beauty

I got this picture in my email tonight and I thought it was amazingly beautiful and should be shared with my tiny little community of blog readers, who I know are the sorts who appreciate amazingly beautiful things.

Enjoy.

ARENA solicits

Look at me, I'm a blogging machine lately!

Here's the solicit information for ARENA, arriving in stores the month of December, beginning on Wednesday the 5th. As most writers seem to do these days, I wrote the solicitation copy for the books. Still, I'm surprised to see DC insert (JSA) into my name as an example of a past credit. I guess I'm glad it's still relevant but hopefully, one day I'll be known for more than my work on JSA. Still, I guess it was a more popular choice than World War III.

Just this morning, I got a Fed Ex w/ Scott McDaniel's pencils for #2. I'm really, really happy w/ the work he (and Andy Owens) are doing. I wish these books were out today, I'm really excited that they're coming together so well.

COUNTDOWN: ARENA #1-4
Written by Keith Champagne
Art by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens
Covers by Andy Kubert
Variant covers by Dale Eaglesham

Get ready for COUNTDOWN: ARENA — a 4-issue weekly event written by Keith Champagne (JSA) with art by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens (GREEN ARROW) that pits the DCU’s greatest heroes against themselves!

The villainous Monarch begins the last chapter of his campaign against the Monitors, combing the entire Multiverse to enlist the most powerful — or deadly — heroes and villains from throughout existence to join his army. The abducted must battle one another in Monarch's specially constructed Arena, where only the strongest will survive to join his battle against the Monitors.

Carefully selected from worlds throughout all 52 universes, including characters from SUPERMAN: RED SON, DC: THE NEW FRONTIER, BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT, JSA: LIBERTY FILES, JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NAIL, and TANGENT, among many others, three versions of each hero will walk into the Arena, and only one will walk away. Welcome to THE ARENA, where Monarch’s only rule is to survive at all costs.

Retailers please note: Each issue of COUNTDOWN: ARENA will ship with two covers. For every 10 copies of the Standard Edition ordered, retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition.

Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.

#1 on sale December 5; #2 on sale December 12; #3 on sale December 19; #4 on sale December 26 • 48 pg, FC, $3.99 US

Gorgeous

C'mon, how sweet is Andy Kubert's cover to ARENA #1?

VOTE!

The voting website for COUNTDOWN: ARENA went live this afternoon and I wanted to throw the link out there for anyone that might not be aware.

http://www.dccomics.com/sites/arena/

I have to admit, I'm absolutely tickled by the existence of the website. It looks cool, it's easy to use, and my name is splashed (well, scrawled at least) on the front page.

While it may be a conflict of interest, I went and voted tonight. My choices will remain my own but there are definite versions I would hope to see win. I will say that Christopher Kent, the bald futuristic Superman is my favorite man of steel. Not too many times in life does someone get to create a brand new Superman, after all, and he's all mine.

So get out there, have some fun, and pick your favorites!

The round up

I dipped my toe back in the inking pool this week, teaming up with one of my fave pencilers and all around nice guy, "Big Papa" Jamal Igle, on a two-page Countdown back up origin. It was good timing, in the back of my mind I've been wanting to do something small just to keep my hand in practice. This little assignment was actually the first time I've inked anything since early July, when I did a Robin cover with another of my fave pencilers (and all around nice guy) Pat Gleason.

I can't say that I miss inking all that much but I have to say, Jamal's pencils are a lot of fun to work over and I do kind of miss working with him on a regular basis. He's the best kind of guy to work with: Talented and so not a pain in the ass. There are definitely worse jobs to have than inking Big Papa.

All in all, I find myself feeling a little disenfranchised with comics this week. I've found over the years that it's kind of a cyclical thing where, for a while, I'll be really happy and excited about the work I'm doing and then I'll go into a phase where I start to wonder what I'm doing with my life.

I think this particular phase is basically down to not nailing down a substantial project to write since I finished Arena about a month ago. I've been floating along, writing an issue here or an issue there of different books for DC, plus a couple of issues of a project Tom Nguyen and I are doing together for Dynamite. So it's not like I'm unemployed, I just feel like I'm...drifting...a bit.

Arena is going to do a lot of business for DC, plus aside from the fact that it should sell handsomely, I feel confident saying that it's turning out really, really well. I'm proud of the story, Scott McDaniel and Andy Owens are chugging along and Andy Kubert's covers are simply STUNNING. Maybe my problem is that I'm never satisfied. It's easier to focus on not knowing what my next DC project might be instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment in the strides I've taken over the last year in terms of my writing career. Between World War III and Arena, I've been lucky to write two HUGE projects this year and not a month has gone by when I haven't written at least one issue of something, even it it all hasn't seen print yet. But there have also been bumps in the road. I've lost a lot of work this year at DC for various reasons, including my first monthly assignment due to an editorial restructuring. But I also had one approved, something I'm cowriting with Pete Tomasi. So...two steps forward, one step back.

I guess it's just human nature to bitch instead of bask. Or maybe I'm just broken? Either way, I have a feeling I'll be a little edgy until I nail down whatever comes next. There's so much cool stuff being put together at DC right now, maybe I'm just afraid I'll slip through the cracks.

Picks

I haven't posted anything about MMA in a while so here are my quick picks for the main fights on tomorrow's UFC card.

Dan Henderson over Rampage.
Cro Cop over Kongo.
Bisping over Matt Hammill.
I also like Houston Alexander over Alessio Sakara.

I'm not going to predict rounds or KO's or anything, just who I think will win. Let's see how I do.

Curious George

I'm going to try a little experiment here, working under the 'Seven Degrees Of Separation" theory.

My son Jack really enjoys Curious George. It seems like not a day goes by when we don't read him a CG book or two. So in the back of my mind lately, I've been thinking about writing a Curious George book for him. Which I could do just for fun, but if I do, I'd like to take a shot at getting it published.

The Houghton Mifflin Company is the organization that currently publishes Curious George. So what I'm hoping to find out there in Blog Reading Internets Land, is somebody from Haughton Mifflin--or who knows somebody from Haughton Mifflin--that I could speak with about submitting a story. I'd like to skip their submission process and talk to someone directly if I could because, frankly, after reading over their submission guidelines tonight, it sort of reminds me of the frustration people must feel trying to break into comics.

So if anyone out there can throw me a bone, I'd be glad to scratch some backs in return. My email address is available on my profile here, or just leave yours in the comment section and I'll touch base soon.

Thanks!

The original

Thanks to Mike Negin for digging this up and emailing it to me, the original Hawkman house ad that I copied all those years ago. It puts my little 15 year old effort to shame but then again, it's kinda supposed to.

As a cryptic aside, when the GL: CORPSE series ends up seeing the light of day, think back to this post. You may find a connection between Mike and the deadliest group of Green (black) Lanterns known (secretly) to exist.

Thanks, Mike!

May 11, 1985

I found this piece recently and thought I'd share it with the world. It should give you a pretty good indication of how I filled my time one afternoon in detention from Biology Class on May 11, 1985. I got a lot of detentions in Biology Class, Mr. Friedmann and I never got along all that well. Probably because I was a wiseass and spent most of my time in Bio either passing notes or drawing in my notebook.

The funny thing is, in spite of the fact that this piece of art is 22 years old, I actually remember laboriously copying this from a DC house ad for the new Hawkman title that was coming out. I'm pretty sure the background was supposed to be all black with eyes peeking out but, even back then, I hated backgrounds.

If anyone out there can find the actual house ad this was drawn from, feel free to email it to me. I'd love to post it up here.

Arena interview

I was out all day today but when I got home and surfed the net to see what I missed in the world of comics, I noticed that Newsarama had posted the ARENA interview that Vaneta conducted with me last week. Here's the linkage:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=126009

I scanned through the interview and comments section and I'm happy with the way it came out. Vaneta always does a great job at making these things seem casual and conversational. The comments section mystifies me, though. It's easy to see why so many comics creators avoid reading Internet opinions. If you guys hate comics so much, or hate the direction that DC is going in so much, stop buying. That's the most effective way to bitch. Arena is much more than anybody is going to expect though, so keep an open mind.

Obscure Champagne Trivia

I posted this on the Taco Trio blog earlier this week but thought I'd slap it up here too, because I don't have much new to say at the moment.

It's a little known fact that my first real gig (aside from background inking for Tom Mandrake and Ken Branch) was a brief stint as a colorist for Valiant. I was young, kind of nervous about the whole thing, and didn't feel good enough to be working full-time so I handled my insecurities in the most mature way possible. I just stopped showing up and went home to CT for the summer instead.

Valiant called me about a month later, finally figuring out that the quiet kid had disappeared for a while. I forget what excuse I made up, but they got the message that I wasn't coming back. I'm sure I was never missed and, luckily, I gained a little self confidence the next time I got an opportunity for professional work--inking X-books for Marvel, which is where I got my start as an inker.

Here's a coloring sample reminiscent of my brief Valiant days. This was painted with Doc Martin dyes on photocopy paper, which was adhered to a thicker piece of cardboard to keep the paper from curling up and warping.

Countdown: ARENA!

