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Fountain of youth??  Gorgeous Gerard!!

Office Day #Danzig http://ift.tt/1S4hL8C

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New Projects/New Sounds

Michael Schulz is a good friend, and my rep at Fender. He made the sparkly Mikey Way Signature Bass happen, supported him throughout MCR, and has supported me through my entire solo project. The first guitar he made me was for my birthday, and American Standard Jazzmaster that I ended up calling “Red Meat” for its interesting color I hadn’t seen on a Fender guitar before. He outfitted us with gear for recording, and provided The Hormones with basses, cabinets, heads, and Ian with these awesome custom Jaguars to play live. He is a true patron of the arts. To watch him talk about music is infectious- he loves helping artists create, and he inspires them to do so.

I don’t talk about gear often, and I am not known to endorse things. Over the years I have turned down more free things than I can remember because it just makes me feel weird and attached. There are about 3-4 companies I work with currently that support me making art. I only talk about what I love and use, and ever since I was a kid, and watched Billy Corgan and Kurt Cobain play Fenders I was hooked. This also explains my connection to fuzz pedals, and I have a modest collection of those.

Fender guitars just have a magic to me. At their core they have only what is needed- if you’re looking for bells and whistles you can surely find it on some models they make but there is an inherent minimalist approach to the instrument. This allows you to find your identity- what comes through the guitar is you. It’ll have a little spring, some twang, a brightness- all the things that make a Fender- but you find yourself in these instruments. I love them plain and simple. And I have always been drawn to the way they look, which, when you look at music in a visual way, is part of the picture you create with your sound. Seeing a Fender in person for the first time, it looked like it was ripped from the pages of one of my favorite comics, Love And Rockets.

After playing in Japan recently on The Hesitant Alien Tour, I began to lay the basic parts and ideas for a potential new project. Sometimes these projects start with a sound, sometimes that sound has an instrument or a visual attached to it, and I felt I needed new a guitar. I remembered a guitar in black specifically that I had seen years ago that Fender had produced in limited run. The music I had envisioned for this project was minimal in nature and the instrument I was thinking of encapsulated that.

The guitar was a Fender La Cabronita Boracha . It has a reverse Jazzmaster Ash body, 1 single TV Jones pickup at the bridge. Two knobs, and a maple Telecaster neck. It is pretty simple.

Telecatsers and Jazzmasters are my favorite guitars that Fender makes. Both were played pretty much exclusively by me on Hesitant Alien (Ian played Telecasters, Strats, and various other Fenders). Hesitant Alien was an all-Fender album. I like the way a Telecaster plays, and I like the loudness and feel, look, of a Jazzmaster. This guitar seemed to combine both things. It was perfect for me and perfect for the project.

I asked Michael if it was even possible for them to make one and he checked with the Fender Custom Shop. It turned out that they had one body left in the whole factory- this would be the last Boracha they would make. It was going to take some time to make but I had a lot of touring to do so I wasn’t stressing and I obviously wanted them to get it how they wanted it.

Michael texted me to tell me the guitar had arrived and we had lunch and I picked it up. It was beautiful, and even more simple than I had imagined, which I loved, you could even see the wood grain texture through the paint. I got home, plugged it in, and quickly found it was exactly the sound I was looking for. I had never played on these pickups before and they were perfect, they had an electricity and a bluntness to them. Simple. And it felt amazing- I was right at home with the Telecaster neck, and I loved the feel of that strange reverse Jazz body. I began to lay more foundations of the next thing, strumming and layering only the smallest details.

So, this is me talking about something I love and sharing it with you guys. I’d love to share more in the coming weeks and months, and let you in on my process and how these tools help me to create the things I do. Everything from my art and design process, to making music, to writing comics- I’d like to pull back the veil a little bit on that.  

I want to thank Michael Schulz, Fender, and The Fender Custom Shop for their love and support, and for helping us see our vision through.

G

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A Gentle Roar

Greetings from DC’s Young Animal Control Center, a.k.a. The ZOO!

We want to start giving weekly updates on the progress of the Young Animal books. This is the first. In these updates you will see art and commentary from the collaborators, editorial, and myself.

