Here come the students! Look busy!

In the interest of furthering my career and recognizing hard work, I have begun another blog. This one is  devoted to my students' work, past and present.
I have quite a bit on file, and will announce the prospect of the work's inclusion in all my classes from here on out. Sort of a digital portfolio of student work.
Off to a slow but ambitious start!

Posting an extra image to whet your appetite, here's a photo by Matt Hensche, class of '08.

Original Art Sundays, No. 13: so benull...

Well, it was a slow week, art-wise. But I did manage to get some sketching done while my student (!) was taking his exam.
The sad part for me is that while I can do such interesting work with just scrap Bristol from the cutting table and a rather fluid Jetsream brand black pen, so much of the line quality is lost in the scan unless you want a mountain of artifacts. I used to hate that sketchy stuff. Now it fascinates me.
Couple of my favorite experimental things here- the form defined by shadow (beginning of the first tier) and the mood piece drawing on the old saw of doing a continuous line (end of the second tier).
Also, a potential new character sprung out of nowhere- the French skeleton in Tier 1. You can tell he's French by the mustache. I'm sure I've seen something similar somewhere along the way, so I suspect he'll be a spear carrier in a future story.
The alien lovers reaching across space are part of my Poe pastiche. Another one that's been in the works for years.
Finally, a couple pop ins from the happy fish, Maggie's mule, and a VERY loose sketch of The Surrealist Cowgirls holding hands and ready for action!
Eager for 24 hour challenge this coming weekend. This week promises to be quite hectic!

The masochist says "hurt me". The sadist says "no".

So here I am all crispy from 2 days of very little sleep.
What do I do?
Sign up for the 2009 24 Hour Comics Challenge!
I hope to do 24 pages AND A COVER in the 24 hours. Going to try working a little smaller this time. I think I was the only one working at 11" x 17" at MCAD last year!
And my dilemma over going to MCAD or Open Book was solved, as MCAD students are joining the fun at Open Book this year!
Here's another shot Barb Shultz took of me at the '08 event....

Original Art Sundays, No. 12: Surrealist Cowgirls, p. 11

So ends another Surrealists Cowgirls adventure!
So many things to fix on this page: I left out their vests! Rather crude drawing in Photoshop to throw them on. Drawing with a mouse is like doing fine detail work wearing boxing gloves. it can theoretically be done, but it's not a very good idea most of the time. It worked out OK here.
Also reworked a couple word balloons, along with digitizing most of the text. Dropped a holding line for the support text at the top of panel 2. The flow is much better without it.
Overall, rushed and flawed though it is, I like this story. There's a charm to the characters, even Sparth!
Next: who knows, Highlander? Sorry, segued into a bad movie reference.
I'll either post some recent sketchbook pages next week, or begin a new story. I have a couple things in the hopper, but with 24 Hour Challenge 2 weeks away, I might stall until I have something bigger to post again.

She's leaving on a jet plane...

We lost Mary Travers to leukemia.
So sad.
I always like Peter Paul & Mary. I like the protests, I like the harmonies, and I liked the way they seemed to really throw themselves deep into the music.
And for some reason, the idea of a powerful voiced big woman with a square jaw really appealed to me!
Go figure...
Anyway, here she is with Joni Mitchell and Mama Cass singing Dylan's I Shall Be Released.

Original Art Sundays, No. 11: Surrealist Cowgirls, p. 10

Boy, the work gets loosey goosey at about 2:45 AM!
Big energy page, very loose, crawling with errors. I fixed a few in Photoshop but was more interested in preserving the energy and attitude of the page.
Addendum: somehow there was all kinds of gunk on the page when it was posted. I've cleaned it up and reposted it, for your reading pleasure!

It begins anew....

My Digital Photo student didn't make it in today, ostensibly due to a job interview, so I am well caught up on grading and such. Having a minute, I contemplated the future of my darlings, The Surrealist Cowgirls.

In my musings, I checked and discovered that the next 24 hour comic challenge is a mere 3 weeks hence!

As I will have just finished posting the current story at the point, perchance I'll participate again. Let's not kid ourselves, of course I'll jump in.

Since I'm not teaching there this semester, I don't know if it would be appropriate for me to attend the MCAD shindig. But I'll go again, and I'll get another odd little story out of it. The Cowgirls, maybe a Speedy Ricuverri story, maybe the Flameheads (no Flameheads stories have been told since 8th grade- yikes!).... There are so many other stories to tell!


