[cartoonist] New Artist!: Jupiter Dragon And Her Blog

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Recent readers will remember that I've been a fan of J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison's writing for a while (Buy Fish Wielder on Amazon, yo) but what we've been aware of on Facebook is that his daughter is a budding artist which undoubted skill.

Human Lady Rainicorn (c) 2016, Jupiter Dragon

He's been sharing her art online. The illustration is just a clip out of one of her works in which she depicts the character Lady Rainicorn from Adventure Time as a young, hip, stylish human lady.

There's more now, she's just starting out but she's got work that a strong manga influence but also hints at a firm grasp of drawing natural forms, inking, and a great familiarity with craft that a lot of us aspiring artists reach for.

The strength of the talent behind the "First Post", a stunning realistic picture of a rearing horse's head, must be acknowledged.

She is launching an art blog under her art nom de guerre: Jupiter Dragon, and ignition has happened at http://jupiterdragon.blogspot.com/. Impressive!

[cartoonists] Why Was Morrie Turner Important?

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Yesterday a dear friend shared with me a personal treasure, they'll let me publish it here. It was a  delightful thing, something that made my heart sing with joy a little; I want her to add her memory in her words which will make a finished piece of the thing.

Until then, I need to set the table for it. For those of us who still might not know.

Chances are about even, my gut tells me, my faithful interlocutor has only heard of Morrie Turner on his death in 2014 at the age of 90. You heard he was a pioneering black cartoonist who created a strip called Wee Pals, and you heard that he was the first national cartoonist to have a strip with such a integrated (what we said when we mean 'diverse' back in the 70s) cast.

Oliver steps up; Nipper shows him
where he stepped in it.
Shades of Milo Bloom here?
Aspirational, book-smart,
bespectacled, good-
natured and stocky, Oliver
was my dude.

All of which are true. Wee Pals, which ran from February of 1965 (and is still online at Creators' Syndicate) had an armful of characters which represented just about every outlook you could expect to find. The Rainbow Gang included several black kids, a Latino boy, an east Asian boy, a native American, a few young ladies of more than one color who dealt in 'Girls' Lib', and a bookish bespectacled know-it-all white kid named Oliver who, for me as a reader, was my avatar there. There was even a bigoted white kid. The kids lived life, played together, planned and schemed together, and occiasionally smash-talked each other.

It was, in other words, like life with real people.

Morrie Turner in 2005
(via Wikipedia)

Morrie Turner came up from Oakland where he was raised by a Pullman porter father and a housewife mother; learned cartooning via Art Instruction Schools, served as a mechanic for the Tuskeegee Airmen and had art published in Stars and Stripes, was a member of the Oakland Police Dept, and was inspired down the road to create Wee Pals when, the legend has it, he noticed there were basically no minorities in popular comics at the time and his mentor, Charles Schulz, suggested perhaps he should create one. The strip was eventually carried in more than 100 dailies, and in 1972, moved to TV under the Rankin-Bass aegis as a 17-episode season of animation called Kid Power, which was where I came in on it



This was where I came in. I ate it up like I ate up every other Saturday morning 'toon.

And I told you all that to tell you this: there is a moment that sticks with me, and I don't know if it's where something started with me or not, but it must mean something, because at one point, the gang was trying to resolve some situation or other, and Oliver, in his good-natured, smarts-proud, well intentioned way, boasts "We'll find the chink in the armor".

At which point his friend of Chinese descent, George, points out that he should perhaps watch how he throws that word chink around.

Life is a series of beginnings, and in 1972, in whiter-than-white Silverton, Oregon, someone had one of the many necessary beginnings toward the realization that other people of differently-colored skin are people, too; that words matter; that the best intentions don't mean that arrogance still doesn't hurt, and to learn from those casual mistakes. George didn't hate Oliver for it, they came to understand what that meant, and Oliver grew from the experience. It wasn't just that one moment, of course, but it probably is a single thing from which can come much humanity.

Turner did this all while we thought he was just making us laugh with sassy kids. That's why he's important and why is legacy still matters.

Stay tuned to this channel for a splended Morrie Turner memory from a dear friend's past coming up very soon.

[art] Demo: Funny Faces The Andrew Loomis Way

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The Loomis method of art auto-didactitude is so attractively simple I had to give it a shot. Herewith my result.

The Loomis method expects you to be crap at drawing your circles, straight lines, et. al., in other words, it accepts you as it finds you and builds on whatever aptitude … or lack of such … that you have. It starts at the top with the head, and treats the head as a ball that you stick lumps of other clay on to approximate the other shapes that make up the head … jowls, bulby noses, ears, what ever you need. Looking at the photo below you can see where Loomis is going with this; kooky cartoony faces.

The first part of the book, then deals with the head and face. Let's take a look.

For simplicity's sake, I'll try the very first one there on the left. It looks very simple and doable just for the perusal. And, if you look at the examples on the right, it becomes fairly clear that the method adapts to just about any shape you want to employ, even if your sphere looks more like a lima bean. No worries, and no pressure, just have fun with it. But I get ahead of things here. In this view, you can see I've sketched out a circle and divided it down the more-or-less center; a circle in the center will serve as the basis of our nose. Short dashes equidistant above the center circle will locate the face's mouth and eyes.

