GearHead

GearHead on WOWIO

2007-12-09T21:15:00.001-08:00

GearHead 2 IN STORES WED. MARCH 28

2007-03-25T09:49:00.001-07:00

Make sure you hit up your local comic shop for it. if you're not sure they ordered it, then just ask them to.

GEARHEAD 3 -SIX PAGE PREVIEW-

2007-03-14T20:35:00.001-07:00

CLICK FOR LARGER VERSIONS

GearHead 3 Preview

2007-03-13T15:08:00.001-07:00

Hopeless and Mellon at Dead End

2007-01-26T19:11:00.000-08:00

The way too kind folks at Dead End Emporia did an interview with both Dennis Hopeless and Kevin Mellon for their January and February issues, respectively...

no gearhead signing today 1/24

2007-01-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

due to some unforseen circumstances we won't be signing at a-z comics today...

sorry for the inconvenience, we're going to reschedule as soon as we can.

GearHead on Broken Frontier

2007-01-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

The wonderful folk at Broken Frontier have put up a nice little interview about our book.

You can check it Here.

-mellon

Give yourselves a hand.

2007-01-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

We had the "Release Party" yesterday at Pulp Fiction Comics in Lee's Summit. Thank you so much to the over 70 some of you who came out to see us and to buy a copy (or 2) of the book. Especially in the crappy weather. We are amazed and humbled by your generosity. We met many old faces, and just as many new ones who braved the storm to come see what we, and the book were all about. And for that, we thank you.

Much thanks to the inimitable Andrew Mahon, the wonderful proprietor of Pulp Fiction. A great friend and a great retailer. Hopeless and I are working together because of him, and his support for us and the book has been essential to it's creation. Thank you Andrew.

The after party, despite weather and parking issues, was good as well. Fun had all around.

Earlier in the week, on wednesday, we were at Astrokitty Comics on 7th st. in Lawrence.

Great people there, and very good to us. We sold a copy of the book to pretty much every customer that came in the store. Hands down the nicest customer base (outside our own) that we've ever dealt with.

Thanks go out to the owner Joel for having us, and to his wonderful assistant to the stars, Joe, for being a good sport and becoming our new favourite thing about lawrence.

GearHead Event Week

2007-01-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

So, just to really drum it into everyone's heads.

We'll be at AstroKitty Comics in Lawrence Ks. on Wednesday, January 17th from 1pm till they kick us out selling and signing and sketching on and near GearHead number one.

Then on Saturday, January 20th We'll be at our local comic shop, Pulp Fiction Comics Signing and Selling and Sketching away at the Official GearHead Release Party. Later that night, there's an after-party at mi casa. Hit me up for directions, it's not very far from Pulp Fiction.

Fanboy Radio / GearHead

2007-01-09T19:04:00.000-08:00

Hopeless and I just finished an interview with the inimitable Scott Hinze, the creator and co-host of Fanboy Radio. Very fucking cool, and very fucking strange. Hopeless and I think we probably sound like ass, and since the interview will be up and available for download Wednesday January 10th, you can listen to it and tell us so.

Thanks to Mr. Hinze for being kind enough to talk to two schmucks.

-mellon/hopeless

Comic Book Resources Interview

2007-01-08T16:24:00.000-08:00

Hey, we're on Comic Book Resources, kiddies!

They were kind enough to interview us, and we were supremely awesome enough to oblige.

-mellon

GearHead No. 2 --- 6 pg Preview

2007-01-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

Order GearHead from you Local Comic Shop.

January Previews Page 222 Order Code: JAN07 3377

(We're bi-monthly so it ships in March).

GearHead Issue 2 is Available to Order

2007-01-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

It's in this month's Diamond Previews Catalogue, Page 222 Order Code JAN07 3377

GearHead One :: Six Page Preview

2006-12-28T19:05:00.000-08:00

GEARHEAD ISSUE #1

Six Page Preview

(CLICK FOR LARGER)

GearHead #1 Press Release

2006-11-23T00:08:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arcana Studio

Press Release

2007 – The Year of the Wrench.

GEARHEAD coming in January from Arcana Studio!

