Untold Tales of Bigfoot Is Gettin' Crazy!

Man, I've been so busy working on my Untold Tales of Bigfoot webcomic that I haven't posted to this process blog for a while. Don't worry, I will. I just have to gather up some assets and write the dang posts. Until then, you might want to take a look at what's been taking up all my time.

Things are getting crazy over at my weekly webcomic blog, Untold Tales of Bigfoot. It's the story of an adorable dog named Scout who gets lost in the woods and runs smack dab into a lonely Bigfoot. Will they get along? Will Bigfoot make a new friend? Will Scout ever get home? Find out by following the comic (sign up for weekly updates delivered directly to your email!) and let me know what you think. As a bonus, there's also fan art from some of the most talented comic creators on the web, process posts about creating the art for Bigfoot and, every once and again, real life news updates of Bigfoot sightings in the real world. So come on by. Ain't no party like a Bigfoot party! -v

Avengers, Assemble! Hulk...Smoosh?

In anticipation of the release of the Avengers movie this weekend, RunRedRun has taken my cartoony Hulk designs and turned them into a very angry, very fuzzy Incredible Hulk fiber art doll. He's big, too. Probably the largest felted wool doll RunRedRun has put together. He stands 11 inches tall but -- get this -- his arms move! In an arcing, "Hulk Smash" sort of way, his arms are hinged so he can properly show his rage. And with his arms raised above his head he's about 14 inches tall.

Below you can see some very rough design sketches and a collection of potential faces to choose from. My friend at RunRedRun chose the classic Hulk grimace and turned those rough sketches into the fuzzy behemoth you see in these early photos.

To ramp up for the Avengers movie, check out RunRedRun for more photos. And until the movie comes out, you can amuse yourself with my uber-geeky, goofball, action figure recreation below. -v 

Super Ziggy: The Process

So, you know my Super Ziggy piece is hanging in the Art Institute of Pittsburgh's Ziggy Tribute Show for the rest of this month. This is it. Everyone's favorite everyman, soaring high about the city. It's a nice change of pace from watching him lose yo-yo's down sewer grates. If the composition looks slightly familiar to you, it's because it's not just a tribute to Ziggy and Tom Wilson, but a nod to another famously optimistic cartoon character...

The Superman #1 cover by Joe Shuster is iconic and it's fun to mess around with revamps. But in the case of the Ziggy piece, it actually fits perfectly. The brief for the Ziggy tribute show discussed the philosophy behind the character and how his unfailing optimism was his strength and, in the face of the adversities he encounters, downright heroic. There is no more optimistic superhero than Siegel & Shuster's Man of Steel, so the illustration practically designed itself. It was an added bonus that Ziggy had a white dog sidekick to stand in for Krypto. So, let's see how I put it together…

Using the Superman cover as a guide, I penciled in Ziggy and Fuzz, flying above a cityscape. I actually scoured the web for some shots of old Ziggy strips and tried to create a hybrid architecture that incorporated the big-city look of the old Superman cover and the charming building style of Tom Wilson's original Ziggy strips.

Next, I inked the pencils of the figures in Photoshop. The oval frame and marquee were a little too perfect for me to draw by hand (despite them being drawn by hand originally by a much more patient and skilled Shuster) so I pulled the image into Illustrator and used the bezier pen tool to help describe my curves and blends.

Once everything was "inked" I pulled it back into Photoshop to color it. I tried to match the crazy comic book colors on the buildings (green, orange and purple skyscrapers!) but I also needed the colors to be a little washed out so I could make the cover look aged. The Ziggy logo, much like the buildings, is a hybrid of the Superman logo aesthetic and the Ziggy logo letterforms, and I think it worked out pretty well.

One of the most fun parts of doing a revamp like this is coming up with parallels for all the elements of the original. So, as a nod to Ziggy's 40th Anniversary this year, "64 PAGES OF ACTION!" becomes "40 YEARS OF OPTIMISM" and "ALL IN FULL COLOR" becomes "SOME IN FULL COLOR" to reference to black and white daily strips vs. the color sundays. After all the fonts are chosen and the blurbs are in place, I finish the coloring and move on to another fun part -- destroying all my hard work so it looks like a 40-year old comic book.

