Hades on the NYTimes bestseller list!

Long time, no post, but this I had to share: the latest volume in Olympians, Hades: Lord of the Dead, just appeared on the NYtimes bestseller list! Wahoo!

A big thanks to everyone who helped make this happen. Give a click here to see the list, and to read a brief Q&A with yours truly about it.

Appearance! Tomorrow! Brooklyn Public Library! The big one!

As part of their "Teen  Week" celebration, I'll be appearing tomorrow,  Thursday, October 20th at the  Brooklyn Central Library located at Grand Army Plaza between Flatbush Avenue and  Eastern Parkway. My program will start at 10:00 am in the Dweck Center auditorium, which I honestly don't much about , but I will remark is a cool-sounding name. I'll be giving a slideshow, talking about Olympians, and sharing some sneak peeks of Hades: Lord of the Dead and Poseidon: The Yet to Be Subtitled. Hope to see you there!

Interview on Diamond Bookshelf

Head on over to Diamond's website (y'know, the people who supply everything you find in your local neighborhood comic shop) to check out this interview with yours truly, where I discuss the character of Hera, the upcoming Hades: Lord of the Dead, and how I hope my art can be considered "real good".

New interview up at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast

If you're so inclined, please go check out this interview I gave at the wonderful book blog, 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Hear me ramble on about all kinds of stuff, and also get to see a bunch of artwork, including some sneak peeks of Hera and Hades.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #39

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.

Initially, while I was working on Olympians, I had the idea that each of the covers would be a close-up portrait of the god in question (don't believe me? Check out this post from March 2008 of my original cover idea for Athena). Today's piece is a rough idea for the Hades cover, as well as a proposed subtitle (since renamed Lord of the Dead) and three myths I might retell in the volume (and of these three, only one made it into the final. Who can guess which one?).

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #28

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 sometime in latish 2006.

Wow, look at that! 28 days in a row! If this were February, that'd be a full month of sketchy Olympians goodness! Today's piece is an early, rather haughty looking Hades. He's a bit doughier here than he looks in the finished books, but aside from that I'm amazed how on-model he looks for such an early date. Speaking of Hades, I just got first proofs for the upcoming Hades: Lord of the Dead this past Friday, and it looks swee--eeet! You folks are gonna love this one.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #5

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, and today's piece is from 2006.

 As you can see, today's drawing is a very early version of Persephone. If you've been following this blog at all, you're well aware how very, very different this design is from the Persephone that will eventually make her appearance in Olympians Book 4, Hades: Lord of the Dead. I would have to say of all the principle characters in Olympians that Persephone was the last one for me to get a handle on, and obviously at this stage of the game I had not gotten that handle yet. At this stage, she's all Dread Queen, no Young Maiden.

Hades is done! Long live Poseidon!

I've delivered the completed Hades: Lord of the Dead to my publisher, hooray!

Now I'm hard at work on Olympians Book 5, all about Poseidon!

So far, all of the subtitles for my books that I've come up with (with the exception of Athena: Grey Eyed Goddess) have changed by the time that they were published. I have a subtitle in mind for the Poseidon book, but since past experience has shown that it will most likely change, I was wondering what you, my readers, thought would make for a good subtitle. Please leave your suggestions here, at the Olympians Rule forum.

Persephone pin up, final colors

Here's the final colors on a piece that readers of this blog have seen a few times. I originally posted it in black and white, and then reader Jakob Dailes tried his hand at coloring it, and now, finally, here's mine. This is the final of three distinct looks that Persephone goes through in Olympians Book 4, Hades: Lord of the Dead. How do you like it?

Progress Report: Yet another finished colored page from Hades: Lord of the Dead

It's been a whirlwind of posted finished colored pages 'round here lately! Here's one from the book's central action scene, where the Lord of the Dead himself carries off young Kore to the Underworld. This page is part of the same sequence that these two almost finished pages I posted awhile ago belong to, and I also had previously posted the black and white artwork for it as well. And now it's done!

Progress Report: another finished colored page from Hades

Olympians Book 4, Hades: The Lord of the Dead is all but in the can as I type this (just going over the last few pages making color tune-ups, and adding lightning. Boy, there's a lot of lightning in this book). I thought I would share another finished color page with all of you, so you can see what's coming up.

