The Beginning of My Love For Comics

If you’ve spent much time at all on 3twins.net then you know that our love of comics is evident in much of the work that we do. I personally grew up loving comic book characters, especially Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man, but my experience with them was entirely through movies and cartoons. Even though I loved the stories, I never actually read the comics.

At least that was the case up until the summer of 1997. I was shopping with my brother and sisters, happened to see a four-pack of Spider-Man comics, and bought them on a whim. This was my very first comic book purchase! That four pack was known as the Revelations series, which was the conclusion to the Spider-Man Clone Saga – a story-arc that dominated the franchise from 1994-1996.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Clone Saga is considered one of the lowest points in the history of the Spider-Man franchise. It was full of messy storytelling and plot-lines that angered hard-core fans and confused new readers by phasing out Peter Parker and establishing Ben Reilly as the new Spider-Man. Writer Bud Budiansky was tasked with bringing Peter Parker back and ending the saga, but it was no easy task because of all of the loose ends and other problems that had been created. Budiansky ended up soliciting ideas from the entire Marvel staff and Revelations was the final product of his efforts. The final comic in the series saw the death of Ben Reilly and end of the clone saga, the first appearance of Norman Osborne and the Green Goblin in 20 years, the disappearance of Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s baby, and Parker reestablished as Spider-Man.

I spent the rest of the weekend completely lost in those four issues. My love of Spider-man was officially solidified and my love of comics was born. I never did become a comic book collector, but to this day I still enjoy reading them and getting swept up in the images. And if you peruse some of the drawings I’ve done for 3Twins, especially in Hatman & Indigo, you might even see how the Revelations story-arc influenced my own artwork.

Until next time,

~Steve

Zapman Remasterd Line Art DONE!!!

Greetings 3twins fans,

Today I won't be talking about the game, but rather an old project that has seen a new step toward completion.  Zapman Remastered, all three parts, are completed in the pencil/ink stage!

S. LaDon Ware has been working on in-game art for our upcoming Of Mages & Pages game for the Nintendo Wii U, but prior to that, he was working on the Zapman Remastered line art in his spare time.  Just yesterday I received the last of those pages!  While I would love to devote the next couple weeks to coloring, recording and editing this story so we could release it on our site, we are just all too busy with the game.  However, I will also mention that work has continued on a "lost" story of Hatman, and our goal is that as soon as our game publishes next fall we will resume publishing comics on our site at a regular rate.  It is good that we will have about 7-10 issues backlogged by that time, so we can continue to work on more games and comics at the same time!

Next week, I should have something really big to show you all for the game, but for now, marvel at the beautiful handiwork of S. LaDon Ware!  I've chosen to share with you a panel from the first page of Zapman Remastered part 3. 

Why are Hatman and Indigo weaving through traffic in the Hatmobile?  Will they reach their destination in time?  Tune in this fall, same HAT time same HAT website!

-Jason

Zapman Preview Page!

Greetings Hatmaniacs!

With the Holiday Season in full swing things have been moving at a snails pace here at 3twins. I thought that since it has been over a month since we released Hatman: The Short Haloween, I would tickle your fancy with a preview of Zapman Remastered Part 1. Which I will be working on over my Christmas break from school!

As you can see by the page to the right, it is still uncolored at this point. We have most of the audio recorded and all of the art is finished for part 1, so the only real hold up is my coloring. As you can see, S. LaDon Ware really pulled out all the stops with his art this time around, drawing this comic in a more wacky/Tex Avery style.

I really love the art on this and I really think this retcon of one of our earliest stories will stand the test of time. If you are familiar with the first Zapman story, you will notice that all of the panels to the right seem to depict events that were previously untold in Hatman lore.

That is one of the things we were so excited about when taking on these earlier stories, the opportunity to add elements we felt were missing. This page, for instance comes right after an early interaction with Hatman and Blonde that we never explored early on. I don't want to give anything away about Zapman Remastered, but those of you familiar with the original will definitely have new material to enjoy in addition to the story following the same vein as its original counterpart.