The first stage in wearing down this image is fading all of the colors. I want this thing to look like it's been sitting in someone's attic for a few decades. I also run a half-tone filter over the image to give it that old printing-press look. We're off to a good start, but I really need to ruin it some more.

I went to a nearby comic book store and dug through their old back stock to do a little more research (while I was there, I also emptied my wallet on a huge stack of Batman comics.) and I noticed a pattern of fading and darkening on some of those old comics that looked like the result of leaving the comics in shafts of sunlight or dirtying up the edges with smudgy little fingers. So I tried to recreate that on the Ziggy cover too.

Next came the binding cracks and overall wear and tear that would occur after years of handling. It's time consuming, but fun, to take a very small brush and etch in all of of those cracks and folds. After I wrecked it just enough, I mocked up some page edges and scanned in the stapled binding of an actual comic to complete the effect (seen in the very first image at the top of the post). If you'd like to see the Super Ziggy cover in person (where it's much larger) you can visit the Art Institute of Pittsburgh before the Ziggy show comes down near the end of this month. -v

The Ziggy Show is Finally Up! Super Ziggy To The Rescue!

I did this Ziggy piece for a Tom Wilson Tribute Show sometime last Summer. Between then and now, Art Institute of Pittsburgh went through some administrative changes, re-organized their show schedule, and, sadly, Tom Wilson, Ziggy's creator, passed on. All the while my Ziggy sat, lonely and forgotten, in a back office at AIP, waiting to pay tribute to a man who'd never see it.

But the Ziggy Show is finally up, and so is my illustration, Super Ziggy. It's a nod to a famous Superman comic book cover and I'll have a work-in-progress for it in a later post. But for now, let's talk about the show.

Ziggy: An Island Of Humor In A Sea Of Trouble runs at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Gallery from March 7th to April 28th and features a nice selection of original Tom Wilson (Senior and Junior) Ziggy gags as well as some fantastic tribute pieces by local artists.

The photograph doesn't do this piece justice, but it's cut paper, highly reflective, and when light hits it the shape casts both a bright silhouette image of Ziggy (and a duckling) as well as an inverse shadow-silhouette. Pretty creative stuff and it captures the essence of Ziggy perfectly.

That's not the case (nor the intent), though, with Mark Bender's expertly rendered Hug Life colored pencil illustration which re-imagines Wison's lovable loser as a tattooed thug. Mark Bender's an amazing illustrator, an instructor at AIP, and a friend. But he's also a bitter, spiteful individual who just couldn't resist driving a rusty wheat thresher over and over a beloved childhood icon for giggles. With great precision and artistic skill he's managed to run roughshod over everything that Ziggy ever stood for and I don't know how he lives with himself. And now we'll see if Mark really reads my blog. : )

There are some other very nice pieces in the show, as well as a start-to-finish display about how newspaper comics get from the artist's brain to your breakfast table. If you happen to be downtown, you should consider stopping in and basking in the glory of the quintessential luckless everyman. -v

Dan Santat's A Class Act!

Hey, after a horrible snafu with the post office (my mortal enemy), I finally received my signed copy of Dan Santat's new graphic novel, Sidekicks! If you read this blog, you know I was one of a few people who helped paint in some flats for Dan (who, I think, was on 3 or 4 other tight deadlines). And one of the perks of the job was getting a signed copy of the book. Extra-special thanks to Dan for sending me a second copy after the post office managed to lose the first one. Here's the scan of the first page, which Dan personalized for me with a cute cartoon and a signature.

Another perk was getting my name in the "super special thanks" section of the book. See where I landed? Good position, right at the beginning of a line, easy to spot. I wish all my credits landed so nicely.

So, now that I've got the book in hand, I tore through it and loved it. It's funny and sweet, and it's got some great superhero action. What are you waiting for? Go get one! And don't forget to turn to the back page and admire my name for a while when you're done reading it. It'll make me feel important. -v

When You Think Football, You Think Vince Dorse, Natch!

Clearly hip to my legendary, almost encyclopedic knowledge of American Football, an ad agency recently asked me to create some comic art for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The concept? Steelers safety Troy Polamalu is a superhero, flying around Pittsburgh, keeping an eye on the city. Right up my alley.

