Thomas Mauer, Letterer

WonderCon 2009 - I will be there

2008-10-05T07:48:00.002+02:00

Just booked a flight to LA from February 20 to March 6, and CB and I will be at WonderCon Feb 27-Mar 1. It's gonna be fun to work in the Kingdom Comics office on the Disney lot while I'm over there and the con will be rad. At long last, I can visit the Isotope in San Francisco!

Looking forward to hanging out with you LA and SF peeps soon.

POPGUN Vol. 1 won "Best Anthology" in the Harvey Awards 2008!!!

2008-09-29T15:57:00.002+02:00

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090827-2008Harveys.html

Best Anthology - Popgun Volume 1, Edited by Joe Keatinge, Image Comics

Wooooooooo! No name check for me, but who gives a fuck? This is still my first award. :boogie:

Jazma Online interview + MINIONS OF KA @ Dragon*Con

2008-08-29T01:02:00.002+02:00

A few weeks ago, Richard Vasseur of Jasma Online wanted to do an interview about KINGDOM COMICS, AWAKENING, and THE MINIONS OF KA. He emailed me yesterday that it's finally up. Go have a look:

http://www.jazmaonline.com/interviews/interviews2008.asp?intID=164

About 30 seconds ago, CB texted me that the printer came through and copies of THE MINIONS OF KA have arrived at Dragon*Con. You'll be able to talk to the creators Dave Wilbur, Michael Furno, and Michael Ahearn, as well as artist Chris Moreno and project manager Christian Beranek (yes, CB) at the show and have them sign the book. Also, I hear the Mikes' and Dave's wives will dress up as characters from the book!

In the meantime, you can listen to a cool interview with Dave and Mike F. at DreadCentral.com. Dave, the word I used in the email was "existentialism." Thanks for the shout-out. :)

Also, make sure to check out http://www.trackthestrain.com/ - MINIONS OF KA is a multimedia endeavor and it's really cool to see it all come to fruition now. I really hope we'll be able to do more comics in this universe and would love to be involved again. It was a lot of fun.

AWAKENING vol. 1 HC at Amazon

2008-08-09T05:13:00.001+02:00

Well wouldn't you know it, Amazon lists our first HC, collecting issues 1-5 of the 10 issue mini series AWAKENING from Archaia Studios Press.

Check it out and place a pre-order. You won't regret it!

http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-One-Nick-Tapalansky/dp/1932386483/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218251467&sr=8-1

AWAKENING is a zombie noir which may or may not feature zombies at all,
taking place in a city that seems to be slowly marching toward the
apocalypse. Readers follow an ensemble cast over the course of a full
year as the situation slowly escalates. They must first determine what
is indeed happening in town, then determine a cause and discover a
solution as the city succumbs to the slowly building pressure of the
mounting crisis.

In the last few days, I've had two misconceptions destroyed

2008-06-24T23:49:00.002+02:00

1. Windows Vista is not de debil. It's in fact a solid OS once you get used to the cosmetic changes. And who can argue with 8GB of RAM? Har har!

Gotta admit, when I first started it and only had Firefox running, it was already using 1.2GB of RAM, so anybody stuck with 2GB of RAM is pretty much fucked - like your standard laptop right now. But even with just 4GB, everything should be running smoothly. But boy, are 8GB fine to work with!

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is actually a very enjoyable film. It's definitely in keeping with how the other movies worked, and it's a fun action romp with myth and pseudo science mixed in like in the first three movies. I just finished watching it, so I thought I'd post these thoughts.

Anyway, back to work. I've got a lot of stuff to letter and some great news on the horizon. Stay tuned!

HOLY cow! Another Harvey nomination right out of left field.

2008-06-23T13:27:00.002+02:00

So while it was already cool to hear that PopGun vol. 1 was nominated for Best Anthology, I just found out that "The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo" is also up for Best Online Comics Work and my name is right on the ballot!

