Original Art Sundays #52: A Private Myth, cover

Well, here we are. A year since I started being audacious enough to post my own work.
In that year, I've posted a whole Surrealist Cowgirls story, The World in Love, a few Tranny Towers pages and a cover, about a dozen photos, a couple so-so music videos featuring my art and guitar playing, and a bunch of sketches and older work in weeks where I lacked time or organization to complete a new piece.
The big work, of course, remains A Private Myth.
I have high hopes for this project. My immediate goal is its completion, page by page. Within that are smaller goals, like preparing each chapter as a stand-alone comic, and choosing eight of the current pages for the fall MCAD Faculty Art Show in a couple weeks.
To all these ends, I decided to do the cover this week.
Or A cover. This might not be THE cover.
I don't consider this final, though I am rather happy with it. Again, pencils without inks, painted in Photoshop.

Almost entirely drawn freehand, hence the uneven edges and slightly skewed angles. I rather like that quality but question it from a standpoint of professionalism. The palette works, but I might reconsider it.
After some debate, I chose to retain the water-stain on the lower right corner. I think it adds a sense of age and use.
My original idea for this, an old map with Katherine's features as one of the continents, just didn't work. But it may show up as a cover for one of the chapters/issues if I can resolve its problems.
The work is inspired by those vintage sheet music covers I love so much! I wanted a sense of something vintage that has an enduring quality. Painting over white in the Color layer mode, often used for recoloring vintage B & W photos, lends to a more muted palette as well. It also shows the texture of the paper, a pleasant effect!
The tragedy and comedy lanterns in the upper corners are freely stolen from a classic Winsor McCay illustration.
So there you have it. Original art, one year in.
On to the next one!

Fall into May?

So the Minneapolis/St. Paul FallCon is now in May.
Luckily, they changed the name.
I always see a lot of friends there, and there's always a party of favorites!

This is a very fun local con, and has had great luck in getting guest stars of note. It also has a track record of getting Golden and Silver Age creators to show, making it a tremendous opportunity for those of us working in comic studies. I was delighted to meet Michael T. Gilbert this fall, and to give him a copy of this paper.
I had glimmers of hope that I'd have a booth this fall. This date change makes that problematic. I could put out a Surrealist Cowgirls book by May, and do The World in Love as a one-off, reworking just that one awful page. I have some back inventory of Speedy Ricuvveri (about 10 copies left) and about 75 copies of the 1994 Ink Tantrums #1. I think I'd just give Ink Tantrums away to any grownups who might buy something at this point. It was one of those "I have to do something right now to prove I still can" things, and it shows. There are a couple stories in it I really like, but the best one was a prototype for The World In Love. Ideas from the old story may show up in TWIL #2, which is percolating in my cranium.
I could also get off my fanny and finish The Street Giveth, the Street Taketh Away. I don't know if it's normal to have 4 or 5 books in various stages of completion, but that seems to be the way it is with me, normal or not.
Anyway, other than the stability, normal is boring.
So in theory I could have 4 or 5 books, but so much of it is older work.
To booth or not to booth? That is the quandary.

Original Art Sundays, No. 21: The World in Love, last page!

And so it ends, and so it begins.

After I finished this, I showed it to some people. I had a sense of what I hoped would be the meaning conveyed, that we can change the world if we see our fears for what they are and open ourselves to new possibilities.  I also wanted to invoke what small knowledge I hold of Hindu teachings, by using the third eye as a symbol for awareness.

So I asked my friend and former student Sean Lynch what he thought it was about. He simply said, "love is stronger than fear."

Can't argue with that.

Next week's post might be a bit late due to the holiday.

Original Art Sundays, No. 21: The World in Love, pp. 22 and 23

So close to the end of the story.
The big problem with these pages is that the grays are so soft.

The third eye stuff is a bit of a giveaway as to where I'm coming from on this, but it's more of a loose metaphor for awareness of one's own power.

