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

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!

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #60

Olympians Book 3, Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory is finally coming out July 19th. To commemorate this momentous occasion I will be posting a drawing from my enormous cache of sketchbooks each weekday until Hera hits the shelves. I'll be going through them chronologically, with today's piece coming from a sketchbook from February of 2007.

Today's drawing is a sharpie sketch of Kampe, the dragon whom Zeus must defeat to gain entrance to the Underworld. I was obviously looking at some lizard reference for this drawing.  Also, as an added bonus, if you look carefully at the top of the drawing, you can see some pencil studies of Zeus's first wife Metis trying to turn into a bird-- this was from a scene that was cut from Zeus: King of the Gods, but was eventually inserted into Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #49

Olympians Book 3, Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory is finally coming out July 19th. To commemorate this momentous occasion I will be posting a drawing from my enormous cache of sketchbooks each weekday until Hera hits the shelves. I'll be going through them chronologically, with today's piece coming from a sketchbook from January of 2007.

Today's sketch is me starting to figure out how to depict certain scenes. This is a visualization of the time that the Goddess Athena spent living inside her father Zeus's head (notice his headachey pose). I ultimately went with a very different depiction of this scene in Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess, but I did like the dynamism of her pose here.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #45

Olympians Book 3, Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory is finally coming out July 19th. To commemorate this momentous occasion I will be posting a drawing from my enormous cache of sketchbooks each weekday until Hera hits the shelves. I'll be going through them chronologically, with today's piece coming from a sketchbook from January of 2007.

Today's sketch is a melange of drawings of Pallas, the goat-like Gigante adversary of Athena in Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess. I included this mainly because I think giant goat monsters are cool beans.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #42

Olympians Book 3, Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory is finally coming out July 19th. To commemorate this momentous occasion I will be posting a drawing from my enormous cache of sketchbooks each weekday until Hera hits the shelves. I'll be going through them chronologically, with today's piece coming from a sketchbook from January of 2007.

Now I know you've been following my Olympians sketches every day with bated breath, right? Well, the last few days I've been showcasing the self-rejected portrait covers I initially conceived of for the series, as well you all know. Well, today's piece is what I thought of for the back cover of the Athena portrait from yesterday.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #41

Olympians Book 3, Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory is finally coming out July 19th. To commemorate this momentous occasion I will be posting a drawing from my enormous cache of sketchbooks each weekday until Hera hits the shelves. I'll be going through them chronologically, with today's piece coming from a sketchbook from January of 2007.

Continuing the series from the past few days of my early proposed portrait-style covers for Olympians. Here's the cover for Athena, which, curiously, doesn't even have the goddess's name on the cover, only Grey-Eyed Goddess. This picture has made its way to the net before, and was even my facebook avatar for a while, but I felt I should include it again here to help complete this series.

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! Keep your fingers crossed!

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.

Zeus and Athena made the New York Public Library's 100 Titles for Reading And Sharing

Like the title says, the New York Public Library chose both Zeus: King of the Gods and Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess for its 100 Titles for Reading And Sharing. Give it a look-- I'm honored to be on the same list as the rest of these wonderful creators.

Athena on SLJ's Best Books 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!

Athena and her Aegis

A little something I've been working on...

Found Art-- Alternate Athena Cover Designs

I was poking around my studio computer yesterday and found these sketches for the cover to Olympians Book 2, Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess that I simply did not recall drawing. I suppose I self-rejected them pretty early on in the cover design process. I decided I'd share them with you, my adoring public. So what do you think? Anything you like here? Did I make the right decision?

Come celebrate the release of Zeus and Athena (and some other swell books, too)

Are you going to be in the Brooklyn area May 1st? Come down 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 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: Grey-Eyed Goddess released today!

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.

New Title Alert!

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.

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!