The deadline was tight -- like, overnight tight -- but I felt pretty comfortable with the comic book/superhero framework and figured I could get it done. I did. But I watched the sunrise from my computer desk the morning it was due. Literally. That's the glamorous world of freelance illustration, kids.

The comic is slated to show up in the Gameday Magazine during five (5!) Steelers home games and is currently on the Steelers Facebook page as part of a "how does the story end?" promotion. You can check it out here at this link. (side note: getting samples of your own work is notoriously difficult. if anyone goes to the game and happens to get a copy of the magazine with my comic in it and doesn't happen to want it, I'd be happy to have a copy myself. so let me know, thanks!)

Below are some of the work-in-progress steps to getting this thing from sketchbook to print. The lettering was done by the fine folks at the ad agency, and -- I noticed -- they also tarted up my Steelers "bat-signal" in post. Collaboration. The life blood of the illustration biz. -v

The Captain America Movie! Finally!

I've been waiting for a Captain America movie since I was a kid. And yeah, I've seen the ones with Reb Brown and Matt Salinger and yeah, I'm kind of trying to forget they exist. But this new one with Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving looks very promising. You don't know how hard I'm hoping they don't screw it up.

I plan to see the flick on opening day. And I want a friend of mine to go that day too so I can discuss it with him afterwards. But he lives in another state and he's even cheaper than I am. So, to make sure he goes, I'm buying his ticket. That's right. I'm actually sending him the money for the ticket so he can go. And this illustration is the "card" the money comes in.

I'm more accustomed to the uniform Cap wears in the comics, but since I'm pushing this movie I decided to go with the new, Hollywood version of the uniform. It's actually not too bad a costume. Much better than Reb Brown's motorcycle helmet and transparent shield. What were they thinking?! Anyway, work-in-progress steps below. -v

Dan Santat's Sidekicks Is Out (thanks, in part, to me)!

No, really. Dan Santat, creator of Disney Channel's The Replacements and illustrator of one of my favorite children's books in the last year, Oh No!, has just released his long awaited graphic novel, Sidekicks, and I actually helped him make his deadline. Here's how it went...

Santat, one of the most popular children's books illustrators out there, was juggling a few deadlines and needed help flatting (I'll explain later) some panels in Sidekicks, his very own graphic novel about crime-fighting super pets. So he put the call out on his blog and a few of us stepped up. It's cute animals and superheroes. How could I resist?

Ok, anyway, flatting is just a fancy term for laying down a flat-color underpainting that the finish artist goes over with highlights, shadows and texture. Flatting is a necessary process, but it can also be time-consuming and tedious. And when you have other deadlines to meet, flatting is something that can be handled by your assistants...or sidekicks. In this case, Dan was assisted by myself and maybe five other talented artists out there on the web (check out the above link to Dan's blog to see who else participated).

So, a big thanks to Dan Santat for giving me a try and trusting me with his artwork. I haven't received my complementary copy of the book yet, but I'm going to assume it's pretty entertaining (at least what I've seen of it). So maybe you'd like to give it a try. Meanwhile, I have some very basic work-in-progress steps below showing my part of the process. -v

My Village Of The Damned Poster In Hollywood Theatre Benefit Show

Most Wanted Fine Art is holding an art show/fundraiser for the Hollywood Theatre in Dormont featuring works by local artists this July. As a fan of both the Hollywood and the concept of neighborhood theatres in general, I was pleased my Village Of The Damned poster was accepted into the show.

I've been working on a series of retro-scifi posters for some of my favorite horror movies. This one's a tribute to Village Of The Damned, one of the finest "creepy kid" movies of the past century. There's something fantastically unsettling about hyper-intelligent fourth-graders that can read your thoughts and control your mind. I was about halfway through this image when a friend tipped me off to the fundraising event for the Hollywood Theatre.

If you'd like to see the image up close (or purchase it for some unknown reason) it will be hanging in the Hollywood Theatre, Dormont, along with the works of over 50 other local artists through the month of July. The opening reception on July 2nd is free, and there will be music, short films, an exhibit by John Lysak and other fun. Most of the details can be found at the Facebook Event page.