Now for some more facial features:

Sticking a couple of blobs either side of nose provides us with the basis for the wings over the nostrils, a couple of quick curves on either side of the head base the floppy ears. Two big ovals on either side of the mouth are the foundations of the jowls, and a couple of blobs on the nadir of the circle for the cleft chin.

A few minutes of erasing and darkening in of the lines after the example illustration and we've arrived rather quickly at our destination.

It only took me abut 15 minutes to do this drawing, but if I hadn't stopped to compose and take the shots, it would have only taken about 5. If you're new to drawing, it would probably only take you 15. And that's the genius of this method; take simple shapes that anybody can draw and put them together until you get the foundation you need, then lay in the hard lines. The Loomis method, in the beginning, is particularly suited to cartoony, funny faces (recall the countenance of Professor Blook?) and logically might inspire someone to create their own cartoony characters.

Loomis doesn't stop there, though. The next time we meet here about Andy Loomis, I'll take a look at where he takes us.

[art] Fun With A Pencil: Andrew Loomis' Foundational Drawing Text

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Though I prefix-tagged the title with the word art, a modest handful of tags would have done as well: cartooning, art, artist, comic art … Andrew Loomis' book for beginners at both artists both casual and aspiring to serious craft has a great, great deal to offer.

As mentioned in the previous article, up until recently, Andrew Loomis' works were much beloved and, since they had been out of print for a very long time, highly sought after. A quick online search reveals that used vintage copies of his classic works from reliable sellers ask $60-$80 a copy. But it doesn't take much looking thorough Fun With A Pencil, that beginner's book, to convince one that this is something that in a fairer world would be of much benefit if it were more widely available.

Well, my friends, your Loomis famine is pretty much over. Starting in 2013, Titan Books has re-released these classic books for a more accessible price, unleashing them upon the world to inspire the next generation of motivated illustrators. The quarto-sized hardcovers are just as one might have bought them in the 1930s-1950s … not one illustration missing or out of place, in the volumes I've seen, each of a quality befitting the publisher and the legacy of the author. They'd look stunning on any shelf, not only for fans of drawing and learning to draw but anyone who adores and remembers the graphic style of books published during those days.

Titan may have been out to publicize the work of a foundational American illustrator, but they worked it out on one level by just making them lovely productions of book design on its own terms. The design look is very much that of of the 2nd quarter of the 20th Century in American graphic design.

Professor Blook, our
author's alter-ego, is
our companion along
the educational journey

But, of course, it's not just the book and its cover that are so pleasing. The inside is a pure revelation, as Loomis, one of the most popular and in-demand commercial artists of his day, takes the auto-didact though his poetically powerful and accessible drawing technique. The accent is on warmth, friendliness and lightheartedness as he enouragingly beckons the reader forward to learn to create art on what eventually becomes the burgeoning artist's own terms. Taking a the simple idea of a circle we move in one deft idea to the ball and how to take this easy-to-draw (even if your circle is a wobbly oval, he swiftly shows us that that's no problem either) figure to create the heads of cartoon figures. After several pages of practice suggestions, all clearly laid out, we get some technical tips and then its on into bodies. From bodies we move into clothing them, and from there we are encouraged to construct a world for them.

The result after all this is a beginning artist with enough skill to either please themselves and friends by drawing for the sheer pleasure or, if they want, take it farther. The book originally came out in 1939, and Loomis and his contemporaries could scarcely have seen the rise of computers and digital art, but as a foundation, the ideas and techniques presented in this book are timeless and are as fresh and necessary today as they were nearly 80 years ago, when the book was introduced. The illustrator of 2016 might have the most amazing electronic tools to use, but without the building blocks of drawing technique, it's all just a powerful scratch pad.

This is the sort of book were you take your time, have fun with it, and make it yours. Like John Hendrix, Andrew Loomis must have been the kind of teacher who wanted everyone to at least try, and noticed that a lot of people wanted to. That encouragement animates the entire text and causes you to understand, in a gut-level way, why drawing, even casual, can be a lifesaver.

In the next article, I'll take a more critical look at the Loomis method. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how essentially easy and potentially powerful it is.

Publisher: Titan Books, http://www.titanbooks.com
ISBN: 9780857687609
Retail: $39.95/$46.00 CDN/GBP 29.99

[cartoonists] A Couple of Andrew Loomis Links For Your Delectation

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Forgot a couple of sites that I should link you to in the last article, so here's a nifty little list:

1. JVJ Publishing's one-page bio on Loomis. Rich in good illustrations: http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/loomis.htm
2. A single page with several Loomis illos can be found at http://www.oklahoma.net/~silvrdal/loomis2.html
3. Art blogger Armand Cabrera has a short article at his Art and Influence blog here at http://www.artandinfluence.com/2010/08/william-andrew-loomis.html
4. The page Save The Books has links to help you acquire Loomis works: http://www.saveloomis.org/
5. Here's an Ebay page selling Andrew Loomis: http://www.ebay.com/bhp/andrew-loomis
6. And, of course, Titan Books' page where you can get them new and direct: http://titanbooks.com/creators/andrew-loomis/
7. Lastly, a preloaded Google Image search so you can go right to the experiential goods, because I am the nice one. 

[art] Judgmental Goat Eating Grass Is Judging You

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This caught The Wife™'s fancy when we were at Fanaticon. It's a delightful little work by artist Rick Marcks which also got autographed.

