Clearly I'm Doing Something Wrong

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but it seems clear that I'm definitely not doing something right. I've been chipping away at this comics shit for a couple years and, despite people telling me how good my work is, I can barely muster the scantest interest in anything I do. Yes, I know I have failed in getting my work together with consistency, and have had my problems with putting it into peoples hands. I understand that. I'm sure that would help, maybe even inch me further toward my vague goals of doing more of all the creative work I want to do. That isn't really what I'm talking about.

Comics are supposed to be a collaborative genre, but anywhere that I've gone looking for community among creators I end up being iced out for reasons I don't completely understand. I've had people pull rugs out from under me, manipulate friendships, court me with unfulfilled promises, and straight up insult my work to my face. It doesn't help that this local community is full of loner mavericks who simply don't waste their time with their peers; or, if they do, explicitly consider me persona-non-grata in this scene. I've been told I have a reputation of "being difficult to work with" -- people skirt my offers for collaboration so much, I've finally stopped asking. 

I've even started dialogues with individuals outside of this town that started out promising, and then promptly turned sour. The Rochester comics scene is thriving, but when I approached the community there I was all but cut out of discussions between people that (I am supposed to believe) coincidentally "co-opted" my contribution while conveniently forgetting from whom it came. In short, I've been nothing but excluded from all of that which I've tried to be a part. I'm not sure entirely where I earned my shitty reputation, but I've got a few ideas. 

To be sure, I am not without some friends and partners here. But the momentum, effort, and productivity has certainly not increased over time. I am not sure what it is about me that inspires so little confidence. I think people are overly credulous of my bad reputation partly because I'm not here to disabuse anyone of it; if you're that willing to listen to whispers and gossip rather than make your judgments by, you know, *actually* interacting with me, well, then, in short, fuck you. I'm not going to plead my case in a court where I must prove my innocence. That you want to ascribe to me sleights that I haven't made, or just simply not give me the benefit of the doubt, is, at this point, too high a demerit count for me to work off. And I'm not going to try. I am perfectly willing to make an enemy of anyone who has made an enemy of me -- if I wasn't clear the first, time, fuck you. I am no sycophant. 

If this community has found me so unsatisfactory, then how should I be satisfied with it? Why grovel before it? As far as I can trace it, the black cloud of my reputation originated out of a misunderstanding at best, and at worst either a malice or incompetence I had not earned. I came looking for collaborators, community, solidarity, shared interest, and at the end of the day, just good, innocent, stupid *fun.* And I'm still looking. Though not as accomplished as some, I'm highly capable, talented, hard working, and loyal. I do good work. My best work is still ahead of me. Its utterly bewildering how unwilling to associate with me everyone has become. Whatever it is I'm hoping to find, it isn't going to be found in Buffalo, or maybe even in Western New York at all. 

But clearly I'm doing something wrong. 

If you've got some idea about what that is, don't be shy. I'll hear you out. 

Requiescat

 I have been having a really hard time writing this. Between my last post and this one, a friend of mine I had known for many years passed away. My grief is so loaded with all the things I want to say, but it doesn't feel right to say them right here or in this moment. I've tried to write this post several times; my friend was a complicated, gifted, flawed, amazing walking contradiction of humanity who strove with their demons and grappled with world-sized heavyweight sorrows.There is simply no thing I am capable of writing, right now, that would do even a semblance of justice to their memory, and to the void they leave behind. There are many parts of this that, for me, are intractable from my hang-ups and guilt about not being a better friend, but using my friend's death as an opportunity to publicly work through personal issues seems anything but reverent of their memory. 

But its been two months, and I don't know how to do it. I suppose their memory looms large over this blog for me, because we had discussed it in one of our last phone conversations. They could not have been more encouraging of my writing, especially in a moment when I needed to hear it. They could not have complimented me more with their actual excitement about it. What is extending yourself through these creative acts but asking for validation? I had theirs. It made me excited to return to this blog. It made me want to live up to all the nice things they said about it. 

But its been daunting and crushing to think about. I used to say I don't deal well with death, but who does? I don't grieve well, is what I really mean. I don't want to move on. I want my dead people to be alive; even moreso when the living world has become this screaming existence of artlessness and despair. It would be less unbearable without them. 

Its also been exquisitely difficult to manage the cognitive and emotional dissonance of feeling a lot of sorrow, grief, and regret, and recognizing how ancillary my feelings are to the central tragedies that follow in the wake of my friend leaving this life. Their daughter will only know them through secondhand memories. Their wife has lost an anchoring presence in their home, in their family, in their love story. It more than breaks my heart. Its bewildering, and frustrating, and overwhelming. I want to shout mountains into rubble, and, also, never get out of bed. I cannot fathom how this feels for their widow, for their family -- from inside the daily life from which they are now missing. 

I was blessed to be in more contact with them over the last year; I'm wounded, now that they are gone.

In memory of Hawthorne,

I hope you are finding answers, making music, collecting rocks, and enjoying a painless peace as a soul in freedom from and victory over this physical world. I miss you. There was still so much to talk about. 

-p

We Do Long Form Here

This blog spot is a strange place and I'm sorry that I'd abandoned it. I was too afraid to grow in front of you. I hope you'll forgive me, but I've been doing a lot of work in the meantime. I was a one trick horse in a one note town. I'm not even sure what that means, but it wasn't good. Simply describing it as being superficial doesn't quite capture the activeness with which I pursued superficiality. But if a person could be vastly superficial, I had it covered. Like a really intricate paper doll.

This was a choice. I ended up getting swallowed in it. 

Out of my human shaped puddle of sludge, the man I wanted to become had not yet taken his first steps forward. The narrative of an evolution always takes much less time than the thing itself, and so for all this time I've been evolving in lurches and backslides, towards now. Maybe I'll tell that story one day and more fully here, but suffice it to say these are some of the relevant points:

1. There is no doubt that the world is now and is at every moment more quickly sliding into this walking night terror of a shambolic dystopia. At least that is something we can all agree on. I could sense it coming, and late quarter 2015 had begun to close my bite around the idea of becoming a better person. I don't believe anyone is required to do this, and I certainly didn't require it of myself. But I knew I needed to. I kind of even wanted to. Here's the thing though was it required me to change every goddamn thing about my life. A story from right around this time is also the perfect metaphor: I spent too much money on a junk car and drove it for four days before the transmission shat the bed and it was basically totalled. My life is the car, see? I decide to take ownership of this flawed thing. And suddenly I wanted to go somewhere different, in a vehicle unsuited to carry me in that direction. And so whatever it is that is life's equivalent of transmission failure is in this extended metaphor, that's where I was headed.

