Aug 12 2008

Come See Me At The Decatur Book Festival 8/31

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In discussions about how great it is that comics/graphic novels have “arrived” and are now respectable and respected, I’m often the wet blanket, but I guess I’ll have to admit that the fact that I’ve been invited to not one, but two, book festivals this year is a sign of something.  In September, I’ll be appearing locally at the Bookmarks Book Festival here in Winston, but in just a few weeks I’ll be heading down Atlanta way for the big Decatur Book Festival.

I’ll be featured on a graphic novelists panel, which is 5:00-5:45, Sunday the 31st at the Decatur Library Stage.  Also on the panel will be Steven Cummings and Megumi Cummings of Tokyopop and Rich Tommaso, whose previous book with James Sturm, Satchel Paige: Striking out Jim Crow, is part of the same series for Hyperion as the Amelia Earhart book I’m currently hard at work on.

Other guests and events of interest to comics folk can be found here on the schedule page and include Hope Larson, Andy Runton and Patric McDonnell, of Mutts fame, who’ll be there promoting his new children’s book, Mutts Fly South.

Music of note includes a performance by Drive-By Truckers lead singer Patterson Hood as well as Harry Potter Acoustic Rock from Animagus.

Aug 09 2008

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures: Ch 1, Activity 1

Not too long ago, I wrote a review of Matt Madden & Jessica Abel’s excellent cartooning textbook, Drawing Words and Writing Pictures.  In it I note that although the book is designed for in-class use, the authors have set up the curriculum to accommodate those working alone (“Ronin” as they refer to them) and those working as part of an online group (“nomads”).  I’ve taught plenty of cartooning classes, but not taken any since back in the dark ages when I was in art school, so I was delighted to find exactly such a “nomad” group over at The Comic Forums preparing to tackle the book.  I’m pretty tight for time these days, but they’re doing the thing at half-speed–30 weeks instead of 15–so I thought I’d give it a go.

I’ll be posting my assignments here throughout, and all such posts will be in the “Drawing Words & Writing Pictures” subcategory.  Here’s week one’s activity.  You can find the assignment listed here on the DWWP site.  In short, it’s all about showing motion; first, five objects in motion, then three motion-filled single-panel scenarios.  I often draw in several different colors, building up my final drawing with successive “passes” in increasingly dark colors, so I’ll post them both as they really appear in my sketchbook as well as with the underdrawings dropped out via Photoshop:

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Aug 04 2008

Three Penciled Pages from ‘Ameila’

They say you don’t miss your water ’till your well runs dry, and in the case of my scanner I’d have to agree.  The last two weeks during which I’ve been scanner-less have really made me realize how much I use a scanner–not just for scanning final inked pages, but for the little things… like posting stuff to my blog!

So, to test out my fancy new large format scanner (I bought a Microtek Scanmaker 9600XL.  Scanning area: 12×17.  Look on my Scanner, ye Mighty, and despair!) I thought I’d scan a few pages from one of the current projects I’m working on–and scan each page in one fell swoop for once!

These three (non-sequential) pages are from a graphic novel called Ameila Earhart: This Broad Ocean, forthcoming from Hyperion.  It’s part of the same series as Satchel Paige: Striking out Jim Crow, Houdini the Handcuff King and the recent John Porcellino Thoreau biography.  Amelia is written by mystery novelist Sarah Stewart Taylor; with breakdowns by Jason Lutes of Berlin fame; and with me handling penciling, inking and color.  Perhaps of interest to fans of cartooning process: I’ve posted Jason’s thumbnails for each of these pages as well.

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Jul 20 2008

Google Thinks Fanboys Need “ManBras”

That crazy Google–there’s no telling what it’s thinking!  So, there I was having an innocent conversation via Gmail with a friend about the new Watchmen trailer, and what do I see listed in the contextual ads on the side of the window along with obvious stuff like ads for webcomics, other fanboy-ish movies, comic book T-shirts, etc.?  An ad for a MAN BRA!!  Just ’cause you like comic book stuff, you’re by definition a big fat guy?!

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Now you see here, Eric E. Schmidt, Google CEO: Yeah, sure, I could lose a few pounds around the midsection, but I’m hardly in man bra country!  Or am I?…

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Jul 20 2008

Heroes ’08 Minicomics Panel

Heroes 08 Minicomics Panel

The good folks over at the Dollar Bin podcast have posted audio of the Heroes Con ’08 minicomics panel, featuring Rob Ullman, Alec Longstreth, Joe Lambert and Liz Bailie–and moderated by me.  The recording gets cut off toward the end, but the majority of the panel is there.  While not the madcap hilarity of the Dustin-hosted panels of the past, there’s some good info there for folks who are interested in minis.

An aside: I’m sure the three people who look at this site with any regularity are probably wondering why I haven’t posted much of anything in a while.   The reason is two-fold:  First, I’ve been working mostly this last week or so on a one-page strip for a music magazine and, though I’ve been finished with the strip for a while, I can’t really post it until the magazine’s been out for a while.  Second, my ancient Umax Astra 2400s scanner (that’s so old it has only a SCSI interface) finally gave up the ghost about ten days ago and, although I’ve been bidding on new (to me) large format scanners on ebay, I’ve yet to purchase one.  Rest assured, sketchbook efluvia will return soon…