...he came from Jumbo

i and i survive

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:16:53 -0400

A note to graduates, art school in particular….

It was instilled in me at an early age, never to give anything (ie art) for free, to own your own creations. Create your own properties. I just wanted to draw Batman. What the hell did I know? I was 5 or 6 at the time. It would still be cool to draw Batman, but it’d be better to own Batman. No?

I still fight this to this day but you have to constantly be aware of scammers. Sure I could lay out that brochure, or do that logo but I’m not doing it for ‘exposure’, I get paid. How else is that insane student loan you took out supposed to get paid off? You have to be bold and smart in this world of design ‘contests’ where said bar is too cheap to hire someone to design their logo. If I see any of this nonsense on message boards, or facebook, I out them. You have all the exposure in the world, it’s called the internet. Get paid or walk.

If said art school failed to drum business in your head, they should have. Mine had a cheesy business class with the same textbook I had in high school. (sigh) Whether you’re goal is fine arts or commercial, you’re basically a small business of one. (unless you’re going off to animation or an agency). It’s going to take a while to distil yourself after the art school experience. You’re going to make a lot of bad art (or design) before things settle down. It took me about five years before my work settled down into what it is today.

I wish I had more advice for you, but given that every successful artist or designer I’ve heard give a talk has a completely different ‘break-in’ story. It’s not like going into medicine or becoming an auto worker. If it was, I would have been working right out of college. You never know what you’ll be doing once you get out. I’ve had fine art friends who wound up doing web design and illustration majors go into painting. It’s good to have a little hustle, be aware of trends, keep the ‘pencil’ moving, don’t be a douchebag, finish your work (even if it ends up looking like shit), and keep playing the ‘art lottery’. If you haven’t already, you’ll find your voice and everything will fall into place. Good luck.

lady grinning soul

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:04:48 -0400

One of my favorite pics with Jeff.

One of the best things about living in Columbus & being a cartoonist: we have a flippin’ sweet Cartoon Library in town. Check out the progress on the new space over on their blog. I was tied up this weekend, otherwise I would have volunteered to help again. Can’t wait for the grand opening in November.

magic city wholesale

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:39:00 -0400

June is becoming a busy month for appearances… here we go:

- I’ll have a piece up in the Big Local Art Tent (via my friends in the Art Party) at the Columbus Arts Festival. I applaud the fest that they finally decided to invite more of Columbus into the Columbus Arts Festival. All the art’s for sale so have at it kids. The show’s this weekend. Running Friday through Sunday.

- June 25th. Starting at 6pm. cover $5. Shadowbox & the Laughing Ogre will be putting on Super Tuesday. I was invited to set up and sketch on comic covers at this event. There will be a viewing of the Avengers, Should be a fun time. Comic book themed cocktails yo!

- Comfest. June 28th- 30th. It’s a free three day festival that’s mostly about the local music scene or well celebrating everything ‘local’. I’ll be selling merch at the Panel Collective booth. Prints, some comics, and whatever t-shirts I have left. I’ll be popping in and out. Enjoying the festival. It’s a time for reconnecting with old friends, running into ex-girlfriends, listening to the ‘message’, and hearing the word ‘volunteer’ all… weekend… long. It is good to volunteer. It’s all ran by volunteers. If you have never been to this festival at all, you should go at least once. Be prepared for anything: rain, level one hurricane-like winds, extreme heat, humidity, and pray you don’t have to take a drug test anytime soon. There is a certain type of second hand smoke that’s unavoidable at this show.

__________________

also coming in July…

is the first Dark Horse Presents that I will appear in. Cannot express how stoked I am about this. I still remember the first time I saw an issue of it. Monty had brought a copy to (high school) art class when he came to visit. It’s kinda surreal that I’m in a comic with Steve Rude and David Lapham.

hits the nail on the head about what’s so jacked up about...