2. I decided I was not willing to go down that road. I decided there's still some shit I wanna try. I decided my life didn't have to be fixed in a place of abyssal gloom and stagnation. There is more to experience in the realm of choices outside of the ones I was making. How do I get *there*? By choosing differently. This is not easy. That I can sum it up in so few words makes it sound like a deceptively simple process, but it isn't. 

3. It'll suffice to talk about this time, before a few years ago, as one that was plagued by poor health in every sense of the word. It was an Ill Time. Again, maybe one day I'll get into specifics, but a set of collective factors really had me in an impoverished state. Not necessarily financially... but...also financially. (I still haven't figured this part out yet, btw.) Getting well, or more well, is incredibly hard, and happens too slowly to derive any immediate satisfaction from it. But terrible things slowly do make their exit eventually, and they make room for better things, and that is a satisfaction all its own. I am, of course, not a doctor, but yet certain I had at least three different identifiable medical conditions, and they're all gross for different reasons I'll not go into now. I thought I was dying, although its apparent to me now that I wasn't, really. But by any metric, I was not well.

Some of these stress factors I am responsible for inviting on myself. Others perhaps not. Either way, I was sinking beneath them and I knew I was the only one who could really look out for me. No one was going to save me from it. I didn't ask for some of the shitstorm avalanche sandwiches I had, and others I very much demanded to the face. But in either case, whether I asked for it or not, it is for me to deal with now. 

At any rate, I had a boutique array of rarefied and curated reasons not to put in the effort, and I went through all of them, never realizing they were just ways to avoid getting real with the silly things I really wanted out of life.

And, what I was partly too shy, and ashamed, and unready to admit, is that a lot of what I want out of life has to do with you. I don't know what time is left to me to pursue the unanswered equations of my life, but I thought this could at least be a place where I could show you my work in both the mathematical and artistic senses of that phrasing. 

Its not enough for me to make stuff; I want you to see it. 

Its taken me some time to start showing up. If I don't, I can't expect it of you. I'll be sharing some things here soon, and you'll be able to find similar content on my Instagram account. Since I find the interactive capabilities of  the other casual social media platforms like twitter and Facebook to be highly abbreviated and manipulated, I refuse to engage in them any longer. I believe in nuance and complexity and striving for understanding and I cannot interact in contexts that have rendered those obsolete. 

We do long form here. Occam's Razor is bullshit. Things are complicated. We live in a giant Rube Goldberg device that we barely understand. There is no such thing as simple, really; that is just a choice of resolution. A matter of focus. We are so far past what should be an acceptable level of mass stultification in what's left of civil society that it becomes scorn-worthy and rebellious to invest in the long form. 

Well. 

Ain't that just my style. 

See you in the future,

-P

.:The Best Part Of ComicCon:.

People have been asking me "What's the coolest thing you saw at ComicCon," and so far without fail I continue to offer the thrillingly geeky response: "Stan Lee!" which is a crowd pleaser and that is why I keep saying it.  And that's not to say it isn't true -- it is -- by virtue of the fact that Stan Lee is Stan Lee: icon, idol, inspiration.  I was admittedly disappointed by more than a few aspects of the Stan Lee autographing session.  However, I realize this is kind of the equivalent to saying that you only got to hi-five Abraham Lincoln, or Muhammed Ali only punched you in the face once, or Angelina Jolie only spit in your mouth.  Greatness is greatness, and to me (even despite controversy) Stan Lee is greatness, and getting to be in the same room with someone I admire that much made me want to poop, cry, and explode all at the same time.

Kiran got us 4 day passes to the entire ComicCon event.  Baller!

But the coolest and most interesting things about ComicCon for me don't translate quite as well to other people, I don't imagine.  Not without some explanation, at least.  The really genuine, internally meaningful experiences there were all contained in Artist's Alley.  There were many things that were overwhelming about my first ComicCon -- the sheer number of fans, exhibitors, cosplayers -- but Artist's Alley took the cake.  It's one thing to see someone's artwork in print.  In some ways, it really dehumanizes the artist when their work is cleaned up, colored, mass produced and fired off into a world full of more cleaned up, colored, and mass produced work.  I LOVE comics, and comic book art, but it is easy to sometimes become desensitized to the fact even the comics you're not really interested in ever reading, much less buying at the comic shop, they all started with some person scratching a pencil onto paper in a room somewhere.  And that that act, and the skillful completion of that act is AMAZING.  There was SO MUCH good art there.  I was blown away by artwork of artists I'd heard of and didn't even think I liked.  I was knocked over.  And not only that...you get to TALK TO THEM.  Ok, granted, I was kind of just walking around, dragging my jaw on the floor, so it was rare when I got to mumble any verbiage at anyone -- but when I did, most of the artists were all really friendly and responsive.

First day, waiting to get in.

Here are the highlights:

Thursday was the first day of the Con.  The main floor, where exhibitors, toy and gaming companies, and comic book companies set up their wares and displays is the 'trade floor' -- and it is massive.  The crush of people at the entrances and exits was just too much.  My buddy Kiran (to whom I owe this entire experience) and I found it a bit annoying to navigate the crowd, so after a quick look around, we split for Artist's Alley. 

Artist's Alley, day 1.  Not even close to the mob scene it was the following days.