For anyone interested in checking it out, DC and Dan Didio have announced the big project I've been laboring on the past several months, a little something called COUNTDOWN: ARENA.

Here's the linkage...

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=124768

I completed a follow up interview yesterday, so I assume that will be posted over the next few days to give out a little more info.

Just not fair

I thought I'd throw up a caricature that Tom Nguyen drew of me while we were in San Diego. Tom managed to whip this out in one of the rare moments that he wasn't hospitalized or swarmed by rabid fans.

Looking at this, all I can think is that it's just not fair that one man gets to be so goddamn good looking, is it?

San Diego: The Return

Well, I took the redeye flight home from San Diego Sunday night, arriving back in good ol' CT about 9:30 Monday morning, bleary eyed and sick but glad to be back home.
After a couple of days to recuperate, be a dad, and get caught up on life, not to mention see The Police in concert (Sting sounds better than ever), I figure it's time to detail my convention exploits. The truth is, there aren't many exploits to exploit here for the sake of my blog and it's 14 faithful readers, give or take about 800 hundred.

The thing with Comic Con is that it's gotten so damn big, somewhere along the way, a lot of the fun of the show got lost in the crowd. In terms of my career, I don't know if I accomplished anything that I couldn't have just as easily done through email or phone calls. Sure, it's helpful to get some facetime with different editors or meet people from different companies but when that facetime is interrupted 30 times in five minutes by vast throngs of people saying hi, it's not doing much good.

Still, I enjoyed catching up with rarely seen friends like the great gentleman that is Pat Gleason or the legendary Brazillian Kid, Sergio Cariello. I bumped into an old Kubert School classmate, Mr. Dan Curto (www.rebelscum.com), and spent a half an hour catching up and reminiscing. I got to reconnect with former DC and current Wildstorm editor Scott Peterson for a few minutes, who I'm now developing a pitch with. I paid too much for Mrs. Field's cookies and diet Coke, saw Jessica Alba from thirty feet and behind just as many security guards, did a triple take at the sight of the one-legged model dressed as the one-legged character from Grindhouse (she's got the market cornered for that job), and spent some time with a young actor named Bret Harrison (starring in the upcoming series The Reaper), who is a friend of my friend and talented writer, David Baldy (Keep an eye out for their upcoming JSA Classified story, it's gonna be great!).

And of course, there's the Taco Trio, who I didn't see that much of, all told. We all seemed to be going in different directions: Tom was, unfortunately, hospitalized for a chunk of the show and Andy had a busy agenda himself. There was the almost-brawl after dinner one night, a great meal at the Brazillian BBQ joint I always try to get to, and of course...the softball game, where Marvel defeated DC 15-9 (and because it was a charity game, I won't dwell on some...dubious...umpiring that cost DC the game in the 5th.)

And there's more, but this is already getting plenty long and more boring than I intended.

I do think it's funny how, when you're walking around a convention center with 140,000 other people, it's odd how I tend to bump into the same five or six every day. I do enjoy the fact that I've cultivated a nice group of friends and acquaintances through the convention circuit over the years that I can now count on as smiling faces far from home. And overall, I think anyone with a true love for Pop Culture should go to San Diego at least once, to take in the madness and tell their tales from the belly of the beast.

As for me, I think that unless DC for some reason (at this point there's not much of one), some day wants to bring me out to promote something at the show, I would definitely go again. But I've been there and done it at this point, many times over. I think next year, I might try Wizard World Chicago, the SECOND biggest show, just as a change of pace. It's more about comics and less about pop culture, and as amazing as it is to experience, San Diego is really less and less about comic books each passing year. It's morphed into something else entirely.

Thanks for reading.

San Diego update

Just a quick update to my schedule in San Diego.

Like I mentioned before, I'll be playing in the DC Versus Marvel softball game at Balboa Park on Thursday afternoon. The rest of the intrepid Taco Trio, Tom and Andy, will also taking the field, all to raise money for The Hero Initiative.

Speaking of, also as mentioned before, Andy and I will be appearing from 10:00-11:00 on Friday morning at the Hero Initiative booth.

In brand new scheduling news, I'll be appearing at the DC Booth from 10:00-11:00 Saturday morning, and will most likely pop up on one of the DCU panels that same day. I believe I'll also be at the DC booth sometime on Sunday at a time still to be determined. I have a few different meetings scheduled throughout the course of the show but I should be left with a bit of time to enjoy the actual convention itself.

I have no idea what kind of panels and presentations are scheduled this year but I'm interested in checking out the presentation for the Iron Man movie, so I'll be keeping an eye out for that one. I also try to attend as many Marvel Universe panels as possible; it's always good to keep up with the latest projects and to keep track of what creators are newly exclusive, who's working on what etc. Working in the industry, I find that's important stuff to keep abreast of.

If you're going to be at the show, please come and say hi. See you there.

October Solicits...

DC released their solicitations for October today. I figure I should get in the habit of highlighting things that I've done for any given month when they're solicited--because this is my blog and it's mostly all about my silly little career in comics. So, here goes.

First up, is...

ROBIN ANNUAL #7

Written by Keith Champagne

Art by Jason Pearson and Derec Donovan

Cover by Pearson

A special issue tying into next month’s Batman event, “THE RESURRECTION OF RA’S AL GHUL”! Fan-favorite artist Jason Pearson illustrates “The Festival of Angry Ghosts,” featuring Damian. Plus, in "The Great Pumpkin," Robin races the clock to solve a series of Halloween-themed murders so grotesque, they leave even the most jaded detectives in Gotham shocked. Plus, a special “Times Past” story focusing on Dick Grayson's first Halloween as Robin.On sale October 31 • 48 pg, FC, $3.99 US

Then, there's...

WORLD WAR III TP

Written by Keith Champagne and John Ostrander

Art by various

Cover by Ethan Van Sciver

Collecting the 4-issue miniseries WORLD WAR III! Chaos has broken out across the globe, and the grim reality leads to the loss of a Teen Titan. The fate of Aquaman is revealed, a hero is reborn, and the DC Universe bands together against the wrath of an ancient evil! Advance-solicited; on sale November 7 • 128 pg, FC, $17.99 US

And, while it's listed incorrectly in the credits, the Pat Gleason cover I mentioned inking a couple of weeks ago is for Robin #167. I'll probably post up a copy of that on the Tacotrio blog.

There's actually a really long story behind the story for the Robin annual which I'll probably tell either in an interview or on the blog as it gets closer to publication. I'm happy to say that, although I've kept busy writing, the annual will be the first thing I've written that's due to be published since World War III shipped in April. That's kind of a long time to be gone from the stands so I'm happy there's an end in sight for the drought.

I'm excited to have WWIII collected. Talk about long stories behind the stories, that was about as twisted and hectic a process as they come and I'm very proud of that project.

Unless something I've done is reprinted for November, I actually don't think I'll have anything solicited, either as inker or writer. I'm not sure about this but I think that might literally be the first month in almost ten years that my name hasn't been attached to something. What a crazy, Cal Ripken-like streak.

I'm happy to say that DC's December solicits will contain not one, not two, not three, but FOUR books I've written shipping that month. I believe it will all be announced in San Diego next week so I'll have more details soon.

Take care, thanks for reading.

San Diego

If you've noticed the lack of updates over the last week and a half, it's because things have been increasingly hectic as the San Diego convention looms ever closer.

Which seems like a good segue to mention that I'll be bopping around the San Diego Convention Center two weeks from today--which is surprisingly soon, I didn't realize the con was so close.

I don't know my appearance schedule for DC yet and I won't be set up in artist's alley. I do know I'll be playing on the DC softball team in the charity game against Marvel on the 26th at Balboa Park. I'll also be appearing from 10:00-11:00 Friday morning (joined by Andy Smith) at the Hero Initiative booth, which is a great charity and worthwhile cause. Aside from that, it'll just be meetings and signings, catching up with my convention friends ( the guys I only get to see when I bump into them at a show), and trying not to get trampled by the 80-100,000 people converging for the convention.

In other news, I picked up the Eternals hardcover at Borders the other day, which has confirmed for me that John Romita Jr. might just be our greatest American Superhero artist. He just does everything right, plus has a 'power' to his work that can't be taught. It's either there or it isn't and JRjr's got it in spades. Danny Miki is an interesting choice to ink him and y'know, that Neil Gaiman guy ain't no slouch either. I read the first chapter so far and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

That's all for now...

Update

Seems like it's been a while since I've actually posted anything more than short notes to the blog so...this is what I'm up to.

It's been just about two months since I started writing full-time on this mystery project for DC. Up until this past weekend, I hadn't even touched a brush or pen to ink anything but on Friday, Mike Marts offered me a Pat Gleason ROBIN cover to ink and I said yes. I love Pat's work, plus I like working with friends, and it seemed like a good time to dip my brush and keep my hand steady. Pat's stuff is never easy but I found this to be a particularly hard cover to ink. I like some of what I did, like Robin's face, and am not as pleased with other bits of it like the blood.

Oh yes...there will be blood.

I'd post a scan but I don't think I'm allowed to yet. The cover should be released in the Diamond Previews for October which, coincidentally, will also contain something Robin-related that I wrote for Halloween.

I'm about 3/4's done with the mysterious, unknowable DC assignment at this point. I'm having a lot of fun writing on a full-time basis but I have to say, there's been an adjustment period. There's a very different rythym to writing and inking. When I ink, I'm a soldier. I get behind my table and grind away the long hours until a book gets done. With writing, there's usually a bit of down time while I wait for an outline to be read, or to get permission to use such and such a character or, say...to kill another off.

I don't do well with down time; I've been programmed over 14 long years of inking to keep slaving away, whatever it takes to meet the deadline. So I find that instead of waiting for an outline to be approved, I just start writing the script to stay busy and hope it all works out in the end. Which is stupid and counterproductive because eventually, it won't.

I think the lesson here is I need to learn to relax.

I'm taking a break from the DC project this week to write a sixteen-page back up story for an upcoming annual. On Friday, I'll be heading to New York to go over some things with my editor and to meet with Dan Didio, hopefully about what comes next after this project is wrapped.

All in all, to date, it's been a good summer.

Reminder

Just wanted to take a second to once again pimp out the group blog that Tom Nguyen, Andy Smith, and I contribute to over at www.tacotrio.blogspot.com.

Lots of cool videos, sketches and the like--plus with three of us posting, it tends to be updated more often than my blog here.

Wowzers!

Sometimes, checking my email is a lot like Christmas morning.

That was definitely the case this morning when I got this little gem in the (e)mail from Moose Baumann, who was gracious enough to color Andy Smith's black and white art for the cover of the upcoming collected edition of ARMOR X.

It's pretty easy to see why Moose is one of the top color artists in the business today.

I'm not sure when the collected edition of Armor X is supposed to ship. I would assume it will be printed in time for either the San Diego or Chicago conventions. I've been redialoguing bits of it in my spare time so the collection will be along the lines of a remastered version. Hopefully, if it sells fairly well, Andy and I will finally get to do the next chapter.

Thanks, Moose!

Chris Benoit

As a wrestling fan, I'm stunned by the deaths involving Chris Benoit and his family.

As a father, I'm sickened and completely at a loss. I just don't understand how anyone could do something so horrible to their own child.

Just stunned.

Returned

Back from the Disney vacation in Florida.

Around the time my wife Melissa took this picture, I remember thinking to myself, "Why am I carrying every single F'n bag, dripping with sweat, and making sure Jack doesn't run diving into the pool while Melissa just lollygags around ten feet behind us, fiddling with the camera?"

But it turns out she was taking one of my favorite vacation pictures and I was wrong to be annoyed--as usual.

The whole Disney experience is fun but I'd definitely recommend going in April or October, when it's not quite as hot.

Sopranos

I'm one of the people who loved the finale of the Sopranos the other night. I felt the entire show was in keeping with the character of the entire series, and that the ending, while ambiguous, was spelled out clearly enough to provide the show with some closure. It just takes a little thought to put the pieces together.

Personally, I subscribe to the theory that Tony was whacked at the end. In the second-to-last episode, there was a deliberate flashback to a conversation between Tony and Bobby (who had just been whacked), talking about what it must be like to be killed. Bobby's point was that one would probably never even hear the bullet that did the job.

To me, that means Tony never saw or heard it coming.

A second train of thought that popped into my head is that, if Tony is still alive, the last five minutes of the show is some masterfully done television that conveyed, for a few seconds, what it must be like to be Tony. The tension that the viewer felt while watching the end of the show, waiting for something to happen and not knowing where it was going to come from, must be a lot like the minute-to-minute existence of Tony himself. He's always looking over his shoulder, always a marked man, never knowing when his life of crime is going to catch up to him.

Either way, I loved it.

linkage

I got a link in my email this morning to a newspaper write up of some of the various after-hours activities at AdventureCon. The author, a fella named Terry, was one of the many nice people I got to meet while in Tennessee, he was a pretty cool cat. Here's the linkage:

www.knoxnews.com/kns/entertainment_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_360_5574970,00.html


He's definitely on the money about a couple of things: Ethan Rom from Lost was a really nice guy and Billy Dee Williams did indeed seem to be a prick.

Quoth The Raven

I met a few interesting people while I was at Adventure Con last weekend. One of them was the guy in this picture, a professional wrestler named Raven. Turns out that he's a big fan of comics and buys most everything from the big two, and was even familiar with my work.

I've met a few wrestlers over the years and they all seem like cool guys, Raven included.

The Taco Trio Rides!

In the wake of Adventure Con...

Andy Smith, Tom Nguyen, and I have started a group blog together at www.tacotrio.blogspot.com.

Tom was nice enough to set it up and the blog is now live. We named it the Taco Trio after a menu item on a restaurant we dined in while in Tennessee.

Because I barely have enough to say to keep this blog going, I'll probably cross post between the two blogs and try to think of some unique content for both periodically. I'm sure Tom and Andy, who are both much better artists than myself, will post up sketches etc. from time to time, as well as stories about the business and news about their careers.

If you're interested, by all means add the site to your links and check it out.

Taco Trio...ASSEMBLE!!

Lost in Translation

Back from Tennessee, where I had a nice time at Adventurecon. I'll blog about it later this week when I get caught up on things.

Out of curiosity, does anybody out there know how to say "Boy Scout" in Russian or "goddamn" in German? I'm not having much luck with online translators but I'm thinking super geniuses (geniusi?) like Mr. Ninja or Brad Brown will know...because they know everything and can make up the rest.

Thanks!

Ready for Adventure

I'll be appearing this weekend, Friday June 1st through Sunday, June 3, at AdventureCon in Knoxville, Tennessee. Here's the link for all your AdventureCon info...

www.adventurecon.com

I'm kind of jazzed that Irvin Kershner, the director of Empire Strikes Back, will be at this convention. You know, a person gets pretty jaded after he sees his millionth Stormtrooper walking around one of these shows. Even the actors that played Chewbacca and Darth Vader are such pretty much standard operating procedure. But it's kind of rare to have one of the actual filmmakers pop up, especially the guy that directed the best of all the Star Wars films. I think that's pretty cool.

I believe I'll be sitting next to Tom "Microscopic Fury" Nguyen and Andy "I shave my head on purpose" Smith. If you have trouble spotting me, I'm the one who looks like Brad Pitt's ugly cousin. So stop in, get a book signed, a commission inked, flip through some artwork, talk some comics, and have a good time at the show.

That Cat Is Wild! MEEEEEEEOWWW!!!

In one of the more counterproductive things I've ever seen, while I was doing my cardio at the gym this morning, there was an obese woman walking on the treadmill while munching on a bag of Skittles.

Strangely, I kind of admire her.

Anyway, I had a nice time at Granite Con last weekend. Thanks to Chris and Scott for taking good care of me while I was there, the hotel they put me up in was one of the nicest I've ever stayed in. Not only did each room have a flat screen, HD TV but the hotel also overlooked a really beautiful minor league baseball field. One could sit out on a patio and watch a game from center field. Pretty neat.

I enjoyed spending some quality time with the roguishly handsome, devilishly sideburned, non-breakfast eating Pat Gleason, who is the only person in the world who will understand what the title of this blog entry refers to. Aside from just being a really nice, easygoing guy to hang out with, I really enjoyed watching Pat sketch at the show. My drawing skills are strong enough where I can make sense of most any pencils I ink but it's always fun to watch someone who can REALLY draw go to town. Pat's one of those guys and it was cool to watch how fast and easily he could bust out some nice sketches. The Michaelangelo of erasing, he is!

Thanks again for the GLC art, Pat...I'll be buying you dinner for life!

I also got to meet Jimmy Tournas, whom I'm acquainted with from an inking list that I used to belong to. It's funny how you can know people for years through the Internet but never even know what they look like until you meet them. Good to meet you in person, Jimmy, and keep working on your inks. You keep getting better!

Speaking of inks, I finished my last page of Nightwing yesterday. It was a really stressful, grueling week but I got the issue done. Today officially marks the first day of my drawing table hiatus to focus on writing for a bit. So far, this blog entry is the only thing I've written. I spent the morning w/ my son, then went to the gym, and then organized my desk into a streamlined station of writerly fury. Now, I'll get to work.

I can't reveal what I'm writing but it will ship in December. If anyone wants a tease, I can say that for reference on this project, sitting on my desk right now are copies of Gotham By Gaslight and Kingdom Come. It's a VERY cool project so long as I don't screw it up.

Next weekend, I'll be appearing at AdventureCon in Knoxville, Tennessee. More on that next week.

GraniteCon

It's probably a good time to mention that I'll be appearing this Sunday the 20th at GraniteCon in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire.

I don't know much about GraniteCon, except that there must be something wrong with them if they actually want me to guest there. But from the hours of 10:00-4:00, I'll be appearing w/ Pat Gleason at the Radisson Center on Elm Street. I'll have artwork and trade paperbacks for sale and will be signing and sketching and generally trying to leave a good impression of myself. I'm toying with the idea of inking commissions while I'm there but it seems like a pain in the ass to lug my inking tools around. So I haven't decided on that yet.

