Zub Tales

I was a guest on Fearless Fred (DJ at 102.1 The Edge)’s Fredcast a couple weeks ago and it’s now up online for your listening enjoyment. I reminisce at length about how I started in comics and how that journey is still continuing.

Sky Kid #3 has been released over on ShiftyLook:

along with a new blogpost I wrote all about World War I biplanes.

I finally had a chance last night to sit down and fully go through an advanced copy of Omar Dogan’s Girl Seven art book. It arrives in stores next month and, if you’re a fan of anime artwork, the UDON studio or Omar personally then you’re in for a treat.

Omar and I have known each other since college. We’ve worked together at three different companies, were roommates for a while, collaborated on the Street Fighter Legends: Ibuki mini-series and have traveled together to probably a dozen different cities for conventions. He’s the guy who introduced me to Erik Ko (head of UDON) and got me in at the studio 9 years ago. Last year I was able to repay the favor and bring him into Seneca College as a digital painting instructor in the Animation program and he’s done a wonderful job working with the students, pushing their skills.

Needless to say, I’m pretty biased when it comes to Omar and his artwork. Even still, I can’t properly explain to all of you how proud I am to see him with an art book all his own, pouring all his skills into these images and breaking through to a new level at the same time.

Girl Seven has been Omar’s pet project for just over a year. He set some ground rules for himself with it:

– He’d create all new artwork for the book.
– Each piece would have physical original line art (pencil line work or ink) and then digital colouring/adjustment.
– Once a piece was completed he wouldn’t go back and adjust it. The book would chart his growth as an artist over a year.

That’s exactly what he did. Not that I was surprised. Omar is absolutely one of the most dedicated and hard working artists I’ve ever worked with. He sets tasks for himself and carries through on them every time. When I first met him that intensity intimidated the heck out of me but, as time went on, I found it more and more inspiring. He’s a man of his word and an incredibly hard worker. When we teamed up for the Ibuki mini-series I never had to worry about where the book was at or how good it was going to look. He followed the script, enhanced the story and comedy beats I’d worked in and then rendered it all beautifully. That’s what you get when you work with Omar and having him on a project means I can concentrate on everything else.

We’ve both grown and changed a lot since college, finding our way in the art/creative business. We’re both married and he has two kids. Somehow, through all the craziness, we became adults who get to work in this business on comics, video games, toys and movies. It’s amazing to me when I get a moment to step back and think about it.

Next month you’ll get to buy your own copy of Girl Seven. It’s Omar’s “level up”, a time capsule of his art that means a great deal to him. I’m proud to see it, proud to work with him and proud to be at a company where artists can fulfill their crazy nerdy dreams.

• Namco’s Shiftylook website launches today, which means the first page of my new webcomic series Sky Kid is live! Click on through to check it out and also read the launch blog post I wrote while you’re there.

• Over at the Skullkickers online site, it’s one of my favourite scenes from issue #2 as our boys extract info from a captive in their own special culinary way.

• Makeshift Miracle chapter 4 continues as Colby heads to school contemplating how he’d explain the amazing events that happened to him the night before.

• Over on the Comic Book Bin I chatted at length about creator-owned creations, webcomics, publishing and more.

• On Saturday and Sunday I’ll be at the Toronto Comicon set up at Table A71. Come by, say “hi” and snag a convention exclusive poster, get a sketch or get books signed. It’s going to be a fun weekend.

At this weekend’s Toronto Comicon I’ll be at TABLE A71.

I’ll have some of the Skullkickers convention exclusive map posters, variant covers and trades on hand.

Come by and say “hi”!

I haven’t had time to post anything here in over a week. Last weekend I flew out to San Francisco/Oakland to take part in the Image Comic Expo, celebrating 20 years of Image Comics. The show was really fun. A small but well focused comic-centric convention where creators were put at the forefront and fans were in abundance. Sales were good, the social was great and Edwin and I had a great weekend and solid kick-off to the 2012 convention season.

I stayed a few extra days in San Francisco, went to the Image head office, visited friends and saw a little bit of the city. Looking at all the work piling up that may not have been the wisest move but it was a nice little breather in any case.

Now that I’m back, it’s been all about climbing the work wall. Methodically dealing with email threads that need to be wrangled, uploading and organizing tons of files and keeping the many project plates spinning until they’re complete. Some aspects of it are exhausting, but it’s also pretty damn exciting; A fun mix of client and personal work all moving along rapidly, relentlessly. Here’s hoping I can keep up the pace. If I don’t get a chance to post on here again for a while, now you know why.

Brigid Alverson over at Robot 6 has posted up a two part interview all about webcomic projects I’ve been working on. This first half covers 1 month of Skullkickers online and how that’s going so far. The second is all about the work UDON and I are doing on the Namco-Bandai project called ShiftyLook.

Click on through and give them a read:

Talking With Jim Zub Part 1 – Skullkickers Breaks a Half Million Pageviews in 1 Month

Talking With Jim Zub Part 2 – What’s Up With Shifty Look

Tomorrow morning I’m on a plane to Oakland, California to get set up for this weekend’s Image Expo. The convention season starts earlier than ever and it’s a bit exhausting, but I am really looking forward to hanging with Edwin at our booth, seeing friends, fans and engaging new readers.

Weirdly enough, I’m also kind of looking forward to 4 hours of uninterrupted writing time each way on the flight. The barrage of emails and phone calls lately has made it hard to concentrate.

You can read all the con details here if you’d like.

If you’re coming to the show, swing by TABLE 51 and say “hi”!

The world of Image Comics’ action-comedy fantasy series SKULLKICKERS has never been defined… until now!

Professional Cartographer/Illustrator Mike Schley, working with comic series creator Jim Zub has created a stunning 18″ x 24″ fantasy map of the world of Skullkickers and the first place you’ll be able to purchase this convention-exclusive poster is at this weekend’s Image Comics Expo.

Whether you’re a SKULLKICKERS fan, a fantasy reader, an RPGer or just love incredibly detailed worlds of fiction, this high quality poster is going to knock you out.

The new project I’ve been working on for Namco-Bandai is starting to emerge… Keep your eyes on the Shifty Look website for teasers and, eventually, content aplenty.

EONS ago, in a time when glorious rivers of quarters flowed from pizza parlors aplenty, the great arcade characters of old ruled the universe. But as the times changed with the rise of the cartridge, the disc, and finally telepathy, and the people stopped paying lifeblood tribute of sweat and metal, all but a handful of these characters were forgotten, many thought lost the ages. ShiftyLook, through the unlimited power of the web, exists to excavate the buried treasures of the NAMCO BANDAI Group, bringing back to life characters once thought consigned to a lonely oblivion.

Other details starting to emerge at news sites including Bleeding Cool, IGN, ICV2, Destructoid and About.com.