The Hormigaund

New character concept for a story I've been toying with over the holidays.

A new year of EGO's...

This coming month, lets call it January, will be the official release of my new Image comic: EGO's. I'm posting the cover for the third issue here, along with deets on a pending public appearance.

If you, dear reader, feel compelled to get your copy of the aforementioned comic signed by me, well, you're in luck. Come to the NY comic-shop, Jim Hanely's Universe, on Jan 15th. 6 to 8pm, and I will be there, signing these very books. Comic books. That I drew. So check it out!

Gobble...gobble...bleh.

And a merry Thanksgiving to all. Excelsior.

After the wake...

Here's a lil' contribution I made to an upcoming coffee table book called Creepy Romance.

The Saga continues...

Two notes fer' today:

1. SAGA #15, Brian K. Vaughn's scifi epic, dropped last Wednesday and Vaughn was gracious enough to run a preview of EGO's (my comic) in it's back pages. I thought it came out pretty well but you'll have to pick up a copy to judge for yourself.

2. Twelve Reasons to Die #4 (GhostFace comic) came out to today so I'll include here a few of the pages I contributed.

EGO Trip

Hey boys and ghouls, wanted to report that the comic project I've been working on was just officially announced by the publisher Image! The book is called EGO's, the first issue to be appearing Jan15 2014. I'm including links to the press release, as well as an interview Stuart Moore (my writer/co-creator on the the project) and I did for Comic Book Resources. Here's a little piece of EGO's art as well, for your pleasure.

Press Release

Interview

Soulja Boy

Color version of the soldier guy from last post.

Pooper Trooper

Somewhere past Titan...

Just polished up this illustration, it's a old one that serves as the homepage for me lil' website. Here we see the Space Creep gang, undergoing some navigational difficulties.

Wishing you were somehow here again...

Hey guys, my most sincere apologies for what has been an extended radio-silence. I wish such a long time hadn't elapsed between our meetings, but as they say: if wishes and buts were clusters and nuts we'd all have a bowl of granola. Words to live by.

Here are a few more pages from the Ghostface Killa comic #3, out today.

Boo Two

 Second post on the GhostFace Killer pages from Issue #2.

Boo.

Two pages from the newest GhostFace Killah Comic. I'll post s'more next week.

Full Coverage

Some new cover art, just finished.

Exquisite Corpse

Hey-ho hiddlie-hi. Back after two loooong weeks of no posts, I fear I haven't been working on stuff outside the publishing-cordon sanitaire. I do however have a little gem today, indeed I do.

About every other week I meet up with two of my favorite comic artists, my SVA-buddy Ian Bertram and James Harren of B.P.R.D fame. These guys are sketchbook dynamos and to watch them draw is a singular, if somewhat ennui generating, experience. Check them out . Anyways, in this most recent meet-up we indulged in a rousing round of Exquisite Corpse, the product displayed above. Pretty cool, no?

In case it's not self-evident, I drew the legs, James the body/arms. The head is done by Ian who, on some perverse impulse the providence of which I cannot fathom, has adopted the nom de guerre of...Monkey.

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A less than satisfactory offering today folks, a fitting accompaniment for what's been less than satisfactory couple of days. Just some character sketches, you know how it is.

For your consideration, Mr. Lexington...

My comic/illustration set commissioned by the Lexington Hotel went up these week. I thought it'd be appropriate to post the comic (with script), so yeah. As always, the color's a little weird vis. internet caprice, but what's a girl to do?

Dusk Gang Children

And here we have a color version of the previously posted drawing. Again, they're an underdog gang from Space Creep, plumbing the slums of a pirate-station way off in lawless space.

Take a good, looong look. See, they're punks, a suuuper relevant sub-culture (not to mention hitherto overlooked by comics at large) and also part-animal (but only in the most aesthetic possible blend.) Brilliant? Yes. Innovative? Sure. Have I deteriorated to a point where I'm just drawing gutter-punk furries? Maybe, who can say? Listen, I'm happy, and you've just got to support me on this.

Agianst the Wall

Here's a new line drawing I worked on this weekend. They're an urban tribe of gene-splicing miscreants called the Dusk Gang Children. From Space Creep.

Harkonnen Alone

This week I'm showin' a little process stuff on a recent project. The above, larger illustration was done as the cover for a movie that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this weekend: Jodorowsky's Dune.

The movie, directed by Frank Pavich, is a documentary covering the rise and fall of Jodorowsky's ill-fated adaptation of Frank Herbert's masterwork. The story itself is a real kicker, not to mention hitherto unseen Moebius concept art (some of which I actually colored for a interior sequence) suffuses the film. I mean, it was a collaboration with three of the greatest Genre-giants of our time, how could you go wrong?! Moebius's take on Baron Harkonnen alone makes it worth seeing! (Sidenote: I'm hereby trademarking the name Harkonnen Alone® for my next band.)

