I just wanted to remind everyone that I will be appearing at the Kids Read Comics event at the Ann Arbor District Library (in Ann Arbor, Michigan) next weekend, July 7th and 8th!
I’ll have some Ellie on Planet X stuff for sale, and for right now (until we get an online store up and running) Kids Read Comics will be the only place you can get them! So, kids, tell your parents, and parents, bring your kids! There’s all kinds of comics related fun going on and a lot of comics creators to hobnob with! Click on the pic above to find out more!
I’ve been doing some work on the Ellie on Planet X book. I don’t know when it will be done – there’s quite a lot to do and I want to make it something really special with all kinds of extra fun stuff, a lot of it that hasn’t been seen before. Here’s a peek into some of the stuff I’ve been doing. You may have seen this artwork before:
Well, now it’s being replaced with this:
Of course it’ll have all the call outs on it like the original when it’s in the book. You’ll just have to wait to see. Until then, enjoy!
I just received this fun drawing of Ellie from amazing artist Amanda Dell’Aringa. She really put a lot of life into her depiction. And Ellie’s green light looks like it could glow in the dark. Please check out her deviantArt page. She’s really got some wonderful work there. Far too many good ones to pick a favorite. Thank you, Amanda!
p.s. In case her last name sounds familiar, it’s because her dad does a really amazing comic on the web. But if dad thinks he’s riding in on Amanda’s coat tails, he’ll have to do his own fan art if he wants to get a plug. ;D
We’re running late with today’s comic, so instead we have another little treat for you. We’re used to seeing Ellie right here, twice a week, but she didn’t always look this way. Years before she was launched into space Ellie went through a lengthy design process. Over a roughly ten year period from when she was first conceived, through a series of big changes and tiny tweaks, Ellie finally became the little robot we all know and love. Take a look below to see her history of revisions. Click the pic to bigafy.
Didja ever wonder how we know how far things in the Universe are? Especially since we can’t actually go there to measure the distance (except for Planet X)? Wonder no more, thanks to this cool video from Royal Observatory Greenwich.
I will be appearing (that sounds so weird) at the Kids Read Comics event at the Ann Arbor District Library (in Ann Arbor, Michigan) next month, July 7th and 8th!
I’ll have some Ellie on Planet X stuff for sale! You read correctly! And for right now (until we get an online store up and running) Kids Read Comics will be the only place you can get them! So, kids, tell your parents, and parents, bring your kids! There’s all kinds of comics related fun going on and a lot of comics creators to hobnob with! Click on the pic above to find out more!
As I mentioned earlier this week, the Thursday edition of Ellie’s adventures will be showing up on Friday. Why? Tonight the entire staff at Mission Control took the night off to attend the premier of Matt Feazell’s live action Cynicalman Movie, based on his long running comic strip of the same name! And since I did some work on it (as well as made a cameo or two) I thought I’d share the design I did for the lair of the evil Dr. Pweent (you can see some animation work I did on the film here).
It’s based on the Detroit incinerator tower, well known in the Motor City for belching junk into the air. Dr. Pweent’s tower resides in the hamlet of Hamtramck (yep, that’s how it’s spelled), where the story takes place. This is the initial sketch I drew, based on Matt’s instructions.
The design changed slightly, and then, with my meager 3D modelling skills, I created the computer model and inserted it into stills from the movie. Special effects were later added like blinking lights and belching smoke.
And here’s some awesome Cynicalman trivia for those of you in the know: the voice of the character Board Man (who is actually a wooden board) is played by none other than Scott McCloud. Yeah, thatScott McCloud! There’s your name dropping for the day.
See you here tomorrow for the next installment of Ellie!
1) You may have noticed that box over to the left that says “One of the SD7”. Well SD7 stands for Space-Dock Seven, a portal for seven fine sci-fi themed webcomics. We at Mission Control are thrilled to be a part of the SD7 relaunch, starting officially today. We’re joining some really amazing comics: Escape from Planet Nowhere, Cleopatra In Spaaaaace, Topaz, Red’s Planet, Gronk, and My Sister, The Freak! Click on the box and discover something new!
2) I09, the spot on the web for all things science and science fiction related, mentioned Ellie on Planet X as one of four must-read webcomics (including The Abominable Charles Christopher, which we LU-U-U-U-V!)!! Thanks to Lauren Davis who has mentioned Ellie several times before! Watch the whole episode below (or skip to the 4:00 min mark to where the comics part starts).
3) Also over there on the left, above the SD7 box, you may have noticed that Ellie’s now on Twitter. Click on the Twitter logo to follow!
I’ve been a bit behind on answering comments, but I’ll get to that asap. Also, Thursday’s comic may not arrive until Friday. More on that later. Thanks for reading!
I’m working at updating Ellie’s logo. It’s pretty close to what we already have up there at the top of the page, but I wanted to change the “X”. So here’s what we have so far.
