Issue 9

I'm happy to say that issue number 9 is now live!

Issue 9

It took a couple of days longer than I thought it would  Just as I was ready to publish the issue late on Thursday night I realized that I forgot to do the cover for the issue, so after a little delay and a speedy cover, I finally published it today (Saturday).

Promo for Issue # 9

I'm working on getting issue number 9 done for the end of the month, but I thought I'd share a little sketch I did a while ago.

Back in 2012 I did a little sketch for a scene I had planned for issue 9 - of course at that time I was just drafting out the stories and I hadn't quite determined what was going to be in each issue, but I knew this scene was going to be how I introduced a new character.  

When you see the final scene in the comic it will look slightly different from this...

Happy Holidays!

Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year!

I was going to put out another issue this month (I have one almost ready and its the biggest one yet), but with the rush of the season I thought it would be better to wait.

I'll try to get two issues out in January!

Lots planned for 2019!

See you then!

The Story Behind the Story, so far.

Now that I've finished the Time-Tossed story, I thought I'd look back and reveal a little bit about the stories that I've done so far.

Issue 1 (April 24, 2018) - Something that I had debated about for a long time was if I should just jump into the story or give an overview of the characters without getting into too much the first issue.  I decided at that the time to just give a brief overview and build off that.  It took so long to get this issue up and running, I've second guessed myself if that was the right choice or not.  There were also a few conflicting artistic styles with the first issue as I struggled to try to get used to digital artwork, something I had no practice with before. 

Issue 2 (May 22, 2018) - This issue was done for a specific reason.  When I was working on prepping my comic for publication Marvel's Black Panther character made his cinematic debut and I when I saw that I was a bit shocked.  The reason is that I didn't want anyone to think that I was copying that character, while both he and Cat were mostly black in color, there is nothing similar between the two in terms of story, origin, etc...when I created Cat I didn't know of Marvel's character, but when I first learned of Black Panther he was in his original costume.  In my original stories I didn't have Cat's return home until later in the series, but I moved it up to make sure people knew that Cat was a unique character in his own right.

Issue 3 (June 5, 2018) - This started the Time-Tossed story line and it gave me a chance to set up a lot of subplots that will affect the characters for years to come.  In the first issue the Golden Arrow and the two prophecies that Crossbow hears will be very important to the future of the team.

Issue 4 (July 31, 2018) - This issue serves to introduce Serpent, the next member of the team.  This was also the last issue created digitally.

Press Release 1 (August 13, 2018) - This issue was not scripted or even planned.  When I did issue 4 I made so many typos, I was pretty sick at the time I did 4, I didn't even catch the mistakes.  One afternoon I drew this and did the dialogue as I went along.  This serves as the unofficial debut of Magno 2.

Issue 5 (August 28, 2018) - This issue serves to introduce Freedom, a character that we return at a critical time in the team's future.  On an artistic note, by this time I had realized that whole digital artwork wasn't really working for me so with this issue I tried a new approach, which I would also do for issue 6.  It was also with this issue that YouTube did away with being able to brighten the colors, so the issues going forward are march darker than they should be. 

Issue 6 (September 24, 2018) - This issue introduces the future version of the team,  if you look closely you might get some hints as to who some of the parents might be. The inside of Phantom's room also contains some clues about future stories.   

Issue 7 (November 4, 2018) - This is the only issue that has a character bouncing through other dimensions instead of through time.  When I wrote the original story, I hadn't stopped to really think about the fact that Titan wasn't moving through time, but I thought it fit with the story and I decided to leave it.  It was also with this issue that I switched the way that I'm doing the book artistically.  With the new method, I have greater control and can produce material much faster.  This also introduces Commander Foo, the Terminators of Evil and the Ultimate Team, all of which will play a role later on.

Issue 8 (November 30, 2018) - Much like issue 3, this serves to introduce several new characters and concepts that will impact the characters for a long time to come, with Vapor, the mysterious Brian and the guys with him as well as Magno's faltering sense of being on the team.

This set up for the next issue, actually the next three issues will be stand alone stories, leading up to a pretty major two-part story then we move on to reveal origins to kick off our second year!  