Anyways, it'll be coming to the States soon, check it out. You can see a mock-up of the final poster on the bottom if you want to get more of the full effect.

Ghost World

The first of the Ghostface Killah comic series, Twelve Reasons to Die, was released this week. I thought I'd post a couple line-work pages from said issue. So there ta' go, eeeeenjoy

In my craggy fastness...

 

Ooooohhhh the wretchedness, the indignity...OH! Hello, I didn't see you come in. Welcome back to the blog o' gentle reader, we have much missed you. You caught me reminiscing on my weekend, it's base venality, the general submission to my lesser angels. It seems impossible, but I find myself again surprised at the endless reservoirs of indecency housed within our species. In summary: don't go to the Meatpacking District on a Saturday night. There, there be dragons.

 Anyways, I'm posting today a page from the second issue of EGO's, my comic project with Stuart Moore. You'll be seeing it places sometime in the distant future, but that is all I may say on that. As a lil' baby bonus, let me direct you to two pieces of recent culture that made on me a very lasting impression:


The first is a Fresh Air interview with the prominent Criminologist Adrian Raine. He's got a new must-read book out, Anatomy of Violence, wherein he studies the catholicity of contributing factors forming the criminal brain. Let me tell you, this interview is a thing of power. Raine discusses at length his profound ambivalence when heading up a field of criminal apologism, terrified as he is fascinated by the implications of pathologizing acts of horror and violence.

Living as we do in a time of "passing the psychological buck", these questions have never seemed more essential. Less and less we are to blame for our own indiscretions, but where is the line drawn? When does the victim of abuse, brain-chemistry, even lead poising become autonomous of terrible context? When do we pass from victim to predator? It's the goddamned Predestination vs Free Will debacle all over again, we can never seem to shake this guy. Such complex issues abound and it's super refreshing to hear that someone, particularly someone of Raine's distinction, is as mixed up about it as we are. It's honest, moving, even a little funny. So, so good. Link Below


Fresh Air Adrian Raine


The second, and this one is really important, is an interview with the intrepid reporter Jeremy Sachill on his new book/documentary Dirty Wars. His last work covered the U.S.'s utilization of the zealot mercenaries Blackwater during the Iraq War. Whooboy, that was dark one, and Dirty Wars sounds even better (if that's the appropriate adjective). It's about Obama's bloody campaign of Drone warfare, the truth behind so-called "targeted killings", the realities of the new, "cleaner" way of waging war. We learn, surprisingly, it's anything but. Let me say the interview alone is revelatory in the extreme. Seriously, it's a big deal. Link Below


Democracy Now! Jeremy Scahill


Good listening people, be well.

Oops...

Apologies for missing a week people. I've been working straight through, doing no personal, postable drawings. This is the only viewable thing I've done, a proposal for an App company for whom I've been doing intermittent character sketches.

His name is D.T. Squeedler (The People Needler.) His bio reads thusly:

An accident in a deep-south Fertilizer Plant transmorphes our hero, D.T. Squeedler, from mild-mannered cowpoke into maniacal hillbilly-lizard. He now hungers for only two things: revenge against all humans and delicious, delicious grasshoppers. 

It was only after submitting said blurb I realized it could poooossibly be offensive given recent events. Hmmm.

Nextrum 20

Checking my email-box this morning I found that Spectrum (SciFi/fantasy yearly competition) has again welcomed me into the fold. The above comic page (another Space Creep excerpt) will be included in Spectrum 20, which is cool. I mean, it's not cool in classical sense, not like James Dean or Musician boyfriends, but rather "another round of my illustrative excrata being published alongside artists of actual note" type of thing. In any case, I appreciate the arbitration of the Spectrum judges (dubious as it is munificent) and may once more suckle the increasingly desiccated tit of my petty successes. Nostrovia.

Comics Eclectic

Salutation art lovers, y'all go to Mocca this weekend? Mocca, for the uninitiated, is the Indie Comics extravaganza centered in NY. It's held in the 69th Regiment Armory, the interior lined with booths n' tables à la NYCC. As with past years, it ends up being more of a crafts fair than anything, like some corporeal outgrowth of Etsy. Knit animal caps, buttons emblazoned with your favorite hard candy, posters, prints, patches of all kinds; a Sargasso Sea of the New Kitsch. If Williamsburg drowned, this would be its flotsam.

Not that I'm necessarily denigrating it. The rise of Faux-Folk eclectica in the last 5 to 10 years is really a net positive. I can't speak for the consumers (what people do with objects of pure aesthetic value I'll never know) but it provides for its creators a relationship with the doing, a relationship to the act of production otherwise unavailable in an information economy. And while I don't see any evidence of people actually needing more stuff, the hocking of said wares allows for a community (and by now a legitimate micro-economy) built around the personal, generative spirit. It is, at least in theory, a petard lobbed into the Capitalist monostructure, the reassertion of some kind of differentiated cultural identity, brothy and self-conscious though it may be. While it's still a form of commodity fetishism, it's not Marxist commodity fetishism, so that's something. If we could just do away with fiat exchange, get into a whole barter thing....oh god, then it'd be Burning Man.