Zapman Remastered Part 1 boasts some amazingly detailed art, and because of that, coloring will probably take me a while. I am going to be diligent in coloring as soon as my school lets out December 20th. I would like to guarantee a New Years release of this comic, but I can't make that promise. However, I do promise that Andy and I will be working hard to get this done and online as soon as we can. S. LaDon Ware has already begun work on part 2 and that will roll out in the following months.

Until then,
Stay Crazy Hatmaniacs!

-Jason

Let The Short Halloween Begin!

Our latest Hatman audio comic, Hatman #49: The Short Halloween is on our Blip page and will soon be added to 3twins.net! Though The Short Halloween is one of our shortest comics ever, though, it is still a fun little ride. With a runtime of 1:49 who can't take almost 2 minutes to find out what's scaring Hatman this Halloween? Hint, the panel to the right has something to do with it!

This comic has been the absolute fastest production we have pulled off to date! With only a little more than 3 weeks from initial concept to published product I really have to applaud the 3twins team who worked on this! While this issue only featured a couple of our characters there was a total of 5 people included in its production! S. LaDon Ware had the hardest task of taking the simple premise I came up with and creating a comic with no script or layouts!

Originally my idea was to have the comic only be one page, but S. LaDon couldn't help but add to the tension of Hatman's short adventure. It is amazing that we were able to get the very busy Tom Cox in to record Narrator lines off the cuff. I had barely received the uncolored pages when Tom arrived. So, even though Andy credited me as the writer, S. LaDon Ware and Tom Cox also had a large part in making the final product what it is!

The coloring this time was very challenging for most of the panels. Figuring out how to show Hatman in the dark was a stroke of brilliance by S. LaDon Ware who helped guide me as I colored the pages to fit his vision. All in all I think this quick concept turned out to be an amazing little addition to the Hatman Universe.

The light hearted core of what makes up Hatman & Indigo Comics was truly captured and I think it is a fitting tone for the end of this volume of the over arching story. As I've mentioned before, issue #50 will bring about some lasting changes to the Hatman Universe, without giving anything away, that will include adding greater depth and expanding the world as a whole. In light of that, this tiny Halloween special will be a nice contrast to what follows!

Keep it real Hatmaniacs!

-Jason

The Short Halloween cover

Here is the finished cover for Hatman: The Short Halloween! This coloring is based off of the Trade Paperback version of Batman: The Long Halloween. There is also a full color version of the original cover and I will be making a full color version of this cover as well, but due to the short amount of time I have to color the whole comic, this one will be the official cover and the full color one will most likely appear later on as a variant cover. We have a lot of work to get done in the week and a half before Halloween, but I'm confident it will be completed by then!

-Jason

Happy Mad Hatter Day!

Today, 10/6 is Mad Hatter Day! It is kind of like April Fools Day 2. The reason today is Mad Hatter Day is because the Mad Hatter's Hat in Alice in Wonderland reads 10/6 (as pictured right). As you may know, we have our own Mad Hatter in Hatman and Ion Bunny Comics. Our version of the Mad Hatter tells riddles that alter reality. He mistook Ion Bunny for the March Hare in Ion Bunny issue 2 after his first appearance in a Hatman story.

You can also have fun trying to solve our Mad Hatter riddles on our riddles page.

Make it a crazy day, Hatmaniacs!

-Jason

NEW Halloween Hatman Coming Soon!

So, when I told you about the next Hatman story being the revamped Zapman origin story; I didn't think we were doing a Halloween story this year. But, things have worked out that we will be able to squeeze in a one part Hatman Halloween story to hit blip.tv and 3twins.net by October 31st this year! I don't want to give anything away, but I have been reading Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale recently and let's just say they proved a bit of inspiration for our next Hatman Spooktacular! The parody cover for this story will be an homage to Batman:The Long Halloween (image right). As usual with our parody stories, the story will only be loosely based on the concept behind the original and this time the word loosely may even be too severe a word for how loose!

