2009: A Musical Year In Review (Part 6)

8-6... 2 more pages to go. Obviously going to miss the end of the year... but maybe the end of the weekend is attainable?

Any thoughts so far?

2009: A Musical Year In Review (Part 5)

Numbers 11-9... more soon. Any guesses at #1? (Obvious, I'm sure, if you know my musical tastes)...

2009: A Musical Year In Review (Part 4)

Sorry for the delay... page 2 of the Top 15... page 3 later today or tomorrow.

Enjoy!

2009: A Musical Year In Review (Part 3)

Want to know what placed in spots 50-16?

Check out the Best Of 2009 Website!

Watch for the illustrated pages for the Top 14 (15 can be found below) in the next few days!

2009: A Musical Year In Review (Part 2)

Jumping the gun a little (giving you a sneak peak at #15)... the remainder will be posted after I have the short write-ups for 50-16 done and posted. I'm HOPING that can all happen this weekend, and I have the pages drawn for 14-9, so those can possibly go live this weekend too... we shall see. Stay tuned...

2009: A Musical Year In Review (Part 1)

Every year I produce an extensive "Best Of" list. It has ranged from a "Top 35" to a "Top 50." I get some feedback, but I don't know if it becomes part of the yearly list noise, and I have no idea if people actually read it.

So - this year I'm trying something different. Over the next couple weeks I will be posting my Top 15... in comic form. Short illustrated reviews for the Top 15 albums, and a post with albums 50-16 (with some short reviews), plus my usual Show List and other sundry bonuses.

Anyways, I hope you'll all stick around, comment, discuss, and come back every few days to read the next 2-5 reviews (depending on how fast I can draw).

First page will be up in the next couple days... stay tuned!

Sketchy Sketchy Sketchy

Not much to say... Simon Reed.

Meh... quiet month. Must rectify in December...

Bonne fête Astérix!

In celebration of the 50th birthday of a comics icon... it's part of how I learned to read French early on (along with Lucky Luke)...

The artwork was/is just gorgeous, and I'm so happy they're doing a proper anniversary collection - restoring all the work. Check it out at the official Asterix site...

Have guitar will... pose for picture?

I always get big ideas, and then can't find the time, the energy, the patience, the (insert-excuse-of-choice-here)... but I really hope this project (the one that has spawned this guy here) doesn't die... I really want to see it through.

*sigh*

The Fuses Have Been Lit!

Pop Will Eat Itself... one of the best (and most under-rated) bands of all time. So ahead of the curve. Clint (lead vocals, pictured) has gone on to do fantastic movie scores (Pi, Requium For A Dream, The Wrestler, Moon to name a few) - but I still wish he could have joined the rest of the boys for ONE more album (there was a start)...

Many classics left in their wake...

And SOMETIMES you get a jolt of inspiration...

This is Simon Reed. He has been rattling around in my head for some time, but never looked quite right when I sketched him.

Is he perfect now? Not sure - but he DOES look like he did in my head, so that's a start!

Most Of My Heroes Don't Appear On No Stamps

One of the problems with having a couple variations on the style I draw in is this: I sit down wanting to do a cool, detailed shot of Jean Michel Basquiat - and all that comes out is some weirdly animated version... that I still kinda like.

Frustrating... but intriguing. I don't know what it says about me, but I do know Basquiat is amazing.Look him up...

This Is A Madbot

Hey, reader(s?)...

Sorry for the absence... been busy and distracted (the two worst things for an artist trying to keep up-to-date on the Interwebs). Here is a Madbot from Lightning Girl Loves Rocket Boy to hold you over... bigger update soon (could be as late as August, but I'll try and get a second belated July post going shortly)...

I really love the design for these villainous robots... they're just fun to draw.

And Now It's Time To Pass The Mic...

Sometimes I forget how bloody good the Beastie Boys are.

