Morten wanted to see the pencils to #11 so here they are...notice that true to form our guys in gold walk into this locale muddying up the floor with let us say Wetworks matter. Oh and that's the whole team except for Dane. In gold its Dozer, Clay, Jester, and Pilgrim. Grail in human form (this is before he gets the "blue"). With Mother in her spiked look at bottom. Notice Dozer has white spikey hair. The real Dozer (Joseph Mendoza...my brother-in-law) is now a vice Principal in Sun City, California and if he had more hair it probable would all be white pretty soon. Clay is still bald and with today's fashions he will be sporting lots of different headgear and eye gear. With two pretty ladies (Mother and Red) I thought I'd go meek with this incarnation of Pilgrim, it'll go better with her shy character and how she blends into any background.
Lots of questions from the comments sections so thought I'd try to get to them here in one post...
Yup, my contract is up and for insurance reasons hope to sign up again with DC and of course the chance to do Wetworks because like I've been saying there are zillions of things I still want to say with the characters BUT...
...we have to be real (a fact made clear to me again before 2006 ended) I created the book but the book is not mine to do with what I would want. If there was a possibility for me to get the copyright back I would jump thru whatever hoops there need be to get my baby back, we can't take back the past, its gone, its been done, all we can do is the best we can with whatever we have to play with now. Wildstorm has been great in giving me the leeway to do what I want but there are realities to deal with. My page rate demands the book sells a certain amount, we all know that sales all around ain't what it use to be so sales are now a priority 'cuz it cost money to put these books out. In that light of course a company that holds my exclusive needs me to sell books, that's totally understandable and part of the game, so when push came to shove and my output dropped last year because I had to go on insulin I had to temporarily go off of Wetworks and finish Batman (which will end for me the end of this month). We had originally planned to finish Batman by December and then go full throttle to finish the first WW's story arc but my body just couldn't do the load last year and so instead of postphoning the series we opted to go on with fill-ins to keep the series going forward of course with me peeking over everyones shoulders... the same decision being made with Rich Friends the inker. We are both contract guys and the company makes the decisions. I am not a young and lone wolf anymore I have a family of three growing kids to feed and body that is medically failing so health insurance is my top priority. I mean lets face it if my doctors can't help me keep me in the best shape I can be in with diabetees then I can't draw. So I need the insurance to stay healthy and to draw.
So to the point, with all those reasons running around I have to make the decisions I have to make. If Wetworks was mine I would implement immediately everything I have been talking about and a million more things to boot. But it is not, I am a contract player, I can only do what they will allow me to do. Now if zillions of people were buying Wetworks then the company would let me do anything I wanted. For that I thank you all for the support you've been giving this book and its stalwart characters. You guys have made this book thru the years survive and grow. I mean who would a thought we would be here with a brand new series now in 2007. No one thought in their wildest dreams (well I did in my dreams) that we would ever see our guys in gold dance again. So please, like life my friends, enjoy what you have in front of you with no reservations, enjoy it and your loved ones as they are and for what they are, while you have them. No one knows what the future has in store for us. If faith is pre-written for more Wetworks or if it isn't enjoy what you have now, don't muddy your enjoyment with what might happen, as I've found out with my health the future is something you have very little if any control of. you can only do your best, with best intentions, and be happy with that...
So on to news...in the next few weeks I will know for sure what will happen in my drawing future. I have been given assurances that it will still be with the DC family, but the details as to what is still up in the air, again in the next week or two should be definite news. One thing that I can almost be sure of is we have been talking for awhile of a new Wetworks mini/maxi series. I handed in the synopsis a few weeks ago and the editor is gung-ho about that, that most likely will be what I will immediately be working on after I finish my last page of Batman. DC wants me to do something for DC being that if we renew they will be the ones holding my contract so I naturally should do something for them but I do still want to do Wetworks so I think we are leaning towards me doing a DC mini and a Wetworks mini annually. Or a DC mini and work on Wetworks the series with built in breaks to do the DC mini but I control the breaks.
As to what the DC thing would be it would be cool to have your suggestions as to what DC character you think I could do something with...suggestions?
As you know with solicitations WW's #5 and #6 were my pencils with Brian Haberlin's digital inks (Thanx to 'da Almighty Francis Takenaga for overseeing...an ole WW's alumnai) , then we have #7 thru #9 the ending of the first arc with fill-ins by Peter Gross a great guy who really cares about the book and his work on it. That will take us up to the re-introduction of the old team. Then #10 has J.M. DeMatteis writing a special short arc about Ab-death. I felt before we could get into the real mayhem that follows the reintroduction of the old team we needed to fill the void somewhat with one of our new characters...namely Ab-death. If we didn't take this time I think he might have gotten lost in the excitement of so many characters in one book, so we needed a short break.
