Somewhere, Alex Cipriano is cracking a Nicholas Cage joke.

Here, people, is the mock cover to the second issue of Urban Animal.  I’ve been drawing it on and off for the past couple of weeks, and today I was blessed with a three-hour window to just slap some color on it.

I had come up with various plays for the layout of this thing — from showing the main character in mid-transformation, to a dinosaur doing an Abbey Road crossing — but I decided to just go with my gut and hint at a key moment within the issue.  I was initially conflicted about whether to make the rex snout bloody or not, but the deep red color turned out to be a nice point of interest.

When in doubt, go for the gross out.

Almost ten years back, when I was still in college, I somehow got it in my head that a snotty little punk with animal powers would make for an amusing read.  Because I had been involved with local comic movements that had then just hung up their hats, I needed an outlet to at least keep the juices flowing.  BEAST BOY JOE was a semi-autobiographical comic which drew a lot from my days in UP.  It was a personal project that I had drawn up to 66 pages for (with script assists by my good friend Eric Menguito), but none of it ever saw print… mainly because it was really something intended just for me…  but also because I had no clue who would want to publish it.

Earlier this year, manly men Rey Siasar and Tom Perez from Big Ape Design approached me and asked if I had any material I wanted to develop into actual titles, and I jumped at the chance to resurrect Joe and hopefully finish the story.  I’ve been redoing  the dialogue since June, on and off, as my other projects remain top priority, but issue number one looks like it may very well be ready for the Cebu Comicon this September 25th.  The book will still have the same art from all those years ago, with touch-ups here and there, but with an all-new script, so as to update the jokes and shit.

Simply retitled THE URBAN ANIMAL, my pop-culture mash-up description for it would be The Catcher in the Rye meets The Incredible Hulk.  With some Archie thrown in.  It’s a 4-issue black-and-white original graphic novel that’s literally just been waiting almost ten years to get published — a fun little romp I can’t wait to violate you people with.  Give me money for it.

Colors by Homeros Gilani

Two weeks to go before the pledge period ends, so if you’d like to see this scene played out, I highly recommend heading over to Kickstarter and backing the project.