If you're a creator, please consider voting for both. :)

The cat's out of the bag! I will be the production manager at Disney's KINGDOM COMICS

2008-05-29T00:00:00.000+02:00

Official PR from Disney:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=158376

Interview with Ahmet and Christian (and a mention for me):

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=158399

The big thread on the Bendisboard:

http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/showthread.php?t=152583

This has been in the pipe for almost a year now. Last year, CB and Ahmet asked me to design the business proposal and mock up some covers so they could pitch to Disney.

I'm going to be the production manager and letterer on all the books.

This is the day I've been waiting for since last summer. The dry spell is almost over. I can get to work real soon and the money will come in. No more having to put off sending submissions to other publishers in hopes of getting deals while waiting for this whopper to come through.

Today is a good day.

Deus No Ex Machina et al.

2008-05-23T22:06:00.003+02:00

Just got the word from Mark at Archaia. Unfortunately, I won't be lettering Chadra Free's THE GOD MACHINE, after all. Would have been fun, but it's understandable with the current restructuring of the company. There's still more AWAKENING up ahead and who knows what the future brings!

In the meantime, we're closing in on the finish line on POPGUN Vol. 2 production and I got the first full color page story for OUTLAW TERRITORY. It's gonna be a terrific year for Image anthologies!

I'm about to start lettering THE GUNS OF SHADOW VALLEY for Jim Clark and Dave Wachter, will finally get to work on the Moreno project, and the Boatwright project as well. It's been a long time coming. :)

Another top secret project should be starting sometime soon as well. It's real exciting!

Awakening podcast from NYCC - just found this

2008-05-09T16:18:00.001+02:00

So yeah, the week after NYCC, I was out cold with a bad cold - and
still am recovering because this fucking thing's been with me since
MArch and I just can't seem to shake it.

At any rate, I totally missed that the AWAKENING interview Nick, Alex, and I did with comiXology went live already. So click on the link and enjoy. :)

No Bristol Comics Expo 2008 for me!

2008-05-08T21:55:00.002+02:00

Why? For two reasons:

I've been dragging along a pretty nasty cold since the end of March. Every time it was nearly over, I had to go out of town for a weekend. And each time, I'd come home with an even nastier cold. The one after last weekend was the worst, so I decided it'd be best to stay at home until it's really cured this time around. The weather is too nice outside to lie sick in bed, and I want to get back to the gym as well.

More importantly though, the last minute travel expenses I would be looking at are so high that they rival what I paid for to go to New York. That's just not sensible. Too bad they didn't come down at the last minute or that any discounters offered anything.

Funny aside, if I tried to fly directly into Bristol airport, I would have to deal with a 5+ hours layover in France. That would make the flight 8:45 hours long, which is just 10 minutes short of the direct flight to New York! Flying into London (what is the SPN airport anyway?) would only take 1:46 hours in comparison, but then traveling to Bristol would also ramp up the costs some more.

Next year I'll have to buy tickets 3 to 4 months in advance, I guess.

Have fun if you're going and send me some photos or link me to your photosets online, please.

Woohoo! I'm in the final five for the Eagle Award 2008's "Best Letterer" award and more.

2008-04-07T16:16:00.004+02:00

http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/vote.asp

Just saw that the actual voting for the Eagle Awards is up, and lo and behold, the stuffing of the ballot box has worked - I'm nominated for best letterer alongside Chris Eliopoulos, Dave Gibbons, Richard Starkings, and Todd Klein!

What's more, Archaia's AWAKENING, Nick Tapalansky, Alex Eckman-Lawn and my noir zombie tale about how a town copes with what seems to be the apocalypse is nominated for best American comic alongside Allstar Superman, Captain, America, Hellboy, and Y: The Last Man, and also in the "best new comic" category.

And then STARSHIP TROOPERS is nominated as best British comic. Working on this book is tons of fun.

Apparently voting works the same way, so if you could click the above link one more time and vote, that would be awesome. :)

A lot of my friends and colleagues also got the love including:

Nick Tapalansky (best new writer - for AWAKENING)

Azim Akberali (best new artist/fully painted artwork - an artist from Tanzania, I think. He does great watercolor work for AAM/Markosia at the moment)

Thomas Boatwright (best penciler/inker - The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo, Cemetery Blues, and now a new project where we're reunited again!)

