The Caverns, cover and 5 page preview

So first, let me explain why I even did this: because I had to. I LOVE art, not just comics but all media: watercolor, pastel, charcoal, etc. If I can draw with it, I want to learn how to use it, because that informs my comics. So after telling myself I wanted to do something again with markers and watercolor, it wasn't until I picked up the Fifth Beetle by the amazing Andrew Robinson that I got excited enough to really hammer a story down to give these "mixed media comic" think a try! Since I was reading a lot of Lovecraft tales at the time, I decided to make a horror story.

Now for the what: The story is about a failed detective, booted out of the force and his badge taken from him. Why? You'd have to read it to figure out. He hears about a missing child named Anne, who vanished without a trace from an abandoned home in her neighborhood. He goes looking for clues thinking this could be his way back into the force. And he finds more than he expected in that house.

The comic has 2 distinct realms, one rendered with Copic markers, the other in watercolor. I also played around with comics flow and readability to try some solutions to a few interesting reading gimmicks. Remember when books asked you to turn them clockwise and hte pages read top to bottom? I'm giving that a try, and from the people who have read it so far have said, it works well. It's not forced like I feared, but you'll have to decide for yourself!

I'm aiming to have this book at Heroes Con this weekend, but I need to call my printer and see if that'll happen. If not, I'll print it up and sell it on my sites as well as on my online store. If you can make it to Heroes Con I'll be set up with Crystal Jayme at table #1621. Come check us out and pick up some fun comic books!!!

The Curse of the Eel chapter 2 inks and cover

It has been a long LONG week. After having finished up my final quarter at SCAD, I had but a few weeks to prepare new works for Heroes Con. Sure I've drawn and printed a bunch of comics since last Heroes, but nothing super recent. Wings of Irene is from December 2013 and the Looming Deadline wasn't super substantial, so I really wanted to put out a nice fat book to celebrate my freedom from school. So I completed chapter 2 of my thesis comic, which took me about 5 days after classes were over to finish penciling (which is slow for me) and last week at this time, I was sitting down to ink it. I finished inking the 20th and final page early this morning. And I whipped up probably the best cover I've ever made in about an hour or two. I am running on pure comics enthusiasm. I missed having this kind of imposing deadline and the drive to put out a book for no other reason than I have something I want to tell.

This story, if you've read this far into this pretty nonsensical post, is the continuation of the story from the first chapter, about a goth girl named Connie who has summoned her own Eldritch style Eel god. But now what? I guess still go to school, because you have to. This chapter was a lot of fun and a great test for how I draw environments. The first chapter was mainly forest and a trashy old hillbilly house, not much to really do with perspective or drawing buildings and such. This chapter was fun in that it posed some interesting challenges like "now that I've established this way of inking, how do I ink a bus? Or a school? Or lockers, cuz there are a TON of lockers in this comic. Granted, I don't hit every note perfectly, but honestly that's not important anymore. Comics are about fun and expression again, so when you look at these, I hope you can feel the mood or the feeling I tried to convey and weren't just looking for tangents.

I think I did hit the right notes in my character acting in this chapter. I also found the opportunity to use body language and not just faces to really help sell my ideas and I think they came out great! I sure hope I can get this book by Heroes Con so I can share it with anyone who reads this post! The book will be 40 pages of story with the color cover above. i think it's gonna be a nice little book to own! This is also the comic where I made the switch over to Stillman and Birn Beta watercolor paper. Its surface is so much more fun to draw on and more resilient than the bristol boards I've used in the past. Even the cover was inked on Alpha, which is the thinner vellum paper and it looks gorgeous. Even on 400 series bristol, the page would have warped into annoyingly hard to scan shapes, not to mention it fights me with every stroke. It's important to find the tools that make you as creative as possible.

Curse of the Eel, chapter 2 pencils 1-5

Guess who's back and with a bunch of pages to share?! No, it's me. I've been working hard this quarter, my last quarter at SCAD. Partly I'm sad to go, but mainly I'm ready to Shawshank Redemption it and tear my shirt off and stare up at the rain.

Back to comics though, I've been working hard to get chapter 2 of my thesis comic ready to go for Heroes Con. Also I think I've settled on a name: The Curse of the Eel. Sounds like fun I hope! Here's to more Lovecraft inspired fun with my favorite goth and her annoying friend Eel. These pages I made trying my best to top the first chapter and improving on all my weaknesses, one of which is texture. I had a great portfolio review with Mike Martz this quarter and he said the work is good, I just need to pay more attention to texture. So I accumulated my favorite texture artists and started studying their powers. I've been trying to Frank Quitely all over these pages and I hope it looks more refined than before. I plan to go back and add some to the first chapter of the book too. My goal is to have both chapters in black and white for Heroes Con in one 40 page book.

Oh yeah, I'll be at Heroes Con this June, sharing a table with one of my best friends and comic warriors, Crystal Jayme. Come by our tables for comics, prints, commissions, and dances if you purchase a lot. Seriously, I'll dance if you buy things. Try me!

Anyhow, I have one more page almost ready to go into my final project for class, so I'm gonna get to work on that. Have a great day, because the age of comics is almost upon us!

Wings of Irene

Here are the first five pages of Wings of Irene, a comic I drew 4 months ago. I was hiding it for an anthology, but they've stopped answering my emails so I guess they don't want it and I never signed a contract for Wings so it's mine to do what I will.

So I love Last Days of American Crime. So much so that my first copy has gone missing in the house somewhere and I bought another copy. I saw another one the other day and nearly bought it again as a back up. The art by Greg Tocchini has been a huuuuge inspiration to me since I first read this book almost 4 years ago. What I didn't realize then that I know now is that he inked the book beautifully in colored inks, or watercolors. I'm not sure of the media exactly but to me this blew my mind. So of course, I wanted to try it myself. This is the result and wow is it mixed. I love the colors, I inked with FW acrylic inks, but my thought process isn't used to color, and I went too big with this one. If I was going to do this I should have chosen a fixed place comic and not one with scene changes and fast vehicles and all that. But yeah. Wings of Irene.

I'll have this book for sale at FLUKE in Athens Georgia this weekend, and probably every convention after until I think it looks so bad that I sell them for a dollar. Books on that list right now are Calla of the Sea and the Trials of Nobody. Anyhow, story wise, Irene is a girl who wants to fly more than anything, but is unfairly kept from it by a sexist regent who wants to punish her for the deeds of her mother. This story shows Irene going head to head with a hydra of jerks who all think they're better than she is. You should see how that turns out!