Dyl's Blog (wasn't very creative with the name)

BlogPost #556: "I've been fucking myself pretty hard lately."

2012-01-25T04:48:00.000-08:00

I've realized recently, that I have been fucking myself over lately in terms of my art...by the way don't mind that I signed this with the wrong fucking date, on the final version I fixed that.
Anyways...I have just been getting away from myself, trying to come back this style I forgot about, forgot about because of something I am starting to learn....let me explain...

I had this long period where I always tried to draw like this but I just wasn't getting the body dimensions and backgrounds correct...however now I've worked a lot on my basic body shapes and am taking a class in backgrounds/props so I am hopeful that I could come back to this style successfully...however...

...while doing this I've lost the cartoony boldness of my art, that I was finally getting comfortable, usually it's a reaction to getting too comfortable in a style and seeking the "next plateau" but this time it came out of just not feeling right about how things look...
...lately I've been in a really bad state where I can't make anything look good, and it came right after everything was looking prime.
I guess it is good to try to make everything look better than just cartoony, make it look like the comics everyone sees in their heads but....I don't know...I feel like I have lost myself and this debate has been fucking me pretty hard for a while now...
...I guess if I am in doubt the only thing I can do is draw and draw and draw and see where it all takes me...I am hoping to take more courses this year, hopefully the whole year through.

Talk to you all soon!

50 THOUSAND VIEWS SOON I HOPE!

Post#555: "New Year's Resolutions (Comics)"

2012-01-13T03:24:00.000-08:00

I have high hopes for 2012, one of them is to make more stuff that I think is great like the page you see to your left.
I did it for the groups I run on deviantART: Flash Gordon, Invincible and Dick Tracy.
A lot of my own designs in here.
I definitely need to get on a better level in comics.
I am taking a course but I need better plans than just that so...here's my list (mostly for Markham Tales)

I am going to redraw a "classic" Markham Tales strip, maybe even all of them if I hit a good enough stride or run low on ideas often enough.
I am going to bring it back and colour in a comic strip with grayscale but only use the computer. Much like Tracy but with a lot more detail I'd hope.
I am definitely going to try to include more story arcs as well, the good part is that there are writing, colouring and drawing goals, a lot of which can be combined as I go along.
I definitely am going to try to go daily for a bit, maybe do 14 in advance and do the whole Sunday super sized, Monday-Saturday regular sized deal. I was going to do that in 2011 when Reanne went on vacation but all my ideas included a pot smoking super hero...
I definitely want to do more black and white strips as well, which will go perfectly with the plan to go daily, since in reality only Sunday comics deserve to be in colour, damn modern cartoonist hippies with all their bright colours and tie-dye t-shirts.
I definitely want to take advantage of being an online comic with no restrictions and make a strip where I use a lot of profanity.
I want to try to do a comic strip in "finished pencils" (my former favourite way to make comics)
I want to add a completely fictional character
I want to do an all photo comic strip (I can be artsy!)
I want to do more one panel gags
I definitely want to do more wrestling comics (have you read DNA wrestling?)
I want the return of THE AMISH HIKER! (I love beards)
I want to finally make a fullout super hero comic
I want to have a lot more zombies (in the works)
I have always been bothered that there are good scripts that have yet to see the light of day, especially featuring Nick's brother's character, Neil! That'll happen in 2012!
I want to feature scantily clad ladies, when don't I though?
I want to go all out with the copyright infringement! Watch out Awesome Marcus Ninja! (just kidding...sorta)
I want to feature someone else's art in a Markham Tales strip, don't care whose, don't care how many times, it just sounds like a lot of fun.
I will definitely make a lot more poster/pin-up type work
I wanted to do those cool outfit sketch pages for the main cast, I always loved that stuff from others.
I will definitely be doing some birthday specials for more than just Reanne this time around. (maybe even people besides the main cast!)
I will actually work really hard to get the holiday specials out on time this time around.
I want to feature more animals and just anything that can be diverse. I actually love all the pictures I've seen online of Captain Marvel fighting animals. I definitely need to pick those books up at the next convention (or before!)
I want to do really complicated backgrounds that continue between panels to show movement. (like the zoo strip if you've read it!)
I featured a progression piece a blog or two ago on here but I want to go deeper with it, pencil, ink, letters, colours...step by step!
I want to make a comic about Friday the 13th and I want to do it today...must not forget! I have the whole day off too!

That's all folks!

I am going to try my best to make these happens, thank god I have the whole year, I know the list seems steep but really it's stuff I probably would do without a list, it's just good to have it wrote down...see you all....umm....soon!

BlogPost#554: "Markham Tales Enters...2012!"

2012-01-13T02:57:00.000-08:00

About 13 months ago I sat down and I created what you see above.
Originally it was going to be me and my friend under a series of aliases...Warren was going to be Bad News.
Nick was going to be (as it says) The Nick, but I also played with the idea of Slim, obviously because he slim but that was also the original name of Scott Summers (Slim Summers) a.k.a Cyclops, leader of the X-Men.
Reanne was going to be RERE, obviously her but that was much of the idea.
I was going to be my usual alias of Dan, every main character I make seems to (for the most part) just be some version of myself.
I decided against it last minute thinking that if these were going on Facebook, tagging people was pretty much just modern day marketing, everyone who was a fan of these people in real life got to see them come to life as cartoon characters and get into whacky adventures.
Their designs were basic, and scratchy, I wanted to test if I could do as little work as possible, as infrequent as possible, for a whole year.

Their second appearance was to show off their whole characters, Warren was ridiculously bulky, Nick so skinny that his shirt sleeves flared out, Reanne super tiny, all of their legs really thin with big feet and black shoes/pants...all about ease.
I had a similar body and haircut to Nick, like in real life, so I thought we'd each have defining outfits, similar to what we'd wear in real life, these have actually stuck through even after over a year for the most part, though I do try to change it up as a fun challenge.
I thought the preview idea was a great one, getting people pumped for the first comic, it got lots of LIKES, so I was content.

The third and final preview featured colour, I guess it's a little bit of a secret since I don't put it online a whole lot but I love colouring in crayon and I love how everything blends when done correctly, not exactly how it scans but that's a different story...
Another cool fact is that all three of these images are off the same piece of paper and when it came to planning there was none, this was the initial page of Markham Tales and it just...worked right away...or else I wouldn't have continued with it, that easily...almost scary but sometimes you need to just let things come together.
Each character really had careful detail without a lot of thought, just because these characters are the people closest to me.
Warren's red shirt had been a thing of humor long before the strip so it was obvious.
Nick I for some reason went with tie-dye for the colour, just because it looks funky fresh, but I eventually settled on a Nexus (WWE) type N.
Reanne and her polka dots have always been a favourite of mine and I used to love shading around her little lines for hair as well as adding rosy red to her cheeks.
My thunderbolt t-shirt is great even though now...I do turn my head...originally it wasn't part of the plan.

This was the first one, wow, it just doesn't look good, but I think that adds to it.
I had them all planned well...into March 2012, I sat down and I wrote 15 scripts for good strips and just thought, hey, I'll just do them in advance as possible, if I do 50 it doesn't matter, it'll take 5 years for them to come out...that didn't last long...

The second one I just wanted to test my grayscale markers so I could work on something, at the time, I found more important.
I did it Sunday strip style, just because I love comic strips and the whole idea of Sunday being extra special...
I also wanted to test out some new pens, it ended up going over really well I think, even in retrospect...sometimes I miss the grayscale.

The 3rd one started the first story arc, I decided pretty early on that it'd be best if everyone from the cast had a hand in the creation of the strip, Warren thought it'd be a great idea that he buys a new shirt.
This was essentially one big homage to Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel, but as Chester Gould would tell you if he was still alive, a successful comic is one that makes you read tomorrow's, his stories never truly ended, they always bled together quickly so it never felt like anything was ending and you could just stop reading...then he wouldn't have a big house!
Looking back I wish I did more promotional stuff nowadays...

You might notice that every strip tries new things with background, action lines, text styles, linework, panel outlines, this one was pretty dynamic, if it had been better drawn it would have been pretty impressive looking. Panels?
The first has a sweetass silhouette.
The second has an homage to the first strip, the only good use of homage is to your sweetass self.
The third has a way better bus, but still need to work on those, hopefully that class will help!
The fourth fills out the homage, basically stating that the top part is completely dedicated to reliving the comedy of the first one...which I've always felt had a solid joke and gave the whole thing a slackers vibe.
The next had about the best mall I've ever drawn, as sad as that is.
The 6th had a pretty cool idea, when I get Photoshop or Manga Studio where I can layer I am definitely going to come back to this effect.
Anyways...I guess I am getting pretty lengthy...overall you can see the progress per strip.
But I enjoy stuff like this, if you've ever read the new postings of Dead Duck you'll understand what I am talking about...

The next in the series had the first feature of colour.
Reanne's step-brother got her some REALLY cool markers and she let me borrow them, I thought what better way to test new art supplies than...

The final installment of the story arc had me challenge myself again to see if I could try some different thinner markers and something else with the greys to give everything a more polished look, I don't know how well it worked but I dug the Dick Tracy style hair and thought it had a great, but I guess predictable, ending.
In 2012 I'll definitely challenge myself to do a new story arc.

In the background of doing all these strips I had been working on a lot of different artistic endeavours, somewhere between Jose Delbo and Olivier Coipel (foreign names, much?) I discovered how much I enjoyed doing as realistic as possible pencil work.
This bled into Markham Tales, I guess now I am not a huge fan of this one but I do enjoy the joke quite a bit, this is where Markham Tales really started to have a lot of it's focus on me and Reanne's relationship.
I miss doing strips like this actually...they were probably my most impressive work so far...

It's funny, with only a few strips down the hatch and only 4 months in, I decided it was time to redo the looks of my universe.
I think this has always been one of my favourite, it's laid out really well and this is where everything started getting crisp.

Not long after I made this, it's not actually a comic strip, it has 4 panels and the cast but it was just a test for myself to see if I could draw realistically and also just to see if I could make something that looked like it was actually art...I think I succeeded...it was also a time where I was learning a more detailed style and felt it was time to test it's versatility.
I think I need to make more actual stand alone art in 2012.

This wasn't actually going to be a strip but I thought it was sorta funny and defined the logo and the new looks more. I love the logo still even though now the M and T are connected.

Right around this time you can really tell that I am into the Cory Walker art and it just makes this strip one of my favourites of all time for whatever reason.
I also love The Wolf as a character, Sean in real life is a really funny guy and loves wrestling, which I love to incorporate into anything and just having him as a character is really cool, it's a too bad I always forget to add his logo in more recent appearances...

One of the things I have ran into, as I mentioned in my WordPress blog, is that I have had a lot of people featured in my comics that I no longer talk to, the 3 in this strip, I don't even know where they live. However is was great practice and was secretly an homage to the old Superman cartoons by Filmation.

As I stated above...
...but another about this was plans that just didn't span out, Neil never got his scheduled appearances in his keenass t-shirt, Kyle never combined with me on a strip and James never wrote one.
These guys just came and left before they even...came.
2012 will definitely be a year where I'll do everything I say I am going to.
But it'll also be a year where I'll have to be more careful with what I say...

In less than a year I featured a throwback to the original designs and how they'd evolved, the only downfall is that I really wanted them to look like a polished version of the originals and I think this could have used another coat...the joke is still solid though, and that's what matters...

Something 2012 will be the year of will be backgrounds and props, this one I could see someone having a lot of trouble distinguishing that strange lump in the third panel as a TV with a PS3 attached and Michelle using a controller to play Little Big Planet...however with a better photo program I'll be able to steal images without copyright for that cool effect where you put a real picture in a cartoon world...like on a TV screen or in a picture frame.

I always thought this one was severely lacking though it does retell a true story and feature the only appearance of Shane.
In 2012 I'll definitely try to get some more collaborations going.

Something different I did, though the best ones I made are in Reanne's room, were make posters and pinups, I remember reading Iron Man Essential Volume 1 and one of the best parts being that they would randomly create pinup pages featuring gags and action scenes that hadn't and might never happen...really cool stuff...like a little poster for the fans for free for buying the book as a little surprise at the back, plus saving yourself one page of story!
I thought it'd be cool to do it myself.
I definitely wish I would have made more sketchwork for Markham Tales but hey...it's not too late yet...

This has to be one of the best, if not THE best, Markham Tales strips, it was actually created in 2010 and drawn about a year later, it featured a prop, as I tried to feature atleast one per strip it seemed and still do, in the cake...I think I draw a pretty damn good cake, something I guess I should be looking to add into future strips...
Also this was the first inclusion of a slick, black border.
I think an issue I have nowadays is that I am so ready for colour I forget to add blacks like I did here.

I think in the new year I'll try to do more strips featuring Nick and Warren, especially Nick, Nick gets a lot of the good punchlines and poses but Reanne has been the main feature of most strips while Warren had his own story arc.
I also think I'll try to do more animals and more of these continuing backgrounds, which I found innovative.

When Tanya added colour to this one I thought I had really hit a stride, but she never ended up adding colour to anything again, though I think it did help to jolt me into adding colour myself...example?

Did this one completely anew but left it off Facebook...who needs the drama?
I thought together they would have been best, the fancy shading combined with the cool letters and effects.
But all a dream...for now...

One of the most evolved characters through time has been Reanne, she has for the most part reverted back to her original self but at one point she was the most human, Nick also became quite human for awhile, even me and Warren, it's fun to play between cartoon and realistic, the best part being that you still know who is who!
This one was another one done a year after it was wrote.

Something I really miss is for a time I had this brush pen that made perfect borders...sigh...atleast I have the computer now.
I also enjoyed featuring real people, 2012 will be the year of cameos and colour!

Something you won't see on Facebook because it never got coloured...the Halloween special...also the first appearance (but not the last) of zombies. It also is almost a cameo of Invincible with...INVINCIDYL!
I love this one, can't wait to unpack my art folder and scan it so it can finally premier...in colour!

Another secret tale is the REAL LIFE appearance of Bruce Campbell...also awaiting colour for Facebook...probably right next to the Halloween special...they both had that vibe to them!
I definitely need to draw more muscle men in the new year.

You know at this point I really start thinking...wow...I didn't think I created this many...

This one is truly extra special to me, I created the whole thing at work while on duty. I love it though, the thick marker and the cool paper and the surprisingly straight lines...I wish I got to do this more at work...plus it's totally more of a personal joke between me and Reanne that just seems easy to understand for outsiders.

Probably my finest attempt at a bus, it started off as just the bus then I decided to add the characters then the background then the strangely well-timed caption...I love how the true home of Markham Tales is this bus stop...

When it comes to comic strips I am most proud of though...my colour premier here has to be it.
I had never tried adding colour to my comics using paint successfully but...this one just seemed to work.
Originally I started off just trying to fix his foot (his right foot is actually half real, half computerized) and colour my pants black...somehow I got it into my head that I could colour and well....this happened...cool background and everything....I'll always love this one...plus it has me and my Shopper's uniform...I really do hate Senior's Day...

You know what?
Maybe I am most proud of this one.
Wow it gets hard to choose the further on you go.
I am constantly trying to top myself so this was the obvious next step for me, it actually is more a piece of art than promo or strip...it has a range of simple statements and their corresponding actions against a redesigned main cast, you can be that I will be doing a lot of progression pieces in 2012.

I thought to myself...I can't just do this whole redesigned cast and not test them out, you can see here that I have definite issues with background, it's really was my downfall in 2011, every background I made was just terrible no matter how strong the character designs...same goes for props....I can't even master the simplicity of C.C Beck...
This also...even though pretty keen...was me sort of failing at this whole redesigned universe plan...a little on the depressing side if you ask me but I am sure this version will see the light of day once again before 2013 creeps up...

There is a Markham Tales full length comic book in the works...and if you've ever read Asterix...this would be a total requirement for anyone to truly enjoy my stuff...
It gives a quick and easy intro that hopefully will make people fall in love with the characters.
I am going to completely redo it one day but until then...this'll do!
I really liked how my hair turned out and Re's locket and Warren/Nick's pose but...there's too many faults on this baby...

I always found one of the disheartening parts when you post something that's not that great just because it's done, it's important to because the more content, the better, but stuff like this where there's advantages but far too many weaknesses, it hurts to post...
I had this one planned way far in advance...a year again...but took the simple 4 panel format I had planned for it and decided to play with title panels and background and objects and colour and new borders...lots of stuff learned here but very not much to look at...however...solid text...which counts for something...

I must admit, all the weak parts of this and strong parts of this don't matter to me, I just found this one laugh out loud funny...which should be the main focus of everything I do, sometimes I get so caught up in style and structure I forget the point of it all.
Something...you know the rest...2012 blah blah blah.

Something else I forgot when worrying about story arcs was the link between strips, this being one of them, Sean's return after a long time, not a perfect arc or anything but hey...it's a start...I love everyone's outfit in this one...I also enjoy the constantly changing hairstyles and facial hair of the characters.

To be honest, this one sorta gets me down, I had big hopes for it but not the computer savvy to make it look the way I wanted...I had it planned a year in advance and the overall was good but just...much better in my head with what I'd do to the original art.

This is probably the most professional strip I've ever made, it has the new signature, it has cool background, it has solid designs, easy to read and funny text, the whole deal I am very, VERY proud of.

One thing I can atleast anticipate in 2012 is that all the strips will be ATLEAST of this quality, I really have figured out how effects work and gotten a lot better at adding panels and text...I feel really proud at the end of it all.

Well...that's all folks!

BlogPost #553: "2012"

2012-01-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

Here's some original art, I think it looks good.
Things are getting smoother and smoother, there's bits of background, I am actually going to take a course on backgrounds.

Last year (2010 actually) I was at a completely different stage with art and comics and was pretty much just going nowhere and in circles at the same time, circles of nothingness.
In 2011, I started this comic strip, Markham Tales, it was just supposed to be monthly, but it went way above that, even if a lot of them weren't on the net or made it more to deviantART than Facebook.
Closing out 2011 I was just in a whole new place with the computer involved and colour and better, smoother lines and trying to challenge myself EVERY single strip.

Watching myself through my album of comic strips has just been...wild!
It's really cool to see me start off with this sort of random, lame, homage (homages have been a REAL challenge to me, I need to get past trying to recreate my own version of someone's style and just let it adapt and expand) comic strip, which was just to see if I could actually keep to the weakest of schedules into...something much bigger...very quickly.
I'll do a blog about it later but...for the moment...I just have to look forward to a year of Markham Tales, zombies, bigger challenges, better colours, funnier jokes, more expansive stories, like in 2011 I really discovered that I could do something and improve upon it and play with stuff in between.

Here I come Chester Gould!

Thanks for reading through 2011, 2012 will be great!

BlogPost #552: "WWE in 2012"

2012-01-10T01:32:00.000-08:00

The WWE in 2012 is shaping up to be great.
They've already had both Kane and Chris Jericho return with modernized looks.
Air Boom! is a great tag team idea but still need to find some worthwhile competition.
Beth Phoenix is powerful as ever.
Cody Rhodes has been getting in shape like crazy to be worthy of the recent boost he's got in popularity and I can only hope that he meets a steady stream of worthy and interesting challengers.
Daniel Bryan is at his most interesting but...that's not really saying much...however his opponents Big Show and Mark Henry however, finally reaching the high points of their careers.
CM Punk has been a fighting champion and I am extremely curious if he'll make it to WrestleMania and if so, who his opponent will be.
Zack Ryder is another great star but I definitely like that he's riding the coat tails of Cena, Cena has always needed a best friend character, someone to defend that doesn't feel so random.

John Cena, I feel, is at an all time high.
I think that Kane is an ideal opponent for him and that's coming off of CM Punk and going towards The Rock, he's never had such a great set of opponents who truly challenge his character.
I think 2012 will be the year of the CENATION.

On the topic of Kane, also at an all time high, I thought his World Title reign had a chance to really propel him into the mainstream but with how it ended it really just ended up hurting more than helping...hopefully his next one is better...but that's if he gets another one. I always had the most respect for the wrestlers who don't NEED a title reign.
Examples?

Undertaker with his ridiculous theatrics and the drama that it takes just to "take down the deadman"
Shawn Michaels with his "One More Match" style towards the end of his career
John Cena though constantly referred to as "The Champ" also never backed down from a fight, if there was ever a new character that seemed both unstoppable and evil, he'd take it as a call to action and they'd take him out of the world title picture for a short while.
WWE Legends were always a great excuse to have something in the Main Event without a title involved.
WWE Factions have also always been a big one, The Nexus in recent memory, any group trying to take power by force need opposition but titles usually take a back seat (atleast for a while) when they're formed, even on the programming as a whole.

WWE Raw SuperShow is just great and keeps getting better, I already can't wait to see what Jericho does next week, CM Punk's next interaction with John Laurinaitis, how Cena and Kane's rivalry develops and ofcourse, Zack Ryder's hot date with Eve!

Catch you all next time, WOO WOO WOO, you know it!

BlogPost #551: "February in Review!"

2011-11-21T00:43:00.001-08:00

This will be the shortest one.
Little joke there, because February is the shortest month...anyways...decided to go month by month so I'll get all the way up to November and only have one month left to do a complete review, I like this idea of a review of my artistic progress, might even do it weekly! Or daily!

Anyways...

