One day I suddenly had this urge to draw my original superhero, the first one I ever created as a kid: Captain Steel.  This happens to me every so often, wanting to draw him; its interesting to think about actually.  No matter what is going on in my life, no matter what kind of art kick I'm on--I always come back to ol' Cap.  I drew a few different ones but this is the only one I decided to color.  Anyway, I've babbled enough; enjoy!

Click on the image to see the rough pencils!

So yeah, thats what I do.  Sometimes I share them, sometimes I dont.  Sometimes i give them to the subject I'm drawing, MOST times I don't.

But today?  Oh man, today couldn't be helped.

When i got on the local "A" train tonight I immediately noticed this good looking girl sitting and eating chips and immediately thought "That would be fun to draw".  So I did.  Of course, in the interest of not coming off like a staring creep; I've got my own little technique down so i can look but not stare and still get what I need to draw the picture.

I apologize if it's a little blurry, I took the picture in a hurry.  Let me explain: as I was drawing I noticed the passenger next to me trying to get my attention.  i removed my headphones and turned to her and she said "Excuse me, but does she know you are drawing her?"  At this moment everything kinda just slows to a stop for me.  Quite frankly, I was a bit embarrassed.

I look at the girl i was drawing a see her looking at me too, so my only response was "Well, she does now."

Everyone has a laugh.  The person who "called me out" says they want to see it, the subject of my drawing remarks the same.  I laugh such a nervous laugh, I'm flustered practically but I say "Okay-uh-I'll show you-let-let me just finish up" or something like that.  It's amazing that it wasn't even that long ago yet I can't remember all the exact details.

Anyway, I clean it up a bit, sign it and hand it to her.  She laughs.  I can't tell if she was embarrassed or not but she points out that i drew her in mid-chew.

So what happened next, you may be asking?

Nothing.

She kept admiring it (at least I hope so) and i put my book away and did abso-freaking-lutley NOTHING.  I could have talked to this girl; lord knows i already had an "in"--and I'm not even talking about it in a "I can hit on this girl" sort of way, we could have just talked.  Hell, the least I could have done was ask her if she liked it, right?

But not me.  I was scared/nervous/whatever you want to call it and I just couldn't work up the freaking nerve.

*sigh*

At least, once she got off, she knocked on the window and thanked me; that was cool.

Whoever you are, you truly were beautiful; it's a shame I was too much of a coward to say "hi"

Thank him at his funeral

Gwen Wu continues her tour of the West-side Club distric of Mad City...

So, I go to therapy about 3 times a week in order to help battle my addiction; I've been going for almost a month now and it's been an invaluable tool for me.  It's not only been a great help-with regards to my problem-but I've met some great and interesting people along the way too.  Some who, hopefully-once it's all over-I could possibly call friends.  There's something about being in a room full of fuck-ups like myself that have just made the whole process easier to swallow.

Of course, it wasn't easy at first; being naturally shy and all.  I spent the first few sessions drawing the people there (it's something i do alot more often now; it's good practice as most artists will tell you.) and here is one of the earlier ones:

Actually, this is the finished version of the sketch itself.  She's in my group and she seemed to have alot on her mind and I wanted to capture that.  Later on, I colored it in and printed out a copy of it to give to her the next time I saw her and that is what you see above.  She seemed to enjoy that, so that was cool.  

This was a couple of days later, the big guy on the bottom was a good chance for me to draw a bigger-sized person which was a nice excersize for me.   Heres a couple more:

And finally, heres something I did today.  There's something of a funny story to this one; you see, there's three girsl in our group and they're all very good looking ladies (and cool people as well) but there's this complete creepo there who obviously doesnt care about being there and thinks he's above it all and doesnt have a problem.  Today, he just kept staring at them with the dumbest looks I've ever seen a single human being ever make.  He was staring at their crotches, or their clevage and one of the girls actually said out loud "you're a creep.  You're creepy" but he just didnt get it because he barely speaks english but we were laughing at him because he didnt get it and was just a big douche.

Anyway, here it is; I call it: The Ladies and The Creep

I got a little creative with it when i decided to color it in.  I'm trying to experiment a little here and there; at the end of the day I'm more of a penciler than a colorist but I still dabble here and there.

Anyway, i hope you all enjoyed.

Hope you enjoy; any and all feedback is welcome.

Gonna work his way up the ladder

It's been almost a month since the last but here it is finaly, the next page. I'll be doing my best to make sure another lull like this doesnt happen again, I've just been distracted and-to be quite honest-a little afraid.

This story is very much tied to my...problem, so i kept putting it off, trying to avoid it but this was a hump I HAD to get over because I love to do this so much and I realize there are people who love it as well and I dont want to let you down.

Now you may have seen the announcement of a podcast on these here pages and that is definitely coming. It wont be simply about "hate" as we've decided; we've got a new test run sitting on the harddrive and I'm in the middle of editing it down, be on the look out for that within the next day or so.

