Feb 02 2011

Portrait Night 2/1 (Babe Ruth)

Yep, another Tuesday portrait night has come and gone. Last night’s subject: Babe Ruth. I think the inking here is probably the best part of the drawing; the likeness itself isn’t very good. (I think the overall face shape is the main culprit–too gaunt/angular.) Someone on Twitter thought the red/blue color scheme was an Obama riff. It’s actually just the result of my using Yankees blue and red for the color palate. I’d love to tell you this is a mediocre drawing because I “hate the Yankees” as folks say, but it’s actually just because I’m not great at likenesses… but that’s the point of trying to do a likeness once a week, right?

Jan 30 2011

What Am I Working On?

Every once in a while–more really to organize my own thoughts than in response to any actual outside interest in the information–I do a “What am I Working on?” post where I run down the statuses of my current comics projects. I did that in an abbreviated form over at The Beat for their year-end survey, but here’s a more thorough summary:

Oyster War

I know it sounds kinda crazy, but publishers don’t seem to be beating down my door to publish this weird, not-all-ages mashup of 20s newspaper comic strips and obscure (at least in the U.S.) French graphic novels. I have though (as mentioned last post) gone ahead and set up a Tumblr ( http://oysterwar.tumblr.com ) where I’ve posted all the pages I’ve completed to-date. If you’re reading for the first time, start here.

I’ve just about wrapped up thumbnailing the next chapter which for me means doing “regular” thumbnails then also producing half-sized roughs of each page. Once I’ve had a chance to sit down, read through the chapter, and do any final edits that are needed, I’ll start executing pages one at a time and posting them to the Tumblr site as they’re completed. I’m hoping I’ll be able to post two a month starting in February. (I know two per month doesn’t sound like very much, but these giant, full-color, four tiered pages take forever to do!)

 

Super-Secret Mystery Project That Probably Won’t Come to Anything

I’ve been talking a bit with my agent and a possibly-interested publisher about adapting an existing (and quite popular) science fiction novel into graphic novel format. I have no idea what (if anything) will come of this, but at the very least I’ll probably do some sample art and/or a few sample pages and see what happens. I’ll likely post more about this later.

 

In the Weeds

I decided to write out an actual script for In the Weeds, something I’ve never done before, and that script is now complete. I’m reasonably happy with it and my agent reacted positively to it as well. With the GN publishing/buying environment in the relatively sorry state it’s in at the moment, it sounds like this isn’t a project that’s worth trying to sell without the complete (or nearly-complete) project in hand, though. So, I’m putting this on the back burner for the time being. If I’m going to draw an entire GN on my own time with zero advance money, it’s gonna be Oyster War.

That said, I’m hoping to find time to maybe execute the first chapter of this with the idea that either those pages will be strong enough to reconsider trying to sell the not-fully-complete book and/or that by the time I get around to actually doing that the publishing biz will have gotten back on its feet to the point where GNs will be an easier sell in general. Whatever the case, during the writing phase of this, I got to like this story enough that In the Weeds moved from “maybe I’ll do this if I can get a deal with an advance”-status to “I’m going to do this whether or not anyone’s initially on-board to publish it”-status.

 

The Count of Monte Cristo

Guess how tough it is to land a GN book deal these days? A: So tough that even an adaptation of a venerable and universally-acknowledged classic of Western literature isn’t a sure thing. This proposal wound up on the desks of something like twenty-seven editors/buyers at major publishers without a single “bite.” I’d love to say that I’m going to find time to execute a 300 page graphic novel version of The Count of Monte Cristo on my own time, but that just ain’t gonna happen. So this one’s officially shelved. But we’ve got a complete proposal for this in the bag–character designs, sample pages, plot breakdown–so who knows, maybe there’ll be some opportunity in the future dust this one off.