It's a goat, see?

And, it's totally judging you.

Rick Marcks's Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/rick.marcks.7.

[comics] What We're Loving: They Call Me Black Fist

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The cover of the slender volume is most evocative and lets you know exactly where you stand with it.

Blaxploitation/Rockabilly/Fighting Manga? SHO'NUFF!

There are those of us … and you know who you were, don't be apologetic, because it was awesome … who would live for Saturday and Sunday afternoons, because that's when our local TV stations would fill those unprofitable hours with cheapass content. Like B-monster martial arts movies.

Especially those. 

Well, Pharoah Bolding has a treat for us, because in his hero's little debut adventure, They Call Me Black Fist, he's mashed up those so-bad-they're-good Saturday and Sunday afternoon adventures with a healthy dash of nostalgic affection for those styles, blaxploitation, and deserving of a soundtrack of Carl Douglas.

Everybody was Kung-fu fighting. The fallout is an affectionate satire and pop-culture deconstruction you'll take right to heart.

The story, while witty, is very straightforward; enigmatic, good-hearted but stern-valued martial artist with a pompadour that's on its own mission from God finds himself in a jive situation, which needs taken-care-of in short enough order when an absurd villain invades his local comic shop to steal all the free stuff on Free Comics Day with the idea of storing them and making money off them when he can sell them in 10 years time … without so much as even reading them.

The villain is evil … but at least he plays the long game.

Our hero, teaching a hard lesson, and teaching it hard.

But the gauntlet is totally thrown. The justice, as someone once said, is brought-en; on the way to that justice and a lesson in comic-shop etiquette, one rare, near-mint ninja three-pack gets severely downgraded, one comics shop gets seriously trashed, and one comic shop owner descends into near shell-shock. Furious action obtains, with specific moves hilariously called out.

The story is funny and enough just as it stands, but what really makes this little comic desirable is production values that put you back in the day; the weathered movie-poster style front cover is a bit of cosmic deftness that even comes complete with a price sticker straight from the spin rack at the supermarket and ad reproductions that include that back page Johnson Smith Co mail order mall … remember the X-Ray Glasses that sold for a dollar? That sort of thing.

And the inside back page? I never thought I'd see an ad for Chuck Norris Action Jeans ever again.

There's better news. I finally met Pharoah at Fanaticon (see that blog entry which is immediately before this one) and found that the affectionate humor in the work is only natural … in person he's just as affable and humorous as the jokes he tells in the story. And, as promised on the next-to-last page, Black Fist will return … we got to lay eyeballs on some blue-pencil sketches that got us very excited.

Black Fist will return … and we'll be there for him.

If you want to be there for him, dial your Stargate to http://www.pharoahbolding.com/.

[comic] The Modest Avengers

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Best five dollars I ever spent, here …

I love crossover spoofs, and this one is one of the best. The Modest Medusa cast as, of course, The Avengers.

From the left:

Modest herself as Tony Stark, a/k/a, IronMan, though Iron Monster Girl and Snakes is more appropriate … if awkward;
Marah as Captain America;
Charles as Thor:

One of the Carlos's as Hawkeye;
The Knight of Chains as Black Widow (interesting choice … and appropriately badass)
Deb the Bad Mermaid as Loki; (wrong ... I've been advised the mermaid is actually Nick Fury)

A. Snake as … okay, guys, I'll fess up, I don't know who that is. I'm guessing Ant Man. (I guessed wrong. This is Loki)
And, of course,
Jake himeself, as The Incredible Hulk.

It's fun being a born-again indie comics fan … even if I pull the occasional minor fail here and there. 

[comic] In Which We Visit Modest Medusa's House

3232.

There's a lot to like about southeast Portland. The rents are (well, relatively speaking) still cheap there. There's a lot of old buildings that hold on to the longtime working-class character of Southeast and a lot of new stuff happening, too. There's a big interesting diagonal road … northeast Portland has Sandy Boulevard, but southeast Portland has the mighty Foster Road. And every year there's a street festival called Fun on Foster.

Curiously, this year, Fun on Foster seemed kind of MIA. But there was fun to be had on Foster Road. You just had to know where to look.

We knew where to look.

On the north side of SE Holgate Boulevard, just east of its' highly-acute crossing with Foster Road, and across the street from a wedge shaped green space called Laurelwood Park, is a strip of older storefronts. On the corner is a tango studio. Next to that, an old-school barber shop. And, next to that … SharedSpace. This is a storefront with a distinctive and unique sign and what appears to be a wonderful mission … desk space rental for those of us who want to run a creative practice but don't really feel ready to go for the whole office nine-yards. For a long time, going from here to there in Southeast, we've driven past it occasionally. The only thing I had to recommend it was that funky typography in the sign … until now.

When I got turned on to Modest Medusa over at The Spritely Bean more than a year ago, I had yet to meet or get to know the creator. Time and events have healed that breach, and I've since found that Jake Richmond is just as smart and witty as the comics he creates. In the void that was the apparent lack of Fun on Foster, he went ahead with a plan to have a table sale and a semi-open-house, and if only for that, this was put on our calendar. From noon there was a table of merch of many prices. Not only was there Modest Medusa, there was also a RPG that is crazy weird and brain-bending that you doubtless hadn't heard of called Tokyo Brain Pop! (Manga schoolgirls with superpowers), and Jake's two other comic creations (the superhero comic Ghost Kiss and his Legend of Korra fan comic Asami Loves Korra) as well as some posters (one of which I have, about which more perforce), and some giveaways (little Modest Medusa pins for the lapel, yes, thanks!)

