(Jul 04, 2010)
Happy Birthday, America! Here’s a little audio clip Jason captured years ago that sums up the matter quite nicely.
A special 4th of July message from BPB!
Bonus points if you can figure out where it’s from.
- – -
This year’s Finder magazine the WW publishes came out this week. Jen and I hit up the release party a little too late for the free grub, but got some free beer that unfortunately made us feel weird the rest of the night. It wasn’t a bad time, though – I finally got to meet the esteemed Ben Mollica, the art director for the WW who is kind enough to send me the work he does, and I also got to see Tom Humphreys again, a former WW art director who got me started doing illustration for them.
Anyhow, it’s a great resource for anyone in Portland, whether you’ve been here six year or are just visiting for a week. It has recommendations and locations of most of the good restaurants and things to do around town. Plus it’s FREE! Go pick one up!
Here’s my spread in print:
And here’s the illustration I did for the paper this week for this article:
I’m still busy doing behind-the-scenes stuff for Save Apathea, but if all goes according to plan, we should have it up in a couple of weeks. You’ll hear about it here first!
Have a good 4th, everyone!
(Jun 30, 2010)
An excerpt from the AMATEURS trailer comic I mentioned last week. Hoping to have the whole thing done and ready to show off soon.
See you all next week.
(Jun 25, 2010)
Some big news – First Second has asked MK and I to serialize Americus online. Details are still being hashed out, but we’re hoping to have the website up and ready to go around the middle of July. I am pretty excited, though I’ll admit it’s kind of funny too. I think the standard approach is to do your webcomic and finish it up with hopes of having a publisher picking it up. We’re doing the reverse – we’ve got the book finished and have a publisher, but are doing the webcomic to help drum up interest and support for the book before it’s release date next fall.
Like I said, I’m pretty excited. I’ll give you more details as they pop up.
- – -
I also did some spot illustrations for an entertainment piece for this week’s Willamette Week. There is a free, all ages music festival happening in the St. John’s neighborhood this weekend. If you get the chance, check it out. I haven’t been to St. Johns in years and years, but it’s a beautiful area and the third annual No. Fest seems pretty awesome.
I’ve finished the next page of A Date in Time and Space, but I’m gonna put it on hold for now while I work on getting saveapathea.com ready to get rolling.
xoxo- jonathan
(Jun 23, 2010)
So yeah… the posting to ye olde blog has been sporadic as of late. Apologies to anyone who’s been waiting for us to get back in the swing of things. We’ve all been pretty busy, though hopefully we’ll be getting back to regular updates soon.
But today I have some piping hot artstuffs fresh from the oven. Join me as I put them on the counter to cool…
Jeremy and I recently got the idea to do a “trailer comic” for AMATEURS. Here are the pencils for the first couple of pages:
Inked, lettered and toned pages to follow. Stay tuned!
Also, I should mention that Jeremy has inked and lettered the first few pages of AMATEURS, which he has been posting on his blog. Check ‘em out.
I got an illustration assignment from the
Willamette Week. I was asked to draw two “Transformer-like” beings attacking City Hall:
Sometimes I’m amazed you can be hired to draw crazy stuff like this… Below are some process bits.
A rough sketch I sent to my editor. Originally I had the Mayor running from the carnage at City Hall, but I was asked to focus on the background scene instead.
A scan of my inks and pencils… Usually on tight deadlines, I just fill the black areas with Photoshop to save time.
(Jun 09, 2010)
I’m posting early this week because I haven’t posted in forever and also because I plan on being a vegetable on Friday and sleep in with the misses and not do anything.
Anyhow, sorry I fell of the drawing horse for like two weeks. It’s a slippery slope. One week was helping Tyler move, so that was kind of an excuse, and the other was getting adjusted and cleaning and what not after Tyler moved.
Another part of it is that I’ve gotten back into gaming. Well, I say gaming, but it’s really only one game – Legend of the Five Rings. It’s kind of like Magic, but more awesome because A.] it takes place in a psuedo-Japanese fantasy world, so there are samurai, and B.] there’s a story that has been driving the game since day one that provides a incredibly detailed environment that makes the game wicked addicting [even though I don't think the story is as good as it was back in the beginning of the game].
So yeah, if you thought I was a dork before, now you know the truth that my dorkiness really knows no bounds… I can’t help it! As many times as I’ve lost interest or quit playing for whatever reason, I always find myself coming back to it. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to come out of retirement and play in a couple of tournaments to scratch that itch. It felt good to be playing again and I had a lot of fun. I thought it would be a good excuse to get the rust out of my drawing arm by doing some fan art.
The image is based on the latest story arc, the Plague War:
I will color it eventually, but there’s just so much going on that it’s going to take forever. I’ll try to work on it here and there and post the final, colored version when I get done.
I also did some work for the Willamette Week this week to accompany this article. It took me awhile with all the ellipses and what not. Anyhow, here’s that:
And I haven’t forgotten about A Date in Time and Space! I just needed to warm up this week after the two week drawing hiatus. I’ll try to have new page[s] posted next week. Have a good weekend!
(Jun 02, 2010)
This week I felt like trying to knock out an illustration as quickly as possible. I’ve been wanting to do another pin up of an AMATEURS character, so I did a few sketches and went with my favorite idea. I decided to post progress shots since a lot of Photoshop work went into creating the final image.
I like the concept of this image, though I think I could have executed it better. I’m not too upset though, since the point was to have something finished at the end of the day.
(May 21, 2010)
Here’s the next couple of pages.
xoxo
(May 14, 2010)
Here’s the first page of the comic I’ve been working on based on a question I asked Jen a couple of months ago – If we could go on a date anywhere in time and space, where would she want to go? [Which is obviously influenced by all the Doctor Who I've been watching].
Anyhow, I had wanted to draw the comic as a present for her for awhile, but I was wrapping up Americus and then some other things got in the way. I thought it would be a fun project to do to keep my drawing muscles exercised while I work on odds and ends and brainstorm on what my next project should be.
Some notes: I decided to keep it simple and keep it on a 9 panel grid and just kind of write it as I draw it, with key plot points in mind. This has been fun, as I’m just trying to fit in gags when I think of them, but also a little annoying because I think the pacing is a little weird, as I think you can tell in this first page.
Anyhow, it’s coming along slower than I want, but I’ll be posting the rest of it as I finish it up. It was originally supposed to be like 2-3 pages, but now I think it’s going to be like 5-6 pages.
(May 12, 2010)
Another bit of DOCTOR WHO fan art… I’ll get around to drawing something else one of these days.
“Don’t wink. Don’t even wink. Wink and you’re dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe. Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and DON’T WINK! Good luck.”
(May 05, 2010)
Quick entry this week… I drew a sketch of the following while re-watching this week’s DOCTOR WHO, and thought I’d do a cleaned up version:
I’ve been occasionally sketching with a spare red pencil for the last week or so. I like the look of it… perhaps I’ll make it a thing: Red pencil for sketching, Green or Non-photo Blue for laying out finished work… I’ll see how it goes.
Here’s another quick sketch, this time of Casey Jones of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE fame:
As well as being the anniversary of Mexico’s unlikely victory at the Battle of Puebla, today also happens to be National Cartoonist’s Day. CUL DE SAC author Richard Thompson gives a few tips at his blog on how you can observe this most obscure of holidays.
