May 06 2008

I Draw Boat Good

My work on Ameila has been pretty much on hold this week other than working my way through the Canadian public library system trying to track down some much-needed photo reference. (One hopes their much-touted government health care system is a bit less labyrinthine.) So, I’ve switched gears a bit and have been working on Oyster War–mainly writing, but also a bit of drawing.

One of the “props” I’ll need for the story is this boat. I’m not really concerned with trying to draw a 100% authentic, accurate period vessel, (I’ve had enough of that with Midnight Sun) but rather, I wanted to use an historic vessel as a starting point and see what I could come up with. I’m not even sure what the name of this boat is going to be within the story, but, thar’ she is:

leila_02.png

One thing I really like seeing on other cartoonists’ blogs is their process, not just the final images they come up with, so I’ve slapped together some images from my sketchbook that show the “evolution” of this vessel. I started with a civil war tug and went from there. I wanted the final boat to be a bit more recognizably boat-like, so you can see it getting less and less blocky as things progress.

I usually work in colored pencil first, starting with light blue, then orange, then red, then soft (2B) pencil–and finally ink, if it goes that far. For the purposes of rough sketching, Photoshop’s hue/saturation control is pretty effective at lifting out all the non-black colors once the sketches are scanned. I’ll sometimes scan images, remove the colors, change the black to light blue, then print out and start all over again… or just slap some tracing paper on the original image and work on that.

leila_process.jpg

May 03 2008

FCBD – Piltdown Is Here!

Since it’s now officially Free Comic Book Day, you can cruise on over to www.wideawakepress.com and download Piltdown, the dinosaur/caveman-themed comic book for free as a PDF. If’n you’re one ah’ them youngsters, what with your “manga” and whatnot, and you like to read the funnybooks right on your computer, I’ve made a quick CBZ version of the book you can download here.Besides me, other folks contributing are J. Chris Campbell, Patrick Dean, Dustin Harbin, Josh Latta, Joe Lambert, Pat Lewis, Brad McGinty, Andy Runton and more. I’ll post my giant sloth story here the first page of my giant sloth story here–for the rest, though, you’ll need to download the complete book.

sloth_01.png

 

 

Apr 30 2008

Christophe Blain Book Tour of the U.S.?

Normally I pretty much skim over the “Comics Briefly” section of Publishers Weekly Comics Week newsletter; I read ComicsReporter and Journalista! pretty regularly during lunch each day, so usually there’s nothing there I haven’t seen before. When looking over this week’s issue, though, I spotted the heading, “Blain U.S. Tour” and wondered: that can’t be referring to the French cartoonist Christophe Blain, can it?

Well, sure enough, that’s exactly what it was about. According to the article, Blain “will be doing a book tour in the United States sponsored by the French Embassy’s Cultural Services Department.” The only events mentioned are an appearance at Portland’s Floating World Comics (I think I’m the only remaining cartoonist who hasn’t moved to Portland) and a book festival in Los Angeles. I’d love to think there’d be more appearances by the cartoonist, but the French Embassy’s site doesn’t have any info on it, nor could I find anything on the website of Blain’s American publisher, NBM.

So, you may be asking yourself, Who the heck is Christophe Blain? Christophe Blain is in my opinion one of the very best cartoonists working today. His work, to me, has exactly the right balance of abstraction and realism; his linework is somehow loose but precise at the same time; his coloring is gorgeous; and his stories are exciting, dramatic and poignant yet at the same time exciting and fun. The series to check out from NBM is Isaac the Pirate, two volumes of which are available at the moment. Hopefully the third is in the works. I believe it’s already out in French. Here’s a typically gorgeous page from the series:

isaac.jpg

I find it odd that he’s not more known here in the states. (I guess I find it odd that more European cartoonists in general aren’t known here.) I have, though, noted his influence in a few American cartoonists recently, most prominently Nick Bertozzi, particularly in his great online story about Sir Ernest Shackleton. Likewise, British cartoonist Nick Abadzis’ Laika seems to me to have a bit of Blain-vibe to it visually.

Anyway, I’m keeping my eyes open for more dates in the U.S…

Update: 

Courtesy of Chris Pitzer of Adhouse, there’s plenty more info from the original press release over on Chris Butcher’s blog, including the list of appearances, all of which unfortunately are on the West Coast.  Have fun hanging out with Christophe Blain, ya’ damn hippies!

Apr 28 2008

Gimme Some Ninjas, Bub

This is another piece, like the Inhumans thing I posted a few weeks back, that I’m putting together with an eye toward the upcoming convention season.  As you can tell, I’m a fan of the old-timey ’80s Frank Miller-style Wolverine who smokes cigars (I almost gave him one here) and fights ninjas.

wolverine.png

Apr 24 2008

Piltdown: Free Comic Book Day

J. Chris Campbell just sent out this fantastic cover image from the upcoming Wide Awake Press book for Free Comic Book Day:

piltdown-download1.jpg

The title of the book obviously is Piltdown, and here’s the skinny:

Wide Awake Press follows up last year’s successful download comic EATS with an anthology of prehistoric tales. Go to wideawakepress.com on May 3 and download the FREE comic PILTDOWN. Join us on our journey back in time and see what stories surface when artists draw upon thier inner cro-magnon. Dinosaurs, Cavemen and all types of prehistroic beasts gather together for you to discover.

The book will feature my giant sloth story that I’ve posted a few sketches from in the past.  Chris is being pretty tight-lipped about who’s contributed stories, but I’ll post info when the book’s available for free download on the third.