All right, I think it's about time I settled down a bit and ramble on this page. What's up with work lately? I'm still inking Stone at the moment.  In the middle of that, I was able to do a cover for Comics Conspiracy's TAXMAN at the invitation of cyber pal Jason Maranto. Check out that cover here.  Colors are by this talented fella named Kevin Senft.  The book is pencilled by Don Walker and inks by Jason. For more info check out these sites:
Comics Conspiracy's Taxman page
http://www.comicsconspiracy.com/taxman.htm
Jason Maranto's Taxman page
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~jmaranto/taxman/taxmanfinishes.html

Oh, and before I forget, I'm all set to work on this cool-ass project next right after Stone. I can't say much about it now but I'm practically pissing in my pants just thinking about it! he.he..

ARE YOU HUNGRY?

Since you are here and surfing the web anyway, I invite you to help  save a life by going to this site. You'll spend no more than a few minutes here, depending on the speed of your internet connection. You may want to visit the site everyday, if you can.
The Hunger Site
http://www.thehungersite.com/

What I'm Reading

Right now I'm actually reading a book! It's been a while since I read one. This one is called "Perspectives on Citizen Kane" by a host of reviewers and writers. It's a book that compiles most of the major writings done about the film Citizen Kane( directed and co-written by the insanely talented Orson Wells) since it came out in 1941 up to specially commissioned writings just for the book at the time of publication (1996).   I got the book because when I was in San Diego, I bought a video of the movie because I've heard lots of good things about it.  Needless to say, the movie fascinated me and haunted me as well.

As for comic books, hey, would you believe I'm back to reading the X-men? My interest was sparked by my buying the X-men Visionaries: Neal Adams TPB, collecting all the X-men stories Neal Adams worked on. I had previously owned a couple of those issues and I wanted to read them all. I thought that the writing was a bit strange, but the art simply knocked me out. So it was an extremely pleasant surprise when I ran across X-Men: Hidden Years by John Byrne. It's a series that proposes to "fill in the gap" between the Neal Adams run (with an issue in between that wasn't Neal's) and the start of Dave Cockrum's run. 

Although the Neal Adams' run was a tremendous success, it still didn't save the book from cancellation so new stories were discontinued with X-Men #66. Issues 67-93 were reprints with new stories beginning again with Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum in #94. So what happened to the X-Men from 67-93? This series hopes to answer that.  So, is it any good?  Well, I think so!  John has hit his stride with this book.  Having just read the Neal Adams' run, reading Hidden Years feels like reading stories that would have come out at the time. The transition from Neal to John seems so seamless that it's as if the book was never canceled.  Getting Tom Palmer to ink the book was the perfect choice.  I like this one extremely well because I really like the original team of X-Men, specially Cyclops, but the convoluted story lines that revolve around the current X-Men prevent me from enjoying it as much as I would like. Hidden Years takes me back to a time when there was still only ONE X-Book, only one team, with stories that are uncluttered, simple and well, rather innocent in it's own way.

Of course, I've started to read the two major X-Books again, specially since Chris Claremont is coming on board once again next year. What can I say? I'm a Claremont baby!  Claremont has gotten some bad press lately because a lot of people don't like his writing anymore and they don't look forward to him coming back to the X-men. Well, my take on it is, Chris was probably born to write the X-men because with other books, he seems lost.  I like his FF though. I for one am anticipating his return slobbering like an idiot fanboy all the way.