I think if I made one mistake with this story arc, it’s that I didn’t push the idea that Tom wanted to defy expectations of him running around in an Iron Man costume far enough. The idea was really in response to my own catch-22 with my relationship to the movie and the character. On the one hand, I love talking about it. On the other hand, I know some of you are sick of Iron Man comics. Believe me, I understand. But in the meantime, many of you are very supportive of my love for the character. So what do you do when Halloween rolls around you need to put your character in some kind of costume? Bottom line, it would just look weird to suddenly have Tom running around as The Joker when he’s spent all year talking about Tony Stark. I thought the cheeseburger idea was kind of a happy compromise. A way to talk about Iron Man without putting Tom in the Iron Man costume. I think, for the most part, it was effective. It was a fun little guessing game for the week to see what Tom was finally going to emerge as.

Switching gears for a minute, I wanted to talk to the people who donated money to the hard drive restoration donation drive a few months ago. I want to let all of you know that I’m still working on your artwork, but it’s been slow-going. Between my 9 to 5 job, my night class, taking care of Henry and producing the comic, it’s hard to find time. I often try to squeeze in doing some of the art work over my lunch hour during the week. I pretty much feel like I’m working not stop but without a lot to show for it.

The other part of the problem is that I’ve been investing a lot of time and effort into this art to make sure everyone gets what they pay for. So even the less-expensive sketches are getting the four-star treatment. I was going to show you some of the sketches that I’ve been working on lately, but I packaged them up and mailed them off before I remembered to scan them. That was kind of stupid. However, I did remember to scan one before mailing. It’s a sketch of Charles Bronson a fan had asked for, so I drew him in his classic pose from the poster for Death Wish. Check it out…

The foreshortening on the arm is a little screwy. But, overall, I’m proud of this piece. I think I got the mood right and I was trying some different things with inking that turned out well.

At any rate, everyone has been very cool and very patient so far. I’m not getting angry e-mails or people kicking in my door with pitchforks and torches. But I wanted to let you know that I’m trying to keep up with things the best that I can and to take the opportunity to once again thank those who showed me great generosity.

That’s it for me today. Zach & Miri Make A Porno is at the top of my list for movies to see this weekend. It might be a little tough for me to go, though. My car has a flat tire and I’m trying to get it into the shop this weekend. We’ll see if the weather this weekend holds out or not. Maybe I’ll ride my bike to the theater for once!

Have a great weekend!