Day 1 - I ended the last month with my silly superhero and it bled to the next!
Day 2 - The Big Cheese returns...in colour! I actually might be tempted to scan and colour all these in the new year...it'd be funny if I did it daily instead of drawing right?
Day 3 - One of the best logos I've ever done, I'll have to revisit this lettering style and use it for all my future comic titles.
Day 4 - My best grayscale drawing of all time, at this point I was really into my markers, it's a too bad they have been lost in the move...
Day 5 - A pencil sketch with a strange, almost angry, style.
Day 6 - The same style as the previous day with a more realistically proportioned Astro Boy.
Day 7 - The end of the first week is a grayscale drawing of a character called Lum, she's this sexy anime chick, I dig her.
Day 8 - Grayscale drawing of Kid Muscle in workout clothes, pretty weak sadly.
Day 9 - My top 4 characters...the big cheese (in an earlier version), a fiction child of Kid Muscle (now drawn by someone else), myself (also a former version but still cute looking back) and my super hero!
Day 10 - I did a really bad Kinnikuman drawing so I drew myself above him saying "Today sucks!" which was a far better drawing and made it sorta cool if you ask me...commentary can save anything.
Day 11 - One of my favourite drawings of all time that I've replicated many MANY times..."RERE IS LOOKING MAD"
Day 12 - The redesigned Warren back when Markham Tales was still in grayscale
Day 13 - It's almost Valentine's Day so I did me and Reanne looking at eachother lovingly, I think I got my haircut and shaved my mustache for it.
Day 14 - A very cute drawing of Nick and the worst day of my life.
Day 15 - Baddy #1, I went really REALLY far into planning this comic strip series and actually made the first strip on an actual strip board, I am really proud of it still I guess but definitely was more before than now.
Day 16 - Horrible design attempt at a black character for the comic.
Day 17 - Worse one...
Day 18 - The final version still wasn't a winner.
Day 19 - The whole crew of Baddies back when I still wanted to be Cory Walker...not that I don't now :P
Day 20 - EX-TERMINATOR ... my fictional spider slayer when Reanne's room was infested with her worst fear.
Day 21 - Dollface, based directly off Reanne is one of my favourite fictional characters created by myself ever, I really have to write all these buggers down and play with them again.
Day 22 - I love this drawing of me picking up Reanne, I've made many since.
Day 23 - Reanne's profile picture redrawn, she adored it but I never remade or scanned it...maybe she'd like it if I did now though...
Day 24 - See above, I thought I'd share a nice double page spread so you could see atleast SOME of what the fuck I'm talking about...sorry...I mean H-E-double-hockey-sticks
Day 25 - See above, the premier image of InvinciDyl who has since appeared in the Halloween Special of Markham Tales...soon to be in colour thanks to Tanya and in black/white on deviantART
Day 26 - Z-Super-Reanne (working title)...the super version of Reanne was a failed effort.
Day 27 - Super Sayain Warren, another failed attempt.
Day 28 - The Nick (The Rock meets Nick) - - - utterly terrible.

THE END!

February brought me from grayscale to fine pencils to Cory Walker to cute and cartoony to colour and back again but what it brought me most was confusion, however it was definitely the month where my lines being smooth and the write size was never in question.

BlogPost #550: Year In Review 2011 (so far)

2011-11-21T00:20:00.001-08:00

Since this is about looking back, this is an old page I did called The Basterd, I love it still to this day.
I just love how it turned out.
Especially for what stage I was at with art.
I actually used a Sharpie, a bleedy black fine-tip pen (for writing) and crappy regular printer paper.

So...I have a daily sketchbook, and since it's nearing the end of the year...I thought I'd give a sum-up (to myself) of how it's gone so far...

Day 1 - I did one of my characters, a real super cheese looking quite Venture Bros. wearing a New Years party hat.
Day 2 - Shitting early drawing of a character based on Reanne.
Day 3 - A far better drawing of a character based on myself.
Day 4 - A highlight of my life as a somewhat inspiring artist, a cartoon of Elvis Stojko signed by him.
Day 5 - Blank so I don't ruin the Elvis drawing on the other side!
Day 6 - A better picture of a character now more closely based on Reanne, looking a lot more real than I'm used to.
Day 7 - A HORRIBLE drawing of my big cheese character.
Day 8 - One almost as bad...it's strange to see yourself go through funks.
Day 9 - Another bad one where I tried to make him look more like The Tick (which I am watching on DVD right now.
Day 10 - Potentially the worst drawing in the whole book, not because it's bad, but because it's bland.
Day 11 - A randomly well drawn background, something I need to do more.
Day 12 - A far better drawing but a design I chose to scrap.
Day 13 - A fake version of Dick Tracy I still love to this day
Day 14 - A horrible cartoon of a lady I know whose a teacher.
Day 15 - A panel plan I've literally drawn 10 times of The Big Cheese intimidating a character based on myself.
Day 16 - Another fake Dick Tracy
Day 17 - I see myself adding little pieces of background and texture to try to improve bit by bit, but it never sticks, I also am adding a lot of swear and wrinkles to people, everyone constantly looks like they're in pain.
Day 18 - Corkhead, a character I still love, mostly because of his Tick-ish-ness and his combination of textures, I should bring him back.
Day 19 - I really tune into the Seth vibe with a boldly outlined side profile.
Day 20 - A Tick version of The Green Hornet with probably the best shading I've ever done.
Day 21 - A direct copy of the second season cover of The Tick by Ben Edlund...in crappy pen.
Day 22 - A very out of proportion man based somewhat on Charles Bronson made purely to play with white lines on a black backing.
Day 23 - A more detailed version of the big cheese, alright but face is too boring and turtle-like
Day 24 - One of my drawing of another headless henchman, the bad seed saying "Got him boss!"
Day 25 - The Bad Seed getting a hold of a character based on myself, funny to see me play within my own universe...too bad it's mostly in my head.
Day 26 - It seems like it wasn't so long ago but this is the day when I first started trying to draw more like Jose Delbo
Day 27 - I continue with another Delbo copy of Batman
Day 28 - I go off from copying and do my own Delbo John Cena
Day 29 - I try my first Delbo lady in a combination of Diana Prince and Lois Lane, not very successful.
Day 30 - A little bit of promo for a fan comic I am no longer a part of...thankfully.
Day 31 - We end the month with one of my favourite characters of all time to never get finished...who shall remain a mystery ; )

See you next time for February!

BlogPost #549: "Daniel"

2011-11-11T01:01:00.001-08:00

Draw Daniel, draw.

Draw.

Draw more.

Why don't you draw more?

Don't you love me?

Don't you want to PROVIDE for me?

Why couldn't you be interested in teeth? Dentists make so much money.

If you're going to do comics...do them...you lazy fuck, why do I love such losers?

You're like that guitar player I used to date...

...actually...you do that too.

Loser.

- Tess

What you see here is part 1 of a series I'll call "The Foolish Artist".

It'll be a set of scenes or monologues beside a set of drawings I've done (already done actually, this isn't going to be one of those sets of plans that I never come through with, it's really going to happen and I guess this is the preview, it's actually going to be on my WordPress.

I haven't decided where I want to go with it yet, I have the story plotted but do I want to get someone else to write it? (someone cute as a button perhaps?)

Do I want to see if my friend Tanya can get it coloured in time?

I'll definitely be putting it on Facebook as a series of Notes as well.

Thanks, hope whoever is reading this tunes in.

BlogPost #548: "Givin' Up?"

2011-11-11T00:46:00.001-08:00

Elvis Santa uses his Kung Fu on some Zombie Elf ass...
...sorta shit right?
The original looks better but not much, I'm just not a great colourist.
I'm not a great artist either it feels like...though I have been trying to add new things, I used a small pen on this one, I did TRY to colour, I added the slightest bit of background...but I'm certainly no...Robert Atkins (look him up)
It's made me think again about going to school, getting a license, getting a life really, I guess it would sorta suck trying to balance girlfriend, school, job...life...but...I don't know...maybe it'll make me better at drawing trees and bodies and...hair and shit.
I don't know, maybe it won't.
Whatever the case might be, I feel like there's a lot of room for improvement suddenly.

However...I try to not let the talent of others get me down because...well after looking at this amazing page layout and some other great detailed work...I sent my friend a picture of a bunch of Ps complaining about a NO PARKING sign...the circled P with the slash through it...shabbily drawn, one panel, but...it gave me hope...if there's room for a dude who draws Ps and an early Charles Schulz, then there's room for me maybe...

...just maybe.

Blog Post #547: "Tonight's Main Event"

2011-11-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

I don't know if everyone, or anyone, who reads, if anyone is still reading, are wrestling fans...but one great WWE Smackdown! main event was CM Punk vs. The Undertaker.
It was the kind of main event that made you think of 10,000 more main event combinations you hope are coming up, pretty short and sweet, the stars facing off who aren't in a rivalry but have a small amount of history, just perfect.
So perfect that it made me want to create this.
I usually don't venture into full page comics or dynamic layouts but this just inspired me and surprisingly enough...worked out.

Here's what the match plays out like:

CM Punk gives one of his killer kicks to The Undertaker
Undertaker is reeling while Punk Celebrates
Followed by the famous sit-up by The Phenom and the former Straight Edge Champion is shocked.

One of the great parts about cartooning is you get to skip parts, you get to skip Punk's lip ring, play fast and loose with his tattoos and not even add any to Undertaker. The crowd gets to be this big background lump and motion lines make everything a lot clearer.

I think it's the most effective style for sequential art, the primary focus is to tell a clear cut story that's as visually striking as possible, that's cartoony all over.

Anyways, I'll have a lot more for you in the future.

Blog Post #546: "The Buffster!"

2011-10-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend LOVES Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I am trying to draw more while I watch things, see if I can get any new shapes or props or poses or even just trying to capture faces.

Blog Post #544: "Seth's G.N.B. Double C"

2011-10-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Today while people roamed in and out of my room, some rude, some nice, I sat quietly and read Seth's newest book, The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists.
It's just my kind of book.
If you've read this blog, especially my older entries, I run off at the mouth (page?) about ideas that I have and how I want to make classic cartoon strips and all that jazz, but in this, Seth has found the perfect format for it to come out and the most wondrous part, it's from his sketchbook.
It features excerpts from a fictional past of Canadian cartoonists and takes you on a journey through their brotherhood's headquarters.
The parts about who has been there are intriguing, as is the history of the building, but the real meat of this hardcover hoagie is the parts that highlight the great works of Canadian cartoonists (both real and fictional), sometimes in comics you get bored, you get bogged down trying to get from A to B to C.
You can't just start this 20 issue epic arc, this amazing storyline that fits together perfectly but is easy to follow, without having to go through 400 pages or more of story, and that's going to have a lot of parts where you feel like you want to jump to the end already. You can't wait to know how it ends or who dies and the foreshadowing just makes it worse.
The idea of a book of highlights is genius.

Reading this was like reading a book from my dreams, I feel as though it shouldn't exist because it hits so close to home.

In my many journals that I have been packing away during this movie I've seen all the ideas I had in the past.
While trying to get the numbering right finally on here I've realized how I had dozens of blogs about how I was going to bring back this 30s style of comic book cartooning and make a whole world of Canada's past over a life spent creating 1000s of pages...in just over 130 pages...Seth has accomplished that.

The book almost has a great sadness to it that these works don't exist, that Seth isn't sitting at home right now creating 87 issues of an Eskimo Astronaut.
Lil' Nipper exists and I don't know if I'd actually read through every issue of Canada Jack, but you find your own favourites.

I started the day off wondering if I really want to read this today, just as before I bought it I wondered, when will I ever want to read this? But I said to myself, "it's Seth, it must be amazing and enthralling and I won't be able to put it down," and I was correct, I've never been wrong about that.
He just is a great writer and artist, he captures movement and detail so well that you'd read him write about anything, but his subject matter is always on point too.
I think everyone has an issue of having the highlights in their head, they have a bunch of books and movies on their shelves and every time they think of them they boil a 2 hour film down to 2 seconds in their brain, down to one scene that bothered them, a 4 minute song to that one stupid line you always listen for.

Boy are you a Christian and I said, M'am I am tonight!

...hate that song.

The reason I love Chester Gould's Dick Tracy and this most recent work of Seth is because the creator sat down and just went ahead, sure they came back and fixed and weren't sure where they'd end up but there's an energy to it, their brushes are free-spirited but hit the paper with a bold, confident and comfortable stroke.

The strangest part about being an artist, of any type, musicians, writers, illustrators and painters, is that nothing around you is stopping, nothing is becoming comfortable, a new challenge arises everyday and it's one from within because you enjoy the works of others...they push you to your next project no matter how well you do with your craft...it's why I love reading books like this...it not only indulges in the idols of it's creator but also makes you want to do the same...the same reason I love blogs.

Blog Post #542: "Homework"

2011-10-29T01:13:00.000-07:00

This lovely lady to your right is Allison.
She has silly photos with friends.
She sings in a band.
She writes.
She has a boyfriend.
She has a family.
She has another family.
She loves music.
She wears v-necks and short skirts.
She also gets me to draw anything she needs for her homework.

I seem to do a lot of homework for people.
I like it.
I think that's why I really think I can be a cartoonist.
I'm currently working with a guy named Bart on a daily comic strip, it's coming along slowly but as I mentioned, I'm moving.
Before I wrote all these blogs tonight I was changing around my room so it looks better to potential buyers.

It's funny though, doing art for other people's ideas, their energies, if it's good enough, I've ran into some really bad ideas/creators in the past...who just have nothing to bring to the table but being a fleshy obstacle...art for others is easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Well not THAT easy...

...but still do-able and very enjoyable.
There's also a great sense of accomplishment.
You keep yourself almost halfway uninvolved and when you see the final product..."did I really HELP make this?"

They also put the pressure on, you feel like you have to be better than you actually are because someone else is involved, you have to show yourself off not just to them but to others who might want to buy into you or be interested.

It's really great to think about.

Also...I think i might use Paint to add speech bubbles.

"all the books are not enough" (541)

2011-10-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

i was just laying in bed thinking about the new comics i have in my satchel.
they're not enough.
they're simply not enough.
some nights you need something deep, something really thought-provoking, the kind of book that makes you cry on the inside because it hits all the right soft spots at the right times. a jeffrey brown or a seth.

some nights you need something cartoony, simple, with rigid layouts. some simpsons or archie. you just want to get lost in a town that feels like home to everyone of every age. riverdale, springfield...the set of grease.

some days you have some time before work and want to feel the adrenaline. you need big guns and big breasts with tiny waists. you need the steroid rage of rob liefeld.

but some nights...like tonight...you need donald duck. you need tubby and little lulu or casper. you need something light, simple, but old. very dated. browning pages. the likes of even dick tracy would do.

it's a strange feeling but it leads you to finally realize...all the books in the world won't be enough, you'll think you have your niche and are now set for life..."i'm never going to stop reading invincible"...but you will...not because it's bad but because other things also happen to be good.

watch out for it.

BlogPost#540: "The Perfect Page"

2011-10-29T01:00:00.000-07:00

Here we see one of the greatest pages of all time.
Silent comics perfected.
Who is this menacing boy?
Unimportant.
Why does Tubby need the money?
Unimportant.
Your head automatically fills in the blanks.
I love this page.
Let's go panel by panel...

1. We see the incomplete word but our brain automatically fills in the rest, we see the use of foreshadowing in it's simplest form.
2. We see the finished sign, perfect use of sequential art to show time passing and motion.
3. The best part about this panel is the little foot sticking out the side to tidy up the escape for the antagonist nicely.
4. We see the best use of motion lines I've seen in a while, how do you get his arms to wave like that with a couple of half circles?
5. We just get an F, smart, because we don't know EXACTLY where it's going.
6. We see the angry Tubby and the helpless frog, we don't bother trying to fill in the blanks of why Tubby still stands there, we just embrace it and it feels comfortable.
You can almost hear the ending music in this one...listen to it.

I love this kind of stuff, it's really hard to master but if you can...you're set.

This is sequential art at it's finest, like a painting, a cartoon, nothing could take you through this so well especially in such a perfect easy to share avenue.
The best part about the future is that now we can share these gems at the click of a button so if you can contain a masterpiece to one image file that's easy to read...you are just a click away from fame.

Blog Post #539: "Movin' Out"

2011-10-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
I guess it's been a while since I posted.
I wonder if anyone is still reading.
I am moving out of the house soon, don't know where yet but somewhere.
It's so weird having people come into your house, invaders.
I don't like it.
It'll be good to have a new place though.
Gonna get myself an art table and do some pages, I did one page not long ago and liked it but haven't got the chance to do much with it since, I haven't even seen it, some asshole packed away my portfolio.
Anyways, that's it, talk to you all later.

if that's the case five-forty-one! - "a team effort"

2011-10-18T00:19:00.000-07:00

for all you bitches who say i can't colour...
...here's proof you're right.

...fuckers.

i just made up this guy a little while ago, he wrestles bears and wears a moose hat and has a mustache and is really just supposed to be ridiculous...i've got a couple jokes about him and background characters...i don't think i'll ever make a comic with him but looking now...i could see maybe 6 strips of his stuff...just to like get those jokes done and set up the characters then kill him graphically but stupidly.

anyways...that's not what this blog is about.
i have often stated that i wish i worked on a team but i never thought of it actually being a "comic for hire" team...

like imagine if you could pay this group of 4-5 people (writer, penciller, inker, colourist/letters) to make your comic book? the whole thing.
like you have an idea and you pay them a total sum and they make it happen.
amazing to me.
i've never thought of it until now but...now i just love it.

like i could take my silly bear wrestler...his name is "manli"...presumably "butch manli"...and send over the designs and some characters and the general idea for his first adventure and they make me almost like a pilot issue.

so cool!

anyways...hey...maybe it'll happen one day...it used to back in the 40s...

In Yo Face! #540: Fat Bearded Face-Off!

2011-10-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist the title, I was going to call this one "Alan Moore vs. Robert Kirkman" but...they are both fat and have beards...I guess that's offensive but...I like fat bearded dudes. I liked the chunkier Dallas Green with the beard, Kevin Smith, there's winners in there.
I fear some days that I'll become fat and bearded, I just can't seem to work and draw and workout/shave.
It's just...like an arts vs. athletics thing.
Maybe if I stopped going out/dating my girlfriend I could fit in everything, but who the fuck wants to be tank and talented just to spend all their life alone? Like you'd want to be out even more if you were witty and interesting and hot sh*t.

But sorry...back on track...

I just saw this photo that seemingly was...Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead vs. Swamp Thing...creator Robert Kirkman vs. creator Alan Moore and in that second it became clear to me that I prefer Kirkman to Moore...I just don't care that much for the artists Moore works with or that I sorta want some fluff from him, something more than a limited series all the damn time, something that lasts a long while and really...I hate being told shit all the time.
I feel like his writing revolves a lot around thinking more than...badass action and shit.
But it still tries to hide itself in that.
It just gives me a bunch of parts of shit that I like but nothing that I love.
Like if I want to think...I'll read something without capes and giant fuzzy green swamp fuckers...I'll read like a Drawn & Quarterly or Fantagraphics book.
But if I want capes...I want capes...I want like blood and guts and campy action and cheesy grins and terribly quips...the whole package! (penis joke!)

Kirkman delivers just the right mix, I really dig what he's making, like he's got perfect pacing, big events are long but not too long but have a lot of background buildup so we're not going through issue after issue trying to make sure the continuity is right...and he's got versatility.
He's got a lot of heart in The Walking Dead and Invincible, but it's definitely a 70/30 split at opposite ends in terms of action/heart.
He's also got those limited series gems though, Marvel Zombies, Image United, Irredeemable Ant-Man...but here's the kicker...art!
Comics need art and yeah, Alan Moore has "well-respected" artists but...I find them uninteresting.
Robert Kirkman...gold...he has an amazing eye, he's picked up Ottley from a webcomic, Jason Howard from a pin-up he sent in for Invincible, he had Cory Walker living in his fucking house just to start up Invincible and ofcourse Tony Moore is just so pro, where did he come from? Heaven? Hell maybe since he draws blood in black so well?

Whatever it is, in comics...as a creator who can't draw...it's a lot more than what you're writing...Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the dream team, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the dreamier team, dirty Dick Tracy by Chester Gould, Mike Mignola by himself...winner...by himself...Hellboy died and I didn't read it, nor will I ever probably.

Whenever I show someone a comic, they don't look at wow, what a great story, I can give them a golden plot with flawless execution and they'll be like...umm...yeah...it was alright.
If I hand someone something visually interesting but very sequential and hopefully short, winning combo.
How many people read Peanuts that were made DECADES ago every fucking day? Millions.
How many people read X-Men that's supposed to be so new and exciting with some pro anatomical artist? I don't know, I don't and very few people I know do. They can hum the theme song from Peanuts and the theme song from the X-Men show...but only one measures up...why? Because X-Men looks strange and new and not lovingly streamlined like on the show.

I guess I'm ranting (glad it's my blog) but yeah...Kirkman - Many, Alan Moore - Some.
A lot of people I guess would say this blog is blasphemy because Moore did all these huge things, but ya know...I'd rather watch 7 seasons of Bones and 5 of Angel than 1 movie that has this great message and witty dialogue but features no one nearly as badass as David Boreanaz and doesn't keep me interested the whole way through.

I'll add a P-S actually. That's probably the main reason I choose Kirkman. Alan Moore has way less issues and still...bores the fuck out of me. Like the cool parts are way cool and the movie adaptations can be pretty fly but there's always these long LONG parts about some fucking medaphor I don't care about that could be a 2 page pin-up of Invincible punching Conquest.

Talk to ya later.

Something New! #539: "WWE Smackdown! vs. Raw 2012"

2011-09-29T00:40:00.000-07:00

This is a picture from deviantART...somewhere...not by me.
It's a pretty used joke if you watched wrestling regularly while Mark Henry teamed with MVP.

But anyways...

I thought it'd be a cool idea to do a blog about what I want to see in the next wrestling game... (if they WERE NOT rebooting the franchise)

1. Story modes for Albert Del Rio, John Cena, The Miz, Randy Orton and CM Punk plus the team of John Morrison and R Truth (leading to them being enemies)
2. A WWE Universe Mode where GM Mode is also possible.
3. The original controls of O for grapple, Square for reverse, Triange for run, L1 for finisher, X for attack and the directional buttons for movement with R1 for actions and L2 for taunt. I forget if R2 did anything.
4. As many outfits for every character as possible, everyone on Gamecube had atleast 2!
5. The ability for the girls to hit the guys and the guys to hit the girls, sure there's a DQ regularly but you should be able to turn it off, I want to see Beth vs. Khali!

That's the Top5 I have for you tonight, if they did these I guarantee I'd never stop playing.
What else could they do? For a whole new WORTHWHILE direction?

Top 5 for WWE '12

Individual story for every character in the game
The return of GM Mode
Same gameplay as Legends of Wrestlemania
Story modes even for the Legends and Downloadable Characters
Relive the year mode where you fight through 2010 Wrestlemania to 2011 Wrestlemania!

That's all folks!

Something New! #538: "Pay & Play"

2011-09-19T03:28:00.000-07:00

A lot of people enjoy hacking devices nowadays, most of what I pay for I could get for free through slightly criminal methods, but I never do, why?
Not because I am some sort of goody goody, or have some strong set or morals that would never allow me to enjoy any ill-gotten gains, I just like when things work.
If you pay, things work.
If you hack, no guarantees, no help.
Right now I am fighting Rob Van Dam as Kurt Angle on the road to my Impact Wrestling Heavyweight Title, what could be better?
And it's all guaranteed to work and keep working.
This is what I like, my Playstation Classics, my mobile games, all for barely more (or even less sometimes) than a bottomless drink at Jack Astor's.

Review #537: WWE Night of Champions 2011

2011-09-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

Hey, time for another WWE review, this time about the most recent PPV!