All of the artwork in the benefit show will be for sale if you should feel inclined to help out the Hollywood Theatre and keep the tradition of neighborhood movie houses alive in Dormont. Though, I may have subconsciously priced my poster just high enough to ensure I'll be taking it home to hang in the spot on my wall I picked out for it before this whole fundraiser thing even started. -v

UPDATE: I just got back from the opening reception at the Hollywood Theatre and it seems some mysterious benefactor has purchased my Village Of The Damned poster. Was it a fan of classic sci-fi movies? Perhaps a civic-minded individual who wanted to help out the Hollywood Theatre? Or could there be someone out there who actually enjoys my art!? Much like the Great Tootsie-Pop Riddle, the world may never know. But a big thanks to that shadowy stranger for helping make the event a success. And remember, the show's up for the rest of the month if anyone else would like to purchase some of the art and give a boost to the theatre.

Powerless by Matt Cody is Out in Paperback (And Still Awesome!)

I happened to notice one of my favorite YA novels, Powerless by Matt Cody, was recently released in paperback and it inspired me to do another illustration. If you haven't read the book yet, first of all...why not?!? Secondly, I won't ruin any surprises for you by explaining anything about this image. But if you've read Powerless you know this is something that happens somewhere around chapter nine.

I've been thinking about doing this illustration for a while now, ever since reading the book. And to be completely honest, this scene doesn't actually take place in the written text. It's something you have to infer while reading about some other, related action. And that's the thing about Powerless. Not only does the written text create vivid pictures in your mind's eye, but the stuff that happens between the lines inspires visual imagery so real that it really gives you the sense of being there, in the book, side by side with the characters.

Visit Matt Cody's site here. And buy Powerless in paperback here.

And here's another thing I recently found out -- I'm psychic. Because months ago when I read Powerless I told my friends, "If they don't screw it up, this would be an incredible movie." And it looks like my prediction may soon come to pass as Powerless has been optioned for the screen. I guess there are probably a zillion hurdles to jump between a book being optioned and the movie finally being made, but I'm hoping for a smooth transition from paper to screen. And, to tell you the truth, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I had the pleasure of meeting Matt Cody at last year's New York Comicon and I can't say enough nice things about him -- talented, generous with his time, smart, kind...tall. Very tall. For the three friends and I who went to the Comicon that weekend, Matt made it a very special visit and I don't think I thanked him enough.

So thanks again, Matt, wherever you are (hopefully polishing off the final draft of a Powerless sequel if my psychic abilities aren't on the blink). -v

Hulk Hate Greedy Marketing Ploy...and so do I

I'm really enjoying the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon on a cable channel called Disney XD. It's a fun, animated version of Marvel Comics' Avengers with strong plotlines based on comic canon, fairly decent animation and convincing voice acting. I planned to purchase the DVD box set of Season One as soon as it became available.

So it was a bit of a disappointment to stumble onto Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Volumes 1 & 2 the other night at Target. Priced at fifteen smackers apiece(!!!), the two separate volumes contain a total of only 13 episodes (seven on Volume 1, six on Volume 2) which is, by my count, only half of the entire first season. Extrapolating from that, you'd have to assume that for just the first season of this cartoon, purchasing it piecemeal like this, you can expect to pay somewhere around $60. Keep in mind that neither disc has what you'd call a treasure trove of extra features (on both discs a producer and story editor try to explain to you what makes Marvel heroes and villains so unique. No, I'm serious). Maybe you've got money to burn, but sixty bucks for one-season's-worth of 22-minute cartoons doesn't fit into my budget.

So I'll be taking a pass on these discs in the hopes that someday Disney Home Video releases a more reasonably-priced box set, maybe with some decent extra features.

And, as I did with the fantastically rebooted but poorly marketed Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated series, I'd suggest you skip purchasing these DVDs. Maybe the studios don't realize how bad the economy is...or maybe they do, and that's why they're gouging us on these cartoons. Regardless, if you're a fan of superheroes at all, you should check out the Avengers:Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon, Sunday mornings at 10, on Disney XD, There are worse ways to spend a Sunday morning. And for those so inclined, there are probably worse ways to spend the next five minutes than checking out my work-in-progress steps below. -v

Superheroes Exhibit Opens At Toonseum In May! Two Free Passes Up For Grabs!