This particular page has proven to be a favorite of mine-- there's something about the way Demeter looks in these panels that I really dig. In fact, I've shared this particular page with you all before at the finished black and white stage and the concept sketch stage-- I should really go and add the rough pencils in one of these days.

So what do you think?

Progress Report Hades: Finished Color Page

I'm beginning the final step in coloring on Olympians Book 4, Hades: I Forgot the New Subtitle. That means lots of finished pages! Here's one-- the first view we get of the titular god himself.

Progress Report: Some almost sorta kinda finished color pages of Hades

So I've been working on coloring the finished black and white artwork for Olympians Book 4, Hades: The I-don't-remember-the-new-subtitle the past few weeks. Last Friday I took a break from that to make an appearance at the Little Red Schoolhouse in NYC; as part of my presentation, I showed the students there a bunch of the almost-finished colored pages from Hades. And since I showed it to them, I figured I should also show them to you, the dedicated readers of this blog.

The above pages are not finished-- there are a lot of subtle gradients, details and color tweaks still to be added-- but there's enough there to give you an idea of what to expect from the final book. How do you like 'em so far?

Fan Art Forum! Persephone in living color, with update

It's been awhile since I ran one of these, but that's because it's been awhile since somebody sent me something ;)

Jakob Dailes has previously been featured on this site in a mythophile profile, and runs his own site the Classical Club. Recently, on the BRAND SPANKING NEW OLYMPIANS RULE FORUM Jakob posted the below image of Persephone, drawn by yours truly for Olympians Book 4, Hades, that he had colored in.

So what do you think? To the best of my knowledge, I haven't posted any color versions of what Persephone will look like yet (with the exception of the cover, which has changed A LOT). UPDATED: Here's a link to my finished colors So how close did he come to my version? Some things are the same, a few things are different, but all in all-- pretty darn cool.

Hades: Persephone in the Land of the Dead

Another sneak peek of a page from the upcoming Olympians Book 4, Hades. The Lord of the Dead is giving his bride-to-be a tour of what will be her kingdom. They're wandering through the Fields of Asphodel, where the anonymous shades dwell, when Persephone encounters the Fates (in their aspect as the Furies). They deliver a warning unto her" Whoever eats the food of the dead must remain in the Land of the Dead."

New Hades Page: The Wrath of Demeter

Way back in June, I shared some doodles from my sketchbook of an enraged Demeter and now I thought I'd show you the finished page they ended up inspiring. This is the final black and white, though I have not yet added panel borders or such. Enjoy!

My favorite bit is the last panel, where the assembled Olympians react in surprise to Demeter's attack on Zeus. Specifically, Hera's expression, as another one of Zeus's machinations has turned on him. Her dialogue in that bubble is a simple resigned "Oh, Zeus..."

New Hades Page: Meanwhile, Back on Earth...

New page from Olympians Book 4, Hades: The Wealthy One. Demeter's daughter has been abducted, and now Demeter's sad. Bad news for everything that grows.

A lot of time I show off a high drama or action page on this blog, but I really liked the atmosphere of this page. Hope you do too.

No horses were harmed in the drawing of this picture

Hey, it's another page from the upcoming Olympians Book 4, Hades: The Wealthy One!




You know what's hard to draw? A team of four horses falling down a giant crack in the Earth. Try finding some reference for that.

Progress Report Hades: Finished Page

I'm about a third of the way done with the finished black and white art for Olympians Book 4, Hades the Wealthy One as I write this. For your viewing pleasure I've posted the page wherein the Wealthy One himself makes off with poor unsuspecting Kore (Persephone), picking flowers in a field.

For those interested you can check out the pencil sketches and thumbnails for this same page by clicking the provided links. Enjoy!

Finished page from Hades: The Wealthy One!

For your viewing pleasure, a finished (well, black and white, not colored) page from Olympians Book 4, Hades: The Wealthy One. The book opens with a tour of the Grecian afterlife,and here comes ferryman Charon to take you across the Styx. Hope you have a coin for him.