Lemme start off by saying, sometimes WWE does things right, whoever is most known or most marketable, deserves the title, it's sports entertainment and I want to see the champ be someone whose actually worthwhile...so they got this one right for sure...

Kelly Kelly over Beth Phoenix for the Divas Championship...duh?
Kelly Kelly is the face of the WWE Divas, along with the tits, ass and...you get the idea.
She can play around fighting Beth and the Bella Twins but she's the number one blonde bombshell and she should stay that way.

The tag team titles are jokes, held by jokes, defended against jokes but atleast...Air Boom seems marketable enough.
The Miz I think should have another run at Tag, US and WWE championships, or maybe IC, Tag and World...for a Smackdown mirror of his former glories on a smaller show where he can dominate, instead of taking the backseat he is now, you need to make lots of world title level guys and just keep them in the picture, you can sell Miz vs. Truth and Kofi and Evan in their own matches before you sell all 4 for this lame duck title defense.
Oh and the whole conspiracy theory storyline? Stupid and really not that funny anymore.

Cody getting a push over Ted in that ridiculous fucking mask? What a loser.
Him, Air Boom, team conspiracy losers...giant bottomless pit.

Fatal 4 Way match for the US Title? Let's look at this closer...
Morrison needs to be a world title guy, he should be having an amped up Raw edition of his Ziggler rivalry with both being a lot more popular than when they first faced off, these guys have both been in the world title picture if not actually champion and deserve better than this literal leftovers match.
Riley beat Miz and now...the other guy in this match? What a joke! He should be fighting other big guys to make himself a bigger man and maybe even a Raw-only rivalry with Cena to show he's more than a former puppet.
Swagger is another former world champion who needs more attention than this even if I think he's long overdue for a very long All American, American US Title reign.
And Vickie? Who cares? Give her to someone who actually needs a push.

CM Punk vs. HHH which is supposed to be this fantastic No DQ slobberknocker, Legend vs. Superstar2011...interference? This might be worse than the end of the last main event of Wrestlemania.
On top of it all...HHH won? CM Punk is a loser, a huge loser, the best in the world at losing, maybe before a dream match I would have wanted is the new Punk vs. the new Angle but...this now just shows CM Punk is too tiny a bitch to win anything important...just like he was saying was so untrue...big guy comes and gives him a powerbomb and he is just open for shots from everyone?
Maybe he's not up to snuff with *chuckle* Chris Sabin...

The World's Blandest Champion? Greatest news of all time, Orton doesn't need a title, doesn't suit the World Title, doesn't suit this second-rate show, Mark Henry however...so great, hopefully they'll big him up and send him to Raw.
That's what Smackdown should be doing...here's loser Christian, make him Super Christian and send him back to Raw and repeat.

John Cena defeats Albert Del Rio in the most unsurprising of victories?
Nice.
WWE Champion forever and always...John Cena...please don't make him lose it again unless it's going to be for a long while...and unless it happens like...5 years from now.
Cena is the champ, Cena will forever be the champ, Cena is Superman and Raw is Lois and Clark...I guess Kelly Kelly is Lois...
That's just smart and sensible.

Del Rio?
Loser loser LOSER!

Thanks for reading, I don't have a lot of complaints about this one, some sure but...Cena, Blandest and Kelly Kelly ? That outweighs all else.

Something Old! #536 - "My Favourite Toy"

2011-09-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

Today I was thinking about what my favourite toy ever has been.
I have so many, mostly now I just get to stand up somewhere.
But what's the winner?

I got asked a week or two ago before joining this action figure forum (so lame, I know) about what my favourite toy is and I just answered "Arnold", because I have a bunch of Arnold action figures on my little desk display in my room.

Upon further thought, I realized I had created my favourite toy ever.
When I was a kid I made little comics, toys and games to do with this little head of a character, no body, no limbs, not even a neck, somewhat like a Pacman that ran around saving people from other heads dragging themselves along the ground.

I hope to make new little toys one day soon.
I have often thought about a big collection of foam or card board or whatever wrestlers and such, huge ones, for playing with or posing or just for the sake of creating to get practice in.

Thanks for reading.

Something New! #535 - "Something Not So New."

2011-09-14T00:48:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that as of late, zombies have taken over media.
Not just comics, movies, video games or television, media itself.
A very strange development.
But the strangest part...zombies are nothing new.
I was thinking about it, and outside of the word "zombie" not always being the popular term, zombies have been everywhere and anywhere for seemingly...ever.
I was even watching the old Buffy movie, the original with the superfantastic Luke Perry, and for a large portion, what she fights are really zombies, they're vampires, sure, but they're the walking dead, they come up out of the ground, they're not widow's peaks and red capes (mostly) but just dirt-covered, funny walking freaks.

I have always been a fan of zombies, or really just of spooky stuff, around Halloween everyone is but for me, Summer is still prime time for Big Wolf on Campus and Buffy.
There's never a season (or holiday) without Scooby Doo and I think Scooby Doo on Zombie Island is one of the greatest films of all time.

I guess it's just weird to think that zombies, though not called that, have become so popular when really, they were always there called various things.

Another weird part is that zombies are pretty loose in definition.
When I think of a Mummy, I think of a walking dead guy...zombie.
Vampire...mentioned above.
A ghost, the floating dead, big difference, but as soon as it becomes tangible (usually you beat it by finally finding it's body)...you're right back to zombie.
It's a little weak I guess when you think about it.
Another funny thing is the lack of walking skeletons, those are the dead, woken up to attack the innocent.
I guess it's the flesh eating?

Anyways...thanks for reading...Keep Calm and Zombie On!

Something New! #534 - COMING SOON

2011-09-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

Hey folks!
I don't know how something new is going, but as long as there are new things, I'll keep the title.
What's new tonight?
Well just last night I completed an eight card set of new sketch cards.
It features Markham Tales, Bruce Campbell and The Tick.
But it's more surprising than that.
I'll just have to make you wait though.

I'm not quite sure if I'll make them individual blog thumbnails or just post them all as a big set.
I have even been considering colouring them, but ofcourse I need Photoshop for that and still don't have it...sadly.

They are however an update in my art stylings, I have felt for a little while now that I am improving for almost no good reason.
I have been sketching up a storm every day that I get the chance and ofcourse every SINGLE day in my daily sketchbook, ofcourse sketchbooks don't scan, so it all tends to feel a little wasted...

So ya know, that's my little coming soon update...

I feel like this blog needs to be more of an art blog, I've said that before but...there's so many cooler things I could do with this besides complaining, so many cool ideas I could be drawing out instead of writing this right now...what's the answer?

Space probably.
It's such a hassle to actually draw something that can be scanned, I don't even know where my art board is to put a loose sheet on, I was debating on using the cardboard backing of the last sketchpad I finished.

Speaking of, maybe I should just say "fuck it" and get another 40 page sketchpad, maybe even a couple.
Then I could be inking and drawing and maybe even comic creating right this minute.

I need an art table too, I have comic strips to make.

Hmm...I guess I am turning into a broken record, but atleast I'm drawing new things, I draw a lot more backgrounds, a lot of real people and a lot of zombies.
I recently watched Raw (which I Remix'd if you go back) and surprisingly didn't draw wrestlers, though I feel like I should have, maybe in the future the Raw Remix will be a comic strip?

Thanks for reading.

Something New! #533 - "Something Old..."

2011-09-12T23:17:00.000-07:00

To my left, you don't see some of my art (I wish though), you see the art of *dun dun dun* Rob Liefeld. Mr. 90's himself, the man who brought out the big guns, seven dozen pouches, steroid rage mercenary super heroes and...

...brought back Hawk and Dove?

Yeah, when he was a young man he brought a somewhat known duo known as Hawk and Dove to comic stardom, not ULTIMATE comic stardom but...he had to create Deadpool later!

Now...if you're wondering "why another Rob Liefeld blog Dyl?" it is because of what's going on with his 2 WONDERFUL new titles...

...right here we have the New 52, the worst of redesigns by Jim Lee, a 90s superstar who in my opinion has improved to the point of blandness, as opposed to Rob Liefeld who looks bright, more exciting and crisper than his glory days.

Another saving grace is ofcourse the books wrote (but sadly not drawn) by Jeff Lemire, the nicest of comic artists...ever! Maybe even the nicest of people...ever!

I think that the true 90s superstars who stayed true and got better are Erik Larsen and Rob Liefeld, also some of the most mocked, but that comes with the territory.
They streamlined their styles and brightened up the colours, they step lightly upon the line nostalgia and modernized comics, a tough balance that they both do unfairly well compared to the rest of us.

The future is the past, and it'll stay that way, because those who we loved in the past haven't died and they've been sitting at home, thinking, improving, honing, they started ahead of the pack and some of them stayed there, the young guns are a nice idea, but I'd rather have old hands in a new game.

Is it going to happen? Is all of media ever going to be handled like Impact Wrestling, the perfect mix of yesterday's and tomorrow's superstars making up today?

One can hope.

Something New! #532 - WWE Raw Remix

2011-09-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, I don't know if there's a lot of wrestling fans on here but if you watched tonight, I found it pretty lame...what should have happened?

John Morrison and Alex Riley should NOT be accessories to that lame Vickie Guerrero feud between Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger.
I think the new tag champs...Air Boom...should have fought them to a no contest when the real fight breaks out between Dolph and Swagger and Air Boom ends up trying to keep the peace over winning the match.
Then Morrison and Riley should have fought after a prolonged arguement about who is the Janetty to The Miz.
That match would replace the match with Miz vs. Kofi but Miz could definitely get involved and end up with another no contest when they just give up on eachother and attack Miz.
The Lawler and Sheamus match would have definitely came later in the show, and it would have simply put The King as a manager, because that guy just shouldn't be fighting, he just needs his shots after the bell and when the ref isn't looking and when Perfect Jr. goes over to get in his face, he gets knocked out for his trouble.
Cena and Bret should have teamed against Del Rio and a real partner...maybe they could have brought back Tito Santana or Piper or whoever...then maybe a lead-in with special managers at Night of Champions. This also should have been THE MAIN EVENT.
Kelly Kelly vs. Vickie should have been a real match and after Vickie showing some promise she'd lose, fair, but blame her lack of managerial staff, saying she wants mutuality in both relationships or they might as well as manage eachother! (maybe a potential for a tag team post-feud there)
The Intercontinental Champion vs. The World Champion shouldn't have happened and definitely shouldn't have had that result, I would have had the World's Blandest fight Cody and break his face some more, not too severely, and I also would be putting some face makeup on Cody every week so he's disfigured, Kane did it for long enough! Why can't you!
CM Punk and HHH should have just exploded to Hunter busting out a sledgehammer and then Punk doing the same, breaking character and copying his gimmick to a no-win standoff and a smiling Punk and fuming HHH to close the show.

That's about all for tonight, maybe I'll do this more often.

"the other way" (531)

2011-09-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

i always find it saddening when someone's art starts to go the other way.
when you're an artist, you are always looking online for other artists you admire, or maybe even some you just find similar.
but sometimes you'll follow their art for a while and suddenly it'll start to change for the worse.
i notice a lot of people streamline but the wrong parts.
like i'll really like how someone draws very cartoony, but then instead of becoming more detailed or more exciting with less lines, they'll just start simplifying too much, almost to the point where you're awaiting the day they upload a black dot on a blank page.
like i really like cartoonists who draw big muscles, the cartoonier the better, i love the ripping friends and watch gundarr on youtube and just love that whole look, but instead of people going that way, even if a bit more simplified, they'll just cut out the muscles and everyone looks skinny. even the likes of superman or shazam start looking sickly. and that makes me sickly...

it doesn't always go that way though, i hate how jim lee and todd mcfarlane have gone, but i love the way ryan ottley and rob liefeld have. it actually gets to the point of me only wanting new content and none of the old.

lately i also feel the same way about movies, sure there's classics like terminator 2 and army of darkness, but i'd much rather watch terminator 4 if it had arnold in it and army of darkness 2 if it had bruce in it, the best part about stars is that they age and the plot thickens, the effects become more advanced, even what you're watching it on does...and that's what i want...that's why clint eastwood is such a great actor, when people think of him they might even say that he looks a little silly with the hair he has in dirty harry, it's all about the grey haired, seemingly scarred badass with the shotgun.

sometimes i have conversations with people, and much later i'll be blogging about something similar and feel like a broken record, forgetting if it was a blog or conversation.

5:30

2011-09-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

here is the latest edition of markham tales, in the original black and white.
in this picture you might be able to tell that the second panel was actually supposed to have him a more traditional clear plastic with cardboard backing board case, but that's alright by me, i loved the colour.
you also might be able to tell that my lady love's hair was supposed to be a different colour than the white part, it's actually purple and blonde.
i didn't have a bunch of cool wrinkles and shadows drawn in either, all tanya on that, so great!

i really think i need to get photoshop on this computer, i might be able to do some cool stuff or atleast some flat colours.

anyways...this blog is about art...

lately i've been challenging myself to draw backgrounds and cars because i think they're important.
if i could draw those and i had an art table maybe i'd be making comic pages.
ofcourse maybe i should just go buy another pack of nice 8 and a half by 11.
silly me.

what else?

i really want to go buy munchkin zombies from heroes world and maybe even play with reanne if i visit her sunday, that'd be so rad!

i really need to get a hold on my saving/spending limits.
i sorta dread work too.
it's like i need to work so i can enjoy life a little more, like i want this fancy bruce campbell action figure from amazon and i also want some new bluray discs...i am also missing one book from my complete army of darkness collection!

it's like all i do is want before i can even enjoy, maybe it's that i buy too many things that require lengthier periods to enjoy.
like if i got to stay home all of next week i'd definitely sit around catching up on all my readings, i'd just leave the computer/tv/ps3 off and just read through all the adventures of army of darkness and for better or for worse and dick tracy and ultimate comics avengers...then i'd hopefully just get some art done.
i think the reason that i get more done at art jam night and on the bus is that there's nothing to do but sit there and draw.

anyways, blogging is another one of those distractions so...i guess i'll...umm...hmm...

...i'll get back to you on that one.

Review 529: Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness

2011-09-06T00:14:00.000-07:00

I drew this for my lovely friend Tanya to colour,
but while writing this blog I thought hey,
why not add the black and white as a thumbnail?
It's got zombies!

I don't do a lot of reviews so I thought...no time like the present to start!
I have to tell you all about one of the best hardcover comic collections I have EVER read.

First things first...commercial garbage? I love it.
Corny jokes? Love'em.
Ridiculous crossovers? My favourite.
Bruce motherf*cking Campbell? My hero.
Marvel Zombies? Potentially the best hardcover collection Marvel has ever published...besides this one.
That book had a great team on it, the right colours that were dark in the right spots, light in the right spots, one of the best comic writers ever, perfect ending and beginning, everything connected well, one of the only books I don't mind a separate artist for the covers, interior art was perfect for it, inks were nice and scratchy but not too scratchy, that book fucking RULED.

This book? The superior sequel.
Terminator 2.
It takes Ash, from Evil Dead/Army of Darkness fame, and throws him into the familiar world of Marvel Zombies, but this time...everything's going to go differently...or will it?
The intro...one of the best I've ever read, I actually laughed out loud, read it again, then read it to my girlfriend.
It takes you down his path, you get to see him be really funny, mess things up for himself and others and it really makes you wonder...does this guy even have a chance? Here's a hint...no. But then it hits you again...I can't tell you what it means...yes I can but only if you ask me!
The twists it takes you on, the jokes, the character interaction, the mix of the two uber popular brands...just win, win, win.
I really didn't expect it.

To be honest...I loved the cover, I loved the packaging of the hardcover, I enjoyed the first Marvel Zombies book and I just can never get enough Bruce Campbell...but...what I got was something that was worthy of an Evil Dead 4, like this could have happened as maybe an Evil Dead 2 and a half or something...it was just so well done ESPECIALLY if you're a fan of both things already.

Complaints about the book? There's sequels to both individually but not this story specifically, I want more Ash vs. Zombie Spidey and I want it 2 years ago!

However...if you're a fan of this...they're crossing over Ash and Danger Girl right now anyways, so don't think the Bruce falling into other dimensions fun will EVER end...a hero who can fall into any story any time ever and it actually make sense easily...how can you go wrong?

Thanks for reading, more thankful when you pick up this story and tell me how much you loved it too!

review 528: "the tick and arthur"

2011-09-05T23:52:00.000-07:00

i really wish i had a drawing of tick and arthur for you, i've certainly done enough, but i don't...sorry.
however i do have a review!

i am a HUGE sean wang fan, he's an unfairly talented chap who is hogging it all for his webcomic, or atleast most of it, instead of delivering me non-stop thrills in new tick comics.
he does do a few still, he did a comic con special and some covers and a short story after leaving the bi-monthly but...certainly not as much as i'd like!
i wish he'd do a daily tick comic strip and a bi-monthly comic book and upload every convention sketch!

but anyways...yeah...if i had to review the book...here are the key good points...

his art style is perfect, it's definitely more detailed and fluid than the show but still keeps the characters true.
his storytelling is the perfect mix of growth and stopping for gags, the rocky road you want in a tick comic
he introduces a lot of new characters quickly, but without confusion, and keeps the stories easy to read, remember and follow.
he references a lot of past details but also makes the important bits very accessible to new readers so they aren't feeling left out of past fun.

bad points...few and far between...

it ends, seriously, one of those things that leaves you wanting more but...there isn't...there wasn't...and there probably never will be...that part was a huge letdown and didn't have that nice tieup i expected.
the covers aren't reprinted in colour, i love grayscale art, i love his style and what he does with the grayscale but...reprint the things that were in colour...in colour. pretty small request but something that always bothered me in reprint collections of the black and white variety.
lack of extras...it just bothers me when you could throw some pinups or unpublished pages or really just anything in the back but don't. i love that stuff.

with this one, the bad is that you are just left wanting more in multiple ways and the good totally outweighs it.

if you haven't read these stories, read them, order them, find them online, look at the previews on his website, check these six stories out, they're truly amazing and really...wish they would have had a tick monthly going since the original, like...the thought of years and years of tick collected so quickly with nothing new around the corner most of the time really saddens me.

thanks for reading, tell me if you want more of these short, sweet reviews!

five-two-seven: "comic fans are a weak sauce"

2011-09-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

hey blog fans, want to send me any money?
it has been a non-stop train of spend, spend, spend lately (this ties in) and now i already await my next paycheck, when my last one was only a couple days ago.
it's my mom's birthday, my anniversary, the fan expo passed and ofcourse...whatever else comes up...eating, drinking, having a phone/credit card.
it sucks when things are so close together, it'll be 2 weeks from now and then 4 and then 6 and things will start to ease, getting back ahead on things and then it'll be downtime, nothing to spend on but life and visiting my ladylove.
it's sorta sucky when there's too much to spend on at a time but in between i get far too bored, i find myself going to chapters and dinner and just whatever i can find to fill the time...

...so as i was saying...the fan expo...
i went to this panel called women in comics and it was really cool, 4 ladies at different stages of their careers, some who actually inspired other to be comics artists, and reanne wanted to go even more than i did, which is always the coolest!
i went there expecting some really great art, and though it was really great, people's suggestions were truly weak.
catwoman, hellcat, she-hulk, batgirl, shadowcat, scarlet witch, it was just a vomtastic parade, the crowd felt so witty for choosing a bunch of girls to draw girls but...who cares to see another wonder woman?
there was a lady who drew dinosaurs, one who drew kitties, one who does this cool gothic look and another who draws the cutest of zombies...dinosaurs, cats, goths and zombies and they chose...super women.

there was no...draw super sarah palin, draw edward scissorhands, draw zombie spiderwoman even...

...this made me think about the people i know, or have just met/seen briefly who read comics...
...they suck for a large part.

i don't care to see the hulk fight wolverine for the 1000th time, i did do a really cool jam drawing of hulk/wolverine but...if it was mike mignola or eric powell drawing it, anyone with a truly unique and interesting style...then sure...even if hulk fought wolverine in archie...the coolest!
they just druel at the potential of nerdy arguments being settled within continuity and keeping up on knowing everything there is to know about marvel/dc so they can quiz eachother/review.
it's really the saddest of conversations, which i must have heard about 10,000 times the weekend before this one.

i guess i am waiting for comics to either grow up, or grow down, they're stuck at the awkward stage where it's a bunch of nerds talking about the glory days and picking apart all that is new.
it's even sort of sad when they do pick up the good stuff...

...they feel the need to identify themselves by something they liked first, not actually first, but first in their circle or like most out of their circle.
it's really weird too, they don't want people to like what they like...

i had this conversation with my girlfriend (whose been mentioned about 78 times this blog) about how i like a lot of things that other people don't really like, or like as much as me, and she finds it cool, but it sure doesn't feel that way.
i have to spend like 10,000 dollars at the comic convention because i won't see those books again, hell, a lot of them were out of print!
i wish everyone loved army of darkness vs. xena, they damn well should, both of those things have millions of fans! i even saw a xena comic (dynamite entertainment rules) on columbiana, the new movie with the assassin girl!

i wish you could go and see seth, chester brown, robert crumb, eric powell, sam kieth and whoever else on the shelf over at shopper's drug mart, ofcourse we do have pretty awesome comics, the simpsons and archie and phineas and ferb are some of the best comics today, they really know the formula for selling to kids, as do i, because i sell them to kids all the time!

anyways, thanks for reading, talk to you all soon!

five-two-six: "five bucks"

2011-09-04T03:38:00.000-07:00

comic quality just isn't where it should be in 2011, atleast when it comes to marvel and dc comics.
i know that image and idw have ridiculous page quality for single issues, sure they might cost a bit more but...worth every cent.
what do we need next? what's going to be worth keeping print comics in circulation?
oh and darkhorse too...
...but anyways...
print quality, bigger, shinier.
i wouldn't mind paying 5 bucks per book if it was worthwhile, if it wasn't going to be ten times better in hardcover trade paperback.
imagine a world where you can go to the local convenience store and pick up a big beautiful comic that's a self contained adventure of spider-man or superman, exactly what you'd expect, drawn by your favourite artist...

...or to go a step further...

...imagine a spider-man digest filled with various adventures of the red and blue teenager while in the background there's a continuing story, single issue by single issue...