On to the positive stuff: My friend Phill and I have decided to try our hand at "talk radio"; podcasting if you will.  For now it's called "The Hate", a forum for us (and our friends) to bitch about the things we, well, HATE. 

We did a couple of tests runs so this isnt our final finished product to present to the world but we'd definitely appreciate any and all feedback.

Thanks!

Green lantern: First Flight  isn't due out until the 28th, so imagine my surprise when i walked into one of those seedy looking DVD shops that just happens to sell mostly porn (ahem) and  finding this bad boy sitting on the shelf.  Go me, right?  Exactly.  Y'see, when I tell people I draw comics, they inevitably ask me "So, uh, who's yer favorite superhero??"--y'know, cuz derrr I'm a nerd and that's what nerds read, never mind that it's true.  Shut up.

Anyway, whenever i get asked that I always answer: "Green Lantern";  which usually leads to blank stares and me having to explain why and, like, explain his power set and shit.  Well, fuck that noise; now I can just show them this and, hopefully, they'll at least understand why i enjoy the character and the concept so much.

The movie begins with a quick look at just how brave test pilot, Hal Jordan, is suddenly blessed with the most powerful weapon in the universe.  One thing I dug about the film is that it didn't waste a lot of time to get going; although, yes I'm sure it would have been nice for newbies to get to know our hero behind the mask a bit better, I personally appreciate the decision to just give you the bare basics and let shit just hit the fan. 

And things do hit the fan rather quickly, it becomes very apparent early on that this cartoon is a little bit more adult in nature than what I'm sure most would expect.  Honestly I found that refreshing.  It borrows heavily from current Green lantern mythos in that it presents it all as an intergalactic police force; the way lead villain, Sinestro, shows Hal the ropes reminded me of the film Training Day.  Only in space. ...and animated.

Look, it reminded me of it, okay?

Lots of deaths in the movie too, even a bit of blood; all in all, the tone really helped this movie stand apart from your typical animated fare (American, of course.  Those darn animes can be whacked out.) 

The voice work was fantastic; Christopher Meloni really did a great job bringing the character to life. In fact, kudos to the writing team for nailing the characterization and for making him a very likable lead character.  We also have a John Larroquette sighting-er, i mean...hearing?  I'm leaving that abortion of a joke in just as a lesson for you kids out there: don't try to so hard.

The animation looked...weird at points.  I know, some writer i am (or pretend I am) but that's the best way I can put it.  I give them credit, though; on one hand, at first glance you expect the typical animation used often on these animated comic book movies (stuff like Hellboy, or other DC movies like Superman/Doomsday) but it's got it's own style ultimately and there are quite few wonderfully animated sequences throughout the film (the first time he puts on the ring comes to mind easy).

The only problem I have is, of course, something super nerdy and nit picky: okay, one of the sillier aspects of Green Lantern as a concept is it's weakness to the color yellow.  It was the 60's man, what do you expect?  Current writer, Geoff Johns, back in 2005 found a clever way to explain it (Green is the color of will power, Yellow the color of fear on the emotional spectrum.  A GL must be without fear in order to be effective) but they choose not to use that here, opting to be vague and use terms like "the green element" and "the yellow element".  I just found it incredibly lame, especially in light of what they DID take from Johns' run.

All in all, I enjoy the film a hell of a lot, but of course I'm a fan so what do i know?  Will this please a new comer? I don't see why not, at the end of the day it's good sci-fi and if that's your thing then this movie should be right up your ally.

I give this movie 10 bottle caps out of 4 starfish.

In the meantime, enjoy the trailer:

Amazing

Also heres a pic I took from my phone of a page I'm working on; RIOT taking care of a few unsuspecting fools

whoa

I still did my best, hard as it was.  But recently, I've failed and i let myself fall down the old spiral.  I let outside factors and other shitty things completely take me over and I just let myself go.  It sucks how weak I can be.  In that short time I feel as if I've screwed up way way too much; who knows if I really did but I can't let that depress me any further.  I keep crying because I feel like I've ruined something important to me by being self destructive.  You see, that's what they do to me; they make me hateful and angry at everyone.  That's the trade off, the momentary euphoria you can feel after taking one, or five at a time...but then comes the negativity.  It's not worth it.

Its gonna be three days since I've last had a pill. 

I'm sitting here fighting myself...no, not myself. It's me vs. the beast, vs. my addiction--and so far, I'm winning.  I'm planning on moving out because I HAVE to;  I tried staying here but there's just too much stress here, with a family that can't even pretend to get along, with a family that doesn't really understand and, worst of all, with my own personal evils sitting there in a bottle a walk away--I'm done.

I'm strong.  I know I'm strong.  I can and will beat this because I have before...I guess i just don't want to do it alone. 

Deep down, i don't believe I will and I just have to keep thinking positive.

Thank you for reading.