Olympians Boxed Set-- Countdown! Megapost Number 2- ATHENA: GREY-EYED GODDESS

In 7 days, on October 7th, the new boxed set of the first 6 Olympians books is officially released.
That's six volumes, and a poster, so for each day leading up to the 7th I'll release a post detailing sketches, anecdotes, alternate drawings-- whatever I can find, really, for one of the books in the series. Today, I'll cover the second book in the series,  Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess

I always knew that I wanted to follow up Zeus: King of the Gods immediately with a book on Athena, for many reasons. One, it was good to follow up the adventures of the manly king of the gods with some stories of a totally butt-kicking goddess. Two, I wanted to get a story in there about a second generation Olympian right off the bat, and Athena kicked the most butt. And thirdly, lest you think that all my reasoning will boil down to Athena kicking butt, I got to resolve the story of Metis, Athena's mother, which was a major subplot of Zeus: King of the Gods.

We should call this book Athena the Cross-eyed Goddess. AmIright?

 Work on Athena began immediately after I finished Zeus, really, concurrently, as I was writing it while still coloring Zeus. We wanted to show potential readers we had a string commitment to this series by releasing the first two volumes right after another. Athena benefitted from this in that a lot of the trying to figure out what the series was going to look like was hashed out on Zeus. That's not to say we still didn't have a lot to work out, as evidenced by the first cover sketch above.

No matter where you stand in the room, her grey eyes follow you.

That was a not-very-good drawing, so I reworked it to the above. I still think this is a very striking piece, and I'm sorry sometimes we never went this route

 By this point though we had worked out the design for the cover of Zeus, so we felt it important that future volumes in the series match that look to carry a uniform feel. The cover was the first piece of finished artwork I did for athena, as it had to be printed on the back of Zeus (along with the covers of Hera and Hades, tales for another day).

Here it is in pencils.

and inks.

pretty.

and in almost sorta final colors. Remember yesterday how I mentioned I was still figuring out my color sense? When Mark Siegel saw this background color choice, he laughed, and upon seeing my face was like ,"Oh, you're serious about that?"

By the time I got to Poseidon I was basically drawing my dummies with burst sticks on toilet paper. I'm hardly exaggerating.

I think we've just about covered covers (ha!). Remember yesterday when I showed you the very detailed and sumptuous ink roughs for the dummy of Zeus? Oh what a difference one book makes. Above is an example of the dummy for Athena, detailing my favorite part of the book, her battle against Pallas, the leader of the Gigantes.

Since we had worked out so much of the details for the series by this point, I don't have as much false-start stuff to show you, so I figured I'd share some sketch work as I developed my take on the characters. Above are two shots of Athena wearing a very short skirt. Initially, I basically had her dressed like a male soldier, not realizing how important the weaving side, and her accompanying long robes, are to her character. Athena would never flash that much skin

Too bad she's not looking up.

 I mean, look how scandalized she looks here! The very idea!

Athena needs to learn how to iron.

I maybe overcompensated with the robes by the time I got to this drawing.

I'm leaning towards goofy.

Some early design ideas for Medusa. I can't decide if the face on the left is totally goofy or else the most terrifying thing I've ever drawn.

That image of Athena is probably the last thing Pallas ever saw.

Pallas, the leader of the Gigantes, arrived pretty much full-formed. Going through my sketchbooks he was always a big scaly goat-gorilla monster.

The original is in the Louvre.

This is a 'jam' piece I did with cartoonists Pascal Dizin, Mike Cavallaro and Leland Purvis. We had a signing together at the wonderful Bergen Street Comics and this is the art we created together for the postcard to promote it. If you have one of those postcards, it's worth approximately 4 billion dollars now.

That's all folks! Check back tomorrow for Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory.

Olympians Boxed Set!

Just returned home to a strange envelope in my breezeway. Opened it up and, lo and behold, my very own copy of the new Olympians boxed set! Volumes 1-6, plus the poster, in one awesome slipcase.  Very exciting!

Signing at Casablanca Comics!

