October Mini-Paintings Sale

I'm having a big sale this month of pretty much all the watercolor art featured on this blog for the past year! They're a pretty eclectic bunch of pieces but tend to involve visual oxymoron, submerged metaphor and abstruse heraldry. Check out the Flickr set of all 24 of them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60888812@N00/sets/72157622540977608/

water damage

I've had myself a frenetic burst of watercoloring activity in the past month which I'm thinking has finally run its course, if only because I've used up the pad of strathmore postcards.

Absent Friends

X and Y

Fictitious Business

5 Minutes to Midnight

Yonder

ink and watercolors

A couple little watercolors, click to enlarge:


This one is another little Greek lit study:
Electra and Orestes at Agamemnon's tomb.

Here's the bw study for the piece:


Orestes after slaying Clytemnestra:


And a sketchbook page:

charismatic megaweapons

Not much new with me here on the butt of summer. Last month the Inkstuds radio show asked me to make a mixtape for them, so here it is in all it's sucka dj glory for your listening enjoyment: http://inkstuds.com/?p=2169

Here's some recent work/sketchbook pages, click em to enlarge 'em:











This one is an excerpt page from a comic i'm working on:


My link of the month is the awesomely gonzo WWII era comic featuring Oswald the Rabbit:

OSWALD'S WAR JITTERS

The works and days

Some more sketchbook pages, drawn from Hesiod's "The Works and Days" these particular images are from a section called "The Five Ages of Man." Written in the 8th Century BCE, he concludes that we once had a good thing going but that life is pretty crummy now (then). Click to enlarge:

A midsummer night's ink-orgy

The finished watercolor of Mason Rubella, the earlier black and white version is a few posts back:

(click to enlarge)

Some sketchbook pages:

(that one if of a street in the small town where i grew up)

Another Thing Coming

I recently found a beat up old copy of this comic from SPIRE comics, a Christian comics company drawn by Al Hartley a talented cartoonist who worked for ARCHIE, among others. I assumed it contained a lot of Book-of-Revelations stuff, which is usually a fun read, but when I cracked it open I was more excited by the pretty great art:




I find it interesting to see how the overheated elements from commercial comics like ARCHIE, their pumped up sexuality as well as the intense excitability of everyone (!!!) put into this ostensibly serious religious context:





My redrawing of it (click to enlarge):



Clearly, there's a lot going on here. The three young adults who are our guides could just be taking a casual stroll through the pages of the Revelation of St. John, but instead it's more like they're writhing and thrusting their way through the cosmos:




(Click to enlarge)


It's not clear if this is just native enthusiasm on the artist's part or a more deliberate attempt to surf the Aquarian zeitgeist. In the same vein, rather than affecting a sober approach, the characters can't help exuding that slightly manic cheeriness that one often encounters in real life with people who've had this type of revelation:




(Click to enlarge)


If Hartley had worked in modern superhero comics instead of ARCHIE his SPIRE characters would probably have the awkward hatchet-faces and tormented musculature of that milieu. But I think a lot of the weird double entendres and eroticism is as much a testament to the charge of his beliefs as it is to his professional background.




Here's a non-SPIRE related sketchbook page, featuring a drawing of the 1977 Sebastopol Apple Blossom Queen:



Finally, this is the finished version of the small commissioned watercolor I posted in the previous blog. It's of a friend who wanted to be drawn with her French bulldog, as a unicorn:

Works in Progress

A couple of watercolors on cold press that are still in progress, I'll post the finished versions when they're done. Click em to enlarge:

Scene of Mason from The Hot Breath of War, color still to be added


This is a commissioned little piece for a friend who wanted an image of her with her french bulldog in a medieval unicorn kinda thing.




Also, this Saturday in New York at Giant Robot I have some pieces in the way cool all cartoonists show, "Panelists" If you're in NYC come check it out, it should be a great show and a fun opening.



The follow-up to the popular series puts a spotlight on indie-comics creators from across the country, ranging from stapled-and-folded stars of DIY to art-gallery superstars. The show will feature original illustrations, paintings, mixed-media work, and special surprises from an assortment of contributors--including many Eisner and Ignatz Award nominees and winners. This event coincides with the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art Festival, and is slated to include:


Trevor Alixopulos Andrice Arp Nate Beaty Jeffrey Brown Lilli Carre Christine Castro Martin Cendreda Shawn Cheng Devin Clark Eleanor Davis Mike DeNicola
Nate Doyle Theo Ellsworth Austin English Matt Furie Joseph Guillette Tim Hensley David Horvath Rama Hughes Jeaux Janovsky Levon Jihanian Hellen Jo Claire Johnson Blaise Larmee Minty Lewis David Magdalene Mats!? James McShane Dan Moynihan Kiyoshi Nakazawa Tom Neely Molly Colleen O'Connell John Porcellino Emilio Santoyo Rob Sato Daria Tessler Peter Thompson Jeremy Tinder Steven Weissman Julia Wertz Calvin Wong
…and more!

Flung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore

A few new watercolors, click to enlarge:

Under the April sky, under the April sun

I just got back from Portland's redoubtable Stumptown Comics Fest with a handful of handmade minis to add to my to-read pile. Besides that, there's not a lot going on with me in this post, so i'll just skip to the drawing:

(click to enlarge)









J&MC - "April Skies"

i'm a very special guy

Some recent news:
-I'm going to be at the Stumptown comics show April 18th & 19th in Portland OR.
-I also have some new comics posted on my flickr stream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60888812@N00/
-Every other Sunday night I've been djing on KRCB radio, from 11pm to 1am. The livestream is here: http://www.krcb.org/

Here are some drawing from my sketchbook, click to enlarge:

underdog afterparty

january sketchbook

News Update: "The Hot Breath of War" is number 11 on Rob Clough of High Low's Top 50 Comics of the Year. (You can read his original review here.)

Xochitl from "The Hot Breath of War" sketch number 4 zillion (click to enlarge):



Doodling of the Furies from Aeschylus' Eumenides:

Brother Jukebox, Sister Wine, Cousin Blog

My local bar resembles a sinking pirate ship.


Wintry self portrait.


It's Been Two Weeks Since That Tooth Came Floating Over the Back Fence.

General Consensus