Fri, 31 May 2013 23:23:06 -0400

hits the nail on the head about what’s so jacked up about modern coloring in comics. I see it all the time in mainstream and indie (vying for mainstream. nothing wrong with that.)

death to the lens flare.

mercurialblonde:

These are from DC Comic’s Superboy comic. I just picked them at random, because I know if I want to talk about how modern comics coloring is dumb as hell—DC Comics are sort of the gold standard for not giving a fuck about the colors in their books. I mean there are a lot of things Marvel does wrong—how they as a company through the years perceive the role of color in comics, is not consistently one of them. Books like X-Force and Hawkeye happen enough that you think there must be someone on staff there who recognizes a company built on a history of bold stand by your colorist moments. But DC—this is pretty standard what I expect to see with DC. They have sort of a house style for coloring, and this is basically it. Sun is red. Jeans are blue. Buildings are building colored(bat books get a little more moody in terms of color but only because they’re trying to live up to a cliche ideal of moody and noir) so on and so forth.

Anyways. This page isn’t colored badly or anything. So I’m not dissing the colorist. As far as I know they are just doing exactly what they are being paid to do. I’m more talking about the aesthetic being presented here and how it works against the other elements at play in the comic.

The First thing, like I said, is that the choices are extremely literal. Jeans are jean colored. Vest is all vest colored. So on and so forth. It’s very boring—particularly when you think about how things change color every second of the day depeneding on light, depending on the color of the things they are next to—color is not an entrenched thing—it’s a wavy thing that is constantly shifting to reflect time around it. One panel superman’s vest could be bright pink, the next it could be blue and orange. Things shift.

But even that—whatever. The thing which is really at play here which is actively making this shit look shittier than it should be—is the lighting effects/gradient filters. Every thing on this page has a fucking gradient on it. Superman’s stupid vest has gradients all through it. Making it look almost metallic in nature. His shirt under his vest looks like a knight’s coat of arms—when I think it’s just a y’know…sweater. By putting gradients all over the clothes you completely rob them of any texture. And the sad thing is if you want to show weird progressions in color on clothes—you can get pretty dynamic and crazy.

Check how Dean White has colored this x-force comic—he’s still presenting gradients—but the color choices of those changes are much bolder and create a much more singular image:

So I’d say that using gradients in this way just exposes your color choices and progressions even more. If you’re not on point with those color choices—you end up with this very bland Superboy looking comic.

But here’s the real problem. Check how the actual linework on those superboy pages looks? There’s crazy textures of ink strokes in the clothes—there’s some really cool dynamic lines on that kids mask—and it is all lost behind the gradients, and the need of the colorist to know better than the artist in terms of how to present light. If you went flats on these pages, and followed the directions of the artist’s linework—shit would kind of look like a comic that a major company put a ton of money in to make. It would look bold and challenging.

Think about Matt Hollingsworth’s work on Hawkeye and how by playing with flats instead of gradients and being on point in his color progressions he is allowing the composition and lineart of Aja to sing and for the most part because of that, the book immedietely went on a lot of top critics lists—almost irrespective of anything Fraction actually wrote in the page.

I mean look at the simplicity of this:

Because of Hollingsworth being willing to lay back in the cut here—Aja can get away with fun page design shit. I mean Chris Ware sees that and is like “duh”. The more shit a colorist puts on a page, the less you will see the lineart—and the less dynamic the composition can be.

When you do colors like the Superboy book up there, you are literaly wasting the reader’s eye’s time on the page by overloading it with mediocre shit, just so you could tell me that oh hey—“Jeans are still blue!” “Flesh color is still flesh color”. Thanks. I totally couldn’t have figure the same thing out if the page were black and white.