...if only the world was archie.

thanks for reading.

five-two-five: "law breaker"

2011-09-03T23:23:00.000-07:00

sometimes it's weird to think about the law.
people make movies about smoking weed, doing coke, killing people.
they have blogs about the drugs they do and the effects and how much they enjoyed them in the past.
books are published by the famous, rehabilitation without previous sentencing.
sometimes i think about breaking the law, something small, buying someone cigarettes or jay walking, i guess because i don't really break the law, it's a scary thought to me.
the police stop me in the middle of the street and i smile and calmly give them my identification, last time they even gave me a ride to my friend's house.
this comfort comes from never treading past that fine line, even the grey bits.

i don't know, i guess others just don't think as much of it.
i guess you just get used to it.
i know people who thinking nothing of stealing, beating someone up, drinking (and whatever else) in public.
it's just...so common for them, it's not one of those laws you worry about.
breaking into something or really hurting someone is the worry.

anyways, hopefully i have some blog thumbnails for you soon!

five-two-four: "my real job"

2011-09-03T00:34:00.000-07:00

sometimes, it's strange, it'll be 3:19am and i'll be up blogging...and i'll say, fuck, i should stop blogging, but then i'll go...nah it helps me sleep (lately it's all inner commentary eh?) then keep going...

but a strange thing i do quite often...not now as i feel it'll soon be time for me to shut off the lights, take a couple blue pills and turn on something stupid...but i will be drawing and it'll be going well and i'll just want to keep going and say, "fuck, work in like 10 hours" and then go..."yeah but drawing is my real job."

drawing as in the career i'm pursuing that pays me no money, no money at all...vs. the job that pays for my art supplies, playstation accessories and many keen graphic novels (mostly featuring bruce campbell)

i guess it's just what's most important to me needs to take a bigger part in my life and that has to be during the few hours i have left per day...if i work 8, sleep 8-10, need to eat, go to the washroom, text my lady friend and change/clean myself...that happens to be at 3:33am a lot.

on the upside...the scanner lives! IT LIVES! (sorry, dramatics)

count on lots of cool shit, i already scanned the fan expo markham tales special! belated but bomb!

talk to you soon...you have cool hair and i have a freckle in a strange secret place.

five-twenty-three: "reflections..."

2011-09-03T00:09:00.000-07:00

i decided to do yet another reflective blog, i really need to fix this thing up so it looks like i'm a professional artist but...things just aren't ready yet, i keep slacking on getting my scanner up and going but when i do i PROMISE i will do a bunch of blog thumbnails...planning has already begun!
i guess just looking back now i was so confused about where i wanted to go but now i feel that i can draw how i draw and it'll all have a unifying look...so now i get to play.
like if i want to draw marv from sin city, in the past i'd reference to death, but now i just sit down and go at it and it looks great, it looks like i had a lot of fun doing it...and i did...it just comes out looking clean and cartoony, maybe even with some added shadows and scratches i wouldn't usually add.

i also look back with bits of regret and longing.
i really used to like the rob liefeld stuff, i read rob liefeld stuff and all i think is..."dyl's liefeld book...for kids!"
even with blood and guts that's what it'd look like, i could cover the cover in titties and people would go aww...cute titties.

it's weird for me to draw realistic stuff now too, it comes pretty naturally but it makes me wonder...is this better or worse? i can draw people and it's like...oh...that's bob from around the corner...but it's also a bit of andy capp meets a bit of g.i joe...just an amalgam of things i like in every picture

i guess i've ranted long enough, setting up my scanner now (see what blogging does?) while i plan my blog thumbnails i promised...i think you are all very good looking.

now entering zombie mode...

2011-08-26T00:25:00.000-07:00

hey everyone, sorry for yet another lack of a picture, i think i am going to bring back the blog numbers with the little thumbnail drawings above them.
those seem to work the best, i'll do a big sheet for you all!
anyways...to get to the point here...
...i have been noticing lately that...with reading...not drawing...i need to stay in the same realm between reads.
like i'll finish a zombie book (obvious example) and be like, wow, that was great, now i need ANOTHER zombie book, or something similar, to be able to jump between things.
as basic as...zombies...zombies vs. elvis...just elvis.
like...it'll be stuff like crossovers even in between.
i'll do things like...(which i did do)...watching army of darkness, continuing on with army of darkness vs. marvel zombies then rereading marvel zombies...then maybe even reading some super hero garbage.

i used to have that problem with art but now i feel with sticking to my own cartoony, blocky style that i'm actually the most versatile, i don't have to think "how would this fit into my style?", i just draw it and well...give or take a couple detail lines...it fits with everything else just fine.

i've really (feel like a bit of a ramble tonight) been trying to challenge myself too, like i don't just sit around all day being like...johnny bravo, space ghost, powerpuff girls...cartoon cartoon cartoon...i sit around and say...hmm...i wonder how this pose translates the best, i wonder how this wrestler's face would look, the old man sitting at mcdonalds, i'll draw what's in front of me today...all kinds of fun little challenges.
and yeah, sure...i still suck at drawing side angles of busses...i still have everyone in a car in silhouette and i still do just useless zoom ins between the panels...nonetheless i still find it helpful/interesting in the moments where i say, hey, i drew a good pencil case, lamp or table...now i have some background options when i'm doodling away.

as an update to my last entry, i talked about how i'm tired of stripping, but then ended up making another comic strip tonight, it ended up being a cool revisit of my progress and a very new challenge...
(maybe i should post it next blog so this makes a bit more sense but until then...)

my lettering has improved.
i drew some geometric stuff i usually stink at.
i drew a more realistic body shape which is very uncommon for me in comics.
i drew a real person's face, it was very small, but that just added to the challenge.
i made good use of silhouette and comfortable fit in all the text and my signature.
i also decided to add a very stylish black border, which...i have found...is always especially impressive on comic strips more than books...on comic books it can often seem like something you've seen a thousand times before but in comic strips it is very uncommon, really just because it doesn't make a lot of sense on a newspaper page...
...and that's about it, it excited me a little bit for my next strip or full page.
...i might even colour it.

well FINALLY i think i am dozing off so thanks for reading, i'll talk to you all again really soon!
(and be filled with exciting stories from the fan expo!)

"i'm tired of stripping"

2011-08-23T02:53:00.000-07:00

lately i haven't been making any sequential work...well...finished sequential work...it's because i really want to make a comic book and have just been getting caught in the early stages.
it's just so much faster and more rewarding to make comic strips, but i really want to reach that big payoff after making something that's atleast a couple pages long.
it's tough though, it's so much time and effort and it's really easy to get discouraged when you're trying almost too hard, i find that i just have my face to close to the page, noticing the smallest movement in my hand or tip of a line while inking that isn't a perfect point.
i drive myself nuts.
i just need to let it flow out like with comic strips and at the end say hey, atleast there was some good panels in there...
anyways, it's six in the morning and i'll talk to you all later, thanks for reading, i thought the title was pretty witty.

5:19 by Matt Wertz

2011-08-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

I guess I've been waiting forever to reach Post 519, it's just one of my favourite songs.
Sometimes I wonder who I want to be?
Do I want to be Matt Wertz? Joshua Radin? Dallas Green?
I know what I want to do in some loose sense of what I can see myself doing with the limited talents I have now.
I know what I don't want to do.
I don't want to be lonely come 5:19am today.
I want to be warm in my bed, cuddled by the cartoons of Lynn Johnston or a tired-eyed Reanne.
I want a little something to do before I start my shift at 6 tonight.

I guess I want to listen to Boyce Avenue cover With Or Without You and wonder who I'll sing to next, I sing to one person at a time, I can count the people who've heard my 4 lame songs on one hand.
I guess it's the same with my comic strips.
Maybe I want to be Kevin Smith in Dylan's shoes, making something just to show my friends.
But I never leave the Quickstop.
I just hope to buy it.
I guess...

I don't know.
What else is knew?
Maybe the name of this blog should really be "Dyl has no f*cking clue!"
Because I don't, folks.

I guess things get better and you try harder and you succeed a little and you think, this is it?
Or maybe every time you hit a bump in the road you say, "Oh God, please not now!"

Sometimes I feel like that with Reanne (brutal honesty much?).
I love her and I wish that I could just see smooth sailing for eternity ahead.
Maybe it won't be smooth but it might be eternity ahead.
I don't even know what we'll fight about eventually, I think things level themselves out.
The only thing I wanna fight about is spending too much on our anniversary gift when I have bills to pay.
Oh, and I will...
I see other women and they're just...other women...there's basically my girl, and other girls.
The world is new...

I watched Fight Night tonight with my big black mandate and there's this sexy female lead and I didn't feel, lucky guy wish I was him, I felt...lucky guy, GOOD for him.
I am still attracted to others but I just sorta cut them off with "yeah but does she sit wearing my jogging pants watching the Cena/Punk contract signing playing Tattoo Tycoon on my phone?"

I'm still Lonely Tonight (Matt Wertz) and I still listen/feel With or Without You (previously mentioned, still playing) in the background but...
...I know who I'm thinking of calling (texting actually) at 5:19.

Thanks for reading.

"no respect"

2011-08-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

hey everyone,
i wanted to talk about...well...everyone.
probably not the everyone reading this blog, but who knows?
i don't really know who reads my blog.
but lately...i just have lost respect for everyone.
i guess the numbers shrink as the years pass and some people come and go but...
...you think those remaining 9 contacts are going to be worthy of your time.
...then they're not.
you just expect something from people, respect for themselves and you and who they choose to be around and what they are going to do and also...how it will affect you indirectly or directly.
i can't turn a blind eye.
you stay in close contact with people, daily updates, their thoughts and dreams and...
...sometimes they sicken you?
you're going to form opinions i guess.
people are going to form opinions of me too.
i complain, i am complaining right now.
i take shit from people, probably the wrong people, i probably will today, i might even be right now.

i guess i just want to cut more limbs off and see if i can still walk.
maybe somewhere between cutting off dead weight that's dragging me down but keeping enough that i'm not a floating torso.
i don't know how or who or what or...well...anything most of the time...so i just blog and if you are going through the same thing, or have, you probably get it...and probably won't comment.
and if you don't, well, i guess it just sounds like gibberish, i guess this should be called "dyl's blog for like-minded people" but...i guess being naked and blurry isn't the worst thing.

hmm...i guess i'll just sit around and hope that people accept me for who i am and stick around if i want them to...and if i don't that they just either fix that crooked frame on the wall or move the picture somewhere else...because that's not the image of them i want.

i hope i make the right people smile and get some regularity and a decent comfort level in my life.
did this help? not really.
but thanks for reading anyways...

Post 517: My Only Friend, Danny Phantom

2011-08-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in life, you are lost.
You've nowhere to go, you've no idea where you want to be.
The work days go by slower than slow, they seem to bleed together, the weekends aren't like weekends, they are a ticking clock until you have to go back, until you have to get ready, I feel every second until I sign in and every second until I sign out.
I don't know what to do with my time, I try to be calm, cool, collected, but the world won't let you, it won't leave you alone.
Work wouldn't be so bad if it was just work, it's never just work, if the girlfriend is good then the friends are bad, if they're good too then there's a new friend...causing you issue.
Maybe it's family.
Maybe it's that you are finally in that space where it's nothing but you and the blank page, and you feel like you really can't get the job done.
You don't know what to draw on or what to draw with.
You're f-u-c-k...fucked.

Lately the friend I need has been...a children's show.
I guess it sounds stupid at first glance, maybe at second and third too but I've just really enjoyed staying up all night getting lost in the adventures of Danny Phantom.
I love the art style, I drew that little picture above incase you weren't sure.
Just a picture from my phone.
I need to get the scanner up and running still.

But as I was saying...
...sometimes you just need to find the simplest thing to keep you up in between life's drags.
I'm going to lay back and watch cartoons, get lost in silly adventures, maybe I'll sleep in until 3:30 tomorrow then rush to work, or maybe I'll go to sleep soon, wake up bright and early and watch Danny Phantom then...
...either way I know it'll make me feel better.
I also know I'll be sitting down doodling away before long while I watch because those character designs give me that drawing itch.

I don't know if this is a happy or sad blog, but thanks for reading it.

Post 516: Jake Parker

2011-08-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, no picture on this one, I've been using a sketchbook lately.
I wasn't a big fan in the past, got too obsessive and stylized.
My new sketchbook is a lot of fun, a lot of random stuff and topics.
Lately I've been having a lot of fun drawing, can't put my pencil down. (or my brush!)

You might notice I don't have a lot of happy blogs unless they're obsessive about one specific topic...there's a reason for that...usually when I am feeling upbeat and cheery (double dipped the happiness chip) I don't have time to blog, I'm like...breathing the air away from technology...besides my coolass phone.

Anyways...today's blog is about Jake Parker, I first saw Missile Mouse on Skottie Young's blog...and then...didn't like how he drew him so forgot about him.
It turns out the way he is actually drawn is way cool, like the cartoon comic adaptation you always wanted.
I plan on getting the comics as soon as I don't forget them on a shelf at Chapters while trying to find the Army of Two graphic novel...

But...the main point of this blog is...per usual...I was being all obsessive before a purchase and found this quote in an interview with the creator of Missile Mouse...Jake Parker...concerning his career choice...

When the time came for me to decide what I was going to do with my life, there really was no choice. It was either draw some more and figure out how to get paid for it, or take a creatively vapid job and suffocate.

Strong, perfect words.
Ones I already lived by before hearing them.

Well I'm going to watch Resident Evil, I guess I'll talk to you all soon, thanks for so many views.

"you're garbage"

2011-08-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

hello comic fans/artists/writers!
i'd like to share with you all how to become garbage.
as a fan, you simply need to stick to what you're doing most of the time, because things are constantly going downhill so usually if you stick with it, it'll suck.
i constantly try to change it up and find what i want next, that's deeper, looks better, reads better, better formatted.
it's all well and fine to start with spider-man trade paperbacks but after 5 years of collecting if you haven't invested in an omnibus by a good writer/artist combo...you suck.
as for artists, the answer is to simply...become writers!
i am so tired of artists wasting time that could be spent on beautiful new pages spending all their time writing.
sure, there's some who deserve to get away with it, but for the most part...fuck yourself and flop.
for writers...please continue to jump onto new projects so i can lose all respect/interest in you.
if you're not going to be consistent, you're just going to run from book to book fucking everything up...you suck.
this also applies to artists as well...i have no interest after a certain point in collecting a single issue here and there just because you felt the need to HONOUR IT WITH YOUR GRAND PRESENCE outside of the cover art...which is another...huge fuck you...people who do just covers...suck.
i guess that's it.
thanks for reading.

if at any point during this blog you were like hey, fuck you too man!
...that's cool, i've done my job.

the future of entertainment: crossing media barriers

2011-08-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

drew this for this blog entry and took a picture with my phone.

i recently watched captain america and the avengers trailer at the end of it.
i watched cowboys and aliens too.
i've been playing the best video games and watching the movies associated with them, reading their comics.
the future is here and no one has jumped all the way in.
movies will be adaptations of comics.
but comics should be adaptations of movies.
captain america should be drawn to match his feature film counterpart, christopher evans.
iron man is robert downey jr.
batman is christian bale.
if those were the adventures happening, there'd be comics in every shopper's drug mart, every convenience store and every grocery store...taunting you while you wait in line.

you watch captain america and thor and you go to read the comics...steve rogers is some secret agent, bucky is alive and running around as captain america...and thor is being thrown back and forth between whatever big storyline is happening and an epic battle with galactus.

but that's not all...

video games are the new best movies.
they're 12 hours or more sometimes.
they've got a longer time spent watching cut scenes than most movie trilogies per entry in the series.
the media associated with them is usually very well thought out and kept in perfect continuity.

so...what's the answer?

i think that movies are going to be continued to be dominated by comic adaptations, and not just as a short-lived fad...it's been a big deal since the first superman, the first batman, the first spider-man and ofcourse, the first iron man.
i think that is going to bleed into television, a weekly hourly dose of iron man would blow most shows out the water....but it goes beyond that...
video games are going to go just as mainstream, world of warcraft, metal gear solid, dead space...i don't know which it will be...but i think it'll be even bigger than resident evil and lots of things will grow off of that.
i think comics as a result, both video games comics and movie comic heroes comics will go the same route, especially if they're one-shot stories with an over-arcing larger story.

i just think that someone needs to hit the right formula and everyone will be following suit up to try and beat them out.

i also think that this stupid fad of g.i joe/star wars sized figures (beyond g.i joe and star wars ofcourse) will die fast and the world of action figures will be overtaken by the likes of mcfarlane and neca. because people will truly want to hold their heroes in the hands, with the best likeness and weight possible.

thanks for reading. hope you like the drawing, sorry i don't do it more/scan them.

the death of dick tracy

2011-08-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

dick tracy is dying.
he's a very old man in a very new world, but now...he is dying.
i was worried about the new team on dick tracy.
then i wasn't, i loved some of the early art and little ideas for the story more than the actual writing of it.
but lately...i don't.
they're painfully boring.
everything is boring.
even the sites i enjoyed reading them on aren't as good, they've combined but not kept the best parts of each site.
it sucks.
so now...the dick is dead to me.
it's strange too...when you're such a popular historical character...you don't have to do all that much to continue on...
he could have simply fallen in with the gag a day crowd for a couple years and continued on just fine...maybe with a loose loose story in the background.
anything but what they've made now.
well...it's okay...i've my own comic strips to make...

you all hate me.

2011-07-26T23:46:00.000-07:00

i always have to say hello first.
so fuck you.
i always have to keep the conversation going and even when i do, you kill it, you kill it then you stamp on it...then urinate on my self esteem by typing, letting me see you're doing so...then backspacing and going offline.
so fuck you twice.
why the fuck should i even bother with your stupid ass!?
oh yeah, because i'm that bored.
well then...
...........
....shit.
you've won this round.

...but i'll be back...

...motherfuckers.

sleeping gas

2011-07-25T03:09:00.000-07:00

i am tired.
i am so tired.
why am i so tired so suddenly?
why am i tired at the most inopportune times?
because i am my own worst enemy.
i don't find myself constantly stuck with those who will hurt me, leave me, ignore...
...i choose them...because it is me against me and the rest of the world are just pawns to the genius of my greater pessimist and the brilliance of fate.

i'm drowning peacefully right now.
i'm going deeper and deeper but i'm not fighting it.
this is the greatest feeling i have ever felt.
i could close my eyes ad wake up to a beautiful scantly clad woman breathing life back into me.
i wake up in a hospital and those 6 years of progress were the 6 worst years of my life and i don't get to be awake to see it.
or the other option...
...i don't get to be awake to see my family grow and my friends drift into adulthood.
i don't get to hear wedding bells chiming for me.

oh the great sleep, is it coming right now...why does it feel so far then when it finally comes i push it away?
do i do this with everything in my life?

well...from the last entry to this one, sorry i'm such an asshole.

...and such a tired old gasbag too, i guess.

hot n' cold punishment

2011-07-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

everything is my fault.
i'm always being punished.
i get to react to nothing.
i am the bad guy.
fuck me.
i'm in a bad mood, it's not your fault, but you talked to me, now it's your fault...give it a second...now it's your fault and you're just making it worse.
it's my fault.
i am making it worse.
i'm an asshole.
i don't do anything.
i'm not nice.
you should look elsewhere.
i look inward, so you should look elsewhere.
i'm an asshole.
i'm stupid.
i don't deserve you.
you deserve me and 4 other people.
you can lie.
i can't.

it's hot, it's steamy, it's angry, it's passionate, and then so suddenly...
...it's cold, and lonely, it's a steely gaze and the lack of your touch...maybe ever again.

i don't get to think about this.
i don't get to blog about this.
i'm breaking the rules right now.
but i do things like that...
...because i'm an asshole.

i left.
i didn't come.
i yelled.
i hurt.
i ignored...
...wait...
...no i didn't.
...if everyone else you've ever known did...i didn't...but that can only lead to one conclusion...
...that i...

...am the asshole.

counting is over-rated.

2011-07-16T22:02:00.000-07:00

hmm...how do i put this?
ever wonder what it'd be like if my blog ended?
it's really small right?
like hundreds of posts updated pretty regularly and if they're not for a while there's usually a bunch on the way but...what if it was gone?
it's such a small thing but, it's there, no more blogging.
what about working?
i could get a new job but every time i went by there, or saw someone who worked there, or anything like that...
...you know? maybe you don't.

does anyone know what i'm talking about out there?
loss.
i'm talking about loss.

things don't stop existing when you lose them.
people don't.
people won't.
do you really want to lose them if they're still going to exist after?
do you really want them to not exist anymore?
what about just being selfish one time when everything and everyone shits on you all the time?

what if you're the thing that is lost?
because i am lost.
i have completely lost any hope that i had for myself.
for this life.
and i don't know if, how, i can't imagine fixing it.

the cause is lost.

Post 508

2011-07-09T00:13:00.000-07:00

This is my drawing of this dude named Gary...I was thinking about Jeff but I think Jeff would be nicer than this guy, this guy might be kind of a douchebag.
And the other guy is Snake.
Like from Metal Gear Solid.
I really like video games lately.
I'm getting a PSP tomorrow, it's been a big focus lately, it sounds really cool, and I miss having music and videos, especially for those long lonely bus rides I surely have ahead.

I really dig this drawing, it is just sort of natural, and flows, I don't know if it's any good, I don't know what is any good any more, or worthy of a comic, when I really think of it...but like...

Thanks for reading.

507 reasons everyone (including me) is stupid.

2011-07-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

This is like my fear of Markham Tales above, not that I don't like this strip, it looks sort of cool in some parts, I think the DIFFUSE part is pretty funny and the cameo/Amish guy are too which is a grand achievement in the world of comic strips, it's hard to be funny once and this is funny atleast twice.
The fear is that I will look back at some strips and be like..."who are you?" to some of the characters, like this one, Rayne suggested it and since we barely talk, who is she? Someone I've met once and said draw me as a super hero.
I guess it's a cool story.
Then her friends Cat and Marlee still read them sometimes I gues.
Not too bad but...will this happen for the whole cast or will people who shouldn't be regulars become regular?
I guess that's not an immediate concern and the core cast are stickin' around...a great show.
From future Markham Tales, I'm unsure where I want to go with it...I have said previously I want more mini story arcs...sounds cool.

Aside from that, I'm tired of life, it is not going according to plan and right now...I don't even have a plan.
I want to draw something but it's like I fear the pencil, I don't want to start because I don't know what I want to draw, even if I have an idea, I don't go through with it.
I just stare a bit at the blank page then say...nah...fuck it.

People in my life, some, are just everything, mostly one, who you can probably guess.
Everyone else though, give me nothing but more shit on my plate when I don't even have a plate, I don't know what I'll do this Summer, it feels like I need to make a change but I am not taking the proper steps.

What else?

Nothing actually, I am in a drawing mood today but don't even want to start because I know before long I'll have to go to work, the worst.

Thanks for reading.

Post 505, Gotta Fight to Stay Alive!

