The end of the world !!

While surfing, I found a page on the Montreal Mirror site that had art I did nearly 8 years ago ! That was when 1999 was synonymous with the end of the world, or at least with the Millenium Bug.
It's here.
Once a year, the Montreal Mirror asked editor Rupert Bottenberg to built a whole issue full of cartoons, so that the journalists could take a vacation during the Christmas time. That was a good idea and they should bring it back !
My style was a bit simpler back then...

My Comic Space

By now everyone has a My Space page. I'm not sure what's the use really...I did not care about it very much until I was invited by the OnlineComic administrator (where you can subscribe to get updates about the veena webcomic) to a sort of My Space dedicated to comic creators. I registered, so now I have a ComicSpace page under my name. And, why the hell not, I made one for Veena on My Space.
Here are the adresses.
ComicSpace: Theriault
My Space: Veena

Hopefully, we'll be able to post updates on our pages there that could be a form of broadcast.

Lots of guests art and a brand new Archive section !

On Comicgenesis message board here, I recently made an offer to trade guest art for a link and some good word of mouth in the news section. The only requirement is that it be about Veena or any character or situation from the webcomic.

I was happy with the result. 4 very good artists answered the call and a few more made promises. You may already have noticed that the last 2 weeks of strips were fill-in. The first one was from Roman Wunderlich, artist of B-Movie Comic. He actually did 3 different pieces, all done with a great sense of humour and great colors. This week's piece is called Veena Yaoi but should be called John Star Yaoi, making fun of the friendship of John and Paul-Hitler-Dixon, and at the same time turning on it's head the nastiness of the nazi look.That was one invitation I was making : I want artist with styles that are different from mine. I want to see how they interpret the characters, especially the manga style. That's what I got from G.L. Gillen, the artist of Squid Ninja. But his style is so round and cute that it seem to be from beyond manga and maybe more from old Warner Brother cartoons.
Next week will be the one by Nathan Birch of Zoology. He just did a pose of Veena herself and he really got the attitude right. Even the clothing is perfect down to the panties animal patterns !

I'll be back with more comments from 2 others after that.

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You may have noticed that I did a few changes on the Veena webcomic page. By popular demand I added an archive page. So you have one now. You might say it's in beta version cause it's full of bugs. But it'll get you where you want. I've done it in a "summary" style cause unless you are doing a daily humour strip, i think the calandar style is pretty useless. It doesn't tell you anything about what you might want to read. So I hope that adding that will help to read more than just the early strips or the most recent ones.

Interviewed for Adventures Into Digital Comics

Last year, I was interviewed by Sebastien Dumesnil for his new movie Adventures Into Digital Comics. It took a while to be ready, but the movie is now finished and has begun to travel to cinema festival worldwide. The interview is not actually in the movie but served to frame some informations about comics. It's now online here.

This is how their website describe the movie:
"What is a comic book? How has the use of computers changed the creation process of print comics? Should webcomics be created in such a way that they cannot be sold as books? When does a webcomic stop being a comic and enter the realm of animation? Can webartists live from their work? These are some of the questions we try to answer in Adventures Into Digital Comics, a documentary film analyzing the events that changed the comic book industry and art form over the last decade. Investigating the work and ideas of established and up and coming comic artists, director Sébastien Dumesnil offers the audience a vision of the future of a rapidly evolving medium. The film opens a window onto the dynamic renaissance of the comic taking place today on the web, exploring the obsessions and passions, not to mention the ever present struggle to survive, of the artists behind the images. Official Selection Icon 2006!"

Rebooting the webcomic ?

I need your input on what to do. The story going on right now in the Veena webcomic has about 15 pages to go before the end of the John Star adventure. But since I'm working on a lot of other stuff, I won't really be able to put a lot of time on it.As I've said before, i'm now working on a 7 pages Turtle story and will soon begin to do more schoolbook illustrations.

Would you be pissed off if I rebooted to the beginning while I finish the story ? Then at least, new visitors would have something to read on a regular basis instead of feeling that this webcomic is dead.
You can vote and comment on this here.

Updates on my new work : Turtles !

I have now finished working on the pitch for the French publishers. The 5 pages are done and lettered. After little tweaks here and there, my writer will be able to go and meet the publishers personally (he's in Paris). I'm crossing my finger that this is my next project.

In the meantime, i've got more to do: a 7 pages Turtle story to be published in Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ! I have the script in hand and i'm already working on it. I guess that should be out next spring. I'm glad they got back to me since I have not done any work for them since last year when I did 2 illustrations for Tales of TMNT.