 

Amelia Earhart – This Broad Ocean

Well, obviously I’m not “working on” this one at all, since it’s been out for a while. The book though, does continue to receive a steady trickle of accolades, most recently inclusion in the 2011 Texas Library Association’s Maverick GN reading list, The Amelia Bloomer Project’s list of recommended feminist literature for young readers, and The American Library Association’s YASLA Great Graphic Novels for Teens list. The awards cycle for books published in 2010 has pretty much run its course at this point, so barring the highly unlikely inclusion of the book in this year’s Eisner Awards (I mean, have you seen all the great kids/tweens books that came out this year!?) I think it’s safe to call this book officially “done.”

Jan 26 2011

Portrait Night 1/25 (Keith Richards)

As I’ve likely mentioned before, I’m not a great caricaturist–but the only way to get better is to try, try, try, right? So, to that end I’m going to try to do a (quick) caricature/portrait a week. As an attempt to motivate myself to actually do this every week, I’m going to try to post my completed drawing each week to my Twitter feed with a #portraitnight hashtag. My first attempt was Keith Richards. For such an iconic figure, I found Keith surprisingly-difficult to capture visually. I think it’s because I started out trying to draw the young, 60s Keith, not the old, grizzled Keith with the age-exaggerated features. I eventually did a mid-era Keith ’cause it was just plain easier to to draw:For what it’s worth, here’s the original drawing from my sketchbook, done in my usual manner with iterations of light blue, orange, red, B pencil, and finally brush pen:When I start coloring I really don’t worry much about what actual hues I’m using; I select a starting color almost at random. What I think about more is the the light/dark and hot/cool relationships. Once it’s colored, I begin monkeying around with the hue and saturation via Photoshop’s Image–>Adjustments–>Hue/Saturation sliders. Here’s how I originally colored Keith prior to that:

Jan 20 2011

Oyster War Now Free Online at Tumblr

“Free online” is pretty much redundant, isn’t it? Anyway, I’ve set up a quick tumblr blog at http://oysterwar.tumblr.com and have uploaded the first two chapters of Oyster War there. Does that make Oyster War a webcomic now? Probably not. I’ll be violating the webcomics first rule–“update regularly”–right off the bat: I just posted twenty-something pages in one big batch, and I’ll only start posting new pages once I’ve started cranking out pages from the next chapter… which is still a few weeks off at best. I’m hoping though–as with this blog–that I’ll wind up with a weird compulsion to update at least semi-regularly once I’ve officially set the ball rolling with the online version of Oyster War.

If you want to read the complete two chapters, start here with the first page: Oyster War pg. 1.

I’ll continue to post design work, sketches, and any process/teaching posts here to benzilla.com; plain old finished, colored pages though, will be going straight to the tumblr. If you want to receive regular updates as each page is posted, please follow me on twitter: @ben_towle.

Interested publishers: boxes filled with riches may be shipped directly to my home address.

Jan 15 2011

Summer of Minis 2010 – Part V

(Continuing my look at the minis I’ve been reading from this summer’s comics events. Earlier installment(s): Part I, Part II, part III, part IV)

Well, I guess given that there’s a coating of snow on the ground as I look out my studio window, it’s probably time for me to go ahead and wrap up my Summer of Minis series. So here goes; this is the last of them:

Phase 7 #015 by Alec Longstreth

OK, I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t a little disappointed that this issue of Phase 7 didn’t contain another completed chapter of Alec’s graphic novel in-progress, Basewood. On the other hand, since each page of Basewood looks like it takes about six months to complete, I guess that’s understandable. This issue is a sort of “best of” compilation of pages from Alec’s sketchbook going back a few years. I enjoyed this issue; it made me pine away a bit for the bygone days of the “sketch mini”–the cheap one or two dollar stapled minicomic of a cartoonist’s sketchbook excerpts. These days that format seems to have given way to the giant, copy shop-bound, expensive reproduced sketchbook  that a lot of pros sell at conventions. I also really love the way Phase 7 has totally spurned the “hand silk-screened, silk thread bound, dye cut, etc.” minicomics trend and is keeping it pure and simple, Procellino style: straight-up black and white folded 8.5 x 11 copy paper.

