This past Friday, an all-digital issue of TAFFY HIPS, called “Pandemonium,” was released.
The full version of my drawing X-RAY VISION is in there, here’s a preview:
Go download TAFFY HIPS 3.5 to see the whole thing. I’m in there with a bunch of other great artists and cartoonists.
Today would be Jack Kirby’s birthday if he was still alive. There’s a great gallery of his work over at The Comics Reporter.
uitshot via madscientistnz.
I can’t tell you much about the person (or people?) who made this since the site is in Dutch. It reminds me of this scam that the 419 Eater would play on spammers where he would get them to carve objects for him out of wood, like this Commodore 64:
I took most of the content from my old blogs and imported them to this site last nite, so please, feel free to browse the archives and experience some nostalgia. I’ve been blogging sporadically since May 2007 and started to blog at least twice a week since December 2008. I’ll be going through those old posts over the next several weeks and updating their formatting and the size and source of the images.
Last nite I also went to my Okaymountain studio to work on my drawings for the upcoming show No More Worlds at Concertina Gallery in Chicago, which is curated by Corinna Kirsch and Katherine Pill. I’m doing medium-sized (18″x24″) drawings that I’m coloring with gouache. I tried out a bunch of different materials because it’s been a while since I’ve colored something off of the computer. Here’s one of my gouache experiments:
In the end, I decided to do flat color with gouache and then add outlines and details with india ink. I’m going to do six drawings like that for the show which will replicate one of my MELT pages from TRANZ.
Here’s the promotional image for the show, Jolly Ranch by Alex McLeod:
Here’s an excerpt from the press release:
Following an investigative curatorial model, Concertina Gallery’s first exhibition inquires into the simple yet seldom insignificant gesture: the greeting. Although an invitation can take shape in a myriad of forms, the works in No More Worlds invite viewers to enter – through tactile engagement or with the aid of imagination – captivating yet unsettling environments. Featuring artists who use a variety of mediums, No More Worlds showcases works that deftly combine the fantastical and mysterious with elements of the everyday, reminding us that even our wildest ideas of new worlds are anchored in and mediated by our own experiences of reality. Reveling in the unknown surprises of the grotesque or the extraordinary sensuous qualities of the idyll, the impossible tableaux constructed by these artists hover between real and imagined worlds. These liminal environments give way to partially obscured narratives, both enchanting and monstrous.
I’m excited to be in this show alongside amazing artists and I wish I could be there for the opening. If any of y’all are gonna be in Chicago September 12th, be sure to check it out!
This past Sunday, Glade and I got up at around noon, ordered a pizza with green chilis and feta (sounds weird but it was delicious) and watched Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, which was a birthday present from Glade. I’ve been trying to get into anime lately and the movie seemed like a good entry point, since I voraciously read all seven volumes of the manga, which was written and drawn by Miyazaki in between Studio Ghibli films, when I came across it back in 2004.
I enjoyed the movie, even though I have the redubbed version from 2005 that features voice acting by Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman, and Shia LeBeouf, which was a little distracting.
The movie only covers about the first quarter of the manga. The God Warrior is only active for a few minutes in the anime but has a prominent role in the manga.
My favorite thing about the manga, tho, is how Miyazaki blends the influence of Moebius into his style. I would love to see an anime version of Dune done by Studio Ghibli circa the mid eighties.
Pete Toms just made me aware of an amazing blog, the PorPor Books Blog, that features images like these drawn by Mike Hinge, from Heavy Metal July 1979:
On our way back home to Austin from New Mexico we stopped to hang out in Marfa. My good friends Caitlin Murray and Tim Johnson live there. Tim owns the Marfa Book Company which is the only book store in Marfa. The store had shrunk in size a bit since the last time I was there in August 2008, but Caitlin assured me that it still possessed the same number of book shelves. One thing that hadn’t changed was the art space in the back. There is an awesome show of work by Anthony DeSimone, who’s moved to Marfa from Marin County. The show is called Space Happenings and will be up through August 23rd.
Here are some install shots:
I finished the second installment of SHAMANMAN last nite, and I submitted it to SMOKE SIGNAL.
It may be too late for the comic to be in the second issue of SMOKE SIGNAL, which comes out August 29th, but hopefully it’ll appear in issue number three! I’ll keep y’all posted.
I saw this awesome pyramidal structure on the Turquoise Trail that runs through the mountains between Albuquerque and Santa Fe:
I had lunch with my Land Arts professor at UNM and he told me that it’s the house of someone who’s really into crystals and ley lines. Speaking of crystals, I got this gem at the Tinkertown Museum gift shop (a fascinating place to stop by if y’all ever get the chance):
According to my father, who’s a geophysicist, that rock is a slice of agate, which is, aptly, an aggregate of crystals that have grown together. Agates are usually clear, but this one has been stained pink. I was hoping that the pink was natural, but oh well, in my world that crystal mass is the third eye of the skull on my shirt.
While I was away in New Mexico, I got a copy of my good buddy Jose-Luis Olivares’ comic End of Eros in the mail. I love Jose’s extravagant mark making. It looks like he attacks each page vigorously with his brush.
Here’s a sample:
Check out how Jose uses different types of Zip-A-Tone and a spot gray:
The story involves a whole lot of melting, fusing, and transforming, which I’m obviously a fan of. To top it all off, Jose threw in an awesome piece of original art:
And a Power Rangers card from the distant future (notice the authentic browning caused, as we all know, by time travel):
Thanks Jose!