The wonderful folks at Casablanca comics in Portland, Maine are hosting a signing with me this Saturday, October 1st. I'll be signing copies of Zeus, Athena and  Hera, doing drawings and sharing sneak peeks of upcoming volumes of Olympians. The fun begins at 11:00 AM and goes to 2:00 PM. If you find yourself in the neighborhood you should, like totally, stop by.

Casablanca Comics is at 151 Middle Street, in Portland, ME 04101. Click here for directions, or give them a a call at (207) 780-1676. See you there!

You win some, you lose some...

Well, the preliminary list is up, and it looks like Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess didn't make the ALA's Notable Children's Book List for 2011. A disappointment to be sure, but one slightly mitigated by Zeus: King of the Gods making Yalsa's Great Graphic Novels for Teens list this morning.

Athena has been nominated for the 2011 ALA Notable Book List!

The last such of these posts I'll put up today, I promise, but this is some very exciting news for me! The American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the world, puts out a yearly list of Notable Books and Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess is in the running! That's some exciting, exciting news for yours truly. Check out the full list here; Athena is nominated in the non-fiction Folklore category.

The ALA is holding their Midwinter Meeting in sunny San Diego this weekend, and everybody who's everybody in kids books will be there (well, except me, I'll be in frigid NYC). All of the shortlisted books will be read and evaluated by the committee members, and the final list will be released on Monday, January 10th. I hope Athena makes it on!

Athena is a Cybil award finalist!

The Cybils (The Childrens' and Young Adult Blogger Literary Awards) recently announced the finalists for their 2010 awards and Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess is on the middle-grade graphic novels list! This is an amazing honor, made more so by the fact that I'm in some pretty serious competition with a host of my favorite graphic novelists, like Raina Telgemeier,  Aaron Renier, and Colleen AF Venable ( In her other life as First Second's Book Designer par excellence, Colleen also designed Athena! Small world!).

As the above are also some of my favorite people, I consider it to be an honor just to nominated amongst such terrific company, and will be happy no matter who wins, BUT... I will say this. The actual winner of the Cybils gets an amazing engraved pen, and, man, I would LOOOVE that pen :).

If I am lucky enough to win the Cybil, man, I do hereby vow to draw some pretty pictures with that pen.

Athena Made SLJ's Best Books of 2010 List!

The staff at the School Library Journal just released their list of the best fiction books of 2010 and my book about everyone's favorite Grey-Eyed Goddess was on it! Check out the rest of the list here!

Zeus and Athena Reviewed at Aint It Cool News

Its been a while since I've posted a review of one of my books here, but when one crops up on a site I'm a regular reader of, well, I just have to. Venerable movie news site Aint It Cool News runs a weekly + comic section, and in the latest installment, way down toward the bottom in the Indie Jones subsection (y'know, where the cool comics get their due) is a double shot review of both Zeus and Athena. Please give it a look!

Giant Athena/Zeus Release Party!

So what are you doing May 1st? WRONG! You're going to come to the gigantic book release party we're having at the best comics shop in the known universe, Bergen Street Comics! In addition to me and my own books, Zeus: King of the Gods and Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess, I will be joined by Mike (Foiled) Cavallaro, Pascal (City of Spies) Dizin, and Leland (Resistance Book 1) Purvis.

Our release party starts at 7, and there will be refreshments and stuff, but kids and kids-at-heart should join us earlier at 5 for games (like, Make Mike Cavallaro Cry, What's Pascal Eating Now, and Pin The Tail on The Purvis) and a general celebration of Free Comic Book day (our books will NOT be free, but we will have free materials that are way cool). Plus-- anyone who buys one of our book will be entered into a drawing to win the original black and white artwork for the jam piece above, by all 4 creators! Snap!

Athena is out today! Run! Now!

So if you're the sort of person who enjoys making their comics purchases in a bookstore or online, today is the day that Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess is released! Woot!

If you're more of a comics shop traditionalist, you will be able to find Athena tomorrow at all finer comics shops with the normal Wednesday comics shipment.

