Skullkickers #2 is in stores today!

Has it really been a month already? Time is flying incredibly fast.

With the issue #1 3rd print announcement coming after Final Order Cut-Off for issue #2, we’re expecting this new issue to vanish relatively quick as more readers jump on board the series.

Snag a copy when you see it at your favorite comic store today and let us know what you think!

Click through to see the best shots from our engagement photo set, taken in Guildwood Park by our photographer Stephen K. Lee. I can’t believe the wedding is this weekend.

Engagement Photos

MTV Geek has an exclusive extended preview of Skullkickers #2 posted up on their site. Click through to whet your appetite with action aplenty that picks up right where issue #1 left off. Late last week they also posted an overview article after chatting with us at NYCC.

Don’t forget – issue #2 arrives in comic book stores this Wednesday!

(Chatting with Chris’ mother)

Jim: “Yeah, Chris and I have travelled quite a bit together – Japan earlier this year, San Diego, New York a while ago…”

Chris: “Dude, that wasn’t a while ago. New York was last weekend.”

Jim: (stares dumbfounded)

Yeah, that sums up how crazy things have been as we sprint towards the wedding. Time is compressing and so many things have happened in such a short span that my brain calculated the New York trip further in the past. It feels like it was at least a month ago. I can’t explain it.

2010 will be a year that was experienced purely through motion blur.

If you didn’t get a chance to pick up Skullkickers #1 at your local comic shop 3 weeks ago, today is the day you can snag a copy of our 2nd printing!

We pushed hard to make sure the book showed up before issue #2 so new readers could jump on board and enjoy the ride.

Thanks, as always, for your support!

Zub and Edwin at NYCC

New York City Comicon was a complete success! Image brought 250 copies of our first issue to the show and we sold out of them all. It was awesome.

The response from fans, retailers and attendees at the show was incredibly positive. We’re pumped about issue #2 and the future of the series.

Beyond that, the show was insanely busy. Attendance was way up and the hall felt like it was bursting at the seams, especially on Saturday.

Seeing friends, meetings, panels, New York hustle and bustle. It was intense. The schedule I lined up and crowds everywhere made it tough to take many photos of the show, but I have posted some up on Facebook.

From here on the next couple weeks are focused on the wedding, with a side of wedding and some wedding on top. Stacy’s been incredible and patient with all this comic stuff but now it’s all about our upcoming special day and everything it represents.

Street Fighter Legends: Ibuki #4, the final issue, came out Sept 22nd. I’ve seen a few other people do commentary for comics they’ve worked on and I’ve found it fascinating so hopefully people who read and enjoyed the issue will feel the same way. If not, at least I’ll have some of my own thoughts about it organized in one place.

Older commentaries:
Issue #1
Issue #2
Issue #3

Street Fighter Legends: Ibuki #4

PAGE 1: Picking up moments after the cliffhanger from issue #3, our gang has been captured by the evil Geki clan. Omar wasn’t happy about drawing all those net lines, but he’s a trooper.

PAGE 2: When I was writing this scene I realized I’d put the girls in this net without knowing how I’d actually get them out. Makoto’s Tanden Renki rage became a great way to get the action going in a way that made sense.

PAGE 3: Makoto’s dash dragging everyone else in the net along for the ride was something I hoped people would get a kick out of. Even a large group of ninjas wouldn’t expect something weird like that.

PAGE 4: Yuta arrives just in time with tanuki (and the fox who also hangs with Ibuki according to canon background info) backing him up. The ridiculousness of the tanuki air ambush injects some comedy back in to things here.

PAGE 5: Elena gets to show off her incredible leg acrobatics and Ibuki rocks out her Sazan move. It’s important to give characters time to do their special stuff and let the reader revel in that.

PAGE 6: With all the plot lines rushing to finish this issue, we really packed it in. The characters don’t even have a moment to rest. It’s go time!

PAGE 7: Again, we didn’t have time to establish the start of the ninja war and cutting in to the midst of it cranks up the tension. Sanjou gets to fight a bit and Ibuki gets a dramatic save entrance.

PAGE 8-9: Then Omar rocks it all with this killer 2 page spread of the ninja war going wild. Everyone gets to look cool and show off their skills. If you look carefully in the back you can even see Sarai fighting the fires with a bucket of water.