The space itself is funky, filled with great posters and buzzing with ebullient fans on this fine day. In the above picture, that's Jake there on the left. The red-haired lady was a particularly delightful person, and was inspired in not only her fandom of Modest but in the funny and passionate fan art she produced, a few items of which were in an etagere to one side of the counter, and a couple of which she brought in. Colorful bead art:

… and a whimsical bit of preparedness:

You can never be too sure.

The chatter when you are in a scrum like this talking about a favorite comic with its creator is a little hard to classify and retain, but there were some high points. I'm late to the part on Modest, but learning about how much of Jake goes into the creation of Modest's world impressed me in the way that it's got to be a very brave thing to do, to take things from one's own life and recast them into a fictional realm. It's Proustian, in a certain way. Some great drama and story results. Jake's work, as the characters in Modest Medusa have come, gone, and evolved, and the reasons why, are axiomatic there.

The real high point of the conversation for me was where Jake and I disagreed on something. In speaking of of a certain work whose comic tropes didn't speak to him, I found a lot of value … I like what I like, but I don't require anyone else to like it. Attempting to view it from the point of view of someone who spends the majority of their time creating, especially when coming from the point of view of someone who mostly takes in those creations, throws an unexpected illumination on the subject. On a personal level, I like anyone who is going to be candid about whether or not they find something speaks to them. Art is personal, storytelling art even more so.

So, Jake is a sharp and witty creator … and I was grateful for the chance to have met him and talked to him a bit more.

Anybody reading this who didn't take the chance to go down … you missed out, my friends.

Also, free chocodiles. We shall brook no further argument there.

Chocodiles, and their bouncer.

[What We're Loving] Brett Carville's "Life Of Craig"

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There are a few things I've been holding back because reasons, and one of them I really regret holding back on is anything Brett Carville does.

We met him again at Artist's Alley Comic Fest. We'd met him previously at Linework NW and started liking what he did then. He showed us more of what he did, and we must say we like it much.

Life of Craig: A Planet Called Wilma is the first chapter in what promises to be a SF epic, seen through a cracked glass with a layer of satire. The story opens as we approach a desolate place of apparent doom … a planet called Wilma. The population, aside animated skeletal beasts that walk about cracking wise, are the Cougars, a line of rather grotesque female aliens, and their male counterparts, who are, well … useless.

The Cougars are dying out, with no virile-enough male to provide the sufficient spark. They have a problem, and they know it, and begin to come up with a way to solve it … they've tried every male species they can find, and none are good enough. They come from a galaxy far, far away but, as foreshadowing might suggest, not sufficiently far enough away to keep them from coming our direction. Striking out on an expedition, they depose their autocratic queen, but not before she, in an indirectly literal way, puts a stick in the spokes of the plans of the remaining Cougars … and that's where the fun really starts …

Looks like someone's not goingto be seeing Good Morning God
today…

Meanwhile, in Sarasota, Florida, our soon-to-be hero, Craig, is living, and … he's afraid … dying there as well …

Living the dream, such as it is, in Sarasota

… trying to find some direction, getting his first kiss from Elizabeth, and trying to make sense of the legends that cats are killing and eating people, and how those play into his dreams.

The most remarkable thing about Brett's comic is the style. The produced book is very slick and finished, and reading it gives me the feeling that I'm reading one of those strange stories that I used to read in Heavy Metal when I was a teenager … the style really took me back. The sensibility of the story, with its grotesque characters and its compelling strangeness, could certainly have leapt out from between the pages of that magazine. It's intense, but in all the right ways. 

The depth of technique and the accomplishment of the work is all too evident in the landscapes and wide views, which sort of speak for themselves, as this page shows …

The work is something that's clearly ready for prime time, and a work I'd like to keep an eye out for. Brett and his co-writer Jason Thibodeaux are clearly talents to be reckoned with, and bold enough to stand out. I hope they do.

A Cougar of Planet Wilma.Also, a time to worry.

[comics] Modest Medusa Merch from Artist Alley

3211.

So in an earlier missive I promised I'd share some stuffs that I got from Artist Alley Comics Fest. Here's the first bit.

I've already declared my affection for Modest Medusa and so a big goal for me was to get something Modest. Jake Richmond was there (and I broke Chocodile bread with him, so that was pretty peak right there). He had a great deal of stuffs for sale, including all seasons of the story published so far (he breaks the narrative into TV-series-like 'seasons', which allows for story arcs and subplots which weave in and out of the world in that same way, which is very appealing). I was unable to purchase for now (his prices are wholly reasonable, it's my budget that isn't). But, as I said in an earlier post, there was all sorts of niftyness at all sorts of prices.

Here's what I scored from Jake:

Two 24-Hour Comic mini-comics and that spiffy promo card. The two mini-comics will hold me until I get his bigger books. They are two sweet and silly snake-girl stories that can't help but make me smile.

