I Can Finally Announce It! YAY!

I’ve been dropping hints at the last two conventions I attended (at my panels and at my booth) that I’ve been given a once-in-a-lifetime gig, rebooting one of the most important “Golden Age” characters in comics.

Now I can tell you.

It’s arguably the MOST important character in all of comics’ history, the one that started it all.

The Yellow Kid.

Yup.

The first comic strip character in history is finally getting some attention in this land where comics are finally king.  Not only a comic book relaunch from IDW, but a Hollywood relaunch as well, with a major motion picture due out this August.

Back in the waning days of the 19th Century, a cartoonist named R. F. Outcault single-handedly invented the comic strip with a series of continuous stories told in illustrated form.  The series was called “Hogan’s Alley”, and it featured a precocious Asian fellow, charmingly named “The Yellow Kid”, who literally wore his thoughts on his sleeve.

Here the “Kid” is seen hanging around with Outcault’s other major comic strip creation, “Buster Brown”.

The strip ran for years in New York, it even created the first copyright and intellectual property lawsuit about a pop-culture character when competing newspapers used teh character without permission.  It’s where the term “yellow journalism” comes from.

But now he’s coming back as a major Warner Brothers film, a WB animated TV series, and a comic book miniseries from IDW.

I haven’t really started yet, but I’ll be writing and providing covers for the series, with a fairly new artist named Pavel Martin providing the interiors for the first three issues at least.  Pavel’s an ex-bootcamper student of mine I recommended for the project and I’m thrilled to be working with him professionally.  I think he’s really ready.

Some of Pavel’s early sketches.  The skateboard wasn’t our idea, that comes from the TV people, he’s going to have a skateboard on the show…. so you have to forgive us for that.

I’ll post new artwork and the cover for issue #1 as soon as I’ve finished it.  It’s pencilled and inked, but I’m in the middle of colouring it right now.  You’re going to love it.

After a hundred and twenty years, it’s about time!

After working on characters like Batman, The Simpsons and the Avengers, it’s really an honour to be working on the character that literally started it all.

I won’t let you guys, or R. F. Outcault’s legions of fans down.  I promise.

Ty the Guy OUT!

A couple of Yellow Kid appearances from his heyday to whet your appetite!

What an irrepressible scamp he was.  I hope we get to give him a proper name.

---

Number #1 Bun Toon of the YEAR! (And the bestest failure, too)YAY!

And now, that day has come, and so we face, the final curtain… on 2011.

Most of the people I know said this  year was one of the worst they’ve ever gone through.  I’ve had my own ups and downs, but my family is intact, we didn’t lose a cat or a grandparent, I’m still employed in the comics industry, and so far as I know, I don’t have brain tumours or a contract killer after me, so I’m calling the whole thing a win.   (But I score differently than most people; I never count the errors or forces, and don’t even pick up the pencil when it’s a southpaw.)

Speaking of the Score:  It’s time for the top Bun Toon of the Year…beating out such contenders as “Charlie Sheen vs. Galactus”, “Ma Kent vs. Aunt May” and “Everything You Need To Know about Thor In Four Panels”…we present the Thrilla with Frank Milla…

(Above is a MUCH cleaner copy than the one that went online originally).

A few people pointed out that Frank looked more like he was auto-fellating himself than inserting his skull into his bowels in my cartoon, which is a fair point anatomically, but moot satirically.  I’m good with his depiction either way.

My last line up there… “I used to love you, Frank.”…you don’t know how true that is, ladies and gents.  Watching Frank Miller turn into the current version of himself is like watching a beloved Uncle pee on the shrubs at a wedding.  And I mean the front shrubs, in the yard that faces the road.  At the Church.  Without undoing his fly first so it goes all down his pant leg and everything.

Cut it out, Frank, and find a rest room.

ALSO:  This came with the post, so you gets is again:

A contribution I did for Gail Simone's "You'll All Be Sorry" column from a couple of years ago.

AND NOW, MY MOST BELOVED FAILURE BUN TOON

That Frank Miller strip up there took me less than an hour –  from idea to putting it online where it was read by tens of thousands of people, we’re talking maybe 45 minutes (you probably noticed Frank never moves, and there’s no backgrounds either, two tricks of the lazy cartoonist!).

But the Bun Toon below took more than six or seven hours, by far the longest I’ve ever spent on one.  It was done mostly in lieu of sleep over a couple of nights, and it was maybe the most fun I had on a webcomic entry so far.  The poor thing did no traffic when it went up though, and has stayed at the bottom of the hit parade ever since.

Lesson learned:    Effort is for squares.  Just whip it off, baby, and you’ll get your reward.

NOTE: The premise here, explained in the original post, was that I was privy to some inside information about the next six comic book movies coming out of Big Time Hollywood because I was working on one of them, doing storyboards.

I can now reveal which film I was storyboarding for release in 2012.  It’s the Christian Bale Thunderstrike picture.  Look for it in local theatres in the coming year.

That’s it for 2011, bunny people.  Come by in 2012 and I promise we’ll be just as lightweight and meaningless, only better.

Now, wrapped in bacon.

Ty the Guy OUT!!