Most of my time writing, I talk about the stuff that is done right, and in coloring, I routinely highlight dope shit on that front. But there is I think value in occasionally calling out shit like this. Because I see smaller companies with smaller budges mimicking what DC does because “that’s what sells”—but the truth of the matter is that if you make your books like as bland and boring as DC makes their books—how exactly do you plan to stand out and steal eyes on a cramped shelf space? Especially if you are also telling the same type of played out superhero soap operas as the big two. Hiring a few bold colorists to manage your line for you—is probably the cheapest way to visually win that game. I mean not for nothing, but look at what Mignola has done with his books. He sort of has his in-house colorist in Dave Stewart who maintains cohesion across the line—so you know a mignolaverse book on sight—but he’s also making choices that are different than the ones being made at the big two on colors. There’s some sort of economic formula there in an age where readers are largely ignoring artists and paying attention mostly to the writers. If I were a cynical comic publisher—I’d be putting the bulk of my budget into the hiring top colorists and writers—and then filling the art in with cheap clean lined folk. Why am I even talking about this? I dunno.

Anyways. Gradients are dog drool. Flesh color gradients are theeee worst of the worst.

I post a lot about music on Facebook. A lot. Last time I talked...

Thu, 30 May 2013 23:10:00 -0400

I post a lot about music on Facebook. A lot. Last time I talked to my friend Lana, I think this band was one of a few recommendations. (she was looking for some new tunes.) My heart saddens to find out she passed away over the weekend. We became fast friends as I was starting to become comfortable in my skin during high school. I lost touch with her, as most kids do, after high school. She graduated a year before I did. Small rural school: really we’re all one giant shifting class. I had friends. Really good friends, but like Lana, they left a year before I did. Social media’s been a blessing and a curse. I’ve reconnected with many. It’s comforting and heartbreaking, as in Lana’s case she was gone in a flash. An online memorial I can only bare to look at once. Anyway, I’ll miss her random messages. It’ll be a hard weekend. With one last recommendation, here’s a good one Lana. RIP.

Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Cant See Land (by Fatcatrecords)

devildoll: are you fucking kidding me wow.

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:42:35 -0400

devildoll:

are you fucking kidding me

wow.

look out! soul is back

Fri, 03 May 2013 21:39:21 -0400

had to go home for some tires. If you can, I recommend driving outside the city for anything car-related. It’s disheartening to watch the town I grew up in continue to slowly decay as the years go on. It looks like a mini-Detroit with streets in better condition. It looks like that after-shot you see when a Walmart rolls into town, killing all the local mom n’ pop’s. Despite this, I thought it would be good for me to have some photos of the hometown I grew up in. (Even if it is 15 some years too late.)

I’m finally ready for Free Comic Book Day. Geesh, this took forever.

collect from clark kent

Thu, 02 May 2013 21:46:01 -0400

Doesn’t look like I’ll get a chance to scan this before FCBD, but if you come out Saturday, this drawing will be up for auction. Sort of a convention sketch on crack. I’d probably charge $75 or more given how long and detailed this has become. See y’all at Packrat Saturday.

I think my time has come...

Wed, 01 May 2013 22:50:36 -0400

Saturday I got to spend some time helping out at the Cartoon Library. (About a month or so ago, they put out a call for volunteer help.) First things first, I’m envious of the warehouse their stuff sits in. The air is clean and filtered. (my office at the day job resides in a warehouse that’s probably chock full of God knows what I breathe in daily).

It was tiring work but it felt good helping out a part of what makes up the Columbus comics scene. The day was spent cracking open boxes from United Features (?), removing the contents, placing them in archival storage and bonding over a mutual hatred of Marmaduke. I’m not really up on my comic strip history but the stuff seemed to cut off around the 90’s. (around the onset of digital layout/printing ) The boxes were full of ‘positives’, some negatives, the occasional original piece of art, forgotten strips of yore, popular strips like Get Fuzzy, Nancy, etc.

Half or a third of the boxes we opened looked like a couple of secretaries cleaned out everyone’s desk and dumped it in a box. There was a giant creepy black box with ‘Nancy’ spraypainted on it. Either it has a sculpture of Nancy in it or a mummified corpse of a girl that once went by the name Nancy. Who knows? We also came across a stash of the worst pin-up shots I’ve seen yet. Women reclining holding a donut (?)… well a variety of props in 50’s era lingerie. Weird. Amazing this was sitting in a building I could see from my old college apartment.