PAGE 10: A big show-off page for our main characters. We’ve followed them for the past 3 issues and now it’s their time to kick major butt. The book is called Street Fighter, after all.

PAGE 11: Ibuki and her ninja family aren’t the only ones with smoke bomb tricks. The leader of the Geki being called Alpha is a bit of a joke, riffing on the ‘Street Fighter Alpha’ game title. We didn’t have space for it but I had an idea that Alpha’s bodyguard would be nicknamed “Turbo”.

PAGE 12-13: These flashback pages were the ones I was most worried about. It was one of the most important parts of my story pitch and the thing I knew we’d need to sell just right to Street Fighter fans.

Enjo has a claw weapon just like Geki does in Street Fighter 1 and I surmised that they could be from the same clan. So, if Enjo now has his own clan, he could be a renegade, someone the Geki want revenge upon. It was just a matter of taking the visual elements in the canon and tying them together. Extrapolating that further, then Enjo could be connected even deeper to Ibuki and she could have a past with the Geki. That would also explain why Enjo lets Ibuki keep modern things and lets her have extra contact with the outside world. He looks at her like an adopted daughter.

Anyways, I hope readers and Street Fighter fans liked this back story for Ibuki and that it works for them. I’m really proud of how it turned out and the great job Omar did with it.

PAGE 14: Some martial arts film-style drama here. Yay!

PAGE 15: I didn’t want this issue to turn in to Street Fighter Legends: Enjo, but given that Alpha and Enjo are the clan leaders they definitely needed their ‘moment’. I don’t think Ibuki is any less the hero for it, and she even helps Enjo escape the blaze here.

PAGE 16: We killed someone without being gory about it. It punctuates the battle’s end and makes it clear that these ninja are loyal to their leader… so when a new leader is found they fall in to line.

PAGE 17: Again, we had to squeeze in a lot so time fast forwards here. It’s interesting to wonder how the two clans joining would change the dynamic of the Glade. Would they still be assassins? Anyways, we’ve got more plot lines to cover…

PAGE 18: Ibuki gets her good-byes and Sarai joins the clan, lining up with her training in Ibuki’s Super Street Fighter IV ending. I think the last panel on this page is Omar’s best Don-chan drawing.

PAGE 19: And here we mix right in to Ibuki’s ending from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Whew… it took a while to get that all lined up! All the dialogue from panels 1-3 is taken from the game ending.

PAGE 20: The Dark Ninja from issue #1 is revealed! The 3rd Strike ending doesn’t explain how Ibuki got stuck doing more ninja training, so I wanted to play up the idea of next level education. In the same way you got to secondary school and then post-secondary college/university, whose to say ninjas wouldn’t do the same?

The Dark Ninja’s list of stuff Ibuki will learn to do is all shown as stills in Ibuki’s 3rd Strike ending, so that’s an in-joke. She really does do all of those eventually.

We also get a proper call back to the overarching theme of the mini-series: Ibuki is a teenager AND a ninja – she’s both at the same time.

PAGE 21: In my original outline that was it and the story was done. But, as I was going through everything again I realized that Makoto’s original combat challenge had never been dealt with, so I asked Erik for an extra page and nudged everything a bit tighter to make room for it. Our trio of female fighters get a final scene together and we wrap everything up with a bow.

PAGE 22: The fact that we get to show Ibuki’s newfound confidence makes it even sweeter. Also, I used a LOT of smoke bombs in this issue. They’re just too good not to.

PAGE 23: I wrote that Elena cheers on Ibuki and Makoto as they start their battle and Omar wonderfully added the clan watching from the cover of the nearby bushes. It’s a perfect ending.

—

With that, the Ibuki mini-series comes to a close. I hope you had a chance to read the issues and enjoy them. The collected trade paperback arrives in November and I can’t wait to have it all together in a single book.

I hope you found these behind-the-scenes notes entertaining. Thanks for reading!

I’m getting excited/nervous about New York Comicon coming up this weekend. The show is so much bigger than the last time I was there and it really does feel like San Diego Comicon Jr. at this point. I really hope it’s productive and fun, especially since it’s over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. It’s super strange being at a comic show but not setting up a booth for UDON.

