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I was asked by Chris Houghton a while back if I'd do a pin-up for his series Reed Gunther, and I jumped at the invitation. Reed Gunther - drawn by Chris and written by his brother, Shane - is an incredibly fun Western comic that has a lot of comedy, a lot of monsters, some great characters and some great art. Each issue builds off the last, but the guys do a great job of making each one a genuinely satisfying reading experience by itself, which is always the first thing I look for in serialized comics, and something that far too few creators deliver.
(Click on the image for larger version)
This'll be part of the fourth issue. While I (regrettably) won't be there, it's going to be available at San Diego Comic Con, and, I assume, through the Reed Gunther website, linked above.
In other news, the research phase of Crogan's Loyalty is finished! I mean, I will still do research and reading, but as of yesterday the writing has begun. This is a great thing - I always love getting to the actual creation process, and while the research phase is of huge import I'm always glad to move to the next one.
Anyone who didn't get a chance to go to Free Comic Book Day, don't worry - the Crogan Adventures story is up for reading in the "comics" gallery!
Click the Pic to read!
Here's a picture I did inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's excellent and super-creepy horror novella Shadow Over Innsmouth, which has to do with a decaying New England fishing village and the cross-breeding bargain the citizens made long ago with a race of horrible fish-man creatures. It's a great and terrifying story, and gets me all creeped out however many times I read it. For some reason I was in a scary-stuff mood recently (usually that comes with the lead-up to Halloween, not in April), and I wanted to draw something in that vein, so here it is. It's not actually depicting an event from the story, but was inspired by it:
(Click on image for full-sized version)
This is one of the most detailed and labor-intensive drawings I've ever done - it's 11x17, black and white ink over blue pencil. It's also for sale. Considering the hours put into it and how pleased I was with the final result, I'm asking $250, which includes shipping.
e-mail me if interested - chris at curiousoldlibrary dot com.
First thing - this picture, of a bunch of Green Gang fellas storming the as-yet-unnamed tramp steamer.
(Click on the picture above for a bigger image)
This is one of a series of ten-twelve drawings I was thinking of doing for a mini-comic sketchbook, each a scene from the life of Daniel Crogan, the Lion-Tamer/Escape Artist who will be the protagonist in the fourth Crogan Adventure book. I've penciled a few of the other ones; my hope was to have it by HeroesCon, but that probably won't happen.
The other thing I wanted to note is that the shipment of Crogan's Vengeance's second printing was delayed by Diamond from China. I've been telling everyone that it would be available by this week, but that was back when I thought it was shipping out on the 7th; as it is, it won't be leaving until the 26th. But two-three weeks after that it SHOULD be available for sale from your local book or comic store, distributors Diamond, Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and online bookstores like Amazon. I'm really sorry this has been unavailable for so long, and appreciate everyone's patience and enthusiasm about getting a hold of one, and know that it WILL be available soon. I've been told that I definitely will have copies at HeroesCon, which I'm really, REALLY looking forward to!
I did this drawing yesterday, colored it today. It's one I've been wanting to do for a while, an Edgar Rice Burroughs (You know, the Tarzan guy) science fiction character from 1911 known popularly as John Carter of Mars.
(Click on the drawing for a bigger view)
Now, Carter has generally been illustrated by Frazetta-type guys (including Frazetta) as being this muscular, loincloth-wearing clean shaven guy with a flowing mane - basically Conan the Barbarian with a ray-gun. I've never liked this interpretation - John Carter is strong on mars because he's used to Earth's higher gravity, NOT because he's super ripped. So I made him of average build. He is (or was) a civil war soldier, too, so I wanted him to have those big fancy cavalry 'stache and chops, and he's described as having short cropped hair. He's also described as being naked, which I never see, so I was sure to include that, too. A couple of my preliminary sketches had his wiener for all the other world to see, but I figured that since kids check the blog and come to my table at conventions I'd strategically place a green martian gun holster over his junk. The holster, gun, and sword are all made for fifteen feet tall fellas, so they're intentionally disproportionate to Carter's size - he's using a waist belt as a bandolier as a result.
Also, John Carter is going to be Pixar's first live-action movie, which I'm excited about. Pixar movies are usually great NOT because of their animation (though it IS top-notch) but because of the incredible amount of emphasis placed on story structure, detail, and quality, and I expect this will be no different. Here's hoping!
The original drawing is 9"x13.25" on an 11"x 15.5" piece of 80# stock, ink over blue pencil. The stars were made by flicking white ink from toothbrush bristles after covering the linework with painter's tape.
Here's a drawing of Lobster Johnson, a side character from Hellboy and B.P.R.D.
I had a great time at the Texas Library Association Conference in San Antonio - I found out that Vengeance made the top ten GNS for middle school readers, which was exciting, and I got to meet Kazu Kibuishi, who I'd not met before but whose work I like.
From there I went straight on to Fluke, and had a great time there, too - Comic Book Resources has a great write-up of it, and I'm quoted a lot in it, so rather than repeat myself here, just give it a read.