2011-07-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

LaytonFest continues today with a movie image by the Iron Man himself.
He does a cool version of the movie armour, when I imagine this in colour in a comic, I wonder why they bother with all these crappy new artists when there's enough superstars to do all the books.
Bob Layton actually said that commissions pay the same as regular comic work.
A very interesting point.
My issue is that I just can't seem to draw very big, very well.
I guess I don't practice enough, I'm pretty much scared of my comic art boards, as weak as that sounds.
I really need to get it together and attempt some cover recreations or commission looking stuff but...whatever...if my comfort level is comic strips, I'll stick with it until everything gets tot he comfort level of Markham Tales, which I can draw any size...even huge.
On the subject of Markham Tales, I don't know what's next for it, as the strips pile up and the tiny fan group becomes less tiny everyday, I always feel like I should be making more, especially since if I just gave a day to it I could make like 8 or more in one day, not because I'm some super artist or something, but because I have a big pile of unused scripts, the characters come really naturally because I doodle them so often and there's so many characters left to explore/create all the time.
I want to do another shirt type story that I actually update every day but it hasn't happened yet.
I think it might this month, I am sort of confused about art and Markham Tales let's me just have fun with it, it has those thick, bold lines I love and let's me slowly get better with a more animated style of cartoon drawing.
I also get to think of funny/cool references for it, even though I always end up going from my head anyways.
Like The Tick or Darkwing Duck or even Andy Capp.
Like there's a lot of really cool lesser known and underappreciated artists out there that I'd love to pay homage to, even if nobody gets the joke.

One thing about Markham Tales that's always in the back of my mind is that it's so reference free and so easy and quick to draw for me, that I am often thinking about my comic ideas in a similar style because I think of how many comics I would be making all the time.
It's like the dudes who do Mini-Marvels or Super Hero Squad. More great reference potential there too by the way.
They end up sticking with that style when they go off on their own and just telling great stories, which is the heart of comics, the heart of media in general pretty much even a large part of music.

So...it comes down to the tough questions, I guess it is a fight to stay alive within my own mind, the realization that I might not be Ivan Reis (super cool artist of Green Lantern), I will probably just be a shitty Jim Davis (creator of Garfield).

Thanks for reading.

Post 504, Papa Please Don't Hit Me No More!

2011-06-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

So this is Rocky by Bob Layton but it's way cool right?
I could draw that, right?
I need to start drawing more, but I'm pretty down about my girlfriend leaving the country, I miss her a lot, I always try to be productive in her absence but...it doesn't always work out so well.
I had this idea to do a super hero comic for a week straight in Markham Tales to see how it went, but...I just...didn't want to after a while...I started planning it and it stunk.
Maybe I should do something a little bit more super hero like in a Bob Layton type style...oh yeah! That's what this blog was about!

I was thinking about calling this one 504 References Not Enough but I liked the Biggie rhymes more.

I have this issue with reference, even a small one will do, even a small unassociated one will do, but it changes everything for the better.
Like if I needed to draw any super hero, ever, I could use this Rocky picture, I wouldn't copy it or anything, I'd just be like oh that's a good muscle form or use of shadow, now I know how I want this picture to work.

It sort of makes sketching on my own hard because I haven't been drawing enough lately.
Usually I'd just be able to know a couple good ones off by heart that I can bend any way I want and go without anything to look at besides my mind's eye, I see a lot of Layton style drawings in my head, so many that I actually keep a huge list of Daily Sketches on deviantART that I plan on doing later in that style but have yet to get around to...

Anyways...that's it I guess? Lately I've been using just pencil too much instead of going for inks but hey, I own a lightbox, there's always time later when I finally have some space.

Thanks for reading.

I'll try to update with some stuff on my days in the next while for my someone special...

Post 504 - I look cool but still fail!

2011-06-22T03:25:00.000-07:00

I have two main topics for today's blog, the first is this thumbnail, the second is me, well both are sorta me...let me explain...

This thumbnail you see to your left is of two super heroes by Legacy Hero Comics, this Australian guy I found on deviantART, or maybe he found me?

He makes these cool little comics with an almost Super Friends flare to them and I really wanted to work with him, but it didn't work out that way...

...he messaged me that he wanted to work on a comic featuring Elasto (top left) and Crooked Man (very lightly at the bottom right) and so I messaged him back, drew these up, and that was it, not another mention of it...maybe it's because he's been working on other stuff, but who knows?

I just hate when that happens, I know so many people and meet so many that just things never span out and it urks me.

In other news...

I was looking at myself in the mirror today, I have a light bear and short almost spikey hair on top, tan, tall, wife beater, big jeans with a cool belt, that's what I wanted to look like when I grew up to feel super badass, when I was like ten but it was a funny feeling, I was finally that guy I used to draw as a kid.

Thanks for reading.

After the blog update...

I actually had a third, it relates to both in a sense, years ago, even now, I'd look at today's thumbnail zoomed in and say, "wow, why doesn't this guy turn out a page per day?" and now I look at myself in the mirror and say the same, I could, in that vintage comic style, but I don't, who knows why, but I need to start...

...thanks for reading...again.

503 reasons my life sucks!

2011-06-18T23:29:00.000-07:00

The one reason it doesn't...

Honestly, my life sucks, like it's just a sad state of affairs all the time.
I live for one day per week.
A couple other odds hours throughout it.
It's like...below 30% enjoyment right now.
And that other 70% isn't just meh, it's the end of days.
The world is fucking me.

I get shit on for doing above and beyond the call of duty every day.

I work and work and still have no money.

I live and breathe art but still manage to have so little to show for it.

My stomach hates me.

All I do when I'm home is sleep.

This isn't the world of adulthood.

This isn't the world of a hard day's work for a well earned pay.

This isn't the joyful ride after high school on the slow ride to independence.

This is not what I signed up for.
Let me off the ride.

What'd I do before?

I am going to take my chances soon. I can feel it.
I'm going to look for something new.
I'm going on the hunt for better days.
They're coming.

In the mean time, I have a new red controller, a couple new games, some snacks, a little change left and an inking style I can't escape to go with a script that's beyond my talents.

Thanks for reading.

Dyl vs. Comics Round 502

2011-06-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

I wish I really felt that way.

Where are we going?
Where is "it" going?
Can I really make a living off of it?
What the fuck are these cartoons I make?
I want to make an epic.
Are these epic?
Do I want to be epic to teenagers and twenty-somethings or dorky 30 year olds?
Nostalgic 40 and 50 year olds?
Everybody?
I don't know.

They just get worse every year.
Everything does.
But as things get worse, there's pockets.
They're more a tease than anything though.

House of M, by Olivier Coipel and Brian Michael Bendis.
Bendis...Bendis is a continuity hound and tells stories second. From higher direction or not, Kirkman manages to keep things in order and Bendis doesn't. Fuck Bendis.
Olivier Coipel is a fucking genius.
He could make any boring shit panel an epic scene.
He makes no background turn into the best parts of the book with his unneeded cross-hatching and nice black spots.

That book was one giant tease.
It just fizzled out as Coipel moved on to the next big thing and Bendis did the same, it was a weak sauce at the end even if it was a nice ride.

You need the whole show, punch after punch.
But you also need to finish the story sometimes, not forever, not entirely, but it needs to end and it needs to stick and it needs to bring you back in fast.

But am I doing it?

I want to, the idea is there.
Fuck.

(thanks for reading)

I'm back at 5:01PM...

2011-06-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

I'm walking into work and everything is fine...
Everything is fine...
Everything is fine...

It's now 1:48AM, now nothing is fine.
Nothing is alright.
Nothing will be okay.

It's all going downhill, it's already downhill, it is rock bottom with a diamond bit drill, my face is pressed down in the dirt, my hands are stuck, I am going nowhere but down, lower...lower than the lowest you can go...down.

Fuck.

I'm looking at the same computer screen, this computer screen has betrayed me, my mind has betrayed me, my heart is working alone, it alone pushes me along towards her...my love, my life, my everything...and I'm failing her, my body, everything else is failing me and I am failing her...she doesn't even know...

Fuck.

"Talented"
You're so talented.
You're really good.
Wow, you drew this?
Stop lying.
Stop lying right fucking now.
Fuck you, why are you telling me this? Why do I hear the pity in your voice? God, is it worse if there's pity in your voice or if I'm just imagining it?
Stop lying right fucking now I said!

Why do I do these? These are dumb.
What are these about?
Who reads these?
Thousands? No one comments, no one, does any one even read these? Do they just pass by?
Someone reads these.
All I need is one person to read this and I'll be okay.
Stop shaking.
Stop shaking.

*sigh*
It's not so bad...
...I can find somewhere else to be as long as she's there.

I miss her.

...it is so bad.
I can't handle that in between.
I can't make things work.
I can't make MY LIFE work.

Maybe I'm doing this wrong.
Maybe I'm supposed to be looking at that blank word document so I can stay up all night, come home at midnight tomorrow and start the first page, the first page of my life.

I love you.
You love me.
That makes it alright to fail sometimes.
I would never intentionally fail you.
You're everything.
I didn't mean to be so bad at living.

*sigh*
Fuck.

(thanks for reading)

MILESTONE 500

2011-06-15T01:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, so for 500 I couldn't really think of anything all THAT special to do...so I am showing you all this...this is Old Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4, it's one of my most recent drawings and also one of my best if you ask me.
I used some loose references, mostly of the mullet-clad hero himself.
Is this what my art is going to look like from now on? Sort of.
I really wish this was on an art board an in ink.
But the feel of pencil on marker paper is so orgasmic that I can't be brave enough to get out my lightbox.
Just look at those heavy pencil strokes that don't even leave an indentation, look at how smooth it is, not a smudge, oh I am in for it bad on this adventure.

Fuck I should be sleeping but a milestone shall have to suffice, I have like 8 hours of busing to do today anyways, lots of time to sleep, definitely have to remember to pack some books, I'm thinking Final Crisis and Dick Tracy.

Sorry I get so off topic tonight, I'm really tired but can't shut my eyes and have the dreams start flowing, such a tease...

I wanted to write about how unhappy I am with my inking.
It works for Markham Tales and such but...on bigger more interesting and detailed pieces it's so...flat and square.
Even the curls feel square.
The line widths are so even and the wisps all come from such a straight edge.
I guess it'd be a cool effect on other people's art but on mine it just feels sorta...bums.

It might all get better when I can use a 0.5 on a real comic book art board, I'm thinking of having a more zoomed in style so I can spend far too much time making the lines perfect.

Thanks for reading 500 posts.
Hope you like my drawing.
Hope they just get better from here on in...

Brand New Journal Entry! Only $4.99! (plus applicable taxes)

2011-06-15T00:40:00.000-07:00

Reed Gunther is the only bastard lucky enough to be the thumbnail for this fine blog entry, it's a straight-up old school throwback right before we finally hit 500.
It's a big milestone alright, and a lot has happened.
Let's review...

I started this off thinking I was going to do art with all these disconnected shadows, it was a bit on the right track but it lacked so much of what's really required to be great, even good, it's too constraining.

I remember at some point after I had this whole cartoony GI Joe thing going on, also too restraining but there'll always be a big plan for that in the back of my head.

There was another run down memory lane where I wanted to do old school style comic strips, straight from the Golden Age of newspapers, that lasted a long time, hell, it's still going to some extent.

Then ofcourse a while after it turned into some crazy redrawing obsession, followed by this weird bold style, thinking back I was truly lost back then, I am lost now but in comparison, wow, what a difference.

What else? Well when you say an homage to the noir you're going to end up on Frank Miller's doorstep right in the middle of Sin City and boy, I sure did. I took it hard and fast on that one and loved every minute of it. I think that was the first time I really had something to show though. That was (actually maybe somewhere into the second, even halfway through the first) me finally reaching a point where I could show off what I was doing and can still look back now and be proud to some extent.

There was a short Asterix phase, not that I don't still love Asterix, I just don't plan on making it exactly. It's too limiting, but it definitely has lots of smaller points to learn from.

Then ofcourse there was Tin Tin, short lived, I thought I could be bold and uninteresting but it just wasn't happening.

Somewhere in there I also visited a wrestling comic style closer to Ultimate Muscle and a Mike Mignola style that just epically failed.

After that...things started going quickly, Rob Liefeld, Olivier Coipel, my own styles, The Tick, ten thousand others.

But it gets to a point where it's lines and basic outlines. Lines and outlines. I can draw a body and the guy I want to look like adds his details like this.

Not rocket science, just a bit of fun, a bit of new energy.

Now what am I doing? I'm looking at where I want to be.
I am looking at just really good art and it's all kind of fitting together.
It's a lot of the same random blocky shadows with hatching sticking out and classically drawn faces made to look new with a few simple whooshes of the pen.

I love you all for reading, but I'm not done...

There's a passion of mine that I feel deserves more attention than it's been getting in recent years, oh how the time flies, it's my obsession with blaxploitation.

Do you know what that means?

Let me just google define this for you...

1. the exploitation of blacks, especially in movies featuring orintending to appeal to blacks.
2. a genre of films featuring black stereotypes

I don't know if you've ever seen Shaft or read the old Luke Cage Powerman comics, but that's basically blaxpoitation in a nutshell.
Afros, more black characters than white ones, purple suits with green ties, "the motherland" always meaning Africa and every main character having some sort of criminal history they've reformed from but are constantly tempted by.

This is an obsession of mine.
I just love it.
It's sort of funny and awesome at the same time.
To look back at what else existed during and before the creation of these things, it's not that surprising, it's closer to black camp, because everything back then that was popular is seen as REALLY campy by today's standards.
I think of a sort of Star Trek mood with shades of Adam West's portrayal of Batman and I think of the mood I love.
Almost like joking with a stone serious face.

Sweet Jumpin' Christmas, I am gettin' a bad vibe from this dang foo.
The joke is basically, I am black and I talk funny.
But it's seen as somewhat racist, somewhat comfortable, it's really just a confusing genre that you either adore or loathe.
I don't find it so different from the crime solving prowess of Burt Ward or Spock's constant scientific ponders and ingenious last minute problem solving that is really just spruced up answers from the everyman.

Well...thanks for reading, the next one's a biggy!

Review 498: "Superman: Earth One"

2011-06-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

I've never actually had to put a spoiler alert before but yeah, this one will spoil the book to some extent, but it might also make you want to read it anyways, if you knew Batman was going to die at the end of the next Batman, would you still watch it? Would you want to watch it even more because you know how unbelievable the ending is going to be?
Superman doesn't die, sadly.
The book sort of reminded me of...everything that's ever been made meets 2011.
Basically the whole idea of the book is to bring Superman into 2011, to bring everyone in Superman into 2011 and make it really interesting and look amazing.
It starts off exactly how you expect but...you expect it to be amazing, so that isn't a bash.
It gets interesting and tells the origin for a reason while still showing you the origin happening for the most part, so it's not too much of a flashback, you couldn't just skip forward through years after him crashing on Earth, it just wouldn't flow and you wouldn't know Clark Kent, because he would change so much throughout his life.

He is flawed.
He is cool looking.
His outfit is badass.
He is a badass himself actually, he can do anything he wants and he makes everyone know it without giving away that he's Superman. Well...there is no Superman yet.
But...then it all goes downhill somewhere.
Like in a page or two, after all the good stuff has happened.
It basically just...destroys the whole idea.

This is the spoiler.

He becomes Superman, the regular Superman you already know, the wormy loser in the lame suit with the dorky glasses and awkward smile, crushing on Lois Lane, while they write self-indulgent editorials together.
It's...a huge letdown that doesn't really hurt it too much.
Because it all happens after everything important has happened.
Even the moment when he puts on the suit and the glasses you do get that feeling of like wow, this is the first time, this is epic, I know this guy and this is the role he's playing...
But when you really look at it you just see...Clark Kent how you know him.
You don't get that young snappy suit, expensive frames and still unsure about staying on sometimes when Lois isn't looking at him the way he wants Clark Kent, investigative reporter you wanted at the end of the story, you don't get the awkwardness of the somewhat ridiculous looking suit as he fights true evil, you basically just get...Superman that you know.

It's a real tease.
But it's also a great read.
I almost wish the sketchbook at the back would have extended to him just looking in the window at that suit and glasses and it could end there, almost like a nah, that's not for me moment, it's like when you watch Chasing Amy and keep imaging all the different ways it can go in the end but you know how it's going to end as the chaos gets too big for all of them.

Thanks for reading.
I still suggest it.
It's wonderfully packaged, inspiring and well-wrote minus the last bit.
Maybe in the next book he'll get fired on the first page.
Hmm...I should use that for my book, fuck'em, maybe the next book he won't and I'll use that for my stuff and become super famous.

Talk to you all soon! Almost 30,000 views and 500 posts!

Post 497: "People Are Assholes"

2011-06-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

Honestly, some people are just assholes.
It's just...insane to think about for me.
I feel the worst pain in the bottom of my gut when I'm an asshole.
I can't help but apologize or try to make up for it, or even just ignore it to ridiculous extents.
Even people who are going to make me be an asshole make me feel uncomfortable, those people you just can't endure, they are almost scary in a sense.
I am scared to talk to those people you don't want to see because they're weird or lame or just really REALLY dumb, because they are just going to make me brush them off or even lie, sorry man, I just can't chill today because (you're a fucking lame weirdo who always makes weird perverted jokes) I am so tired from the weekend. Even though some days, I am just tired from the weekend.
But then...there's just deliberate uncaring assholes who just ruin other people's days and say unwarranted things and why? Because they're assholes.
That's actually the reason, they're not having a bad day, you can't have a good day when you're an asshole, you will pick everything apart, ruin every good thing and turn away every smile.
I don't know how you don't feel bad when you make someone else feel bad and don't have a reason, I do a lot even if I do have a reason.

I guess there isn't some big moment at the end of this entry where I'm like well assholes will be assholes, maybe I can make the world a better place by not being one, more like fuck those people, nothing gives you more silent joy then doing something, anything, even writing this blog, where they read it and then shut up knowing that their comment whether in person or underneath here...will show them for exactly what they are...

Well I do feel a little better actually, I hope lots of assholes read this.

Thanks for reading (except those mentioned in the title)

By the way, Ken Anderson is a really cool idea, a heel who is just beyond comprehension bad but still in many ways likable is a stroke of genius.If you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe you should be checking out Impact Wrestling every Thursday night at 9 on SpikeTV.

Interview 496: BUXTONMANIA!

2011-06-10T02:59:00.000-07:00

Joel Buxton finally does 11 at a time (mostly about comics)

Lately we’ve seen some great interviews (or "pretty good" ones as he'd probably say) with Shane Heron and it all started with a series of questions about Awesome Marcus Ninja, but even though he made it look so fantastic, Shane didn’t create AMN, another talented Torontonian did...Joel Buxton. If you don’t know who he is, find out, he’s awesome talented at music, comedy, drawing and writing...I’d mention the blogging too but hey! You’ve gotta give me something. So I was fortunate enough to get him to agree to an interview, so let’s start it up.

1. I thought I’d start this one off (since this is how these interviews started) by asking you how it is working with Shane Heron?

Aw, Shane’s the best. Working with that guy is a cinch because he brings the skill, the work ethic, and the communication. You get those things in a collaborator and you’re laughing. It also doesn’t hurt that the guy’s hilarious.

2. I know you’re an artist as well, what stops you from drawing the series (AMN) yourself?

Haha thank you for the compliment, but I’m not up to snuff for drawing a comic strip. If you don’t believe me, I will submit as evidence the first season of AMN I drew for my school paper, which is just embarrassing. I simply can’t draw most of the stuff that shows up in a regular script, common things like cars or trees.

3. What is your favourite part of doing Awesome Marcus Ninja?

Getting the art for the first time is just sublime. Something you’ve imagined in your head just sitting there for realsies in front of you. In fact, often it was a bit better than what I had in my head. Shane would take a clumsy panel description and just nail it, or add a visual gag that made the punchline ten times more funny. A great example of this is the episode at the zoo with the bald eagle. The last panel with a bald eagle wearing a wig wasn’t in the script. Shane just added it, and I died laughing (now I’m a ghost).

4. You wear yourself pretty thin with all your creative endeavours, were you always so creative?

Ya I guess. I was a spacey kid, for sure. I was always doing stupid stuff in elementary school like drawing comics or making little grappling hooks out of coat hangers. One year I was big into making replicas of normal things like cell phones out of cardboard. I just loved making replicas of things, it was really strange, in hindsight.

When I got to highschool, I started to get more specific with that creative energy and really close in on what would become the three main passions: writing, comedic performance, and music. Also I discovered girls, which are the best.

5. Between all the different things you do with your spare time (do you even have spare time?) do you think that they affect each other? Does being a good comedian make you a better comic writer?

I try to look at the art stuff as spare time, since no one is paying me vast sums to do it. In that sense it’s not work, because no one is telling me what to do, I am free to create how I please. For me, it stops being spare time when you lose that element of choice.

I like to read and watch movies and all that, but at any given moment I would much rather be telling jokes, performing a sketch, or bipping a l’il bass line with my band Apple Pi. So in that sense, it’s not really exhausting because I’m doing what I most enjoy.

To answer your second question, I have found that life overlaps in neat and unexpected ways. For example, the tight nature of crafting jokes has helped me to edit prose writing so that it’s concise. Likewise, years of writing Awesome Marcus Ninja helped me to understand story beats and structure, so that if I’m telling a story onstage I can pace it properly.

6. I hear you’ve been on the search for a new Awesome Marcus Ninja artist, how is that going? How do you usually find artists?

Yes, I am open to starting up AMN again, I have about half of season 6 written. However, it is difficult to find someone at the skill level of Shane that will work for free and not flake out. If I were to start a season I would want to finish it. That’s a pretty big commitment, but if people out there are up for it, they can always drop me a line at Marcus@marcusninja.com. I promise to do all the lettering and web stuff.

7. I know on the comic artist side there’s a lot of writers that are always looking for someone to make their ideas come to life, it’s pretty easy to find someone to write or plot for you, what’s it like being such a great writer though? Do artists approach you a lot?

Haha, you flatter me, man. Kurt Vonnegut is great. John Wagner is great. Mark Twain is great. Let’s leave that adjective for them.

I think all any writer can do is just write a ton and always be learning from mistakes. I think if a year goes by and you still think something you wrote back then is perfect, that’s a sign that you’re not evolving. So I just try to keep my head down and follow that principle.

No, I haven’t been approached by a ton of artists, although we did some guest artist pieces for AMN that were a lot of fun. Writing the character for other artists was a blast, we collected them all in our Volume 5 book.