___________________________

a reminder that I will be appearing at Packrat Comics this coming Saturday for Free Comic Book Day. The shop always throws a crazy mini-convention inside an old strip mall of which it resides.They’ve recently expanded with a room chock full of RPG games. Stuff’s going on all day and into the night. The guy who played Dante from Clerks will be there as well. After today, I feel I can relate to the guy who ‘isn’t even supposed to be here’.

If one is near my old hometown, Columbus local Lora Innes will be appearing at Lima’s Alter Ego Comics. A shop I have yet to check out.

ice on the sheets

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 21:06:45 -0400

(above is one of the more adorable moments of FCBD from a year or two ago.)

In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be at Packrat Comics once again for Free Comic Book Day.They don’t do an in-store event so much as a mini-con inside the shop. Along with some local creators, they’ll have the dude from Clerks who’s not Rosario Dawson. (I think I’d rather see Rosario) The guy that played Dante. You know… that guy. I refuse to google his name right now. There will be a couple of bands playing outside later in the day. Maybe if you’re good, they’ll pull out the bouncy castle. There’s a meet & greet with the Clerks dude for charity.

______________

* Been a bit under the weather this week. Just now starting to come out of a nasty bit of bronchitis. Sleeping here and there. It’s been hard trying to do any drawing of late. Going back to the day job all week really slowed the recovery.

rain on

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:01:00 -0400

I was saddened to hear that my cousin-in-law (?) Ted passed away this week. Even though it’s not the right relation, I consider all of my mother’s first cousins more like extended aunts and uncles. Feels more appropriate given that they’re all about the same age. (there’s a massive amount of cousins. Sometimes hard to keep track of who’s who after a generation or two)

Anyway, Ted was a man of few words. (Most of the men in my family are.) I’d see him at all my mother’s sides family get-togethers. Notably, it was Christmas Eve. Part of holiday tradition was we pack up the minivan and head out to New Bremen to Ted and Sandra’s. (around the holidays I still miss Sandra.) I have a lot of fond memories of that tiny house that I’ll always remember as decorated for Christmas. Trying to dodge my way out of being Santa for that year. Something that wasn’t easy given the fact it was only a little bigger than my 2 bedroom apartment. Tripping over cousins. Then the dodgy ride home in the snowstorm back to Jumbo. Somehow we always made it back, despite Dad almost falling asleep at the wheel.

It might seem hokey, but that was my Rockwell-ian upbringing. Say hi to Sandra for me Ted. RIP.

S.P.A.C.E. 2013 wrap-up.

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:23:00 -0400

Usually I do a daily run-down of every day, but this is the first show where I was a bit under the weather. Medicated, I want to say medicated to point out I wasn’t contagious. Groggy at times, yes. I may have slopped through a couple of table interviews. (It was extremely hard to hear at times anyway.) Perhaps I hallucinated this but both Jeff Smith and Tom Spurgeon turned up to check out the show.

I opted to go to the Cartoon Library tour again this year. Lots of good stuff spread out over the display tables: a few pages from Miller’s run on Daredevil. An early 1950’s strip from Peanuts and (I think) the last Calvin & Hobbes strip. Then wandered over to the Ogre for the pre-show party. It got cut short as I got called away.

Seriously, this has to be one of my favorite year’s yet for S.P.A.C.E. The quality overall was up a bit from last year. Attendance is based on ticket sales, which were up, but the crowd felt the same. Slow and steady. Still it felt like there was a different buzz in the air.

(???)

Continuing the trend, there were a lot of trades and collections. The average book was around $6. One hesitates to trade for something like that. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time someone came around asking for a trade. Maybe 6-8 years ago? Yikes. It’d be nice to see more silkscreened covers but I can understand why people skip out on it and switch to the nice matte cardstock cover. It’s also reassuring that people are getting wiser as to which shows to table at and which to skip.