Edwin Huang (the interior artist on Skullkickers) and I will be set up at the Image booth. We’ll have 1st and 2nd print copies of Skullkickers #1 for sale and people will be able to get their copy autographed on the spot. Edwin is also bringing a selection of original page art from the series to sell, which should be pretty cool.

Anyways, if you’ll be at the show I hope to see you there. If not, please wish me luck!

I know it feels lately like this blog is just a Skullkickers blog… I’ll try to calm that stuff down a bit, but I really did need to re-post this press release that just came out from Image:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Betsy Gomez
510-644-4980 x 26
betsygomez@imagecomics.com

A HEAD PUNTING KICK-OFF TO A HIT NEW IMAGE SERIES!
Second Printing of SKULLKICKERS #1 blazes through inventory before release, Third Printing on its way

Berkeley, CA – 4 October 2010 – After an early distribution-level sell out of the first printing of SKULLKICKERS #1, additional orders for the second printing have built far quicker than expected and Image Comics has authorized a rush third printing of the hit first issue to meet reorder demand!

SKULLKICKERS #1, written and drawn by newcomers Jim Zubkavich and Edwin Huang respectively, has whipped up excitement among readers of all stripes. The third printing of SKULLKICKERS, with a brand new cover by Chris Stevens and Saejin Oh, will arrive in stores October 27.

“Edwin, Misty and I are all unbelievably thrilled that retailers, readers and reviewers are responding so strongly to the first issue,” says Zubkavich “When you launch something new like this, you hope it will connect with an audience. We wanted to make a fun action romp and, from what we’re seeing, that’s what the market was ready for. Thank you, everyone!”

In SKULLKICKERS, two mercenaries are entangled in a high-class assassination plot, and nothing — not werewolves, skeletons or black magic — will stop them from getting paid. If you love fantasy, action-comedy, a touch of black-hearted violence and movies like ARMY OF DARKNESS then SKULLKICKERS is the book for you!

SKULLKICKERS #1 Third Printing (AUG108191), a 32-page full-color comic book for $2.99, will be in stores October 27, 2010. SKULLKICKERS #2 (AUG100490) arrives in stores one week earlier, on October 20. Follow the Skullkickers blog at www.skullkickers.com for sneak peeks and more. You can download a free preview of SKULLKICKERS using the Image Comics app from comiXology.

Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of five major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline, Skybound and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

It’s the home stretch before my wedding coming up. 3 weeks. I can’t believe it’s almost here. Exciting times indeed.

Saturday night was my bachelor party.

Chris organized an incredible evening. A big yellow school bus took a pile of us up to one of my favourite Asian restaurants and when we got there we met even more of our gang. A slew of friends and family came out for it, a big spread of guys I’ve known from high school, through college and in to my current career(s).

Remarking that my last name was a terrible one for me to impose on Stacy (I’m not actually, we’re keeping our respective last names), I was dubbed “Mr. King” for the evening and had a labelled shirt to make that extra clear, along with an appropriate crown. King for a day, if you will.

Dad brought some old mementos to the dinner – the stuffed Ernie from Sesame Street that I carried around until Kindergarten and some of the original comics I drew as a kid. Everyone got a big kick out of those.

From there we took our school bus over to Pacific Mall, where Chris pulled together quite the coup. The mall was closed for the night but security guards let us in (greeting me as “Mr. King”) and we were lead up the escalator to the arcade, which was specially left open with every machine put on ‘Free Play’.

“Hey, buddy. I got you an arcade for the night. Pretty cool, eh?”

Mind blowing and amazing.

More friends and co-workers met us there and much drinking and game playing ensued. We had a blast.

Afterwords we went for karaoke and busted out tunes. My memory gets spotty at this point. I know Erik and I sang a duet on a Carpenters song. Mr. Brightside was bellowed. I remember a squished car ride and crashing at a nearby hotel but quickly fell asleep after that. Still, I made it through the whole thing intact.

No strippers or awkward “lets watch the bachelor get shit-faced bit by bit” kind of stuff, just a really fun night out with a great group. It was exactly what I hoped it would be, yet I was completely surprised as each part unfolded. Brilliant.

Thanks to everyone who came out for the party. Thanks to Chris, Andrew, Erik and everyone else who helped organize the night. You guys are my closest friends and I cannot thank you enough for your friendship and support.