Jan 04 2005

Comic Book Pioneer Will Eisner Dies at 87

Comic Book Pioneer Will Eisner Dies at 87

Anyone interested in comics and its history should be saddened by the passing of this great artist and advocate for the medium.

The NPR story above is significant as well in that it’s the first time I can recall that something notable has happened in the comics world and they’ve called someone other than Art Spiegleman to comment on it–in this case Michael Chabon. While Chabon’s connection to cartooning is somewhat tangential, I suppose we should be glad that the “comics” section of NPR’s rolodex now has not one, but two names in it. My personal nerd-alert© suggestion for commentator would have been either Neil Adams, who borrowed heavily from Eisner, or Frank Miller who swiped a lot of style both from Eisner and Adams.

Jan 04 2005

Best news EVER

The Flaming Carrot is back!

One of my all time favorite comics series, The Flaming Carrot, originally published in the ’80s, is cranking up for a new run with Image Comics. To really bring back the feeling of those halcyon days of the 1980s, be sure to buy an extra copy so you’ll have one to read, and one to immediately hermetically seal in a mylar bag!

Jan 03 2005

Pilot Mountain

Katherine, Sheila and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm temperatures yesterday and went for a hike at Pilot Mountain State Park.

Pictures here.

That unsightly haze that’s general throughout the valley is courtesy of Tennessee’s continued slack-ass air polution laws. First Garth Brooks, now this…

Jan 03 2005

The pail’s progress pt. 3

For each panel, I usually start working up a drawing in my sketchbook or on another sheet of paper. Again, I work in colored pencils–starting with a light color and moving to the darker ones to build up an image I’m happy with…to be able to make corrections and move things around without having to start a new drawing every time.

When I’ve got something I’m reasonably happy with, I can scan it, resize it to fit on the bristolboard page that the final artwork will be on, and use a lightbox to trace a rough outline of it onto the board. In this case, though, I wasn’t entirely happy with the colored pencil rough, so I just winged it a bit and copied it onto the board by sight and then refined the image a bit in the pencilling process.

Rogers Work-up sketch
(Click for larger image)

…and thats the final penciled panel to the right.

Jan 02 2005

The dog who is so angry…

All those artsy comics-journal-message-board-types are always “Dan Clowes” this, and “Crag Thompson” that… But why is no one discussing “The Angriest Dog in the World?”

The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl.

…Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis.