More WORK STAGES from a recent project! (Patreon)

Guess what, dear Patrons? Today's release of Marvel's horror anthology comic Crypt of Shadows #1, featuring a 6-page Wolverine/Man-Thing story I wrote and drew, represents my first published work since 2019's one-shot Venom: The End and, of course, Empowered vol.11. Alarming, needless to say, to realize that I haven't had anything on the shelves in the last three years. (Ouch!) 

Anyhoo, to commemorate Crypt of Shadows' release, here's a look at the complete Work Stages on my story's first page; pretty sure I've shown most of said Stages before, but not the final, colored and lettered version... I think. (Hope you'll cut me some slack on this matter, dear Patrons, as I'm frantically slamming this post together at the last minute.)

First up is the final lettering pass on the page:

...which was changed from an earlier draft, as title and credits had to be added at the last minute. (My previous Marvel short stories didn't feature in-story title and credits, as did this one's first draft.) Here was my first take on dispersing the credits and title throughout the page:

The final version worked out just fine, though. Here are the colors sans lettering, by the great Lee Duhig (who also colored Venom: The End) for the coloring studio Guru eFX:

...and my commendably minimalist color guide for the page:

...which, of course, was marked up from my lettering guide for the page:

Note that the lettering guide was based on my pencils rather than the inks (which are next up) for clarity's sake, so that the captions would "pop" better. 

As mentioned earlier, Man-Thing's paw in panel 4 was the only part of the page I inked with my once beloved Zebra "maru" pen-tips before abandoning them once again due to the way they tore up the paper surface, just as they did when I previously stopped using them a decade ago. (I inked everything else in the story with my usual PITT Artist Pens.)

The pencils:

...and the initial rough:

Wellp, you won't have to wait three years for my next published project, folks, as I desperately need to get more material out and, TBH, earn some g-d income while I'm still at least semi-viable as a creator. Next up will will be a similar writing & art gig for a Harley Quinn short story and, of course, Empowered vol. 12 in March 2023; not sure beyond that at present, but rest assured that I can't afford to be off the g-d radar for years at a time.

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: Ehh, not sure, as my post buffer is entirely expended at the moment, but something should be going up on Friday, folks.