This isn't really considered the main event, but in my mind its the biggest reason to be there.  A lot of the guys I wanted to see immediately didn't set up until later, so we wandered a bit and after a few passes, we saw that David Mack had arrived and was set up.  It was probably about ten years ago that I stumbled onto 'Kabuki' and bought several random issues at a point where I was only marginally still interested in comics and hadn't gone out of my way to buy anything in years.  The artwork was so stunning, I was compelled to buy it.  Fast forward ten years later, and I'm standing in front of the guy, and he's smiling at me and I'm trying not to blurt out something creepy like "I want to BEEE YOUUUU!!!!" so instead I smile back and tell him how much of a fan of his I am.  I immediately buy a print, with a poem on it by Neil Gaiman, which he signs.  And then he just gives me a trade paperback.  And he gives Kiran a trade paperback.  And he signs them both.  We're kind of like...what?!  There was another guy talking across the table to David Mack, with the poise and posture of familiarity that suggested he too was in the industry, and upon appraising our amazed faces says something like "That's how he get's ya -- he gives you the first one for free, so you'll come back and buy another."  I kind of wander off, awestruck.  Somehow I find the presence of mind to tweet about it, and then an hour later David Mack favorites the tweet.  If that was the entirety of my ComicCon experience, if it had ended right there, I'd have been happy.

Stuff I bought from David Mack.

But it just kept going.

Friday was a long day.  I don't have any clue what attendance numbers were, but if I had thought there were a lot of people on Thursday, then Friday's numbers had to be somewhere around a gagillion.  My main goal for the day was to make it to the "Creator Connection" which was a panel suggested to me by my writer friend, Jon Carroll, who had also traveled from Buffalo for the Con.  It was hosted by Buddy Scalerra (formerly of Wizard magazine) and a panel of creators from Pronto Comics.  Described as "speed dating for comic creators," the event pairs writers with artists to pitch and gauge interest in collaborative projects.  I was really impressed with the quality of most of the concepts.  One writer asked me about my work, when I told him I have concepts I've been developing myself:  "Why are you here, then?"  It's true, I don't need a writer.  I could write and draw my own comics, I suppose.  But his question did give me pause.  I knew I was there because I wanted and needed to be, but more than that, I have always wanted a partner to challenge and raise the level of my work.  This is the whole reason I set out to find and eventually connect with the Visions group here in Buffalo...It's hard to create comics in a vacuum.  I want someone to push me, and I want to work with talented people who will raise the profile of my work.  I want to break in.

It's a little weird to make myself say that out loud as my goal -- I'm failure prone, and it's usually because I self-destruct, so I hesitate setting actual, concrete goals.  I'm afraid the rug will get pulled from underneath me.  And then I look up all too often to see myself with big twisted handfulls of rug in my hands.

Yes, I want to make comics professionally.  My goal is to break into the industry, and work as a professional artist and writer.  Cards on table.  Could I? yes.  Will I?

We heard that Image comics was hosting a private party at a bar a few blocks away, so Kiran and I decided we were going to join Jon and Ben in crashing it.  Security was pretty light, so I don't think it was all that private -- all you had to do was say you were there for the Image party, and they let you in.  I don't know most of the creators by sight, but I guess Ben recognized a few guys.  We met Fred Harper there, illustrationist for the Wall Street Journal, who Kiran and I kept running into the for the remaining days of the Con.  He thumbed through my portfolio, and talked about his history with comics and his last project doing a window display.  He is such an artisty guy -- sort of what I think my parents would think of when they think of an artist.  Long hair, tattoos, red pants, clearly marching to his own beat evidenced in the way he talked.  He was an interesting guy to talk to, completely without affect, genuinely interested, and straightforward.

As it got later, and mingling was at a minimum, and I was tired of lugging my portfolio around, Kiran and I scrammed to drop my stuff and get some drinking done with friends.  It turned into an all-night affair, which kind of cut into our time the next day at the con.

Saturday was jammed.  Festooned with people, a writhing crowd.  Were it not ComicCon, it would have been offputting.  And as hurtin as I was from the night before, we made a short day of it.  Kiran wanted to see the Pete Holmes Show panel.  I opted out to go wander Artist's Alley again.  At one point during the day, navigating the swarm, I made passing eye contact with Kelly Sue DeConnick, writer of Captain Marvel.  I didn't know she was going to be at the Con, but I guess she was on a Marvel panel.  At any rate, I was almost elbowed into this tiny chick with bright red hair, then I'm like bleearrggh, holy shit, and then she was gone.

I saw her popping around Artist's Alley after that, and considered approaching her, but then, what do you say?

I wondered if her husband Matt Fraction was there, but in a crowd full beardy fellows, of which I am one, it would've been impossible to recognize him.

I wandered for awhile, still no less amazed at the artists and their artwork, as I paced up and down the aisles.  Though, this time, it was sort of a discouraging moment.  I was looking at just how far I have to go, skillwise, to get to the next level.  I am not practiced enough yet to work professionally.  All the time I've wasted...all the nights I've spent out drinking, all the mornings I've spent in hungover...that was the distance between me being good, and me getting work.  That was the distance between being in front of the table and being behind it.  I am not without talent.  I am without the hard work and dedication.

I decided to mope over my glaring flaws near a fire exit.  Fred was there.  We talked briefly, before he began to draw, inspired by all the art he'd been taking in during the day.  Telling, the difference between our reactions.  I moped further.  This is how much farther I have to go.

Sunday was another short day.  It was the day I "met" Stan Lee.  I didn't really meet him.  I want to complain about it so you can see how shitty and disappointing it was, and also see how I still came away from it walking on the ceiling at the same time.

I wasn't mad that it was a slaughter line.  We were expeditiously herded through a line that wound through several rooms, and it was at this point that the ideal of my actually having meaningful words with Stan the Man about the influence and significance his creations have had in my life began to disappear.  Maybe, just maybe, I'd still be able to get a handshake. Or a wink.  Or a nod.  But the line moved frighteningly fast.  Kiran and I clutched our Stan Lee variant covers of Superior Spider-Man, as we were flung through the line...the only item I could find at the con that wouldn't cost me the rest of my money.  I'd have much rather had a poster, or a post card, or hot dammit, a Stan Lee written book in my hands, but as the signing time rapidly approached, the variant cover book was all that I could find in the few places I knew to look.  Kiran asked if I wanted to go ahead of him so he could take a picture -- knowing how much something like that would mean to me.  And as we got to the table, there was little, old Stan ripping out autographs like a machine.  Bam. Bam. BAM. BAM!!! One assistant to take the book, one to slip it to Stan, one to, I don't know, brace the table so it wouldn't collapse in front of such greatness? My book leaves my hands and is signed and passed along before I even get to the table, where this kid in front of me is just standing there, with his signed memorabilia in hand, holding up the line, interrupting an autograph to get a fist bump from Stan Lee.  And I'm standing there, screaming in thought "Dude, get the FUCK out of the way, you're stealing my MOMENT." And then it was done and I collected my comic and it all happened so quickly, jolted, and awkwardly that there was nothing left of the moment of which Kiran was even remotely able to take a picture.  It was so utterly anti-climactic.  I couldn't leave it at that, though.  I leaned in towards Stan and told him something about being an inspiration to me.  Which, being 90, he didn't hear.  But the aide bracing the table?  Well, from his snort, it was clear he heard the remark.  I'm actually going to delete the line I wrote after that, because its really not fit for public consumption, but let's just say that guy made me mad.  You're going to WORK at ComicCon and snort at the fans?  Yeah, good luck with that...