# # # OFFICIAL RELEASE BEGINS # # #

November 13, 2006 (Kansas City, MO) -- Creative team Dennis Hopeless, Kevin Mellon & Ed Herrera introduce the world to GearHead, a wrench-wielding post-teenager with daddy-issues and more than a little pent-up aggression – in GearHead #1 coming in January from Arcana Studio.

“It’s a story about family, responsibility and the corruption of REAL power,” says series writer, Dennis Hopeless. “It’s also about a hot girl who beats people with a wrench and the nearly-naked bureaucrats who’d like her to stop - a little something for everyone.”

GearHead #1, solicited in November’s Previews (order code: NOV063289) is an origin story. Family secrets are revealed and a drag racer becomes a badass with the swing of a wrench.

“It’s like an action movie if Michael Bay cared about plot and characters,” jokes penciller, Kevin Mellon. “Think ‘Pearl Harbor,’ if ‘Pearl Harbor’ was good.”

Arcana’s take on the story:

GEARHEAD #1

By Hopeless, Mellon & Herrera

Shelby Cooper lives just outside a world of spandex politicians and electric cars - but F**K them and their world. She's a hot chick with a hotrod. She drives fast, talks trash and hurts people with a big-ass wrench. What does any of that have to do with super powers? Well...

On a mission to find her brother and in search of the destiny she never knew she had, Shelby's life is about to get interesting. Join her on a 4-issue road trip that leads from the drag strip all the way to the White House. Like her father before her, she is GearHead.

- 32-pages, full color, four-issue bi-monthly limited series -- $3.95

GEARHEAD (order code: NOV063289) is spotlighted in the November issue of Previews catalogue for release in January 2007. Ask your retailer.

Zombies With Guns

2006-11-09T09:42:00.000-08:00

Top That.

The zombies are by no means the primary focus of our story. But when they show up, fuck if they don't steal the show.

-Hopeless

GearHead in November Previews

2006-11-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

GearHead # 1 in NOV. Previews

2006-10-28T16:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, for those of you who don't know, PREVIEWS is the monthly catalogue that ALL comic shops use to order their comics from. We are in this month's (NOV.) issue.

Diamond November Previews.
Page 221
Order .. NOV063289

We're spotlighted as one of the "new things to try in the new year"

Fuckin' Sah-weet.

Order now, order big, bitches.

-M E L L O N

This Weekend: MO-KAN ComiCon... Sat. and Sun. Oct. 28-29

2006-10-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

We'll be at the Mo-Kan Comics Conspiracy Comic Convention pimping our wares with the svelte looking boys who produce that high-quality book Revere. Look for us, we'll be the table full of whores.
Not the table with the whores, but the table full of whores. BIG DIFFERENCE.

-Mellon

If phoenix looks a little tired today, it's because...

2006-09-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

Hopeless and I rocked the Phoenix Cactus Con. Unfortunately, neither of us are much for taking pictures, so i don't know that we have that many at all... but here's the short recap...

To be honest, we thought we'd be sitting there with our thumbs up our asses for two days and come home going "never again"... well we've got plenty to say never again about, but nothing to do with the con itself. Phoenix kicked our asses.

We rolled in around 10ish friday night, rented a pimped out auto to cruise for phoenix's hottest in, and rolled on over to our penthouse suite at the moderately esteemed La Quinta in Mesa. Fortunately for them, they followed our implicitly explicit instructions and didn't book anyone else on our floor except a roving team of high school girls who play softball when they're not holding dance parties in the street in front of the hotel, or in the hall in front of our room. based on those abilities, i can only assume they are the top in their league. Of softball.

Comment on phoenix at first glance? mmm. bitches.

hehe. nah, like most places not Kansas City, Phoenix kicks ass. The fact that the roads are 6 lanes wide in most places, is enough to make me love it unconditionally. and i don't love anything without some caveats.

Being the rock stars that we are, we rolled in to the con at the fashionably early time of 9 in the AM on Saturday. Check in was made amazing by the fact that no one knew who we were nor had they heard of the publisher we were there to rep. Oh, the joys of being so famous no one cares. After some neck-wringing and calls for the wrath of Odin to rain down, our wonderful guide (who seemed awfully young to be in charge of so much) realized the badass-ness that we represented and put us in our booth so we could begin the weekend of shilling.

