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Jul
25

The Stones and TinTin

by Ben

I sent this pic around via Twitter yesterday, but I think it deserves a post here as well.  I’m starting to ink Chapter Two of Oyster War and I’ve been streaming documentaries from Netflix in the background as I do.  One of the ones I watched yesterday was Stones in Exile, a documentary about the making of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street.  I’m surprised I noticed this since I’m usually not looking at the screen unless I’m waiting for a bit of ink to dry, but here’s a great still from the film that caught my eye: Anita Pallenberg, then girlfriend of Keith Richards, holding a copy of the TinTin adventure, The Black Island.  Presumably it’s for their son, Marlon, pictured at the right.  It’s of course in French (L’Iile Noire) since Exile was recorded in the south of France, where the Stones retreated in order to avoid taxes (and a sobriety, apparently).  Anyway, this image touches on a number of my favorite things: The Stones, TinTin and attractive Italian actress/model/groupies who are into black magic:

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Jul
21

My Cartoonist Survey Posted at David-Wasting-Paper

by Ben

There’s a short survey/interview with me now posted over at the David-Wasting-Paper blog.  This is an interesting blog for two reasons beyond just getting to read what various cartoonists say in their surveys.  First, the questions for each cartoonist are exactly the same.  Second, there are so damn many of them!  I’m survey number 145.  Be sure to dig through the previous surveys if you have time.  There are tons of interesting subjects.  I couldn’t find a way to sift through them other than by using the chronological drill-down menu on the right, but they start in November of ’09, so they’re really not that hard to find.

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Jul
17

Inked Ukulele One-pager

by Ben

I hesitate to call this a “comic strip” since it’s about 70% words (maybe “illustrated essay” would be more accurate) but whatever it is, it’s inked.  This strip will appear in the Fall issue of Signal to Noise magazine, which is where my previous very wordy one-page music strip about Winston-Salem’s “5″ Royales also appeared.  Like the Royales strip, this one will be in full color, but I’m not going to post that until the magazine’s been out on the stands for a while so folks can have a chance to pick up the real live issue.   This strip is also notable in that it  includes the single worst caricature of William H. Macy ever committed to paper.  What can I say–I’m up against a deadline here.  (And since it says “William H. Macy” right  above the panel, I guess I can get by with it…)

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Jul
10

Ssalefish Illustration – Finished (Pretty Much)

by Ben

Here’s a completed illustration I did for my local comics shop, Ssalefish Comics & Toys.  I did a rough version of this image on the endpapers of a copy of Amelia Earhart – This Broad Ocean that I gave the owner, Bret, a while back.  He liked the illustration and wanted a more polished version–and with the final volume of Scott Pilgrim set to drop here shortly, I was more than happy to drum up an illustration for a wee bit o’ store credit.

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Jul
09

Oyster War Chapter 2 Penciled Page

by Ben

Despite the fact that spending most of the summer doing odd freelance work and being “Mr. Mom” while my daughter is out of school, I have managed to wedge in a few hours a week to keep cranking on Oyster War.  I’m currently penciling the second chapter and I’m going to give it my all to have that chapter finished and colored by the end of the summer.  It’s a relatively short chapter at only seven pages–albeit giant, 13 x 18 four-tier TinTin-style pages–so I think that’s something I can accomplish even with a pretty crunched schedule.

For no particular reason, I’m picking this particular page to be the one I post progress on here.  Chapter two is the second half of act one and this particular page is the obligatory “gathering of allies” sequence.  The character Tevia is obviously a pretty ham-handed homage to Queequeg; Ju-Long was borne from some of my research reading about the (often overlooked) role that Chinese immigrants played in the 19th century America.  The ship in the first panel is The Layla (although I intermittently consider and then abandon the idea of renaming it The Fusty Puffin) and it wound up being pretty close design-wise to my initial ruminations on it a while back.

It’ll likely be a while, but I’ll repost this page once I’ve got it inked.

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Jul
06

Sketchbook 7/6

by Ben

Dave Petraeus, Dave Petraeus, rock me, Dave Petraeus.

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Jul
04

Happy Independence Day!

by Ben

I’ve been sticking pretty tightly to all comics-related posts of late, but given that it’s the 4th of July, I’ll let that slide:  Happy Independence Day, all!