Anyhow, even being disappointed with the way you got to be in the same room with someone you revere...in the end, you still got to stand in front of them and mumble something stupid in their direction, and it is awesome.  We meandered in a fog for a bit after that, feigning attentiveness to the displays and distractions around us, but really, we were just high from seeing Stan Lee.

There was nothing else we wanted to do, agenda-wise, so we went back to Artist's Alley.  I went back to David Mack's table.  Kiran got a couple prints, and I got another volume of 'Kabuki'.  We both chatted with him for a moment, mentioning we'd been there the first day and were impressed with his generosity.  He signed everything, and I told him again how awesome it was to meet him and how inspiring his artwork has been to me as an artist.  I think I even shook his hand.  I left his table thinking that I need to come back next year and that by next year I better work up a portfolio I'd be proud get his honest opinion on.  He was incredibly gracious with us, again.

I tweeted about it again.
He retweeted me.
I thought I was going to spontaneously combust.

ComicCon was a whirlwind.  I was exhausted.  I was incredibly grateful for the experience.  And I was ready to leave.

You can only take so many high notes in row, before your brain implodes.

Avengers Blank Cover Project...

All right, so, i guess I'm averaging about a post a month, huh?  Well, better than nothing I guess.  I have been taking my time with this Avengers blank cover I am working on for my local comics creators group, Visions.  Mostly because of the pressure created by some of the really great covers the other artists have been pumping out, and also because this is the sorta thing you only get one try to do right.  I am not the type of artist that can just sit down to a project and whip out a well composed drawing.  Even with all the thumnailing, sketching, planning and composing, I still sometimes find I'm not overly happy with cover-style pieces I've tried to do.  On top of that, there's always going to be that element of the unexpected once you actually put pencil to paper, no matter how long you've delayed the actual act with meticulous preparation.

At any rate, I wanted to post a scan of a "mostly done" front cover for the Avengers blank, just to show everyone how I've been keeping my pencil busy recently.  I'd rather make a post about the process it took to getting here, but once the thing is said and done, I'm sure I'll have time to do that.  I've also decided that I'm going to do a drawing for the back cover as well, which will feature Captain America and Thor.  But for the moment, here is the front, featuring Tony Stark/Ironman and Bruce Banner/the Hulk.  Enjoy.

The poses are based on some artwork by Alphonse Mucha, the reference material I will be including in a more in-depth write up in the future.  

Also, I recently did the drawing you see in the Header at the top of this blog, which I will just repost here for shits and giggles:

Forteana, Goddess of the Anomalous

'Forteana' isn't really so much a character as she is a mascot for the sci-fi/horror universe I have been planning for a few years.  She is called Forteana after the author Charles Fort, who is kind of considered the pioneer of creepy.  He compiled data that he felt the scientific community of his day was purposefully ignoring because it did not fit their paradigm.  Weird rains of blood (?), fish, and other organic and strange materials falling from the sky...that sort of thing.

At any rate, the Forteana Universe is the universe in which stories related to the Mothman and Indrid Cold characters you've seen around here are intended to take place.  Forteana's image signifies the Forteana 'line' of comics I hope to one day produce.


Thanks for looking, friends.

-P

The Hard Way (updated)

So, part of the point of this blog is to share the discovery of my comics-making method -- the "how" part of it.  Since I don't have any art training past high school (aside from a couple figure drawing classes and a half of an oil painting class for which i never really painted anything), and zero training in sequential storytelling, I will be making a lot of mistakes.  But, from what I'm told, mistakes are good, and they are how you learn.

So, I'll be sharing some mistakes.

As you may have seen from earlier posts, the 2nd Visions Comic Art Group meeting was this past Saturday, to which many excellent artists showed up with their two to four page samples from one of the two scripts provided to us.  I got in a bit late, so I didn't get a public 'review' of my work really, but passed around what I'd brought, unfinished as it was.

The first page of my two page sample was a literal hack job -- I've already posted a few pictures of it, and I'll do so again now, just so you can get a look at its horrid glory.

Oh God, what have you DONE?!

That's page one.  I did a rough thumbnail to block out the panels, and the figures and camera angles they would include.  About half the content in the panels changed as things went along (resizing for space, readjusting according to the photo references I was gathering, etc.), but I guess that is fairly normal.   I tried full sized rough pencils on a sheet of drawing paper, but I wasn't really happy with what was showing up on the page -- too lazy, too dry, too loose.  Too rough, even for a rough.

But I thought maybe some were keepers, so instead of just starting over, I decided I'd replace the few panels that could've been better.  A few panels turned into EVERY panel, and I stuck myself with the above.  

At least I was happier with how the images came out this time -- obviously it's constrictive to work within panels, and the way I'd laid things out, I wasn't giving myself very large panels to work within anyhow.  But these roughs seemed better, and gave a better sense of what I should be including.  I told myself this process was practical, when it really may have been more practical just to scrap what I had, start over, and trace the stuff I wanted to keep with the lightboard...turns out I didn't want to keep anything anyway.

And that's how I got to this interesting paneling style.

The next idea in my mind was to do a set of finished pencils, which is what I really wanted to bring to the Visions meeting, however, time for many reasons did not permit.  Even though the meeting's now passed and gone, I intend to finish the pencils anyway, and turn them into something inkable.  

