In the spirit of the season

I kvetch a lot about my desire to see more of my work in print and all that, but in the grand scheme of things, I have a lot of things to be really grateful for. One thing that I've been especially grateful for is the beauty of "The Inter-web", and that it's allowed me to come in contact and make friends with a whole host of people that share my sensibilty. I'll try and post more about these folks in the coming weeks; one of these people is Colin White.

I've been wanted to blog on Colin for a while, because I consider link love on this blog to be one of the sincerest forms of flattery, and I really admire what Colin does. Not only does he have a great eye for presenting specific pieces of scenes that set a tone (admittedly the type of stuff I tried to do in 365), but he's also got a simplicity of line that I wish I could capture: he doesn't obsess over tiny details, and his gesture-like work is as strong and evocative as some of the most manically detailed stuff I've seen.

He can do introspective stuff, experimental stuff, and just good gag strips, too. He's a great talent. He also produces so much, so well, so quickly , he kinda pisses me off. Oh well.

Look for something Colin and I will be collaborating on some time this next year. Yeah!

Tripping Over Words

My plan was to throw the new episode up by last night, but I was a day late and dollar short: I had just enough time to only just finish, without getting to upload, so it'll be another week until it's up. Sorry. I'm trying to get on a better schedule. Comics is hard work, yo.

We're in Seattle now, "home" for the holidays, and without my requisite toys and drawing boards, so I'm a bit adrift in terms of what to do with myself: I figured, if anything, I could get some writing done, for future projects and self-edification. It would be good for me, a nice, jaunty period of self-improvement, in which I could bang out all those projects I've been wanting to get down for the past four months.

The problem is that I just...can't...seem...to...do it.

And so I pose this problem to you, dear readers: do you need warm up time to? I remember reading about George Orwell, how he could get up at 2 PM, sit down at his typewriter, write steadily for two hours, and then go get drunk. And all I could think was: HOW?!

I need a good two hours of just writing garbage until sentences start coming out right. And with drawing it's even worse: I have "Shame Sketchbooks", where I put all the stuff that will never see the slight of day, until my pencil starts behaving.

Am I the only one?

Ward-O-Matic

Ward Jenkins has some cool ass stuff on his blog, like a bunch of awesome examples (like the one above) of scanned mid- century illustration, when everyone from famous artists to industry hacks decided that coloring inside the lines was for chumps.

It's a little animation-nerdy, but if your not interested in that type of stuff, what're you doing looking at THIS blog, anyways?

Also, check out his Flikr Pool, The Retro Kid. Score!

Sketchblog 12/15/06

Back at it after a brief visit back to Beantown. Great to see everyone back home. Ups and downs, strikes and gutters. You know how it goes.

Today's sketchblog date is a little disingenuous, because I actually did this work back in October, but I'm, busy working on Episode Three, and while it's not ready yet, I wanted to put something up on here. Consider this the first entry - over the past three months, I've had three (!) gigs in which I was hired to draw robots - in what is the clearest sign that I am becoming "That Robot Guy". *sigh*

Blue Flavor wanted a cool, accessible spokesman for it's work, and because of their heavy expterise in the web and usability, a robot seemed like a great idea. Their sloagna was 'We Speak People', and the notion of that coming out of a robots mouth struck everyone as humorous. On top of that, they're all comic book nerds at heart (aren't we all?), and so the possibility of using comic art to appeal to their clients excited both of us. Below is some intial sketches, finishing off with the finals they went for. I'll be doing an actual comic for them later, too. Dude! Comics for money! Sweet!

Oh, and Rebholz, this post is for you, sucka.


Click on images to enlarge.

Sketchblog 12/6/06 II

This the birthday card I just drew for my sister: much to the agog of common decency, she's into fur. But then, I'm inot taxidermy, so what the hell.

Sketchblog 12/6/06

Above is a poster I made after the start of the Iraq invasion, and I then promptly forgot about it. I think it still makes a good point, thought if I had to do it again, I wouldn't make it so cutesy.

(Click image to enlarge)

Sketchblog 12/3/06

One of favorite films of all time is Carol Reed's The Third Man. Not only is the story by Graham Greene great, but Joe Cotton and Orson Wells really hit it out of the park. Luckily for me, it also has some great character actors that mug pretty well for a sketchbook below, both by friends of mine, and added to my ever expanding link list at right:

• I worked with Dennis in LA, where we both escaped teaching animation to kids with our sanity barely intact. He's got an easy way with the pencil that drives me up the wall with jealousy.

• Matt Glaser's sports and politics blog, The Zong, is like a poke in the eye with a Tootsie pop: it still hurts, goddammit, but somewhere, somehow, you can't help but want a little more of that sweet, sweet center.