The first, simply titled 24-Hour Comic, is just that – 24 hour in the life of Modest and Jake, one hour per panel. She eats noodles for lunch, hangs out with Jake and his comicking buddies, plays with MLP figurines, has fun drawing, and eventually goes to bed (under protest) … only to start it all over again. Anyone who's ever loved a kid, this'll speak to you.

The second, Taco Tuesday, is another 24-Hour Comic, and reveals what happens when the day-person Modest negotiates the acquisition of taco components given that … well, she really doesn't know what a taco is … 

My favorite exchange comes earlier in the day, when a telemarketer tries calling the Jake household only to get Modest on the phone …

Modest: "Hello?"
Caller:"Hi, is your dad home?"
M:"No. What's a taco?"
C:"Excuse me?"
M:"Do you know what a taco is?"
C:"A taco? Like the food?"
M:"Is it a restaurant food?"
C:"Ummm … yes, you can get tacos at restaurants."
M:"Okay. Goodbye!"

Modest muses this new information and then the telemarker calls back:

M:"Hello?"
C:"Uhhh, hello again. Is your mother home?"
M:"My mom is a snake."

That is some tight comedy writing. Its economy is its beauty, and what makes it funny.

Anyway, there's only two left of that one, and I got one of those two. So that makes me lucky, too.

More in a future post.

[comics] What We Saw At The First Artist Alley Comics Fest

3209.

Southeast Portland can hide things, tuck nifty things behind other nifty things. These things are worth the effort in finding.

Comic-cons, for instance. Oh, they're there. Hidden behind awesome little comic-cafes. I give you the corner of SE Powell Boulevard and 59th Avenue, on the border of South Tabor and FoPo.

This is a building containing a hair salon (The Phix), our comix cafe (The Spritely Bean), a print shop, and a good-bad-for-you food cafe (the mighty Steakadelphia). Behind, there, you see a tent or two peeking out? Why, yes you do. Let's explore, shall we?

When we get cross the wide, wide demesne that is SE Powell Boulevard, this is what we see.

This is the First Annual Artist Alley Comics Fest, presented by The Spritely Bean and supported by some worthy supporters, one of which be +Muse Art and Design . The artist alley, as I understand it to be, is an area of a comic-con where artists set up to sell, see, be seen, and meet fans and interested people. Much goodness for sale there. Being that this is set up in the parking lot behind Spritely Bean's building, it's like being in an alley, making this a true artist alley.

Well played, SB, well played.

One of the sponsors, Muse, sent along one of their people to rep the shop. This is one of them:

The tie of the day.

… our friend Vaughn Barker.  I've told you about Vaughn, the alter-ego of Valentine Barker here: http://zehnkatzen.blogspot.com/2015/03/pdxart-illustrator-vaughn-barkers.html, where you can go to find about about his awesomeness and his art and his general Zenitude, so he's worth your time. But this time, it's kinda about the tie.

That is one hell of a tie, man. Straight up.

The hair salon has the delightful name of The Phix. They had a backdrop up and they were showing off some of their work. We almost missed all of that pageant, as we showed a bit more than halfway through the afternoon, but we did see this fellow …

Character? Yes. Comic? No.

… who was as rockstar with his attitude as he was with his hair. Damned affable, too, as far as that goes.

Being tucked away in Southeast like it was, I was worried that there was going to be a gentle response. Adam and Huynh were taking a bit of a chance, I thought, and since I love, so far, everything they do, I was a little anxious for them.

I shouldn't have worried.

A person who's become a dear friend to me, +Donna Barr , creator of Stinz and The Desert Peach, proved that the tiny-con could work, and work well, even out at the end of the road. The Clallam Bay Comic Con, a small event, was none the less energetic, complete with dealer's room, panels, and a party. See here for her result: http://donnabarr.blogspot.com/2015/07/small-but-fierce-2015-clallam-bay.html.  The micro-cons are a boon because you can have all the creator-awesome without all the corp-overhead, and this is the sort of place where the indies can be the stars of the show.  Linework NW proved that it could shine as a vibrant smaller-sized, creator focused and driven event.

And now, AACF proves that small can be beautiful, gorgeous, amazing, and that tiny can have a big attitude. And nothing but indies! I'm going to show off individually what I got perforce, but there were big and small productions, and if you didn't come on over with a huge budget there were nifties, small comics, and things to get at a whole range of prices. There was brilliance available for a $20 and awesomness available for a $2 bill.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't get as many pictures as I could. Seen and enjoyed but not pictured:

Coffee. The Spritely Bean is a coffeehouse, of course, and Adam and Huynh's fine wares were available. I enjoyed two of their divine cold brew iced coffees, bold, velvety and just the thing for the über-humid afternoon. Also, macarons! I had heard about them, trendy as they are, but I'd never had any before then. EXQUISITE! Best cookie ever. Wife asked for a Italian soda, it was mint and came back Amalfi-style … it was like drinking a York peppermint pattie.

Jake Richmond. One of my more favorite recent discoveries is Modest Medusa, by Jake Richmond. Follow that link there for the skinny on the snake girl. I got to meet Jake and had the a great chat with him. He's part of a crew of SE Portland illustrators (Including Barry Deutsch and Ben Hsu) who were there en cartel, madly creative people who do work which tends to move into your mind and live there. He has a generous spirit and talked at length with me about his creation. There was also a Chocodile, which I consumed. Modest is right … they're quite tasty.