This issue will also mark our 49th Hatman comic and that last brand new story for a while as we backtrack and tighten up the Zapman and Super Cold Frozen Man origin stories, finally finish the Beakman/Superheroes story, and re-record the audio for all of our old issues and convert all back issues to our blip account.

As I've blogged about in the past, issue 50 is going to bring about some changes to the world of Hatman and we want to hit the ground running with the huge story arc we have planned for after that. In order to keep the high paced production that story arc will require, we need our blip account to make enough money so we can hire more help! So, you can do your part by simply watching our stuff on our blip.tv page!

Later, Hatmaniacs!
-Jason

Zapman Reborn!

Greetings Hatmaniacs!

The next Hatman story will be a retelling of the origin of The Evil Zapman! We've blogged about this project in the past and it is finally coming to fruition thanks to everyones favorite Hatman artist, S. LaDon Ware! The new story explores more of the early Hatman and Blonde relationship, pits Hatman and Indigo against Glomo and a band of thieves, and explores the super hero recruitment process in a grander venue!

To the right is one of the parody covers we just finished. It is a parody of Ultimate Spider-Man #12 which featured Ultimate Electro.

S. LaDon Ware has outdone himself with the art in this story and I can't wait to show it to all of you! If you thought the Hatman Clause parts 1 and 2 were amazing, just wait until you see The Evil Zapman!

-Jason

Hatman & Indigo 48: Brawl

Indigo Sculpture Finished!

Today I received finished images from Ben Howard of Fizz Man Industries of the Indigo sculpture! These show him fully painted. I absolutely love it! I'm adding 2 images to this post so you can get a good look at him! Be sure to comment with your thoughts. The next thing we're commissioning from the Fizz Man is a Hatman sculpture!

Hand Sculpted Indigo!

I recently commissioned an Indigo sculpture from Ben Howard, the genius behind Fizz Man Industries. It will be a birthday present for Andy (the voice of Indigo) and also a test to see if there would be any interest among fans to purchase statues of our characters. I have received a few progress photo's and I am very impressed! To the right is the head which is amazing! Andy and I have already decided that we will be ordering more characters from Fizz Man Industries, for sale or for our own personal collections. I'll be sure to post about this again when I have images of him painted!

Tell me what you think of this idea. Would you be interested in having your very own Hatman Comics character in eye popping 3D for your display? Or what about a Midieville or Star Fetched character?

The Spectacular Cider-Man?

So, if you've watched part 2 of "Revenge of the Big Giant Pumpkin Headed Man" you know that a new superhero was introduced, The Spectacular Cider-Man. This is the character I spoke of as the idea that Steve and Andy didn't think would work. He is only briefly in part 2 but part 3 will feature him much more prominently. I think Tom Cox did an excellent job with the Russian accent as well as the characterization. In case you're concerned that we're creating far too many superheroes, I ask you to save that critique until after viewing the final part of this story next week.

As you may be able to guess, the image to the right is the cover for part 3 of this story. It is a parody of Web of Spider-Man #1 and the character of Cider-Man is obviously a loose parody of Spider-Man. However, the vaguely similar costume and similar sounding name is where the correlation between the two characters ends. I assure you we are not ripping off Spider-Man in any way.

I really can't wait until next week when part 3 goes online. I hope you all enjoy Cider-Man and I really look forward to any comments on him after it goes online!

On another note, I'm currently working on an outline for the next installment of the Pumpkin Head/Hatman Halloween saga that will be titled "Son of the Big Giant Pumpkin Headed Man." It is still in the early stages, but what I can tell you is that it will have something to do with the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and of course, the Big Giant Pumpkin Headed Man character. How much, I can't say. Besides, this story had "something" to do with the Pumpkin Head character, even though it was brief!

Until then... Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!