Purchase copies of Phase 7 here.

Courtship of Ms. Smith – Alexis Frederick-Frost

I met Alexis Frederick-Frost during my initial visit to The Center for Cartoon Studies a few years back and I’ve been following his work ever since. If you haven’t checked out his Xeric-winning historical fiction/cycling GN, La Primavera, you should definitely do so. Courtship of Ms. Smith is the story of a spider who seems destined never to find true love… because she continues to ingest all of her suitors. If you know the cartoonist’s work, you’ll be immediately struck by how different his work looks in this mini: he’s converted from the lush brush work on display in work like Adventures in Cartooning to mostly dip pen. It’s great-looking stuff for sure:

You can purchase Courtship of Ms. Smith here.

Life of Vice #1 – Robin Enrico

This is a mini I picked up just because it looked fun and was reasonably-priced; I know nothing about the cartoonist. Life of Vice takes place in a convertible cruising through the Nevada desert while the protagonist conducts an interview with rock-n-rollist/ex-wrestling persona/sex advice columnist/general partaker of debauchery, Becky Vice. There’s some obvious Hunter Thompson homage going on here of course, but not overly-so. Robin Enrico has a fun, visually appealing style and the size (5×5″), shape, and two-color cover of this mini make for a great-looking package. I occasionally got a little lost with the storytelling, but nothing majorly distracting; I’ll pick up more of these for sure next time we cross paths.You can purchase Life of Vice issues here.

Nathan Sorry #1 – Rich Barrett

I wasnt’ really sure whether I should include this in a “Summer of Minis” post or not–not because it’s not a fantastic book, but because I don’t really consider it a minicomic in the strictest sense. I enjoyed reading Nathan Sorry in folded over 8.5×11″ minicomic format, but this is for sure not this story’s final form. The whole time I was reading it, I thought: This (whenever it’s completed) needs to be collected in a big hardback collection a la the Oni Local collection. Anyway, until then, I’m happy to read these as minis. The premise here is great: as far as anyone else knows, the protagonist Nathan Sorry was in one of the Twin Towers when it fell on 9/11.  In fact, he wasn’t. Now “off grid” and officially dead, he flees to middle America. As the story develops, we realize that Nathan was a (somewhat unwitting) small time white collar crook, helping his immediate higher-up with some nefarious financial scheme.  The first issue was a great start. I’m looking forward to seeing where the rest of the story goes.

Nathan Sorry is available in a variety of formats here.

The Trugglemat – Neil Brideau

This is another one I just picked up because it looked interesting. The story here is a bit Edward Gorey-ish in tone: the children in the protagonist’s town are all mysteriously disappearing courtesy of a monster that’s devouring them all and the only person the monster reveals itself to is the little girl narrating the story–yet the monster never eats her. The townspeople of course do not believe her, so she’s left to just wait around as all the other kids are eaten and the adults continue to futilely search for  the culprit. The narration here is first person and on the side of each page’s image–and told in rhyme.

I could not locate The Trugglemat for sale anywhere online.

Kindle #1 – Bridgit Scheide

OK, so this really isn’t a minicomic at all; it is though, a self-published “floppy” that I got this summer and that I wanted to mention. Kindle is a fantasy book, but one whose tone is closer to something like Castle Waiting or even Lud-in-the-Mist than the books that probably come to mind when you think “fantasy.” The book’s main character, Taggart, is a half-goblin half-human who spends his time drinking and working on a novel in a local pub in the town of Seywerth.  There’s also a parallel storyline beginning here that involves one of Seywerth’s clergymen.  I really dig Bridgit’s lovely and strikingly atypical comics art–sample below:

I couldn’t find Kindle for sale online, but here’s here’s the artist’s website/blog.

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Well, that concludes my 5-part (!) review of my summer’s minicomics reading. I’m really looking forward to hitting this year’s upcoming indy-ish comics events–TCAF, HeroesCon and maybe SPX–and picking up another round of minis. Keep those photocopiers busy, folks!