Bea and Nathan finally have that long anticipated talk:

(And look who brought his gun after all!)

New Friday, New Pages!  Read pages three and four here!  Bea seems crabby today.  And she’s not in the mood to try to follow Nathan’s elusive train of thought.  Poor girl.  If something happens to Alan, at least she still has Ben.  Maybe.  If he’s forgiven her for that whole being rude in his truck incident…

Well, big news for me this week!  The book I did for DC Comics came out in stores last week.  If you missed it, go back and read about it in my last post.

Since I was in New Orleans last week, I was down to the wire finishing my pages this week. I made it, though! *whew* But I had no time to put together any sort of a drawing for the voting incentive. My problem is that I have so much fun doing this whole “Dreamer” thing, that I usually put all my new drawings up on DeviantART. Then Thursday rolls around and I’ve already freely shown you everything I could have bribed you with!  So I’m scrambling each week to find something of interest!

I know I didn’t update the incentive last week (and my numbers didn’t drop, which means you all voted anyway!  thanks!!) so I wanted to give you *something* today. Albeit something different. This week’s incentive is a brief scene from an upcoming issue (don’t get too excited, it’s no time soon) that tells Alan’s backstory. Because it’s such an important issue (and has required *so* much research), I’m always working on it in the background of whatever else I’m doing at the time. The scene I’m using as the incentive this week is a brief moment from the end of summer, 1774. Alan just found out that Bea is back in Boston after having spent the past four months in New York City visiting her family. And… he missed her. ^__^ It’s cute and short, but I thought you’d all like it.

Some of you have asked me about my writing process, so I thought this would be interesting for that reason as well. This is what my scripts look like when they come out of my brain. After I have enough info to roughly compile an issue, I break it all down page by page, panel by panel. So what you’re reading here isn’t exactly phase one (as I’ve revised it a few times) but it’s still very much a work in progress.

Enjoy…! And VOTE! (It’s good to be back!)

So, we’re back from New Orleans.  It was a great trip.  (Sans the 2nd degree sunburn!)  I’m totally exhausted today–I drove a fan full of 7 people 17 hours from Louisiana to Ohio and collapsed on my couch at 10 pm last night with only enough energy to eat pizza and watch American Idol (only to see Jason go home- bummer!).  And today, that Starbucks I had this afternoon is wearing off.  If you all want to hear about our trip, I can put up a blog about it, so just let me know.  Two words:  Garbage Dump.

But anyway, about relevant things, while I was in New Orleans last week, this hit the shelves at comic shops everywhere:

(You bought yours already, right, so I don’t have to tell you to go out and buy it…?)  ;)

This is American Splendor, Season 2, Issue #2, by Vertigo Comics and it contains a short story called Joy Moves Ahead by none other than yours truly, The Dreamer artist, Lora Innes.  Written, of course, by the infamous Harvey Pekar and my story inked by Jose Marzan (who did an awesome job)!  I’m obviously excited to see my first work for DC Comics in print, so if you’re a fan of my work, go buy this book!  Any issue of American Splendor is worth picking up, now you just have an excuse to do it.

In more somber news, I read that Robert Rauschenberg died today (for all you lovers of art out there).  He’ll surely be missed…

New Pages 1 and 2 today!  (I hope… Remember that I’m in a big tent in a swamp right now…!)

(And thus, I retire from Fan Service for a very long time!!  But I hope you have enjoyed.)

Okay, these two pages are almost like funny strips, but they make me laugh.  The story gets serious, I swear!  You love The Dreamer because it makes you laugh, don’t you?  Don’t you…?

See you next week!  Wish us a safe trip back from the Big Easy!  No new voting incentive this week except… Naked Nathan?  C’mon.  That’s a reason to VOTE!

Some of you know this, some of you don’t:  I have a crazy addiction to the city of New Orleans.  I cried for two days when Katrina hit, and have gone down twice to do relief work since then.  The first was for a week in January of ‘06, and we went into the Lower 9th Ward just a few weeks after it had reopened to the public.  After just five days there we had to come home, but Mike and I said, “What if we came back for like two or three months?”  Two or three months actually turned into almost four as we kept finding reasons to stay, but we did come home after spending the summer of ‘06 on staff at the Mercy Response relief camp in Kenner, LA.

That decision to quit our jobs to head south of the Mason Dixon line for a summer actually started a chain of events like dominoes which lead directly toward me starting The Dreamer.  That was the most amazing summer of my life, and creating The Dreamer has been the most amazing job of my life, and as such I’ve never regretted that decision.  In fact, when some of you write me for career/school advice, I usually warn you that it’s a crazy girl whose opinion you’re asking for.

Well, I’ve just been itching to get back.  It’s been over a year and a half since we were last in NOLA, but this morning, at 4:30 AM, Mike and I, and six of our friends (Liz, Eve, and Motter from The Dream Team and three others!) are renting a van and driving to the Big Easy!  We’re excited because rather than just gut houses this time (basic demolition work) we’ll be rebuilding.