We set up our lovely Arcana banner and then set up our "don't get too close, ladies, it'll make ya squirt out babies" GearHead banner. It was, to say the most by saying the least, Impressive. Most Impressive.

I had taken the time to make a startlingly kickass "sketches $10" sign the day before whilst waiting for H-pizzle in the airport. My decision to include everyone's second favourite claw-wielding cannuck was a good bit of foresight and thoughtfulness on my part because within mere minutes of the convention being opened to the some-what washed masses, I was sketching away for pay.

Here's where things get blurry.

From 9 saturday morning till about midnight that night, i sketched. then i woke up on sunday morning and from 9 that day right up till the convention closed at 5, i sketched. all in all i did about or over 30 inked sketches. My eyes still ache. I drew everything from Harley Quinn, to Thanos, to Shelby from our devilishly good book (which will greet the world in January 2007) GearHead, to polaris, to zorro, to many more that i'll have to look at the list i made and see what they were.

It was a whirlwind of sketching and looking up and seeing new faces every few minutes. I gotta hand it to Phoenix, they bring the hottness.

Hopeless, meanwhile, was honing his sales pitch, and was infinitely amusing to listen to a grown man figure out new and exciting ways to say "it's about a girl who beats people up with a wrench".

hehe.

There were very few people who didn't chuckle at that, and stop to hear the pitch on GearHead and for the rest of the Arcana Line. We wager that if we'd had GearHead with us to sell, we probably would have done slightly better than the hotcakes they were selling in the booth across from us. (I"ve got my sites on you, Frank Beddor... goddamn your good salesmanship. you rule).

Speaking of booths next to us, we were across (more diagonal) from Frank Beddor and his booth for his Looking Glass Wars series of books... That man is a selling machine. It's as if he gets up every morning before cons and watches the Alec Baldwin scene from Glengarry Glen Ross and takes it as his personal motto. That and he's so nice it's ridiculous.

next to us, selling his book and his whole online world he's created, was the highly entertaining and just as nice PJ Haarsma. If there was a nicer and cooler guy to be seated next to for two days, i don't wanna meet him. PJ is a good guy, and the world and books he's created are highly entertaining (I'm in the middle of his first novel right now, and had the chance to check his promo video for his online game, Rings Of Orbis, neat stuff).

There are a ton of other people to thank, and i'll make another post with them in it, because there were a lot of great people who were very kind to us, and very supportive of not only us, but GearHead. If the level of excitement that we drummed up in those two days even remotely translates into sales, we'll do okay with the book.

more later...

-Kevin

ooh-ah-ooh... witch-ay woooman...

2006-09-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

working steadily on issue four, ed's inking 3, and alexey is colouring 2....

not quite a fine oiled machine, but at least we're moving.

-K

Road Trippin'

2006-08-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

GearHead Numero 4, page 3.

Dennis wrote the most emotionally charged, and well paced script he's ever written, and hopefully I can do it justice. It's going to be a tightly packed 22 pages, but I think it'll be the best thing we've done yet. Which is good since it's the last issue of this series. I'd hate for us to have peaked earlier and be limping out of this thing.

Go out and pick up Phonogram right now. Best first issue I've read in a long time.

And as always, GearHead ghost rides the whip in January from Arcana Studios.

-Kevin

Fun with DIAMOND

2006-08-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

So we recently had to come up with solicitation copy for our DIAMOND PREVIEWS advert. By "WE" I mean "ME" because Kevin hates this kind of shit as much as I do and enjoys watching me squirm.

Seriously though, I HATE writing summaries. In school, I always lost points on essays and term papers because I flat refused to write conclusion paragraphs. If the reader couldn't get my point by reading THE ACTUAL PAPER, it wasn't my problem. Besides, said reader was clearly an idiot and not worth the effort.

I suck at one-sheet pitches too. If I weren't shamed into tears every time I think about it I would post the first draft of my GH pitch. Kevin stopped reading it 1/3 of the way through because he was "beginning to doubt my ability as a writer."