Authors Note: I'm only speaking of my reaction to the DIY phenomenon as a whole, not of its practitioners. All the participating artists were talented and made extremely admirable art objects.

Also, here's an old man I drew for a comic. It's the only thing I did this week open for public consumption, so.....yeah.

Tunnel Creep

New illustration, not sure if it's quite finished but then there's a lifetime to decide. As previously stated, these two are characters from future Space Creep, hanging out under a city. Just like when we were kids.

Death knell of the Thrasonical...

Just a quick character sketch for today, no biggie. In other news, some most pleasing turns of fortune have recently occurred within my world. I fear however I will not be at liberty to disclose them for some time, leaving me with significantly less open-content upon which I may post. Such is the anatomy of my discontent, the brilliant plumage of my braggardly privation! Oh! Wretched is Ambition as he snuffles the petticoats of mine own propriety! Ho, and prick thine ears to the death knell of the Thrasonical!


Author's note: I've gone to a lot of staged Shakespear recently and have been therein compelled to write/speak/think in bloviated pho-Elizabethan all the time. My apologies, I have a sickness.

In contemplation of Bears..

Bears. I've dismissed them in the past, but no longer. I have a newfound respect for these gore spattered super-predators, as is evinced (maybe) by the loving homage featured above.

Tired

Mmmm another section of the hotel piece. Phoning it in with this post, it's been busy and I've been scorbutic. So here ya go. Hurf.

The return of friends...

Another slice of Space Creep concept, this time an un-inked sketch of the piratical potentate: BoneDaddy, King of the Skull Eaters. Bones is featured here in his preferred Plasti-Wear™ Full Comfort Space-Waders and sporting on his right arm the ever-popular "Skulltopus" tattoo. In his left hand we find his favorite accessory, PanzerFaust, an all-purpose magnetic Hand Driver complete with spiky clip-ons; an absolute must for the smuggler-baron on the go. 

D-D-Drop Apotheosis

Helloooo friends! I'm dropping the culmination of my recent hotel project, a large scale Illustration entitled "The Interlopers." This piece is my contribution to the ongoing conversation between artists who, over the years, have added works to this sub-category of populace, isometric illustration. Moebius and Darrow first come to mind, masters that they be, but too children's material such as Full Moon Soup and Where's Waldo have captured my imagination as long as I've been eyeballed. Mind you, I'm not raising this pastiche to the heights of Moebius -praise be his name- but why not throw my hat into the ring? Imitation is, after all, mans biological destiny, spreading ever outward from our first rheumy gurglings. Who by gods am I to betray this noble tradition?! Nobody, that's who. Hail Moebius, His name, His glory...

12 Reasons to Die

This is the cover for 12 Reasons to Die, a new comic coming out in May. It coincides with an impending Ghostface Killah concept album, is published by a newer company called Black Mask and written by Matthew Rosenberg & Patrick Kindlon.

Picture-wise it's turned out to be a whole slumgullion of artist packed into the 1st issue. The cover here is featuring crackerjack Christopher Mitten (30 Days of Night) and also I draw stuff in it too. It's set out to be a 6 issue run and theoretically I'll be doing parts of all of 'em. So yeah, pick it up when it drops, look for me and be merry.


To find a more complete post go here:  

Ashcan Press

The Interlopers

So this is uncolored linework for the last of the hotel pieces. The actual picture is 24x18 so the resolution on this posted image will be somewhat less than adequate. Oh well.

Good Society...

Re-reposting these images as they were just accepted into the 2013 Society of Illustrators Student Scholarship competition. As I did these two last year whilst still in school they remained eligible for entry even after I graduated n' stuff.

Unfortunately, when displaying my works on the Society website, they got my name, instructor and the actual color of the art allll wrong; a most charming fait accompli. Nevertheless, below you may find the link to the other current/matriculated SVA students on the Societies docket. It's all fantastic work.


Society Website

Weekended

Concerning the quality and content of my weekend.

LexHotel Part2

Cramped for time this week so I'm just going to drop the colored version of the same Lexington hotel page from a few weeks back. The project is wrapping up, I'll be posting more stuff from it in the near future.

SPACE CREEP Issue#1 Preview

Hello interlopers! There have been some new people coming to the blog and, in honor of the viewers, I thought I'd display a 4 page excerpt from the first issue of my comic (the one I prattle about ad nauseum.) These are from the middle of Space Creep Issue #1, just as the primary action is reeving up. Enjoy

Addendum: If you would like to get a full, 40 page version of the comic (PDF only I fear, the paper publishing prospects are still hazy) please don't hesitate to contact me.