Pencilling Star Wars : Empire

It's funny, I seem to be working on comics that are related to fashionable movies: I helped Serge Lapointe on the inking of Batman Begins, and now I'm helping Michel Lacombe on the pencils of Star Wars : Empire. Now I'm doing some backgrounds with spaceships and environments. This issue is a fill-in in the middle of a longer storyline and we have only a few weeks to do the full book. That's a bit more work than on Star Wars Tales # 21 and 23 where it was only one short story. Here the pencils are not inked and will be colored directly. So I have to fake Michel's style more closely. We'll see how it goes.

By the way, Star Wars Tales 23 is out in store right now. Michel has shown a page he did here.

A Veena is a music instrument among other things.

You learn many things when you publish a comic called Veena. First is that when put the title thru Google it show you a music instrument called the Veena. The tourism bureau of India probably doesn't like me much, because for a long time my comic came up first in searches, instead of information on the music instrument that is actually the official music instrument of India.The ranking has changed a little since then...



It look like something Jim Woodring would come up with...Veena is also a name for women all over Asia. And women of Asian origin in England and the States.
Once in a while I get orders for copies of Veena solely on the basis of the title. Who doesn't put his own name in Google to see what will come up?
Recently, I got a letter from a Veena. She said she liked my comic and offered to send me her photo. Curious to see her, I accepted even if I thought it might be a joke. Like a friend sending me a photo of a porn star with hair like my character...
But she's real and is from England. Her parents were born in Mauritius so they speak French. It's an interesting connection for a comic produced in Quebec where we speak both French and English.



Maybe I could make it a regular thing on the site and have a collection of readers whose name is Veena. What do you guys and gals think?

Veena at the Time Travelers Convention.

You find the strangest thing on the internet....There is actually a live, real "Time travelers" convention being organised right now. Info here. Time Travel does not exist yet, but the point is that if it's ever invented you need only one convention for all of eternity, not one every year. As long as the travelers have heard about it, they will make the travel back in time to the con. So, if you look at a photo of a con now, it may be empty, but look at it in a year, you may see Dr. Who or Veena. That's a paradox, time is very fluid and can be affected retroactively. Yes, I'm telling you all this because Veena time travel and may go one day.
In the meantime, NBC is supposed to cover the event. I'm not making this up....

"Batman Begins" is ending for us.

I didn't do much updating these last weeks because I'm busy on other things, mainly inking work on the backgrounds of the comic adaptation of the "Batman Begins" movie. Serge Lapointe and I still have one week to go and then it will be shipped to the printer.
After that I'm not sure what's on my list of commercial work, so I'll go back to drawing pages of "John Star". Oh, and I forgot, I have another cover or 2 to do for the porn magazine "Screw".

That's about it.

By the way, all the problems with email and folders are resolved.

Inking backgrounds on the Batman Begins comic book.

Yep! That's what i'm doing this week thanks to Serge Lapointe! As I may have said a few times in the "News" section, I do share a studio with Serge, Yanick Paquette, Michel Lacombe, Frefon and Mylene Henry. We all do comic book and illustration work for a living. Once in a while, one of us is trapped in a deadline crunch and we do help each others. So that's what I do right now.
Batman Begins is written by Scott Beatty (BATGIRL: YEAR ONE), the art is by Kilian Plunkett (SUPERMAN: RED SON) & Serge LaPointe is doing the inking.

The previous work I did in mainstream comics was helping Michel on Star Wars Tales #21 and 23. That last one isn't out yet. I helped on the background pencils and some inks.

Vote for Veena at Buzzcomix, here's why.

As the title says, I'd like you to vote for Veena in the Buzzcomix toplist. I'm listed there and pretty much nobody votes so my listing is pretty low. I'm trying to see if a good rating will translate into readers.
That's where you can help me: go to my page and vote by clicking on the Buzzcomixs Icon and I'll reward you with a special picture.
Last fall I did the cover for SCREW. It's a porn magazine and it's available in the New York area. But the funny thing is that they like cartoons. So I offered my art and they took it.
Vote and be rewarded.
How is that for hitting below the belt?

A review of Veena at "Journey into History"

Journey into History is a web site that does review of webcomics, but the funny thing is that it does it in comic strip form. Simple and effective, you got two characters that interact and chat about a given webcomic. Veena got it's turn on February 28. You can read it here. I believe it is a positive one. You can also chat with Bob Stevenson, the webmaster and artist of the strip. He also does a comic called More Fun with Roger Lagridge.

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I also traded links with Miss Dynamite from Sirkowski, a friend who publish in MensuHell (a Montreal zine where I occasionally contribute) . Boy, did my hits go up! I did not know he was this popular!

A new comic story on sale in Safarir

In the february issue of Safarir, a Mad-type humour magazine available in Quebec, I have a 3 pages story. It's called Roland Galaxie. It's actually a sort of parody of my own character John Star.
The story is by Steve Requin, I did the art and Fred Jourdain did the colors. It's available in most corner store, so you should a least go look at it.
Here is a picture:

A new type of News page!

Welcome again!
As you can see, the News page has changed. You'll probably recognize the Blogger type of design. I was interested in a blog, not that much because I feel like the blogger type but mainly because it's easier to write from anywhere with a few clicks and apparently, updates are picked up faster by search engines. So, I may write more often. Maybe.
We'll also find a way to integrate the news with the entry page for the Veena webcomic, so the news could be read from both sites. When I write "we", it's because all the work of creating this page was done by Technogotika. You can see some of her writing here . Thank you!!