In my experience, it's not possible to describe a complex idea or story line in a single paragraph WITHOUT sounding like a Ron Popeil infomercial. Flip through an issue of PREVIEWS, you'll see what I'm talking about. I'd feel less dirty if they just printed "GEARHEAD: Buy the book and we'll suck you off!" Oh well, you can't win if you don't play...

GearHead #1

Shelby Cooper lives just outside a world of spandex politicians and
electric cars - but FUCK them and their world. She's a hot chick with
a hotrod. She drives fast, talks trash and hurts people with a big-ass
wrench. What does any of that have to do with super powers? Well...

On a mission to find her brother and in search of the destiny she
never knew she had, Shelby's life is about to get interesting. Join
her on a 4-issue road trip that leads from the drag strip all the
way to the White House. Like her father before her, she is GearHead.

-Hopeless

Coloring for Rubles

2006-07-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

So, radio silence. Sorry about that.

Kevin just finished penciling issue three and issue two is fully inked. After a bit of a hiccup, we've found an amazing colorist and couldn't be more happy. His english may be stilted but the dude can color like a MOFO.

COurtesy of Mother Russia's next big thing, Alexey Strakhov:

GearHead: Issue 3, page 6

2006-06-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

Been a while since i posted a full page, so i thought, since this is a non story-give-away page, i'd throw it up for y'all.

I have a tendency to just breeze through pages like crazy. Most guys usually spend a minimum of 6-8 hours on a given page... This might be a case of shooting myself in the foot, but i rarely spend more than 5 hours on a page, and more often than not 4 hours is usually where I top out at.

I started this page a little after 2pm today, and finished about 5:45pm.

Thing is, I was taking my time.

I dunno, I have always been of the Dave Sim mantra of "get good, get fast"... After my two year sabbatical from doing much drawing after I got out of the Kubert School, I picked up drawing pages again, and found that it was taking me a minimum of 12 hours to do a page, and most things were taking me over 20 hours to do. This was for stuff that is way less detailed and far simpler shots than I have been doing lately at a much faster rate. I found that, over time, I began to do more of my drawing not so much in the finished line but in the rough layouts and rough pencils, so that when it came time to put the finished lines down, I began thinking like an inker and using one line, instead of the sktch sktch sktch of multiple lines making up one line eventually.

Making decisions like that not only forced my confidence to improve, as in getting the line right the first time, but also made the process of drawing go so much faster than I had even anticipated. It's been awhile since I've done so, but I have found that now, I can easily do 3 pages in one day, and not suffer from any lack of quality or content.

A lot of the drawing process for me is about learning, and refining, and unlike most artist's, I am not about the finished product. Any reason for me to do a page, or any other finished drawing, is in the process, the layouts, the rough pencils. By the time I get to putting down the finished line, I have reached the end of the lesson, and am merely executing the sum of the things that I have learned from doing that page combined with the knowledge I had going into that page.

I have found that if I were to spend more time on pages, the end results would not change. The pages that i spent 20 hours on, while having a certain amount of charm to them when I peruse them now, do not have any thing more to them than the work I do now. In fact, the work I am doing now has, I think, a lot more life, action, and detail to it than before.

I dunno, most of you looking at this sight wouldn't know much of that work anyways. I'm sure some of it can be found by digging through past posts, if one were so inclined.

Anyways, was thinking about that while drawing this page. Was also thinking about the nature of how i draw a line... but that's for another day.

-K

tied up, dried up, and dead to the world

2006-06-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

Working on issue 3, having fun doing so.

i'll make dennis post a more lengthy digression sometime this week, i'm tired of typing on this infernal typewriter with a tv on top of it.

-Kevin

Subtle's Tee's

2006-05-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

"accidentally" ended up taking the bulk of this past week off, or i'd be done with issue 2 and be bugging dennis for number three, but some other shite ended up stealing the time needed to get done.

still 3 pages away from finishing the elusive issue 2, and am really excited for what hopeless has in the wings for issue 3 and four...

anyhoo, the above panel is from issue 2, featuring subtle-t and johnny rockets...

