I just wrapped up painting on the big climactic battle sequence of Amulet 2 (a 60-page action scene), so now we have only a small handful of pages left to paint.  After that, it's all adjustments and repainting panels down the final stretch.  Amy took a few photos of us working at the studio during the final weeks of production.  Better scheduling and better production methods are keeping us from having to pull a lot of all-nighters like the old days.  Hopefully, I won't have to revert to those methods for the final few weeks.

Scholastic posted an interview I did with them at the Book Expo of America earlier this year.  You can also find some good interviews with other authors like Jeff Smith and Shaun Tan, who are among my favorite artists.

I just realized that Nucleus is also having a silent auction beginning tomorrow that will benefit the Red Cross.  They have a ton of beautiful works of original art for auction, including pieces by some of my favorite artists, including Yoko Tanji, Justin Ridge, and Enrico Casarosa.  It's really amazing to see how many of these pieces are still available for sale, and brings back memories of Nucleus gallery shows of the past.

I'm glad to see the folks at Nick Mag dedicating an award to kids' comics.  We need more good kids' comics out there!  Amulet is nominated in the Best Fantasy Graphic Novel category, but so is Bone, so I can't really say you should vote for my book.  Heheh.  Here's the link.

This one took longer than I expected.  You can check out the final comic here.  My friend Stuart Livingston helped me out with the color flatting on this one.  Thanks, Stuart!

In other news, my friends over at Gallery Nucleus just posted a link to a special Flight set, where you can get all five books for 15% off the cover price.  They also asked me to post about the Co-Lab event they're holding this weekend.  Be sure to check out all the cool stuff by independent artists for sale on Sunday.  I'm sure you'll be able to find the perfect Christmas gift.  Speaking of Christmas gifts, I'll be signing all prints and books that are purchased at Nucleus this week.  They have all the Copper prints available, including the new strip.  They're going to send a dude over to my studio to have me sign stuff daily.

Meanwhile, we're still cranking on the last pages of Amulet 2, and the book is looking very good.  I wish I could show you guys some pages!  We should be wrapping this project up right around Christmas.

Amy and I recently spent some time with the family and went out to see Bolt in 3-D.  I was one of the folks who didn't think too highly about this film when I first saw the trailer.  Long ago, when I saw the pre-production art by Chris Sanders for the film in its original incarnation (American Dog), I was pretty excited to see what would become of it.  The early concepts seemed so dark and surreal, where the main character's delusions of grandeur made the film look like a cross between Harvey and Sunset Blvd, except that we actually see the delusions.  I remember thinking how interesting the project was, but I was also wondering how they were going to make it work as a family film.  Since that time, Chris Sanders was taken off the project, and the film seemed to take a much different approach.  This is when I lost interest, as the film looked to be a run-of-the-mill animated pet feature.

Now, after having seen Bolt, I'll say it's easily one of the year's best films.  I was surprised by how emotionally wrapped up I felt during the second half, and I was on the verge of tears throughout.  Maybe it's just because I'm a real softy, but I realize I get very emotional when I see anything that puts a lot of faith in empathy.  It's just nice to see characters honestly working to try and understand each other, and it's so amazing how effective such a simple act can be.  Anyway, I found Bolt to be an excellent film.  If you're looking to take the family to see a sweet and simple story with high production values over the break, this is a great pick.

On an added note, while I was pretty skeptical about 3-D glasses, the technology has now won me over.  It didn't really distract me, and I had a lot of fun looking at the beautiful moving scenery, and especially at how the artists beautifully rendered the American landscape.  I recommend checking it out in 3-D, but seeing as how the real star of this film is the solid storytelling, you can't really go wrong either way.

Amy just finished posting our photos onto flickr, so here they are: WEEK 1 and WEEK 2.

Here's a video of the apartment we rented in Vernazza.  Best viewed in high quality.

Amy and I just returned home after two weeks in Italy.  Our friends Ben and Shadi of Gallery Nucleus (pictured above) met up with us during our second week.  During our stay, we visited Milan, Rome, Lucca, Pisa, Como, the Cinque Terre, and Venice.  We had an amazing time, and we took a lot of wonderful pictures.  Amy's been working steadily to post them onto flickr, so we'll have more detailed posts with more pictures and videos soon.  We took quite a few on this trip.