Ron Frenz, an artist whom I admire from his work on Spider-Man and Thor during my impressionable teen years, is also appearing and I'm looking forward to meeting him.

If you're relatively close to the area, by all means pop in and say hi.

Fan mail

Yo Keith,
I just read the first issue of WWIII. Q has them in his cubicle. I don’t know anything about most of the characters because I didn’t read a whole lot of comics as a kid, but I loved it. I was like…whoa, wa oh who’s that guy, is he good or bad?! I liked it when he ripped off Time’s face. I hope the little green guys decide to help the earth.

I’ll bet that’s the most basic three year old level critique you’ve ever gotten from a 33 yr old man!!

Randy

A bit scary

This week, I arranged my schedule to take a couple of months away from my drawing board, brushes, and pens and to dip my toes into writing full-time, at least for a bit. The project I'm currently writing for DC consists of four 38-page issues, scheduled to ship weekly in December.

It's a lot of work and, while I could ink by day and write these books at night, I don't want to split my attention on this project. It's a big project and I want to give it 100%, as well as have time to finish up Green Lantern: The Corpse and at least get started on my JSA Classified and Superman Confidential work, as well as a couple of other projects on my plate after that.

Also, I'm tired. I've been writing almost every night since January, including most weekends and I need a break from the grind. Now that the weather is nicer, it seems like a good time to have a little more of a life.

I may come back to ink Nightwing in a couple of months or I may not come back to the book (or inking) at all, at least not for a while. I'm going to play things by ear for a bit and see what happens. I do really enjoy working with Jamal and we've talked recently about switching things up and working as writer/penciller and opposed to penciller/inker.

It's a little scary but I've been working towards this point for a long time. So it's time to test the waters and see how it feels.

Wish me luck!

Civil War

So, now that the hype has died down and all the late shipping books are out of the way, I picked up a copy of the CIVIL WAR trade paperback from Amazon. If you're a comic fan, you know what Civll War was. If you're one of my friends or family reading this, Civil War was a big, multi-part crossover that redefined the Marvel universe.

Mark Millar is a fine writer. I'm a fan of his and have been since he co-wrote a book called Aztek that I inked long ago. His Tangent Superman is a book I remember being really impressed by, I loved his Wolverine run, and I've enjoyed Ultimates. In other words, he's got a good track record as far as I'm concerned and I have a lot of respect for his writing. Which is something I can't honestly say about 90% of the writers working in comics.

But Civil War didn't click for me. Reading the core mini-series over the space of a couple of days, there were just too many beats missing. And yes, I realize that the series acted like a spine, more or less, and that something would be insinuated, and then huge chunks of the story were told in the various spin offs. But you know what? The central book should still tell a complete story. This felt very incomplete.

The art was solid enough but it didn't knock me on my ass. It's nicely drawn and competently inked but without the coloring, it would have been very flat. With the coloring, it was pretty overdone. Digital painting is probably the wave of the future but I felt that, while the coloring gave the book a really distinctive look, it was a little too...worked. Out of all the characters represented, I liked McNiven's Spider-Man the most. He had a lot of movement.

There's a pretty telling line of dialogue in the seventh issue that I think says it all, sort of a read between the lines apology from the writer for the numerous missed shipping dates etc. To paraphrase (because I don't have the book in front of me), Reed Richards is writing a letter to his wife and he makes a point that she'll, "never know the pressure we were under, to create or revamp so many heroes..."

To me, that's a comment that can be read in a lot of ways. I think when the writer takes the time to subtly break the fourth wall and apologize to the reader, that says a lot more than my little blog review ever could. I'll look forward to Mark Millar's next work but this one didn't rock my boat.

If you're looking for a good collection, try "COBB: OFF THE LEASH" by manly man Beau Smith and Eduardo Barretto. More testosterone and character per page than most men can handle. Good, pulpy stuff and I give it a recommendation.

Smorgasborg

First off, here's something that made me laugh. If you do a search on Youtube for Burger boys, you'll find a bunch of these. Chances are, if this makes you laugh, the rest will too.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kROEAJ7sIMM

I had a couple of day trips last week, one to my old stomping grounds at The Joe Kubert School in New Jersey, the other a couple of days later to the DC offices to meet about a new project. I had a lot of fun meeting with the students at the Kubert School as well as catching up with some old classmates and teachers. I have a lot of affection for the school and think fondly of that time in my life where, for three years I was completely dedicated to learning how to create comic books.

I'll be doing a little more travelling than usual over the next couple of months, appearing at GraniteCon in New Hampshire later this month, then down to Knoxville, Tennessee the first weekend of June for the very first Adventure Con. Then it's a family vacation at Disney in the middle of June, followed by the big San Diego convention at the end of July. I'm pretty much a homebody so for me, this is quite a busy schedule. I'll post links to the actual conventions a little closer to the dates of the shows.

Spidey 3 this weekend!

80's movie question

Anyone out there remember a movie from the (early) eighties (I think) about a guy who accidentally designs a pair of jeans with two holes cut out where the back pockets should be? The ass-revealing jeans start a fashion craze; everybody is wearing them, and wacky hijinx ensue from there.

Ring any bells? I've got 3-1 odds Mr. Ninja comes through. I remember watching it on HBO like fifty times w/ my brothers but I can't remember what it was called.

The cycle begins anew...

Well, today is the big day for World War III and the most exciting day so far for my little writing career. I'm going to give it another day or two before I try to find any online reviews and see what people think, but I hope everyone enjoys the war. John Ostrander and I really did work our asses off to make this more than an 'event'.

I really came to admire John and his work, by the way.

While I've been lucky to line up enough writing work to keep me busy until 2008, none of it has really felt like an 'official' follow up to World War III. I guess that changed today.

Serendipitously, Dan Didio and Mike Siglain both called me today to offer me a pretty exciting project. It's...big...enough that I'm still wrapping my head around the overall concept, but there definitely seems to be plenty of room to do something memorable. and if I have my way, it'll make this World War look like a couple of school kids scuffling in the playground.

Because I haven't posted much lately, there are a bunch of random things I have tucked in the back of my head. I guess the first one I'll throw out there is that lately, I've started thinking about expanding my blog into a full-fledged website. I registered Keithchampagne.com a couple of weeks ago and now I'm sort of waiting to come up with some good ideas to make an actual website a little different and fun. If anyone has any good ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments section and I'll be happy to steal them.

Anyway, time for dinner. Talk to y'all soon.

WORLD WAR III

World War III begins (and ends) this Wednesday the 18th. I've been anxiously waiting for these books to ship and I hope everyone will enjoy the blood-soaked fruits of our labors.

I'll have more to say about World War III on Wednesday so for now, this is just a reminder to...

Check 'em out!

Sorry for the unexpected hiatus. For whatever reason, I haven't been able to sign into my own blog for the last week and a half. Finally, I downloaded Netscape and this worked so maybe it's a problem with IE, I don't know. I've had more computer problems in the past month then I've had since I first got my Commodore 64 (Bard's Tale still rocks!)

Back shortly. Today is a deadline day but I have a ton of posts to catch up on, starting tonight or tomorrow.

Interview time

With World War III fast approaching, I've been doing the almost requisite interview rounds again.

Vaneta Rogers does her usual nice job over at Newsarama and I've learned she does not suffer fools who do not include her byline. So here's the link:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=106993

And here's an interview on Wizard about Book II, conducted by Brian Marmoth, mostly concerning Aquaman. He does whatever a fish can plus more, you know.

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/004102471.cfm

Back shortly with more Batman pages.

Interview time

With World War III fast approaching, I've been doing the almost requisite interview rounds again.

Vaneta Rogers does her usual nice job over at Newsarama and I've learned she does not suffer fools who do not include her byline. So here's the link:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=106993

And here's an interview on Wizard about Book II, conducted by Brian Marmoth, mostly concerning Aquaman. He does whatever a fish can plus more, you know.

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/004102471.cfm

Back shortly with more Batman pages.

Happy Birthday to Wags The Dog.

In about another 45 minutes, it will become March 30th.

Three years ago, at 5:03 in the morning on March 30th, my very best friend and favorite person in the entire world was born.

Happy birthday to my dear son, Jack, AKA Wags The Dog, AKA The Woofie Machine, AKA Scoots or Big Boy or any of another half a dozen nicknames.

Over the past year, Jack has reminded me how much I've forgotten about life. Simple things like:

Why walk when you can run?
Why run when you can jump?
Why jump when you can climb?
Why climb? Why not?

The sky is really, really blue and at night, it's full of stars.

Snow is much more fun than I give it credit for.

Cardboard boxes make the best toys of all.

Most importantly, there's nothing I love more in this world than being his daddy and no one I love more than my little boy.

Happy birthday, Wags!! Daddy loves you.

Broken Master: Pages 6 and 7

Sorry for the delay in putting these up. Not only am I sometimes a himbo, I also have other things on my plate that steal my tiny attention span away. Plus my main computer refuses to boot up anymore, preferring to taunt me with a bright blue screen and enigmatic words like "physical memory dump." I don't know what that is but it doesn't sound good.

Anyway, here's a couple of more pages of script. I enjoyed writing faithful butler and Jiminy Cricket-like Alfred quite a bit.

