3 days left in the Sparkplug Books Kickstarter campaign to publish my graphic novel Vortex and Elijah Brubaker’s Reich #12! Virginia Paine has announced that if we get $2,000 over our goal, Sparkplug will be able to publish a Yumi Sakugawa mini.
I originally drew this four-page comic for J.T. Yost’s Digestate anthology in July 2012. I used a lot of patterns from Vortex for it.
Click here to see the rest of The Hiizzztory of the Miizzzard.
Sparkplug Books is running a Kickstarter campaign to publish my graphic novel Vortex and Elijah Brubaker’s Reich #12. I’m doing a series of blog posts called The Hiizzztory of the Miizzzard that show how the protagonist of Vortex has evolved over the years.
The rest of this hiizzztory is going to be comics that I did for anthologies but haven’t posted here yet. I did this Miizzzard comic, Miizzzard Munch, in December 2011 as bonus content for Cate Wurtz’s downloadable comic Lamezine 001. I sent Cate a super wide horizontal png for the comic but I’ll break it up into pages for y’all:
Sparkplug Books is running a Kickstarter campaign to publish my graphic novel Vortex and Elijah Brubaker’s Reich #12. I’m doing a series of blog posts called The Hiizzztory of the Miizzzard that show how the protagonist of Vortex has evolved over the years.
In early 2011 I started but never finished a new Miizzzard comic. I planned to draw the whole thing in Photoshop and then color it like my acrylic paintings. Particularly, I wanted to tell the story of a battle between the Miizzzard and the Wojrollox, as depicted in this 2010 painting:
The Wojrollox Chomps the Miizzzard; the Miizzzard Attacks with Frogheads and Laser Vision
Here are the first 11 pages of the story:
I drew all these “pencils” in less than an hour in January 2011. I was going to go back later and color them but I never did. I’m not sure why I didn’t keep going on this comic after I exhausted my initial wave of excitement. I think that all that coloring seemed too time consuming. In June 2011 I started Vortex on a whim. I revisited the idea of coloring a comic like my paintings for Skew (with a much more simple process) and recycled part of the plot for my comic for Future Shock #7.
Sparkplug Books is running a Kickstarter campaign to publish my graphic novel Vortex and Elijah Brubaker’s Reich #12. I’m doing a series of blog posts called The Hiizzztory of the Miizzzard that show how the protagonist of Vortex has evolved over the years.
In 2009 and 2010 I switched from longer comics like Hyperbox to one-page comics because I was submitting to newsprint anthologies like Smoke Signal and Secret Prison. In 2009 I also got a Wacom tablet and MangaStudio and made the switch from ink drawing to pixel drawing. It’s saved me so much time that I spent scanning and fixing things in Photoshop! The main danger of digital drawing is the allure of endless undos.
Here are some one-page Miizzzard comics that were part of a larger series of loosely connected one- and two-page comics called ATTACKS:
First appearance of the Floating Crystal Witch and the current look of the Miizzzard. Originally published online by Reynard Seifert at hahaclever.com.
The sequel to the previous comic. Originally published online by Jason Leivian at Arthur Mag.
The end of this first trilogy of comics about the Miizzzard and the Floating Crystal Witch. I drew this in black and white in 2010 to submit to Taffy Hips, but it was the wrong size. Josh Burggraf colored it for me as a Christmas surprise in 2012.
Sparkplug Books is running a Kickstarter campaign to publish my graphic novel Vortex and Elijah Brubaker’s Reich #12. I’m doing a series of blog posts called The Hiizzztory of the Miizzzard that show how the protagonist of Vortex has evolved over the years.
The look of the Miizzzard and my drawing style changed in 2007. I switched from a bamboo brush and India ink to Faber Castelli marker and brush pens. I also used the computer to color a lot more. Here are two full-color Miizzzard drawings from the fall of 2007:
I think I wrote “The Miizzzard Returns” because I had recently moved back to Austin, but it could also be because I hadn’t drawn the Miizzz in a while.
The Miizzzard is riding the Lizzard. Sometimes the Lizzard has a crystal head. And the Miizzz is smoking because I used to smoke a pack a day?! So glad I quit in March 2009.
In December 2007 I started my third mini-comic series, Hyperbox (the first two were Omni, with Lanneau White, and Trash). Hyperbox features my semi-autobiographical character Mark. In Hyperbox #1, Mark gets teleported to the Hyperverse and meets the Miizzzard. Here’s that issue minus the postlude that leads into the second issue:
The frog character was originally from the comics I did for the University of Texas student newspaper, The Daily Texan. My series was called Fists: Free for All. Most of those strips are incomprehensible. Subsequent issues of Hyperbox bring in the Lizzard, the Wojrollox, and the Space Yetis. I had a plan for the fourth and final issue but I never drew it. It would’ve brought the Miizzzard back into the story. Maybe one day…
Sparkplug Books is running a Kickstarter campaign to publish my graphic novel Vortex and Elijah Brubaker’s Reich #12. I’m doing a series of blog posts called The Hiizzztory of the Miizzzard that show how the protagonist of Vortex has evolved over the years.
