A sneak peek of tomorrow’s strip… Bill confronts the boss!

The fine folks at Comics Coast to Coast have posted Part 1 of my interview. We had a total blast. So much so, that we barely covered the deeper issues of comics and cartooning, so they’ll have me back this Thursday for more insanity! Keep an eye out!!

Went and got myself a new large (5.5×8.5) blank Moleskine to sketch in … I prefer the blank notebook one as opposed to the sketchbook one (which I also like, though) as it has more pages, and takes certain pens better. I’d love to hear from anyone else using these spendy lil’ beauties and what you think. Anyhoo, I christened the book with a quick sketch of the dark sorceress, Vasheeba, who will make an appearance in Legend of Bill after a bit… yep, the book works great!
-David

Tonight I will be the guest on “The Gigcast,” following on the heels of the week prior of my good pal and Tall Tale Features alum Lucas Turnbloom of “Imagine This,” where I will talk to JT and Scott about Legend of Bill, The Trek Life at STARTREK.COM, my 2 Roddenberry comic strips at Roddenberry.com, and Garfield, among other things!

Some artists just plain humble me. They inspire me to try and be better at what I do, and remind me of why I doodle in my sketchbook every day, practice constantly at my craft, and why I love this crazy biz we all love known as comics, animation, sci-fi, fantasy, ah, heck, just plain geeky-goodness. My good friend Izobel Carol is one of those people. She has created the most awesome piece of guest art “Izzy Style” of our Barbaric hero and (forthcoming) pink-haired princess (and lil’ Frank is in there too! ;-)) and it is my UBER-pleasure to share this with Legend of Bill readers!! Izzy is an amazing artist and animator, with a huge knowledge of anime, and has worked as a production artist and storyboard artist on none other than South Park, among other productions. Izzy also created the awesome banner art at SoulGeek.com (the gorgeous art for the mascots you see throughout the site), and has a guru column there as well (she’s the SoulGeek Artist!) You can read her columns if you become a member, as well as columns by my other friends Scott Kurtz, Crispin Freeman, Kris Straub, Ben Paddon and Jjar and others! A big thanks to Izzy, and for more on this amazing talent check out her site and a few of her short films at her website! Damn! We need to get some more of her art here at SoulGeek…

Tonight I will be BACK as a guest on Comics Coast to Coast, joining Brian, Justin and Tom again for more hilarity, hot on the heels of last week’s uber-fun podcast, where I will expand more on Legend of Bill and my official Star Trek work via The Trek Life in its various publishing forms, as well as my Roddenberry webcomics “Gene’s Journal” and “Rod and Barry!”

Julian from Spain has sent us a Spanish translation of Strip #3! Thank you, Julian, and greetings to you in Spain, my friend!

Another Princess Gina color sketch… Bill and Frank will meet her in the not-too-distant future… for adventure!!

It’s Worldwide D&D Game Day 2008 and today is also the launch of D&D 4th Edition! So, are you heading to your game shop and playing today? Above is a scanned image of my own original Dungeons and Dragons Players manual from the 80’s. Yep, I still have it. But that’s not all!

Next to it was my original Star Frontiers Starter book as well, put out around the same time as this particular D&D starter kit (well, 1982 to be exact), as a sci-fi alternative role-playing game for sci-fi fans. Naturally, I was a hardcore fan of both. I remember getting the little thin box the books (and maps, character info and such) came in for Christmas one year (yes, while most kids were asking for stuff like footballs, model cars and Red Ryder BB guns (haha), I wanted toy robots, Star Wars action figures and D&D!!!). I remember pulling out all the components, and immediately, I knew what I enjoyed the Most about the games… creating new characters. I LOVED to sit there and create all their abilities, their personality, and I’d ALWAYS draw them up of course. And I always loved the interior illustrations too. I immediately put up a radar for anything by Larry Elmore and Jeff Easley (and the radar is still up today for their work!)… and then Frank Frazetta, and Boris Vallejo, and Frank Kelly Freas, and well … you get the picture. I remember sitting in bed at night with yep, the ol’ flashlight, reading my game books and imagining my characters living out their lives. And I sought out other kids in school who did the same, and spent many a recess lost in imagination. And these games, their art, their imagination-sparking wonder, had a profound effect on me as a young kid from Indiana… and my universe expanded, I started hunting out sci-fi and fantasy novels (mainly for the covers, haha), and I was naturally already a voracious reader of comic books and comic strips, and my love of fantasy and science fiction, and the endless stories and wonder they provided was solidified. Ahh … memories.