I enjoy the weird family reunion vibe, bumping into familiar faces I see at cons, former classmates, and coworkers. When the show calmed down further Sunday, I could hear the guy across from me playing 70’s prog on a boom-box. ??? by that point, I was pretty beat and gave in to it. (why does one’s table need a soundtrack?)

Notably, there were a few comic workshop groups at the show from various schools. There was SAW, led by Tom Hart. CCAD’s Art Post. Carol Tyler’s group from University of Cincinnati, a comics group from Oberlin College, and I think I even saw some folks from the Center for Cartoon Studies.

Being as I was under-the-weather, also meant having to skip out on a puppet show at Kafe Kerouac, which I’m told was awesome. Sad face. I’m taking it easy today before I have to go back to the day job tomorrow.

(tempting but I didn’t buy this.)

I am glad I didn’t skip taking the tub of original art. Sold a few pages at the show, including the cover drawing for Panel: Columbus. It made up for feeling like a schlub that I couldn’t produce a new comic for the show. My goal is to produce two new comics this year. Free Comic Book Day seems like it’s pushing it. Comfest might be a more reasonable target.

(the actual haul from the show)

(ugh, I look bloated in this shot. definitely getting a print of this.)

Thanks to everyone that came by the table, either to buy a print, original art, a comic and or just shoot the breeze. Viva la comix. See you next year!

sleepwalker

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:59:04 -0400

I’ll be at table 124. Only one more day till S.P.A.C.E. It looks like we’ll be folding and stapling the new Panel when we get there. Man did it rain tonight.

I’m looking forward to the Cartoon library tour. Today from 5-7pm. Last chance to see the old space before they move across the way into the new space. Speaking of which, they need volunteers to help pack and move stuff to the new location later this month. I’m going to check and see if I’m free to help out. More info here.

year of the glad

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 01:14:20 -0400

…and it’s off to the printers. We’ll be hand-stapling these tomorrow, just in time for it’s debut at S.P.A.C.E. this weekend. I stopped short of adding lens flare to Arnold’s junk. (save that for the variant cover)

Panel:Columbus will retail for $4. 36pgs(?) bw w/ color cover. Available at every table of the jolly Panel posse. You know you want one.

secret ocean

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 01:10:10 -0400

(Panel 20: Columbus. cover wraparound) About as close to done as it gets. I’m going back and forth on how to place ‘20’ and ‘Columbus’ on the front.

Still one night left to decide what to do then it’s off to ‘press’. I haven’t always had the time to contribute to the Panel anthology. But the group has kept me sane over the past decade (and a great group of friends). In that span of time, I’ve gone from self-publishing to being published and now I’m revisiting self-publishing. Shows like S.P.A.C.E. knock me out of my funk. I always leave energized. Ready to escape into that white sheet of bristol.

Only a few scant days left till showtime. It’s a four day weekend for me. Lord knows I need a break from the day job.

rolled together

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 01:15:12 -0400

This is what I have so far for the type treatment for the Panel cover. I get to do a wraparound on this. I always liked James Thurber. Just so happens the guy was born here so that will give you a hint on where this is going next.

I did a google search to see if there were any other weird interesting tidbits I could drop in the composition. Outside of a drunken Woody Harrelson, I got nothin’. There’s a lot of great upstart companies that have started out of Columbus, but that’s boring. This process of elimination has lead me to my final image. I think part of the Manhattan Project was worked on here in Columbus, no time to look into that. I hit the drawing pad in the morning. I’m as interested to see what lays down on paper as anyone else is.

We’re down to the wire, same as it ever was. Is.

drop the diamond

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 23:07:00 -0400

It took two sinus rinses but I think I’m coming out of whatever the hell hit me like a freight truck the other day. Slept a bit. The program cover’s finally done. Wrapping up the badge this week for SPACE.