PAGE SIX
PANEL ONE

Cut to the Bat-cave where Bruce Wayne is standing atop some thick scaffolding, hunched over the cockpit of the Bat-plane, hard at work running through a systems check.

There are a couple of workbenches covered with tools positioned at the base of the scaffolding.

ALFRED approaches. He’s carrying a tray of food: A thick steak, baked potato, and a glass of milk.

1- CAPTION: Later.
2- ALFRED: Master Bruce?
3- BRUCE WAYNE: Almost done, Alfred. The throttle was sticking but I’ve got the kinks worked out.
4- ALFRED: Have you left any time in your last minute preparations to EAT or did this poor cow I cooked lose its life for nothing?

PANEL TWO

Bruce springs off the scaffolding, flips in midair, and lands next to Alfred.

This is one of those action sequences where we should see a couple of different ghost figures of Bruce in various stages of motion, ending with him landing next to his butler.

5- BRUCE WAYNE (atop the scaffolding): What would I do—
6- BRUCE WAYNE (lands next to Alfred): --without you, old friend?
7- ALFRED: Starve to death, most likely.
8- ALFRED: Will you be eating upstairs in your stately and magnificent DINING ROOM or down HERE, in your dank and humid cave?

PANEL THREE

Bruce takes the platter of food from Alfred, a wry smile on his face.

9- BRUCE WAYNE: You’d probably have a heart attack if I actually took my meal upstairs.
10- ALFRED: Will you require anything else before I retire, sir?

PANEL FOUR

Bruce, having set the platter of food down on a nearby workbench, begins to eat. Alfred stands nearby.

11- BRUCE WAYNE: Just a talk, perhaps, while I eat.
12- ALFRED: Very good, sir. Shall I try to read your mind or would you rather tell me what’s on it?

PANEL FIVE

Angle on Bruce, pensive.

13- BRUCE WAYNE: Bane.


PAGE SEVEN
PANEL ONE

Bruce takes a slug of milk. Nearby, Alfred begins to dust off a computer console with his handkerchief.

1- BRUCE WAYNE: At one point, I thought we had reached an UNDERSTANDING. I was skeptical he would turn over a new leaf but still…I had HOPE.
2- ALFRED: Never put your trust in a man who almost crippled you, sir. My grandmother always SWORE to that and it’s never failed me yet.

PANEL TWO

Angle on Bruce. He’s cocking an eyebrow towards Alfred.

3- BRUCE WAYNE: You never joke this much, not unless you’re worried about me.

PANEL THREE

Angle on Alfred, focused on his dusting.

4- ALFRED: Ridiculous. I’m merely distracting you from the fear that’s doubtlessly clogging your arteries.
5- ALFRED: I’d imagine this sort of situation--where you don’t have the slightest idea what you’re walking into—could be unnerving.

PANEL FOUR

Bruce takes the handkerchief from Alfred’s hand.

6- BRUCE WAYNE: Bane doesn’t get to hurt anybody else. Not if I can help it. It ends with Judomaster and it should never have gone THAT far.
7- BRUCE WAYNE: That MONSTER may have beaten me ONCE but ultimately, he only made me STRONGER. I’ve proved it every time we’ve butted heads since.
8- ALFRED: As you say, sir.

PANEL FIVE

Bruce begins to ascend back up the scaffolding towards the Bat-plane. He’s looking back down at Alfred.

9- BRUCE WAYNE: One last thing, Alfred.
10- BRUCE WAYNE: I’ve got a LONG flight ahead. Would you mind packing me a doggie bag?
11- ALFRED: But of course, sir.

BROKEN MASTER: Pages 4 and 5

PAGE FOUR
PANEL ONE

Batman steps up onto the ledge of the roof, his cape flickering in the wind and rain. His back is turned to The Question so he can keep an eye on Gotham City while they converse.

1- BATMAN (caption): Judomaster.
2- BATMAN (caption): Few have fought so long and hard to make a difference as Ripley Jagger.
3- BATMAN (caption): His back was broken trying to take down BANE. One of MINE.

PANEL TWO

Closer on Batman; he’s looking over his shoulder back at The Question.

Lightning flashes behind him.

4- BATMAN: You’ve got my attention.

PANEL THREE

The Question steps up onto the ledge next to Batman. Neither one should look at the other while they speak. Both stare out over the city.

5- THE QUESTION: Slippery up here. You should be careful.
6- BATMAN: Get to the point, Sage.
7- THE QUESTION: A few of us are heading to Nanda Parbat to do what we can for Judomaster. Bronze Tiger. Richard Dragon. Myself.

PANEL FOUR

Close on The Question. Big drops of rain pelt off his mask.

8- THE QUESTION: He asked for YOU, too.

PANEL FIVE

Looking up the exterior of the precinct house at Batman and The Question, standing on the ledge high above ground.

10- BATMAN: I RESPECT Judomaster but…Nanda Parbat is halfway around the world. I’ve spent too much time away from Gotham. Away from my responsibilities here.
11- BATMAN: What does he need ME for when he’s already got the three of you?
12- THE QUESTION: Is that rhetorical or are you showing off your MODEST side?

PANEL SIX

Batman ignores the Question. He shields his eyes from the rain with a hand and squints out at the city.

13- BATMAN: I hear SIRENS about six blocks NORTH.
14- BATMAN: Make your pitch. I'm needed elsewhere.


PAGE FIVE
PANEL ONE

The Question turns his head, looks over at Batman.

1- THE QUESTION: To the point it is, then.
2- THE QUESTION: Ripley Jagger asked for YOUR help, same as he asked for OURS. After all he's done to make this world a better place, I think he's earned a little LATITUDE.
3- THE QUESTION: Pull the bat-stick out of your ass and lend a hand.

PANEL TWO

Close on Batman, stoic, pelted by rain. He's lost in inscrutable thought.

NO DIALOGUE

PANEL THREE

Batman leaps off the roof and out into the night, leaving The Question alone on the precinct roof.

3- BATMAN: I’ll meet you in Nanda Parbat.

BROKEN MASTER: PAGES 2 and 3

Been having some browser issues over the last few days, meaning this post is a little later than I thought it was going to be. I switched to Netscape after IE decided it no longer wants to work but for some reason, signing into my blog crashes Netscape dead. Hopefully, I can get all this stuff worked out and get back on track. In the meantime, here's a couple of more pages.

Oh, I got an email from an aspiring penciller asking if he could draw some samples from this script. Anyone that wants to, feel more than free. I'd be glad to provide a critique.

PAGE TWO
FULL PAGE SPLASH!

Rain pours down. Lightning flashes. Thunder booms. It’s quite a contrast from the idyllic weather in Nanda Parbat.

In the middle of the raging elements, BATMAN slices through the concrete canyons of Gotham City, borne aloft on his razor-thin bat-line.

The bat-signal lights up the sky above him.

1- BATMAN (caption): In the world I live in, the rain is a FRIEND.
2- BATMAN (caption): On a night like THIS, all the decent people in Gotham are huddled up at home with their families.
3- BATMAN (caption): All the DECENT people.
4- BATMAN (caption): It makes my life so much easier.

TITLE: BROKEN MASTER (part one of two)

CREDITS:

Writer: Keith Champagne
Penciller: Tbd
Inker: Tbd
Letterer: Tbd
Colorist: Tbd
Grasshopper: Michael Siglain
Grand Master: Peter Tomasi


PAGE THREE
PANEL ONE

The Bat-signal sits, seemingly deserted, on the roof of the precinct house. No one seems to be around to have lit it, yet nonetheless, there it shines into the stormy night.

NO DIALOGUE

PANEL TWO

In the foreground, THE QUESTION hides in the shadow of the bat-signal. His identity should be obscured until the next panel.

Batman swings to a landing atop the roof of the precinct.

1- BATMAN: You might as well come out. I saw you three blocks ago.
2- BATMAN: I have a busy night. What do you want? And how did you gain access to the signal?

PANEL THREE

The Question steps out of the shadows.

3- THE QUESTION: And here I thought it was MY job to ask the questions.

PANEL FOUR

Batman shoots the Question an icy glare. Pure intimidation.

4- BATMAN (caption): Vic Sage. THE QUESTION.
5- BATMAN (caption): Unless the world is ending, he should know BETTER. Only GORDON has the right to call me this way.
6- BATMAN: If you’re wasting my time, you’re not going to like the ANSWERS.

PANEL FIVE

The Question holds out his hands, palms forward, gesturing for Batman to stand down.

7- THE QUESTION: Unclench, big man. You're gonna pop a blood vessel.
8- THE QUESTION: I’ve got an urgent message for you from a mutual FRIEND.
8- THE QUESTION: Judomaster. He needs your HELP.

Broken Master: PAGE ONE

PAGE ONE
PANEL ONE

A scenic view of NANDA PARBAT, vibrant, green, and full of life.

The village is ringed on all sides by vast, snow-covered mountain ranges. The sky above is brilliant blue, dotted with soft white clouds. It’s the picture of a simple, beautiful, paradise.

From a distance it’s hard to tell but as we get closer to the mountains, it will become clear that there are temples carved directly out of the stone.

