Spectrum19

Yo! Some of you have most likely viddied this image before, perhaps many times, as it's the cover of Space Creep Iss#1. I thought it's worth a post anyways as Spectrum 19, a big annual Scifi/Fantasy art competition, just came out, featuring (not actually "featuring" in the technical sense, more like tertiarily including) my lil' guy here. Anyways, check out the book. I haven't yet got my grubbies on a copy but I'm rather confident the publication will reside, quality-wise, within the upper echelons of bitchen'.

Space Peeps

The Shutter-Station Triumvirate

Hello again friends and relations! Small info dump along with some concept portraits. For starters, the 1st issue of the comic I've been working on with Stuart Moore is done! (Kind of, just a few wrap-up deets/cover art before it actually goes out.) I am very pleased with the outcome, going to drop a couple additional preview pages in a bit. I'll keep my devotees appraised as to it's pending methods of acquisition.

In other news, here are a few drawings related to my own brain-child comicbook space opera extravaganza: SPACE CREEP. The "Creep", as we appell it here in the office, recently got some attention and could possibly become attached somewhere coool, publication wise. That said, the unfolding saga of finding Creep a home is at best labyrinthine and I'm wholly unsure about the time frame or even the probability of said event's manifestation. Here's hoping. Pray for me.

I do remain strong though, bearing the slings and arrows etc. with an almost Diogenes-esque phlegmatism. I've recently started working on a few of the visual design elements of SpaceCreep issue #2, these drawings being early fruits of my labors. The three people shown are to be some of the primary players in the oncoming first act (at least the first draft of them), a sort of governmental Triumvirate. This of course means nothing to you, but they are still pictures.
 
Anyways, I'm going to keep the Space Creep stuff coming, so if you're not yet on board, haven't read the cold open (Issue #1) or have no idea what I'm talking about, please comment on this or email me and I'll happily send you the 40 page Iss# 1 (in the PDF version, not the printed unfortunately) free of charge. Be an early adopter. Live free or die.

Mr. Green

Ezekial Green

A character concept for a new commission I'm working on. Based off that famous mugshot from the 20's.

Welcome to the Crommissary

                                     

Sir Thomas More

Thomas Cromwell

     Here are some doodles from history. The top sketch depicts my newest histo-celebrity bohunk: Thomas Cromwell. Despite Thomas's achievements (a butcher's son-cum-Earl and Royal Chancellor) the Cromwell we are more readily acquainted with is his great grandson, Oliver Cromwell, pappy of the protestant protectorate.

Well, step aside Oliver because T. Crom's in the house. My recent Cromfandom has been ignited after finishing Hillary Mantel's masterful 2009 novel, Wolf Hall. The book starts smack-dab in the middle of the oft lampooned reign of Henry VIII, just as Anne Boleyn enters stage right. The subsequent saga of libertinage and decapitation is no doubt familiar to you. No? Just look to your nearest subway poster and be pedaled the period's most recent revival, that wet-fart of a television drama "The Tudors." Henry VIII is portrayed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers for gods sake! Holbein is rolling in his grave.

What elevates Mantel's version of this tired historical episode is her framing of the ordeal through the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. In literally every other depiction of the time, Cromwell is slandered as an amoral Machiavelli, conniving as he is capacious. Here, we see a very different portrait of the man, one sympathetic to his class struggles, his religious tolerance, his razor intellect. The book is furthermore couched in Cromwell’s overarching competition with the Royal Chancellor: Sir Thomas More. More, normally the lone voice against Tudor corruption, is instead illustrated as the masochistic torturer/fanatic that he most probably was. Watching these giants clash is enormously satisfying, Mantel infusing their repartee with the wit such great minds so richly deserve. It's real good.

To head off any further yawns I'll cease my gurglings and just plain recommend that you pick up Wolf Hall asap. It won the 2009 Man Booker Prize, it’s just that good, and I'm about to snatch the sequel (winner of the 2012 Booker) Bring up the bodies. Wherein the first novel we get a peek at Cromwell’s meteoric rise, I expect the next to annal the later, muuuch darker period of his life. Spoiler Alert: like so many of the best stories, it ends in a beheading. I'm going to pick it up next time I actually leave the house. Join me, won't you?

A more heroic space...

Hello peeps. Quick post for my most rapacious fan base. I'm dropping a few pages of the book I'm working on at the moment, title TBA. (The pages are from the beginning and specifically chosen as to give nothing away.)

It comes from the agile mind of Stuart more, a comic writer of no mean pedigree, who started the project as a writing exercise to see how much STUFF could be packed into a script while keeping the story fluid as an otter through an oil slick. It's a little bit of a superhero thing, a lot a bit of a space thing, and all designed by yours truly. For anyone familiar with my own burgeoning comic series, Space Creep, you may notice Stuarts world is a titch more clean and welcoming then my own. More smiling and starched uniforms, fewer fatal prolapses. Needless to say, the whole thing'll be great. Issue #1's completion is immanent. Enjoy.

Copse of the Golden Bear

 This fellow (Timothy Moon) has just wandered into his destiny. From the same story as the last illustration.

The Whore and the Hierophant

This is a quickie illustration based off a story I made with some friends. These are the Delcroixs.  They have plans.

A Brief Introduction

My name is Gus Storms and this is my blog now. It's another step in my campaign to blitzkrieg Internet with my existence, body and soul, like some terrible, virile tornado. I'm telling you, it'll be crazy: illustration posts, Space Creep concept and updates, drawing of animals I like and much, much more! Whooaaah! Are you still holding on? Good. I also might talk about a book I'm reading from time to time, so get with it and strap the f**k in.

Addendum: Despite the last paragraph's invigoration, I expect this project (blogect?) will end prematurely, resolving in much the same way as that little mistake I made during a particularly randy highschool-drama party. That is to say, quickly and quietly aborted. I have mixed feelings, very much leaning towards the negative, concerning this type of shameless exhibitionism...but what the hell, Jonah friggin' Lehrer does it for the New York Times and everything worked out for him, right? Right?!

Lastly, a very quick, very specific message to anyone who reads/looks at this webpage: You're Amazing. Really great. Your intelligence is only outpaced by your talent and poise. The sheer magnitude of your charisma borders on the profane. Also, you're fantastic looking, I'm talking a perfect ten, and there is really no need to take any more s**t from those suppurating troglodytes that call themselves your friends. Seriously, this is just between you and me...shhh shhh, it's gonna be great.