AWAKENING (best American comic/best new - holy shit!)

STARSHIP TROOPERS (best British comic - man, do I love this book, too)

ELEVENTH HOUR (favorite British b/w comic - a kickass old school anthology by AAM/Markosia including work by Azim Akberali, and coloring machines Ian Sharman and Cherie Donovan)

THE SURREAL ADVENTURES OF EDGAR ALLAN POO (favorite OGN - Dwight MacPherson, Thomas Boatwright and me doing an all ages book about Edgar Allan Poe's last year and his works)

JINXWORLD (favorite comics related website - my favorite hangout on the web)

So, if you have a few minutes to spare, please head on over and vote. Thanks. :)

13 hours, 49 pages, 2 issues done

2008-03-29T01:34:00.001+01:00

I have my groove back!

March was hellish. While this week wasn't as stressful, the two before had me doing 18 hour shifts for 14 days straight. My lettering output slowed down to a snail's pace. Some issues took me three fucking days to letter!

Well, it seems that's over. Today (or rather yesterday) at 12:30pm, I started lettering Awakening #5. After I finished that, correx came in quickly and I wasted some time on those.

Then I got the final colors for The Piper #2 and did placement correx for half an hour - doesn't really count for this blog entry's subject line, but I also got that out of the way. Nyaaa.

After this, I did Thirteen Steps #5 (of 5) and just finished and sent off lowres to be proofed.

Oh, and in between there were some pre-press things I had to bang out for a meeting CB has today.

Between Awakening and Thirteen Steps, I lettered 49 pages in 13 hours (ooh, auspicious number!) and I still feel fit enough to letter the last Space Doubles story now. That one was slated for tomorrow, but since I didn't go to the gym today, I want to get this out of the way now, then go work out in the morning, and then continue with the Moreno font. If things go well, I'll get around to the TV Dinner Assassin font as well tomorrow.

Fingers crossed!

New awesome The Flying Friar review at Popculturezoo.com

2008-03-25T00:04:00.001+01:00

http://popculturezoo.com/archives/100

"It’s been a while since I’ve been as pleasantly surprised by a book as much as I was by The Flying Friar.
Granted, the only thing I knew about this book going in was the title
and having been a reader of writer Rich Johnston’s online comic book
gossip column for years so I had no preconceived expectations, but I
wish there were more comics like this one. Put simply, Johnston has
taken actual records of a 17th century friar whom multiple witnesses
claim flew and subtly remade them into a story of Superman versus Lex
Luthor. Really. And it works far better and way less contrived than any
Superman Elseworlds you can name. It’s either a credit to the story or
a highlight of my somewhat being clueless that I was a third of the way
in before I realized what Johnston was doing with the narrative. I then
immediately started the book over just to catch the little things I
missed, for what a rich (no pun intended) tapestry Johnston weaves with
this tale.

"Friar begins in Italy, 1602 where a meteor in the sky is
witnessed by a small town. Notable among the witnesses is a distant
descendant of the Protestant reformer Martin Luthor named Lionel and
his son Lux. The meteor storm causes Lux to lose his hair. Sound
familiar? Several years later, Lux, now a man of science, befriends the
hapless Joseph of Copertino, the future patron saint of air travelers,
aviators, people with a mental handicap, and weak students. Indeed,
Joseph doesn’t seem to be overly bright, but is singularly dedicated to
the Church and becoming a friar. The trouble is, Joseph is prone to
moments of drifting suddenly into a state of staring blankly into space
which sometimes results in spontaneous fires igniting in the direction
he’s staring. Since Joseph is Lux’s only friend Lionel, a rich man, is
prone to bail him out of trouble and to also use his considerable
influence for Joseph’s benefit. Lux also shares a secret with Joseph;
he is building a machine which will allow him to fly, something that
causes a further division between the two when Joseph appears to fly
without assistance. The elegant story touches on themes of friendship,
religious differences and the corruption of greed, not only that of
money and power, but also in a zealous lust of faith. Those are some
very heady ideas for a Superman story, but make this one shine.