So… this your warning.  We have Friday’s update uploaded and in the queque, but the only internet access we’re guaranteed to have down there is in an, erm, tent.  The pages are finished and ready to go live but if something unpredictable happens, please have grace for us and know that we’ll take care of it and give you your update upon coming home next Tuesday.  I also won’t be able to change the voting incentive later this week, so you could just vote for us because you love The Dreamer.

Wish us luck!

(Oh, and Chris Oatley posted step #2 of his Dreamer Cover tutorial on his blog yesterday.)

So, last night Mike and I had a hundred thousand things to do on our “to do” list… but after hearing whispers in the wind about Iron Man, we said “Screw it!” and found ourselves at the theater.

I still have a hundred thousand things on my To Do list, so I’ll keep it brief: Best Superhero Movie ever.

I liked how they blended the original Iron Man mythos, with the new (flawlessly beautiful) Extremis story, and also with the Ultimates. And if you stick around to the end of the credits, it’s the best fan-service extra scene of all time, ever! I think I squealed out loud, and clutched Mike’s hand in an instantaneous, “OMG THEY ACTUALLY DID IT!!” reflex. (Mike and I had just been talking about the extreme likelihood of such a thing during the credits, and then it happened.)

But then again, you have to be a comic book nerd to really get it.  Which is nice that they throw us a bone.  :)

(Great Stan Lee cameo, too!)

All right, aside from being a total Marvel Comics fan girl, I’ll try to just give you a few, brief thoughts.

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark = Perfection.

He nailed the complicated nature of Tony’s character: he was both deep and shallow, comedic and dark, larger than life and insecure, and the center of everything while being absolutely alone. It was a flawless performance.

The special effects were beautiful, and I loved how they took their cues from the beautiful art of Extremis, which was such a compelling story, both art and writing alike:

The pacing was wonderful–just enough time was spent on each event.  Humor didn’t get in the way of drama.  You knew a lot about Tony’s character, cared about him, and the story got *started* all before the opening credits were finished.  I kept thinking the whole way through, “This is fantastic storytelling!”  They told the story through pictures, events… they didn’t spell it all out for you or drone on and on about stuff that didn’t matter.  The pacing was unbelievable.

I mean, I left and my only critique was a few lame acting moments by Gwenth Paltrow toward the end, but even she had great chemistry with Robert Downey Jr.

If you hate Superheroes, I’m sure you’ll still hate this movie.  But if you love comic books even a little tiny bit, OMG, don’t miss this one on the big screen!

I am so excited to announce that today we’re launching Issue #4!

At last I get to show you the #4 cover, painted by Chris Oatley.  He’s not only a dear friend, but a fantastic painter.  Months ago he asked me if he could paint a cover for The Dreamer.  If it isn’t obvious yet, I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and so it’s a high compliment to his skills that I said “YES!” without hesitation.  I did a rough sketch for him, in about five minutes in Photoshop, and sent it off to him.  It looked like this:

Remarkably that scribble made sense to him, and five minutes later he sent me back “revisions.”  ha ha!  He flushed out the environment, improved the composition and picked a color scheme.  It was game on at that point, and later that day I flooded his inbox with about 20 images of Revolutionary War cannons alone.  Then there was the Grand Union flag, Bea’s dress, 18th Century Brown Bess muskets, smoke… oh, what didn’t I send him pictures of?  ha!  But getting all the details right is important to me, and, as I think this piece makes obvious, it was important to Chris, too.

We went through many rounds on this (I kept saying, “Alan’s not hot enough!  Make him prettier!) and Chris broke the entire process down step by step.  And he’s posting those steps as tutorials on his blog.  If you’re an artist, a painter, or just a lover of The Dreamer, don’t miss his tutorial!  He posted step one today, and will post a new step every Monday for the next few weeks.  So double your weekly Dreamer fix!

Well, I think it’s a beautiful and epic cover for what is really going to be a landmark issue in The Dreamer.  OMG, hold on–the story takes off and it’s so much fun!!

And if you want to see the original sketch for this cover which I drew, and Chris painted over, VOTE this week!  :)

So I’m finally back home in Columbus…  Pittsburgh Con was an awesome good time but I’m exhausted!  I got to meet a bunch of you which was oh-so-much fun!  Especially all the guys from Drunk Duck!  It’s always nice to put faces to user-icons.  We also sold out of both Issues #1 and #2.  Huzzah!

(I told you all I wasn’t kidding about the I heart Nathan shirt!)

If you read no more of this blog, read this:  Comic Geek Speak interviewed me in their latest podcast.  I’m at 58 minutes, and it’s about six minutes long.  If you’ve ever wondered what I sound like… well, there you have it!

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