Brett Carville. I've also written about Brett, who is another recent favorite discovery of ours and just one of the nicest guys you'd want to meet. We'd seen him at Linework and it was amazing to see him here too. I got a look at something he's doing called Life of Craig, and I'll have more to write about that in another post in a few more days.

Donna Barr proved that you could have a comic-con anywhere. Linework NW proved that if you made it all about indies, it'll have meaning and velocity.

AACF proved that if you hold it … especially in Portland … they will come.

Hail, Eris.

[comic] What We're Liking: Modest Medusa

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This one is for all the mistfits out there, or anyone who loves one. I qualify two ways there, so I'm smitten, and it's not a modest thing.

It is a Modest thing, though, and as far as that goes, meet Modest:

Just your normal 5-year-old girl, really. Loves Pokemons, Nintendo, and is a confirmed Chocodile addict. She loves manga and when she finally goes to school, is bewildered at the lack of magical girls there.  She's apprehensive about the world around her, but takes it on because, when you're five years old, what else are you going to do? She's got a mother and a father from different worlds (Dad's a vampire, Mom's a giant snake), and she finds herself in an incidental family somewhere in a place that vaguely resembles southeast Portland.

She's also a medusa. Which explains the snakey hair.

The strip, eponymously named Modest Medusa, has been running for four years now, debuting in January 2011. It traces the perambulations (if a little girl with a snake-body can be said to have such things) of a 5-year-old medusa girl who stumbles from her world into ours, rooked over here by a pair of mean-girl mermaids, and enters the world of her accidental father figure - a comic version of the artist, Portlander Jake Richmond - through his toilet.

His apartment waterlogged, he moves to another room, and as Modest stays, a completely different life. It has to be seen to be believed. In the four short years of the comic's life, it has swung between adventures heroic, fantastic and fatal and dryly humorous and banal but always with the viewpoint of a little kid just trying to figure out where she's going to fit in. Just like other little kids, her arrival causes tragic disruption (though in ways at times quite hazardous for her new friends).

Where Modest Medusa really shines out, though, is in a subtheme that's quite unexpected … and that takes the form of the reaction of the world around her. Here, the comic operates on an evolved level, because while other characters in the world do see that she is, in fact, a snake girl with snakes for hair, they seem to be little bothered by it. Like the characters in the Pooh stories who accepted Eeyore for what he was and loved him without trying to change him, adults and kids regard her as a little girl - and with her particular talent for winning friends, she soon finds some sort of place.

Jake Richmond has made her a kind of a totem for those us who just don't feel like we belong exactly anywhere but won't let that stop us. She's a fully realized character who finds herself in a world she didn't make.

I don't know about anybody else, but that speaks to me. In Modest's world, the gaze of a medusa won't turn you to stone, but she might melt your heart just a little.

GET IT: The comic is available in toto for you to read at ModestMedusa.com, (Facebook for Jake Richmond so you can be updated every MWF) and can be found in bound, very well-done book format at The Sprightly Bean comic cafe (Facebook). Jake Richmond is also part of Patreon, the website that allows people to actively support comic artists by becoming regular patrons of the artist.

[#art] All Over Coffee with Paul Madonna

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Add this man to the list of artists without which I cannot do.

Paul Madonna is a SF-based artist who does one of the most singular comics out there. All Over Coffee is a impressionistic masterpiece, with moody, visually-delicious drawings of San Francisco street scenes with bits of text strewn within. The text itself is, at best, tangentially referential to the picture; the text seems to provide a sound track to what is happening within the picture, kinda. 

It's very subjective. You can imagine the text as someone thinking to themselves about something that something in the picture referenced; a snatch of a distant conversation heard by the person at the POV; or just text living in the picture.

It's the perfect blend of word and picture, forming a poetry and music of its own. Sometimes the words live within the picture, forming a grim, yet funny existential punchline.

Ultimately what a person sees within an All Over Coffee strip is what they find there; you will probably see what you bring to the experience. And, to be sure, the idea of putting only-vaguely-sequitur words with images is hardly something new or unusual. The way Madonna does it, though, is unique … though it defies embodiment in something as surly as mere words, it certainly is there. There's something approaching vulnerability there, the artist's vulnerability, his love of his hometown, and the pure liberating passion of drawing that make the series absolutely beguiling, and once seen, never to be forgotten.

I've lusted for Madonna's  first eponymously-named collection for quite some time, drawn in by the beguilement that cannot be quite expressed in print. Some weeks ago, I found a copy at Powell's, only to be disappointed that someone had razored-out a single page. Bad human! but at our last visit, last Sunday evening, there was a copy, at a price.

All Over Coffee is now mine to leaf through whenever I want. They have a copy at +Multnomah County Library, and I encourage any of you all to check it out when you can. There's a second volume of AOC collected, Everything Is Its Own Reward, which I shall lust over perforce.

[artists] Donna Barr's Radio Blitzkrieg

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Ever wonder what Donna Barr's (The Desert Peach, Stinz) like in person? Well, a show I'd not heard of before, Karl Show! (starring Jason), took on Donna Barr. That probably left a mark.

But in a good way.