8. What is your favourite page of Awesome Marcus Ninja ever?

I don’t think I could pick just one to be honest. I was really happy with a piece Shane did for the back cover of our book where we photoshopped a drawing of Marcus and Emily into a photograph of Spadina Station. That turned out really cool. I got one of my friends who was a photographer to pose with me, so it really looks like the image belongs on the background. As far as sequential art, probably one of the little cowboy strips or one set at the zoo. Or that one where they play basketball in the prison. See what I mean?

9. Is there any pages you regret changing your mind about? Like Shane had some great layout or you had some great idea and found it silly after then regretted not going forward with it in retrospect?

Hm. It’s hard to say. I don’t think Shane or I really work that way. If I felt strongly about an idea, usually Shane would agree. If I was feeling wishy washy, I’d usually ‘fess up in the script and make it clear that I was open to suggestions. There was always an element of trust on that. Shane wouldn’t waste time criticizing something if he hadn’t thought it through.

One thing I’d change about season 5 was the stuff with the illegal pet-snatching ring in the first act. I don’t think that arc flowed the way the rest of the season did because I was just trying to cram too long of a story into too short of a period. The result of that little mis-step is too much expository dialogue, which is just the worst.

10. What’s your opinion on where your artistic side (that encompasses all the fun stuff you do!) stands right now? What do fans and colleagues say about all these creative outlets?

I dunno, man. Like I said, I can only do my best, and I definitely feel like I do that. It’s nice to get a compliment after a stand-up set, or have someone comment on a blog article, but really at the end of the day, it’s about whether I feel like I produced the best thing I could at the time. I think as long as you can answer yes to that question, everything else falls into place.

11. What is the future of Joel Buxton? Where is your focus right now in the arts?

I hope to have a jetpack at some point. And maybe build a cool fort with a fire pole.

Jokes jokes. I am focusing a lot on performance art right now. Recently I joined the cast of The Sketchersons (http://www.thesketchersons.com ). They are a pretty legacy sketch troupe with a long history and a lot of accolades. We write and perform a new revue (Sunday Night Live) every week. Y’all should come out sometime, 9:30pm Sundays at Comedy Bar (945 Bloor St. W) . On the writing side, I’ve been enjoying writing my stand-up blog Premise PUNCH Tag (http://www.joelbuxton.com) which has helped me meet comics from all over North America. And of course I will continue to perform stand-up as much as I can, ‘cause it’s the love of my life.

However, that being said, the comic stuff isn’t dead. I’ve been working on a twelve part mini-series called “Kid with Gun,” and Shane and I are working on a side project right now involving some pretty cool robots.

Thanks a lot for the interview, hopefully it wasn’t too painful and you keep me (and all your new fans!) updated on your progress and I wish you good luck on everything you’re doing right now. But before you go...the bonus question! Do you see the many sides of Joel Buxton combining? How would you go about that?

Probably it would look a bit like Devastator from the Transformers. But a l’il less devastating, because I’m not made of bad-ass construction vehicles. And a little less purple because that’s Prince’s colour and I don’t want a lawsuit on my hands.

I hope that he enjoyed answering these questions as much as I did asking them and I hope you all enjoyed the answers as much as I did.

Thanks for reading.

Find Joel on the web!

comedy blog http://premisepunchtag.wordpress.com/

web comic http://www.webcomicsnation.com/marcusninja/

band http://www.myspace.com/applepimusic

sketch comedy http://www.thesketchersons.com/

Post 495: "Cover Recreations"

2011-06-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

This tiny image is the last I have of my own art, pretty cool logo though right?
Someone else did the font but I did the cool drawing and then pixel coloured it.

I really like doing logo work and I need to do some for this blog, I need a big header image at the top that I just haven't been able to make yet, it's not that I haven't done it, it's just that I don't know what to do for it, I've had a few ideas so far but I just haven't been able to persecute them, ahh, the trails of life.

So anyways, I just wanted to talk a bit about cover recreations, I really got into them when I first saw a lot of the commission work of Bob Layton, one of my favourite artists, it just seemed so cool to see such a style in black and white doing a cover that's way old or really new or even a new take on a classic one from his time period, which was an ideal time in the middle. It excited me to do it myself but I just...haven't found that cover yet and that has really kept me on the backburners for it.

I have recreated one of my favourite, the first issue of The Tick, in pencil, just how I saw it in my head, but the problem it (like many of my favourite) has a lot of white space and I didn't do the logos and such.

I guess I'll try to find a way around it, most likely by doing homage covers featuring my own characters in classic layouts and styles.

Anyways, this is a short one but I'm glad I got to get it out, thanks for reading.

Post 494: "Bias"

2011-06-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

I love two things I'd like to talk about, no three, well...let's just play it by year... ( I play things by both year and ear)

I recently just finished the collected edition of Rob Liefeld's X-Force, well, one of the collected editions, and it was obviously superb, he did a fantastic job of making it exciting and dynamic and making you want to know what happens next, will they ever truly get Stryfe? Will they fight the way against Emma Frost and the Hellfire Club? What of the Morlocks? Why is Deadpool stealing everyone and how will the continue to duck SHIELD? What of the Mojoverse?
It's actually so much that's it's overwhelming and all you hope throughout the book, which sadly doesn't come true, is for Liefeld to stay around while everything gets tied up, it's really a book you never want to end, much like Kirkman and Ottley's Invincible, you want the two to be creating the book forever even after the big storyline wrap-ups because...how will they keep it interesting?

It's sad that people feel the need to hate on Liefeld so much, why do they do it? It's really beyond me, he breaks traditional methods of illustration to make his product as exciting as it possibly can be, and his product is as exciting as something can possibly be. They feel the need to hate on his art while worshiping lesser artists, I can think of a specific few who do less backgrounds, less exciting art and even sometimes these bland, small-muscled versions of popular characters such as Captain America and Thor.

Another thing I love is Impact Wrestling, it's a great company, great matches, great competitors and all the wrestlers I want to see. WWE lost that at some point, it was actually the past year or two, they lost all their legends, they lost all the familiar faces, when familiar faces did return they did little to nothing, they banked on new faces facing other new faces they tell the viewer are important, the whole way they do it is beyond me, telling the viewer who they like and what matches they want to see.

Impact Wrestling doesn't, but they can guess, they know you want to see Kurt Angle vs. RVD because they are two huge names in wrestling both now and historically. They know you want to see Sting as the world champion because he is one of the biggest wrestlers ever and they know you PROBABLY don't like Ken Anderson because he's sorta annoying and a huge dick, but if you do, you'll watch to cheer him on.
They know you want to see Ric Flair no matter what he's doing because he's one of the biggest wrestling icons ever and they know you want to see Hogan because he IS the biggest wrestling icon...ever.

I just don't like watching WWE anymore because I don't care what happens, I hope that John Cena and Randy Orton are both champions but I don't care to see anyone they fight usually. However, Impact Wrestling delivers multiple main event quality matches with real finishes (unlike WWE's constant bullshit, for example, look at the recent Raw main event which ended in countout), people just don't like it because it's not the WWE, people don't like new things I guess.

That's really my issue with everything, people want to blindly worship and give their money to Marvel and DC as they keep making up these "world-altering can't miss events" that do nothing but try to keep up with continuity and merge into other books so you have to buy more while there's guys at Image and Dark Horse just making good comics, one book 99% of the time and if there is a cross-over it's short-lived, the big Image crossover event for Invincible was only one issue, the one with Astounding Wolf-Man was two released simultaneously

Anyways, I guess that's my rant, how do they get so long so fast?
Basically I just feel tired of people blindly hating things, Justin Beiber, Jersey Shore, Hannah Montana, cartoons, superhero comic books, wrestling, whatever it may be.
I'm also tired of them telling you to love things and try things you don't care for, I have no interest in making someone read a comic or listen to a song and I wish it worked both ways, I constantly have people telling me to watch stupid movies that I just don't want to watch, try foods that just don't appeal to me, as if I already don't have a huge list of movies I can't wait to watch instead and foods I already love probably available at the restaurant in question.
Everyone wants to be a preacher I guess, am I any better? Maybe, maybe not, is preaching not to preach still preaching?
I guess it's okay if it's your blog, but I wish there wasn't so many picking apart Rob Liefeld and Kevin Smtih and Impact Wrestling, ofcourse that doesn't mean I indorse those who worship too, someone who turns a blind eye to the downfalls is even worse than someone who focuses on them a lot.
I love Kevin Smith, but I don't love dick and fart jokes, he refers to them more than actually uses them but some of his fans actually live for them just because of a few small mentions.
The same with the drug use, they worship all mention and do that annoying chuckle, while in reality a movie about Jay and Silent Bob being high would consist of Jay laughing at stupid shit while Silent Bob takes a nap.

Anyways, I have another blog to do today before I get back to the drawing board, no time like the present to start it up...

Post 493: "Sometimes Living is like Torture"

2011-06-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

My body aches, my nose runs, my head is light and yet at the same time, full, full of stupid allergies and probably aching for me to stop reading and looking at screens and drawing, aching for me to give my poor eyes a rest, but I never do, they're working 24/7, even when I am asleep, ideas are flowing, my eyes close and my head leans back and gravity gets the best of my sinus while my eyes itch to open and jump towards a blank page, ready to be filled.
Sometimes living is like torture.

Atleast wrestling's on tonight.

Post 492: "Bad Mojo"

2011-05-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

This one was really bad, just terrible actually. It looked good in my head but looking at it now, eww.

I don't know why but lately my blogs are so...up and down. Like they're either really terrible and about nothing, like this one will be probably, or they're great, well atleast I think they are, like over at my WordPress.
I guess that's why I have two blogs. This is still and will forever be "Dyl's Shit Blog" where I'm just raw and that's not as badass as it sounds. Sometimes is really depressing, sometimes it's happy, sometimes it's straight out boring. You don't know what you're going to get when someone is truly honest, I might just feel like writing 10 blogs in a row about how badass cool I think Bob Layton is.

Speaking of, I'm running in circles, hmm, where was I back then? Oh yes, I got it in my head that I could draw like Bob Layton and yeah, I sorta could, not as clean though, like him inking Ron Lim if Ron Lim had the proportions of Rob Liefeld but none of the great detail, you get the idea, but that led to Todd McFarlane and little bits of dropping back to Dick Tracy current artists Dick Locher and Jim Brozman...oh the tangled web...

Right now though I'm saying fuck it, I will run in circles all I want. I really like running in circles sometimes and hey, as long as I'm producing at this point, I'm golden, because I think it's like what I did this morning, I just was all over the place with style and content but it's at a point where I can jump without the awkwardness and make something atleast somewhat worthwhile looking, maybe worth looking back at later, some of my favourite pages ever are character sketches, just so much care and energy like they are going to be published some day.

So what am I working on now?

I don't know.
Last blog I had high hopes for you and yeah, those are still in the works but I am having a bit of fun right now instead.
I need it.

I'm really stressed.

You ever been worried about getting punished for something you didn't do? Fuck, I feel like a child again. I hate that about working, it makes you feel like such a kid again. Even in art, I like someone else's lines, I make bits of them my own and you go through your mind thinking about this huge trial against you from these big wigs, it's like...ugh, just painful.

I really want to be an assistant.
Like an artist's assistant.
I wish someone would find me and hire me.

Anyways...I got some journaling on some good ol' dead wood to do, so I'll catch up with you all later, almost to 500, let's see what we have by then.

: )

Post 491: "Jump."

2011-05-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

This was an early attempt at this stupid avatar.
The worst part about making this fucker was how GREAT the original artwork looked.
Let's get to it...

I might have found something I can really jump into then jump off of for other projects. I've been looking for the right one that feels modern and fits me well and is within my range of abilities and I think I finally found it, I've only wrote a bit for it but it doesn't need to last forever. It also made me think that from this I could dive into other story types...

...I can't say too much, but it's exciting.

I've actually done a good portion of artwork in this style that will really throw people off guard.

Thanks for reading.

I still owe you all interviews.

PART 2

Okay so I was thinking that the previous part was just too short and such a HUGE cock tease...so I am going to write a bit about jumping.

Jumping is a strange thing when it comes to art, you have a lot of styles to choose from, it hurts my mind thinking of them all and knowing what to reference when, sometimes you just get so into one guy, you're convinced you draw like Todd McFarlane and from that you know you can draw Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, Spawn, Haunt, clowns, creatueres and lizards. You work up a story about a skinny guy, a spider monster, a super strong clown and 2 lizard people from hell and there is your McFarlane epic, but then you want to be Erik Larsen, you think it's a logical jumping point but it's not, suddenly it's DareDevil (Golden Age), Savage Dragon, Spider-Man and busty black babes as your choices. You work your story that the skinny guy gets a large and finned sidekick and busty black babes around along with a cool new suit! Maybe next is Liefeld and your dude gets a whole team of ponytails and pouches behind him to go with his new metal arms! Where does it end? It doesn't. Before long you'll go BACK to McFarlane.

It's just this progression that transitions from style to style to style and never ends, it goes in circles sometimes then just to dead ends. It sucks really.

It's good to finally jump somewhere that you know your options and they're what you want.
I have trouble with Thor type stuff, like I love bible stories and mythology and magic, but I know that it'll go to wrestling before long and eventually to Dick Tracy, it's a toughy. But I deal, somewhat.

I think that's what life is.
You need to find that job that just sort of has what you do in it.

I wish I had a job with some math and some creativity and some people skills, well...marketing.
But you know what I can market? Myself.

When I've got something to market that I've created...maybe one day I'll be the editor of my own comic company and get to pump out ideas and comics and market them well.

Thanks for reading. Twice.

Blog Post 490: "Thinking!"

2011-05-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

I am sorry for the lack of interesting pics, but hey, atleast they're by me, I've been drawing, I just need a camera that picks up the lines well, I can't scan a lot of what I've been doing because of size or where the drawing is, so bear with me.

Umm, this isn't the best way to think about it, but I have been thinking that as long as like one page of a 24 page comic is good, it's not completely wasted time. A lot of my favourite artists have some really REALLY bad pages...here's some examples, try not to cry...

Jack Kirby for sure, I love his artwork sometimes but sometimes it was just brutal. Like his style doesn't fit a lot of stuff even though he was still very versatile. I actually think I preferred before he had the Kirby style we all know going. I thought his pages of Fighting American and Captain America were really great, really going somewhere other than where he ended up, like a Will Eisner meets John Buscema, but better, like all the adventurous layouts but a lot of the details and shadows in there. Wide noses and thunder thighs still though.

Olivier Coipel is another. He started off not so hot on Legion but with little bits of what you'd see later, there's pages of Legion where you swear you're looking at a page from Thor. So far apart too. I think his real saving grace is Mark Morales though, they guy's inks could make anyone a superstar, anyone. He's amazing. I really hope to be such an amazing inker one day or especially be worthy of someone so great inking me. To be honest though with him being so great it'd be tempting to get rougher and more fluid and let him clean it up, really earn those paychecks!

Maleev is another and Djurdjevic is probably the worst offender. Maleev is just, awesome sometimes, too boring or too out there other times, he has this little line where he's a demi-god among men with pencils and otherwise he's just...blocky, shady and bland. Djurdjevic always bugged me that he mostly only does covers but his interior work is so bland, so unlike himself, there's really never a page I see where I just salivate by him that's interior.

Clayton Crain should get special mention for giving you what you see and love about the cover every single panel, even the boring ones, when I think of it some my favourite panels by him are of Bastion or Archangel talking. Worship that guy even though he's so damn digital.

Thanks for reading, sorry if this is too comics for you.

Bad Luck Blog 489

2011-05-20T04:25:00.000-07:00

Well...it's 25,000 views down, 11 million to go.
Or whatever my goal may be?

So the blog for this morning is about...well...where I've been.
It's felt like forever since I've blogged even though it's only been...23 days? What? Already? No way!
I don't think I've ever gone so long without blogging since I started this thing!

I've been...challenging myself.
Like really that's all I do but at some point you just reach a point where you're running in circles.
Ofcourse now it's just getting to the point of instead of running in circles I am...hmm...running in circles that are going somewhere? Like when you scribble towards the end of the page?
It's slow and steady though.

I basically just overcame the barrel I'd been waiting to hurdle over an hour or two ago and now I'm just...at a weird production stage of a new story.
I'm in the middle about it.
I'm on the left.
I'm definitely leaning atleast towards the left.
Fuck I'm confused.

I've just got this ideal idea for me that I can finally be productive and move forward and...it's not what I expected?
I guess it's like doing The Tick.
I love The Tick, as the creator (Ben Edlund), yeah, you get to draw Superman, sorta, you get to draw whoever you want and add your own bits of wit to it, you can get in whatever style, whatever story, that you want, but you still draw The Tick.
Like I can add in Dick Tracy (which he did) and I can add in Shaft (Taft, haha) but you still aren't making them, they're some silly joke version of the characters that look more like your style.
I guess it's just a tease really.

On MadTV you can finally have your way with any role you want, but you still have to make Tony Soprano and The Terminator super funny.

Anyways, that's my issue right now, but I'm definitely moving forward, speaking of I have some ideas that I haven't wrote down yet that I really need to get down.
I also...really need to sleep and watch this movie Closer with Natalie Portman.

See you BlogLand! Expect an interview with the great Joel Buxton to be posted soon!

FUTILE! (Post 488)

2011-04-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

This is one of the many attempts at making a banner for my deviantART group of Invincible Comic Fans that you'll be seeing, but it did help me think of a cool way to make borders, so I can't hate on that. However this would have been a lot easier if I would have known more about Photoshop a couple weeks earlier.

At night I feel so creative.
I fill up blogs and journals and sketchbook pages, even make some scripts, but a lot of the time when I wake up, it all feels like wasted time.
I guess not so much comics as the way I go about making them.
I think I want to make Dick Tracy, I try it for a panel or two, and I stop.
It might look great, it might look terrible, the issue in reality is just that I want to make Dick Tracy and I can't make Dick Tracy so I don't make anything in that style. I also have big issues for a lot of work with little reward, for some reason it takes me an hour to do a Dick Tracy panel but like fifteen minutes to do a Ryan Ottley one, I love Ryan Ottley's work and I love Chester Gould's but the way they look next to eachother...it's the fifteen every time.
I also find it more flexible to copy the styles of certain artists, I even find it easier to work with Robert Liefeld or Olivier Coipel than E.C Segar or Dick Locher.
Maybe us artists in 2011 hide behind tiny lines.

I guess it all comes down to me reading and enjoying things but having "what am I thinking? I can't do this." in the back of my brain while I do.
Like I can't draw backgrounds, or tables, or chairs, or lamps.
I can draw Thor, I can draw Thor with a thousand tiny lines and a huge fist and cracked up hammer.
But I can't draw a table. A cartoony Donald Duck table.
Maybe I've lost it.

I read a lot Jack Kirby comics, I love them, he does such great layouts and his style is so entrancing you can't help but try your hand after but...I'll never be Jack Kirby.
There's just something ugly about the way he draws certain things.
There's just something over-complicated about how draws a lot of things.
I'll never be able to do it.
I can draw a Jack Kirby punch, or crackle or panel with a nice zoom-in and a crazy machine in the background, but I can't draw whole comics like that.
I think it comes with uniqueness of stories.
I just can't take The Black Owl (him and Joe Simon) and turn it into...Blob Man.
I can't.
The references aren't there for me.
I can maybe take part of a fight scene and try to rework it and make up some excuses and silly dialogue but...
...it's just not there for me.

I don't know what I'm doing.
It's futile.
My dream feels so far away but so close.

I guess I just need to focus a little more.
And loosen up...
...I am a young man, what I make today won't look as good as what I make tomorrow but by next Wednesday I want to have atleast made something.

I look to Ted Noodleman and Invincible Issue 70 for inspiration.

If you read them...you'll see what I mean.

Rant 487: "Sometimes (I Wish)"

2011-04-28T00:17:00.000-07:00

I made this one for my Facebook profile and...I hadn't checked recently but apparently this is still my profile picture.
I think it's sorta funny.
I love the art though.
One of my favourite drawings of all times.
This was just to test my new markers.
I wish they got more mileage.
I really need to do more completed work.
Looking at this I feel like I should make more completed work suddenly.
Gives me a bit of inspiration.
But that's besides the point...

I can just read some Invincible Issues if I want to be inspired.

This blog is titled after a song I like, I think I am going to title everything forever after songs I like, I've enough to choose from.
Makes things seem cooler, like knowing what the name is from makes you part of the "in-crowd".

But I digress..

This blog is about me wishing that Mike Mignola didn't suck, as well as Alex Ross, Frank Quitely, and a handful of others that are so talented, but ditch the confines of interior art for the lucrative job that is only covers and even...writing...yuck.
I could read a comic wrote by a 5 year old if it had any of these 3 artists working on it.
But I couldn't read a comic wrote by any of these 3 and drawn by one.
It's as simple as that.

It sickens me really.

Especially when they leave their work in the hands of those who just aren't up to snuff.
I wish they were, I really do, but there is only one of each of these guys out there and for some reason they neglect the interiors of the comics that made them popular as of right now.

I just hate it.
I'd hate for something I create to be taken over by someone less than adequate or...just taken over by someone else period if my art is what made it so popular for the most part.
Like I can't imagine not killing the character myself.

So sometimes I wish that those who are talented didn't have delusions of making it as writers, even if they're so fucking famous it works somehow in this shit market...and those who do only covers, would stop, stop right now, I detest cover artists, it's cool to have variant covers sometimes and I know it helps sell books but I'd rather have...let's do this one by one...

A one page strip by Mike Mignola with his cover than a 48 page book wrote by him and drawn by someone else and him just doing the cover.

A 3 panel comic strip that continued the story of Kingdom Come by Alex Ross than a cover and a 100 page story by him but drawn by someone else.

A 5 page comic WITHOUT WORDS of Batman and Robin by Frank Quitely than a 500 page comic drawn by someone else and wrote by...Alex Ross and Mike Mignola.

Well, I've made my point, agree or disagree, it all works for me.

Actually, since we're on that topic...I'd like to talk about the interviews you've all hopefully been reading, geez, even my sister doesn't comment after she reads them...thanks Joel for being the most recent person to comment on here...even still...it's cool seeing how many people read these!

I noticed in the interviews I felt myself tugged and pulled and swayed back and forth while reading them, they're bloody dynamic!

There was parts by Shane and Reanne that made me be a little annoyed, or a little taken aback by the bluntness, or tilt my head with a grin at something surprisingly nice and uncalled for...but most of all...they made me want more from this creative intellect!
It really felt like these interviews had a very serious air to them, they took what these two creators were working away on and picked their brains for tips, tricks and info on upcoming projects, and now that I have done them I hope that these two do keep me, more than me, US...the fans of Dylan's Blog updated multiple times...DAILY...up to date on how these projects are coming along!

