Lately I’ve become preoccupied with being a comics creator. You know, writing and drawing cartoons and other funny stuff. Much of my time has been spent sketching and writing notes. Lately I’m concentrating on the digital side of art. I’ll scan my inked sketches and attempt to color them. They’re pretty crude but I’m learning.

The rest of my free time has been spent observing artists I admire. One of my biggest inspirations these days is writer and illustrator Roger Langridge. He’s best known as the man behind The Muppet Show and current Popeye series. Langridge has such a fun vibe to his work while also being technically precise. Some people say he reminds them of legend Carl Barks. I cannot disagree.

Recently Langridge posted this inked sketch on his blog. The individual who commissioned the work was not me but it easily could have been. The piece combines a favorite subject of mine, The Muppets, with the vintage Marvel Comics series I avidly collect, Marvel Team-Up.

Since I started collecting comic books in the early ’80s, I’ve been in love with Marvel Team-Up. I preferred the tidy, self-encapsulated storylines. There was no need to religiously follow each issue like you do with episodic series. The issues paired Spider-Man (usually) with another random hero in tights. It was a great way to sample the Marvel legion.
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I don’t post movie news/rumors as much as I used to around here, and I’m glad, because all the rumors of who was in the lead for Star Lord/Peter Quill in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy turned out wrong. I’ve got a Character Guide coming very soon for Guardians and I’ve been familiarizing myself with the characters more lately, and I think Chris Pratt was a great choice.

From what I’ve heard, Guardians is going to be a more funny and unique Marvel movie, and Pratt can do funny and serious very well. I saw him in Moneyball before I even started watching Parks and Recreation and since then he’s been in a ton of stuff, including the awesome Zero Dark Thirty.

I think the rest of the casting news for this movie will be pretty interesting too. Not many people in the general movie-going world have heard of Guardians and they’re going to have to try a little harder to bring people in. Having Iron Man cameo would help, and I’m sure having Jim Carrey and/or Adam Sandler would help bring people in too.

This makes me want Aziz Ansari as the voice of Rocket Raccoon.

How much do you want to bet we’ll see Peter Quill pop up in a short post-credits teaser in one of the movies coming soon?

Via SlashFilm

I swear I didn’t plan this, but on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day we’re kicking off our week of Marvel Phase 2 Character Guides with Falcon, mainstream comics’ first African-American superhero. For some reason I always thought that title belonged to Luke Cage, but I was wrong. I’ve had a passing understanding of Falcon as a member of the Avengers in various shows I watched as a kid, but I knew I wanted to brush up his history before he debuts on the big screen in Captain America 2: The Winter Solider.

As with the rest of the character guides this week, this should give you a brief overview of the character, show you how he’ll fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and then point you in a few different directions so you can learn more, like I’ll be doing.
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Even though I’ve been hooked on comics lately, I still only consider myself a casual comic book fan. When I was fifteen or so, I read a lot of graphic novels and religiously bought new issues of Wizard Magazine, but I didn’t make it to comic book shops often enough (or have the money) to keep up with ongoing stories. When you take into account the decades and decades of history most of the major superheroes have now, not to mention all the reboots and parallel timelines it can be overwhelming to get into a new character.

Being way more of a movie buff than a comic one, I am a huge fan of what Marvel has done with their Cinematic Universe. Iron Man was a big surprise, and although The Incredible Hulk was just alright and Iron Man 2 was a disappointment, the shared universe really picked up steam when Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers all came out within a year of each other.

With Phase 2 of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe kicking off in a few months with Iron Man 3, I’ve been wanting to prepare and learn about all the new characters that will be on screen. With Phase 1, I knew the backstories of all the characters but this time around things are getting a little more obscure.

Phase 2 Character Guides

So, I decided to do some research on the main new characters in Phase 2 and share it with you all, as well as open it up for discussion. I’m sure there are plenty of comic book nerds out there who can point us in the right direction as far as what we should read before seeing the new movies. These won’t be histories or biographies. Think of them more like bibliographies. A collection of stuff I’ve found that should help better understand the characters.

So, throughout the next few months we will be looking at different characters from the next batch of Marvel movies, which are:
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Ever since LEGO announced they had the Marvel license, the whole world has been clamoring for a LEGO Marvel Superheros video game. Luckily for us, it’s coming, and it’s coming relatively soon. Come fall 2013 you’ll be able to waste hours and hours collecting studs as a whole slew of Marvel characters. Yes please.

There’s just something about what Traveller’s Tales has done with these games. Not every one is great, but some are really awesome. I don’t even want to know how many hours I’ve spent playing LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

To hold you over, TT has released a trailer on YouTube.
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