Ostensible Cat

I've been pretty busy with the day job lately and just haven't had much time to focus on my art. I did, however, get commissioned to do 15 interior B&W pieces for Expeditious Retreat Press and their Advanced Adventures line. I've been actively working on the first piece which is due 15 March. I have eight follow up pieces due by 15 April. And the balance are due in May and June. So looks like I'll be busy for the foreseeable future at any rate. Hopefully I'll still have time to explore my sequential art experiments.

I just received my copy of Driven by Lemons by Joshua Cotter in the mail today. I've only had the chance to really sit down with it for about ten minutes but I feel compelled to go ahead and write about it anyway. Wow, what a fantastic piece of work. I've always found stream of consciousness works to be intriguing and I find Driven by Lemons to be particularly intriguing. Mr. Cotter's sequential art skills are simply stunning. The boy can draw! It is an utterly enchanting visual display. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes alt comics, stream of consciousness works, abstract comics, or just really really good art. I'm going to go back and savor it some more and write more on it a little later.

So, I've started working. I've decided rather than developing a full 24 page story, I'd be more effective at creating a series of smaller stories to fill up the 24 page format and perhaps be tied by a theme. The first story is loosely based on Northern Ceremis/Mari folklore about a creature known as a Jer Kuguza (translated to Lake Old Man). I say roughly because, well, it probably is not ethnically accurate in the names I've selected for the characters (the names being Russian). The first story will be between 5-7 pages. I'll scan in the various stages from plot to final so I'll scan that in as I go. Well, I'm almost finished with the very rough pencils for plotting and just for a sense of my own progress I'll post them when I'm done. Bear in mind, at this stage, there really is not much to see other than blobby outlines. But that's OK. This is more for pannel placement and plotting purposes.

My son is quite a prolific artist and has been creating some interesting projects on his own. Here's a rocket launch sequence that he recently did. Pretty interesting for a five year old!

I'm getting the urge to actually do a full length comic book. I tend to get crazy urges like this that never really go anywhere so I need to be decisive and come up with a plan. The hardest part is to come up with an idea that is compelling enough for me to actually carry through. The things that have really been sticking out in my mind of late are things like H.P. Lovecraft, Strange Tales, Folk Lore, Myths, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hellboy, X Files, Indiana Jones, Northern myths, etc. I think I can fairly easliy sustain something like that. When I was in school, all of my reports were on things like ghosts, big foot, UFO's, Loch Ness, the Bell Witches, Spiritualism, the Rosicrustians, and well, you get the idea. And when I say these were my school reports, I mean from the time I was in third grade doing my first book reports all the way through to the time I graduated. This has been one of the more consistent interests in my life (along with -*surprise!!!*- comic books,...

Here's a piece that really got me started down the road of what would become known as the "Old School Renaissance" in the role playing game world. This really started as a doodle, but just kept going. I've always been a fan of 1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) and I think this picture captures that love (it is after all, entitled "1st Edition Dragon Hunters"). For me, comic books, role playing games and punk rock are really what fueled my teen years (and to a large extent that is still true).

I've been feeling pretty sick with a cold the past few days and haven't felt much like working. Today was the first day that I've started to feel like I didn't just want to sleep the whole day so I actually go a bit of work done. The pathos... the brutality... witness the savage spectacle that is nature in... Echidna Vs Echinoderm!:

I've been surprised in the past at how little proclaimed crossover there is between the Role Playing Game set and the comics set. When I was younger, all of us geeks freely associated between the two. I mean, we played RPGs, read comics, made our own comics, created our own rpgs, wrote stories, etc. It was less codified in our minds and that is still the way I prefer it. Over the past few years I've been much more involved in the RPG scene but still interested in what was going on in the comics world. My roles seem to be reversing as of late and I find myself wanting to participate in the indie comics realm. Whatever, I think it is all good. I would be interested in talking to folks who are involved in both scenes (even music and film too!) I am fasicnated with folks that just feel an innate need to create. Anyways, heres a piece from an indie RPG piece I have been pecking away at:

I've been reading quite a bit on Arctic exploration lately. I'm not quite sure why but the topic fascinates me. Especially the Failed expedition by Sir John Franklin to find the Northwest passage. Here's a comic that I did recently with that theme in mind.

A few months back, I ordered "Tales Designed to Trizzle Volume 1" which collects the first four issues of the aforementioned comic book by Michael Kupperman and published by Fantagraphics Books. The opening foreword by Robert Smigel sets the tone for what is to follow with the opening line of "I have diarrhea so I'' be brief". Tales Designed to Thrizzle is essentially an anthology of odd humor strips by Michael Kupperman. Some of you may be familiar with "Snake 'n Bacon" which I understand was on the Cartoon Network. This is where Snake 'n Bacon originated. For real. Stories and shorts about "Sex Blimps and Sex Holes", Bambifpow Jackson, Modern Chimp-Barbering Romance, and many many more. I for one, love this kind of humor (I loved Space Ghost Coast to Coast which has much of the same sort of humor). The artistic styling is reminiscent of magazine adds from the 1920's through the 1970's. There are many short sight ...

It is thrilling for me to see the development of my son's creative abilities. He reminds me of lot of myself when I was younger. I wish I could match his prolific output these days but what can you do? I definitely want to do some collaborative work with him. Here's a sampling of some of his latest works.

Another project that I've been working on (somewhat lackadaisically I must admit) is a series of monster pictures for my kids. I think I'll eventually have my wife color them I'm not quite sure how many I'm going to do but assume it will end up between 12 and 20.