We will want preview art, script bits, film trailers or even just doodles from these two and I hope they send me the odd e-mail to blog about.

And also, hey, thanks for reading.

I'll be talking to you all again soon!

Interview 486: Shane goes Trilogy!

2011-04-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

Shane Heron does 11 at a time about... “General Stuff”

I thought we could take a break from all the art intensive for a short and fun bit of general stuff...

1. How long have you drawn?

This is probably the most common question for an artist. I realize that my answer is going to come off as irritated or annoyed but I assure you I'm not.
Like everyone else, I was drawing at a very young age. Everyone who goes to kindergarten and elementary school has a lot of arts & craft time. My belief is that people aren't born with a gift of art or music or whatever they excel in, but at a young age some kids are given more attention and reward and those are the ones that tend to stick with it. At a young age I remember my teachers & family really responding positively to my drawings and I liked the attention so I worked hard at getting better. At some point, the good majority of my friends and schoolmates stopped drawing & resigned themselves to this role where they say things like, 'I used to draw' or ' I wish I could draw', while artists like you, Dyl, or myself have the skills from putting in a lot of hours and making thousands of shitty drawings.
I don't watch a good musician play guitar and say 'I wish I could play guitar' because I don't really wish that. It's hard work.

2.       What else do you do?

On top of drawing for work and as a hobby, I manage a very busy drugstore in downtown Toronto, work as an instructor teaching afterschool cartooning programs to elementary school children allover the Toronto District School Board.

I love to fit in sleep whenever that happens. I love sleeping. I love working 2 different jobs in one long day and then unapologetically sleeping like, 12-15 hours straight. Its not often but when it happens it's wonderful.

I also have my blogs which take up a few hours a week.

I have prettygoodcomics.blogspot.com , which is my regular art kinda thing blog, & then I have mmadouchebag.blogspot.com, which is where I channel all my MMA thoughts and fight breakdowns & basically talk to myself because I don't think anyone gives a shit. I also have a twitter for that blog so I can tweet during the events but I rarely use it. I hate twitter & most times I watch Strikeforce or UFC I get pretty loaded and forget to tweet. But I try. I try to try.

3.       Favourite Song?

Ah, okay these kinda questions are the hardest because I love music so much and I can't ever pick just one. I love my iPod and anyone that knows me, knows that I keep it playing 24/7. At the gym, at work, in bed. I think iPods are the greatest invention ever. I'm gonna have to go with maybe 'Plundered My Soul' by the Rolling Stones. It was a bonus track added to the re-release of Exile On Main Street & the most played song in my iPod.
It's absolutely brilliant. In fact, I could probably choose any song off Exile as my favorite right now, 'Tumbling Dice', 'Loving Cup', 'Good Time Women', 'Rocks Off', they're all amazing.

4.       Favourite Movie?

Oh man, I suck at picking just one. I'll narrow it down to two, that's the best I can do.
For a fun movie I have to pick 'Dazed & Confused'. There was a period of about 4-5 months when I first moved out of my parents house where me and my roommate watched it at least once a day. It was always on in the background. The song from the DVD menu screen haunts me in my dreams. That movies is perfect in every way. There's so many quotable lines & great characters. Every school had an O'Bannion.
It makes me wonder how different the whole movie would be if Led Zeppelin had allowed Richard Linklater to use their music. It would be almost an entirely different film.
I could talk for days about it so I'll move on.
For a serious/thriller kind of movie I have to choose 'No Country For Old Men'.
I love the Coen Bros. and they absolutely nailed it. The shots are so wonderful from beginning to end, the pacing is perfect & the acting so perfect. It's crazy that you can have a movie that tense with no score whatsoever, & the 3 main characters never meet face to face.
Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson & Tommy Lee Jones are just amazing in it. So is the girl who plays Brolin's wife, I don't know her name but she's a great actress. As for Javier Bardem's take as the deadly grim reaper, Anton Chigurh, it's one of the finest performances ever in film & my favorite movie villain ever.
Everything that people complain about with this film is all the reasons I love it so much. The slow pacing and beautiful cinematography is how a film like this should be made. The ending is not a typical hollywood ending and that pisses people off who are so used to the standard climactic build up with the hero getting the bad guy. Those people just don't get the entire concept of the movie. Its all there in the title. If you watched No Country and hated it or didn't like the ending go watch, I don't know, ....'Taken' with Liam Neeson. You can guess all the plot points of that one. No surprises there, enjoy.

5.       Favourite Musician?

Again a tough one, I'll narrow it down to my favorites right now. I think what Jay Z & Kanye West are doing for hip hop is brilliant. People don't seem to realize how they're changing the game. Kanye is going the Michael Jackson route, too brilliant for his own good. It's already making him insane and he'll probably get worse but when we look back we'll see how influential he was.

Krayziebone from Bone Thugs & Harmony is the most underrated rapper. He can do everything and work with anyone. I love a lot of great rappers from Rakim to Tupac to Biggie but I'll say Krayziebone is the best ever.

Lastly, I have to mention the Stones. When I was a teenager I got really heavy into Led Zeppelin and I think they are just the epitome of Rock N Roll.
Now, I'm discovering the Rolling Stones in the same way. I've always liked the Stones but I only ever really listened to their hits.

I'm reading all kinds of books about them and listening to their discography. I realized they are so fuckin' brilliant.

The Stones and Zeppelin ARE Rock N Roll.

The Stones are like the Beatles if the Beatles were sexy & cool. I always figured that Kieth & Mick were these great pals that just got together to party and make great music. Now, I'm realizing they were very often at odds but the way they get back at each other is to passive aggressively make genius rock and roll music. I think my friends are getting sick of me talking about the Stones but I fuckin' love 'em.

6.       Favourite Actor?

I think the best actor of our generation is Brad Pitt & he doesn't get enough credit.
I'm always hearing about how great Morgan Freeman, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, etc. are.
Really?
Maybe they were good back in their day but everything I've ever seen is them playing themselves. When's the last time DeNiro didn't just play a cartoon version of himself? Raging Bull (1980)?
That 'Meet the Fockers'/'Analyze This' shit is the worst. He might as well just play a character named Robert DeNiro.
Jack Nicholson plays 'crazy old fuck', Morgan Freeman plays Morgan Freeman, Sam Jackson plays 'bad ass black guy'.

Watch '12 Monkeys', 'Fight Club', 'Inglourious Basterds', 'Burn After Reading', 'Benjamin Button', 'Troy', 'Snatch', etc., he plays a different character and is amazing in all of them. He doesn't just act like himself with different names for his characters, he becomes someone else entirely.

I think Kevin Spacey and Benicio Del Toro are also brilliant actors.

7.       Favourite Actress?

I love Kate Winslet. She can do it all. Very versatile, very convincing, beautiful, and I think the fact that she is always naked doesn't hurt.
She's so wonderful in everything but I like her in 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' the best.

8.       Favourite Comic Artist?

Ah c'mon man, that's one category I could never choose just one. I won't write a bunch of shit about them but I'll just run off a list and I'll probably forget a few,

Frank Quitely, Dale Keown, Joe Madureira, Travis Charest, John Paul Leon, Moebius, Kirby, Eisner, Frank Miller, Joe Quesada, John Cassaday, Olivier Coipel, Steve McNiven, Sam Kieth, Kagan McLeod, Tommy Lee Edwards, Frank Cho, Ed McGuiness, Joe Kubert, Mike Weiringo, Steve Dillon, Marcelo Frusin, Bill Watterson & about a million others.

9.       First Comic Book that made you want to be a comics artist?

Green Lantern #'s 26-28 from the series in the 90's. It was Hal vs Evil Star and I loved it. That started it all.
A few others stand out too, a Captain America issue with Ron Lim art, a Conan issue with a Mignola cover & the first few issues of The Shadow of the Bat where Batman goes undercover in Arkham Asylum as a prisoner.

10.   Favourite Super Hero?

I love WonderMan, Daredevil, Guy Gardner, Batman, Apollo, Midnighter, Hawksmoor, Superman, Hulk, Cap, the Cassandra Cain Batgirl, Pitt, Maxx, the Tick. I also really like the Hawkman costume but I don't really know the character. I just remember him being very violent.

11.   Favourite Comic Strip?

Calvin & Hobbes and Farside are just the greatest.
I also absolutely love the web series Perry Bible Fellowship.

That one was quick and easy right? (not actually a question). Only 2 parts left, you’re over half done now. The bonus question is: Do you use references? How often? How do you feel about artists heavily using references vs. just using their head and seeing what comes out whether their car looks like a Toyota or a space ship with wheels?

I actually have no problem with using reference. I love using reference. I think you want to avoid that whole Greg Land territory where he's so good at using reference it looks like a tracing(He's not tracing, I've seen him draw).
I use reference for almost every animal I draw and a ton of other stuff. People don't think of how useful reference images can be. I like to use a reference for little things like, how someone might hold a coffee mug so that I make sure it looks natural when I draw someone holding ... a coffee mug.
These days there's no reason to not use reference when we have a resource like Google at our fingertips.
Why not?
As a comic book artist you have to know how to draw everything. I cannot draw everything.
Although you want to use reference you still want it to be in your style, so I use reference to make sure I'm drawing things properly and then eventually it becomes very natural to draw the things I used to need reference for. Let's just say I'd rather read a comic book that you can tell the artist used reference over a comic book with inaccurate anatomy or some holding something awkwardly.

Thanks again to Shane for the interview, he really went all out on the answers for this one and part four is hopefully coming soon.

Thanks to you as well for reading!

Interview 485: "Reanne does 11 at a time!"

2011-04-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hey there everyone, incase you don't know, I have a lovely girlfriend named Reanne and she is also an artist and into comics and a bunch of other artsy cool creative stuff so she liked my interviews so much that she agreed to do one herself...so let's start it up!

Hello my lovely girlfriend, this is only like my second interview in...my entire life...so go easy on me, let's start!

First question, who is your main artistic inspiration?

When I was a little girl, I remember seeing this commercial, I think it was for Honda vehicles or something and this girl was and supposedly releasing her emotions onto the canvas.
I try to create this way, by allowing the ink or charcoal or pencil or paint to reveal what words can't say, you know?
Somehow that insignificant 15 seconds of my life has stuck with me all this time.

Second question, where do you see yourself in ten years? Movies? Short films? Painting? A combination of things?

At 26 I will just be finishing school, finally. I'll be living in Montreal and hopefully be getting ready to move somewhere that I plan on settling down, and starting my hunt for a job in art therapy.
Short films are sadly an adolescent pass-time for me, unfortunately, because I love directing/creating them!

Third question, what is your favourite comic of all time?

The Living and The Dead by Jason.

Fourth question, who is your favourite comic creator of all time?

Definitely Frank Miller, he was my introduction to good comics. I thought comics were limited to 20 page newsprint superhero bullshit until Frank Miller.

He saved my artistic life.

Fifth question, (one that saddened me personally) could you see yourself doing comics for a living?

No. I need stability.

Sixth question, (made me feel a bit better) how much input would you like while doing a comic? Would you want to ink, colour, write, what is your ideal combo for comic creation?

In a perfect world, I would love to be able to self-publish a comic created solely by me. But since I can't write or draw worth a damn, inking and colouring would be fantastic!
A little side note on this response, she can ink and colour really well, but I personally feel that she would be at her best co-writing, pencilling (atleast layouts but hopefully full finished pencils) and colouring. She just doesn't see it. Ofcourse she did do the wonderful thumbnail for tonight's blog of The Maxx and Julie so...maybe she can handle it all!

Seventh question! 5 people you would love to work with in your lifetime (this ranges from directors to actresses to artists to writers to whoever!)

Only five!? Tim Burton, Winona Ryder (preferably in the 80s), Chester Brown (that's my girl!), Robert Crumb and ofcourse, Dr. Seuss. (I had to sneak one dead guy in, come on!)

Question number eight! Could you ever see yourself doing animation? What your first project be?

28 frames per second? Kill me.

Number nine, what are you working on currently? How many projects do you have in the works right now?

URGH!
I have been so unproductive lately, I am starting to feel completely useless.
I am currently working on a three piece canvas painting of this beautiful girl in a variety of colours.
My "not-so-superhero" comic is always in the works and I have a silk screen I'm attempting on the side.
I'm also doing a multi-media piece picturing a woman in the 60s chained to the stove.

That all sounds great, number ten, could you survive being brought on as the for anything? The writer for a new King of Queens episode or the artist for Spider-Man or maybe even the director of the new Kevin Smith movie? What would you never say yes to?

To be honest, I'd probably say yes to anything.

Last question and one I always find interesting, who is your favourite character to draw/paint?

Reanne from Markham Tales.

That was quick, right? This is the very first interview of many hopefully but I'm doing these ones a little different, I'll read over the replies (which I have, obviously) and use those to make a second set of eleven questions.
But before we're all done, let's have one last question, a bonus one, the one the readers have all been DYING to hear the answer to...
What role(s) do you wish to play in the creation of new Markham Tales strips?
There are currently these positions available to you: plotter, writer, penciller, inker, colourist, letterer, co-writer, co-plotter, collaborative artist. Go!

All of the above!!!

Thanks for the interview, I love you.

WrestleBlog 484: "TNA - The Best Damn Show...Ever!"

2011-04-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

If you've watched WWE lately, oh wait!
Look at my cool old avatar for Invincible Comic Fans on deviantART! Pretty keensville right?
Anyways...
If you've watched WWE lately, it's pretty shit.
Like the draft was cool recently, but nothing but potential, usually wasted.
I could care less what's happening in WWE, which is usually, at some point the WWE forgot that their fans are from Smackdown and Raw, they are not from Pay-Per-Views, those shows make them want to support the PPVs to get a little extra bite.
However...at some point that all changed, instead of having a great Raw, a great Smackdown and ending the rivalry at the PPV, they have decided to make Raw and Smackdown purely hype, and lame hype at that, for PPVs that don't finish rivalries in the least, and somehow the titles still manage to change hands every two seconds, I can't remember the last time the WWE went a month without a title change.
They don't make legacies or superstars, they don't have legendary moments during Raw without pushing them, trying to manufacture them instead of seeing how the people respond, the art, the flow, the excitement, everything has been lost.

However, if you tune into TNA...it's the show you always wanted.
Dream match after dream match, epic moment after epic moment, they run the show like every episode is their last and never save anything for later, because in wrestling, you never know who'll get injured, we never got to see Edge vs. Christian for the World Title, we have yet to see Undertaker vs. Cena at Wrestlemania, everything is saved for a bigger stage in WWE as everyone gets older, a lot older, and then retires early.
Right now they're wasting The Rock's time with silly promos every week and having him fight Cena at NEXT YEAR's Wrestlemania, what about Rock vs. Undertaker, vs. HHH, he won't even get to face HBK now. What about Rock vs. Miz and vs. Orton, the WWE forgets that people evolve, every match doesn't have to be the only one between two people because Orton looks different almost every year, so it gets more epic if Orton for this year fights Cena for this year, it's not the same Cena and Orton that fought a year or two ago.

TNA realizes this though, and banks on it, they'll never run out of great matches and so they overstock their regular Thursday nights with them.
For example, the episode I'm watching while I write this, it starts off with a steel cage up!
They have 2 fights in that cage to start the show off!
Does WWE do that? With actual stars? Never.
Instead we get these ridiculously lame matches like Miz's sidekick vs. Randy Orton in a Tables Match so as to not spoil anything before the PPV.

TNA has double...triple...quadruple Main Events!

I love it, it's how comics should be done as opposed to how they usually are.
That's why I read what I read.
That's why I am an Invincible Comic Fan (it all connects, right?) and not a Spider-Man fan.
The big moments in great writing, in great storytelling are not manufactured, they just happen.
They build and build because of the challenge of creating bigger and better stories instead of just thinking of a great idea and waiting until you can get the most money from it, success comes from having a great work ethic.

Ofcourse it does help when you cover a queen in shit.
Which you can find here.

Thanks for reading!

Interview 483: Shane Heron Part 2!

2011-04-26T21:52:00.000-07:00

Shane Heron does 11 at a time about...Personal Work

Okay so the last one was heavily focused on you and Joel so I thought part two would be all Shane Heron. Let’s start...

Do you think a lot about your target market? What would your comic idea be to target a younger audience? Would it be cartoony and filled with gags or super hero action without the blood and bullets? Somewhere in between perhaps?

I don't think a lot about target market and demographics at all. I'm terrible at the whole business thing. I basically come up with a cool idea or a new take on an old story and work towards that. I guess I always just assumed that if I create stories that I would want to read then someone else will also be interested.

I have a few ideas for stuff geared toward a younger audience. Joel & myself are in the very early stages of planning a children's book. The main problem I have with children's content is that it's too dumbed down. I see that Teletubbies, Caillou, or SpongeBob and it's all mindless garbage. I would definitely aim for something like Bill Watterson's 'Calvin & Hobbes', Maurice Sendak's 'Where the Wild Things Are', or anything by Dr. Seuss. Those are all creations that have a unique artistic style without sacrificing integrity to appeal to children.

2.       Do you think about making a comic targeted towards adults? Would it simply be mature in idea that would make it unrelatable to a younger audience or have drugs, sex and violence? Do you read any comics like this yourself?

I love that each question is about 3 or 4 actual questions. I gotta remember how to write a 'hamburger' essay when I do these.
Again, I don't think about targeting anyone specifically. Maybe I should but I just like to create. Not just in art, in life. My personality is very much act first and come up with a plan on the fly and then deal with the reaction or consequences after. I have no real foresight in general. Everything I do is trial and error. So, if I'm creating a comic, I start with a cool idea or something as simple as a character based on a throw away sketch and build from there. I'm not a fan of 'cookie cutter' stories or characters and I hate repetition and redundancy, so my only real goal is to do something that hasn't been done before. I don't like to read stories or watch movies that I can guess all the plot points so I wouldn't want to create that either. I don't need to watch any movies about a sports team ever again, because, guess what? (SPOILER ALERT) It's a 'come from behind' win.
As for adult content, I don't like to censor myself if I can help it. Unless something is specifically intended to be family friendly than I'd rather have nudity/blood/violence/drugs if it enhances the story and is used properly.

My tastes in comics is very eclectic. I read everything that looks interesting regardless of who it is aimed at. Specific books I like that stand out in the 'adult' category, I love Super Fuckers by James Kolchalka, Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon & Sin City by Frank Miller.
Super Fuckers is just ridiculously obscene and hilarious. His main goal is to be as offensive as possible with a cartoony super hero team that is disguised as a kid friendly book.

Preacher is perhaps my favorite comic of all time and is a perfect example of how to tell an amazing story that is vulgar in all the right places. Imagine Preacher if it was censored or dumbed down, it would be the biggest pile of shit. Instead, it's one of the greatest stories ever told.

Sin City is brilliant in so many ways but one thing that really stood out to me was the very realistic way the adult content was portrayed (I realize Sin City is far from realistic).
I'm from Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, and where I grew up it was a very homophobic culture. Not that there was a lot of hate crimes or anything, just that homosexuality wasn't something we really came across, and as a kid in school 'gay' was something you did not want to be called. So, one day after I'd read Dark Knight Returns, I was super into Frank Miller and I pick up Sin City. This was eye opening for me in a ton of different ways but I remember seeing the use of nudity in not just gorgeous women but also men. I remember one story there is an assassin in a hotel room across the street and he's drawn in nothing but socks & Miller did not put a convenient shadow on his crotch like I'd seen so many times in comics. This character was naked and Miller drew his whole body, cock and all. I realized, proper nudity or violence can enhance a story and make it real and gritty, and maybe drawing a naked dude with his junk hanging out doesn't necessarily make me 'gay'. From that moment on I decided that my stories would have proper nudity or violence or drug use or whatever, as long as it was called for in the story and I would be comfortable if somebody judged me for creating it.
That would be their problem, not mine. My problem would be creating great comics.
3.       I see you do blogs about bringing back super heroes from your childhood, do you ever think any of these could succeed in today’s comic market? Perhaps as a web comic or something as part of a self-published collection of various stories? Which ones? How many do you have from childhood?

I do that mainly as a fun warm up sketch before I get into drawing for work. While I have love for a lot of these characters there's a whole bunch I just quickly sketch in the moment and have no great affection for, but maybe that day it was just fun to draw.
I feel like Sam Kieth's the Maxx could definitely succeed in today's market, even better than it did in the 90's. The Maxx was way ahead of its time. But I guess Kieth is done with that story.
I'm not sure which characters exactly you're referring to but people are constantly bringing back and relaunching old characters so sure there's a market I guess.
I have too many characters I loved growing up, I couldn't even list them. But while I still have love for those stories it doesn't always translate into liking what is done with the characters today. For example, Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, & Martian Manhunter are 3 characters I absolutely loved growing up. I can't figure out what the fuck is going on with any of them in present DC universe. I tried reading GL because everyone says how great all the Geoff Johns stuff is, I didn't know what the hell was going on. I loved the Cassandra Cain/BatGirl character and her solo series from the early 2000's that featured Damian Scott art was incredible. After that whole 52 thing the DC universe jumped ahead a year and BatGirl was a villain and part of DeathStroke's evil Teen Titans team. That caught my attention and it sounded great. I tried to read it. It was chaos. Marvel & DC have lost me. It doesn't seem that you can just pick up one book and enjoy it, they are all tied into all kinds of other stories so I don't even bother any more.
4.       I know you’re a Jeffrey Brown fan, do you ever see yourself doing autobiography stuff?

I am a huge Jeffery Brown fan and I admire the whole genre and style of comic books that he kinda opened up to a bigger audience. It makes me very happy to see all the success Jeff is having.
I will do autobio but not just yet. I have a few ideas that are sitting on the shelf until the proper time. I doubt I would ever do a serial autobio web or print comic the way they are commonly done today. I will do a short series, probably in OGN format or a 4-6 part mini series that could be collected into a trade paperback, and I wouldn't start without a definite ending in mind.
5.       What is your favourite part of making comics? Layouts, inking, colouring, pencils, lettering? Something else? Least favourite part?

My favorite parts are the early stages of the creation. Thumbnails & layouts are the most fun. That's the stage when there is the most energy. I also take a lot of joy in the pencil/ink stage but that also has more of a work feel. There is also a real satisfaction in the completion of the different stages & then the completion of the entire story.
Least favorite is anything that involves rulers and perspective. I'm always reluctant to work on those images but again, there is great satisfaction in sitting back and looking at what you're created on the page, and that is multiplied when it's subject matter that I'm not really comfortable drawing.