1- CAPTION: Nanda Parbat.

PANEL TWO

Closer on the mountains that have been painstakingly transformed over the years into a breathtaking display of rock cut architecture. An entire second community lives in ornate temples that have been excavated out of the vertical face of the mountains.

NOTE: For an introduction to rock cut architecture, try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellora or Google the term “Rock Cut Architecture.”

NO DIALOGUE

PANEL THREE

Zooming in on a balcony attached to the exterior of a large, pillared chamber of one of the temples.

A MAN sits in a bamboo chair on the balcony. This is RIPLEY JAGGER, The Judomaster. He’s not in costume. In fact, he’s shirtless and his lower back and torso are heavily bandaged. Although we don’t need to see it in this panel, his legs are useless. They’re bound together by straps of canvas at the ankles, knees, and thighs.

There’s a second man standing obscured in the shadows behind him. We’ll see shortly that this is BANE.

NO DIALOGUE

PANEL FOUR

Angle on Ripley Jagger.

His eyes are squinted as he tirelessly scans the village far below. His face is pinched, tight with the pain that he’s feeling every second of every day.

Bane, from behind Jagger, places his hand on Judomaster’s shoulder.

2- BANE: Easy, my former little Judomaster.
3- BANE: There’s no need to get up, not on MY account.

PANEL FIVE

Angle on Bane, revealing his identity. I thought this might be a good time to redesign him a bit to make him look a little bit less like a Mexican wrestler and more like a super villain.

Either way, he’s not wearing his mask and is looking down at Ripley Jagger with a cold, smug grin on his face. He has the Judomaster costume slung around his shoulders the way a hunter wears the pelt of an animal he’s killed.

4- BANE: Your FRIENDS will be here soon enough.

BATMAN: BROKEN MASTER

Around the middle of last year, as I was finishing up my Green Lantern Corps assignment, I was given two issues of Batman to write and told to go off and come up with some ideas.

I knew right away what I wanted to do.

The DC universe is chock full of martial artists, all of them seemingly the toughest of the tough, world class fighters who have mastered every conceivable discipline known to man and quite a few that have been made up over the years. I've always kind of wondered who was the baddest mofo running around town.

So I pitched the idea of a tournament consisting of six or eight of the top fighters running around the DC Universe. Guys like Batman, Richard Dragon, Bronze Tiger, and The Question. Ladies like Shiva. A few more thrown in for good measure, for reasons related to the story. All I needed was a context to give them a good reason to fight.

I got that context from Infinite Crisis, specifically the panel where Bane breaks JudoMaster's back. It was a throwaway moment (at least I thought so) but it gave me the germ of an idea that grew into my Batman pitch.

After breaking Judomaster in half, Bane, being the asshole that he is, would have claimed the mantle of Judomaster. By doing so, he steals Judomaster's identity and, more importantly, his honor. Now paralyzed and unable to wrest his honor back from Bane, Judomaster sends out a call for help to some of his friends.

They all assemble in Nanda Parbat and agree to fight tournament style, with the winner challenging Bane in Judomaster's stead. Bane agrees to go along with it because, in a nutshell, it gets him off to drive everyone nuts like this.

I wrote up the first fifteen or sixteen pages of issue #1 and then my little project was killed. Due to 52 and One Year Later, almost every character I was using would either be unavailable at the time the story took place or drastically changed by the time it saw print (See: The Question.) Not to mention, the powers that be had decided that Judomaster was killed during Bane's attack, not paralyzed.

It was disappointing and frustrating but these kinds of things happen when you work in a shared universe. I went on to write two issues of Batman about a new villain, The Mirror, that should see print sooner or later.

In the meantime, I thought I'd post up my script for BATMAN: BROKEN MASTER here on my blog, one page at a time. So look for page one starting later this week, and I'll probably post a new page every couple of days. When I'm out of script, maybe I'll post the complete synopsis so you can see how it was all going to end. Or maybe not, maybe it's better just to make up your own ending. We'll have to see how it plays out.

So keep an eye out and I hope you'll enjoy it.

Care Bear Stare!

In light of not having much time to post anything this week, I thought I'd crib the photoshop mastery of the mysterious "Dan", who whipped this together, and throw it up here. This was probably ridiculously easy to do for anyone except for me. The only thing I'm good at doing in photoshop is getting frustrated.

Thanks, "Dan!"

Randy Couture

Twenty years from now, when Hollywood makes a movie out of Randy Couture's life and fighting career, I'm buying a ticket for opening night.

Insane.

Robo-Keith

Here's America's favorite writer-inker at the DC panel last week.

Brad, you weren't kidding when you said I look like Robo-Keith. I'm used to getting red eye in pictures, very rarely do I take a picture without it. But what's up with the blue-ish teeth? It looks like I just had a blueberry popsicle or something.

Green? Yellow? Sure, I could buy that. But blue?? That's just weird.

Maybe some Photoshop wizard out there can have me shooting energy out of my robo-eyes or something cool.

Random convention thoughts

All in all, the second NY comic convention was a great improvement over last year's disaster. This time, it was actually a real convention and ran as such whereas last year, it was a complete trainwreck. I'm told over 40,000 people attended on Saturday alone, yet at no point did it feel as if the Javitz Center was about to explode.

Which is a good thing.

I was a part of DC's panel on Saturday, in front of a very packed room of fans, answering questions along with a bunch of other comic creators as best I could. It was my first time being a part of a panel and I found it a little nervewracking in the beginning. All in all, I don't think I said anything too completely stupid and I got a few laughs out of the room which is really all one can hope for in that kind of situation. It's definitely a different experience promoting a project like World War III than I've had at these conventions previously.

I enjoyed spending some time with Pat Gleason, talking about life, Green Lantern and comparing notes and ideas about the future of The Corpse. I now consider myself an honorary member of the Minnesota wrecking crew of comic creators and I'm proud to be the Connecticut branch of such a nice group of guys.

I also had a nice little mini-reunion with a couple of my best friends from my days in The Kubert School. It's nice to reconnect with old friends, especially when you fall back so easily into the old rhythm of friendship. Video interviews seem to be the trend these days, as I did about 4-5 of them over the course of my time at the convention. I think I prefer email interviews, where I can weigh my answers more deliberately but I started getting used to it just about towards the end of the last one I did.

On the flip side, the sheer arrogance of some of my peers never fails to surprise me. The things some people say, either when talking shop or about their own work, can be mind boggling. We make comics, people, not anything important. A little perspective never hurts and, when you're not looking, can keep you growing not only as an artist but also as a person.

A nice time when all was said and done. Next for me on the convention circuit will be San Diego in July and that'll mostly likely be a wrap for my con experiences for the year.

Not The End...

It's probably way early to announce this and who knows? It might even get me in some warm water with the powers that be, but I'm bored tonight and I need a break from cleaning my office.

So the totally hardcore, no wimps allowed, secret Black Ops division of the Green Lantern Corps, THE CORPSE, is coming back--six issues stronger in a story called "The New Black."

To date, I've turned in the first script, an outline for issue #2, and a synopsis for the overall series. It's too early to say whether this new adventure will stand on its own legs as a separate mini-series or perhaps double ship for three months in the pages of GLC. Both ideas have been talked over and there are advantages to both approaches. I'm leaning towards the mini-series approach because it doesn't interfere with Mr. Gibbons' run and it's also food for my ego. However, running in the pages of GLC gives the concept a nice safety net so we'll see what happens as we go along.

In either case, I don't think we'll see the light of day until early 08.

Pat, I want you back. I hope you're schedule will allow it because this is OUR baby. I don't want to raise it with someone else.

Obviously, I'm not going to spoil any content this far out but I will say that now that The Corpse has been established, we can take off the training wheels and get our hands dirty. 'The Dark Side Of Green' was a nice appetizer for where things are going but in some very subtle ways, it was watered down by editorial decisions that needed to be made in regards to the whole Green Lantern Franchise. Nothing that killed the story but its teeth were definitely sanded down a bit.

Not so, next time out.

One last note. The clincher to this project getting the greenlight was the overwhelmingly positive response to The Corpse and their initial adventure. You guys created a real buzz on the message boards and with the positive reviews and the people at DC pay attention to what you think.

So this is me saying thanks! And I'll try to say it again--a little louder--by giving you your money's worth next year with THE NEW BLACK.

New York Comic Con

I guess I should mention that I'll be appearing next weekend at the 2nd Annual New York Comic Con at the Jacob Javitz center.

I like the idea of having a large convention (such as the NYCC is rapidly becoming) so relatively close to home. I think this convention's stated goal is to become San Diego: East or something like that, meaning it has grand ambitions. This year is make or break for me with this show. Last year was the worst convention I've ever attended. It was a disaster in almost every way. I'm giving it another shot because it was their first year and the response to the show was much greater than the organizers anticipated. But if it sucks again, that's it for me.

I don't know what my signing schedule is but I know I'll be appearing at the DC booth. It's probably a safe bet to say I'll be their w/ either Jamal Igle or w/ Pat Gleason, seeing as they've been my partners in crime lately. I'm also looking forward to a small scale reunion of some of my Kubert school classmates.