So, I did this next:

lightboard...an elegant weapon, from a more civilized age.

I slapped that page onto the lightboard like so, and dropped a piece of bristol board right into place, first tracing the panel outlines, as seen below...

boom

Then, because the initial unsuitable rough pencils were still underneath those neat little panel-flaps, I couldn't just trace my desired panels straight onto the bristol board -- because i was getting two sets of pencils sandwiched together.  So I removed the panels and organized them onto the lightboard itself.

this took too long.

Then, FINALLY, I started to trace them over onto the bristol.

yeah, that's what it looked like

And now I'm doing "finished pencils" -- first finding the edges of my blacks, and then filling them in...

(disregard my bare foot trying to photobomb this pic)

...while I know I don't have to pencil like this, it's hard for me not to because I am used to inking my own work, so thoughts about that stage really start to take shape here -- "what is this image going to look like in high contrast?" I'm always asking, and that's when I start worrying as I'm laying pencils down...should this be a guide for my inks?  Or should I just be drawing like I draw?  And do I even need this "finished pencil" stage? Can't I just mark out all of my blacks with a pencil and then just ink it and erase later?

Um, technically, uh yes, yes I could. 

I'm just not super comfortable yet.  I want to be at that level, and it would help my speed a whole heck of a lot if I could just go straight to black and white without an intermediate stage, where I deal indecisively with the possibilities offered by a gray scale that I won't translate into inks anyway.

Perhaps I will try the expedited inks thing on the secord page, but for now I'm going to stick with the method I've chosen for this first page, just out of the hope that the extra attention and time invested will help me when it comes to the final product.

We'll see what happens, and as always, I will keep you updated.

===============UPDATE!===================

All right, I've finally gotten around to more or less "finishing" the pencils for the first page, and they look like this:

this is as done as it's going to get right now...

still a bit rough in places but it contains all of the elements I was hoping to get down before I moved onto the second page.  I can't describe to you how much I want to start the process over so that I can hopefully streamline things, and eliminate the redundancies that occurred with the first page.  The roughs for the second page gave me far fewer challenges, and the initial pencils came out pretty clean as it was anyway, so hopefully doing a finished version will be much simpler.  I hope to have some elements for page two down in the near future, and I'll share them when I do. 

cheers.

PB

Rough pencil samples for 2nd Visions Comic Art meeting...

If anyone is interested in seeing the pencil roughs I brought to the second Visions meeting, here they are -- two pages for Carl Doody's "Dreamweaver" superheroine/adventure character.  

I hope to complete at least one page of finished pencils this week, as these roughs are...well, pretty rough.  First page especially gave me trouble, as the script was challenging, but I am happy with what I've done here storytelling-wise with the page count to which I was (not necessarily) limited.

page one: police caught in gang shootout, mist rolls in, gang members hallucinate their worst fears...

page two: policemen look on as thugs are rolling around reacting to some unseen affliction,  they move in to detain them, Dreamweaver casts spell from the shadows, thugs are rounded up, Dreamweaver uncloaks, reverts back to her civilian identity as Aislin Adams.

More thoughts and drawings to follow soon....

in progress

sooooo...hello there.

I have been drawing, I just have not been posting at all.  Lots of legitimate and illegitimate reasons why.  At any rate, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things again here, and with the next Visions comic book art group meeting on the 23rd, I figured now was a good time.

So here's a sneak peek at my process:

Here is a look at my drawing table.  See? I've been working.

Since I've never drawn comics before, I'm trying to work out my process a bit here, with a couple sample pages we're supposed to have ready for the meeting on Saturday.  I really don't exactly know what I'm doing except -- take a story, then make it look like comics.  This is pretty much my rule of thumb.  I have been "studying" the medium over the last couple years, which is to say instead of just breezing through pages, I am actually paying attention to what the artists and writers are doing.

My other rule of thumb is to try to incorporate interesting angles and poses where I can.  It just catches my own eye better, and if there's one thing I know I dislike in comics, it's when an artist overuses really static "blocking" and unvaried "camera" angles.  I don't mean decompression -- which I actually enjoy as a technique.  But one thing I've come to learn from reading some amateur comics in my ComiXology app is that my eyes will give up on artwork that isn't trying.  Maybe "trying" is the wrong word.  Let's say, instead, the work of artists who are content simply to display renderings of muscles and boobs in panel after panel.

I've been chipping away at a retro-style title page for "The Damned," featuring Mothman and Indrid Cold, which I've posted elsewhere, and which you can probably see in the Twitter bar to the right.  98% of the inks are done for that, and I'll finish it with some lettering, and scan it, and probably color it at some point in the future as well.  I am mostly happy with that, and feel like, after a couple years of drawing Mothman, I've just begun to comfortable grasp how to draw his fur.  I looked at the lions in the first part of Hellboy: the Third Wish, by Mike Mignola to see what he did to represent fur in his genius, streamlined style and it helped quite a bit.  I'm not completely happy with what I've done, but I'm happy that I feel like I now have something to reference, and help me "get there."

The rough artwork above is for two pages of a sample script written by my friend Carl Doody for his "Dreamweaver" character, a mystical female adventurer/superheroine.  I have one page of pencil roughs done, and have to have finished pencils by Saturday.  I have been slacking, and need to jump on it.  I am hoping to get the second page of roughs done tonight, and then we'll go from there.

Working in panels is awkward for me, I am discovering.  Which is why you see that every panel on that page in the middle was razored off of another piece of paper and then taped down to the original rough pencil attempt.  It is not a very expeditious way to work, but for the moment it is a method I can wrap my skills around until I grow.

More art soon, I promise.
Back to work.

Some Pencils.

The holidays are over, and thus my last best excuse for not doing artwork has evaporated.  What follows are the (nearly) completed pencils for the first page of House of Asterion.  You can read the script, found in the first post, but the images are a bit abstracted and meant to be introductory.  Again, the panelling here is modeled on the Golden Rectangle.

Obviously the values of the first panel dominate this image, but when I get to the next stage, I hope to push the patterns further into the background and soften them with color.  Very few of the dark areas will be inked, and I'm mostly envisioning the first panel in a sort of David Mack style mixed media/watercolor.  The following panels I hope to turn into moody little esoteric looking Mignola-esque tiles.