-K

Black Tuesday

2006-05-20T17:24:00.000-07:00

fun to draw... with this image i finally hit my stride in getting the emotion that she has on the page... reserved but something in the eyes that says more... with a hint of sarcasm...

or maybe i'm just reading too much into my own shit.

-k

Running Commentary

2006-05-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

I just went for a jog (first one in 2.5 years) to work out the plot points for issue three. I took 2 things away from the jog:

#1. No matter how pointy your manbreasts have become, nothing feels better than jogger's adrenaline. I'm gonna run some more.

#2. Issue 3 is looking like A WHOLE LOTTA MAN CANDY.

Not a Hoax! Not an Imaginary Story! In this issue...

Well, you get the idea.

-Hopeless

Getting there...

2006-05-17T20:41:00.002-07:00

i'm six pages away from being done with my part of issue two...

-K

Shock and Awe, ain't they cute?

2006-05-12T21:02:00.000-07:00

rocking through issue two, i'm on page 13 (by way of skipping a couple of pages... but we'll ignore that for now) ... things are going well... hope it shows...

ed's colouring his little heart out, it's been a stressful week for him, he ate a bad chimichanga, and had some wicked attack of the killer tomatoes hearburn, but he's doing better now, the doc prescribed a regimen of will and grace and pringles, so he should recover nicely.

dennis is at a hoe-down somewhere in kansas... hmmph... pimps up my g... pimp's up.

-Kevin

sneak-a-peak

2006-05-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

GH2preview72
Originally uploaded by aimsatellite.

we're all about P.I.M.P.I.N. the first issue of GearHead, but i'm drawing issue two right now, so it's all i'm thinking about...

was watching one of those history channel "the science of... " shows on that program roswell that was on a few years back, and it got me to thinking they should do one on zombies....

no real reason...

they just should. would make my life easy right now.

-K

Cheap Date

2006-05-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

previewGH
Originally uploaded by aimsatellite

when it comes to posting the art/pages here, Dennis is like the girl who says she kisses on the first date, but really only gives you a peck on the cheek...

i'm the slutty one who makes you feel like you had to work really hard to get to 2nd base on the first date, when really i would've gone further if you'd just asked.

hehe, wow, that's a really bad analogy just to post a clipped shot of a much larger panel of a very kick-ass page.

buy us flower's next time, we'll show you the goods.

-Kevin

Tease

2006-05-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

Just got the final inks for issue one and, damn. Ed has really outdone himself. These pages look SAVAGE. It has been a while since I wrote the first issue and It's fun to be excited about it again. November can't come soon enough.

You thought I was gonna show you? Maybe later.

-Dent

Sketchy

2006-05-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

We've been asking folks to draw GearHead pinups so we can have some bonus material for each issue. Several people agreed to help us out (mostly Kevin's Kubert School 'mates) but Jake Allen [of Brownsville fame] was the quickest of the bunch. You'll have to buy issue one to see the pinup but here's a little taste:

Shelby Sketch by Jake Allen:

Pretty badass, no? More to come.

-Dent

Progress

2006-04-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

I finished the issue #2 script last week. Kevin has already done layouts, penciled the first two pages and is rocking page 3 as I type. The second issue is a lot more character driven than the first which made it a blast to write. I'm a dialogue guy and we came up with dozens of great Supers when we were fleshing out the backstory. I was stoked to start giving them voices. Then, I wrote an exposition heavy, caption driven first issue. It was almost painful. I love the thing but Shelby is very nearly the only speaking character in it. That said, issue #2 completely makes up for it. So many bad-ass characters. So much super-villain shuffleboard, zombie busboys and presidential T&A. I'm really excited to see what Kevin and Ed do with it.

We're planning on a November release (Arcana Studio September 06 PREVIEWS) and should be wearing our SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION hats at WW Chicago in August.

I'm told these wordy posts are boring to look at. If that's true, I apologize. Hopefully we'll get some issue #2 promo art up soon.

-Hopeless

GearHead

2006-04-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

Click on images to see full size.

Written by Dennis Hopeless
Art by K.W. Mellon and Eduardo Herrera

Snippet

2006-04-20T19:37:00.000-07:00