Jetpack Color Classics Variants

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Stephan

Seriously? So Jetpack is rolling out…black and white variant covers for the…uh…color classics? Anyone else see this as a complete slap in the face to the collector community?

The $20 (almost $30 if you can’t go to the brick and mortar store) Jetpack variants for the first story arc were almost tolerable because at least you were getting variant art (despite it being republished vintage art). But these covers are the exact same covers as the standard covers except they put less thought into them. Plus, a black and white cover on a book that markets itself as a color book is…pretty silly.

I thought it couldn’t get more ridiculous when Brett’s Comic Pile tried to pass one book off as four different “variants” by touching them with a different color pen, or simply distributing them from a different source.

This is somehow more offensive to me.

Lost Angeles: 35 Days with Kevin Eastman

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Stephan

Meltdown Comics Gallery Presents!

LOST ANGELES Thirty Five
Days with Kevin Eastman

“A Pop
Culture Exhibition Fifty Years in the Making!”

NOVERMBER 30^TH, 2011 through JANUARY 4^TH, 2012!

For Thirty Five Days KEVIN EASTMAN takes over MELTDOWN COMICS NEW GALLERY
exhibition space where he curates FIVE DIFFERENT SHOWS of some of his most exciting past, present, and future creations
and collaborations!

Located at 7522 West Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, the Meltdown Comics Gallery will be open daily
for all visitors, will feature special events at least twice weekly, including an
ALL NEW ART EXHIBIT opening every NEW COMIC DAY WEDNESDAY from 6:00 TO 10:00!

Over the five week celebration, fans NEW and OLD will get the chance to come hang out with Kevin, check
out the latest show, discuss projects, concepts, and future plans for everything he’s working on from the new IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic series to the 2012 35^th BIRTHDAY OF HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE!

NEW! OPENING PRESS EVENT! November 18^th and 19^th
Kevin Eastman and Mark Bode recreate the cover to TMNT Comic #1 in a huge mural
on the back of the Meltdown Comics store!

GALLERY EXHIBIT and SIGNING
SCHEDULES*

*Please stay tuned to:

www.meltdowncomics.com

www.kevineastmanstudios.com

www.heavymetal.com

NOVEMBER 30^th THE “TMNT” EXHIBIT
OPENS!

The event will feature all things Turtles including 90 pages of original Kevin Eastman TMNT
layout art for the entire new IDW series re-launch, the original artwork that
started ALL things TMNT, and special edition prints, books, posters, and other
rare TMNT treasures from his personal collection!

The signing will have on hand all IDW TMNT comics, the new Ultimate Collection Book One, as well
as many more original out of print publications.

The Gallery Night Event/Party/Signing is from 6
PM TO 10 PM!

DECEMBER 7^th THE “UNDERWHERE”
EXHIBIT OPENS!

The event will feature at least 50 original paintings for Underwhere adventure by Mark
Martin and Kevin Eastman in the exhibit and available for purchase—alongside
tons of the original concept drawings from 1989.

An exclusive stickered 1500 copy edition of the Underwhere Graphic Novel will be sold at the show for
$5 each, with a dollar from each copy being donated to the Hero’s Initiative
Organization.

For more information about the Hero Initiative, go to www.herointiative.org!

The Gallery Night Event/Party/Signing is from 6
PM TO 10 PM!

DECEMBER 14^th THE “BIZ AND BUZZ” EXHIBIT
OPENS!

The event will feature all 24 original black and white pages for complete issue #1! The art,
by Simon Bisley and Kevin Eastman, will be on exhibit and available for
purchase, as well as all of Kevin Eastman’s original development artwork for a
future TV series.

Copies of the full color comic book and exclusive collectable toys will be for sale as well, including
a limited edition show print.

The Gallery Night Event/Party/Signing is from 6
PM TO 10 PM!

DECEMBER 21^st THE “LOST ANGELES” EXHIBIT
OPENS!

The event will feature original concept drawings and development paintings by Kevin
Eastman and Simon Bisley for an upcoming film option, as well as a series of
show exclusive prints created just for the exhibit, and all will be available
for purchase.