Squeeze into your tights and leap over to Pittsburgh's Toonseum for the Superheroes: Icons & Origins exhibit this May. Focusing on legendary heroes from both Marvel and DC, Superheroes explores the history of characters as legendary as Batman, Captain America, The Fantastic Four, Green Lantern, Spiderman, Superman and Wonder Woman (to name a few) with rare original sketches, comic pages and covers by master artists the likes of Neal Adams, Gene Colan, John Buscema, Steve Ditko, Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, Todd McFarlane, Frank Miller and John Romita.

Toonseum director, Joe Wos, assures us the Superheroes exhibit is crammed full of entertaining and informative features: biographical information on the artists, a time-line interweaving historical events with Superhero introductions and plot-lines, connections to classical mythology, the science behind the “super”, and retrospectives of the changes that each character has undergone in the hands of different artists and eras.

Superheroes: Icons & Origins runs from May 6th through August 28th, 2011, at Pittsburgh's Toonseum.

Free Passes! It doesn't cost that much to walk in the door at the Toonseum and see a roomful of amazing comic/cartoon art just about any day of the week. Nevertheless, I have two free passes that I'd like to give away. So, if you want these passes here's what you need to do: Share this post. I don't care how you share it (facebook, twitter, digg, whatever), just share it. Then (and this is the important part) email me a link to where you shared it along with your postal mailing address. The first email I get with a link to the shared post gets two (2) free passes to the Toonseum. (Offer applies to comic geeks living in the contiguous United States only.)

Fake Batman Cover. I've done a couple other posts about the Toonseum. In each one, I have a little fun at the expense of museum director, Joe Wos. To date, I've made him into a cantankerous museum director and a lecherous museum director. But this month he hits the big time and finally achieves the status of evil museum director. And he has the dubious honor of getting his chops busted by The Dark Knight himself! Technically, that makes him a full-on super-villain.

I designed the illustration to look like an old comic book from the '70s that you might find at a garage sale, complete with bizarre, pseudo-psychedelic cover art and that weird, grey-and-blue Batman costume. I never understood how he was supposed to strike fear into the hearts of criminals dressed in powder-grey and baby-blue. In any case, the work-in-progress steps are below. And if you enjoy the process of creating comic art, then I hope to see you at the Toonseum this May. -v

Ace Reporter, Brenda Starr, Investigates The Toonseum

For 70 years, Dale Messick's Brenda Starr graced the funny pages of America's finest newspapers. Now she'll be gracing the walls of Pittsburgh's Toonseum. Director Joe Wos and staff are bringing the ravishing redhead to Pittsburgh in an exhibit of Messick's art that includes rare, "pre-Brenda" strips, vintage ads and an intact storyline from the 1965-66 run of the strip.

A pioneer in the industry, Messick's given name was Dahlia but she changed it to Dale after having her comic strip rejected by syndicates on the basis that she was a woman. Seriously. Joke's on those old codgers, I guess, since Messick eventually became one of the most influential and popular cartoonists in the world.

The Toonseum's Brenda Starr: The Art of Dale Messick exhibit will run from March 11th to April 23rd. As well, in honor of National Women's Month and the Brenda Starr exhibit, the ToonSeum will also be presenting a host of lectures and screenings focused on women and female characters in comics, including Messick, Brenda-expert Trina Robbins, Mary Blair, and Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As usual, check the Toonseum website for details and times.

Oh, and don't worry. My goofy illustration of Brenda Starr matching wits with evil museum director Joe Wos isn't part of the exhibit. That's just something I did for fun. If you're interested in how I put it together, I've included some work-in-progress steps below. But to really get a sense of how sinister Joe Wos is, you'll have to visit him in person at the Toonseum.

1) Sketched out the original gag in pencil

2) Moved some elements around and inked it in Photoshop

3) Dropped in some basic colors in Photoshop

4) Aged the image a bit by tinting it yellow and throwing a half-tone texture on it. See you downtown. -v

Avengers Assemble and Please Try Not To Stink!

Have you seen the new Avengers cartoon? Earth's Mightiest Heroes? You know what? It's not entirely terrible. It's leaps-and-bounds better than that horrible, awful Avengers cartoon they put out in the late 90s. Normally, I'd put a link here so you'd know what I'm referencing, but I refuse to put you through the torture of watching even a small clip from that horrible cartoon. Now, let's never speak of it again.