Jason

My thoughts behind "Revenge: part 1"

So, before I start out, I would like to make sure that anyone reading this has watched our newest audio comic, Hatman & Indigo 44: The Revenge of The Big Giant Pumpkin Headed Man. So, if you haven't please click the link pasted over the title of the issue and come back here afterward.

Okay, I'm now going to assume that anyone reading this has watched it, if not SPOILER ALERT!!!

Several ideas went into what eventually became "Revenge: part 1." We had discussed the idea of having an evil Hatman doppelganger show up and possibly call him "ManHat." I personally wasn't opposed to this idea, but I did think that if we were to have a villain named ManHat, he should be in the same vein as Batman's The Man Bat and Spider-Man's Man-Spider, essentially more hat than man. Being the non-artist that I am, I drew up the image attached to this post (top right) to help explain my idea of what I thought he should look like.

We couldn't agree where to put him or what his origin would be, but we all liked the idea. Andy was the one who came up with the idea that Pumpkin Man's revenge could be a new villain, instead of just another story where Pumpkin Man came back. We all thought that was pretty original. It wasn't until I was watching an episode of Spectacular Spider-Man with my daughter that I got the idea for the story. The episode was one where Spider-Man got the venom symbiote (I'm sure we're all familiar with that, it was shoved into the Spider-Man 3 movie). I thought to myself, "Since the symbiote took on the powers and characteristics of Spider-Man and amplified them, what would that look like if it happened to Hatman?" Hatman's primary ability is that he can pull anything he wants out of his hat/head, so I thought that maybe it would be that he would have arms that came out of his hat and did this, instead of him having to reach in with his own arms. Also, to set him apart visually, I thought it would be neat if he were a darker gray and had an orange tie, cape and hat ribbon/mouth. To see if this would look good, I took an image of Hatman that Steve had drawn for Hatman: issue 28 and recolored it (pictured to the right).

Then I thought that we could alter the evil doppelganger idea into this "Venom" parody idea and show Hatman get mean. Granted it goes by fairly fast in the comic, but I had another idea that I'd been itching to use for years and I knew it would work out, even though Andy and Steve didn't have much confidence in it. But for that, you'll have to wait 2 weeks until Revenge Part 2 goes online (Andy says he's confident he can get it online October 16th)!

Most of the time when we write Hatman scripts we will write the entire story all in one setting, but sometimes, we will start one part and then either not be sure exactly what to have happen, or be so creatively drained that we have to take a break. The former was the case with this story. I wrote part 1 of "Revenge" and didn't exactly know what I was going to do, I had an idea, but it wasn't enough to build a full story on. So, Part 1 actually sat on its own for about 6 months.

Next week we change gears for a little bit because 10/6 is Mad Hatter day, so we will be featuring the Mad Hatter!

Jason

Pumpkin Man Sub-Saga Recap: Part 1

Yesterday I touched on the history of our Pumpkin Man Halloween Special sub-saga. Before the new issue posts tomorrow, I'd like to recap the previous installments in this saga.

The first appearance of the infamous Big Giant Pumpkin Headed Man was in Issue 9 (the cover says 5, because it was the 5th story and we were numbering them by story, not issues back then). This is one of the first stories Steve Surine drew for us. He actually worked on this story the same time he drew Ion Bunny issue 1. In writing this story, Andy decided to try something a little different, start with a flash back, and giving the other characters a chance to play "narrator." I personally love doing the voices of Farmer Bill (my impression of late character actor, Pat Buttram) and The Pumpkin (a generic gravely cockney voice) and this gave me a good chance to use them both a lot. I actually had the idea to use these two voices because of the character of King Stanely I voiced in our "Ode To Mother's Day" video we had made several years prior.