Listen, dammit! : http://www.karlshowstarringjason.com/2014/05/artist-donna-barr/. Just do it. Don't argue with me.

[art] LineworkNW … The First Issue

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In the middle of the day, yesterday, we took the time to visit LineworkNW … the premiere issue. It was dropped at Norse Hall, at the corner of NW 11th and Couch here in Portland, and my word, it was of a brilliance.

Comic and Illustration conventions have become huge business and überfashionable. As such they are usually located a)in places I can't usually get to and, even if I can get there, b)I can't afford 'em. Last year, Stumptown Comics Fest folded itself into the Rose City Comic Con, leaving a big hole for what makes Portland comic art so special and unique: heavily indie, madly and fiercely passionate, and intimate and approachable.

Enter LineworkNW: a 1-day festival, free to go to, easy to exhibit at, all about creators and the things they create and how they connect to the people who love the work they do … all the good things about Indiewood's culture, the stuff that made Portland popular to begin with.

We must never forget our roots.

Brief abashed confession here: I nearly didn't go. A moment to sing the Third Shift Blues: If I want to do anything nifty on Saturday, I wind up staying up more than 24 hours. This sort of schedule distortion has played havoc on many things, from my creative inspiration to some thought processes, I've become convinced; as The Wife™ and myself browsed the copies of Soylent News™in the Midland library, I was leaning toward going home and chilling out. But, in the A-and/or-E section mentioned LineworkNW, and The Wife™saw it, and insisted.

This is why my The Wife™ is awesome. When I run out of gumption, she gives me the kick.

So we decamped from the library, made an errand-stop on our way overtown, and, just before 5:00 PM, on an inordinately-pleasant Oregon spring afternoon, we came to the Norse Hall. Any doubts that LineworkNW was going to go over well were, if not dispelled by the news of the immense response, completely cast away by the traffic around that corner.

For a small festival, it was huge.

Parking our battered steed a full block and a half away (in a space that had opened up just a moment or two before), we walked over and entered.

Here I can tell you what the beauty of a one-day con is: if you get there half way through the day, and can only stay a little while, you don't feel like you're missing out. Every slice you take from this cake is good. Because, cake.

The exhibition floor was thronging, as you can see in these photos. So many people, you can scarcely see the merchandise for the crowd. Intimate doesn't begin to describe.

I was, as stated before, on the latter half of a very long day, so I can't give a complete rundown of all the awesomeness I saw there. But it was awesome. Creators were on hand to comment on all their work. There was Fantagraphics, there was Reading Frenzy (I think that's Chloe Eudaly there on the right of the photo, at the RF table), there was DarkHorse; there was Know Your City and their wonderful Oregon History Comics zine series (we got 3 more of them, my favorite was the Dead Freeways volume), Fantom Forest (I got the wonderful PDX/100 by Matt Sundstrom).

We had at $20 budget and still we found nifty stuff. We'd have bought most of that room if we could.

We could attend one panel as well. The title was Line/Work, and it was about creators and their creating.

From right; one of The Little Freinds of Printmaking, Bwana Spoons, The other of The Little Friends of Printmaking, moderator Jason Sturgill

It was a general talk on everyone's creative process, what they did to do what they did, which even touched on such things as why Portland instead of Los Angeles, and whether they preferred working out of the home versus a studio (my question. Surprisingly, the studio crowd outvoted the work-at-home crowd. It helps, apparently, to sharpen one against one's tribal fellows on a daily basis).

From right: Meg Hunt, BT Livermore, Kinoko

Sitting back absorbing this with the assistance of indulging in a Bitsburger Pils was a privation I was perfectly willing to bear up under.

Word is that they're going to do this yearly, and keep it small. Damn fine idea, I say. One of the things I have a problem with, in reclaiming my inner artist, is thinking that people who do this on a regular basis are some sort of elevated being, and I am not that being. Well, they are sensational people, but they aren't supernatural … they just do what they do and it's awesome. And they share what they know. And that's aspirational.

LineworkNW was brilliance, and I'm glad as hell someone did this. Thank you. I'm grateful.

[liff] Odds and Sods, Tax Time Edition

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Some neato stuff I want to write about but can't because they speak just fine for themselves:

• The tao of hand lettering, from some pros: http://www.creativebloq.com/typography/hand-drawn-type-41411275
• The natural history, and geology, of Westeros, at Generation Anthropocene: http://www.stanford.edu/group/anthropocene/cgi-bin/wordpress/category/game-of-thrones/ … it's not Karen Wynn Fonstad, but it'll do until the next one of her ilk comes along.
• Paul Madonna, because Paul Madonna. We need no other reason. All Over Coffee: https://www.paulmadonna.com/all_over_coffee/

[art] Guest Post: The Comic Creative, With Christina Cabral

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And now, after a long,long time my little blog tries to grow up … with a guest post! I am in a sort of a mixture of renaissance/reconfiguration and I'm aiming to push this into more of a resource. This means more than just sharing my art-healing but also trying to bring more than just my fun personality every entry.

This is the first guest post of my blog and, since I've been exploring creativity I thought I'd ask one of my more inspiring Facebook acquaintances for some insight. I adore work-in-progress and the creative process … I've always imagined it was like being able to watch a nuclear reaction in real-time on the atomic level … watching small things coming together to become something more than the sum of its

Copyright Christina Cabral. More awesome
at her website.

original parts.