Also, I know that it's tactless to laugh at your own lines, but the line "Oh, go eat a bug" just cracks me up.
I was a bit embarrassed by the rendering of the Mother figure in last week's pages, but then I was researching something else and was reminded of this Jack Kirby page.

Much as I love The Prisoner and Jack Kirby, looks like the arms get away from him from time to time too!

next week: The end of the beginning.

Original Art Sundays, No. 20: The World in Love, pp. 20 and 21

Ouch.
The perspective and figure drawing skills went right down the tubes at about 3 AM. Still a fan of open panels, but Mom's arm seems to have gone flat on one side. And the shape of the head- yeesh!
Still, I promised no fixing of these. If I ever go to press with this book, I'll rework these pages sometime when I'm awake- not the state in which they were drawn, I assure you!
Even with that, I like the storytelling aspect here. It's a bit Deus Ex Machina that Mom just sort of casually explains the key point, albeit in a cryptic way. Still, it's consistent with the idea behind one of my favorite superheroes, Dr. Strange, that real power comes from wisdom and does not need to be expressed in a loud or gaudy fashion. I feel much the same way about John Wayne's character Tom Donovan in the classic film The Man who Shot Liberty Valance. The character echoes the idea that the most important thing is to see things for what they are, whether it's the way you would have them be or not. The power of true conviction in this character, especially during the direct confrontations with the title character, is unstoppable.
Ahem.
Now this week's pages.

Original Art Sundays, No. 19: The World in Love, pp. 18 and 19

Our heroine is coming into her own, though she doesn't know it yet.

 

The lizard is, of course, an homage to my man Vaughn Bode', referenced here several times in the past.

In yesterday's post I mentioned my Mother's paintings. One of those, done the day before my 13th birthday, featured the Northern Lights and was an unconscious influence on this story. I was reminded of it during yesterday's shoot.

 

This painting, along with 29 others, will appear in this year's book of Mother's art.

Original Art Sundays, No. 18: The World in Love, p. 16

Just posting one page this week. Narrative flow and all that.

This is the climactic moment in the confrontation with the predator.

When I show people this page in person, I get one of two reactions.

Reaction one: OOOOOOOOOO-kay then......... ( as they slowly move away....)

Reaction two: That's pretty cool.

Which pretty much sums up my response to the story at this point. I'm not sure what it's about, but I know where it's going. Much like the Nesmith line, "though my path is planned, it's not rehearsed."

Tech specs: original done on semi-gloss backing board, coated 3-ply Bristol cut to the size of a modern comic page, in grayscale brush tip marker, using an ink rather than the icky stinky stuff that markers are often loaded with.

Original Art Sundays, No. 17: The World in Love, pp. 6-9

No time for an elaborate post today, but I did want to get the next chapter up.

 

Original Art Sundays, No. 17: The World in Love, pp. 2-5

More pages from the 24 hour challenge!
It seems to me that the pace of the story would be hurt by slower posting, so I will be be posting multiple pages for the next several weeks. This will also give me incentive to do more work!

 

Again, no image editing, just the raw files from the scans.

Original Art Sundays, No. 16: The World in Love, p.1

As some of you know, I attended a funeral this week. I will say more about that tomorrow- I have a specific image I want to post in relation to the event, and I need to get at the scanner at work to do so.
Meanwhile, I am tickled to present the first page of this year's 24 hour comic.

This work has been in the back of my head for years, inspired by a dream  I had when I was a child, and shaped by things I picked up along the way.  No conscious plotting during the work, beyond some fly-by-night strategy on pacing. No worrying about what it meant. Just do it!

Process: I just had a loose idea of the story when I sat to work, as will become apparent in later pages.

The art is influenced by a purchase I made that day. Wet Paint had a sale booth at the 24 hour event (but only for the first couple hours). They had these wonderful ink-based grayscale markers. I wanted to see what I could get out of using values for line. Even working in this rushed atmosphere, the work feels very fresh to me. Much of my apprehension and frustration about the work not being perfect has dissipated.

No Photoshop on this one. Unless there are glaring errors to correct, I will present these pages raw.