Alright, so I am still looking for an artist on the book. Bummer. BUT, as I hunt down and capture someone and force them to draw me pretty pictures, I have decided to draw the seven page short story, “Look Before You Leap” starring Stamp: The Cricket. Once that short story is complete I will post it here for all of you to read. Don’t worry, you wont have to save up your pennies, it’ll be free!

Until then, you can follow Stamp: The Cricket on GOOGLE+ and FACEBOOK! I have also set up an Instagram page for Stamp: The Cricket. So if you want to look at photos of the progress of the book, search for the username CRICKETCOMIC.

Thanks gang and see you in the near future!

**UPDATE**

As things start moving forward on the book, I want to make sure that everyone is in the loop, so I have created a Facebook Page. Head over to Facebook and “LIKE” Stamp: The Cricket!!

facebook.com/TheCricketComic

I will be posting Drawings, News, Fan Art and more fun stuff as we get further into the production of the book.

Look before you leap!

Ralph-

I have been busy for the past few months but things are starting to settle down and i am going to be spending a lot of time on the book. As you can see from the header, the name of the book has changed. I am not sure if this will be the final title of the book, but it will be something along these lines.

Last week Andrew sent me a page for the “Look Before You Leap” Cricket short story and it looks really incredible. If you head over to our Twitter page, you can see it as our new avatar. It also serves as the new sidebar image that you see to the right ->

As if getting amazing artwork last week from Andrew wasn’t enough, I also attended Comic Con and got this commission of The Cricket from Joëlle Jones:

“Joëlle Jones is a comic book artist. You may have seen her original Oni Press graphic novel 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, produced in collaboration with writer Jamie S. Rich. Their second team effort, the hardboiled crime graphic novel You Have Killed Me, was published by Oni in July 2009. Joëlle has also contributed to Sexy Chix, Shojo Beat, Fables, Popgun, Portland Noir, Madman Atomic Comics #16, the Dr. Horrible comic written by Zack Whedon, two issues of Madame Xanadu with Matt Wagner, and other comic book publications. She was the illustrator on the Minx/DC graphic novel Token, written by Alisa Kwitney and released in October of 2008, and is currently illustrating two full-length Young Adult comics for various publishers. Most recently, she co-created Spell Checkers with Jamie S. Rich and Nicolas Hitori de (Oni Press), and drew the Iron Man story in Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man #150, written by Brian Michael Bendis.”

Joëlle did a bang up job and when the book eventually gets published, I will be sure to add this image as an extra. Follow Joëlle on her blog HERE and her Twitter page HERE.

Ralph-

My good friend Chad Blakely was nice enough to take some time off working hard on his graphic novel, “Kidnapping Kevin Smith” , to send us this awesome drawing of The Cricket leaping into action!

Be sure to check out Chad’s book and more of his great artwork at ChadBlakely.Blogspot.Com

Thanks a ton, Chad!

Ralph-

If you would like to submit your own Cricket Fan Art, email your drawing to
MAILBAG@THECRICKETCOMIC.COM

While Andrew has been hard at work making pretty pictures for the book, I have been hard at work doing my dumb day job. Since I would rather be doing the comic instead of web marketing for numbskulls, I decided to take a break and create a logo for The Cricket. I am not sure if this will be the final design for the logo, but I kind of dig it.

Let me know what you think!

Ralph-

My good friend Anna McDorman drew me this awesome dude on a post-it note, the last time in went into the comic book store that she manages. As you can see, he is The Hipster Bee and if I ever get to do a Comic Con issue of The Cricket, this Hipster will definitely BEE in the crowd!

Thanks Anna!

Ralph-

If you would like to submit your own Cricket Fan Art, email your drawing to
MAILBAG@THECRICKETCOMIC.COM

Last week i sent an early draft of The Cricket “book one” script to Andrew, so that he can sort of see where the “Look Before You Leap”  short fits into the larger scheme of things. After i sent it off to him, i decided it give it a read. I don’t think i had read that script in four years and i was surprised with how well it holds up for me. I was also surprised at how many errors there were in the damn thing.

First off, for some reason, every use of the word “the” was deleted from the script. I am not sure if you know this or not, but when people communicate “the” is used a lot. Another interesting thing i noticed was that i left out a lot of scene headings. So there is a lot of conversations that change locations without me conveying that information. I guess i did this script back when i thought i was going to do the art myself.

So last week i was at Toyota of Orange servicing my car and decided to update the old script. I haven’t gotten too far on it, but it will be completed sometime this week. Once i am done with that, i will begin writing “Book #2”. I am not sure what i am going to title the issue yet, but i am going to come up with something good. I promise.

Other than that, there is no real news to share. Andrew is working on “Look Before You Leap” and i am working on the second draft of book one of The Cricket which is titled “Down to Earth”.

Have a good week folks, be sure to submit your entries for “Fan Art Friday” and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

Look before you leap!

Ralph-

I know that The Cricket is still in its infancy, but we have gathered a few fans over on our TWITTER page and I thought it would be fun for the fans to show off their artistic skills here on the blog.

As you can see from the headline, this will be the home of “Fan Art Friday”. Anyone can submit their drawings of their favorite characters from The Cricket, or just send in a drawing of a character that you think would live in the same world as The Cricket. Send all your entries to MAILBAG@THECRICKETCOMIC.COM and we just may showcase your art! Who knows, maybe your character will make it in an issue of The Cricket!

To get the ball rolling, here is a drawing of The Cricket that I did a few years back. Enjoy and remember “Look Before You Leap!”

Ralph-

When i first approached Andrew for this project, we both agreed that it would be best not to jump directly into doing a full book. We thought that it would be best to test the waters a bit and start off by doing a short story. I took  a section from the first issue of The Cricket and created a five page scene titled “Look Before you Leap”.

“Look Before you Leap” is a way for us to fine tune the writing and artwork. I think it will help us in the creation of the world of The Cricket and set the right tone. It will also be a great test to see what kind of timeline we would be working with once we do the full book.

“Look Before you Leap” will also be great for shopping around to different publishers. I think that the story told in the five pages will really give the reader a sense of the relationship between two of the main characters, as well as give some insight to the type of dialogue and humor that will come from this odd couple of sorts.

Tonight i finished the first draft of “Look Before you Leap” and will be handing off the final version of the script to Andrew on Friday. I cannot wait to see what he has in store for us!

Stay tuned folks, the best has yet to come!

Ralph-

As you can tell from the sidebar of this blog, we have a Twitter account. Now you can follow all The Cricket news you can handle. Things are a bit slow right now, but they will pick up over the next couple months. Feel free to follow us @CRICKETCOMIC. If for some reason you hate my guts and just want to follow Andrew, you can do that @drscientifical.

Ralph-
@casinoskunk