Nick Marino

As a follow-up to the Time Log one-shot comic I released this spring, I'm doing a Time Log webcomic with Pete Borrebach, Shawn Atkins, Paige Shoemaker, and Justique Woolridge. The first installment of new material debuted today, so check it out!

So go buy a copy already!!!

I've been working hard on a TON of projects, including:

- the upcoming Time Log webcomic (only one more week to go!)

- the most recent (and final, for the time being) story arc on Super Haters

- a new opening theme for the Comic Book Pitt podcast (the song itself will be available on my next album, 7 Star Sky Flash Kick, due out whenever I have 13 original tracks mixed and mastered for release)

- Project Basement, a fan art collection of raw, energetic pieces

- coordinating the comics end of SPF 2010 (SPF as in Pittsburgh's Small Press Festival)

- contributing to the Sequential Underground Strip Club vol 1 (a rotating series of fast and fun comic strips)

- getting the Time Log one-shot into a ton of stores (shout outs to Dragon's Lair in San Antonio and Austin, Tribe in Austin, Atomic Comics in San Antonio, Alien Worlds in San Antonio, St. Mark's Comics in Manhattan NYC, Comicazi in Somerville MA, Hub Comics in Somerville, New England Comics in Cambridge, Copacetic Comics in Pittsburgh, and Phantom of the Attic Comics in Oakland/Pittsburgh -- all these shops picked up copies of Time Log to sell in their stores)

- and doing this Sleepwalker sketch for Ross because he took my Henry Poole is Here challenge:

I'm kinda stoked cause the long and hard journey of getting my comic book optimized and correctly uploaded to Amazon's Kindle store has finally been achieved. The Time Log one-shot is selling for $2.99 and looks great on both the Kindle DX and the iPad (thx to Neal for testing out the iPad version).

I think that I maybe posted about this before, but you can also buy Time Log digitally as a PDF from DriveThruComics, where it retails for $1.99.

As for future digital platforms, I'm still holding out hope that ComiXology or iVerse will get back to me (well, it's been a while, so I'm not holding out too much hope...) and I'm looking into some other non-conventional comics avenues. I think that the Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony Reader might also be in the cards for Time Log, as well as some other eReader devices.

If anyone knows about a good site or eBook device I should hook up with to sell Time Log, gimme a shout!

It's been a couple weeks since I tossed out an update, so here it goes:

- I finished scripting the second act of Pepper Jones, Adventure Scientist (remember the sample I posted from the first act?). The third act was practically written as a script, so all I need to do is break it into panels. This project is, for those who don't know, a digest-sized full-length graphic novel I'm co-writing with Shawn Atkins, who's also the artist:

- I've had a few story conferences with Pete Borrebach regarding the direction of our upcoming Time Log webcomic (launching in August!). Again drawn by Shawn, Pete and I thought that this story was locked down... until we went back and looked at the scripts we wrote three years ago and realized they needed to be completely overhauled. So overhauled we have! We should have the first few strips written by the start of June.

- Yeah, I shifted myself from one apartment to another over the weekend, but the real shifting is going on over in Super Haters. I bet everyone thought last week's ending was just a mindless joke, right? Well it may have been mindless but it wasn't a joke! Expect some... changes this week. (Here's last week's ending:)

- I've crossed the 15,000 word mark on my super-secret project (which is technically no longer a secret... you just need to know where to find it).

- And finally, I started stripping. Yep, over at Sequential Underground's Facebook page, the Strip Club is underway. It's a rotating cast of cartoonists telling one big semi-coherent story through a series of comic strips. Here's the first panel of my first contribution to Strip Club, Vol 1:

Okay, so not too long ago, I posted some updates about Time Log, my ten-years-in-the-making time travel epic. Now Time Log is here, and there are two awesome ways to get your copy!

- You can download Time Log at DriveThruComics for $1.99

OR

- You can buy a print copy of Time Log over at the AudioShocker Store for $4.00 (we take PayPal)

Reviewers, if you're interested in getting a review copy, email me at nickmarino @ gmail.com.

And for those of you who hate paying for things and/or love the copy of Time Log you purchased and want more, a Time Log webcomic will be launching on the AudioShocker in August. Keep a watch for more.

Pencils, inks, and panels, letters, and:

So close to finishing this damn comic!!! I'm almost there. I've got less than four pages of gray tones to go and I CAN'T WAIT TO BE DONE!!!!!! This is fun but also torture.

Anyway, I think this will be my last post of process art. Maybe I'll take a photo of the page when it's printed... I guess that'll be my epilogue. In the meantime, check out this 2001 Time Log video Pete and I made. The TL story has, uhhh, come a long way to say the least.

Pencils, inks, and panels... and now letters:

I'm lettering Time Log similar to my Super Haters webcomic in that I'm using square word balloons. I dunno how well this is gonna go over... but I like it!!!

I may be the first person ever who suffered a lettering-related injury the other day when I pulled my back something fierce from lettering without proper chair support. It was nightmarish for all of last Saturday, but I pulled through and continued to forge ahead on the Time Log one-shot.

First the pencils and then the inks and now... the panels???

Yeah, I decided to try something different with this book and add all the panels during the production phase. Here's how they look:

Was it worth it? You be the judge. Me personally, I think it looks pretty damn good!

Anyway, I wanted to have this post up two days ago, but beautiful art takes time. Thusly, be back in two days soon to see a lettered version of this page!!!

Two days ago, I shared the pencils to a page from my upcoming comic book, Time Log. Today I'd like to share my inks for that very same page:

To ink Shawn's pencils, I decided to play it safe and work on a blueline copy of his original art. Then I scanned it in on the "lineart" setting using a large Mustek A3 scanner and... VOILA! INKY!!!

Obviously, something looks a bit messy here, and that's because I decided not to ink Shawn's panel lines when I was doing this book. He's got a very fluid, animated look to his work and I thought that would contrast well with super-straight panel lines laid out in Photoshop.

Thusly, be back in two days to check out this page with its panels!!!

Right now, I'm preparing my new comic book -- Time Log #1 -- for the 2010 spring con season. As I'm working on the book, I thought it might be damn decent of me to go behind the scenes and share my production process with you.

First up, we've got the pencils. Now I can't claim ownership to these beauties -- they were done by my friend and spectacular comics creator Shawn Atkins.

Here's a peak at one of my favorites from the book:

Sexy, right? Be back in two days to check out my inks!!!