Emerald City Con was wonderful—I met so many amazing artists, writers, colorists, letterers, and editors. The support we received across the board for Young Animal has been amazing, and it is fueling us through the next stages. Those stages include conceptualizing, storytelling, scripting, drawing, building, and a number of other processes to get these books ready to go.

Each week the team goes into Dan DiDio and Jim Lee’s offices to talk direction, ideas, art, and where we are heading. It is an amazing part of the process and gives us a chance to get on the same page and shape it together. That part is essential.

Today I want to share some art and talk a little bit about things, starting with DOOM PATROL.

Here are two pieces by DOOM PATROL artist Nick Derington. The first image is a shot of Cliff Steele, a.k.a. Robotman. This is the first image Nick created for fun, and we (myself and the editorial team) were so moved by it that I knew we needed to start working together immediately. There is something about Cliff sitting there and looking off, thinking to himself, that captures some of the energy we were going for. I’m also a sucker for Cliff’s costume from Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s run.

The next image is super exciting; we get a look inside the process of creating a new character. This is a concept for Casey Brinke, one of the newest members of the Doom Patrol, also drawn by Nick.

I don’t want to give away too much about her, but some of you might notice the costume was inspired by Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath has been really important to my personal creative process for DP), Sigourney Weaver in Alien, and other inspirations like Starlight Express (!). Some may also notice that the costume appeared on an image Becky Cloonan created for the original DC pitch years ago based on my initial designs (which I will share one day). The character has since changed drastically. My first stab at DOOM PATROL involved a very cynical character that I didn’t feel like writing anymore—the whole take was fun but it wasn’t what I had in mind years later. Casey Brinke is who I want to write—as you mature, you change as a person and as a writer. The ambulance from the original pitch remains, though. Nick and I spent a bit of time creating her and Nick spent a lot of time drawing her—shaping her—so that when the writer starts scripting, the artist can start to hear the character’s voice, and then the character develops even more once the artist brings them to life on the page.

Once we started to get a footing on Casey and other members of Doom Patrol, we then moved on to SHADE, THE CHANGING GIRL.

I thought about the legacy of Shade a lot in the initial concepts/feelings/impressions. They are a character that goes through incredible change (hence the name), and is such an interesting character from the first incarnation, as created by the legendary Steve Ditko, and on to their experimental incarnation brought to us by Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo. The character has a special place in my heart.

Cecil Castellucci and I started working together very early, and we shaped Shade, with Cecil doing most of the heavy lifting after I told her my initial concept. I fell in love with Cecil’s writing immediately—it has a visceral and dangerous quality to it—very raw, emotional, and wildly imaginative. Her first issue of SHADE is a knockout.

Putting teams together is half the fun, and the editors did an incredible job with this—bringing me lots of art to see—and we chose the teams together.

Which brings us to the amazingly talented Marley Zarcone—someone whose art Cecil and I fell in love with.

Here is an image, much like Nick’s take on Cliff that captured the energy of the character while bringing an alien couture to the table. The Young Animal team is very big on fashion—the perfect thing to juxtapose the wild and uncontrollable nature of the madness itself, and the darkness of the story.

Here is Marley’s Shade!

MOTHER PANIC!

Tommy Lee Edwards and I have been wanting to work together for some time. In 2015, Tommy and his partners flew me out to be a guest at their NC Comicon—it was an incredible experience and we bonded right away—I had been a fan of Tommy’s ever since my brother Mikey gave me a copy of Marvel 1985, and Jon Rivera (who I will get to more later) sent me a bunch of Tommy’s Star Wars art. Tommy and I talked about doing a Batman project together, but as I tried to get in the headspace of Batman, I realized I wasn’t ready to take that on—I felt like I wasn’t in a dark enough place, to be honest! Maybe one day.

But MOTHER PANIC is something different altogether. Even though Bruce Wayne is a famous person, I could bring things from my personal experience as a musician into the character of Violet Paige, a.k.a. Mother Panic, filtering these elements through a different lens: the red carpets, the galas, the weirdos you meet, the fame and the negativity, addiction, misery, combat. Tommy and I created a character that saw a very different Gotham, and we found a whole other world to explore in Gotham—the underbelly of Gotham’s wealthy and famous, the secret things that happen, the secret world. Tommy began designing the character using only some of my crude ballpoint pen notebook scribbles of the character. Mother is still a work in progress, but Tommy blows me away with every design.

