My Veitch Commission!!!

So, Rick Veitch has always been my favorite comic creator. I first got exposed to him via Alan Moore's "Swamp Thing" which is the greatest book of all time by the way. He started drawing "Swamp Thing" on issue #37, appearing regularly as artist after issue #50. He left the book in a famous battle with DC over a story about Swamp Thing and Jesus. I think his books are some of the most compelling and interesting stories I've ever read, I count "The One", "Maximortal", and "Abraxas and the Earthman" as some of my favorite stories ever.

When my grandmother passed away earlier this year, I found myself in possession of a small inheritance, enough to please my wife by using a large portion of it "responsibly" and still having a little to splurge on a toy for us both. She got an iPhone, I ordered myself a commission piece of art from Rick Veitch. Originally I'd been thinking of getting a portrait of Swamp Thing, maybe with The One... but as I was thinking about it, I was struck with brief, fleeting genius! Veitch did a series that ran for 21 issues starting in 1994 where he illustrated and explored his dreams, and the dreams of other notable comic creators. As a boy, I had a recurring dream every night for YEARS, and it seemed like the perfect thing to have him illustrate.

In the dream, I am eight or nine years old. I'm walking on the gravel path in between a seven foot hedge, and the sidewalk/street. Every time I reach the end of the block, I turn around and head back in the other direction. Every once and a while, a monster pops up from the other side of the hedge, opens up my head (which is apparently fixed on a hinge) and removes or replaces a tool. The tools vary, but are all standard tools, hammers, screwdrivers, saws, etc. The monsters are Sesame street style monsters, but scarier... although it is implicitly understood within the dream, that they will not hurt me.

And that's it...


Every night, for years.

The first scan I got from him was the layout. This was just a rough sketch, designed to;

1. Give me one last chance to make changes
2. Give him chance to figure out what he's going to draw

I tried not to give him TOO detailed a description of the monster, part of the point of having a Rick Veitch sketch, is to have some of Rick Veitch's imagination trapped in there too. I like how the monster turned out, very "Evil Grover".





Next was the finished pencils. Here everything is laid out, pretty much as finished as it'll get. The ninja turtle on my sweater is from one of the reference pictures I sent him. My other grandmother knitted it for me, and he has also worked on the original TMNT comic during his career. It seemed appropriate.

I was practically shitting myself when I saw this scan. It's perfect.







And here is the finished piece! I haven't technically received it yet (it's in the mail!) but it's already replaced my children as the awesomest thing in my house. Hopefully at some point I'll be able to afford page #2!

Building the Table:Part One

This is my first attempt at a Warhammer table. I figured this would be my practice run, so I didn't bother to make it modular. I got some 4x8 sheets of white styrofoam from Home Depot and cut it into my two hills.

The Plan is to have a bridge across the two hills, over top of a road that runs the length of the table. You can see a few tanks, and the legs of a Titan for a size reference. I used a bread knife to cut and shape the hills over three evenings... My wife nearly killed me, and probably should have. There was styrofoam all over the house. Styrofoam is a VERY hard thing to clean up, it gets everywhere, it's really heavily influenced by static electricity, and I had to empty our Dyson 6 times after vacuuming the entire house three times over. I only managed to jam the vacuum up twice though, so that's pretty good.


The road was pretty simple, I just used wall filler. Laid it down really heavily for the road, then sanded it down (after these pictures) just enough so that it still has some cracks and inconsistencies. It's just wide enough for standard tanks, you can see where the bridge will eventually go.






The next step was to put in some stairs. I decided to make the hills generally "impassable" which necessitated SOME sort of path. And stairs are nice and simple to build. I used some left over sprue chunks to detail the stairs, being anal enough to try and match up knubbly bits on both sides of each stair case. I think they turned out really well, and were simple, and essentially free!




Stay tuned for more exciting table action!!!