New Interview on Diamond Bookshelf

Head on over to Diamond's website (y'know, the people who supply everything you find in your local neighborhood comic shop) to check out this interview with yours truly, where I discuss the character of Hera, the upcoming Hades: Lord of the Dead, and how I hope my art can be considered "real good".

Happy Lupercalia everybody!

Todays; Drawbridge topic was flowers. I used that as a departure point to explore the roots of St Valentine's Day.

So how did a Roman Catholic Saint, of all people, come to be associated with the holiday intended for the expression of intense physical love? Good question.

Like many modern holidays (I'm looking at you, Xmas), what we celebrate today is just a patch early christians threw on over pre-existing pagan rituals (Saturnalia, anyone?). That explains why, say, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus with eggs and bunnies-- the christian element was overlaid on a pre-existing springtime fertility ritual.

St. Valentine's day is a similar case. Nobody is sure which St Valentine we're celebrating exactly (there were at least three) but his day is an overlay of the ancient Greco-Roman festival of Lupercalia, in which was celebrated both the holy marriage of Zeus (Jove) and Hera (Juno), as well as in Rome the founding of their city (Romulus, Remus, wolves, "Lupe"-- it's all connected). There was all sorts of courting between young folks of both sexes, and it was generally very frolicky. Lupercalia was a very, very  ancient festival, and it had replaced (more absorbed, really) an even more ancient one, Februa, which, you may guess, is where we get  the name for the month of February. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

My drawing is the sacred couple themselves, Zeus and Hera, in embrace, and just to keep this thing nominally on topic, there is also a water lilly, one of Hera's sacred flowers.

warm up- The Apple of Discord

My first thought upon learning today's topic was "The  Big Apple". My second thought was "Naw, I ain't gonna draw that". So here's my third thought, the Golden Apple of Eris.

 As you all of course know, Eris was the goddess of Discord, who, miffed at not being invited to a wedding, showed up anyway and threw her golden apple to the ground, shouting " To the fairest". Now this was a pretty fancy wedding, so many of the Olympians were present. I chose to depict the exact awkward moment when Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, each believing themselves to be the fairest of them all, all simultaneously reached for the Golden Apple of Discord. One thing leads to another, and this little incident eventually lead to the Trojan War and the more-or-less complete destruction of the race of Heroes.

Glory of Hera finished black and white art

Wow, lately this blog has been all about the press Zeus: King of the Gods has been getting. I figured I'd share with you some of the finished black and white art for the third book in Olympians, The Glory of Hera. I've been posting most of my Olympians art stuff over on the Olympians blog, so if you miss this stuff, please head on over and check it out. In the meantime, enjoy this page from the wedding of Zeus and Hera

Not a hoax! Not a dream!

It's been forever and I day since I last updated the ol' blog. The good news is that's because I've been creating scads of new artwork, so lot's of stuff to share!

First up, the complete colors for The Glory of Hera. Enjoy!

The Glory of Hera

Check out the final inked cover to the third book in Olympians, The Glory of Hera. Of all the covers I designed, this one by far took me the longest; ironically, or maybe not, it's also now my favorite.

Olympians, the Poster!

So guess what? The series I've been talking on this blog about forever is now just called Olympians. Who needs the the?



Who can name all 14 principle characters?

Hera

Hera is totally my favorite goddess.



I think she gets a bum rap in a lot of the stories, especially in the myths of Heracles. Anyone who's studied the ancient world knows that Hera was an incredibly important goddess; Zeus himself seems to have been overshadowed in actual cult back in the day. Starting with Homer and later chroniclers she begins to be depicted as the jealous, shrewish wife; Homer was sexist.

Heracles, incidentally, translates to "The Glory of Hera", which will be the name of volume of The Olympians that deals with Hera. I'm going to explore Hera's relationship to the heroes, both antagonistic (Heracles) and protective(Jason), as well as a look into what it's like to be married to the most infamous philanderer in mythology. I think it should be very illuminating, and more than a little redemptive for a misunderstood goddess.

For Hera's appearance, I wanted her to be extremely beautiful (Zeus did choose her as his queen) and also a little arch and severe. To that end, I gave her the tightly-drawn back hair, evocative of a peacock's crest. The peacock is one of her symbols in ancient depictions, so I additionally wanted an echo of that.