The Uniques news and more from Comfort and Adam's Blog #

Uniques: Con Commissions!

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:40:39 GMT

Hello again everybody. We're artists. You probably knew that. But even as artists, it's often really fun to get drawings from other people. Being creators of our own comic, one of the special thrills we get is when other artists do illustrations of our characters. Now, we were never ones to get con sketches in the past, but this year we've actually started getting some and it's gotten to where we'll get one or two at most shows we attend. Today, we'll share the pieces we got at Heroes Con and Wizard World Chicago.
 
At Heroes we got three commissions done. The first one is from Ryan Ottley of Invincible fame. He's been one our favorite artists for quite some time now and we've been dying to get a commission from him. So first thing Friday morning at the show, Comfort high-tailed it over to his table and commissioned him out for this awesome Michael sketch.


Michael by Ryan Ottley; color by Comfort
 
You'll notice we're showing black and white art next to colored art. The thing is, when we get really neat sketches back, Comfort (queen of self-restraint) feels the immediate and driving need to see them in color. So all the stuff we're putting up will show the original drawing we got next to the colored version by Comfort.
 
Next at Heroes we got sketches from one of the most a-dorable couples in comicdom, Taki Soma and Mike Oeming. We love them in part so much because they, like us, have very similar styles and it doesn't hurt that Mike's the artist and co creator on one of our very favorite comics, Mice Templar. If you aren't reading it, you need to jump on the friggin' bandwagon now because it's one of the best things to come out of comics in years.


Michael by Taki Soma; color by Comfort


Virtue by Michael Avon Oeming; color by Comfort
 
After we got done with Heroes we were off to Wizard World Chicago where we met up with Franchesco and we got this absolutely stunning Telepath picture. Franchesco is just such a sweetheart - one of our favorites. The man just has this really warm and friendly smile on all the time and it's always a treat to talk to him at conventions.


Telepath by Franchesco! Color by Comfort
 
We picked up a comic from The Comic Creator Cabal and with it we got three free sketches. What a deal! And what a fantastic little compellation comic they have. It reminds us of our days with the old League of Sequential Storytellers.

 
The last thing for today is a couple pieces of fan art from two of our biggest fans and forum-members Mia and Lewis-Paul. Mia got the bug to draw us this very fun and very adorable picture of a young Scout in training...
 

And Lewis-Paul had this illustration of Telepath and his original Jedi character Drake Tay'lon commission by Emily Jayne Weber on deviantART. 


 
-- Today's Tidbits --
 
Off to see Comf's siblings and cousins tonight for dinner for 4th of July shenanigans. Should be fun and a nice break from all the color we have to do today for a Stormbringers pin-up that has to be finished by' oh yeah, the end of today. Yay. Looking good, though. There's always that.
 
See you next week-
Adam & Comfort
 

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Uniques: Heroes Con!

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:59:10 GMT

Hey, gang. Just dropping a quick note to remind everybody that we'll be at the Heroes Con this weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not only will we be selling prints, comics, sketchbooks, and doing commissions at the show, but we'll also be selling advance copies of Uniques #3! Heck, we'll even have a limited number of Uniques Collected Editions on hand, featuring the first three issues and a big sketchbook section as a bonus!


Uniques #3 cover by Comfort
 
So if you're around the Charlotte area, or planning to attend Heroes this weekend, stop by booth SP-32 on the back wall of the show to find us! We'll be watching for you.
 
See you there!
Adam & Comfort

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Uniques: Issue #3 and Trade Finally Finished!

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:40:34 GMT

That's right, after six solid weeks of hard work The Uniques issue #3 and our first Uniques trade is all set and done!



Cover for The Uniques: Collected Edition by Comfort
 
It's been very long and very difficult hours - this week alone we were usually up until 4 or 5am - but we couldn't be happier with what we came out with. Issue #3 is the first issue we feel truly represents what the comic will be like in these early days of our teen team. It's got fun character bits, friends just hanging out, mysteries and a big splashy fight. We can't wait for you all to read it.


 
The book will be out, along with the TPB in two weeks (the week of June 23rd). As always, we'll have a full audio commentary and soundtrack up on the website for your listening pleasure to go along with the book, and you can share all your thoughts on what's what in the Uniques Forum.
 
--Today's Tidbits--
 
Today is our 5th wedding anniversary! It's hard to believe it's been that long, but really neither of us have every really felt like this was anything but the best, deepest, and most rewarding friendship we could have ever hoped or dreamed for. Five years married, eight years together, and it feels like no time at all.
 