"The artwork by Thomas Nachlik is crisp and tells the story in a
simple yet emotive way. His artwork is sometimes reminiscent of Matt
Wagner and I look forward to seeing more work from him in the future.
The lettering by Thomas Mauer complements the art well and does a good
job of reminding the reader of the setting of the story. The coloring
by Ian Sharman in this new edition from Markosia
is quite beautiful. He’s taken the black and white story and added an
almost sepia tone-like wash to it with subtle use of Lex Luthor’s
signature green in places. In all respects this book is a true work of
art.

"I know that even Rich Johnston describes this book as Smallville meets The Name of the Rose,
but I personally found it more in the style of the Silver Age Superman
imaginary stories. I can almost picture a Curt Swan cover with Supes in
a monk outfit being berated by a purple and green silk adorned Luthor.
I think this story would have fit nicely amongst those others. All in
all, this is one terrific book and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Buy this book, get cozy on the couch with nice cup of tea and prepare
to be entertained."

Anybody not reading Mat Johnson's INCOGNEGRO does themselves a great disservice

2008-03-06T13:50:00.002+01:00

Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece's Vertigo OGN Incognegro which came out a while ago is a b/w noirish tale dealing with the exposition of lynchings in the 1930s/40s. The main character, Zane Pinchback is a black journalist who can pass for white and travels to the big lynchings all over the country to document white mobs' atrocities, taking down names, addresses, and getting a hold of the carnival-like memento lynching postcards with people posing with the victim. His articles are published in a black-run Harlem newspaper under the alias "Incognegro" and he's a thorn in the KKK's side.

It's the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance and Zane wants out to make a name for himself under his real name, but his publisher convinces him to go on one last mission - one that is personal and Zane can't pass it up. He goes South again to investigate an alleged murder of a white woman by a black man in an attempt to stop the lynching before it happens.

In this graphic novel, Johnson condenses the scholarship on lynching from the last 80 years into a riveting story that must be read in one sitting. Scholarship on lynching is vast by now yet still not all-encompassing, but Johnson manages to hit on all the major and many, many minor points associated with the practice and the times.

Pleece's art fits the story perfectly, and Hellboy/100 Bullets letterer Clem Robins' lettering is gorgeous.

This is not a pretty topic, but one that cannot and should not be ignored. Incognegro is an OGN that should be in everybody's library, so I'd encourage all of you who haven't checked it out yet to give it a shot.

“Aqua Leung is the son of a slain octopus god and he wants to conquer everything on Earth and beyond”

2008-03-04T13:07:00.002+01:00

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=13203

Interview with Mark and Paul on CBR's The Comic Wire about Aqua Leung. Go check it out!

Awakening #4 took only 5 hours to letter

2008-03-03T04:23:00.002+01:00

So, it seems that the GFT speed wasn't a fluke. Depending on the amount of copy and my familiarity with the artists, it seems that I can beat the 7 hour average for 24 pages by roughly 2 hours. Nice!

I should say that Grimm Fairy Tales #24 was rather quick to letter because it had less copy than usual, so that's where the 30 minutes lead on Awakening #4 comes from.

Interview with "The Boy Who Made Silence" creator Joshua Hagler on NEWSARAMA!

2008-02-29T17:52:00.003+01:00

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=148527

The interview is with creator Joshua Hagler who lets me help him letter this cool 10 issue mini series about a boy who lost the ability to hear but becomes something of an enigma in his home town.

Includes many a cool picture. Go check it out! This is a fine arts comic you won't want to miss. It won the Xeric Grant in 2006.

New personal lettering record

2008-02-21T04:39:00.001+01:00

4 hours and 30 minutes to letter the 22 pages of Grimm Fairy Tales #24 from Zenescope.

Printers with non-resumable, web based file uploads. GAH!

2008-02-11T22:54:00.001+01:00

Today is printfile upload day at AAM/Markosia. We have a total of four books going to print this month which total 352.3MB - actually, it's probably gonna be more like 450MB, but one interior file goes up later.

