Blog Buddies 4.

I'm not going to patronise you, you know who Ben Templesmith is already. Oh alright then I'll patronise you. Mr. Templesmith is the Eisner award winning artist and co-creator (with Steve Niles) of 30 days of Night. He's also worked on loads and loads of stuff from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to his self penned books Wormwood Gentlman Corpse and Welcome to Hoxford. Oh and he's brilliant. I mean stupidly talented. The sort of artist we could only dream of working with... but we are!

As regular readers of this Blog (are there any such people? Hands up!) will already know, Leah and I have written a Doctor Who one-shot for IDW entitled "The Whispering Gallery" which Ben is drawing. And here is the cover:

Those of you wishing to keep track of what Mr. Templesmith is currently working on (usually a lot of stuff) should add http://bentemplesmith.blogspot.com to their bookmarks.

Doctor Who - The Whispering Gallery is due out late February 2009 and the Previews catalog order number is: DEC084084.

You can read an interview with Leah and myself about the one-shot over on CBR.

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Matt Timson is an incredibly talented chap who has been working as a professional illustrator for a good few years now. The thing is, like a lot of pro illustrators making decent money, Matt foolishly always wanted to be a comic artist. I know, beggars belief doesn't it? Well now he is one and a bloody good one at that!


We first became aware of Mr. Timson via his work in The End Is Nigh and his collaborations with the legendary Paul Scott in OmniVistaScope. Leah and I pestered him for a long, long time and eventually he agreed to help us develop our retro-futuristic horror detective concept Deadeye - stories from which have already appeared in Image Comics' Popgun Vol 1 & 2 with more to come in the future (watch this space!).


Anyway, these days Matt is busy working for Top Cow on a (brand new, out this week) series called Impaler, the blurb for which goes like this:

Millions of vampires have descended upon America. In a desperate bid to defeat them, the U.S. military nuked New York City but unfortunately, it was too little, too late. The vampire horde had already advanced westward, but how far? A team of soldiers sent to rescue a politician's plane that crash-landed in New Jersey find out the hard way. Humanity's only chance may rest in the hands of vampire hunter Vlad the Impaler and his new companion, a depressed New York City detective who wishes he was dead.

The series is already getting rave reviews and Matt's artwork is quite rightly being praised as some of the nicest looking stuff around. Do yourself a favour and pick up a copy at your earliest convenience (I'm getting mine on Saturday).

For those of you curious about the master's process there's a very insightful step by step for Matt's cover to Impaler #1 here on ComicMonsters.com.

To keep up to date with Matt's griping and grumbling keep a beady eye on http://matttimson.blogspot.com

Anthologies ahoy! (and a new TPB too!)

As I'm sure practically everyone with a pulse is now aware the magnificent Comic Book Tattoo was launched this weekend just gone at San Diego Comic Con. For those of you who have just woken up out of a coma (welcome back by the way - I bet your glad it didn't all end up like 28 days Later...) CBT has been described thusly:

This July the ever-growing relationship between comics and music reaches new heights as Tori Amos and Image Comics release COMIC BOOK TATTOO, a 480-page, full color anthology adapting the themes and ideas behind her songs into a lush volume of sequential art.

“I have been surprised, excited and pleasantly shocked by these comics that are extensions of the songs that I have loved and therefore welcome these amazing stories of pictures and words because they are uncompromisingly inspiring,” says Tori. “It shows you thought is a powerful formidable essence and can have a breathtaking domino effect.”

We're in there, collaborating to Pia (Y the Last man) Guerra on "Hey Jupiter". Other contributors include David Mack, Hope Larson, Ryan Kelly, Jonathan Hickman, Colleen Doran, Eric Canete, Ted McKeever, Jock, Anthony Johnston, Dame Darcy, Carla Speed McNeil, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Mark Buckingham, Ivan Brandon, C. B. Cebulski and Mr. Rantz Hoseley. There's even an intro from the ever charming Mr. Neil Gaiman.

More details plus regular Blogs about the individual stories can be found at http://cbt.comicbookresources.com/

The book is all over "teh internets" already and a quick Google will probably give you all the info you could desire but, just in case you don't feel like trawling for CBT goodness here's a link to the Aint It Cool sneak peek at the book.

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Image Comics' Popgun Vol 2 is out this week featuring another Deadeye story from ourselves and Mr. Matt Timson (who is currently preparing to hit the big time with a new project he's working on - don't forget us Matt!). Other people in there include Dean Haspiel, Ryan Ottley, James Kolchaka, Erik Larsen, Frank Espinosa, Jim Rugg, Danny Hellman, Khary Rhandolph, Dan Hipp, Mark Andrew Smith and, of course, the most prolific man in comics Dwight L. MacPherson.

If you want to know how good Vol 2 is going to be then consider this: Popgun Volume 1 is nominated for a Harvey Award! So, (if you work in the industry) please take a moment to head over to the website and vote for it.

Visit http://www.harveyawards.org/ and follow these steps:

• Download the .txt attachment from the site.
• Chose your picks and put an X next to Popgun Volume 1.
• Save the document and attach it in an e-mail or copy and paste it into the text. E-mail your vote to pjcjmc3@sbcglobal.net

Simple.

And don't forget to pick up a copy of Vol 2 tomorrow or else at your nearest convenience.

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And lastly, but by no means leastly (leastly?), the trade paperback edition of our Dynamite Entertainment/Top Cow cross over mini series Witchblade - Shades of Gray is also out thsi week.

Featuring issues 1-4 of the mini-series from writer John Reppion and Leah Moore (also the writers of Dynamite's zombie opus RAISE THE DEAD) along with artists Stephen Segovia and Walter Geovani, and cover artists Stephen Segovia, Billy Tan, e-Bas, Adriano Batista!

Follow Detective Sara Pezzini and her new rookie partner as they race to stop a murdering madman. Waiting and watching in the shadows is the enigmatic Dorian Gray who may or may not be the murderer they seek! With the action spanning the globe as well as exploring Gray's colored past, this is an event not to be missed! Also includes a complete cover gallery.

Visit www.dynamiteentertainment.com for more info.

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Don't forget, if you're just too damn lazy to drag your arse down to the local comic shop and you can't even be bothered Googling round to find books online, then why not visit Our Shop Page where you can get all your Moore & Reppion goodness under on virtual roof.
You know it makes sense.

Moore & Reppion: "Blah, blah, blah"

For those of you interested in such things, there are a couple of new interviews with ourselves online now.

The first is over on Valhalla Comics Mug O Mead Blog where Kevin Bush very patiently quizzed us about our methods, the industry and our upcoming work.

Then over on Comicon's Pulse Jennifer M. Contino got us talking about Popgun Vol 1 and Deadeye - our horror/sci-fi/detective world which we has finally debuted in the book.

We're currently slogging away at the second script for a huge Dynamite Series which should see print in 2008 and have a healthy list of projects in progress and to be getting on with. It occurred to us recently that we've been writing comic together for almost five years now. Does that mean we have to stop saying "Well, we're still quite new to the industry" soon?

Coming in November 2007

Click >>HERE<< for more info.