Pencils from my unnamed Horror Comic

I've been working, a LOT. My thesis comic is nearly done, I've inked a little over half of it and colors shouldn't take me too long. Here is a sample of my pencils, which I was really happy with. This is my ideal blend of loose movement with solid form, and if I ink myself it leaves me with plenty of room to draw with my brush. I can't wait to post up the completed comic, but for now, here is a nice 6 page bite of the 20 page first chapter. This is a story I came up with after being inspired to try out some horror from reading some really good H.P. Lovecraft short stories.

My Comics are on Sale!

Remember these titles? Well I finally set up a Big Cartel store so if you like you can pick up some of these books! The books are Pixie Punk, Riot Against My Happiness, KCNO (my best graphic novel), The Looming Deadline and Calla of the Sea. Thanks for all the views and for giving my art and stories a chance! Click on the link above or on the link in my page bar above.

Rest in Peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman

In memorial of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Inked on Stillman and Birn Zeta with Deleter G pen and Maru nib. I drew this from a photo on google images, I don't know the name of the photographer so I can't really credit them for the lovely photo. I don't really have a ton to say art wise, I do want to say that I'll miss Mr. Hoffman's work and I do hope he's at peace now.

The Looming Deadline: a short story for Charlotte Mini Con

So I've been reading a lot of Horror lately. Well not a ton, but I've been super interested in horror, especially the works of H. P. Lovecraft. I really like his approach, the horror of a world or dimension beyond the scope of human thought, that once we're exposed to it, we can't help but be warped and changed by it. I love Junji Ito who draws manga with this same inspiration and it's something I wanted to try.

Here are the first four pages of a 6 page comic I made for Charlotte Mini Con which is happening this weekend, January 25th. I'll be sharing a table with my bro and roommate Max Currie, so if you can swing by please pick up a book or just come to chat.

This comic is all watercolor, I wanted to try doing something like this eventually and it was time to try something new. I painted this in my Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook, and was amazed with how much fun it was. I'll have to do this again with something longer!

Wings of Irene, a few pages of pencils

This update is mainly so this site does not look abandoned. I have been working nonstop I swear, but I've also not been able to scan and show a ton of the work I'm doing. Like these pages, I did them at least a month ago. I'm already inking these, and I'm further along.

These pages are my experiment in doing more simple pencils to save time. I work far too long on pencils when I know I'm going to ink them, and I could save effort by leaving some things up to the inks. As I'm inking this, I'm having a ton of fun actually drawing with the brush instead of just going over my lines. Also, I'm doing another experiment with these pages:

I LOVE Greg Tocchini, especially his work on Last Days of American Crime. It's a fantastic book, and he inked that with colored inks, using the inks to add to the scene that he also colors. So of course I wanted to try it, and I'm doing it horribly for sure, but it's been a ton of fun to play around with. This isn't something I'll probably stick to, but it really has made inking a more varied and fun step.

I promise to post more as I get closer to completion, so stay tuned to the big experiment that is "Jorge trying new things, sure to fail, but sure to learn a ton."

24 Hour Comics: Clementine and Oh What a Dream

 Hello! This is the first part of my 24 hour comic challenge. I wanted to adapt a Johnny Cash song into comic form, and I was inspired to try my hand with this one, Clementine. It's a lovely song, if not a little depressing. Here's a link to the late great Johnny Cash's song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYoVLVKi7fM I hope I did it justice, and I hope I adapted it reasonably interestingly. Next is Oh What a Dream.

Here's this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fRBXPF6byY This one I like a bit more than the first section. The whole 24 hour comic event was really interesting for me; I penciled this faster than probably I've ever penciled anything. I spent like 7-8 hours to thumbnail and pencil the entire 24 pages, but where I sorta fell apart was in the inking. I was working at a smaller size and thought "oh, well the pocketbrush will do for this!" In the end, I don't think synthetic brushes are for me, but it made things more complicated, and Clementine suffers because of it. For Oh What a Dream, I inked with my friend Brian Prince's Kuretake pens, and they were a ton of fun to use. I'm going to have to get some, they offer a flexibility I would need at least 6 microns to cover.

Overall I don't think this is a bad set of comics, considering this is my first 24 page comic that I actually finished it's probably okay. I feel like I have some missteps but I feel like I have more insight into where I need to streamline my process (inking) and where I'm making decent headway (pencils). But yes, I love these songs, and I hope that they do the work of Johnny Cash justice!

Pixie Punk Finished

First off, I need to post here more often. I work non-stop on pages, but I never really know what's okay to drop into a post. I'm going to just start posting things, even if its just a page, so that this site doesn't lay dormant. And in the spirit of that:

Here is a comic I did for the Change themed issue of SEQAPunch. I'm not sure if it's been selected as of this post but I completed it and I'm pretty happy with it. This is only the first 5 pages, I'll post the rest later, but I hope its clear enough from the pages here. This comic was being made around the same time as a lot of shake ups in my life, like moving, money troubles, health worries (I'm less one tooth now) and just wondering if I'd get to stay in Georgia to finish up my masters. I ended up moving in with Max Currie and things appear to evening out for me.

This comic was about breaking down walls, I'm a pretty happy dude but I'm really paranoid, and this translates into my comics in horrible uncertainty. I never know if a brush stroke is perfect enough or if I'm really using the best layout. But this comic was about being PUNK, it was about a girl who go sick of having to be perfect and chose instead to be rough and pissed off and make music to let the world know she wasn't happy about it. This comic is pseudo personal in that I was telling my inner editor to bite me and I was going to do what I wanted and not be a stick in the mud when it came to the "rules of comics."

I think the color tone REALLY adds a lot to the comic, I was using it like you would a gray tone, to push items forward or pull items back, like in page five, I chose to illuminate the band and stage in white and let the audience fade into that black by being coated in the bands hot gnarly purple. I'm also really happy with my brush inking here, I really opened up and just let it all out, and I think I need to do that more or else my lines get stiff. Also, penciling wise, I was WAAAY less precious with these. For example:

I'm trying to pencil more loosely than before, where I would try to make every line I put down a pencil version of the line I was going to ink, but that's a waste of time to me if I'm going to ink it. I'll try to be more precious with them when I'm working with an inker, but for the moment I think this will work in just allowing me to pencil faster to get these comics out quicker.