Gato!

An Old Dream

damned spot

A drawing based on Macbeth (specifically Act IV, Scene 1). It's not my favorite Shakepeare play, but anything that ends with decapitation (or in the case of Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, a remarkable pelting of arrows) is doing something right.

close-up of Lady Macbeth:

The Pond

"Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought???"

Really like the new Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album.

No art from me today. But to stay on topic, here's a nice Nick Cave drawing by Eugene Smith (http://monstercake.blogspot.com/):

Over and over and over...

Not to give anything away, but there's a specific scene in The Big Black that involves a naked woman on top of a building. I first did some more realistic sketches to get the anatomy basics for the angle/pose I wanted in the panel-to-be, then fooled around with it using various styles and stuff, going towards different levels of graphic abstraction.

I kind of go nuts with repetition sometimes when it comes to trying out different twists on an image I've got in my head. It helps you discover things that most likely wouldn't come to you early on (like the similarity between the back of a woman's body and a plume of smoke). There's at least a dozen different riffs on this idea in my sketchbook, but here's a few select examples:




P.S. You'd never be able to tell, but a Picasso painting influenced the composition of this panel (which will eventually look fairly different from these when actually drawn into the story). I can't find a good enough scan of it online, but the painting in question is called "Still-life with Steer Skull".

Autographs (with drawings attached)

I'm fairly reluctant to ask artists to sign books or comics (I'm also fairly reluctant to travel to places where such things occur, but that's something else), but it has happened that I've received such things--mostly at San Diego Comic-Con about a decade ago (sheesh). So I guess should show 'em off...

Peter Kuper:

Chris Ware:

Chester Brown:

Seth:

Guy Davis:

Walt Holcombe:

Scott McCloud:

Anna with Totoro

Mary

Nostalgia and back pain are making me old.

A drawing from summer 1995. I was so much younger then:


(drawn in a mad rush for Du8 and Dax's "Eulogy" game/event/what-have-you. Someday I'll share more evidence of this thing, for the very few people who know and/or are interested in whatever I'm talking about)

Your Wretched Fool

I spent about nine hours over the weekend working on "The Big Black", only to conclude at 5am Monday morning that I didn't like any of what I had done during that time. At this point it feels like I'm taking three steps backward for every step forward. Ugh.


(thanks to Elvis Costello for this post's title)