I'm out of there relatively early on Saturday to make it home to see my lovely wife and tuck my son into bed, plus I'm anxious to watch Pride's second card from Las Vegas, the aptly titled Second Coming, which runs that night on Pay Per View. You and me, Kenny!

If you're at the convention, please come say hi. If you're a reader of this blog, I've got a special little freebie for you.

GLC #9

Just a quick reminder that GREEN LANTERN CORPS #9, the last chapter of my three-part story "The Dark Side of Green" arrives in stores this Wednesday, the 14th.

Unless you live in England; then you've got to wait an extra day...right, Chris?

Anyway, the last three words on the last page are my personal favorite from the entire story. I'm sure you'll understand why after you read them.

I had a great time playing in the Green Lantern sandbox and I'm sure this won't be the last time I'm called on for honorary duty in the Corps. Or maybe even The Corpse.

Things I should like?

Does anybody out there watch Battlestar Galactica? I hear many good things about the show, is it worth the time to get caught up?

Things I don't like...

The Richard Donner cut of Superman II.

I watched this last night and, while I realize it's only an approximation of the 'true' version of Superman II that Richard Donner intended to make, many of the newly includes scenes left me cold.

For one, there's actually very little Superman in this movie. Aside from a brief appearance at Niagara Falls, Superman is really only in costume to battle against Zod towards the end of the second act. We get a lot more of Clark Kent (which I don't necessarily mind) but more superheroics wouldn't have hurt.

Speaking of the battle w/ Zod, while all the crazy teleporting around the fortress in the other version has always bugged me, this new version also left me cold. I don't mind seeing Superman outwit Zod. It's three against one, after all, so his quick thinking is really his only advantage. It just seems that Superman's "Don't throw me in the briar patch" solution is, well...lame. To be fair, it was lame in both versions. Watching Superman whisper his big plan to Lex made me wince, especially because Zod (with his super-hearing) is standing three feet away.

There's more of Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mind on Earth, in the Donner version but to me, the new footage makes Lex seem more like the greatest buffoon on Earth. In his own way, he's just as dumb as Otis. There's more of Lois and, to me, Margot Kidder is terrific. But the way she tricks Superman into revealing his identity sure does make him seem like the biggest idiot in the world.

There's also more of my own personal favorite actor, Marlon Brando, but his newly restored scenes didn't really add much to the mix. The special effects...well, you can tell that they were finished on the cheap. The climactic battle against Zod seems to come very early in the film and then, we're left watching some different character-oriented scenes to round things up. Superman's new solution to the dilemma that Lois now knows his dual identity doesn't work. As implausible as the amnesia kiss was in the first version, it tied things up much more neatly and with far less plotholes left to fill.

What the Donner version does have going for it is Christopher Reeve, who is iconic as both Clark and Superman. I enjoyed the extra Clark footage throughout.

This one was a real mixed bag for me, a big letdown from what I was hoping. The Donner version of Superman II seemed ill concieved on several different levels and I much prefer the version that we all grew up with. It's far from perfect but it's much, much better as a film.

Things I like...

Here's a few recommendations of things that I'm enjoying lately...

ROME.

Every Sunday night on HBO. Great show, well acted, lots of political manuevering, and a feeling that anything can happen at any time. I loved the first season and the second season is so far off to a great start.

TONY LOCO.

An independent comic published by Illusive Arts, written by Derek McCaw and drawn by Mark Teague. Moody, atmospheric, mysterious...I don't know where it's going but it seems to be a strange mix of Batman and Don Quixote. Ask your comic shop to special order the first two issues, it's worth your time.

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

The book, not the movie--although I enjoy the movie too. Some of the most unpretentious, straightforward, yet beautifully powerful writing I've ever enjoyed. I recently reread it for about the tenth time and it still makes me mist up as I read the last page. I am haunted by waters, indeed.

SUICIDE SQUAD

I've been rereading some of John Ostrander's first run on the title in preparation for the new series. Tight storytelling, suspenseful, and great characterization. They hold up well after all these years.

THE WIGGLES

My son loves them and I have to admit, they've grown on me. Our Wiggles collection has grown to six movies and are now in a heavy rotation, actually beating out Bob The Builder, the reigning champion in this house for months. I often find myself singing "Here comes Wagsy, here comes Wagsy..." without realizing I was doing it.

Beau Smith speaks!

This meant a lot.

The last real man in comics, Beau Smith, mentioned my first issue of Green Lantern Corps in his latest online column, Busted Knuckles. Here's the linkage...

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/busted/

Beau was nice enough to email me a 'heads up' that he was talking about my writing of Guy Gardner, a character near and dear to his heart. The very nice things he said really made my day.

For the uncounted trillions of Green Lantern fans who have enjoyed my characterization of Guy, I'm just following the template that Mr. Smith laid out for two some odd years. He pretty much wrote the textbook on how GG should be portrayed. He gave Guy Gardner a soul behind the sometimes-asshole facade and the fact that I'm doing him proud makes me feel like I did something right.

To me, Guy Gardner's rough exterior masks the fact that he's got the biggest heart in the world. He doesn't let that love slip through too often but I think it's the key to what makes him tick.

Beau, if you read this, I didn't feel like I really got a handle on Guy until issue #9. Or at least, that's the issue I would have gotten a good handle on him if I didn't kill him off in issue #8. So I hope I continue to make you proud and most of all, I look forward to your inevitable return to Guy Gardner's life.

After all, John Ostrander is back on Suicide Squad. It's only a matter of time before you get yours.

Your amigo,
Keith

Big Daddy

A few months ago, my son Jack started calling me "daddy" instead of "dada." Speech development and all that jazz. He's almost three so he's pretty much a nonstop chatterbox and his pronunciation gets clearer every day.

A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, he started calling me "Big Daddy" instead of just daddy. "Big Daddy, come play with my trains." or "Big Daddy, can I have a juicebox?" Things like that.

I don't know where he came up with Big Daddy but I've got to say, it's pretty much my favorite name ever. It literally cracks me up everytime he says it.

transcription

I'm 8 pages out from being finished with my commitment to WORLD WAR III and, if everything continues to go smoothly, I'll be able to move on from this project next week. It's been a remarkably easy ride--aside from the tighter-than-usual deadlines--and I'm increasingly anxious to move on to my next project.

Anyway, I'm waaaaaaaaaaaay late in linking to it so, instead, I'm just going to post the full text of the interview I did w/ Newsarama covering WWIII. If I wasn't tired and had something to actually say, I'd write more but I'm brain dead and I'm taking the easy way out. Some things have changed since this interview posted last week, mainly the amount of writing work and projects that I've got lined up. But I can't announce anything for a while so for now, here's the interview.

Every time Newsarama talks to Keith Champagne, the intro to the article talks about how he's an inker trying to break into the world of comics writing.

Time for that to stop.

With the announcement on Friday that DC is trusting two of its Week 50 "World War III" one shots to Keith Champagne -- pairing him up with veteran writer John Ostrander -- it's pretty safe to say he's done broken in. And this is no small project. Four 32-page issues of World War III will be released on the same Wednesday as the Week 50 issue of 52 on April 18 and will tell many of the stories of what happened during the "missing year" between Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later mark. Two of the issues -- titled Call to Arms and The Valiant -- will be written by Champagne, while the other two -- Hell is for Heroes and United We Stand -- will be penned by Ostrander.

Newsarama caught up with Champagne to talk about the story that will be told in the four issues, how he got the gig, and what he thinks about getting an opportunity to work on the story of 52.

Newsarama: You're part of the story being told in 52 - how does it feel?

Keith Champagne: Well, the 52 crew leave some pretty big footsteps to follow, and this has been a very reference heavy project -- there's been a lot of catching up on material I've only half read. Oh, and the amount of lead time is a little shorter than usual --which might be the biggest understatement ever. Plus, all four books are coming out the same day, coinciding with the release of 52 #50, which I don't think has ever been attempted before.

Aside from that, it's just another day at the office.

NRAMA: Oh, yeah. No biggie. How did you get this gig, Keith?

KC: I answered my phone to hear the deep growl of that svengali of all svengali's, Peter Tomasi, tell me he just got out of a meeting with Dan Didio and had an interesting project for me to write. After he explained the whole thing, he asked me if it was something I'd be interested in. I said yes. He asked me again, making sure I understood the tight deadlines and amount of reference involved. I said yes. He explained it again to make sure I knew what I was walking into but, since no one has ever accused me of being the sharpest knife in the drawer, I continued to say yes.

Now he's stuck with me.

NRAMA: Or you're stuck with him -- with the tight deadlines, it could be seen either way. So you're writing two of the four issues, with John Ostrander writing the other two. Are you coordinating the story between the two of you?

KC: Originally, I was slated to write all four issues. Then when we realized there just wasn't time for one person to write all four issues, John Ostrander came aboard with about a million ideas to take this project to the next level. As it stands now, I'm writing the first two and John is writing #3 and 4. John and I are working pretty close together to make sure the story flows seamlessly and with two editors watching our every move, we've got a good safety net in place to catch any balls we drop.