They're really good. Check Your Head is a masterpiece. Listening to it made me draw this. I blame the band for taking my time away from other projects.

Yeah... blame the band.

What Can't Be Erased

So, one of the reasons I've been quiet has been work on a short piece I'm submitting to an anthology this weekend. I have no hopes or expectations that I'll be accepted, but this is another of those "the experience of doing a piece around an existing theme" is worth the effort kinda things.

So I'm giving it a go. It's a bit from my final year in high school... so I had to get used to drawing myself in Grade 13 again... this was a grey marker toned warm up I did along the way...

QUIET WORK: Kid Koala’s Music To Draw To

So, international superstar DJ and comic artist Kid Koala just jammed for 5 hours at the Central Tavern to close out TCAF. Sadly - my hand gave out after 3... but not before the impromptu mini-set by Lederhosen Lucil (a friend of Koala's who has toured with him in the past).

She presented herself as a live model (and musician) - and encouraged those in attendance to take a stab at drawing her... so I did. Her comment as she passed sounded appreciative - hope she dug it [smirk].

A great ecclectic way to spend a night drawing - and nice to get out of the house for a change...

Wet Moon... too much awesomeness

Ross Campbell (I posted a drawing I did of his Shadow Eyes character a while back) is the writer/artist of the excellent Wet Moon series. He put out a call for fans of his book to submit pin-up style illustrations of his characters for the latest volume (5)... and I did a little work, but couldn't finish it before I left for New York... thereby missing the deadline... well, I didn't bother throwing the greyscale on (it could use it to add a little "oomph", I think)... but I decided I'd post this here ANYWAYS...

Clearly the inspiration for the freckles on my cat girl 2 days ago...

Someone else's... cat?

So, Harvey James posted some weird cat girl pictures, and sort of threw the challenge out to draw them as real girls... which I have now done... and it was a fun little project.

Hey, Ho, Let's GO!

So - I've now come to the conclusion a couple million people share... New York is a pretty freaking cool place to visit. Not sure I could live there, but I'm definitely going back sooner than later...

I've been artistically AWOL for most of the month - and this, though not perfect, was one of the first things to jump from my pencil since returning... so I figured I'd best post SOMETHING... more soon!

D.E.A.D : With A Little Help From My Friends...

I'd done a self-portrait "with characters" some time ago... but had been wanting to update the idea for some time - and marking the end of the D.E.A.D. month seemed a good time to at least TRY the mock up. I'm not 100% sold on this layout, and may change it, but think the "astonishing book" is as good a method as any...

That being said, keep checking back - D.E.A.D. month may be done (I'll probably do it again in the summer) - but updates will be coming, as well as some pages from Lightning Boy in the not so distant future.

Busy, busy... keep checking, I'll keep posting...

D.E.A.D : This is MY Batman or Spider-Man...

For many artits, their eventual goal is to draw Batman, or Spider-Man or Superman or something... my coal is to draw Cleveland's most famour file clerk.


If I could draw any "property" (and it feels weird referring to a real guy as a property), my first choice would quite likely be the opportunity to draw the man made famous for being a curmudgeon... Harvey Pekar. His life is so... mundane... but he presents it with such panache you can't help but become involved. He certainly has his cadre of GREAT cartoonists (from Robert Crumb to current mainstay Dean Haspiel), but I'd love to contribute to an American Splendor collection at some point.

Perchance to dream...

D.E.A.D : Sketch-Cats... HO!

Busy evening - so just a quick sketch tonight... a little Panthro action.

Man, I used to love Thundercats. Think I'll have to try something along these lines a little more involved some time... hehe... Thundercats. Awesome.

D.E.A.D : What I do while sitting in meetings...

So, when I sit in long meetings - I find it helps me pay attention if I keep my hands busy. Almost like I stay focused when I have more than one thing to focus ON... that being said, I had a big meeting yesterday. These were the result. Above is the main character of my FIRST published multi-page comic (ie: post comic strip). I want to do a "modern" take... this was the rough conceptualizing.