A special 100 page collector’s edition book will make its premiere at the show.

The Gallery Night Event/Party/Signing is from 6
PM TO 10 PM!

DECEMBER 28^TH THROUGH JANUARY 4^TH

THE HEAVY METAL 35^th ANNIVERSARY EXHIBIT

OPENS!

As this is the event 35 years in the making, and the fact that it is growing larger and more insane
day to day, we will need to hold off on releasing the final details until mid
December—but can assure all Heavy Metal fans it will be worth the wait!

**STAY TUNED TO WWW.HEAVY METAL.COM FOR ALL THE LATEST
DETAILS!

ADDITIONAL SHOW HIGHLIGHTS/EVENTS

RE-CREATING KEVIN EASTMAN’S STUDIO
AND SELLING IT!

Inside the Galley space is a 15 x 15 foot square room, with a wall sized glass window looking
into IT–where Kevin Eastman will move into and recreate his entire ART STUDIO
and SELL IT TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER!

All items in the exhibit space will be taken directly from HIS Los Angeles based Art Studio—and
set up as a working exhibit! Everything including desk, chairs, tables,
original artwork, books, files, projects, comics, DVD’s, CD’s, things you (and
even he) can’t even imaging. It will be a wall to wall, floor to ceiling once
in a lifetime event, that will have to be seen in person to be truly believed!

(*Photo’s of the old and the new studio space will be posted online shortly!)

SPECIAL HEAVY METAL COVER ARTIST
FEATURED EXHIBIT BY LORENZO SPERLONGA!

GUEST SPEAKERS!

ARTISTS SIGNINGS!

SPECIAL MOVIE
SCREENINGS!

DRINK AND DRAW
SESSIONS!

ART DEMONSTRATIONS!

AUCTIONS, AND MUCH,
MUCH, MORE!

Happy Anniversary To MEEEEE!!!!!

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Stephan

Today is the 1 year wedding anniversary of my wife Heather and I. Some of you may recall that my groom’s cake was a red bandanna turtle head. At the time, I couldn’t bear to cut into it, so we decided to save it for our one year anniversary (normally tradition would dictate saving the top tier of the wedding cake).

Well, tonight we cut this sucker wide open. And this is the result! Shockingly, the interior cake portion was still really awesome! Though the exterior sugar shell was kinda gross. Red Velvet Cheesecake for those that are interested

Happy Anniversary Heather. I am the luckiest man in the world.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESTER!

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Stephan

Today is the birthday of your favorite Rob Paulsen obsessed Machine. Happy Birthday! Kev!

San Diego Comic Con 2011

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Stephan

Holy crap. Either SDCC is getting longer every year, or I’m getting too old for this stuff. Maybe both.
Since there is all SORTS of comic con coverage online by people who…you know…get paid to do it, I figured I would just do some personal coverage about what Heather and I actually did while we were there. Here goes!

Preview Night
Heather and I went down Wednesday night for Preview night. Because the show is only open for 3 hours that night, it is usually when I choose to pick up whatever exclusives I can. As i am a ridiculous fan of the Venture Brothers (you should be as well), a large chunk of our time was spent waiting in line at the entertainment earth booth for their amazing Dr. Jonas Venture and Rusty Exclusive.

Meanwhile I sent Heather on a recon mission to the IDW booth for the Turtles Ash Can. Once done with the EE line, we took some ash cans over to the Heavy Metal booth where Kevin was gracious enough to sign a bunch of them for us to give out on this very site at a later date.

Thursday
We started the day off early (I was bouncing off the walls at about 5 in the morning in anticipation — Ask my severely annoyed wife!). As I am trying to get a few comic properties off the ground, I went to a lot of industry “how-to” panels this year. The First was Goal-Setting for Creative Types. I really recommend attending next year if you didn’t get the chance this year. WAY more fun than it sounds, and super informative.

