Dec 11 2008

Comic Strip: The “5” Royales

Here’s a one-pager I did for fall’s issue of Signal to Noise magazine.  I posted some bits and pieces of this a while back when it was in-process, but now that the new issue on the stands here’s the entire strip.

The stirp is an introduction to the ’50s soul/R&B band, The “5” Royales, who hail from right here in Winston-Salem.  The Royales aren’t a household name by any stretch, but they should be to anyone who’s interested in modern music.  The Royales’ influence runs via two conduits: first, James Brown pretty much modeled his first band, The Famous Flames on the Royales’ sound and in fact scored an early hit with the Royales-penned tune “Think.”  Second, the playing of the Royales’ guitarist, Lowman Pualing, was very innovative for the time and was emulated by Steve Cropper (among others) who was a founding member of the Stax Records house band, Booker T & the MGs, and provided guitar on tracks by folks like Wilson Picket and Otis Redding.

An interesting aside here is that this is a job I did mainly because I thought it’d be fun.  I hope I’m not bursting any idealistic young freelancers’ bubbles here, but smaller specialty magazines don’t tend to have the budgets of, say, The New Yorker, but sometimes–as in this case–the opportunity to do something really fun and interesting outweighs monetary considerations.  I this case, though, I managed to have my cake and eat it too.  The original art for this was displayed at a gallery show here in Winston–and sold!

Anyway, here’s the strip–enjoy:

royales_strip

Dec 11 2008

Sketchbook 12/11/08

As per my “vow” from last post, I’ve switched here mid-page to pencil–and I’m not really sure I like the results.   There’s something sort of stiff and labored about the pencil sketches, I think because the maleable nature of pencil–somewhat counterintuitively–tends to make me more fussy about putting down a line.  I’m also pretty much using the pencil as if it were a pen, laying down dark outlines and then shading in areas.  In short: I’m fighting the tool I’m trying to use.  I’ll soldier on with other tools, but I’ll likely have to return to using My Precious (by which I mean, my Rotring art pen).

sketchbook_121108

Dec 10 2008

Sketchbook 12/10/08

I felt like I was getting stuck in a rut drawing hands, so I drew some dogs.  I’m definitely, though, stuck in a rut drawing only in pen.  I hereby vow to sketch more in other media…

sketchbook_121008

Dec 04 2008

Sketchbook 12/04/08

I’m on some sort of hand-drawing fixation lately.  Spending an evening drawing hands from the current issue of TIME Magazine has become a sort of weekly ritual for me now.

sketch_120408

Nov 30 2008

Finished Penciled Pages for a GN: The Weigh-In

One thing most folks who aren’t cartoonists probably don’t consider much is the sheer mass of  the many, many pages of finished artwork cartoonists wind up with.  I’ve got tons of pages lying around my studio, and I only manage to produce a book every few years.  I can’t imagine what artists who, say, pencil a monthly book for DC do with all this stuff.  Out of curiosity, I thought I’d get some “stats” on the now-fully penciled pages (yay!) for Amelia: This Broad Ocean, my current project (with Jason Lutes and Sarah Stewart Taylor, of course–doing layouts and writing, respectively).  So here’s the completed heap:

amelia_stack1

The pages on the bottom there that are sticking out are two-page spreads that I’ve done on single sheets of 23″ x 29″ sheets of bristol.  (The other single-page art is on the same sheets of bristol, but cut in half.)  Out of curiosity, I decided to weigh the whole lot.  Although the stack was far more than my little postal scale could handle, I loaded them on there in smaller stacks and it looks like they weigh in at just under ten pounds.  Similarly, it looks like the stack’s measuring in at just under an inch and a half:

amelia_stack2

I’m not actually even sure how many pages there are at this point, since the numbering is somewhat off, owing to a number of scenes being inserted later between previously existing pages.  Like the other Hyperion GNs, I think this one will be 80 pages total, but that includes various non-art elements like title pages and study material in the back.  My guess is maybe 70 pages or artwork total.

I’m also not really sure why I’ve bothered to weigh and measure these pages… Maybe it’s just borne of lugging pages for sale around to conventions, or having to find places to store this stuff in my studio.  Or maybe I’m just hoping that I’m making good progress toward doing my two thousand pages of bad art that, according to Dave Sim, I need to get out of the way before I start producing anything good.