Like most holidays, I spent Christmas at Ma Powell’s place in New Jersey. It’s really quite beautiful there in the winter, so I brought my point-and-shoot with me and went around the property taking various photos of textures and such to add to my library. Since it’s the season of giving, I put together nine textures that are available to download for free here. I didn’t adjust or edit the images at all, so do with them what you will. Enjoy!

ROBOTS!
This December all three volumes of Atomic Robo will be available in trade paperback from Red 5 Comics.

Atomic Robo TPB Volume 1 (Second Printing) (OCT091063)
Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne
In his double-Eisner-nominated debut series (Best Limited Series, Best Coloring), ATOMIC ROBO takes on Nazis, giant ants, clockwork mummies, walking pyramids, Mars, cyborgs and his nemesis, and Baron von Helsingard. Reprints the sold-out first edition of the smash hit with all-new cover. 180 pages, $18.95, 2009-12-09

Atomic Robo TPB Volume 2 (DEC084219)
Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War
Eisner-nominated ATOMIC ROBO lands on the front lines of World War II against the science freaks and devastating weird weaponry of Nazi Germany — from invincible walking tanks to atomic-powered weather cannons to the Monster Soldiers of the Third Reich. Can ROBO and THE SPARROW, Britain’s greatest covert operative, complete their mission and turn the tide of the war without killing one another? 152 pages, $19.95, 2009-02-25

Atomic Robo TPB Volume 3 (OCT091062)
Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time
It is 1926 when H.P. LOVECRAFT comes calling to warn ATOMIC ROBO of imminent doom. But the SHADOW FROM BEYOND TIME escapes into the future, intersecting with our world through the 20th century. The future and history of the universe hangs in the balance as ATOMIC ROBO teams up with, uh, ATOMIC ROBO in a last ditch effort to protect reality itself. 160 pages, $18.95, 2009-12-09

And if you want to show off how nerdy/cool you are cuz you read Atomic Robo, you can rock a swell t-shirt.

MONSTERS!
Speaking of swell shirts, We Kill Monsters shirts are also available. Fool your non-comic reading friends into thinking WKM is a awesome metal band when it’s really an awesome comic! Check out the issues here. Also, check out an interview with the creative team–writers Laura Harkcom and Christopher Leone, artist Brian Churilla and colorist Ronda Pattison–over at ThePullbox.com.

GODS!

3,000 years ago, the brothers Castor and Pollux were granted immortality by Zeus. Today they serve him on Earth. Sent to capture a messenger fallen from Olympus, the brothers accidentally release one of the fiercest prisoners of Hades, a cursed, ravaged soul with a millennia-old grudge! Now in an adventure that takes them across Europe and to an island off the coast of Greece, Castor and Pollux must track and capture this being before his rampant rage yields irreversible damage to the balance between Olympus and the Earth. Collects OLYMPUS #1-4. 128 pages. Written by Nathan Edmondson and illustrated by Christian Ward.

I always liked Greek myth, so OLYMPUS is right up my alley. The trade will be available December 9–same day as Atomic Robo Vol. 3! Do yourself a favor and grab them! I designed the trade dress and interiors to both collections which I’ll hopefully have a chance to add to the works section soon.

HELLCAT!
Actually, a second good thing about doing what I do–the barter system! I’m looking forward to this showing up at my doorstep. Thank you, Mr. Ward!

This week, Brian’s been posting a page a day of “The Yonkers Devil”, a 7 page (FREE!) Atomic Robo story, over at nuklearpower.com.

At the moment, I’m the process of finishing up the Olympus Volume 1 TPB which will be available sometime December.

I usually wait for Brian or Scott to post new Robo stuff, but with Brian redesigning Nuklear Power, and Scott busy with the Torch I thought I’d pick up their slack and post a few pages from the next Robo series. Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time #1 will be available April 15th!

“New York City, 1926. Atomic Robo’s dull night of studying for a physics exam is interrupted by a duo from Nikola Tesla’s past with a dire message: the imminent doom of all life in the universe! Guest starring Charles Fort, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and the Tunguska Incident.”

Widget is based on Scott’s hand writing. I originally intended it to be used as a dialog font for the next Atomic Robo series until he suggested I design one based on my own. I’ve designed fonts in the past based on my hand lettering but never really liked or used them much. So, determined, I sat down with a pen and some graph paper and wrote out what became Automatica.

It took a little while to get used to it at first, but after lettering a few pages it started to look more…natural to me. Less like my handwriting and more like a comic font if that makes sense. I made alternate characters for Widget and Automatica as well, mostly to satisfy my own OCD since I’m convinced the casual comic book reader (and most editors for that matter) neither notice nor care about the subtle differences.

Two other fonts in the works are Sp’lurgh! and Brothers Gothic. Both are in various stages of completion since I’ve been designing the characters as I go.

I’ve also started designing a font for my new favorite Robo character, Dr. Dinosaur, who I’m sorry to say, has bumped Bernard from the top spot. I’ll likely post a sample of it when it’s ready.

I attended the New York Comic Con this past weekend. It was a fleshy blur of katanas, kilts, He-Man swords and slave Leias. I had a good time meeting some new people and hanging out with friends who were in town for the weekend. I missed the Fringe panel on Sunday due to overall con fatigue but I did get a chance to gawk at my new celebrity crush Jasika Nicole as she walked by on her way to a cast signing.

I’m not sure why I didn’t end up using it. Maybe I thought it was too juvenile (or crappy) for the project…? With it being seasonally appropriate and all now I went ahead and finished it.

Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War will be concluding this week with issue #5. Volume 2 was a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to starting on volume 3 in a few weeks once I get some new fonts built for the series.

I was fortunate enough to do some lettering on a string of What Ifs? this year. On January 2nd, most of the creative team and editorial staff–Karl Bollers, Patrick Spaziante, Justin Gabrie, Chris Allo and myself– will be appearing at Jim Hanley’s Universe NYC to promote What If? Secret Wars. C’mon down and say hi, it’ll be a good time.

Also, I forgot how much I love Ragnar.

Happy Holidays!