I felt like drawing a mummy!
Hey, everybody! Sorry for taking like two months to update the blog! A lot has happened in the meantime - I went to STAPLE, in Austin TX, where I was EXTREMELY well-treated, and I had a great time and loved the show, and definitely plan to go back. Had a great time with all sorts of great folks, had the best barbecue IN THE WORLD, two meals in a row, and am salivating just thinking about it. Also went to Austin Books, which is perhaps the greatest comic shop in the country. It's gigantic. Mind-blowingly gigantic. Plus it has LOADS of out-of-print stuff. I picked up a black-and-white Cochran box set edition of Harvey Kurtzman's Frontline Combat, which I've been looking for for ages.
Here's the STAPLE poster with an illustration by the inestimably fantastic Guy Davis:
Later in the month I did a signing with Sean McKeever and Len Wallace at Acme Comics in Greensboro, North Carolina. First Heroes, then Acme (I don't know what order they existed in - maybe Acme came first, but I was exposed to Charlotte's store first)? North Carolina can teach the rest of the country (Austin excepted, of course!) something about running a shop! The signing was a great event, and I've never been treated better - they fed us, which has happened before, but they also took us to a comedy club AND gave us 50% off (or cost price, I forget which) off anything in the store, which I jumped on, buying loads and loads of their super-excellent merchandise. I got a copy of the Blacksad sketch files which is just impossible to find these days unless you want to part with multiple times the cover price, one of the Paul books, an extra copy of the black-and-white Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails, as mine is on perpetual loan to an ever-rotating student body, and bunches of others. The guys there were really great, it was lots of fun getting to know Sean and Len, and they had loads of foot traffic - lots of families - in and out all day. I was expecting it to go poorly, as Vengeance is currently between printings and will be for every one of my signings and promo things for March, but It was easily the best store signing I've ever done. So many people had already gotten the book, and brought in their own copies - it's really nice when a store pushes the book ahead of time, so that when you're there people are excited to get theirs signed. If you're a comics person, and you're asked to do a signing here, I couldn't recommend accepting more strongly.
I did an end-of-the-day interview, if anyone wants to watch it: https://youtu.be/BhBfoR4WN94 I'm also going to start posting art whether I've got news or not. Between classes, family, and research, I'm not producing any pages, but I AM doing a lot of sketches to keep in practice/get better. Here's one of some kind of alien, stemming from a talk in class about how old-school Star Wars aliens were all designed to accommodate people in crazily proportioned suits. This little guy is the result.
I'll post more art regularly, I promise! So keep checking back.
First, I have an interview with ACME COMICS, a store in North Carolina at which I'm doing a signing in March. Give it a read!
Secondly, the reviews of Crogan's March have been popping up. Give them a read, too!
School Library Journal
Kleefeld on Comics
Newsarama
Graphic Novel Reporter
Innocent Bystander
Geek Girl on the Street
Also, here's a drawing, so that this isn't too boring a post! (click on the picture for a bigger version of the same picture)
One of the Crogan Adventure Society agents requested a drawing of Matthew Crogan, a character whom I haven't done much sketching with. After finishing his, I was warmed up, and decided to do a drawing of him standing next to Sir Harry Flashman, the main character in George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman Papers series, the reason I'm doing historical fiction in the first place. Since both characters are in India at the same time, I figured, aw, heck, why not draw 'em enjoying a drink together?
For a signing poster I made, I colored a couple of panels. While I definitely prefer the Crogan series to be in black and white, I do enjoy working in color, and her's a taste of what the new book might look like if it I weren't so obstinate a black-and-white snob.
 
I'm not into Black and white because it's artsier, or anything; I like it because 1. The comics I grew up reading (first, comic strips in the newspaper and their book collections, and later comic books like Usagi Yojimbo and Bone) were in black and white, and my aesthetic sensibilities generally lean towards that approach, and 2. there is less interference between the artists' page (the artist in this case being me) and the reader. I love comics because I love seeing how each artist chooses to depict their given worlds, and in black and white it is easiest for me to see exactly HOW they're doing that. Color often adds a kind of artistic middle-man for me, even if the color is done by the same person drawing.
I have some old black-and-white reprints of some of the old EC war comics, and it's amazing what some of those artists, especially Jack Davis, could do with a brush. But it's harder for me to see that craftsmanship when the value dichotomy is muddied by color.
There are exceptions - Matt Kindt, for example, makes color (by hand) such an intrinsic part of the drawing that it'd be impossible to remove it from the equation. B.P.R.D.'s color gives a great sense of mood and doesn't pull any attention away from what Guy Davis does with his inks. The colors on the first two volumes of Pierre Alary's Belladone books pull give his rather open pages a depth that makes the art some of the best comic work ever made. But me, I like to work in black and white.
EXCEPT when I'm working in color, which can be lots of fun.