The arc is touched off by the image in my mind of the new team checking out their new digs and they see Ab-death walking down the hallway and they wonder who and what he is. For our military guys in gold this is a macho challenge seeings how Ab-death is well over six feet in height and maybe close to four hundred pounds or at least he looks it. So especially for Dozer he would want to see where this Ab-death guy fits in. Is he another strong guy to challenge Dozers position or what? What skills does this guy have? He looks the part but does he walk the walk? Lots of questions that the team would want answered before they could accept him. So we went about thinking about who Ab-death really is, then someone mentioned (I forget who) that since he is part of the Dead world where souls are could it be he has more than a fleeting connection with souls. Then our fearless editor Scott Peterson had the audacity to approach a veteran writer like J.M. Dematteis, who to my shameless surprise was intrigued by the character of Ab-death. After a couple of bouts of e-mail conferencing Marc (as he is called) came up with a self-contained story that takes us for a ride because it heavily employs Mother and Dane and more importantly gives us glimpse into the reality of what Ab-death has become.
After having these short conferences with Marc I was honored to have him write a few issues of Wetworks. Marc has a well known spiritual side to him that makes him emminently qualified to see the sides of Ab-death that us less inclined to would be able to witness.
First we had Mike Carey a modern vertigo and now Marvel wiz who wrote the beginnings of our humble new series who who would have thought was a Wetworks fan of the old series and then now to have a writer like JMD be inerested in one of our new characters. A great sign that Wetworks is still working and it is definitely growing...
The mini that I have planned that is going thru the approval process deals strictly with the aftermath of the first story arc. That and specifically being how Dane deals with the new horrific status quo that ends up in his lap. He makes a monumental decision that men in his position are from time to time and forced to make. The story then deals with how the team takes that decision and what it means to mankinds future in dealing with the Night Tribes. With three full mission scenarios within the arc we get to see how this new setup of a two team Wetworks can and will work. Mission scenarios was an idea I had with the first series that we never got around to do. I've always wanted to take you readers thru a full mission from start prep to target acquisition and green lighted battle to mission debriefing, the full nine yards. That we will do in this arc because it is the best way to show how the new team configuration works. It also then reveals a dark and frankly bloody side to the Dane. We start on the path to remind you all that our fearless leader is truely alone. In other words the price he makes himself pay for the leadership role he plays. That will hopefully trigger a future mini I have in mind that shows how Dane is able to keep his sanity intact. The let us say virtual solution he comes up with to solve his sanity problem. In that we make clear his words in the Wetworks preview where he intimates that mother is the key to everything. We will learn that she is the key to not Wetworks direct future but to Danes sanity...then third on the list for story arcs is after the aftermath of the first arc is given its proper time to "incubate" (let's see if anyone can figure out that clue) the result is a war with the night tribes we have never witnessed before...so maybe then we'll need yet a third Wetworks strike team...hhhhhmmmmmmmm
Here is my first shot of the old team (minus Dane, Mother and Pilgrim...all of whom are on different covers) in all their fighting glory. I wanted to draw Vampires but that would've made each individual figure rather smallish, so I opted for more of a close-up shot. I think it contains their spirit pretty sharply, meaning as Dozer and Clay unload on Vampires (off camera) Grail and Jester headlong jump into the fray.
Here's that piece I promised Rafa for helping us out...thanx Dude. This as requested is Raithan. Cousin to the Blood Queen. So yes his veins flow with royal blood. If my mini story gets approved in full (I hear it is just a matter of scheduling, fingers crossed) that point will become very important indeed to the future of the Nation. Interesting how this character came about, a long time ago during a Chicago CON we were assigned bodygaurds...the guy assigned to me was a black belt and says he did some stunt work as a Ninja Turtle for the live action movies. Real nice guy, honorable and everything, really into the philosophy of Martial arts and all, so when I needed a noble cousin to the Queen that was a respected warrior I thought of this guy. So Raithan's basic looks are that guy except he had long blond hair. Lost contact with him but heard he went on to become an instructor at Bruce Lee's dojo under Danny Inosanto...don't know if that's true but sounds about right...
Morten wanted to see the pencils to #11 so here they are...notice that true to form our guys in gold walk into this locale muddying up the floor with let us say Wetworks matter. Oh and that's the whole team except for Dane. In gold its Dozer, Clay, Jester, and Pilgrim. Grail in human form (this is before he gets the "blue"). With Mother in her spiked look at bottom. Notice Dozer has white spikey hair. The real Dozer (Joseph Mendoza...my brother-in-law) is now a vice Principal in Sun City, California and if he had more hair it probable would all be white pretty soon. Clay is still bald and with today's fashions he will be sporting lots of different headgear and eye gear. With two pretty ladies (Mother and Red) I thought I'd go meek with this incarnation of Pilgrim, it'll go better with her shy character and how she blends into any background.