In the meantime, I'd like to thank our hosts at ReNoir Comics, who are publishing the Italian editions of Sorcerers & Secretaries and Daisy Kutter.  Giovanni and Rosanna Ferrario (seated in the center in the picture below) were incredibly gracious hosts, and I was so happy to meet such great people working in the comics field abroad.  Michele Foschini (with black shirt in picture below) was our wonderful guide, acting as translator and food connoisseur during the first half of our trip.  He had to wear many hats and he worked frenetically to make sure we were having a good time.  Our travel partner for the first half of the trip, Tracy Butler, creator of Lackadaisy, was also great to spend time with.  Her work is amazing and she's a very intelligent artist, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of her comics in the future.

Thank you so much everyone! I hope to see you all again soon.  More Italy posts coming up...

I intended to post this comic at the beginning of November, but Amy and I leave to go on a book tour in Italy tomorrow (courtesy of Michele Foschini and Renoir Comics), so I decided to post a little bit early.  Along with my ragtag crew of artists, I've been pulling longer hours on Amulet 2 than ever before.  Amy and I have been getting up and heading to the studio at around noon and leaving when the sun is rising.  So what prompted me to find the time to do this?

A few days ago, I received an email from Charley Murdock in Virginia, in which he said he would vote for Barack Obama if I drew a new Copper strip, and that I need to keep drawing the strip, since it's what started my career.  This cracked me up and made my day.  Now, nobody should vote a certain way simply because of a new Copper comic (Charley is an Obama supporter anyway and will hopefully help swing the state in his favor), but I had already been thinking about how I should continue to produce the comic regularly no matter how busy I am, or else Copper and Fred would sit by the wayside indefinitely.  I couldn't just let that happen, so I put Copper and country first!

I reserved the early part of my work days over the past week to chip away at the Copper comic while still managing to get a substantial amount of work for Amulet 2 done daily (about 3-4 painted pages) .  However, by the time I was halfway through inking the gears, I realized again how punishing it can be to draw at such a large size (19 x 24 inch sheets of Bristol for Copper, 9 x 12 sheets for Amulet), especially since I tend to get into details too much if I'm allowed.  For example, the clock had no gears outside of it at first, but then I thought "...what the heck, what's a few more piddly gears anyway?"  Many, many hours, cups of coffee, and dips in the inkwell later, I realized again how difficult it is to color on only one layer and with only the basic Photoshop tools at my disposal (magic wand, paint bucket, and solid brush).  So I think to myself, "why the heck am I doing this the hard way?"

This is when I think back and remember how this comic taught me to tell a story from beginning to end.  It taught me to use colors.  It taught me to build a better website.  It introduced me to other online artists who became my good friends, and among them I found my loving wife.  It provided the foundation for what became Flight, and my first Flight story was appropriately a Copper comic.  It essentially began my career in comics, allowing me to travel the world to places like Italy and Japan to promote the medium.  And yet, the comic that started all this has been collecting dust for a year now, and Charley Murdock is right in letting me know that I need to keep the comic going for the reasons above, no excuses.  So here it is.  You can expect the comic to be updated at the beginning of every month again.  And if this news somehow makes you feel a little more motivated, and helps you feel a little more energized, and perhaps inspires you to go out and vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, then despite what I said earlier, go do it.  :)

Amy and I have already voted and we will be watching the election from afar, hoping to see Barack Obama as our new president.  I actually get a tear in my eye just thinking about it.  I'm so proud of him, his supporters, and the campaign they have run.  Being a skeptic and a news addict, I was left wondering when Barack would let me down during these past few years, and he hasn't even come close.  His demeanor and sense of purpose have remained steadfast, and what he has been able to inspire in other Americans is nothing short of amazing.  I recently made a couple more donations to the campaign the other day to help with the final push, and for those of you working out there in the field, I wish you luck!  Amy has a new blog post with links to some good Obama videos and some info on our trip to Italy.  Hopefully, I'll be able to blog while we're there.  Until then... ciao!

