Billy Penn

Billy Penn graduated from Florida State University with a degree in Art Education which is very important if you fancy being an art teacher, and not important at all if want to be a writer.
He has illustrated comic books for both Platinum Studios and Image Comics. Billy also self-publishes (prints really) his own comics through his “Graphic Cereals” imprint.

When he’s not busy being an elementary school art teacher, he’s dreaming up new projects and stories to tell with pictures. He currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida with his awesome chef wife and their two little boys.
 

Now Mr Jones, tell me again about these Sankara stones.

6 Questions with Billy Penn.

1. What are your favorite and your least favorite words?
"I like F-bombs for their versatility (mostly as a gerund. And not very often, mom.)

I hate racial slurs. I have a dream where we can ridicule people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

2. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
"The creative impulse and the urge to pee."

3. What turns you off creatively, spiritually, emotionally?
"Anyone who tries to waste my time (and they usually don’t realize it, bless their hearts.) I can chip away at something, ANYTHING, in five minutes. It’s not much. But those five minutes will slowly add up to hours, days, weeks, months, years, and get me closer to the finished project.  I never know what the outcome of any particular project will be, but I DO KNOW that doing nothing slowly results in nothing."
 

4. What is the closest you have ever come to giving up your craft?
"I’ve never come close. I’d give-up on a lot of important stuff before I’d give up my passion for creating.
For the sake of giving you an answer, the closest I’ve come to “giving up” was a little brick wall in the fall of ’98. It really just made me reassess my approach to pitching. I wound up falling in love with my future wife during the break instead."

5. What is the strangest thing you have ever done while creating?

"Occasionally, my wife will find me talking to myself. It’s not strange at all for a writer to say dialogue aloud, but my wife usually catches my at the tail-end on me congratulating myself. Like a personal trainer.With F-bombs. That’s pretty awkward."

6. Assuming heaven exists, what would you like to hear God (or Allah or Yahweh or Odin. Generally the Supreme Being of your choice.) say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
"Good job, dude! Here, enjoy this everlasting Sno-cone while you relive your favorite memories over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…"
 

Thanks to Billy for agreeing to do this and thanks to YOU for reading!

See you next time!
 

Ray Dillon

Ray Dillon is an artist and writer in comics, movies, and games. Works a lot for IDW with some Marvel, DC, Archie and others thrown in. He lives in Maine with his beautiful and talented wife, comics artist Renae De Liz, their sons, Tycen (8) & Drake (1) (also beautiful and talented), and some cats that won't leave him alone (grrr--aww). He was born in Kansas with a rusty spoon in his mouth, but he'll be darned if he'll quit before he reaches all of his dreams. He wants YOU to do the same. MAKE IT HAPPEN!


And now, Thunderbirds are go.

6 Questions with Ray Dillon:

1. What are your favorite and your least favorite words?

  "Favorite: Baby
Least Favorite: Doubt"


2. What turns you on creatively, spiritually, emotionally?

  "Passion. What someone is doing, if they have a strong passion for life, love, family, the future, their goals, other people's goals, whatever. Just passion for positive things in life. THAT is what gets me going!"


3. Star Wars or Star Trek?

  "Gosh, it's hard to pick a favorite anything for me. I can find reasons to like just about anything. I guess I'll say Star Wars because it has more of a good time feeling to it. Star Trek is a little more serious and darker most of the time. Not enough Ewoks. :D"


4. What is the closest you have ever come to giving up your craft?

  "Never even come close."


5. What is the most fun you have ever had?

  "My honeymoon at Disneyland right after getting married at Comic-Con 2009. Renae was pregnant with our baby boy, Drake, and we also had our older son Tycen with us. My favorite place on earth and the whole time was filled with love and family. Just wonderful!"


6. Assuming heaven exists, what would you like to hear God (or Allah or Yahweh or Odin. Generally the Supreme Being of your choice.) say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

  "You never have to stress again and you can spend eternity doing whatever makes you and your loved ones happy. Also, you can fly now. COWABUNGA!!"


Fantastic! That you were married at Comic-Con may make you the coolest person I know! Thanks again for doing this!

If you would like to know more about Ray and Renae you can find Ray at http://www.raydillon.com/ or http://twitter.com/#!/RayDillon and Renae at http://www.renaedeliz.com/ or you can check out some of this dynamic duo's work:

Anne Rice Servant of the Bones 

Womanthology
The Last Unicorn
All Ghouls School 

And that's all for this time! I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Next? The Indomitable, the Mighty, Mur!

Caine Dorr

Caine Dorr is a writer and genre fan who enjoys the creative process. Illustrator, letterer, and colorist Caine also edits video and audio, mows the lawn and, as owner of a mid-sized pick-up, helps everyone he knows move. Caine's work has been featured at Jim Shelley's Flashback Universe and in the Zuda competition.
For  Zuda he created the Paladin Brigade, a private law enforcement firm offering tactical support, investigative services, fugitive retrieval/ apprehension services, and more for the world court.

Caine is currently developing a project featuring two characters from his Apollo City titled Apollo City: Midnight Talon & Raven Star as well as a pulp style adventure taking place in the fictional Serpent City. Will it be a comic? A podcast? An ebook? Stay tuned… 

Now, you're about to learn WHY things work on a Starship.

6 Questions with Caine Dorr:

1. What are your favorite and your least favorite words?

  "Favorite: Daddy, Inspiration, Word Count
Least Favorite: Writers Block, Delays, Busy Schedule" 

2. What turns you on creatively, spiritually, emotionally?

  "Creatively: A great comic, movie, television show, book, or play. I come away thinking: I really like what they did there with the plot, or how they hid that from me until the end, or how they laid out that two page spread.  I'd like to use/modify that for my own purposes.  Come to think of it really bad productions tend to motivate me just as well. I come away thinking: man, I would have gone this way with that, what was missing was X, I could do that better." 

3. What profession other than yours would would you like to attempt?

  "Special Investigator to ___________ someone powerful (like a senator or the president) where its requires me to fly all over the country, and sometimes the world, looking into trouble." 

4. What decision in your career are you most thankful for?

  "Sticking to my guns and being true to my employees no matter what the corporation thinks about any particular item. I'm unemployed because of it, but I'm still thankful that I didn't sacrifice my ethics to save my job. Those who worked under me still look to me as honorable and that means something." 

5. What is the strangest thing you have ever done while writing, lettering, penciling etc?

  "Once while lettering a comic I was asked to assist in delivering six pterodactyls for a cooky paleontologist and his beautiful wife on the run from a major bio-engineering company. Yes, it was messy." 

6. Assuming heaven exists, what would you like to hear God (or Allah or Yahweh or Odin. Generally the Supreme Being of your choice.) say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

  "It was close, we nearly sent you the other way, but hey at least you got some living in doing things that way.  So welcome."

Thanks Caine! Brilliant stuff as always! If you would like to know more about the works of Caine Dorr go here:
DEVIANT ART
TWITTER
FACE BOOK
FACE BOOK

Post Series Of Interest:
30 Days of the Ultraverse: http://blaquesabers.posterous.com/tag/ultraverse
Manhunter Mondays: http://blaquesabers.posterous.com/tag/manhunter
Dynamo5 Returns: http://blaquesabers.posterous.com/tag/dynamo5
Concept Cars Perfect for fiction: http://blaquesabers.posterous.com/tag/transportation

And thanks to you for reading! See you next time!