I am rather proud of how this first panel turned out, and although most of the pattern work will be covered with text boxes, I think it really grabs the eye, and helps push it to the second panel.  The lettering is mostly Greek:  the first band of letters (moving inward from the human figure) is the ancient Greek word for Minotaur, followed by its Etruscan counterpart (the Etruscans apparently had a less villainous characterization of the Minotaur in their belief system).  The next band in is the ancient Greek for 'Asterion,' and the last band displays the Greek for 'monster,' and the modern Greek for 'man' (because the ancient Greek word wouldn't fit).

So.  With that step done, it's on to page 2, which, if all goes as planned, should be very different but hopefully as visually interesting.  I've got it mapped out already, but I won't know if it works until I put real effort into a finished pencil draft.

Additionally, I've been toying the idea with creating panelled art pieces -- sort of pop-arty -- like a page torn from a comic book that doesn't exist (or doesn't exist YET.)  I'm always interested in the ways that not traditional comic book artists blur the lines between an art piece and a cover or page of comic.  Maybe one of these pages will end up like that, or perhaps something from the superhero stuff that's been gestating in my brain for years now.

We'll see.

As for my next post, which I hope to have ready in a span of time that does not at all resemble the interval between this and the last post, I may throw some sketches of some superhero redesigns I've been playing with, just to mix it up a bit.  Fingers crossed.

Ok, coffee break's over.  Everyone back on your heads.

-P

Christmas link dump

So I had this weird idea for a Hellboy Christmas story in that haze between sleep and wakefulness, the nuances of which were almost all fully formed when it came to me, the plot of which was fairly simple:  Father Christmas enlists Hellboy's expertise as fighter of the forces of evil to help rescue children from Krampus, the germanic Yuletide demon, and save Christmas in the process.

boom.

I'm about halfway through a draft right now, and though I know I will never get around to illustrating it  before this Christmas comes, it's the sort of thing that might make a cool Christmas 'card' next year.

At any rate, this is just a link dump of the research sites in the tabs I have open.  Submitted for your approval:

St. Nicholas (wikipedia)
Father Christmas (wikipedia)
Krampus (wikipedia)
Noel (wikipedia)
Amulet (....wikipedia...)
Ephesia Grammata (yup...wikipedia...)
Magic (yeah...you guessed it...)
seal of St. Nicholas (google image search)
Medieval Christmas Traditions
Fairy Tale Channel
Who was St. Nicholas?

Also, there's an elf named Tollenbeck, the ghost of a thief indentured to St. Nick, and a few various demonic associates of Krampus.

The only thing that irks me a bit is that it's a Hellboy story and I'm not a professional, which means....this is basically 'fan-fiction.'  And that term makes me want to vomit, a little bit.  But pairing Hellboy with Santa to go up against Krampus is just a little too perfect, it almost writes itself.  A very preliminary google search tells me it hasn't been written yet, so...there ya go.

Anyway, enjoy the links.

Merry Christmas.

-P

photoplay

I have been playing with photoshop a lot.

I forgot how fun it is.  Definitely a more productive time waster on the computer than Facebook. 

here's some things:

Bucranium color test -- my favorite tool i think is definitely the 'blur' tool.  i like the stark look of inks, but i also like the ability to soften them, given the gradated look that the colors have.  I played with the background quite a bit before i looked up a photoshop tutorial on how to create textured backgrounds -- the secret? astronomy photos, as it turns out.  the new layer in the background i composited from several nebula photographs, changing them with filters as i went along.    

does anybody remember 'ditto' sheets from elementary school?  worksheets made in a "ditto" machine, before photocopiers were prevalent?  They were purple-y like carbon copies, because i think they used carbon paper.  i tried to recreate a purpley bleed for the inks of the drawing, and then messed around A LOT with background layers and filters and opacity levels, etc. 

its unlikely i'll use these for anything relating to the final draft of 'Asterion'.  the drawings they were taken from are clearly unfinished, but it does make me think about how nice a finished drawing would look with the benefit of some photoshop techniques.

it also makes me think about how finished a 'real life' piece should be before you play with its digital copy.  i am concerned with preserving the pieces of my process many times -- i rely heavily on photocopying before I add, say, watercolors or markers to anything i've drawn.  this, as well as photoshop, make me wonder how a drawing that starts as one thing might end up as several different looking pieces in several different mediums.  I haven't had the opportunity to explore that yet, but I like the aspect of the idea that is 'non-committal' to one single way of working...that a piece doesn't have to be painted, or go through photoshop, or even redrawn in ink to be considered finished, or even to look good.  Again, it's all about options.

Roughs from 'Asterion'; Phi-sop's Phables

I've been trying to do some drawings for 'Asterion' while keeping it playful -- this is kind of the point, right?  To mess around with it and then post here.  But I usually end up building up every simple project into a bloated, massive, Tolkienian epic, and 'Asterion' is becoming no different in my mind -- I'm starting to think this could be a trilogy.  The only thing keeping it from spinning out of control is that I'm actually letting this idea out onto paper, and that is helping immensely.

Also, while I was about to suffer a boring night at work with what would inevitably become a dead phone had I used it in any boredom staving manner (as I normally do while I'm there), I had to ask myself what I would have been doing had I not had a technological distraction.  The answer, of course, was that I'd be drawing.  So, I took the time to scratch out some sketches in ball point pen -- my preferred medium for most of my life.  Just some gestural little jots, and ideas for symbols or repeating patterns that I could include as visual cues and filler for 'Asterion.'  It was nice -- it was a reminder of what I used to do before phones, and before internet.  A reminder of things I could still do, if only I would just put my phone away, or spent less time on the web.

When I got home, I cracked the ol' sketchbook open (the one with NICE paper, of which I've had a paralyzing fear of drawing on all my life because it was so expensive and, well, nice).  The result was a kind of cool drawing, but one that suffered from my use of both India ink and ball point pen.  I love the way ball point has a kind of pencilly looking quality.  I love the penstrokes.  But next to India ink, it clearly isn't a true black;  the coppery glimmer was all wrong when mashed up against a real good solid field of black.