NRAMA: You mentioned the short lead time. I guess four 32-page one-shots is a lot of script and art to have done and ready to go for shipment on one day. How is that working from a timing standpoint?

KC: I'm going back and forth between scripts right now. All these books are being produced simultaneously so I'm basically writing half of #1 to get the penciller going, then half of #2 to get that artist working, back and forth that way. It's an interesting way to work but I've plotted everything pretty tightly so there shouldn't be any surprises or missed opportunities.

NRAMA: Does knowing that all four issues will, for many people, be read at one sitting influence the way you're writing the issues?

KC: There's a definite advantage to having all four issues being read in one sitting. Mainly that people won't forget what happened while waiting 30 days for the next issue to ship. I know if I read a comic, I only vaguely remember what was going on by the time I get the next one. But the fact that this is just BANGBANGBANGBANG one after another, it makes me feel like I can really lay in a ton of subtle touches and Easter eggs and not worry that people reading won't pick up on it.Aside from that, I'm following the same little set of guidelines I always try to. Character first!

NRAMA: What do you think of the idea of four one-shots that tie together with a fifth issue -- all being released at once?

KC: It's honestly the only way to do these books. Week 50 is World War III, and it doesn't make sense to have books shipping during weeks 51, 52, one, two, etc. -- after the fact. There's too much story here that is integral to the overall continuity.Personally, I like it. It's never been done before and it gives this project a whole different kind of event feel to it.

NRAMA: "Never been done before" seems to apply to a lot about 52. Have you gotten to talk to the writers involved in the 52 series, or are you mainly talking with the editor?

KC: I'm working with Peter Tomasi and Mike Siglain, who are co-editing. I guess Mike didn't have enough stress in his life with a weekly book so he decided to try something really challenging and ship four books in one day. Liz Gehrlein, their shiny new assistant, has been coordinating quite a bit and I've also been going back and forth with John Ostrander, who is writing the other two issues.

NRAMA: Dan Didio addressed this a bit, but from what you've seen in the stories -- what is the real purpose of doing one-shots outside the main 52 series? Is this something that further fleshes out the content of Week 50, or is it something they just couldn't fit in there? And most importantly, do you have to read these four issues to understand Week 50 of the 52 series?

KC: You know, I've read the WWIII issue of 52, and it's great. It's a homerun story, and it stands quite nicely on its own.Having said that, this is WORLD WAR III. For the past year, everything has been building up to this week. It's an event, and Dan Didio wants to make sure that the people who have been following all along are treated to just that -- a comics event. It's a bang, not a whimper.What our series is doing is weaving a story in between the events of 52 #50, both fleshing out certain elements and also introducing a lot of new content, showing much more of what's going on around the world during the war. It turns out that week 50 is one of the most pivotal seven day periods in the history of the DCU. You want to talk about ramifications, about characters living, changing, and dying ... much of what we're doing here answers the questions that were posed about the DCU when One Year Later began.So, if 52 #50 is the entree, then World War III is the bread, drinks, salad, appetizer, desert, and midnight snack.

NRAMA: You're just trying to make everyone hungry. But let's talk about that "52 entree" a little. Have you been reading 52?

KC: I'm usually behind on the issues because my comps arrive three or four weeks later, but I've been reading pretty consistently.

NRAMA: What did you think of it before you got involved?

KC: I think the book is exactly what you'd expect it to be, considering the talent involved, and I honestly think it's a legitimate achievement. When the last page is turned, they should all take a bow because they're pulling off something that no one really believed they could.

NRAMA: It sounds like you weren't really knowledgeable about the secrets of the mysteries in 52 before. Did they have to bring you up to speed?

KC: I was brought up to speed so fast, my head is still smoking.

NRAMA: Okay fanboy - does it suck to have the end of 52 spoiled now?

KC: Nah - it doesn't suck, but I'm happy to say the ending more than lives up to the hype.

NRAMA: To get to that ending, you're having to cover a lot of ground. We've been told, at least loosely, in the solicitations about some "secrets" that are contained in each one-shot. But they're called "Part One" through "Part Four" because you are tying them together with an overall story, right? I know you can't give details, but in general terms, what is the story that runs through them?

KC: Set against the backdrop of World War III, one hero goes on a journey of self-discovery to learn who he is and what role he should play -- if any -- in the DCU.

NRAMA: You call World War III a "backdrop," but the words "world war" implies a pretty battle. Is this really the big one? Or as the folks in World War I liked to say: "The war to end all wars?"

KC: This is the mother of all wars, at least until World War IV someday comes down the pike.

NRAMA: [laughs] OK, that's a safe description. But you know this is frustrating not to really know any of the answers for what you're writng. How's this: Tell us the last thing you wrote -- the last panel or page -- and what it was about.

KC: The last thing I wrote was the first ever, in continuity, appearance of Jason Todd as Nightwing. The scene I'm writing tonight concerns Supergirl and how she ends up in the 31st century -- if it is indeed her in the 31st century.

NRAMA: "If?" Argh! You're a horrible tease. OK, since you're sticking to general terms, let's talk theme. The writers of 52 have said one of the main themes of the series is "what it means to be a hero." What's the theme of these four issues?

KC: Wow, I hate these types of questions. I think the theme to these books is "how many giant changes can we make to DC continuity while still making those changes organic to the story."In terms of the characters, like I mentioned before, the theme is one of self-exploration and finding one's role in a sometimes brutal and dangerous world.

NRAMA: It seems like I've interviewed you a lot lately about your writing. Miss inking yet?KC: Inking is still my bread and butter, I inked two Jamal Igle pages today. I'd like to miss it someday but right now, it's still a big part of my daily life -- and yearly income.

NRAMA: But it does seem like doors are finally opening for you as a writer. Are you ready to switch your career entirely to writing? Or do you see yourself dabbling in a little writing while still being an artist?

KC: You know, I think about this a lot and it's hard to plan ahead like that. Doors are starting to really open for me as a writer, largely thanks to Tomasi who really champions me in the DC offices. At the same time, I equate it to David Caruso, who left his hit TV show to make movies and then fell flat on his face for a while. I don't want to be that guy, the one who ends up screwing himself over by going for too much, too fast. Ideally, and I've said this before, I'd like to ease into writing full-time. I have the chops to do it and more opportunities are popping up. On the flip side, with most of my income still coming from inking, I don't have to take every writing gig in front of me. I can be more selective and choose the ones I feel fit me better. I don't foresee leaving inking completely until someone offers me the security of a contract to write full time. I have a family to support and that's the bottom line.

NRAMA: More opportunities are popping up, huh? Can you tell us what else is coming for Keith Champagne?

KC: I'll be taking over the writing chores for my first monthly book later this year. I just wrote a 12-page Two Face story for this year's Batman Annual. And we're talking about doing a follow up to my Green Lantern Corps story when I finish World War III.

Plus, I'm inking Nightwing over the great Jamal Igle every month. So there's going to be plenty of me going around for fans to get sick of.

linkage

Here's a couple of links for those keeping score at home.

My week of Comic book Internet Media whoring continues.

This one covers my Xena annual, finally coming out Wednesday the 17th (I believe). Vaneta did an excellent job (as always) of making my boring answers sound like a real conversation.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=97114

And this one reveals the big project I've been working like a dog on the past couple of weeks, a little ditty called World War III.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=97276

One more interview coming up on Monday, again at Newsarama, containing everything you ever wanted to know about World War III and more. And then I'm shutting up for a while.

Interview time

Fanboy planet just posted a very Green Lantern Corps-centric interview we did together on their site. Here's the linkage:

http://www.fanboyplanet.com/interviews/mc-keithchampagne3.php

I'm pretty much an interview machine lately, I'll have links to a few more posted over the next week. I never seem to shut up but that's how the game is played these days...promote, promote, promote.

Don't worry though...just when you're on the verge of being sick of me, I'll disappear for a couple of more months.

Did I mention...

Did I mention that Green Lantern Corps #8 arrives in stores today? What are you waiting for, people? Get out there and spend that money!!

All lines currently busy

Haven't had much time for blogging lately and that's actually a good thing.

Similar to this time last year, when I was working overtime inking my first issues of Batman and Firestorm, this year finds me swamped in much the same manner, exception being that this year, it's writing work that has me up at the wee hours of dawn.

About a week and a half ago, I was offered my highest profile writing gig (by far) from DC and took it without hesitation. The flip side is that, because this project was decided on at a very late hour, there's no lead time and the shipping date (April) is absolutely inflexible. Unlike the Green Lantern Corps work, where I basically went off on my own and did whatever I wanted, I'm currently living in a world of editorial mandates. It's forcing me to use different sets of muscles creatively, trying to build a story around things instead of building things around a story.

It's fun though, and exciting if not stressful and a bit nervewracking. I'm also getting to work with another creator whom I admire very much and have for a long time.

All of this is very vague because there's nothing specific I can say. The project will be announced in about another week, if not sooner. Anyone who pays attention to the DC solicitations will recognize what I'm talking about pretty easily.

Oh, by the way, Green Lantern Corps #8 (written by yours truly) and 52 #36 (pencils by Jamal Igle, inks by me) are both shipping this Wednesday, January 10th. If you check them out, I hope you'll enjoy them.