Amy and I have been working around the clock on Amulet 2, and we're joined by some very talented and dedicated artists.  We've been chipping away at it every waking hour of every day for the past two months now, and we're getting close to finishing.  The book is looking good, and I think the quality of the art is much higher than the first installment.  It's really neat to see how much Amy and I have learned since the first go around.  We also have some talented digital painters (Anthony Wu and Jason Caffoe) working with us full-time to push this book out the door.  Special thanks go out to Kean Soo, Stuart Livingston, Michael Regina, Ryan Hoffman, Denver Jackson, Alan Beadle, Tim Durning, Catherine Yoo, Felix Lim and Pat Race for their assistance with the flatting.  They're working to lay down the tracks and are making it possible for us to focus on the coloring, lighting and rendering of the scenes.  You guys are life savers.

During the long evenings of digital painting, I've been going through the wonderful treasure trove that is the Charlie Rose archives.  Here you'll find a multitude of great conversations with fascinating people, and it makes for good listening while drawing or painting.

On a side note, my friend Ryan Estrada recently drew this comic referencing the recent Smith family/Amulet movie thing.  By the way, the movie has been optioned, but it hasn't been greenlit.  I should have been more clear about that.  Which means, don't assume the movie will actually get made!  Heheh.  Hollywood tends to be pretty fickle, but I do have faith in the people putting the film together, so we'll see...

Ever since the general election in 2004, I became much more interested in politics, as I imagine being the case for many young Americans.  It was interesting to see the ideologies of my friends and co-workers clashing as election day drew closer.  As an independent, with a mix of both conservative and liberal views, I was looking at the election as an important job interview for the highest office in the land, not a culture war, and while neither candidate was an ideal choice for the role, I did feel we were putting the wrong guy in the post.

Flash forward four years and while the Bush administration has proven to be as incompetent as many believed, I do look back at that election and believe that America made the right decision.  This is something a lot of my friends give me grief about, asking me how I could possibly believe this to be true.  My stance now is that you should make decisions based on what you believe, not to make fear-based decisions in a reactionary manner.  In 2004, a vote for the Democrat was more a vote against Bush than a vote for Kerry, and I would posit that most people who voted for Bush were voting for him and what he believed in, rather than against what the other side was about.  Consider that the mistakes made during Bush's first term were nearly irreversible, and should Kerry have been president, his administration would have taken the fall.  Being a reactionary administration (as his campaign showed themselves to be, and as the Democratic congress has also proven to be), they likely would have flailed, suggesting results that would be as bad as they are now, or worse.  The mistake wasn't made in 2004.  It happened in 2000, when people weren't paying attention.

Before Barack Obama decided to run for the presidency, I had read his books, or rather listened to his audio books, listened to his speeches and interviews, and for the first time in my life I remember thinking "this man should be president some day."  He really piqued my curiosity, so I started tracking his activities and quietly hoped he would announce he was running.  At the time, I remember thinking if he ran he would win, but I was a little torn because Hillary Clinton seemed a good choice too.  During the primary, his decision to run proved to be a wiser choice than I first gave him credit for.  Research on politics over the last two decades will show that it was with the Clinton administration and their campaign strategies where the manufactured personality and culture war style politics were really kicked into high gear.  Essentially, if JFK were The Beatles, then the Clintons were The Backstreet Boys (not saying their music is bad, it's good, but very studied and manufactured), and it began distracting the voters in a way that governance became secondary to whether or not the voter could identify with the candidate, which has led us to where we are now.  It is this awareness for how things play out in the long term that makes Barack Obama a significant leader.

In November, I will proudly be voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden because I believe in them, and not because I hate or am afraid of the other side.  I will be casting my vote because I believe they are fully qualified to make good decisions based on faith and solid intelligence and not out of fear.  Any time I have had even a shred of doubt about the Obama campaign's decision-making, he and his campaign have proven the wisdom of their judgment.  I am confident that not only will the Obama and Biden administration be among the greatest in the history of this country, but that they will inspire many younger people to eventually step up and help take their place.  This year, like 2004, I implore people to vote for a candidate out of faith, and not against them out of fear.  Just as they did in 2004, I do believe that Americans will make the right choice for their country and for their children's future.

The painting above was done for an Obama fundraiser taking place tomorrow.  It seems to be invite-only, but if you would like to purchase it in exchange for a sizable Obama campaign contribution, please send me an email at kazu (at) boltcity.com and I will forward it to the event organizer.  You will likely be entering an auction.  I have given several hundred dollars to the campaign so far, and I encourage folks to help the campaign push through these last few weeks so we can begin getting things back on track.

If you haven't registered to vote, or you're not sure if you have already, you can check your status here.