But it was enough momentum to keep me drawing, so the next day I decided to bang out a better pencil sketch of the first page of 'Asterion'.  I thought it came out pretty well.  I am pleased with the attempt at using the Golden Rectangle as panelling, and I like the way the arcs and lines of the panel drawings implicitly and explicitly mimic the Golden Spiral, winding into infinity.

Not satisfied with that achievement for the day, I wanted to make a blog post, too.  I thought this first page sketch was something to write home about, and wanted to share the ball point pen sketches I'd done too.

I'd always marveled at the glimpses offered into a professional artist's sketchbook;  so clean, tight, tidy.  Immaculate, and full of perfect first draft design sense.  Not me.  My books are a mess.  Big cranky strokes of scribbled ink across a figure's face.  Sketches so loose as to be barely even representative of anything.  Overworked renderings of body parts attached to hollow, neglected figures.  It's disappointing.  I figured these blokes must cheat -- they must have someone cleaning up their "sketches" and "thumbnails." Or, at the very least, editing the duds out of the picture.  Even if they don't, I console myself with this thought.  Happening to have access to Photoshop, I figured I'd try this method out for myself, so as to post more impressive sketches, without the blight of my artistic blunders on display.

I got lost, re-learning Photoshop techniques I'd long forgotten, and manipulating my very simple, unfinished sketches into moody, brooding images that, with a little more work, wouldn't look entirely out of place in, say, a panel of a finished page of a comic book I was working on. 

I've always been hesitant about relying on technology, especially when it came to drawing.  But the quality of these images, developed from some amateur fooling around with photos taken off of a cell phone, makes me second guess my hesitation.  I love drawing, and I want to get good at it and be better at it, and I don't want to be a lazy artist.  Yet when it comes to not just getting something done in a certain way, but actually getting something done, Photoshop seems to come in handy.  I can use help in the getting something done department, and that's what this 'Asterion' project is about:  doing something, first of all, as well as developing my own style.  That means no rules, and no self-judgement about what I have to do to get to a final 'product'.  Opening avenues of medium and technique, so I can find a method that is mine. 

So, in a way, this story, which I guess is about the perils of technology, has come full circle, and its point is this:  I should be utilizing technology as a tool, and not letting it turn me into one.

Page 1 layout sketch for 'House of Asterion'.  The panelling is modeled on the Golden Rectangle.

Detail of the first panel.  The figure is Asterion, with his head out of frame.  I am trying not to reveal that Asterion is the Minotaur too early on.  It is a challenge.

Panel 2.  This is Asterion, sitting cross legged.  The final image for Panel 2 will have his face scribbled out in a 'V' shape, or the shape of a three pointed star.

Panels 3 (Vitruvian man), 4 (bull's head), 5 (abstract sun), 6 (crescent moon), and 7 (star).

"Bucranium" sketch, ball point and ink.  The Bull-head I think will end up looking more mask-like than a living bull's head -- I like the idea of being able to incorporate skull like qualities, decomposing flesh, fur, and bits of wood, stone, or shell applied to the head.

A ball point pen version of Asterion with an abstract "three pointed star" head, and the symbol for Taurus as a corona.

an aurora of geometric patterns; this is just a quick doodle to get an idea of what shapes and patterns might be useful for working into backgrounds, or decorating borders.

Got a little carried away with cleaning up the Bucranium sketch in Photoshop... 

My favorite.  Retains the sketchy ball point qualities underneath a layer containing the same lines manipulated to be grainy, heavy, dark.  Sandwiched together, they look good to me.

Too Many Words

When I'm not getting lost down conspiracy theory rabbit holes on the internet (y'know, shadow governments, UFOs, satanic cults, etc, etc) I'm spending most of my time looking at comic book related stuff.  Some of those sites are linked in the side bar to the right.  I find myself waking up on a late morning and getting lost down these other rabbit holes, on a smartphone, from the comfort of my own bed, easing my pre-caffeinated transition into the waking world.

Today, I found a cool article by Kurt Busiek, a comics writer with whom I am familiar from the two Astro City graphic novels I've yet to return to a friend.  I liked those books pretty well, and the guy's been in the business for awhile - and I know he worked on some Miracle Man stories in some capacity, so I'm inclined to give ear to what he's offering by way of advice about breaking into comics in this article.

It's a pretty interesting (but also rather verbose) story about how Busiek broke into the field, full of ups and downs, ingenuity, resourcefulness and perseverance -- the kind of story my dad might cite to me when he wants to illustrate that success comes with diligence, particularly in the face of discouragement.  The kind of story you vaguely connect with the biography of some magnate of industry who started out as a paper boy during the Great Depression and went on to own the newspaper itself.  That sort of thing.  At any rate, this was the part that struck me most out of the whole article:

"You don't need a map. You need to figure out what you've got and capitalize on that. Instead of bemoaning the fact that you can't mail in something that a publisher wasn't going to read and wasn't going to buy, try to figure out something else, something that builds off your skills or knowledge or contacts or whatever. If you don't have any way to get at Marvel and DC editors, try to get at someone else. Make comics, not just proposals—even making crappy comics that convince you that you never want to draw another background again in your life will teach you more about telling a story in pictures on paper than a zillion proposals in the slush pile.

You are your own business manager. You have to be. If all you can do is write, you have no future, since you will get screwed. Not by malicious editors, since they're as rare a breed as people who broke in because they were somebody's gardener—but by editors who use you to fill your needs without any concern for what's best for you and your career. That's not evil—it's not their job to care about your career, it's their job to care about getting their books done. It's your job to care about your career.

So develop the skills. Don't ask others to hand them to you. Analyze the market yourself. Figure out who needs what you can do—not who controls what you want to write, but who has a specific need you can fill, whether it be Power Man fill-ins or one-page humor fillers in a local paper. And if it isn't what you want to do most, too bad. How many people get to start out on their dream assignment—in any field? Do it anyway, and see what you can build on it. A year's worth of single-page weekly comics is enough to fill a 48-page collection, and that's a fine calling card.

But don't look at the great gulf of distance between where you are and where you want to be and complain that you can't get there without help. Look for the closest opportunity you can find, finagle or create. And go for it. Then, whether it worked or not, look for the next one. And if it takes you 18 years between deciding you want to be a comics writer and actually making a dependable living at it, well, welcome to the club. That's how long it took me, too."