Issue 8 is Up and Running

Issue 8 went live tonight, here's the link:

Issue 8

In this issue we follow Cat about 7 Billion years into the future in the final chapter of the Time-Tossed story, which ultimately sees the team brought back together.  

We also see a little more about Vapor and get a glimpse of some other characters that will play a roll in the future.

Lastly, there was only one deleted scene - but you should read the issue before continuing on.

In one part Titan calls for the team to take a break, in the deleted scene I sketched out the team walking away from the meeting, but when I was inking the book I felt that it running a little long and decided that the scene really wasn't needed, so I never got around to inking it.

About Last Issue...

Last issue was an interesting one in the way that it came about and it was a little break from the time-traveling story that has been going on, even though it was part of the Time-Tossed story line.  It is the only part of the story where we went to different dimensions instead of going through time.  I guess that might be a hint about the final part (yes, Cat is traveling through time).  

  

Each of the three different dimensions that Titan went to came about in a very interesting way, and I promise you, all of them will be seen again in the future!  

The first one introduced the Ultimate Team, originally that was the name of my comic and the team, but as I mentioned before, I changed the name so as not to have any confusion with the Ultimate Line done by Marvel Comics.  The team, as they appear in this issue, is how each of the characters originally looked - I used the original costumes for about three years, then over time they got into the costumes that we see them in now.  This was super fun for me to draw as I hadn't drawn them like this in over 20 years.  The interesting thing is that when I was first writing this issue, I hadn't planned for this section, it was just going to be the other two parts, but then the idea came to me to make the original designs for the characters their own separate dimension and here we are.  Of course, this might be a bit of foreshadowing too as all of the characters from this section will eventually appear in the regular comic as well, in their updated costumes.

The next section features Commander Foofoo, now this one is a bit interesting for me and the way he came about.  I have a much younger brother and when he was very young we told him the Rabbit Foofoo nursery rhyme.  I expanded on that in turning Rabbit Foofoo into more of a hand puppet that would pay him surprise visits from time to time, this went on for years.  Then when he was in elementary school, for one Easter our mother made arts and crafts rabbits for the kids.  Well, I took one of them and put a G.I. Joe action figure backpack on it and that became Commander Foo.  Of course sometimes when my brother was playing G.I. Joe I would have Foo join in, perhaps to his amusement or annoyance - I'm not sure which, maybe a little of both, and Foo would take over the mission.  When I was writing the issue, I just pulled from the characters we created years ago and tried to capture the attitude that Foofoo had in the stories; my brother feels I captured it perfectly.  Here is the original Commander Foofoo:

The final part features the Terminators of Evil, this was never actually a separate set of characters when I originally created them in the 1990's.  They were originally from a story that I wrote that was more of a what if/imaginary story posing the question "What if the heroes grew to resent having to protect the people?" and I came up with this group.  Way back then the membership was Titan, Cat, Throttle and Crossbow, but when I was writing this issue, I decided to take Crossbow out of it for now and bring Magno in.  Of course this is not to say that this dimension's Crossbow won't appear in the future, but for now it worked better this way. Here's the original drawing I did of this Titan back in 1992:

Issue 7 Deleted Scenes

Actually, issue 7 doesn't really have any deleted scenes in the traditional sense, more of re-done scenes.  

As I mentioned before, I wasn't happy with the way the inking was going, or the artwork in general for that matter.  Issues 1 through 4 were done one way, then for 5 and 6 I did it a different way - but even though I was happier with 5 and 6, it was still full of problems.  The ink was so fine the scanner wasn't picking it up properly and I had to put in extra time to digitally darken each panel and it was slowing me down.

Starting with issue 7, I starting inking it a new way and it seems like it is the way I want to go for now - it scans in perfectly and I am able to start coloring right away, and it really will help speed up production.  Before I could color about 5 panels and hour, now I can do about 15 in that same time! 

What follows are two drafts for the cover, I wasn't really happy with the final cover for 7, but here are two attempts I made before starting over...

The next two images that follow are actually the first two panels of issue 7, done with the same inking that I did in numbers 5 and 6, but when I came up with the new inking method I decided to just redo those two panels entirely.

The last image is the actual first panel I did with the new inking and it is the one that was in the actual comic. This is a duplicate I made just to test the coloring and shadowing with the new inking method.