Here's a shot the impressively smart and talented Barb Schultz took of me at last year's MCAD event!

Original Art Sundays, No. 10: Surrealist Cowgirls, p. 9

The Bugs Bunny moment. "Of course you know this means war!"
Fixed a few late night errors on this one- corrected some funny-shaped word balloons, popped vest textures into the last panel.
This one uses one of my favorite visual devices, the Holding Arc of Darkness, a spot black that spans multiple panels on a single tier. I don't know if it's his creation, but I first became aware of it in Terry Moore's Strangers In Paradise.

Marvel-ous Disney?

I would be a bad toad if I neglected to comment on the purchase of Marvel by Disney.
Well, I'm not too sure what to say.
Truth is, the jury's still out on the impact (if any) this will have on creative output from Marvel. I do hope it improves the visual quality of Marvel animation!
But I can't help but reminisce about past similar deals.
DC acquired Captain Marvel decades after suing to prevent publication of the character. And DC became a subsidiary of Time-Warner, allowing for the flawed but interesting Bugs Bunny/Superman teamup of a while back.
Now Disney controls over 5000 Marvel characters, including Howard the Duck, a character over whom Disney once threatened suit. This resulted in numerous alterations to Howard's appearance, some of which were ludicrous. I mean really. Disney cornering the market on round-eyed, ill-tempered ducks is every bit as silly as Harley-Davidson attempting to patent the sound of its choppers, or Donald Trump attempting to trademark the phrase "you're fired", or the greatest irony of all, Fox News attempting to trademark the phrase "fair and balanced."
Well, now Howard is a Disney Duck. It remains to be seen whether he will be welcomed to the fold, or tolerated with embarrassed silence.
However, one can take hope in the crossover of so many copyrighted characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? This remains the only time a Warner Brothers toon (Daffy) appears on screen with a Disney toon (Donald).
Of course, that's now also a DC- Marvel crossover! Well, after a fashion.
The bind moggles.
Special thanks to the immensely talented Amanda Zima for permission to repost her wonderful Aurora/Black Cat image!

Wrong in so many ways

Offered without comment, other than to say it's fun.

Bugs Bunny in "Glen or Glenda"

Original Art Sundays, No. 9: Surrealist Cowgirls, p. 8

After midnight on a busy (and mostly successful) day, so technically it's Sunday.
This was a very late-night page, got a burst of energy on this one. I rather like the layout, with the shape of the cave echoing the top of Sparth's head.
Popped some heavy blacks and messed around with fonts more than I should. It works, but you really have to click the thumbnail to see it properly.

This just in

Brill Building songwriter Ellie Greenwich has died at 68.
Her songwriting contributions to the world informed our lives. It's sad to think there will be no more.
Here's a Beach Boys version of a song she composed with Phil Spector and her then-husband Jeff Barry.



Another co-composition. This one expresses her raw emotional range. It's both easy and wrong to dismiss this work as a product of a bygone era- there's an eternal aspect to this, with the harmonies and pure voice.



Finally, here she is singing her own material.



I've avoided some of the obvious ones like River Deep Mountain High, in favor of some of the more vulnerable material.

Tull meets Shankar!

Okay, this happened a while ago, but it is still noteworthy.
Done as a series of benefit concerts for Mumbai, these shows present a singular opportunity for the marrying of musical ideas.
My first real prog concert was seeing Curved Air open for Tull in the early 70s. I was hooked instantly.
I've watched Tull and/or Anderson evolve musically over the decades. Anderson's solo work, in particular, reinforces my notion that although there are singular aspects to every culture, many of the musical forms have more commonalities than they do differences. I don't hold with the old saw of music being "the universal language", but I suspect we can learn about each other by noting the similarities between, for example, Celtic and Indian forms, despite their use of different scales (Eurpoean notation vs. pentatonic).
Case in point: the tour of Tull with Anoushka Shankar sitting in.
This from Ian Anderson's end of year letter to the fans:
New studio works will commence in the next weeks. Some music recorded in 2007 has to be finished and it would be nice if, after writing and performing new tunes for and with Anoushka, we could get together for long enough to record them. But, as AS is a busy gal, and currently busy with Dad playing Pandit Ravi’s new concerto for Sitar and Orchestra it might take a while for our diaries to coincide again.
Okay, back to me.
I wish this were better than a mediocre audience video. There should be a decent commercial release of this material; it's so good!