It also brings to mind something else I read somewhere -- a quote from Brian Michael Bendis perhaps? -- about breaking into the industry.  Whoever-it-was made the point that, while mainstream comics are hard to break into, even if you xerox your own book and give away all the copies, you are now "in comics."  As long as you have some sort of comic project you've created and finished and given to the world, you are "in the industry."  It is, in fact, the easiest industry to break into, because that's all it takes.  It's difficult to be successful, of course (as Busiek illustrates) but again, the point is that it's the work, the effort that you put into these groundwork jobs that gets you there.  All that elbow grease.

Which I naturally suck at.  So I need to read things like this to keep me motivated and productive.

Anyway, here are a few rough sketches for 'House of Asterion':

A drawing I did years ago, from an old sketchbook;  the design was originally for Buarainech, the father of Balor in Celtic Mythology.  I liked the drawing and thought it was a good jumping off point for some visual elements I wanted in 'Asterion'

Inspired by the 'Buarainech' drawing -- an Asterion design with a more anatomically correct headpiece.

A quick rough thumbnail of one of the incarnations that Asterion muses his redeemer might take.  The head is obviously the astrological sign for Taurus, the sun elements ('sun face,' corona) refer to traditional association of bulls with sun gods.

A rough paneling layout for the first page of 'House of Asterion' -- based on a Golden Spiral design.  I like the idea that insinuating the spiral in the layout could naturally draw the eye through the panels.

The first three sketches are done in ball point pen -- a medium I used to draw in all the time because instead of taking notes in class, I was doodling weird crap, and eventually just got comfortable with Bics.  I haven't used them in a long time, but I really like certain pencil-like qualities you can get out of them, and for this project, they may even be appropriate for some of the finished art.  

This is part of what I hope to work out for myself with 'Asterion' -- what mediums do I work best in? Are they appropriate for comics? Do they reproduce well enough?  Do I like the results?  Do they fit the mood, tone, ambience, atmosphere, or what have you, of the characters and the story?  How does working in other mediums affect my style?  Can I master other mediums and styles as well as I have the ball point pen?  Should I even bother trying, or just stick to what works for me?

That last question I realize is bunk;  of course I should bother trying, when it comes to expanding my talents, I know that.  But for the sake of immediacy and efficiency -- for the sake of buckling down and really cranking out a product, I do need to find a technique and medium that aids me in working quickly, and that provides results with which I am happy.

We'll see, I guess.

Preliminary Thoughts On 'House of Asterion'

What's 'House of Asterion' anyway?

It's a short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges.  If you are interested in metaphysics, dreams, time travel, philosophy, labyrinths, religion, mythology, books, secret societies and all around general pulp-y and mysterious things, then you should read Borges.  Guys like Umberto Eco and Mark Danielewski owe him unpayable debts.

'House of Asterion' was the first Borges story I'd ever read.  I won't spoil it for you, and it's only two pages long, so don't spoil it for yourself by wikipedia-ing it before you read it.  The end isn't really a twist, but there's an audible click of recognition once your brain gets there and puts the narrative into place.

I decided to adapt it as a script to give myself some work to do as an artist.  I've been having trouble with the art on my 'Forteana' comics concept (a historical fiction/horror/sci-fi line) because I want all of it to look like Mike Mignola's work, and that just isn't how I draw.  There are plenty of lessons about inking that I can take away from him, but ultimately I'm beginning to recognize that while emulation informs your own style, it cannot serve as a substitute.  So, I'm easing up on the Forteana project for a moment in an attempt to separate myself from the pressure of what those characters and drawings "should" look like, and to give myself something to work on where I have no constraints.  To find MY style.

Hence, 'House of Asterion.'

It's short.  A little abstract.  Not quite "horror," but there's definitely something unsettling about it.  It lends itself to some interesting visuals.

It's something I should be able to finish in a reasonable amount of time.  I can play with it.

And, in the meantime, hopefully give you all something to look at while I work through the process.

-P

House of Asterion - Qualifying Statements - Assorted Drawings

The House of Asterion Draft 1 PDF

The above is a link to the first part of an experiment I'm trying.

The experiment is aimed at answering this question:  can I "do" comics?

I've always had a measure of drawing talent, and truthfully I haven't worked very hard to cultivate it.  In my teenage years it was sort of my identity, but I let my ability languish unattended as I grew into adulthood.  I look back now and I consider the majority of that time wasted.  People less talented and more driven than I am have gone on to spiffy careers in the arts.  So have many of the people more talented than I am, and what really chaps my ass about that is that I have the raw talent to be just as good, and I didn't decide to take it to that level.

At any rate, I'm drawing again, and I have to pick up where I've left off, and lots of things have changed.  I'm still good.  I'm not great.  Definitely not employable, yet.  Technology has added a whole new dimension to art that I am hardly familiar with;  superheroes and '80s pop-culture touchstones -- the stuff I was weaned on -- are exploding (and being exploited);  and the medium of comic books are no laughing matter anymore.  I've been moved to pick up my pencil, but I look around and I know that what the world of pop, pulp, and comics has become is rapidly growing out of my reach.

It seems like whatever hope my 8 year old self had for his grown-up counterpart to break into comics is becoming even more of a pipe dream.

But, I figure I owe it to the 8 year old me to give it a shot.  I'm 32 now and the kid's as persistent as ever.

So, I'm doing this.

Part portfolio, part documentation, part blog.  A comicbook junkyard where I dump sketches, scripts, and ideas;  where I whine and pay homage;  where I may even post a piece of finished art every once in awhile.

We'll see what happens.

-P

(the following are some low res cameraphone pics of some drawings I've been recently working on, completely unrelated to the above script, and in no particular order.)

a redesign concept I was messing with for the Ultra-Humanite

an unabashed Joker rip-off 

a dragon, with sharpies

The Black Fly, a Spider-Man/Batman rip off

Zombie feeding frenzy.  this is all pencil.

Nick Cave.  An attempt to steal his likeness for a character called "Indrid Cold"

Mothman

A Fantastic Four redesign attempt

"judy"

Indrid Cold

Mothman, again.