Here's a sneak peek at what's in store for Star Wars Insider #86.

The cover features an awesome illustration of everyone's favorite little green friend by ILM animator Jamy Wheless and a tiny peek in the upper corner of my artwork for "Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous" by Abel Pena and yours truly. Of special note, this is probably the first Insider cover featuring original art in some time. If it goes over well with fans hopefully it won't be the last time.

Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the Hyperspace supplemental article called "The Story of General Grievous II: Lord of War. Abel has pulled out all of the stops for this one and the material is guaranteed to please Grievous fans out there (like me of course). Read more about the cyborg general's forthcoming "return" at Abel's blog here and here .

Insider #86 will be shipping this February but in the meantime I invite everyone to check out my latest comic book project from IDW Publishing, Spike Vs. Dracula #1, at Newsarama.com in this five page sneak preview. I'm providing the covers and interior art (pencils and inks) for the five-issue series written by comic icon Peter David and the first issue arrives in stores this February as well.

If you're a Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Angel fan then hopefully you'll get a kick out of the story. It features guest appearaces by Darla and Drusilla (and Drac natch) as well as historical figures like Bela Lugosi, Hitler and... Ed Wood.

You can check out the cover to issue #1 along with a sneak peek at my cover for issue #2 at my official site in my comic book gallery. You can also view my cover there for Angel: Old Friends #3 which should be on shelves now. I'll be adding more Spike Vs. Dracula artwork to my website after the first issue ships but if enjoy the preview be sure to pick up a copy at your friendly neighborhood comic book shop soon. Thanks for the support

To get me in vampire drawing mood I checked out Underworld: Evolution recently and thought in many ways it was superior to the original. Like any good horror movie sequel it's way more intense and if you've seen the original and are expecting more of the same you might be surprised. It's leaner, meaner and sexier to say the least. Of course you'll get a lot more mileage out of the sequel if you watched the somewhat mediocre but still enjoyable first film but gone are the overly drawn out cosplay vampire scenes and in its place is twice as much action along with better special effects on display. The exposition is still there but it's usually done more on the fly since the main characters in this film are constantly on the run (which is often the best way to fill audience members in on the plot and keep the story moving). There's just a sense of urgency and danger to this sequel that the original was lacking.

Even though the first film had an identity crisis and seemed to be influenced heavily from films like the Matrix or its own knock offs I did enjoy its ambitiousness, its mythology, the atmosphere and the performances of the secondary characters like Viktor, Kraven and Lucian. The sequel in fact actually made me care and invest more in the main characters, Selene (Kate Beckinsale in leather of course delivers the goods) and Michael (who was just kinda there the first time around) and believe in their relationship. The main standout though is Tony Curran as Marcus who just oozes with evil as a villianous, hybrid vampire creature and it's a twisted pleasure watching him as he rips people apart. He almost steals the show and the finale was one of the best action spectacles I've seen on the big screen in awhile.

In between drawing Spike pages I've been playing Battlefront II and immensely enjoying blowing things up Star Wars style. There's really nothing more satisfying to me right now than blasting through wave after wave of battle droids or stormtroopers for some reason. I don't get out much these days so it doesn't take a whole lot to entertain me either I suppose. I also enjoy playing for the CIS shooting through and running over my battle droid brethren to take out the oppositon. Only when I'm a clone or a rebel does friendly fire make me feel a little guilty.

But this game is exceptional, a vast improvement over the original with space battles and three times as many battlefields. I love the dogfighting in this game and flying my ship right into the enemy hanger to dish out some punishment face to face. Some of my favorite maps to play are Polis Massa (probably the hardest to conquer), Tantive IV, Mustafar, Jabba's Palace, Kamino and Kashyyyk (both from the original but amped up here). Dagobah and Naboo can be hard to conquer or defend without the proper strategy though.

My favorite hero character is Obi-Wan who just simply cleans house each time on Utapau when I play him. Mace or Luke on Coruscant, Leia on Naboo or Han on Tatooine can be unstoppable too. Playing as Yoda or Grievous doesn't always guarantee victory though since they can be trickier for me to master. I conquered both the Rise of the Empire and Galactic Conquest campaigns already but I'm playing through the game again on "Elite" which is a bit more challenging but I seem to be holding up. If I only had X-Box Live for the upcoming downloadable expansion set content so I could play as Kit or especially as one of my favorite characters, Asajj. I'd love to play her against Maul or Vader.

Oh yeah, my player character name? Kai Justiss of course!