So I've been watching the new Avengers cartoon lately and actually enjoying it. They seem to be sticking pretty close to the accepted history of the characters, so that oughta please the fanboys (he says, sitting beneath the 15-inch Spiderman action figure posed heroically on the shelf above his art table). I might not like it as much as that old Justice League Unlimited cartoon, but maybe that's just my slight preference for Superman and Batman over Captain America and Iron Man.

Anyway, I was watching the Avengers cartoon and remembered how much I used to like Captain American when I was a kid (I was so patriotic back then). I used to draw Cap all the time in my school notebooks. So I decided to try a sketch. I have to admit, after months and months of drawing puppies and bunnies and little girls with flowers I'm a little rusty with the superhero stuff. So let's just call this well-deserved practice. Not to mention I'm still working out the kinks of inking digitally. I'll probably end up doing a few more of these things just to get comfortable with it. The work-in-progress steps are posted below, but the whole thing was really just an illustration exercise, so there's not much going on here.

But speaking of superheroes, if you happen to be off work Friday you have a veritable cornucopia of choices for animated action. If you're a fan of Cap, Iron Man, Thor and the Hulk, I think Disney XD is running an Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes marathon, starting at 3, and culminating at 830 with an hour long "Gamma World" special where the Leader turns everyone on Earth into some kind of Hulk-monster (yikes!). And if you prefer DC's heroes, Robin, Kid-Flash, Superboy and the rest of the Teen Titans are premiering their new Young Justice series with an hour-long pilot on the Cartoon Network at 7. It's Christmas come early for comic book geeks. And you can bet a mountain of Vibranium I'll be watching. Hope you have a nice holiday. -v

Superhero, Static Shock (Woo-Woo!)

I was up late over the weekend and I happened to see Disney XD is running the old Static Shock cartoon every Saturday and Sunday, 1 am to 2 am. Not exactly prime time for the intended demographic, but I'm glad to see it's on the air somewhere.

Static Shock centers around the life of 14-year old Virgil Hawkins who acquires electrical superpowers during a freak accident. I remember enjoying the show years ago when it first aired, but I only caught a few episodes. Thanks to Disney XD for letting me catch up.

If you haven't seen the show, try to check it out. The storylines deal with a myriad of subjects (racism, peer pressure, gang violence, good vs. evil, etc.) and the show is just good, clean, superhero fun. Justice League fans take note: some of the more seasoned heroes make cameos every once in a while (look for a great episode where Static has to rescue the entire Justice League from the clutches of Brainiac!).

Of course, now that I've called attention to it, Disney XD will probably cancel it. And since most of the series never made it to DVD (a travesty) you should plan to watch it before it disappears. If you want to get started right now, you can watch the entire first episode right here. Enjoy. -v

Also -- if anyone knows where I can get one of those yellow/red/blue shirts that Virgil wears in the opening credits, let me know. Thanks. -v

Powerless by Matthew Cody is Awesome!

Forget that it's technically a YA Novel, Matthew Cody's Powerless is one of the best books I've read so far this year. It's got everything you could want in a kid's adventure story: heroes, villains, comic books, superpowers, Sherlock Holmes, meteorites, mysteries...it's loaded! Now, these are all things I like...so I might be biased, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and recommend this one. If I'm not mistaken, you can download a sample chapter from the book on Cody's site: www.matthewcody.com

I read through half of this book sitting in a bookstore cafe and by the time I left I just had to buy it. I finished it later that week and was inspired to draw up this illustration to the left based on the prologue of the book. And speaking of the book...

I'm not gonna blow the ending, but basically it's the story of a 12-year old kid named Daniel who moves to a new town only to discover that all of his new friends have secret superpowers --flight, invisibility, strength. But there's also a dark force at work in this little town that's stealing his friends' super abilities and leaving them powerless. Perhaps Daniel -- regular, old Daniel -- is their only hope.

If you have kids, maybe eight years old through thirteen, buy them this book. And when they're done with it, borrow it and read it yourself. It's fun, mysterious and everything a YA novel should be. I'm looking forward to more from Matthew Cody.

For anyone still reading, below you'll find some work-in-progress steps. First there's my original pencil sketch for the piece. After that I threw in a couple of close-ups from the image. Now stop reading my blog and go buy that book! -v