A comparison and contrast between Clash of the Titans and Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess

J. Caleb Mozzocco, of Newsarama fame, recently ran a very interesting comparison/ review of the new Clash of the Titans (opened last weekend, number one film)and the Perseus segment of my own Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess, due out next week. I'm a huge fan of the original film, though there are certain inaccuracies in it that drive the mythophile in me crazy (I'm looking at you, Kraken), but I haven't seen the new version yet, mainly due to the "meh" reviews it's been getting. Give it a click to read what Caleb has to say!

Of special note: he gives a shout out to my old Marvel Namor tryout pages, featured on this very site, which contain the first appearances of my design for Cetus, the monster (not Kraken! He's Norse!) that terrorizes the beautiful princess Andromeda.

New Title for The Glory of Hera!

Well, it will be almost a year until the book hits stores (not like Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess, out next week, but the book formerly known as The Glory of Hera will now officially be known as Hera: The Goddess and her Glory. The folks in sales thought it was important that we continue the naming style we had established so far with Zeus: King of the Gods and Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess, with the god or goddess's name first, followed by subtitle. Certainly when all twelve volumes are completed, it will look nicer this way, and help people to find the separate volumes easier.

I'm still hard at work coloring Hera: The Goddess and her Glory but let me tell you-- so far it's my favorite of the series. In addition to telling the story of the courtship and wedding of Zeus and Hera, you also get to see the story of Io, the Twelve Labors of Heracles, meet Jason and the Argonauts and see what happens on that mysterious day every year when Hera abandons her position as the wife of Zeus and Queen of the Gods. Cool stuff, if I may say so myself.

Now one of these days I'm going to go through this blog and change the three million references to Zeus: Father of the Gods to Zeus: King of the Gods. Titles!

MOCCA fest in NYC!

Hey, if you're in the NYC area this weekend and are a fan of some of the best comics art there is, come on down to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's annual Art Festival! There will be tons of great stuff to see, and yours truly will be signing copies of Zeus, Athena, Ball-Peen Hammer, Journey into Mohawk Country, and whatever else you stick in front of me at the First Second Booth on Sunday at 2 pm. Hope to see you there!

Olympians Book 2: Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess out soon!

On or around April 13th, I believe, you'll be able to get your very own copy of Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess at your favorite bookstore, comic shop or etailer. In honor of this momentous occasion, and also as a nod to the new Clash of the Titans movie that just came out, here is a preview of one of my favorite pages from Athena, a wordless section depicting Perseus and Medusa. Enjoy!

This Is Why it Pays to Have a Good Editor, part the second

A while ago I did a post about why great editors are a good thing to have, and here's another reason-- They do interviews that thousands of people will read and say nice things about you. Click here, pleasely, to read an interview at Comic Book Resources with First Second editorial Team Supreme Mark Siegel and Calista Brill.

In addition to saying nice things about Olympians, they also give some shouts out to the new books by my studio neighbors Leland Purvis and Mike Cavallaro. Please give it a read!

Book Club Discussion of Zeus at Good Comics 4 Kids!

Six different bloggers weigh in on Zeus: King of the Gods at the Good Comics for Kids website over at SLJ. It's a pretty cool piece, with discussions on the randiness of Zeus, speculation on Hera and Athena, and Greek myth baseball cards. One line to sum it up? "For the most part, this book club meeting has been a love-fest." Well, gawrsh. Please check it out.

Olympians interview on Comic Book Resources

Please click here to read a rawther extensive interview with yours truly over at Comic Book Resources about Olympians and other exciting things.

Olympians Rule preview

Just a little preview of an image I created for the soon-to-be launched Olympiansrule.com website. Enjoy!

Perseus and Medusa

Just so it's not all about zombies and Beatles this morning, here's a colored page of the mostly wordless Perseus and Medusa section of Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess. Devotees of Journey into Mohawk Country will note that I seem to have a predilection for wordless sequences amongst tall vertical objects. Don't believe me? Check pages 123-130 of your handy Mohawk Country reference copy, doubtless at your side as you read this. I think this may be my thing.

Olympians Rule!

So as part of the promotion for the upcoming series Olympians (first book in January! Second book in April!) First Second and I am working on a website, olympiansrule.com. Here's a preview of an image I created especially for the site.