L.A artist Christina Cabral's work crackles with inventiveness, flair, fearlessness and take-on-the-world attitude. Since she's allowed me the privilege of a front-row seat to her creativity, I've watched her go from merely great to excellent, zooming in a superlative direction. I find her art challenging, delightful, daring and antic. It brims with a sort of confidence that's hard to contain. She's going to be something big sometime soon.

So, naturally, I wondered about how she met her creative challenge. She graciously agreed to speak a few words about it, and I'm grateful for the privilege of sharing. So, the following words, which may be read … and read through to the bottom for links that will take you into this artist's world.

And now, Christina …

Because I went to school for animation I tend to start a comic like I would a short; I make a list of things that need to get done. This is just how I get to work,I’m just a crazy list maker.

•  Idea
•  Story
•  Characters
•  Supporting characters
•  Concepts for world and character building
•  Storyboard full story arch/or short story
•  Block out pages
•  Edit
•  Finalize pencils on pages
•  Ink Pages
•  Edit 
•  Tone and/or Color pages
•  Edit
•  Dialog and FX
•  Edit

Clearly editing is pretty important to the process. Ideally sticking to the list is best but it doesn’t always happen. In the end as long as the final result is the comic you want to see then you did it,you made a thing! 

Story and Characters

It’s cool to have elaborate backgrounds for every character you have but it’s not as great to make that the first 5 chapters of your comic. For Gardenia* I just made quick 3 pose turnarounds for each character and wrote some simple stats on the side of them like; name, height, age. Since it was in black and white I didn’t color them. If it was in color I’d have worked that out in concept doodles and made a small square color key on the side of the turnarounds for future pages. 

When it comes to story I’ve learned from struggling on my first comic that scripts are important. Outline first then script will make storyboarding the pages much easier. Storyboarding/thumbnailing is also super useful because you can figure out the blocking right away. If you can coloring the thumbnails that helps too. The more prep you do the less time editing you need. 

Inking and Coloring

For Gardenia* I inked it by hand and added the tone with photoshop. Whatever you work in fastest is going to be the best bet. For me inking by hand is much faster because I feel the Wacom pen lags for the way I like my lineart. As for the coloring I like to use photoshop because it’s faster to block color out and still be able to change it on a dime.

Dialog and FX

Decorative fonts are neat but think about how you read a comic. If the text is too fancy it’s hard to read and takes longer to get the story across. It’s ok to have it on background items or characters clothes but not so much fun to read as dialog. I like to use Helvetica but any sans-serif works brilliantly. FX are just as tricky especially if the font is not contrast enough on what the FX are against. Quick fix for that is to add a stroke to the font in white or black (or contrasting color) so it will read but not distract too much. 

Layout and Printing

Layout can be done easily enough using InDesign. If you don’t know how to use it there are tutorials online that I used as well. Make a booklet tutorial (http://youtu.be/GY16m7QcFj4) Ah printing … the final frontier of your finished comic. You can use your local printer if you have connections,use a service like KaBlam (http://ka-blam.com/printing/front/) or Createspace or do like my friend and I did; print it at home/Staples using a long arm stapler to connect it. I don’t suggest the latter unless you have lots of patients and less than 10 pieces of paper for your book. The industrial cutters at Kinkos/Staples/printing places can only cut through so many pieces of paper. In the long run doing it at a printer or using a service is going to be way more cost effective because of test prints. Like always the first pancake is always ugly,no matter what. 

I hope these tips helped anyone starting to make comics. Work smarter, not harder. 

… Thanks, Christina!

A notabene… The comic Gardenia mentioned above is from her zine Kitten Squad: Resurrection, a romantic and spooky tale which I've been privileged to see. The zine is on my desk and ready for a review, and that's coming soon. Really moving stuff.

To get on board the Kittie express, you can follow her at Facebook; her Kittie Cakes Designs page there is https://www.facebook.com/kittiecakes. If you want a look at some more of her art and design, Kittie Cakes Design's home on the web is http://www.kittiecakes.net/, where you can see her other art, bloggy stuff, all sorts of goodness.

[Toon] Sprial Notebook Comics: A Look Behind The Scenes

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One of the happier things I've seen lately is what John E. Williams does called 'Spiral Notebook Comics'. They double down on the creativity and the funny by being very spare, straight-to-the-paper, and close-to-the-inspiration.

From what has to be a very brief laying-out, the ballpoint goes right out to the paper. I fancy that this makes the route from inspiration to drawing that much shorter. There's a rawness that makes these little drawings memorable, and preserves John's dry, acid wit.

John's done us a solid by putting up a blog posting showing what he called 'outtakes' to his holiday story about Lucy. Here's one:

I adore WIPs, as I've tiresomely endlessly repeated. But there's a reason. I find them just as interesting, in an ineffable way, as finished works. I would have loved to see Michelangelo's sketches for the Mona Lisa.

See the rest of John's outtakes at

http://spiralnotebookcomics.blogspot.com/2014/01/lucy-outtakes.html

[comic art] How To Draw A Male Manga Face

2801Mark Crilley has an approach to manga that results in a look I like quite a lot … a face with realistic aspects but that visually-addicting manga style. This is from a series of very easy-to-follow manga tutorials on his YouTube channel.