Ben Towle

Author's posts

Indstrial Drawing and Penmanship Workbooks from the 19th Century

I admit, there’s not much point to this post other than, “These things look cool,” but hey, they do look pretty cool. I’m lucky enough be be the recipient of a slow trickle of old family books, mostly from  the part of my family that originates in the Lancaster, PA area.  I did a post …

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Illustration: Monster Parade

I’ve had monsters on the brain lately. I think it’s because a few weeks ago I posted some art from Drew Weing’s great bestiary, 33 Beasties and at about that same time I placed my own Moleskine bestiary for sale in my store. Whatever the case, I decided it’d be fun to draw some monsters. …

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In Memoriam: Irvin Kershner – Empire Drawings

I’m sure I’ve posted some or all of these childhood drawings of mine before, but with the recent death of Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner, I thought it’d be appropriate to drag them out again. While there may be one or two folks out there who’d debate Empire‘s status as the best of the …

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To Epilogue or not to Epilogue?

I just finished writing the script for a music/culinary-themed graphic novel I’ve been working on called In The Weeds and I found myself wrestling–not for the first time–with whether to include an epilogue.  Here’s the thing with epilogues: whenever I’m reading a book or watching a film and there’s an epilogue tacked on to the …

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One-Page Comic Strip: History of the Ukulele

I occasionally do one-page music-related comic strips for a music magazine called Signal to Noise. I enjoy doing work for them because I’m really interested in music and they give me a pretty free rein to choose a subject I like.  For example, one of my past strips for them was about the obscure but …

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