So, what are we doing to celebrate this awesome occasion' We took a bike ride! And it was awesome! 



We talked and talked the whole way through and smelled the smells of summer. Later, we'll clean the house (because it's been neglected for far too long as we finished the comics) and we'll kick back and relax. We'll be going out for ice-cream later on, and have students coming by for private lessons, but it's going to be a good, mellow day. At last!
 
Romantic' Nope. But we aren't the types for big splashy celebrations. Maybe it's that we've been working so hard for so long that the chance to relax with no demands on our time is celebration enough. Aw, heck-- any time we're together it's a celebration! Awwww'
 
-See y'all on Monday,
Adam and Comfort

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Uniques: Issue #3 Preview

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:12:02 GMT

So we had a really productive weekend that brought us to the conclusion that it just might be possible to finish the work on Uniques #3 by the end of this week. Upon reaching said conclusion, we naturally decided to go into overdrive and break our backs to make sure that it came to pass.

 
All that is to say this: We're tired, but we're pushing even harder now. The color is moving way faster than we anticipated, which is a nice surprise. We've had at least one person read through the story who found it so enjoyable he just had to meet up with us to talk about it, so that bodes well for things.
 
Yeah, so that's it. We're just hunkered down staring at monitors and drawing pads to make this come together. It's looking really good, if we do say so ourselves. Here's a preview page for you to have a taste of full-color goodness. And we hope you like the tiny SAFE Room sequence in this issue, because it's the last one for a while. It's time to get this team out into the field!

 
See you Friday-
Adam & Comfort

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Uniques: Finished pencils and Trade Rough

Mon, 26 May 2008 21:56:18 GMT

Well, we're coming along on issue #3 here. Comfort's part for the bowling scene is almost finished and Adam is two pages from having the entire big-arsed fight sequence done! Thank goodness, because that was a lot of work. Phew.
 
What we've got for you all today is a couple of pages that we showed you a bit of back in the rough stage. The final pencils are finished now and the flats are being, or have already been finished. There still feels like a ton of work to do, but we're getting better and a little faster all the time. 


 
Also, Comfort just finished putting together the rough version for the cover of our first Trade. As you can see we've got a big team shot up in the front and in the background will be collage from each issue (1, 2, & 3) fading out into the star field we use for the website background. Should be pretty sweet, we can't wait to get it done!

 
-- Today's Tidbits --
 
WORKING! And it's really stinkin' warm outside. We may go for a bike ride' but maybe tomorrow instead. We're pansies when it comes to the heat. Our apartment (the 'hobbit hole') is half-way underground, so it actually stays relatively cool despite the weather outside, but in the study with two computers cranking away, it gets really warm.
 
The real beast, though, is that Michigan humidity. There's nothing more uncomfortable than sweating while sitting still. Ugh. Even when you don't feel that hot, the humidity still gets you!
 
Other than that, we'll be going to Chris' house to watch the HBO movie 'Recount' later tonight, and it looks like it'll be good cinema.
 
A couple last announcements: we've got a new Twitter account for us and the Uniques. Since we don't blog as much as we used to, Twitter is a quick and easy way for us to keep people posted on the goings on in Uniques land. We've also got Uniques up on Facebook and MySpace, so you can find us there too. We're starting to fan out all over these interwebs, so look out world-- KEEYAAH! Yeah, that's right' that's a karate chop. You like that' No' Well here's another for yoKIIIYAAARGH!!!
 
See you Friday-
Adam and Comfort

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Uniques: Issue 3 Panel Previews

Fri, 23 May 2008 22:40:15 GMT

Hey again, fair readers. We're having a nice day - Michigan is a beautiful place in the later spring. It's about to get really hot and really, really humid on us, so we're trying to enjoy these days while we can. It's tough, sometimes, the way time seems to slip through your fingers when you aren't looking. May is already almost gone, and we can barely remember April. The older you get, the faster it goes, and if you're busy people (as you can probably figure out, we are) then it goes all the faster.
 
Progress on Uniques #3 is continuing along. We're trying to push harder earlier so that we don't have as much of a crunch at the deadline, but it's looking like there will still be a stress level of orange to red when it comes time. Part of it is that we're putting together an issue that's got a lot of big, splashy stuff going on and is taking longer to draw page-by-page than any previous issue, but another part is that we're simultaneously prepping the first three issues to be collected in a trade paperback.

