Finally have our table assignment for GalaxyCon in Richmond! We’ll be at N10 (right by the food court.)
I couldn’t be more excited to get back into the convention circuit, especially with the comic crew. I’m so excited I made a little video showing off my Con Goodies that arrived on my doorstep today!
Subject: She Hulk (aka Jennifer Walters, Attorney at Law: Marvel Universe Earth 616)
First Appearance: The Savage She-Hulk #1 (Nov. 1979) by Stan Lee and John Buscema
Cameo: Deadpool (first appearance, New Mutants #98, Feb 1991 by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld) included to mimic the character’s similar fourth wall breaking tendencies.
Medium: Pencil, Ink, Gouache
Subject: Bo-Katan Kryze
First Appearance: Star Wars: The Clone Wars S04E14
Current Status: The Mandalorian seasons 2 and 3 played by Katee Sackhoff
Medium: Pencil, Ink, Gouache
Process:
Subject: The Stalk
First Appearance: SAGA #2 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Medium: Pencil, Ink, Gouache
Process:
Now that Southtown has a mild social media presence of its own (go follow the Facebook page in addition to his site for content and updates) the game of non-spoiler marketing has begun!
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the team and I will be at this year’s GalaxyCon convention in Richmond, VA at the end of March and one of the big projects we’ll have ready to go is a 5 page ashcan preview comic to get the ball rolling. It’s a small snippet from issue #1 to introduce a small handful of the prominent characters in the series.
Additionally, below are a few character sketches and studies to tide everyone over until the next info-drop 😉
It’s official for realz! I’ll have a table in the Artist Alley at this year’s GalaxyCon in Richmond, VA March 24-26! This year I’ll have some friends joining me as well, my writer and colorist for the comic book we’ve been working on the better part of a year. Josh is the brainchild behind Southtown, feeding me scripts and insights on the world he’s built, and Ally is a fellow artist, Twitch streamer, and acting colorist for the project.
In addition to our glowing presence, we’ll have original pages to skim over, sketch books, sticker packs, and hopefully a 5 page AshCan preview.
My own Fan Art Friday originals, prints, and previous years’ Inktober projects will also be available.
Next up! We’ve officially launched the SouthTown comic Facebook Page! We’ll be updating it with character sketches, finished pages, panels, and previews, release timeline news, and eventually the crowdfunding campaign to get these printed and distributed!
Around fall 2015 Amazon started targeting me with Leviathan Wakes, the first book in a series called “The Expanse.” I’ve been a longtime fan of sci-fi, specifically the “deep space” variety (2001: A Space Odyssey, Moon, the 2000’s Battlestar Galactica reboot, etc.) and naturally I can’t resist something with cover art as intricate and compelling as this…
Not long after I’d cracked the first book I discovered it had been adapted into a series for SyFy. Both the books and the show became an addiction very quickly (though I have yet to read the 9th and final book, appropriately titled “Leviathan Falls.”) Naomi Nagata is easily one of my favorite characters in the series and Dominque Tipper did an excellent job with all of her layers and complexities for the 6 season run of the show. Spoiler alert: I will be posting another Expanse character here in the near future.
It was around 1997 when my taste in cinematic comedy took a swift turn. Up until that point it consisted mostly of the SNL alum “Fat Man Fall Down” Adam Sandler/Chris Farley. That is, until I was introduced to the indie, dialog driven stylings of Kevin Smith. His ability to craft a specific brand of sympathetic man-child really drew me in (and to which I heavily related at the time, as the comic book collecting art nerd that I was.) Chief among my favorites of Smith’s IP progeny was Brodie Bruce from MallRats. Something about Jason Lee’s line delivery and his “devil may care, but maybe he does” attitude struck a chord and it became an instant classic for me, despite the less than successful box office performance.
While I don’t really relate so much with a number of Smith’s characters these days (as I’ve grown into a different kind of man-child, and a lot of Smith’s newer character work deals with fatherhood,) I can still look back on characters like Brodie and give a hearty chuckle at his misanthropic worldview through the lens of 90’s consumerism Have yourself a chocolate covered pretzel. You’ve earned it.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Week 2! So far so good. I’d like to think I have a decent enough back catalog to keep this up for at least a good while. In either case, thanks for sticking with it (or checking it out if this is a first time for you.)
I was recently turned on to the new(ish) Harley Quinn show on HBO and have loved every second of it thus far. The sly satire on the nature of Batman’s rogues gallery is nothing short of brilliant (ClayFace, specifically) while maintaining Harley’s penchant for villainy, and positing her as a sympathetic survivor of abuse. The long and short, Harley is nuts, and we love her for it.
So let’s sum up the last three years. Starting in late February 2020: GalaxyCon (yay!!) Covid (boo) Unemployment (boo) Art Commissions (yay!) Mid Covid Restaurant Reopening and job promotion (yay?) Rinse, repeat for a year and a half. Various work and personal ups and downs and we arrive at summer 2022. After being burnt out by the restaurant industry and falling off on my artwork, I was approached by a couple friends in the Richmond, VA area about a new project. A comic book project!
It’s been a good decade and a half since I’ve done sequential artwork in a narrative capacity. I’d worked on a partial outline for a potential series in 2010 which, due to my work schedule and return to higher education, took a back burner. Though, taking part in larger community projects like “Inktober” over the years, I’d managed to prevent getting too rusty.
My artist friend Ally Slawson approached me alongside her writer friend Joshua Eadie about a comic book project he’d conceived of several years back. The idea was for Joshua to write, I’d do the principle artwork with Ally finishing the images with color and lettering. The comic is called “Southtown” and will be set in a futurist cyber-punk world. All tech-mods, tattoos and corporate terrorism! After spending the summer meeting every few weeks, mocking up character designs and defining roll-out plans, the actual comic is starting to take shape. Several pages are already completed (pre-color) and the crew and I have set up a website (still under construction) with a Kickstarter campaign soon to follow. More (frequent!) updates as these details and dates are solidified. I’ll be dropping art teases on Instagram and Facebook as more progress is made. If all goes well enough in the coming months, we may see you at GalaxyCon 2023 in March!
Until next time,
Cheers, friends!
Wil Smith Illustration 