear view (even after 47 years of tree growth). My photo (using a point and shoot camera with a wide angle lens that makes distances look longer than they really) below shows you the view from the street up to the window. The red circle in the street, just past the overhead street signs, is where the first shot was fired.  The circle nearest you is the final kill shot location.

What amazes me is that this location is still intact after all these years. Here is a similar photo taken the day after the assassination. Mack White is the boy in the photo, this comes from his web post. By the way, he looks to be my age. I was in the 3rd grade when this occurred. His photo lens looks even longer than mine, and mine is longer than reality.

Standing on the X in the street, facing the window, I look left and there is the grassy knoll. Everybody there had a ringside seat like parents at a soccer game.

In the photo above, the red circle on the street marks the 2nd X (kill shot). The red circle on the far left marks the spot where another gunman is said to have stood behind a wooden fence and fired. Between the 2 circles stood Zapruder, near the dead patch in the grass, his camera focused on the car. See the white colonnade behind the grassy knoll, I took the next photo from that location to show you what people on the grassy knoll could see. Answer: everything. Circles 1 and 3 mark the two X's in the street.

Do you think you could fire a gun from back here without people on the grass knowing you're here? The story is that plenty of people on the grass were certain they heard gunfire from behind them. But not from this spot. From a fence to our right.

This photo is taken from behind the fence that is next to the grassy knoll. Those steps lead to the white colonnade. I scribbled the fence top at the bottom of the photo as an indicator because I'm shooting just over the top of it. The man in the street is standing on the 2nd X. We are looking at what the grassy knoll shooter saw. This could not be an easier shot for a trained rifleman. That 2nd red circle marks the spot by the lamp post across the street where a large piece of Kennedy's skull landed. The Warren Commission never showed the public this angle, did they?

It amazes me that this fence is still here, as is the ugly, bare parking lot behind it. You can stand at this fence, make your shot, walk 10 paces to your car and drive away into an area that vehicles on Elm can't see or access. This is a perfect spot for a shooter.  The conspiracy buffs who hang around this tourist trap area say there were two men with guns reportedly seen here, about 15 feet apart behind the fence. Their positions are marked on the fence in red paint, along with countless graffiti from visitors. If I step back and show you the back of the fence, you can see the red spray mark where one of the shooters [alledgedly] stood. The white car is over the kill shot X. Sorry this photo isn't balanced for light, again I have a cheap point and shoot.

And another photo showing you the back of the fence and the short distance to the kill shot location, where the people are standing in the street. I don't know the distance from me to the spot, but I know I can throw a football that far.

And here is a link to a short piece of footage I took from this fence of a car coming through the kill zone at 30 mph, much fast than Kennedy's limo, but it gives you the same view as a shooter would have from here. Sorry I don't know how to post it as a video player, you'll have to click the link to see it.

Dealeycar-desktop

And that's what I found. My impressions of the scene are: If Oswald was a lone shooter, the 6th floor window is a good position, but most shooters would have fired while the car was coming towards them on Houston Street. The car is trapped in a slow zone and very close. It's the easiest shot. Perhaps Oswald was worried about being too easily spotted as people looked up. Waiting for the car to turn the corner and head away on Elm Street, the distance is still easy and the line of sight clear, but the car has an easy escape route and the target is smaller. The most obvious reason to wait for the car to enter this area is because the shooter is coordinating with another to achieve crossfire. And this is where all the debate about triangulation comes in, and there are plenty of spots to achieve this throughout the Dealey Plaza area. You can watch a ton of videos, investigations and theories about it on YouTube.

But having looked out Oswald's window I am shocked by how easy the shot looks, how short the distances are. This job did not require an expert shooter by any means.  Then I walked to the grassy knoll and the angle from there is even better. You can see the entire route without obstruction and the distance is even shorter. When you think about hunters shooting moving deer at 300 yards, shooting at Kennedy with high-powered rifles in the middle of the street from 100-300 yards away was a sure bet. He was a fish in a bowl. In fact, the shots were so easy, neither of the women in Kennedy's car were struck by gunfire, and they were next to their husbands. That wasn't by chance… that was accurate shooting from short distances. When I stood on the X's in the street and looked at the gun locations, it gave me chills. This was too easy.

