Comic Book Resources

Round One: Gentlemen, Start Your Engines…

Hello, comic book fans, and welcome to Comic Book Idol 3. 

For those of you tuning in for the first time, I’m your host J. Torres.

In a nutsell, Comic Book Idol is the Internet’s highest stakes, highest profile comic book art competition. It’s a five-week, five-round contest in which artists must complete specific art assignments by a deadline. At the end of it all, one artist will be crowned this season’s “Comic Book Idol” and awarded an all-expenses paid trip to New York City for the New York Comic Con, a Witchblade cover assignment, assignments from IDW Publishing and Oni Press, a slot in Image Comics’ Pop Gun anthology, and a few other cool prizes.

During the month of September, we invited artists to post links to their online art samples and portfolios in the official Comic Book Idol forum found here. We received over 180 submissions this season, the bulk of which was of higher caliber than previous seasons. We got rank amateurs and art students and people published in the small press alongside accomplished artists from other professions like animation, illustration, and the fine arts who’ve only dreamt of working in comics - all of which really raised the bar of this competition.

Out of all these submissions came our “top ten” who will be officially competiting in Comic Book Idol 3…

Andrew Huerta (age 23)
Freelance artist from Santa Ana, California
(http://aztekh.deviantart.com/)

Caio Oliveira (age 28)
Currently unemployed from Tersina, Piauí, Brazil
(http://www.quantaacademia.com/quantoon/Fanfiction/MPF001ing.htm)

Charles Paul Wilson III (age 31)
Security guard from Wharton, New Jersey
(http://www.comicspace.com/cpw3art/)

Daniel Lafrance (age 42)
Freelance artist from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
(http://www.danlafrance.com/)

Dan McDaid (age 30)
Writer and illustrator from London, England
(http://danmcdaid.com)

Jon Reed (age 28)
Accountant assistant from Alexandria, Virginia
(http://www.jonreedcomicart.com/)

Jose Holder (age 36)
Storyboard artist from Montreal, Quebec, Canada
(http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa297/johjames/NewSire2)

Nicholas Pitarra (age 25)
College student and part-time waiter from Houston, Texas
(http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=9703)

Warren Leonhardt (age 33)
Freelance storyboard artist from Collingwood, Ontario, Canada
(http://www.warrenleonhardt.com/)

Wilfredo Torres (age 35)
Information technology professional from Lawrencville, Georgia
(http://www.comicspace.com/mightyfineline/)

And now it’s time to set the stage for these contestants where an expert panel of judges will comment on and critique their artwork throughout the competition, and those distinguished panelists are…

Marc Silvestri, aritst, co-founder of Image Comics and CEO of Top Cow Productions

Chris Ryall, writer and Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of IDW Publishing

James Lucas Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Oni Press

Also joining them each week will be a “surprise” guest judge who will also write, assist with, or otherwise inspire the art assignment for their respective round. 

This week, we are very pleased to welcome Vince Hernandez, writer and Editor-in-Chief of Aspen Comics as our guest judge and scribe of the script we’re using as the first assignment.

Vince, James, Chris, Marc and our other judges will be providing the contestants with some invaluable feedback on their artwork, but in the end you, dear reader, will get to vote on which of the competitors get to go forward to the next round and which ones have to go home. Each week you vote two artists offline in an online poll!

Everyone can vote, you just need to have a valid e-mail address and be a registered user with Comic Book Resources. This is where you can register.

Now, without further ado, let’s get this show on the road…

Round One… Fight! 

Your first assignment is called “Turning Up the Heat.”

It’s a 3-page full script written by Vince Hernandez and featuring Aspen Comics’ flagship character Aspen Matthews from “Fathom.” As an added bonus, the top vote-getter of this round will have their pages published in an upcoming issue of “Fathom” and you’ll receive copies of the publication. Plus, don’t forget, this is how Aspen discovered Micah Gunnell…

I’ve already provided a link to the Aspen website for your reference above, and you may also contact Vince via the PM function of the forum if you have any questions.

As with every art assignment in this contest, and every round of competition, we leave it up to the individual artists to decide whether they want to submit only pencils, ink their work, or go all the way with colored art, once they consider the subject matter, format of the assignment, and the time constraint. Speaking of which…

Your deadline is Monday, October 15 @ noon (EST)

As I’ve already instructed in a previous e-mail, please post links to your artwork in a thread with the subject line “Round One: [Your Name Here].” Then e-mail or PM me or one of the mods to stick your thread. Shortly thereafter, look for our judges to start posting their comments on your work within this thread.

(Fans, please do not post any comments in any of these threads; only the judges may do that. The rest of us [including yours truly] can post our kudos in the specially designated comment threads for each round.)

Our judges will have until Wednesday, October 17 @ noon (EST) to review and comment on the submissions.

As the judges’ posting period ends, the 24-hour poll will begin for our viewers to vote in. The two artists who get the least number of votes will be eliminated from the competition. The other eight move on to Round Two and our next exciting art assignment (which will hopefully be posted within an hour of the poll closing).

With that, we’re off to the races! I can’t wait to see everyone’s take on Aspen Matthews and how you each handle Vince’s script. I’m sure we’re all in for some sweet, sweet eye candy.

Good luck and have fun with it, idols!

J.