The Art of Matthew Warlick

So as you know I?ve been planning on getting my book Senryu out for Indy Comic Book Week, and have been posting previews and progress here and on the ICBW blog.

As you might also know my Space-Gun studios mates Jake Ekiss, Vinh Luan Luu and Paul Milligan and I have been pushing really hard on the Indy Comic Book Week front, and are really excited about the opportunity to get our books into stores.

Double-page spread from Senryu.

Well due to circumstances beyond my control Senryu is now in jeopardy of not making it to the shelves on December 30th. I had a very large freelance project get pushed back until after the New Year, and as such it leaves very little room in the budget for essentials, much less printing costs for a comic that, no matter how well recieved, is guaranteed to lose money.

So, while I don?t like to beg, I?m going to start a PayPal fund raising event for printing and shipping costs and see how it goes. My goal? A whopping $300US to cover printing costs and shipping to as many participating stores as possible. The deadline to send the files to print is November 15th.

Anyone who donates more than $25 will get a copy of the book mailed to them with a nice thank you note. I?ll end up donating original art and other goodies to folks who participate as well. More on that later.

Donations can be made via PayPal to soulcoredot (at) gmail.com.

Shameless PayPal Donate button below for your enjoyment!

Thanks in advance to everyone who’s followed my progress so far and offered advice and support, you guys rock. Now let’s see if we can get this thing into stores!

And just for visitng, here’s another preview page.

So while I’m in between freelance projects I’m hitting the Senryu pages hard and fast, vowing to do a page a day until it’s finished and ready to print.

To see it and more be sure to look for Senryu in participating comic shops December 30th.

Indy Comic Book Week has taken off more than we could have ever hoped, and with the TWAYKI graphic novel finished I’ve had some time to focus on side gigs and pet projects.

Below is my page for One Night Stand entitled Daydreamer. It’s a mini comic being put together by David Hopkins for ICBW.

ONE NIGHT STAND is a collection of one-page stories, all about “casual encounters.” This mini-comic will explore sex and intimacy, guilt and anonymity, risk and fantasy.

I’ll be working on Senryu next while I wait for my next day-job script to come in. I’ll be finishing it up this week and getting it ready for Indy Comic Book Week as well.

Stay tuned.

Testing out the WordPress iPhone app with the new blog setup. If all goes as planned below you should see my penciled contribution to David Hopkins‘ Indy Comic Book Week project One Night Stand.

Written by David Hopkins, ONE NIGHT STAND is a series of one-page vignettes, a collaboration with 32 artists – centered around a theme of casual sex and brief intimate encounters.

Be sure and pick it up come Indy Comic Book Week.

What does 6 months of hard, artistic work look like? I?d imagine something like this.

Above is the completed 100 pages for my first ever original graphic novel. I still can?t show the lettered pages or give away the plot but it was a blast to work on and I learned a lot. I feel like I finally have a grasp on my own personal style and can do it at a consistent pace.

I finished up the pages somewhat early thanks to a week-long productive streak, and will begin a new book for the same company in November.

In the meantime I?m finishing up colors on a 4 page pitch project that, once again, I can?t show or talk much about thanks to an NDA. Look for that next October.

It?s a been a busy few weeks and I?ll be posting some more about our Studio side-project Indy Comic Book Week tomorrow, as well as my contributions to it, Senryu & One Night Stand.

So, after much frustration at the hands of a crafty domain squatter the blog is finally back up and runningl. WordPress is good to go and the database has been recovered. Big thanks to my good friend Amelia for all the technical help. Also, my apologies for the repeat posts. We’re back to normal now and you should see nothing but new material from here on out.

Despite the downtime I’ve been busy on several fronts and have a few noteworthy updates. First up is…

Indy Comic Book Week

Long story short is, the one and only distributor of comic books, Diamond, is taking a week off in December, and after some inspiration from Kyle Latino, Space-Gun Studios decided to take some initiative and start Indy Comic Book Week.

Paul Milligan did the logo and I put together the website and we started spreading the word through social media, and it’s actually taken off quite well. At the moment we have upwards of 20 DFW area stores participating (including Zeus, Titan, Madness and Lone Star), and will have a chance to get our own books on “new comic” shelves come December 30th.

For more info and to follow the event’s progress visit http://indycomicbookweek.com.

Which brings us to…

Senryu

I’ll also be participating in Indy Comic Book Week with my first book, Senryu. Below are a few preview pages, you can see a write-up on the ICBW blog.

So I had promised a day 2 DCC wrap-up, but was unfortunately struck down Sunday night by the dreaded con-cough. Only gastrointestinal. Or maybe it was the Golden Chick. Ughn.

Instead of a blog post wrap-up I?ve got a sort of homage to the con in progress at the moment and will post that in the next few days.In the meantime it?s back to the day job (making comics) and blog posting (now that I?ve caught up with all the work I missed being sick Monday) so without further ado I give you a relatively new piece that hasn?t been posted yet, Black Bolt from the Inhumans.

More to come, for now it?s back to this weeks batch of pages.

Day 1 of DCC is a wrap and it was a blast! After going to see District-9 (an amazing movie) with my girl I put in a late night prepping the Atomic Robo print.

I only got about 4 hours sleep but it didn?t matter, I?m always pumped for cons. There?s no Wizard World or Cape in Dallas this year so we?re pretty starved for conventions here in the South and DCC did not disappoint. The crowds were thick and I started of the day with a nice Daredevil sketch.

Next up I started a Bat-Girl piece for my boy Evan. He?s even trading me a pimp Savage Dragon piece for it.

Later on my boy Jasper helped critiqed the pencils.

All in all day one was a mild success but awesome on the fun side! Seeing local creators (like David Hopkins, Paul Milligan, Joe Eisma and Brent Peeples just to name a few) always inspires me in the best way. There?s a wealth of talent here in Dallas just waiting to be discovered. And now on to day 2!

Dallas Comic Con is this weekend, August 15th-16th. Make plans to come out, get your geek on and support Dallas? comic scene! I?ll be there in artist alley with my fellow Space-Gun studios mates selling books, prints, and sketches and commissions.

Feel free to RSVP on Facebook.

Testing out the WordPress iPhone app with some Tetragramaton pencils.

Thanks to a clever domain name squatter Soulcore.net was temporarily knocked offline. After much heated negotiations and lawyerly threats I’m back up and running, but lost a few blog posts in the process.

I’ll be adding back in the content that was lost, so please bear with me if you’ve gotten old or double posts in your feed, I should be back up and running as normal in no time at all.