My conclusion: Oswald didn't need help to kill the President, but if he had help, and many eyewitnesses say he did, the grassy knoll fence is an even better spot than the 6th floor window. Plus, the knoll shooter(s) can make a fast, easy getaway, while the man in the building could be easily trapped. The building is where I would put the fall guy.

That day forever changed the way the President is guarded. The security advance teams of today would never have let Oswald or a weapon of any kind near the motorcade. We live and we learn.

My one lasting impression of the afternoon was sadness, that in whatever capacity Oswald was involved, one little weasel squatting in a window could wound an entire country so deeply. With my imagination, I stared at that perch by the window and pictured Oswald squatting there in the shadows, only 10 feet away from me, the crowds on the street, waiting. And I can't touch him; he is protected from me by an ever-widening gap of time. I guess people get the same feeling visiting Ford's Theater. We all have the capability to do things we have no right to do. Most people understand that. The few who don't have had far too much influence on human history. Will we ever be able to change that?

Rain dance and updates

Today I woke up to cloudy skies and a remote chance of rain. It looked so wonderful, my spirit soared. I didn't realize how much I've grown to despise sunny days and blues skies. As you know I'm in Texas and we haven't had rain here for eons. The state is one big dusty plot of dry dirt under a broiling sun that has topped 100 degrees for over 100 days in parts of the state. The streets are empty because if you go outside you will die.  I tried it yesterday and I broke a sweat, so I'm sure death was imminent. (In Houston, the people are the least healthy during summer because you really don't want to do anything outside. Come November, when the temps drop below 98 degrees, people pour out from their caves delirious from the oxygen rush.) Well, this afternoon it actually sprinkled on my [deserted, Apocalypticly abandoned] street. Robyn and I stood at the window, looking out at the toxic landscape and cried tears of joy at the sign from God that he was going to give humanity another chance. Then the sprinkling stopped. But for a few seconds there it was heaven and life had meaning. The weathermen are predicting the drought to last through December. So basically, the next time I am predicted to see damp concrete is January. This is what I live for. This and the upcoming Avengers movie.

— — —

A new chat with me about my work at SuicideGirls.com

— — —

More of my chatter on my books here.

— — —

If you're the least bit interested in the subject of digital comics, you need to know about this: Adobe to add iOS 5 Newstand to DPS. This is a what we think will bust it wide open. My friends and I are watching this like a hawk. Multiple hawks, actually. Well, mostly hawks and a couple of doves.

— — —

Below: a photo of Fables #107 pages in progress in my hotel room this summer. I don't remember which city. Do you recognize it?

— — —

Since I'm reposting Bik&Beeps for those who haven't met them yet, here's another.

 

Rachel Rising #2: Exists!

Rachel Rising #2 is here!

Rachel Rising #2 is in my hands. I assume the stores will have this next week. By the time you finish reading the 2nd issue, you will have met two new characters you won't soon forget!

(note: don't worry, your copy won't be bent up like this. I always grab the top copy in the box (often bent-up from packing) for my studio shelf because it's the only way to keep Robyn from grabbing my copies to fill orders!)

— — —

Rachel Rising #1 Reprint

We've reprinted Rachel Rising #1, so you should have NO PROBLEM getting a copy. I talked to a pal the other day who didn't know RR had even come out yet. So much for PR, huh? If you're in the lop though, you should know there are two covers to Rachel Rising 1: the 1st printing green cover, and the 2nd printing red cover. Here's what you're looking for:

— — —

The Jeff

There's only one Jeff Smith—that's why we call him The Jeff—and I had a great time with my old friend (old… God, is he old!) at the Baltimore con. Jeff's lines… I swear, I've never seen lines that long for a creator signing… excepting Neil Gaiman, of course, who has broken attendance records previously held by Led Zeppelin and the Pope. Still, I'm pretty sure if Jeff ran for President, he could win. I'd vote for him! Maybe he'd make me Secretary of Art. With a few more seats filled by our cartooning friends, I'm sure we'd make the best administration ever. Any suggestions for other key positions?

— — —

Ever since I fell and hit my head this morning, I have no idea who this Gwen Stacy chick is, but I'm pretty sure she must be Marvel's #1 character and they'd never do anything to sabotage  her contribution to comics because clearly her loss would devastate a title and send it into a decades-long tailspin. Nobody is that stupid, right?

 

 

HOT GIRLS, COLD FEET coming in Dec.

Ready for Christmas? Order this from your retailer in November for December delivery, my first ever sketchbook for stores!