When Lanneau White and I performed in January of 2007 and I debuted my Miizzzard persona, we gave out a mini comic called Omni. It contains what may be the first comic appearance of the Miizzzard. In this story, the Miizzz is born when Tarpman drowns Mark P. Hensel in a tarp (all drawn in india ink with a brush):
Omni Page 10.
Omni Page 11.
Omni Page 12.
Omni Page 13.
Omni Page 14.
Omni Page 15.
In that drawing of the Miizzzard on the last page, I’m just drawing myself in costume. Here’s a closeup of the Miizzzard mask I wove from a February 2007 video still:
Next post: Hyperbox #1!
Yesterday Sparkplug Books launched a Kickstarter campaign for their fall books: Reich #12 and Vortex.
I’m super stoked about this! Vortex will collect all four mini comics in a definitive edition with a cover by my partner Glade Hensel:
More preview images on my Tumblr. I’ll continue to post previews here and there throughout the campaign.
I started Vortex, my first graphic novel, on June 4th, 2011 and I’m looking forward to holding a copy in my pixel-stained hands. This summer I’ve poured over every page, fixing mistakes, editing some text, messing with the patterns, and redrawing pages. I’m really proud of the final book and, if you like psychedelic sf, I think you’ll dig it! Please support this campaign with a share or a preorder. I’d really appreciate it!
Skew is up to page 55 on Study Group and I’ve got a pretty good buffer built up. I set Skew up so that I could crank out the pages quickly in the limited studio time that I have now that I’m a father. One page per panel, three colors that mix for a total of seven colors plus white. I always try to make things easier for myself by creating rules and layouts for a project before I began.
Skew spoiler. You can see the layers that I reuse for every page.
I decided to generalize my comics-making rules, if any of y’all are curious:
Vortex template. I keep the horizontal and vertical panel lines in separate layers so that I can easily delete them to combine panels.
One-page comic template (originally developed for my Smoke Signal submissions). I drew vertical panel lines that split each row into thirds and a second set of that split each row into fourths.
I’ve been honored to write and draw Cold Heat Special #10 with the input of Frank Santoro. Sacred Prism, Ian Harker’s publishing outfit, is debuting the two-color, 5×7″ risograph-printed comic this weekend at MoCCA Fest 2014 in NYC. If you can’t make it to MoCCA, you can preorder the issue. You can also subscribe to all eight comics that Sacred Prism will publish in 2014.
Here’s a photo of an uncut printed page:
You can see, clockwise from the upper left, the back cover, front cover, Page 6, and Page 7.
I’m really happy with how the colors are mixing together. I was worried the purple wouldn’t be visible enough against the blue on the back cover… and that pink pops on top of a 25% blue screen! Here’s a Photoshop simulation of a printed page (via multiplied layers):
Page 1, which is also partially visible in the top-right corner of the previous image.
If you’re unfamiliar with Cold Heat, it was a comic book series written by Ben Jones, drawn by Frank Santoro, and published by Picturebox. Frank worked with a bunch of other fabulous cartoonists on the first nine Cold Heat Special issues, which were side quests starring the protagonist, Castle. You can read the first six issues of Cold Heat for free, and order the non-sold-out specials, here. I’ll let y’all know when I have my contributor copies of Cold Heat Special #10 up for sale in my store.
P.S. Two new pages of Skew were posted on Study Group this past Monday.
I’ve started a new serial webcomic, Skew, on Study Group Comics.
Click the cover to go to the comic’s page.
A new page for Skew will be posted every Monday. I’ve standardized the pages so that I can draw them quickly because my studio time is haphazard now that I’m a father. Each page is a single panel. I use the same three colors (forming four additional colors by overlapping multiplied layers) for every page. I’ll increase the pages per post if I get a good buffer and studio schedule going.
Like Vortex, Skew features the Miizzzard. There’ll be incremental and instantaneous transformations, monster wizard battles, mechs, slime, and journeys through planes physical and meta. I’ve got some fun ideas cooking in my sketchbook so I hope you’ll check back to simmer in the Skew stew. Thanks to Zack Soto for this opportunity.
P.S. My friend and collaborator Josh Burggraf has also started a serial on Study Group, Typhoon 99, starring Floyd, who some of y’all might remember from Shaman Thunder. New chapters of Typhoon 99 will appear fortnightly.