Getting Jody Houser on board as writer is the part that glues everything together, and she puts her heart into making Violet come alive. She understood the character right away and immediately found Mother’s voice. Jody is one of my top favorite writers, and I expect to see her writing many different characters in many different genres over the course of her career—she is one of the most versatile writers I have ever met. She took to crime drama immediately. She’s having fun with this and you can tell. We are learning about Violet (and Mother) together. I’m overjoyed that Jody is part of this.

Another exciting announcement is the addition of artist Shawn Crystal to the MOTHER PANIC team! Shawn will be rotating as part of the art team with Tommy Lee Edwards and John Paul Leon, and we are all extremely happy to have his talents on board.

Here is one of my favorite images that Tommy created to get the initial vibe—simple and elegant, like a witch or a ghost walking the streets in downtown Gotham. This captured the energy to me.

Collaborating has been the best part about working on Young Animal. Projects are so much better to go at as a team, and you develop bonds. I feel like the entire team of Young Animal is like a band, every piece supporting the other and bringing in new ideas all the time.

Which brings us to CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE.

Writer Jon Rivera and I go way back. We met in art school and stayed very close, working on developing television and film projects together throughout the years. Whenever I needed to bounce an idea off of someone or gain some insight, I went to Jon. When I thought about Cave Carson (and his cybernetic eye) in my head, I knew Jon would be thinking the same thing—so much potential here for humor and drama and…well, caves.  

I am also a fan of his writing, and always have been—Jon has published comics of his own as a writer and an artist. He took to Cave Carson right away, as I knew he would, and we started to develop a “season” of CAVE CARSON. We laugh a lot, just like we made each other laugh back when we met during a comedy writing course at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. CAVE creates a warm place in my heart—it is an adventure series, sure, but it is also very human.

And that brings us to one of my favorite artists, Michael Avon Oeming.

I had been reading Powers for years. I remember what an exciting time in comics it was when it first came out—it was a real game-changer for art, writing and storytelling. As we got deeper into developing Cave, Mike’s art began to line up with what we had in mind, plus we know he is so great at delivering complete characters and capturing mood.

A little-known fact: Mike inked 4 of my pages many years ago, when I was trying to break into comics as an artist. Jim Krueger was one of the first people to commission me to do professional work for his comic The Footsoldiers, as well as a backup story involving a young girl Frankenstein.

So we have this interesting history together and Mike is phenomenal, but I’m sure you already feel that way. Here is his take on Cave, which I feel captures the character perfectly as a one-time action hero turned dad, exploring the unknown and answering the call to adventure.

This has been a lengthy update! I don’t know if they will always be this long, but it is nice to finally be able to share these characters with you and share some of our process. Expect many updates and images leading up to our launch in September.

Be seeing you, G

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At the 2015 iHeart Radio Music Awards, Adam Lambert tells Access what to expect from his new album, 'The Original High,' out in summer 2015.

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#Ghost Town - April 21st @AdamLambert!!!

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The glam rocker has sold millions of albums worldwide and won a legion of new fans by joining Queen on tour. Now Adam is gearing up for a new assault on the charts.

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View the photo Queen & Adam Lambert Perform At The 02 Arena on Yahoo News. Find more photos in our photo galleries.

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Every week, The GLAAD Wrap brings you LGBT-related entertainment news highlights, fresh stuff to watch out for, and fun diversions to help you kick off the weekend.

The GLAAD Wrap: 'Match' opens; 'Shameless,' 'The Fosters' renewed; Adam Lambert signs new record deal | GLAAD

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Are YOU Adam Lambert’s BIGGEST fan!? Think of creative ways to show us that you in fact are in a 1-3 min video! GiveStars.com

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Are YOU Adam Lambert’s BIGGEST fan!? Think of creative ways to show us that you in fact are in a 1-3 min video! GiveStars.com

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View the photo Queen & Adam Lambert Photocall on Yahoo News. Find more photos in our photo galleries.

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Queen + Adam Lambert at iHeartRadio Music Festival, Las Vegas, NV Septem...