We spent the morning of this fourth of July at our neighborhood “parade,” which might be more accurately described as, “flag- and crepe paper-encrusted kids, dogs and bikes travelling around the block several times while someone plays Sousa marches on a boombox.”  It’s great fun.  We get the streets blocked off, do a pot luck/grill-out for the whole neighborhood, and arrange for the local firehouse to send an engine over (in exchange for a go at the potluck table, of course).  Here’s my daughter in her patriotic regalia:

In the evening we finished off the day in typical American fashion for the fourth: grilling.  Here’s an obscenely loaded dinner plate featuring lots o’ grilled stuff: grilled tuna steaks and sea scallops topped with salsa made from a friend’s garden tomatoes, grilled vegetables and corn, and a ripe avocado.

Livin’ large in the USA!

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Jun
27

‘Sea Witch’ Tribute: Colored and Done

by Ben

So here’s the finished deal:

I’m no Frazetta for sure, but hey that’s the point of doing something like this: to learn a little bit about what makes another artist’s work so good. I’m not particularly happy with the watercolor here, but I’ve already spent too much time on this project (which really just started out as a sketchbook doodle).   If I had more time on my hands, I’d probably go back in with some gouache and start adding some areas of more intense color.  There’s only so much color intensity you can get with watercolor paint–particularly when you’re using one of those $5.00 plastic trays of little paint “wafers” like I use.

Since I did the original drawing in my sketchbook on pretty flimsy paper that wouldn’t hold up to watercolor (and had all sorts of colored pencil underdrawing that wouldn’t erase) I had to transfer the image to more suitable paper.  I wound up scanning the drawing, Thresholding it in Photoshop, and then printing it out on 2-ply Strathmore Bristol board, which is the thickest paper I can get to go through my ancient HP deskjet printer.  I then taped that page down and applied the watercolor to it.

I found, though, that the watercolor “sat” on top of the printed blacks in a way that it wouldn’t do if I had been working on an original done with India ink:

The image above is the actual painted Bristol board and you can see the watercolor pigment hazing over the blacks.  What I did, though, was to drop in the original all-black Thresholded image as a top layer in Photoshop so that it effectively took the place of the black on the printout.

Frazetta’s Sea Witch has always been my favorite painting of his largely because the WTF factor is so high: Is the witch part of that sea creature?  Or is she calling it forth?  If the latter, is it copping a feel up under her dress?  Or is she maybe stuck on the end of there like a puppet? Why are all of the tentacles a little bit different–some have suckers, some don’t? And most of all, why is there a goddamn IGUANA in this scene!?

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Jun
26

I’m Back from the Union County Mini-Con

by Ben

I just walked back in the door from the Union County library Mini-Con in Monroe, NC and I had a blast.  As you can imagine in a library that has my books in its collection, the name of the game here wasn’t sellin’ stuff, (damn you, “Comrade” Obama and your socialized book stores–or, as you call them, “libraries.”) but rather, meeting local folks who are interested in comics and of course, hanging out with the other guests at the con.  I carpooled to and from with Dan Johnson who’s in nearby (to me, not Monroe) Archdale, NC.  Dan’s a writer and a lot of his recent work has been adapting classic literature for the India-based publisher Campfire Books.  As you can imagine with my interest in doing a GN adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, we spent a lot of the drive “talking shop” about comics adaptations of classic lit.  (And of course, as is always the case when two comics folk are in direct contact for more than 30 minutes, we discussed Roger Corman’s film version of The Fantastic Four.)

Once at the show, I spent most of the day just chatting with folks who were visiting the con to find out about folks who make comics.  I saw a few old friends that I see mainly at conventions–like Brandon Padgett of Big Dog Studio–but also got to hang out with Al Bigley whose work I’ve known for a while, but who I’ve never met in person (nor had any idea he lived in NC).   Al’s collection of superhero ephemera is legendary, and Dan and I had been graciously invited to stop by his house on the way home to check it out in person but, alas we wound up hanging out at the library yacking and had to get back on the road directly.

In the midst of all this, I did manage to draw a few superhero sketches in preparation for whatever con I happen to next be at.  Here they are:

The Red Tornado

Valkyrie

Night Owl

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Jun
25

Tomorrow (Sat. June 26th) Union County Mini-Con

by Ben

If you happen to be anywhere in the vicinity of Monroe, NC tomorrow, be sure to stop in to the Mini-Con being held there.  It’s part of Union West Regional Library’s program to get kids into the library and interested in reading–comics and otherwise.    Event organizer John Thompson talks about the event here over at ComicsReporter.  It’s a two-day event starting today, but I’ll just be able to attend on Saturday. Saturday’s portion of the event will be held at the Monroe branch.  Guests include Charlotte-area faves Marcus Hamilton, Dustin Harbin and many more.  I’ll of course be selling copies of Amelia and my other books.  Hope to see you there.

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