The round up - Fun Signing, Deadpool loves Spidey, and GO JOE!

Hey everyone,

Been hella busy, which means I haven't checked in on your guys in a bit. How are you? All good? Is the rash clearing up? Good, good!

The signing event went amazing! I want to thank everyone that came out, and waited in line for me. You're all more patient and awesome than I deserve! Thanks! I'll have more signing news to share soon...

Deadpool is chugging along well. Wrapped up issue 10, and will start 11 soon. In case you didn't hear Arthur Adams is doing the covers for the series, which is a treat for me because the man was a hero of mine as a kid! Very honored to have his covers making my interiors look half baked! Check out his newest cover here. 

You may notice that it says there that Spiderman will guest star in issue 10 of Deadpool there. That's right. Spider. Man. Pretty sweet getting to draw him with DP.

I've been posting progress pics from the studio over on my Twitter account.  Here's a taste of what you've been missing if you're not on Twitter.

I'm also working on some book plates for a special edition of my G.I. JOE book for IDW. Nice getting to revisit the JOES.

That's all for now. Talk to you soon.

best,
Mike


 
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New art for sale Nov. 18th, 09

I'll be posting new art for sale every week leading up to Christmas. Check out this week's haul.




best,
mike

Snake Eyes book plate final art

hey everyone,

Here's the "final" art for the book plate PaneltoPanel.com will be dropping into the new G.I. JOE: Origins trade paper backs. These will be signed by me, and are exclusive to this site. So, swing by PaneltoPanel.com for more info.

I'll also be selling the original art for this piece next week, so keep an eye out for that.

best,
mike

ORIGINS art - line and color comparison pt.2

Some folks are asking what the line art looks like before I add the color, so I figured I'd post a side by side comparison. You can see the small tweaks to the art, as well as just how much the color helps flesh it out, when you can see the two versions together.

I'll post more comparisons soon.

Best,
mike

ORIGINS #5 five page preview

Here's the preview for G.I. JOE: ORIGINS #5 that IDW released. First five pages of that issue.

The first 15 panels on page one were scripted as one panel, but I had this idea to slow down the moment a great deal and IDW (along with Mr. Hama) let me run with it. They actually trusted me quite a bit with this series, and I love them for it. I do my best work with the writer and editor allow me do my thing.

Best,
Mike

ORIGINS #4 five page preview

This five page preview for #4 of G.I. JOE: ORIGINS was released while I was away, but I'm gonna post them here just in case any of you missed it.

I'll post the five from #5 tomorrow.

Best,
mike

ORIGINS art

Still getting back into the swing of things here, and figured I should show some of the pages from ORIGINS #'s 4 and 5. Here's one that I showed a preview of a few posts down in it's entirety.

Best,
mike

ORIGINS line and color comparison pt I

More line art from the new JOE series, but this time I'm including the final art so you can compare. You'll notice how I'm using it to describe volume, set mood, and show depth in a room.

Hope you dig it.

mike

ORIGINS line art

I have a friend who freaking loves the JOE stuff I'm doing uncolored. He's just into the line art more, for whatever reason. SO, I figured I'd post a few pages of line art for the rest of you folks to check out.

Personally, I'm thinking of these pages as a total package. It's just not done till it's colored. I don't consider this a finished page, as many of the decisions I'd normally make in the inks (Adding volume to the forms, lighting, etc.) I'm now doing with the color.

BUT with that said If you folks like seeing the uncolored pages, I'll post more. Let me know what you think.

best,
mike

Alternate page from ORIGINS 3

Here's a little behind the scenes info for you hard core fans.

There is a page in ORIGINS #3 where Chimera (the really, really bad guy) is explaining how he killed his families (yeah, plural). I don't like to pretty up violence (since it's never really pretty, especially if it involves women) so I tried to tell a story with the blood trail, show a bit of the struggle and just how ugly a thing it was to do.

Hasbro asked (very nicely I might add) if I could tone it down, which I did for the final comic. They let me keep the puddle under the poor woman, but everything else went. The page still packs a punch, maybe a tad more of one since it's so focused on the person and not the blood.

There you go.