Then it was off to the Fan Boy and Chum Chum panel. This show is bizarre. Not only am I a fan, but my dear friend and TMNTA artist, Ken Mitchroney works on the show, so we were there to hang out with him and show our support. Afterwards, Kenny signed a book for me to submit to the CGC signature series. This is the first con signature that Ken has done since 1992, and the only Ken Mitchroney signature series CGC book. The CGC folks were pretty darn surprised when I said “I have a book to submit for signature series. I brought the artist with me.”

Later, Heather and I walked the floor with Ken for about an hour before parting ways. 3 o’clock rolled around, and it was time for the IDW Panel. While the panel was super fun (they made people spin a wheel to decide what they’d talk about), No new TMNT information for those of you who’ve read any articles on the topic in the last couple months (which I am pretty sure you have…seeing as how you read this blog).

One cool thing about the panel is that the wheel also had prizes on it. One kid even won a cameo in an issue of the new TMNT comic. I won a sketched cover of their new Godzilla book! Woo for winning stuff!

By the time the panel was done, we were both pretty tired, so we milled around the floor for a little bit, then headed back.

Friday
We started our day a little later, since the first panel we wanted to go to (The Venture Brothers) wasn’t till 11:30. That panel was in the Indigo ballroom, which is a fairly large room. For you Venture fans, Doc and Jackson premiered a new music video and confirmed the next two seasons…but the majority of the panel was just them being ridiculous. There were a couple people there…

That's one side of the room...

Since Venture Brothers made us miss the Walking Dead panel, I had some time before the Nickelodeon Turtles Preview. So I did some shopping.

This is why the comic con account saving begins the day after the previous con ends.

Meanwhile, Heather went a-huntin’ celebrities!

Fear my MS Paint Skillz!

We headed over to the Turtles event at 3:30, which started at four. If you have read our post about the Nickelodeon Preview Event that they had at the studio a while back then chances are there wasn’t any new info for you at this event. The event, while well presented, seemed to be catering to the casual fan, rather than the hardcore fan (who regularly keeps up on TMNT happenings). Here are some pictures though:

Yeeeah, so about the RiffTrax panel. Rifftrax is awesome. If you don’t know what it is, check it out.
This panel is a favorite of ours. But this year, the line got much longer, much faster, than last year. Heather and I waited in line for for about and hour and 45 minutes…and didn’t get in :*-( Sad us. After that disappointment, we decided to call it a day.

Saturday
I had planned on getting up early for the Comic Book Law School panel, but was in no mood for it when I woke up…so we ended up hitting the con about noon. When straight for the Cartoon Voices I panel. Primarily because both Rob Paulsen, Townsend Coleman, and Tara Strong were on the panel. It was a great. After a few general questions, they did an awesome script read of snow white and the seven dwarves (which they made hilarious!). Sadly, it appears that I neglected to take pictures of that panel. Sorry!

After the Cartoon Voices Panel, Heather and I split up. She went to the Joss Wheadon and The Guild panels, and I went to Creator-Owned Comics with Robert Kirkman. Kirkman is one of my favorite current comic writers, and I was also interested in the subject of creator-owned books. It was a great panel. Afterwards, I headed over to Transforming Comic Readers into Writers, which was a panel primarily focused on using Comic books to teach literacy.

After our panels, we met back up at Heavy Metal, said goodnight to Kevin, and headed out.

Sunday
A friend of mine, Ethan, and his brother Malachai, create an awesome book together called Axe Cop. You should worship it. Anyway, they had a panel for Axe Cop first thing on Sunday morning. I didn’t wake up in time, and for that I feel douchy. Sorry Ethan.

But since that was really the only thing on the agenda for sunday except for the Buffy Musical episode at the end of the day, we decided to walk around and take pictures. You can see my entire photo dump on our facebook page.

Lastly, was the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both heather and I are unabashed Buffy fans, and for the last 5 years, the convention has run the Buffy musical episode as their final program of the day. So we sat through the Sons of Anarchy panel (which was before Buffy in Hall H), and then had a lot of fun at the Buffy shindig. It was awesome.

Then it was home to Los Angeles. Like I said before, the con felt it was crazy long this year, and I still feel like I was hit by a truck, but it was all good times.

I will leave you with some pictures of me with people I like