Anyway, our printer has this nice web interface where you select your files, put in the job ID, company, and reply to email, and then woosh, it goes up to their server.

Except there's no "woosh" involved whatsoever.

First off, the interface can't deal with Firefox. I have to switch to IE or get my uploads canceled after a mere 10MB. Fortunately, you can emulate IE with an extension in Firefox.

Next, while I have a maximum upload speed of 125kb/s, this server caps me at around 30kb/s. So I'm twiddling my thumbs for the longest time while this shit goes up, and have to listen to this weird "clicking" noise every time a chunk is successfully transferred.

So then it was a few hours later, and I checked the stupid window. 97.8% were done. And what happens? My internet cuts out during the remaining 2.2% and I have to start all over again!

I usually prefer to get everything up at once so nothing gets lost, but now I decided to split this upload into two sessions. Which will have me up half the night while I've got a rather high fever.

Good times!

Another Starship Troopers #5 review - and this time I'm credited!

2008-02-05T13:36:00.001+01:00

http://www.whatevercomics.co.uk/news/Archives/feb08/batseyeviewst.htm

Starship Troopers #5

Bad Blood Part 1

By Cy Dethan, Paul Green & Thomas Mauer.

“Shame me, and I will piss bullets down your throats until you are very, very sorry”

And with dialogue like this you sure as hell know you are in for a ride.

Apparently this is not only the first published work for Cy Dethan but
also for artist Paul Green, and this effort is something that they
should both be very proud of, I know I would be.

The writers dialogue seems to have a really nice flow to it and at no
time did I find myself flipping back a couple of pages to see if I had
somehow missed something, it tells the story with the minimum of fuss
but also with a certain flair that makes me wonder “ if this is what he
is capable of while working within the tight perimeters of a licence
then what is he capable of given a complete free hand” time will tell,
and from what I have seen so far the future is bright, and we may well
have another Miller, Brubaker, Bendis, Ellis on our hands.

On to the art.

The first thing that strikes me about Paul’s art is how shinny it
is, it as if its lit up with hidden lights, I could have sworn that it
would glow in the dark, but it doesn’t, I tried it, the art is very
cool, and doesn’t seem to lend anything from anyone else, although I am
sure others will be lending from Paul before long.

As a sum up, the whole comic comes across as a labour of love
rather than a page rate grind, and the only gripe I had was the it all
ended to soon, I want more damm it, more.

Now on to a score, bearing in mind that this is a first published
work, and that it is working within the perimeters of a licence I am
going to give it a solid…

9/10

Woohoo! First Starship Troopers #5 review!

2008-02-04T18:03:00.001+01:00

http://www.comicsvillage.com/review.aspx?reviewID=126

While investigating Anachnid activity, Elite Pathfinder platoon, Vanuakens Vandals discovers much more than they expected.

New writer Cy Dethan and new artist Paul Green take the reigns for Markosia's flagship comic Starship Troopers. Cy Dethan clearly has a different take on the Starship Troopers franchise than Tony Lee and whereas I felt Lee tried to focus on human emotions, Dethan seems to be expanding the universe.

Which, at this point, is exactly what the comic needed. Dethan is clearly trying to go beyond the original premise of the book and the movies and create an expanded vision. He's right to do so. The comic was in danger of becoming stagnant, but bringing in new species, units and people, Dethan manages to push the comic forward in new directions.

In addition, his writing is good. Nothing here makes me doubt that Dethan is a good fit for the writing duties on the title.

Now to the art. The art is absolutely beautiful! The artist takes his stylish line art to the next level with the use of computer technologies for things like mist and light beams but somehow he manages not to overdo it and create a overly glossy soulless style.

In places, the artwork is absolutely breathtaking.

All in all, it's an auspicious start to the new look Starship Troopers. I was going to give it a 9, but I think I'll upgrade it to a 10.

10

PopGun vol. 1 reviewd on G4's Attack of the Show!

