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Perfect Storm

Featured Perfect Storm Sketch of the Day

Endings and beginnings…

A few weeks back, I stopped work on Perfect Storm.

After more than 12 years years of starting stories, jumping to other stories and going back and re-doing pages over and over because of the changes in art style in the years in between—and never really completing anything or being satisfied with the work—I felt like it was time to move on. That’s not to say that co-creator Gary Carbon may not continue with Perfect Storm, or that I may not be involved with whatever comes next, but as far as Perfect Storm being my day-to-day, first-thought-in-the-morning-last-thought-before-sleep passion project, I felt it was finally time to move on.

Maybe it’s the years of work, yet still not being where I want it to be; the constant displeasure with how my art looks; or the real-world personal issues that have taken up so much of my time and energy (whether I thought so or not). All I know is that after getting five-and-a-half pages into re-doing the origin story for, like, the sixth time, I was done.

I’ve not really enjoyed comics in general in a long time, and am down to only reading two regularly (Sex Criminals and The Fix). I’ve not taken on a work-for-hire comics job in even longer, and have long given up on my goal of doing a regular project for DC or Marvel, which themselves are no longer the companies I once thought they were. Honestly, I thought I would be done with comics once I finally finished re-doing the Perfect Storm origin story—just one last story to tell, then I’d be done.

But I’m not.

Those who have followed my work for a long time may remember an idea I had many years ago about Alexander the Great. This story has been stuck in the back of my head for as long as I can remember, and now that I’ve moved on from Perfect Storm and have time on my hands to do something simply for the joy of it, that’s what I am going to focus on.

And this time, I’m not going to create the thing in a vacuum. That was one of my issues with Perfect Storm—I would work and work on something for months at a stretch before anyone would see anything, so it would be forever between updates. This time I’m going to be posting constantly, showing you sketches, script doodles and asking for your opinions and critiques. both on the web site here, and on my new Patreon page, .

If you’re not familiar with it, Patreon uses your choice of credit card or PayPal to charge a reoccurring (or subscription) set amount at certain times. I’m set to monthly, so if follow me on there, you will not be charged until the end of the month (between the last day of the month and up to the 5th, depending on method). And the great thing about Patreon is that there is no risk to you as a backer. You can change you pledge at any time, or you can cancel any time.

To reach my goals, I’ll be offering rewards such as exclusive artwork, Patreon-exclusive prints, commissions at a discounted rate for backers, and I’ll be able to explore my other great artistic love: pin-up artwork. (After all, who doesn’t love a good pin-up?!) Every month I’ll create new pin-ups for my backers, based on those backers’ suggestions and requests. And I’ll do all of this at reasonable pledge levels, which will help me get to my goal of being able to spend more time on Highspot.

And now that you know the basic gist about what the story is going to involve—Alexander the Great—I’m going to share what I’ve come up with for the title and logo of the story, as well as the first character sketch:

Let me know what you think!

Thanks so much for sticking with me—the best is yet to come!

Rob<

Featured Perfect Storm Sketch of the Day

Sketch of the Day 61

A little something different this week: Many years ago now I attempted to write my first superhero comic called Pulse, based on a character I had doodled as a kid. Needless to say, since you’ve never heard of it, it went nowhere, and it’s probably a good thing because my scripts sucked. But what didn’t suck was the interior artwork, provided by Vittorio Garofoli, and the covers which were inked by comic legend Joe Rubinstein. This week I’ll be sharing those 4 covers…