The story took place soon after the formation of the Terrible Trio and featured them prominently. After fighting over who should lead their bad guy gang, Super Cold Frozen Man used his ray gun on a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch in hopes to create a new villain to help him prove he should be in charge. This pumpkin grew into a giant jack-o-lantern as it lodged itself on the head of Farmer Bill (a previously unseen character in the Hatman Universe). The Pumpkin Head was imbued with telepathic and telekinetic powers but was symbiotically linked to the farmer, if the farmer could get him off his head, he would reduce to a normal pumpkin and be innocuous. After reading Super Cold Frozen Man's mind, the Pumpkin Head flew off to kidnap Blonde by levitating a normal pumpkin and riding it. He also telepathically convinced the Narrator that he should go on vacation. By the end of the story, Hatman, Indigo and Blonde were all tied up and the Pumpkin revealed that Super Cold Frozen Man was his "father." As the Terrible Trio gloated at their success, Farmer Bill's son, Billy Boy, walked in the barn (where our heroes were being kept). Startled, Super Cold Frozen Man shot Billy with the ray gun. The power of the ray gun aged Billy to a full grown man, gave him a green costume and the power of "regular." As Regular Man, Billy could negate Hatman's powers as well as those of anything that had indirectly come about as a result of Hatman. Thus Regular Man saved the Day by powering down the villains and rescuing his father and the heroes.

After re-watching it in preparation for this recap, I noticed that we really have come a long way. There should be a lot more told by the narrator(s) and the art, while good for Steve's first Hatman book, doesn't always tell the story properly. More panels could have helped greatly. The sound effects and editing (my job) felt forced and "acty" and the ending was abrupt.

Jason

New stuff coming... we promise!

Okay, so it's been a long time since we posted anything new on the site or this blog. But we've been working on some new stuff, I promise! We have all of the Halloween issues ready to roll for this fall! Plus, a character commentary on The Hatman Clause featuring Indigo and The Badger! We're also working on turning Midieville and Star Fetched into audio podcasts! We have a lot of stories ready for both of those shows and we want to help ease your 3twins withdrawals.

What have we been up to all this time you may ask? Well, the bulk of our time has been spent working on the Lectrajack novel previously reported as a motion comic. While we would still like to have Lectrajack presented in a visual medium some day, we feel our skills at writing will best serve the story as a novel. Plus, we've dabbled in other forms of writing with our other stories, why not explore this series in novel form, that's right I said series! We intend for no less than five books with the possibility of more!

I'm not going to promise more blog posts, but I will try to appear here more often. Maybe even once a week as things start to get rolling again, I'll have more to report.

Andy and I plan on attending the Chicago Comicon in August, so I'll be sure to report on that!

As for now, refresh your memories with the slew of content we already have on 3twins.net!

-Jason

Hatman's next adventure

Hello Hatman & Indigo fans!

As I'm sure you've noticed, we haven't had a new comic out in a couple of weeks. This is because we've run into some setbacks in the production of our Superheroes saga and it might take us a while to get things figured out. But in the meantime, we have our next adventure of Hatman & Indigo ready to go, and seeing as it's time for Halloween again, could that mean another appearance of the fearsome foe The Big Giant Pumpkin Headed Man? You'll just have to tune in and see!

-Steve

Dr. Beakman Strikes!

As you might have guessed from the title of Hatman & Indigo Issue #41, our newest villain is Dr. Beakman, a character who remains shrouded in mystery. As of this blog post, we still haven't revealed much about Dr. Beakman in the comic, so I don't want to give too much away, but I thought I'd share a bit about how I came up with this character.

Ever since I was a kid I've been inclined to find images in the seemingly random patterns in nature - maybe some of you can relate. A lot of us do this with clouds. We'll look up at the sky and see a dog, or a car, or Mickey Mouse. I tend to do this with other things as well, like seeing faces on the bark of a tree or a character in the wavy shapes on a stone floor.