Kickin' it old school... In the Bronx, 70's style.


And... this.

I can't believe I've never drawn a zombie before. I'm so behind the times...

D.E.A.D : Future Pop 2 - Heads

The Future Pop project is my first dip into something completely fictional. Even my Spun stories (record-store-set comic) were based, loosely, on my own life. Future Pop is something else entirely.

Obviously, I need a protagonist - enter Elliott. Designing a character I will be happy drawing again and again and again is always a challenge... so sometimes, when I need to kickstart myself, I just draw heads. Essentially a "telling" 3/4 view (ie: it gives the most info on what a person would look like) - and I just knock out as many as I can fathom - adding some ink to refine any I sort of like. Obviously I want my hero to look kinda cool, so a "standard" (read: not bulbous or fat, not long and skinny) everyman sort of look... I'm pretty into the last version (a flip of the bangs and slight shift in the hair from the sketch beside it seemed to do the trick).

Whether this is final, I can't say - but I like how it looks regardless...

D.E.A.D : Future Pop

I've hinted at this project before. I don't know if it'll work out in reality as it seems in my head - I think the idea's pretty cool, but I may be the only one.

That being said, I certainly like the concept and characters enough to keep sketching away - so we'll see what comes of this...

un-D.E.A.D: Blast From The Past - Supplemental

The images that started it all. I think I want to do a NEW redesign on Switchblade - something more in line with how I'd handled these newer pictures - but I thought I may as well post these for anyone that cared...

D.E.A.D : Blast From The Past (Master Of Disaster)

I don't know if anyone reading this is having quite as much fun with these "Blast From The Past" entries as I am - but I'm really digging these...

That being said, this was one of the ones I had the most fun and the greatest challenge with. Clearly the robot hero Master Of Disaster was, um, a little poorly designed. Remaking him took some doing.


Pushing the redesign a little further than the redraw, I think the end result is actually a kind of cool character I'd be alright drawing again...

The only member of the team left undone is Torture Touch... but I did him about a year ago when I first tried this redraw experiment. I may repost him - or I may take another pass... we'll see.

D.E.A.D : Blast From The Past (Flashback)

Flashback was the leader of the Comet Trails - and when I took his mask off at the end of issue 4, I decided he wouldn't be white. So I finished the couple panels and suddenly realized he was white in all the other issues (you could/can see his face) - so I was faced with a dilemma... should I redraw those pages? Should I say he wore a caucasian mouth cover to disguise his identity? I went for option 3 - and went back through every issue and coloured his face to match the unmasked version in issue 4.


My first real grapple with race: solved in a more conscientious manner than I realized at the time... the race didn't matter, just a logical explanation.

D.E.A.D : "And I Thought *I* Was Hardcore..."

So - before everyone I know asks to be turned into a cartoon, some history. Chris (owner of the fine establishment "Cadence" in Kitchener) Reid and I go WAY back... we first met when we were in our early-mid teens. Years later, when we wound up working together, it was a revelation that we'd known each other from before - and when we started hanging out together - well - our social circles were a little different (to say the least).


A party with Chris inspired my first auto-bio comic some years later (Read it here) - so when he jokingly suggested I revive "another old character" I found myself curious to see how they'd differ (my old interpretation and my new). It makes for a somewhat different comparison to my 20+ year old work... and I'm glad I did it... shoulda pimped him out a little more - but I settled for him just looking hard.

D.E.A.D : Did I Really Dress Like This?

So, I've done a few test sketches of myself as I re-kickstart my auto-bio project - slowly breathing life back into it's heaving corpse. One of the things I'd started, but not finished (until now) is today's D.E.A.D. - ME! I know this all seems a little egomaniacal at times - but there's method to it all - I *WILL* have something to show for all of this... I hope.

Regardless - I present: Me. In high school. This is how I met my wife. Looking like this. Seriously. And it lasted.