Yé !

Back from the Toronto Comics Convention

I'’m back from the Toronto comic con (whose official name is Fan Expo Canada 2006). I was there for the 3 days and I traveled with Sirkowski (artist on Miss Dynamite).

It was my 3rd year there and it will be my last. Unless something really drastic change. I usually go there with copies of my Veena comic book and some of my art hoping to make some sales and get in touch with some readers. Unfortunately, it seem the con is not designed to work that way. I was there as a Guest. It mean I do not pay to get there and depending on where you are on the totem pole, some or all of your expenses are paid. If you are a tv or movie actor, even a voice actor, you get a fee to even be there. If you work for Marvel or DC on a popular book, travel and lodging is cared for. Otherwise, if like me you are defined as an “"indie artist"”, you're left alone. I'’m not really complaining here that I'’m not famous and all that shit. I'’m just annoyed that the whole con has taken the route of adding so much diversions like toys, movie, and multimedia that just being a real live artist willing to chat and meet readers is not interesting enough. In fact, most of the foot traffic does not even seem to be made of comic readers.
Eventually, I think I should go to other cons like Paradise or that one I'’m told that the Beguiling is organizing. I'’m a bit removed from all the turf wars that apparently happened between HobbyStar and Paradise, but it'’s probable that all the comic readers and interesting artists moved there. Gone are the nice artists I met like Kean or the Flight crew, and gone are the studios like Dreamwave or Mirage. That last studio I met last year, and that'’s how I got the Turtle art gig. Some of that art attracted attention when people were looking thru my portfolio. That underline even more the fact that it'’s a very mainstream, commercial convention, and that you need to work on a recognizable franchise to be noticed.

Good points: some of the artists I met like Ghastly from Ghastly Comic , Paul D. Storrie, Sulley Fattah, Larry Handcock, Michael Chan of Anime Iku and a few others !

A cool Tiki !

I just re-did the index page of this site. So now, instead of a photography of me that does nothing to inform that it's a site about my art, you get a cool tiki. I like tiki, that, i'm sure you could guess...It remind me of those old Elvis movies where he sang on a beach with cute girls and a dune buggy. Anyone know which movie it is? It also remind me of old Kirby monsters stories. Go figure....
The old blue photo is still on the biography page. My fiancée, Harmelle, took it.

The forum is alive once again !

As the title says, yes, it's back on. For a while, this forum that I share with Steve Requin's The Eight got locked to everyone not registered because some robots were posting junk and nonsense...That was the only way to stop that for a while. Then Steve had "life" get in the way of his involvement with his webcomic and things stuck at that point.
Now he's back, the forum is now unlocked to all. The Eight even has new pages that will be posted on a new site soon.

As to why Veena doesn't have her own forum, even if she should : Here is the reason. All the webcomics I see do seem to have their own forum. What happen is that if every one has one, then nobody goes to one. If I stay on my forum waiting to have people come, and Acid Keg's fans do the same, then nobody is discovering new comics and all webcomics become little incestuous cliques. To broaden the readership you have to go and meet. That's what I do when I go to many message boards of webcomics like Comic Genesis, Buzzcomix, Café Salé, The Comic journal, Comicon, BD Québec, Bédéka and others. It's about networking.
So come and chat about Veena and about anything you want. You can even come and promote yourself. We'll listen.

Art of the Day : 2

I just got a Wacom Tablet for my birthday and this is my first try at color with it. It's really fun and a big improvement on the mouse ..! It's for an History book and this is a chapter on Imperialism in the 19-20th century.

Carle Bacha and Bernie Mireault

Only one day left before the start of the new story, so I should mention a few things about the guest art. That last piece was done by Carle Bacha, inked and colored by Bernie Mireault.

Years before Veena was a webcomic, it was a comic book, and before that, a mini-comic distributed by mail thru promotion in a small press magazine called Factsheet Five. It was done on a few folded pieces of paper, photocopied, hand stapled and mailed for a few quarters. That'’s how it was done in those far away times before the Internet, where as now everything is free and available making everyone happy!
I'’m not sure how that drawing came about. My fuzzy memory says it might have been done during a "“NovaCon"”, a sort of mini convention taking place at the Nova bookshop (in Montreal, Canada) in the early '‘90s. Could be seen there were the local underground cartoonists, and a few mainstream ones. There might have been a comic jam taking place where Carle Bacha did a drawing of Veena. And Bernie Mireault took a big marker and inked it. I liked it enough to put it in the mini-comic.
Years later, when I reprinted part of the pages in the comic book version, I remembered about that page and asked Bernie if he wanted to color it for the back cover of #2.

