Grey-Eyed Goddess cover idea

This is another drawing that anyone who knows me on Facebook will be familiar with. When I first came up with the idea for The Olympians (twelve 64-page graphic novels, each one about a specific Olympian god, or his/her attributes) I envisioned each of the covers as being a portrait of the featured god or goddess. I've since moved away from that idea, mostly, but I still think that this will be the cover for the book on Athena.

Zeus!!

Check it out. This is completed black and white artwork for a "tryout" page for my upcoming graphic novel about Zeus. Zeus has just decided to confront his father, the Titan Kronos, about the fact that Kronos had eaten Zeus' siblings. As you can see, it maybe didn't go so well.

This is a tryout page because I have a couple of different ideas about how I would like to color this book. One option is simple computer coloring, think Dave Stewart's work on Hellboy or DC the New Frontier; the other option, that I'm hoping pans out, is that I'll be able to print this image onto some watercolor paper and create the color with some good ol'-fashioned paint washes. I think I should be able to get some pretty nice textures that way. Watch for color versions soonish.

But I don't even believe in Jebus!

More killing time. This is a drawing of me, from the Simpsonize Me website. Not too shabby, though among the choices for noses I just don't feel they had one that accurately conveyed my bulbous appendage. There's actually more than one of these Simpsonizers out there; I made this picture on the one that was created for the movie and was an evil Burger King tie in. It had the best hair.


Back to the drawing board. Got some art corrections I'm working on.

Finally made the team...

Saturday night. Arta's away. Killin' time.

Have you seen this yet?

Maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm a rube, but this video really blew my mind. I see that a lot of the talkback regarding this video is of people saying that the elephant was taught to paint this way; and that may be true, but to my eye, well, to my eye it doesn't seem that the elephant is blindly following a learned behavior. Watch the video, and aside from it being a pretty wonderful drawing, notice the way the elephant revisits certain lines to increase their weight, note the fact that there's not a single line out of place. I doubt if most people were taught to copy a drawing they could do it with so much grace.

More New Yorker-y Goodness

So, as you can see, still no new scanner.


In the meantime, please enjoy this other New Yorker style cartoon, of my own devising.


My own favorite bit is the unhappy clown with the bird/rodent cage on his head. There's a sad, sad story there somewhere.

Hey, Lookit Me! I'm a Mentor, Ever'body!

So this little paragraph o' wisdom appeared from yours truly on the First Second Website today.Part of a brand new feature called Mentor's Corner, wherein "experienced pros" like myself give advice to those out there who may be experiencing creative stumbles. I got to admit, it felt a bit strange writing this, but hey, maybe it will help someone. Click on the little question mark above to see it, but be prepared... your life may never be the same....

Pallas Athena

This won't be a new image to anyone who's seen my Facebook page; it served as my profile picture for quite a lengthy spell. So why post it again here?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I don't have  a scanner yet.

Also, I'm currently working on the second book of my big Greek Myth graphic novel series, The Olympians. Book 2 is called The Grey-Eyed Goddess, and it's all about Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom, crafts and benevolent war, among others. Why is she called Pallas Athena? Good question, and the greeks had no one answer for that. Part of the narrative structure of Grey-Eyed Goddess explores the multiple explanations for different aspects of Athena. One story maintains that Athena took the name Pallas after killing the goat-like leader of the Gigantes who was named, you guessed it, Pallas. This is the moment right before she sticks it to him good, it's one of the first images I conceived of when planning this book, and I think it came out pretty nicely. I like it so much, I plan on making it into a t-shirt one of these days.

I Should Really Be At My Drawing Board...

My new Imac is like a big, white shiny piece of candy.

After a very long period with no in-home on-line capability (after other long periods of no-me in the home or no-home-to-be-in period) we're finally wired again, and with a styling machine. No, no, make that a bitching machine.

So now I finally can do all the things I've been wanting to do forever, like start some sort of halfway respectable website for myself, of which this blog is the first step towards.

Of course, now I realize that what I really need is a scanner. Until I get the opportunity to put up some awe-inspiring drawings, please enjoy this New Yorker style cartoon I drew up. I think it captures just the right "kinda-almost-funny-better-to-call-it-droll" vibe that the New Yorker so excels at.

Hello? Is this thing on?

(knocks on computer screen a coupla times) hello?