The 90s were weird.

D.E.A.D : Blast From The Past (Trail Blaster)

Another Blast From The Past... this time, from the same comic series, we have Trail Blaster... I know he jumped, he climbed - but I actually don't think he had any powers to speak of. Strange for a kid to create a powerless superhero...



The 10 year old me is freaking out at Trail Blaster WITH SHADING! An skin that resembles skin and EVERYTHING. Cool.

D.E.A.D : Original Lyricist (Part 2: Opio Boogaloo)

Compare away... did it get better? Worse? Did I take a mediocre picture and improve it? A good one and ruin it?

For those who missed it - the pencils are a couple posts back. I'm happy with how this turned out, and will still colour it at some point... but not tonight. Tonight - you get inks. Enjoy!

(And check out Op's music - Vulture's Wisdom 2 should be out soon and if it's anything like Volume 1, it'll be AMAZING! Check his MySpace here...)

D.E.A.D : Raoul Duke

Certain subjects, to my mind, belong to certain types of artists... I don't know that I'm 100% qualified to be drawing Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - but watching the brilliant documentary Gonzo tonight, I was sorta compelled. Or something.

Roughed in with a ballpoint, the sketchiness was accidental, but seemed to fit the subject. Doesn't hold a candle, obviously, to Steadman's depictions - but it was fun and fitting.

D.E.A.D : Original Lyricist

I've done numerous hip hop musicians in the past, but never felt like I really caught the full essence (with a few exceptions) - that being said, I'm pretty happy with how this Opio turned out.

On top of that, I'm posting the pencils/blue lines because I'll do a second D.E.A.D. on this and ink and colour it in a few days - should be interesting to see the contrast (since I'm usually the only one who gets to see them in this state).

D.E.A.D : My Better Half

Another day, another D.E.A.D.


So - I realize that I tend to draw myself a lot... which is why it's strange that I seem to draw my partner-in-crime less often. Not sure why that is - I guess most of my sad (read: interesting) stories tend to have happened before we were a permanent item... alas... I do draw her. Different styles, different haircuts and all that - so today's D.E.A.D - Sarah.

D.E.A.D : Blast From The Past (Fast Fist)

What is D.E.A.D. exactly? "Drawing Every Alternate Day."

I'm trying to keep my output up - even just ensuring I scan some of my sketches and post them here - so for March I'm going to try to get a sketch, a doodle, a strip or SOMETHING up here every second day...


First up is a Blast From The Past... this is something I did a year or so ago - I tried re-drawing one of the characters I created when I was 9. He may or may not bear any resemblance to a character from a major publisher... but his hands shoot off (connected to cables)... yeah. I was 9. Let's make sure that's clear. So, here he is - in his "new" armour (on the left in the old-skool page)... make of it what you will.

What Can't Be Erased: 2009.02.24

Erin Finley is a CRAZY-talented artist that graduated in the same in the same program as I did... then went on to get her teaching certification, her Masters, and now shows these AMAZING paintings all over the world. Sorta puts life in perspective sometimes. Her shows are ALWAYS well worth seeing, by the way, with another looming in March (watch her site).

Apologies, Erin, for bastardizing your images into the backgrounds of my panels... just looked better than my cheap knock offs...

This also marks the first time I've tried something really current and the first time I've used Sarah in one of these... so it's a lot of firsts. Hope it works?

Lil' Depressed Boy

S. Steven Struble is a writer, colourist, all-round creative cat... Lil' Depressed Boy is his kick-ass comic. This is my rendition (for what it's worth)... coloured in his palette - but with none of his panache...

I'm feeling a little beside myself...

With my slow experiments in style change, and the simplification of how (I think) I'm going to move forward with my auto-bio work... I needed to be sure I could make myself look LIKE myself... throughout all my eras... some more tragic looking than others, obviously.

So - me... through the ages.