What happened with those guys? Well, Bernie Mireault is now doing coloring for the Revolution on the Planet of the Apes comic book as well as working on a graphic novel, now halfway done. He has a web site here.


And Carle is still at it doing animation. Here are a few links on Newgrounds for his latest shorts. They are very cool !

A B C D

The ones with Dr. Wigglepecker are done in collaboration with Rupert Bottenberg. Rupert is also one that has done a few comic pages in the early Veena mini-comics. He has no page to showcase his work that I know of, but he should ! He'’s now a music editor at the Montreal Mirror.

Music on those shorts is by The Unireverse, a fun psychedelic Moog rock band.

Art of the day : 1

This is a cover illustration for a schoolbook. It's for reading French.

In stores: ABC : A to Z #3

It's been a while but I have a few new works in comic books, from now to the next few months.
First, the one that is available in the stores right now:
ABC : A to Z #3
That's a spin off of Terra Obscura, that serie written by Peter Hogan and based on Alan Moore's concepts, drawn by Yanick Paquette with various inkers, among them Karl Story and Serge Lapointe. You might remember that I did a few flashback pages to help Yanick get that "golden age" flavor. Well, the new book by Wildstorm recap everything and is a sort of "Official Handbook".



The second is, ta-dah , Tales of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle # 21. It will be in stores in March. I have a frontspiece page introducing this issues theme : cowboys and cows. That is the first of a few project that I have with Mirage Studios. Another frontspiece page will be published later this year and I also have a full story waiting for the approval of Mr. Peter Laird (one of the famous creators).If everything goes well this one should be written and drawn by me and starring Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo in the New York subway and meeting ghosts. I know its one of my regular theme but....Well, they always say that you should write about what you know....

Beside that, I have helped once again Michel Lacombe on more Star Wars comics (it's becoming more and more regular for Michel !) But due to my time being used on school books illustrations, I could not help him much. Only a panel here and there. But that should be in Star Wars Rebellion #0 (in march) and #3.

Cy-Boar, Veena and guest art.

Artist Lou Graziani and I have done some exchange of guest art for our webcomics. But we could not synchronize it to be put in between stories at the same time and do some cross promo. So my art, a version of his Jill the sexy hillbilly girl- was on his site last month here.
And his version of Veena is here. So it's an exchange of cheesecake !
Cy-Boar has also a ton of guest art that you should check out. I have a little less guest art, but the next one should be by Bernie Mireault, the artist of The Jam.

We hope you'll check out the stories that goes with the guest art.
Cy-Boar is the story of a cyborg human-boar that has many adventure against the army or groups of super-villains. It remind me of an old Hulk comic from the '70s. I also like the coloring. I think Lou has a gift for it.
And Veena is...well, you already know if you're here.

Stephane Peru, our new colorist.

You guys already know that I share studio space with other cartoonists? ( Yes, I've mentioned this a few times already....) Early this November, one French guy from France phoned us saying he heard about our studio from Wes Craig and he wanted to know if he could work with us. We learned his name is Stephane Peru and he's a colorist for albums on the European French market for publishers like Soleil, Delcourt and Semic among others. We like to have talented people like that so the next day, he brought his Mac and began to work !
Stephane is a very upbeat nice guy and he bring his coloring experience to us. It's a valuable thing since we did not have that expertise inside the studio. Serge Lapointe sometimes work with Blond, Michel Lacombe, Frefon and I color our own work but it's different.
Stephane worked with his brother Olivier on a 3 part serie called Shaman for Soleil.You should try to find it. It's worth it.

Webcomics of the week

There are a few webcomics that I promised to highlight recently.

Liriel has put me as a "link of the week" on her BadBlood webcomic main page. That was the second time in a year so I promised I would do the same. Better late than never, so here it is! Here is how it's described on the Online Comics directory:

BadBlood by Liriel McMahon
Chance? Fate? ...or pawn? Jared fights to keep his soul, find redemption, and challenge an evil as old as civilization. A mature vampire tale set in Seattle and updated every Thursday!

It's been online for the last 3 years so there are a lot of pages to read, enough to lose yourself in it for a while. Liriel is also an active participant on Buzzcomix and other forums about webcomics.