Well, back in the fall of 2005 I was sitting on the deck outside my apartment reading a book and apparently I got bored because I started looking at the wood-grain lines of the deck boards. True to form, I picked out an interesting pattern in the flooring that I thought looked like a strange bird-like character. I immediately ran inside, grabbed a notebook and drew a sketch of the character, and then named him Dr. Beakman and wrote up a quick back-story. Later that day I proposed the idea to Jason and Andy and a new Hatman & Indigo villain was born. It wasn't long before I'd written a first draft titled "The Beakman Saga," which ultimately became the five-part series that started with Superheroes and is now continuing with Dr. Beakman Strikes.

So I hope you enjoy the story. And next time you're analyzing the patterns on your hardwood flooring or wooden furniture, who knows, maybe you'll come up with the next great comic book character!

-Steve

Voice Actor Profile: Tom Cox

Tom Cox is likely our most seasoned actor at 3twins.net. So, naturally I thought I'd start my new blog series devoted to the Voice Actors, with our "granite voiced" Narrator.

Tom has been involved in the Theatrical Arts since the young age of 12 when he joined the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre, although he told them he was 13 because that was the youngest they would allow.

Tom "hammed" it up at the Civic for several years until he went off to College at Olivet, where he joined the theater there.

After School, Tom took a short hiatus from the Kalamazoo area and moved to Florida for about a year and a half to do Dinner Theater. Until the late 1980's when he joined his father's side at the microphone back in Kalamazoo doing voice work for radio spots.

In the early to mid 1990's Tom took a bit of a break from acting to focus his live more on his sons, that is until around the time our paths crossed for the first time while both attending Lake Center Bible Church, where he put back on his dinner theater "hat" and entertained and ministered in the various productions there.

Although Tom had been a great proponent of 3twins from its inception, he didn't begin working with us from the start. But when we needed a "Joker-esque" actor to play the part of "The Evil Narrator" in Hatman & Indigo #24: Omniscient, Tom stepped up to the challenge and has been a regular since, later taking on the role of the Hat-Mo-GPS Unit in Issue 27 and ultimately taking his place as the life and breath of the Hatman Universe itself, the Narrator in Origin Remastered.

Tom can also currently be heard in the Christain Webtoon, "The Wartleys".

Join me next time when I give you a little peek into the acting history of yours truly.

-Jason

Issue 40 Preview

Last night the final installment of Hatman & Indigo issue #39, Shocking Science Fiction Stories, went online. This means that next week we're ready to begin a new saga in the world of Hatman & Indigo titled Superheroes, written by yours truly.

I wrote the first draft of this script a couple of years ago and it was one of the first three-part stories we ever wrote. I remember back then that seemed like quite a saga. Now there are six three-part stories and a four-part story on 3twins.net! But just as our story-telling over time has grown, so has this story and by the time it is completely unveiled it will be our first five-part issue. The first part of the story was drawn by guest artist Kendall Stump.

I don't want to give too much of the story away, but I can share a little for our valued blog readers. The story begins with Hatman, Indigo and the Damsel family planning a party for Blonde. But the plans are quickly interrupted when Hatman gets an invitation to a super hero convention and decides to take Indigo along for the ride. There's something odd about the convention and it's up to our heroes to figure out just what.

"So who's behind the mayhem?" you might ask. While I can't say exactly who, but I will tell you that it's a brand new villain. You'll just have to stay tuned to find out just who that new villain is and what his or her motives for provoking Hatman & Indigo just might be.

By the end of this saga we promise more mystery, more action, more characters and more battles than ever before. And we hope you'll get a lot of good laughs in there too. So don't miss next week's launch of our newest story!

-Steve

Twelve hours of creatvity

This last Saturday Andy, Steve, and I shut ourselves in my house completely isolated from the world and immersed ourselves in the world of Hatman & Indigo. Our goal was to work out a massive saga for 2010 and possibly 2011; and let me tell you this, it's going to be amazing!

Obviously I can't give away much at all. However, I can tell you a couple of things to hopefully entice you:

New Villains!

New Heroes!

Oh, how I want to "spill the beans" on the gritty details; but alas I must abstain. Suffice it to say, you do not want to miss one single issue of Hatman & Indigo

-Jason