I finally got around to reading Lars Brown's third Northworld book, Other Sagas. I should note that I'm not a big fantasy fan, at all. I tried to read the Narnia books as a kid, and found them irredeemably dull. I felt like Lord of the Rings was far too ambling and aimless, I never tried any of the Robert Jordan stuff, I never cared for Conan the Barbarian, I never played Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, or Heroquest. I liked the ideas, I liked the subject matter - big monsters based on those found in mythology (which I loved), medieval settings (which are fascinating to me), and swordfights, which are right up my alley. Yet the way the stories were presented were entirely unpalletable to me. There are the occasional exceptions - I loved T.H. White's The Once and Future King, I very much enjoyed the Harry Potter books, and I liked the Spiderwick Chronicles a lot. But none of these are written in the psuedo-mythic language you find in post-the Hobbit Tolkein and his emulators. Pyle is the only writer whose embrace of this affected language I can remotely stand. But, on the whole, me and fantasy are hardly comfortable bedfellows.
Which is why I was so surprised at how much I liked Northworld, ESPECIALLY this newest volume. It would seem to rely heavily on a readers' familiarity with the tropes of the fantasy and fantasy gaming genres... and yet, to one so unfamiliar with those tropes, it still reads clearly, without ever making me pause to collect myself and try and figure out what Lars is talking about. Part of what makes this work so well is that he is (presumably) writing what he knows - people his age, trying to make a splash in a world which may or may not be open to them doing so. People dealing with going back to their hometowns. People dealing with less-talented "peers" getting far more acclaim than deserved. People dealing with the changes from late adolescence to early adulthood, seeing friends change, responsibility, burgeoning romance... all thematic concerns that any reader can relate to.
Though it deals with the day-to-day of life with these other elements, this isn't Magic Realism in the vein of Eternal Sunshine or Be Kind Rewind, or many of the best stories from Tugboat's Papercutter anthology - make no mistake, this is genuine fantasy. But it's really, really engaging to someone not easily seduced by the genre, as well as fulfilling those genre requirements... the fantasy folks with whom I'm friends enjoy it a lot, too. My biggest regret with this book is that it is the perfect comic for a friend of mine who passed away a couple of years ago, and the whole time I was reading it I was thinking about how much he'd like it.
I don't often use the blog to schill the works of other cartoonists, but I was on a reading high from this one last night, and resolved to write something up. Lars' draftsmanship, storytelling, and dialogue continue to sharpen with each new project he releases, and, though I very much liked the 2-volume Epic of Conrad, this book surpassed it in terms of reading enjoyment. It's a collection of short stories set in Northworld, a land in which pizza delivery places and supermarkets coexist with wizards and manticores. It may sound anachronistic, it may sound like it wouldn't work, but it does, and I strongly reccomend anyone looking for a fun read - or looking to give their kid a fun read - pick it up.
He's got a number of the comics contained in the book on his website, including what may have been my favorite (it's hard to pick one): In the Mall of the Mountain King.
I haven't been taking commissions for a while, because I'd been working on one, and don't cotton much to the idea of taking on new work before the old is delivered - it feels like the artistic equivalent of going into debt.
Anyway, this one had been tricky, compositionally - it's all of the Crogan protagonists, and I finally got it sent off. I liked the final drawing (the logo was drawn, as well) and may use it for something - a print, a coffee mug, I don't know.
First off, thanks to all those who joined the Crogan Adventure Society! With the exception of the handful who got e-mails from me earlier this week, all of your packets have been mailed off and should arrive to you by today (except maybe you Brits - not sure exactly how long it takes first class mail to get out your way).
Back at HeroesCon, Guy Davis was nice enough to pass on a couple of his sketchbooks to me. They were incredible. I quickly started seeking out his work, of which I was already a big admirer, including all the B.P.R.D. trades I could get my mitts on. I generally tend to avoid team books - to me its a rarity when there's a uniformity of artistic vision - but Davis, Acardi, and Stewart have it nailed. These are some of the consistently best comics being made today, full of all sorts of the pulpy stuff I love. It got me keen on the characters pretty quickly, and I did a few sketches of the characters. Here's one, Captain Ben Daimo:
 I've also been re-reading and re-watching my Sherlock Holmes books and movies, mostly as a result of all the brewhaha of the new film. I'm extremely keen to see it, but haven't yet - trying to cut back on expenditures. But here's a pic to keep me in good spirits 'til it gets to redbox:
I opened my mailbox today, and guess what I found? The book came out looking really beautiful, thanks to Keith's excellent design and Oni's high production values. Pick it up or order it, if you find yourself so inclined!
Also, though my website's complete overhaul must wait until I'm back at school and thus able to get help with formatting problems that I'm having, the store WILL be up and going January 1st, with one item - something unique and hopefully lots of fun. So check back!
* Edit: Just found out that Oni Press has a few in-house copies immediately available from the website. Not sure whether Amazon's are shipping yet, or if they're on shelves, but if you want one guaranteed to you within the next few days, it's the way to go.
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