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I'd also like to mention that AcidKeg is back with a new story. It's been out of circulation for the last 6-8 months and was missed by all the fans of retro-cool art.
If you like Veena, you're likely to like it too.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!!

There is one thing I did not mention from my last convention trip in Toronto.
I usually use the time I'm there to go and show my portfolio to various studios and artists. After all, I'm a freelancer, so I have to be seen to be hired...One of those studios was the Mirage Studio, publisher of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had the opportunity to chat with Peter Laird, one of the original creators. Seem he liked my art enough to recommend me to his producer...So two weeks ago, they get back to me to do a try-out for some art to be published in "Tales of the TMNT". You can see in the portfolio folder, the Leonardo drawings I've done as a test. They liked it, so soon you'll see some of my comic art there.
It's about time I did more pencils in a comic book. I think the last time I did my own pencil and art AND was credited was the Johnny Dollar book.

Upgrade to the website

I've made some upgrades to this site and the webcomic site.
The portfolio has a better presentation. There, you'll now be able to see part of the art I did for Quebec's schoolbooks in the course of the last year. These books were mostly about the history of the Americas from the early days to the 16th century. You'll also see some of the art I did for Safarir.
The links have been moved from the webcomics page to the main site, with all the others. That way the webcomic will avoid the cluttered look.

I've also repaired the store. For a while there was a problem with ordering with Paypal. That should be okay now. By the way, if you are a reader of the webcomic, did you know that the present story is reprinted from the comic book? So if you want to own these stories, you can without copying the art to your computer disk. And you can learn what happens before the other online readers!

Neal Adams, Toronto and Star Wars

My visit to Toronto, you ask?

It went modestly well. I was there as a guest, so I had a table for my art and stuff. What I do usually, is to put on the table my portfolio usually used to show potential editors, and I add next to it a sampling of my various self-published books or mostly solo jobs. These day, I have Veena 1 to 4, some CandyAppleBlack and Johnny Dollar.
My dream of course would be to sell tons of those and make some money at the same time as I reach new readers. Unfortunately, it seems that our reason to be there is actually a little more confuse: we're there to chat with the con goers and mostly to do drawings for them. If you're well known enough I guess they ask for drawings of your characters. But mostly, they ask for heroes from Marvel or Dc. Or some sexual fetish (long story here...). Or some drawing tips (but no storytelling tips...) So after my initial reluctance of last year, I began to draw what they asked. I did Death (the one from Vertigo with the small tits, not to be confused with Lady Death the one with the big tits), a panel for a comic jam, a lady with her feet stuck in glue (that's the sexual fetish ! ), a Batman, etc, etc...
The comic jam panel was for 4 Koma to be used on the Anime London web site. What I was asked was a variation on the usual cadavre exquis technique. The subject was taboo and the other artists were Ryan Miller, Janet Heatherington and Benjamin Rivers.
Another jam was done with Michel Lacombe who sat next to me. In fact, part of our studio was there, since we went with Yanick Paquette and his girlfriend, Marie-Pier Elie.
We also went to the lunch paid by Diamond on the Saturday night. Mostly people from Marvel and Dc, so I was not in a territory too familiar. The only fun thing is that Neal Adams sat close to me on a table at an angle from me. I was told who I was looking at, and he saw me looking at him, so he saluted me. Of course, he had absolutely no idea who I was, but he probably did not want to be impolite. The next morning, I also had a nice breakfast with Dale Eaglesham and his lovely wife. I met them a few months earlier at a con in Montreal. Dale was recently drawing Villains United.

And that's about it.


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By the way, Star Wars : Empire # 34 should be out soon. Michel Lacombe did all the pencils and I helped on a good deal of the backgrounds and high tech ships and vehicles. All the art is pencil only, meaning that it's colored without being inked.
You can see samples here.

Toronto : I'll be at the Comic Book Expo.

Yes, i'll be there. The Con is the last weekend of august, so from the 26th to the 28. I'm a guest, my name is even in the brochure! I'll bring my portfolio, so if you come and chat with me, i'll show you the originals on what I worked on in the last year: the covers for Screw magazine, art for Safarir magazine, maybe some Star Wars and Batman begins pages where I worked on the background art and many other things. I'll also bring copies of all the Veena issues and some copies of CandyAppleBlack, the comic I inked last year.
I'll be happy to chat with you all!

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By the way, you can now notice that my scanner is back on and i've begin posting new webcomics.