Fat Steven Seagal - 12/12/09

Harvey Pekar - 04/12/09

Smith Magazine recently did this pretty cool tribute to comics madman, Harvey Pekar by getting 70 Cartoonists to do 70 different portraits for his 70 birthday. I was checking them out last night and got excited. I wasn't one of the cartoonists asked to contribute (my prolonged exile while I've been working on my book means I've dropped of the face of the cartoon earth). And I figured, just because I wasn't asked, doesn't mean I can't contribute. So, I snatched some reference from the internet (there's a limited amount so you can see what reference almost everyone worked from; some with better results than others), and this is what I came up with.

Speaking of my own book, 4 pages to go, 306 done. Lots of coloring still left to do, but that's the easy part.

Now off to bed and a rare lie in Saturday morning...

310 pages down, none left to draw - 19/12/09

So last night, I finished the book -- or drawing it at least. I've still got a fair bit to color yet and of course a publisher to find. But it's a little weird having all the pages in the "done" pile and none in the "to do" pile.

Now I get to treat myself a little (I've now watched four episodes of season 1 of "The Wire" while painting images) and start to let my brain think about the next book... Anyway, here's another of the warm ups I was doing last week working on the last pages of the book. I like the idea of doing illustrations of cartoonists I like...

Van Dammage - 10/12/09

So in getting myself to get the most out of the time I have after the day job to draw, I've found I need to warm up. A quick and fun thing I've been doing is drawing the Uber Mensch of my childhood - the Ur Males of Reaganism and 80's Ah-mur-kin-ism, but drawing them as they are now. The one the other day was our 'roided Mr. Balboa. Today I bring you the Muscles from Brussels, but as he looks now a 49. I hope you enjoy. I take about 10 - 15 minutes to do these ink drawings as my warm up, and then 10 to 15 minutes after I've worked in the book to do the color and turn it into a full on illustration.

Next time, I'll give you fat Steven Seagal...

Portraits of Sad Men 1 - 05/12/09

The drawing of Harvey Pekar, a famously unhappy man, reminded me of an idea I had a while back, portraits of sad men. It came from watching Sylvester Stallone in the 2000 remake of Get Carter. Though it changed out the nihilistic ending of the 1971 Michael Caine original for a relentlessly hopeful American one, the parallels of Jack Carter - a has-been small time hood -- and Sylvester Stallone, the former apotheosis of Reagan-era machismo and foreign policy were striking. Whether he was playing or being was kind of a moot point, he was a sad and hollow man.

Anyway, I hope you dig; more to come... (sadly this is procrastinating from the book, but it's good procrastinating right?)...

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