Mike

Early G.I. JOE: ORIGINS #3 review

Sorry I haven't posted more art lately. Just under the gun to finish JOE #4, and start #5. I promise to show some stuff soon.

Anyway, I wanted to post a quick advanced review for ORIGINS #3 (I don't believe the actual comic has shipped yet).

Check it out here.

Best!
mike

Star Trek pencil art for sale...soon

hey all,

Back in February I had planned on updating my art store, but have been under the deadline gun for so long that I just haven't gotten to it. I hope to change that next week, once I had in another issue of JOE. I think I'll be posting some Star Trek, and maybe some JOE art on there. Haven't totally decided if I want to part with the JOE stuff yet. We'll see.

Anyway, I'll keep you folks posted.

Best,
mike

Star Trek: Alien Spotlight - Tribbles preview 2

A bunch of random pages from the Star Trek: Alien Spotlight - Tribbles comic I illustrated. In stores now.

Best,
Mike

G.I. JOE: Origins #2 out today!

Didja' get it? Shoot over to my forum and discuss it!

Mike

Star Trek: Alien Spotlight - Tribbles preview

Check it out here.

best,
Mike

G.I. Joe: Origins #2 preview

You can see a few pages from issue 2 of ORIGINS here.

Although, it's mistakenly attributed to Tom Feister :(

Mike

G.I. Joe: Origins preview - Who drew what?

Ok, so IDW released a preview of G.I. JOE: Origins #1. There seems to be debate over it because it's unclear who drew what.

First, here's the preview.

This preview was drawn by Tom Feister, except for page four which I drew. The plan was for me to draw the second half of this issue, and the rest of the series - which is four more issues after this one. Five issues total.

Deadline issues sorta dictated that I had to draw a few pages earlier in the first half to make sure we shipped the book on time - which is why there is an odd page of mine in Feister's mix.

Here is the page in question:



Tom essentially established the style of the book, and so we decided to try and keep it similar without me trying to copy him. As the series goes on I try and slowly inject more of my approach into the art. I'm proud of how it's coming out, and I think you folks will enjoy it.

There also seems to be some mystery as to who I am. I don't do a very good job of selling who I am, since I think it's silly, but here goes...

I'm Mike Hawthorne. I've been making comics for about ten years. I've worked with every major comic publisher in America including Marvel Comics, Vertigo/DC Comics, Dark Horse, Image, Oni Press, and now IDW. My work has also seen print in Spain, France, Germany, Australia, and a bunch of other places like Mars. Maybe not Mars.

I've been nominated for the two more prestigious awards in comics - An Eisner for my work on Queen and Country, and a Harvey for my work on UMBRA.

I'm also currently penciling Fear Agent and writing and drawing a book for Vertigo.

Jenifer ( I call her "Jennie". We're pals) Garner and Huge (I call him "Huggie". Again, pals.) Jackman are my biggest fans.

In a former life i raced cars.

Oh, and I'm a super ninja badass. This is a fact, as proven in a triple blind (AKA - drunk) study by really scientific people I know from my block - like JO JO the ten speed guy, Jerry the aluminum can collector guy, and Rico with the limp.

So, hopefully this will clear things up for everyone. Hope you enjoy the book, which ships this week on Feb. 18th.

best,
Mike

G.I. JOE: Origins #2 wrap up

Wrapped up issue 2 of Origins over the weekend, and I'm really proud of how it's turning out. Lots of great character development by Larry, and tons of great moments like Scarlett kicking three men's asses at once! ;)

Links to the NYCC IDW G.I. JOE panel from this past weekend over at my forum. Feel free to discuss.

Best!
Mike

Star Trek final color page

Here's the final of this page.Unfortunately, I only had time to color half this comic. Had to jump into JOE really quickly and it cut this one off. IDW got a fine colorist to wrap it up, who did a good job of mimicing the style.

Anyway, enjoy!

Mike

G.I. Joe: Origins lettered preview

Found this lettered preview on a forum that was linking to this blog. Didn't know IDW had released lettered previews, so this is new even to me!

Most of the pages they previewed are from Tom Feister, who drew the first half of issue 1. I did the second half, as well as the rest of the four issue series, but Tom set the tone of the book AND set the bar pretty high too. ;)

best,
Mike