2008-02-02T01:49:00.001+01:00

http://www.g4tv.com/pile_player.aspx?video_key=20053

"You'll want to buy this for the art, not for the writing" is a weird thing to say, but fuck it. This plug made PopGun the #3 Image book on Amazon and we're at around place 11,000 of roughly 5,000,000 books offered on their site. Nice!

Also, toward the end of the clip, you can see the first page of Deadeye with the dead nun. That means I was on Attack of the Show, sort of. :D

PopGun vol. 1 reviewed by The Onion A.V. Club!

2008-01-21T13:22:00.001+01:00

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/72771

"Anthology fans will find a lot more variety and accessibility in Image's mammoth "mix-tape" Popgun Volume One, which reads like a 450-page answer to Villard's lovely Flight collections. The contents run from extended stories like Derek Hunter's 15-page Powerpuff Girls-esque goofy-girl-hero comic Gamma Rae to one-page posters and smirking faux-ads like Danny Hellman's sly, smirking ant-farm solicitation. While there are some kid-friendly stories, the tone runs generally darker, with ninja battles, noir murder mysteries, ghosts, vampires, monsters, zombies, and robot-on-robot violence cropping up amid the odd, alternative superheroes. Virtually all the work is colorful, entertaining, and immediate, with a strong sense of experimentation and play throughout; it's hard, in this rich an environment, for any one work to stand out. But Andy Kuhn's "Mexican Wrestler Funnies," in which two wrestlers trade Monty Python-esque barbs like "It is I who will make love to your corpse, with a Waring blender… set to puree!" is pretty hilarious, and Adrian Dominguez and Matthew Weldon's anime-influenced teen-hero story "Ellie Saves The World" is particularly gorgeous. But then, the wide variety of tones and visual styles guarantees something for just about everyone… A-"

Today was a good day

2008-01-18T11:36:00.001+01:00

...and I only got up 1.5 hours ago!

Got some awesome news from CB this morning. More to come as it develops, but it'll make a lot of people happy. A LOT of people.

Oh yeah, I'm also lettering "The Piper" and "Snow White Rose Red" for Zenescope Entertainment's Grimm Fairy Tales this month. Kinda curious to see if this will lead to more work at Zen. The first five penciled pages for "The Piper" are TIGHT!

Also, I'm one email away from closing on a job that will reunite me with the talented Thomas Boatwright on a 48 page one-shot.

And then I got an email from Atomic Robo/Killer of Demons colorist Ronda Pattison asking me if I'm interested in lettering for one of her clients. I told her yes, so we'll see what happens there.

I'm also expecting to hear more good news over the course of the day and next week.

Good things come to those who wait, and I've been toughing it out. At this very moment, life is great.

Font creation is a tedious task

2008-01-11T06:02:00.000+01:00

Who would have thought this could take so long?

So I wrote out this alphabet for "TV Dinner Assassin" with a 1.1mm fountain pen, scanned it at 1200dpi, and cleaned it up in Photoshop, saving as Bitmap. Sounds straight forward enough, right? The letters looked pretty clean to me.

Well, when I Live Traced them in Illustrator with the Lettering setting, all those stupid letters turned otu to be really complex. I'm talking 150 anchor points per letter minimum, and curves that are all over the place, recreating the aliasing effects and every little bit of unclean curve in vector graphics. Swell.

So now I have to resize and adjust two upper case alphabets for this one font and it's taking forever. After finishing with A - D (8 characters total), I called it a day.

That shit's boring, yo!

Well, I have to get through it so lettering can start on the first issue. I'll do two versions of the font: One with all those imperfections intact, yet all serifs properly adjusted, and one based on this final version where I simplify the curves and get the anchor points down to the bare minimum. Should be interesting to compare and contrast.

I've got to talk to JP and sit down each day to work on a few of those characters till it's done. Hopefully it gets faster soon.

One thing's for certain: I need to buy a graphics tablet so that I can draw out alphabets directly in Photoshop (or maybe even Illustrator. We'll see). That way, the scan won't produce shitty aliasing because of paper roughness.