 
Yes, the first Uniques TPB will collect #1-3 and be released at the end of June. We're collecting them more quickly in part to help drum up excitement and new readers (those 'waiting for the trade' people), and partly to hook a publisher, if such a thing is even possible. We hope that it is, and even if it doesn't happen you readers can get a nice little collection with a ton of extras, a brand new cover, and retouched dialogue. We want to clean up a few things that bothered us in the beginning and make an even better reading experience than we already had.
 
So have a look at a few panels from #3, now with flats! The team goes bowling, and we get to see them all out of costume. Not such a big deal for some of the characters (do Quake and Singe really have costumes per se'), but getting to see Scout without a mask has been fun. Of course, he's so identity-nervous that he wears a ball cap pulled low. Oh, Scout, relax a bit will ya' Some kids these days, are we right people'


 
--Today's Tidbits--
 
We went to see Indiana Jones 4 Wednesday night at a midnight show. Some will like the movie, some won't, but for our money it was an absolute blast. We both really enjoyed the heck out of it a lot more than we expected to. If Iron Man was a bowl of ice cream - the movie you expect to like, and wind up liking even more than you thought - then Indy 4 was a trip to an exotic foreign restaurant. It looks like it could be tasty, and you like other things from that country' and when you try the food, you find out that it's delightful! It's the pleasant surprise that makes it almost more fun than if you'd gone in with high hopes.
 
First off, Indy actually moves like an older man. Through most of the movie, you get the feeling this is a man a bit past his prime who is just barely scraping past these dangerous happenings on his brains, experience and grit. There are a couple bits (particularly one right at the end of the opening scene involving a refrigerator) that strain that credulity, but you can look past it because of how much fun it is to watch him go out there and fight, run, swing and roll with the vitality of a much younger man-- only to strain and groan after the action is over and his body reminds him of its age.
 
Shia LaBeouf is great, but we've come to expect that out of him. He's a fine young actor, and a spot-on choice for Indy's boy. Comfort was particularly excited to see Marion Ravenwood's return. She's easily the best of the Jones Girls, and she's just as spunky and sparky as ever. Great showing all around from a really fun cast that was clearly enjoying making this movie happen.
 
The biggest problem people will have with IJ4 is this: there is a fundamental paradigm shift required to move from the 30's-40's pulp style of the earlier movies into the 50's setting of this movie. There is clearly a stylistic choice made by Spielburg et al. to move the movie into a new period. It is not a genre swap, but a change in how history treated the same kind of genre. In other words, it's still a pulp adventure movie, but viewed through the Technicolor lens of the late 50's rather than the grainy serials of the 40's.
 
There are Communist threats now instead of Nazis. The magical maguffins of the past (the Arc, the Holy Grail) are replaced by one more fitting a 50's setting. Indiana Jones and his dusty Doc Savage style are now flanked by LaBeouf's Mutt Williams, a spitting image of Marlon Brando in The Wild One: 



But despite it all, if you can shift your paradigm along with the movie (and shift your expectations of what an Indy movie can be) then you will have a lot of fun watching the adventure unfold. It's every bit as fun as the best of the series, and though it doesn't eclipse the raw newness of Raiders, it easily stands tall beside the set.
 
The only real issue we had with it was one that's coming up much more often these days: it's too digital. Maybe it's just us, but it seems like special effects are taking over movies. Most scenes feel like a 'spot the blue screen' game, and few action shots don't have some level of digital 'magic' added. Even scenery gets spruced up, with layers of CG prettiness added to already pretty locales.
 
And Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) seem like the worst offenders. It's almost like they want you to see their hand in every frame of film. By the end of this movie, happy as we were, we also really yearned for the days when practical effects were the bulk of the SFX toolbox. Granted, much of what was done in IJ4 wouldn't have been possible (or cost effective) with practical effects, but there's no way they needed to have that high-gloss computer graphics wizardry driving every scene, large or small, and every single action sequence in the danged movie.
 
So, in closing, it was a great time and we're happy they did it. Harrison Ford still pulled it off, Shia LaBeauf continues to impress, the experience was fun and the movie felt solid all around. But please, for the love of God, somebody remind Hollywood that nothing looks more real than REAL. Save the computers for the stuff that genuinely needs them, and try working for your SFX again. Please. With sugar on top.
 
Until Monday-
Adam & Comfort

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