Got my art done for Tony G.’s story in Panel: Columbus. Set to debut at the show. It’ll be the 20th anthology for us as a collective. Had to pause progress on the cover to finish day-of-show stuff.

_____________________________

Yes, there is AGORA running the same weekend as SPACE. I don’t think it’s going to hurt the show any. While there is some great art up on the walls at that show, unfortunately AGORA is practically a ghost town till the evening festivities. I know this because we did the show a couple of years ago. Worst turnout I’ve ever seen as a vendor. It didn’t help matters that they put all the vendors outside in a windstorm. Rain and paper doesn’t mix. They’re a perfect example of why a potential exhibitor should scout a show out first before vending there. That studio space has had a very storied past. A lot of potential squandered mixed with unrealistic goals. I’m not even going to go into the many layers of wrong that was the CNote show. Best thing they ever did was the Por Vida show, which I hope that one finds a new home.

_____________________

RIP Roger Ebert & Carmine Infantino. Infantino was such a phenomenal artist and layout guy. Siskel & Ebert shaped me into the film nut I am. Growing up out in the sticks, that was the first exposure I had to film criticism or criticism.of any artform.

this is the end...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:31:38 -0400

(not really)

lot of discussion on where things are going as far as how one gets their book out there these days. (I’m jumping ahead of myself since I haven’t had a chance to start on mine yet.)

I like to think of digital comics as the new ‘book on tape’. People will download it, check it out. However, there is such a thing as being too temporary. Which is exactly what digital is. You’re not paying for something tangible like a book. So it makes sense to price it appropriately. This is never going to fully take off when a download is priced higher than a buck. Who is going to buy a $3 download that will be unreadable after a device updates or an app goes away?

First time I’ve had a breather for a while. I’m feeling a little stuffed up. Hope it’s just allergies and not a cold or sinus thing creeping in. I’m almost done with the ‘day of stuff’ for SPACE. The Panel story’s in the can. Once I finish the SPACE stuff, I can go back and finish the wraparound cover for the Panel anthology.

night y’all.

steady as the sidewalk cracks

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:05:21 -0400

(program cover for SPACE. in progress.)

posters are at the printer’s. They should be circulating throughout the city as soon as mid-week. Didn’t make it to Ed’s talk at the museum. Trying to catch up on stuff.

silver trembling hands

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:57:56 -0400

For the first time in quite some time, I went to a convention without tabling at it. My pal Matt Kish came with me. We may have cherry picked all the Heavy Metals we could find. I would have picked up a couple more if the awful airbrushed covers didn’t scare me away. There were soooo many copies of Epic. Ridiculous. Gem City remains a great show for picking up insane deals on trades, old magazines, and whatnot. I’ve noticed this for a while but it’s been the ongoing trend to markdown what were classic collectibles for half their going rate. I would be alarmed if I weren’t taking full advantage of this.

Believe it or not, I scored all of this for under $20. The Fatale trade for $6 can easily be explained away. Dealers are buying overstock on the cheap from big box chains and selling them in 50% off bins or bins for $6 a pop. They’re still making a profit.

My only regret not tabling there is I probably would have blown money made on the box of European Moebius books. Dude, it was reprints of the Incal and Blueberry. Talking to folks at the show, it still remains a show that might not be a fit for my stuff. The tastes still run mainstream. The crowd flow was decent, but it appears the artist alley sales remain the same. If I can ever get the commission thing running at a steady clip, I might revisit 2 day shows like Gem City.

There’s still one day left. I still find the show a lot of fun to check out. The best part was getting Howard Chaykin to sign an old story he did for Heavy Metal in the early 80’s. I swear I have some Chaykin in the long boxes in the studio. Hard to get to. I lucked out on finding that copy. Weird more dealers didn’t have Chaykin books out. Usually that’s a thing at shows where names like that appear on the guest list. Fun times.