6.       Do you find being the artist only on most things limiting? Do you feel you lack the input you want and picking apart the scripts as hours pass and how you could make it better?

I find a certain freedom in being solely the artist most times. It frees up a lot of brain power to focus on the images. This is also because the writers I have worked with are very good writers that have a clear distinct vision. Most writers, especially confident ones, are very open to minor changes in story telling.

As a writer I find simple story structure the hardest to grasp, so even on a story written by me, I would still need the help of a good writer I trust. I'm more comfortable tweeking another creator's script than starting my own from scratch.
7.       Do you draw alone a lot or in groups? Are you a coffee shop collaborator? Do you have many local peers you often meet up with to finish some pages?

With most artists the majority of your drawing is going to be alone, which is what you want for the actual grunt of the work but its definitely helpful to get together in a group of other artists to bounce ideas of each other or just 'shoot the shit'. There is a real value in being able to draw but at the same time talk with others, especially other artists, to sort of distract your brain from what you are drawing. When alone, you spend a lot of time in your own head thinking about what you're doing wrong and all the little mistakes but if you can focus part of your brain elsewhere your true artistic side just unconsciously comes out and then you'll end up doing some of your best work.
When I first got into Jeffrey Brown, I tried to do the same kind of idea that he had where he would go to a coffee shop and sit there and draw his comics but realistically it's harder to do than he made it seem. I liked the idea because at home I can often find myself distracted by internet or whatever else comes up at home but at a coffee shop there is nothing to do but drink a coffee and draw. I tried many times but most of the people I did it with just didn't get it. Eventually that turned into drawing sessions at the Toronto Reference Library with other artists/creators like Joel Buxton, Brian Boodnarine, Iby from Digital Kontent, Deeba, Danny Truong, Lezley Davidson on occasion, and you've even joined in.
I do try to meet up but it gets harder all the time. Everyone gets older and busier & it becomes increasingly harder to put together drawing sessions. At the same time, artists in general can be an unreliable bunch so there's many a time when we'd plan a drawing session and one person would cancel or forget, creating a domino effect where I just end up drawing alone at home thinking why did I even bother.
If I can get 3 people together that's a success.
But if you have ability to put together meet ups with other artists, not just comic book artists but any type, painters, sketch artists, comedians, writers, musicians, anyone with a creative bone in their body, there is real value in that.
8.       What if you had to just write and nothing else? Could you handle that kind of input in comics or are you an artist above comic creator?

I don't think I could just write. I have a control problem where even if it was another artist illustrating my scripts I would constantly be trying to suggest where and how they do it. No one thinks exactly like anyone else so I have to kinda sit back and realize just because I wouldn't have done it that way doesn't mean it's wrong. Maybe with maturity I will get over that.
9.       What do you read and wish you could work on yourself? What do you read and think you could do a better job on than the undeserving artist who currently handles the duties?

Oh, I don't really think that way anymore. A few years ago, I probably would've had an answer for you. Now, I'm happy for anyone having success in the field they pursue (even the guy everyone seems to loathe, Rob Liefield). Sometimes I see an image and think, 'hey, I coulda done that better.' But nothing that sticks in my head very long. Being a professional artist is a ton of hard work that's rarely as lucrative as it should be so I don't spend time shitting on anyone's success, however large or small.
My mind set right now is not, that I want someone else's job or that I see other artists as competition, it's more that I want to work hard at my current projects and that will continue to open bigger better doors for myself.
The cream always rises to the top.
10.   If you had to draw like any artist on the planet, who would it be? Who would you absolutely hate to draw like? Do you ever consider changing your style?

I'd love to be as amazing as any of my influences. I could ramble off a list from Frank Quitely to Travis Charest to Will Eisner but I could go on forever about my favorite artists that are a million times better than me. You must also realize that these artists influence you consciously and subconsciously and there is a little bit of all of them in your art. I've had times when I finish a drawing and think, it looks like I ripped off Quitely, all I see is Quitely and then someone will say, 'hey that looks cool. Kinda looks Jim Lee-ish' and I'll say, 'no, it looks like I swiped Quitely, can't you see?' If I can draw like any of these great artists or a hybrid of them all then I'll take it.

There's not a person I'd hate to draw like. That's a hypothetical question I can't really understand the concept of. I probably wouldn't have a style similar to artists I don't like because they wouldn't be the ones that influence me. We are trained to look at and appreciate art we like and that sinks in to your brain and you 'copy' those. Nobody tries to draw like artists they don't like.

I do consider changing my art style but its not something I do deliberately, it's more of a slow evolution.
I will be trying out something new in the new future on a story I'm working on. Instead of doing the traditional pencil to inks I will be using staight to ink drawings with a brush in a very 'loose' manner and skipping pencils all together. It'll probably look like shit.
11.   Could you be a painter and nothing else?

No. I do enjoy painting but I much prefer what I can do with a pencil and pen.
There is something quite wonderful about telling a story through a sequences of images.
Thanks for the answers, hopefully these aren’t getting old fast. Bonus question: Are you ever bringing back The Almighty? Will he ever meet Awesome Marcus Ninja?

I have plans for the Almighty but right now, I'm still figuring out how exactly I want to execute that story.
I originally intended the Almighty as a silent comic to practice and showcase my storytelling but as the story grew in my head I realized I want to tell a complete story with a definite ending in mind. I have many ideas that I have to work out and I'm also not sure what format I want the book to be in, so for now, its on the shelf since I'm very busy with my current projects. I do intend on returning the that story though.
As for a meeting with Awesome Marcus Ninja, I seriously doubt it. AMN is an action/comedy comic set in modern day Toronto, while the Almighty is a fantasy story set in an undefined fictional world in a mythological time so there's no real reason to bring them together, other than the fact that I worked on both of them. I don't like stories that are thrown together like that. They usually have a very weak plot that is only there for the sole reason of seeing these 2 characters meet and that's not anything I'm interested in. I mean I never say never, but there would have to be a demand for that first of all, and then there would have to be a quality story that makes it work without seeming cheesy. But I mean, look at something like JLA/Avengers, it was 25 years in the making with some of the best writers in comics having a hand in it and they still couldn't do it without it seeming silly. I like reading Batman/Judge Dredd crossovers but god, they're stupid.

That concludes part 2 of the interview, hope you're liking them so far and I hope Shane isn't tired of me yet! Also, to readers, DEMAND THE TEAM-UP! Even if it's just one page it is something I want to see!

Thanks for reading!

Expect interviews with other artist from the greatest province in the world in the near future too!

Post 482: "WWE Draft 2011"

2011-04-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Here is the image for the blog, I thought it made this blog look a little bit more professional but I still think I need to make something that better matches the colour scheme.
Anyways...

Last night was the WWE Draft.
It happens every year and changes how the WWE works, usually for the better, but that is often short-lived.
WWE often goes into a mode of being really good for a short time span at some point in the year.
I remember a year or two ago it was when Drew McEntyre was fighting John Morrison. John Morrison also had some fantastic matches against Dolph Ziggler. I always thought trading him to Raw was a big mistake.

Speaking of big mistakes featuring Johns going to Raw...

Last night started with John Cena going back to Smackdown which excited me a lot, I thought that WWE had seen the hole left by Edge and Rock being on Raw and thought to have Cena be the posterboy there was genius, but then they ruined that by the end of the night, WWE is ran a lot like comics, everything comes full circle very quickly, noone ever dies, no big changes ever stick.

It was followed by Rey Mysterio going to Raw, which might lead to some cool matches to make me like him again, but I doubt it, it'll atleast be cool to not have to see him when I'm trying to enjoy Smackdown.

This was followed by Randy Orton to Smackdown, which should have been the biggest news of the night but wasn't, I guess Randy is a bit of a loser now but I'm sure he'll soon be World Heavyweight Champion, I wonder how long Smackdown'll live with such a good roster and show potential, it killed ECW.

The World's Blandest went back to Smackdown and if you're a big Sexual Chocolate fan, that was the high point of his career, when he was a badass fighting the likes of Undertaker and Batista and NOT being the underdog. Mark Henry even made his return to the dark side by the end of the night! He's ready for stardom! Goodbye mediocrity!

Sina Cara went to Smackdown, which isn't surprising, I was confused as to why he was on Raw, it was apparently just so he could fight like one match, tricky buggers. Trying to make hype around something that was obvious from before he came.

Big Show is going back to Raw which is great, he was doing nothing on Smackdown and is way better than Mark Henry for the big man on Monday nights. I'm excited to see how it goes for him. All my favourites seem to be from the WWE's version of ECW. Like that was the best of the Big Show.

Albert Del Rio went to Raw, which is fantastic news, not only will he definitely not win the World Title but also he'll not ruin my Friday nights, I can go back to watching Smackdown every Friday night now I think!

Daniel Bryan went to Smackdown which was a big letdown for me, I hate that guy, he's going to ruin the Intercontinental division with his blandness. On the upside, they might find a way to team him up with or face Kofi Kingston and just blend the bland.

HUGE NEWS (for me) was Jack Swagger, definitely one of my favourite wrestlers (also from ECW) going to Raw where I think he'll shine. If that was the only trade that happened it would have been more than fine with me, and actually cool because it could have gave him such much needed heat.

The Great Khali returned to Smackdown, one of my favourite times in wrestling was when he was a big deal on Smackdown, a bad guy in giant black pants. A dream match back then was for him to fight Mark Henry, now maybe it'll happen.

Jimmy Uso is going to Smackdown, now counting down until when he's fired. He's no more than another Shad Gaspard but worse to me.

Kelly Kelly is going to Raw which I think is a really big deal (also ECW) because she should be the female face of the WWE and now I think she will be.

JTG is going to Raw which is super funny, for some reason they're sending a lot of jobbers to Raw. I don't know why, but I assume they have some sort of plans for them or are giving them one last go before they're released from their contracts.

Alicia Fox is going to Smackdown, I hope they fire her not long after.

William Regal is going to Smackdown, it seems for yet another year all the old ECW Alumni are all that gets traded, but it works fine for me, they are the main force in rejuvenating a tired show. It's also good because he was so forgotten on Raw, they might as well have drafted some of these guys to Superstars and gave that show chances at the middleweight belts.

Yoshi Tatsu was drafted to Smackdown which spells the end for the young Japanese martial artist, I hope he doesn't fight William Regal a lot, that'll ruin it for the Englishman.

HUGE NEWS...Drew McEntyre to go to Raw, like the matchups he'll have now are so different than on Smackdown and on such a different stage that his career is going to be completely shaken, same with Swagger, I am really excited to see him bump into the Celtic Warrior.

Natalya is also heading to Friday nights which is actually cool, she's not made for Mondays.

Curt Hawkins is Raw-bound...awesome...that guy has so much potential, he's just really funny and mean and sorta badass...but they have to use him like that.

Chris Masters is going to Raw which will hopefully be a big change for him, he never fit on Smackdown but I doubt he'll get much use on Raw either, even TNA doesn't feel like the right fit for him, he just doesn't belong in 2011 right now...

Jey Uso is going to Smackdown which means...the Usos are going to be yet another bland team trying to recapture the old school vibe on Friday nights and wasting valuable minutes that could be used showcasing better talents.

Kofi is going to Mondays which should be big news but I don't remember him fondly the first time around. I don't know why they're putting him there unless it's a big push but I really doubt that. I'd love to see him teamed up with the big guys and fighting them but I just can't see it. Should atleast make an interesting fight if he wants to go after Sheamus...even just to look at.

Ted Dibiase is going to Fridays which is HUGE, that guy is uber talented and so wasted on Raw, one of the worst parts of Mondays could become the best part of Fridays as long as they keep him away from Cody, that guy sucks.

Tyson Kidd is going to Smackdown, that guy's biggest problem has always been stature, he's just so small that a push is wasted on him because he's still going to be under 200 pounds after. Maybe a costume change could help but I REALLY doubt it.

Tamina is going to Smackdown, I forgot her name before reading that, she's cool though but...she's no Jazz and Jazz was sorta lame anyways.

Tyler Reks is going to Raw...please fire that guy.

Alex Riley is going to Smackdown, I loved him in NXT but since he has become so lame.

Beth Phoenix is going to Raw, she's fantastic, I hope she flourishes there.

And as I was writing this some really bad news came in...Sheamus is going to Friday nights, this would be a saving grace for Friday nights but...they just got so much talent he should be fighting, the draft is starting to feel like nothing more than switching the mid-carders, even the champions aren't safe. I guess that means Wade could be returning to Monday nights but...he'd be another great opponent for Sheamus that won't happen. Now Sheamus might flourish and go back into the World Title picture on Fridays or even become less lame as US Champion but...I find this greatly disappointing. It'll make my wrestling game interesting atleast : P

A bit of strange news actually...apparently Sheamus coming in at number 30 is the last draft pick.
That means that both middleweight titles are on Smackdown.

Another big of strange news, the tag team champions are on different shows now.
This could mean that the World title is coming to Raw.

Another bit of strange news, that I personally didn't know, Kane and Big Show are the tag team champions, that's pretty cool just...strange.

I haven't been keeping updated but the Bellas being Divas Champs and Kane/Big Show holding the tag titles, I am curious to see where things go from here, but I am not curious to see the bigger names on Raw anymore, just the names that will hopefully become big on there.

Thankyou for reading.

Post 481: "Bad Blogging & Enterting The Future"

2011-04-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

Another similar graphic.
I am starting to think badly of blogging.
It groups my thoughts and everything but, I don't end up doing anything.
I need to make a change.
And I am making the change.

I also don't feel helped by doing big reference folders anymore either.
I think actually reading comics and going on deviantART to see what real artists are up to and what part of the process they're doing is more helpful.

I'm starting to change my thinking.

I'm also starting to wonder what I want, I love looking at the Dick Tracy's plastered all over my door and am starting to imagine my own black and white strips. What style they'll be in and all that.

I think really the answer is me working more on Markham Tales, and Blob Man and tiny side ones.

But only in those two do I not feel so restricted. I can send me and my buddies to the moon if I want to. I can send Blob Man into blood and guts, tits and ass or butterflies and daisies. Those are my worlds, I need to take advantage.

On another note...

I was thinking about the future, what computers can do that print can't and how I should take advantage. I can have better pacing and suspense. Comics read better on my video player because I can't see 3 panels from now on the next page, I can just see this panel.

They can also sparkle, move, jump, talk...have the right background music.
They are that perfect middleground of comics...but with a couple upgrades. This interests me greatly.
I want to add GIFs to the images you see on your screens.
It's the future.

Thanks for reading...back to the drawing board.

Post 480: "Addicted to YouTube Comics"

2011-04-20T02:22:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon a YouTube video of a comic book, done with panels as screens, sort of like a slideshow that fit the player well, and since then have found 100s more and am permanently addicted.
I just can't stop reading them, it's not because I'm cheap, it's just such easy access.
They actually make me want to buy more books and try comics I wouldn't regularly, that's the weird thing about the community nowadays and a lot of my target market, if someone sees something for free and falls in love with it, they'll go out and buy it just to own it, that's how I am, that's how my friends are, that's the kind of people I wish to attract with my comics.
Like if I had a web strip and released a book collection of it, I'd buy it, if there was a signed edition, would buy it, hardcover edition, would but it, and so on.
If I did a page-a-day type deal online just releasing the whole thing for free, then every month a single issue came out, I'd buy that, then if a trade came out of that, I'd buy that too.
I just like owning that stuff and being part of something, feeling like something is mine.

I'm so addicted to YouTube comics I think that I'll release videos showing what happens in my web strip. Then the world will have easier access to it. But I think I'll still make a regular comic book and if I do release a collection, have lots of bonus features, always new bonus features.

I love new covers for new print runs of comic books, I think that's really cool.
Like if I ever self-publish a comic, maybe 25 issues or something small like that, if they all sell accept for my own personal stash, I'll do another cover, and another issue, then if those both sell, maybe an over-sized issue collecting both with ofcourse yet another cover, then if those sell, a third issue, then if that sells, maybe Shane will make me a cover, then four, sells, Reanne's cover, five, sells, big hardcover filled with art by other artists and myself, like I just love thinking about that stuff, it's marketing shit to some people but for me...it's what I love about so much of what I read.

Even for something as simple as Markham Tales, I'd love for everyone I know who draws to draw a strip, unless it's Reanne, I think she should all of them, every single one, and also everyone I know to think of the gag for one, like Warren has, Reanne has, Nick has had some great ones, even if I haven't made everyone's jokes in there yet, I love having people have input, and if any of my other artist friends want to do a guest strip, I would love nothing more.

It's funny, I think about how much I enjoy making Markham Tales and how much people love reading them, but I just don't make that many of them even though they're so quick, fun and easy. I've always got some idea in my head that I think is more important for however many reasons.

Anyways, I feel sleep coming on, thanks again for reading, you guys are great, really cool dudes and dudettes, and good looking too, comment! : )

lowercase post 479: "invincible ultimate collection volume 6"

2011-04-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

i don't know if readers like my review stuff or not, but if you don't comment and let me know, who knows what i'll blog about next!
now not too long ago i picked up volume 6 of invincible, i was very torn about which of the trades, ultimate collections, giant hardcovers, single issues, to pick up, so many options, so i asked the best guy you can ask, ryan ottley, the artist of invincible and the whole reason i even wanted to pick up a collection so badly, he told me this one, and i can see why.
the trade paperbacks are alright, but page quality and size compared to the ultimate collection? yeah right.
then there's the complete library editions, which besides their phallic qualities, i've learned in the past are just too fucking hard to read unless the different is a great step down in the next collection, for example the frank miller stuff, you're either getting the regular cheap trades or these ridiculous oversized collections with nothing in between, it's a real bummer.
however with invincible, the middleground is ideal, oh there's single issues too but with such an ongoing story (it is by robert kirkman) that'll never be enough, it's not like it's eric powell's goon where you can literally pick up anything, ever, even part one of two and be completely satisfied with what you have and reread it multiple times.
but anyways...

...the reason this one is the best is simple, the other five can't compare.
in volume 1 you see cory walker, amazing artist, invincible's main story ever, and the start of ryan ottley as artist, the issue is that it's ryan ottley at the start of his run on invincible, he's got this poor man's cory walker with shades of a thinned out ed mcguinness vibe going on, i dig it, but compare it to now, well...there is no comparison.
the second collection has cool bonuses and weird issues but...nothing great happens. like the first one is basically a small movie, if they ever make an invincible movie, it'll be the first volume, but the second will be like the continuation where stuff happens but it's more of moving things forward towards great things than having them happen right away after, which makes sense, just not a required volume.
the third collection is filled with dramatics, which is totally cool and gets you turning the page, but it's more of the touchy feely stuff than the action stuff, basically if collection two and three were combined, they'd be even between unimportant but way cool action and lots of important-ish drama. however they still wouldn't beat volume 6...
...volume four, has lots of great stuff happen and more building for the eventual viltrumite war, which is great, but not like, vital, it was a defining time for invincible but it more felt like on the way to the great stuff.
i'd rank volume five a close second, he has the blue costume (my favourite), he has the sidekick, important and exciting adventure, fantastic crossover with the astounding wolf-man (awesome comic!), awesome revenge scene, like some of my favourite purely invincible moments happen in there...but then...

volume 6 (the best) blows them all out of the water.
it starts off with a huge image crossover that is solved in one oversized issue, epic intro.
introduces one of the best invincible characters (or characters period) right after, conquest.
it lasts a long time, but it is endlessly exciting while it happens in a world already destroyed by battle!
followed by the return of cory walker, you see i love cory walker's art on par, sometimes more, sometimes less, with ryan ottley's and he (all grown up in a sense) returns to the pages of invincible with a great story.
this is followed by dinosaurus and hardcore badass invincible, dinosaurus is one of the coolest characters of all time, i know i said that about conquest but if you saw them both, the awesome metal arm and stache followed by the red hulking scaly mass with the t-rex's head, you'd be blown away, battle beast too, invincible thrives on it's character design.
we then are hit right after again with universa, badass green alien villain chick. the characters in this volume are just so unique and wonderful to look at.
this is followed by a fantastic return of the sequids, they are the awesome little pink creatures that ryan ottley draws so well, it's a fantastic battle yet again with the earth at stake, it happens a lot in this volume but they manage to make it never get old.
then ofcourse the recap issue that actually has something HUGE happen in it, invincible returns! it's got a nice recap that isn't too long or too short, really more of an art showcase while captions tell you what these awesome pictures represent, then invincible goes back to his old costume which they manage to make a really big important moment.

it's got everything.
it's got cory walker.
it's got sequids.
it's got conquest and dinosaurus.
it's got the return of the old costume and the best of the blue costume.
it's invincible at it's best.

though i'm excited for volume 7, this isn't a case of invincible getting better every volume, i do rank volume 5 second, but i'd rank the other volumes above volume 7 for right now (all the issues that are going to be in it haven't been released yet so there's still some hope) because i've read what will mostly be in it and it was as cool as you wanted it to be and cooler, but it wasn't the conquest fight or dinosaurus or huge image crossover, it was more like...this was almost as cool as i wanted it to be but i guess they could only mess up so much in the book without just ending it before long.

i guess that's the end of my long ass review that ended up being a review of the complete history of invincible, i guess i am just a kirkman addict (isn't everyone?) but he just finds the best artists to work with, he's even doing something with liefeld too right now! it's mind-boggling!

thanks for reading.

Post 478: "Come on videos, give me a chance!"

2011-04-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been working a lot on avatars, I think they show people I'm good or bad before they even see who I am.
Here's my scrapped one for deviantART.
It's not too bad I don't think.
It's way small obviously, that's how big they are on deviantART, but I really liked it, proved that I still retained some of my sprite-making skills from when I used to make games.

I have "Born This Way" by Lady GaGa stuck in my head, I think that song is important, it channels other people's styles into a song she wishes existed, and then she makes it.
Heavy shades of Pink and Madonna in that one, and yet there she is doing it herself, trying to add her vibe to it in the unfitting music video. It's not the first time either. Nor is she the first.
I see shades of past artists living vicariously through the younger generation of today.
I wish to be one of those artists.

Sometimes I wonder if that's someone else's spirit coursing through your physical being to make something so much in the vein of someone else but still as far as the eye can see, completely new.
If you can actually take that spirit and fuse it to yours.
I think so.
I feel a tingle in the back of my head when I feel "on", maybe I am making a song and the right words are flowing out with ease coming together personally, maybe I'm writing plots and everything seems to fit together but I don't know where I'm going with it yet it all ties up nicely to boot, maybe I'm drawing and it's the drawing I always wanted the artist I'm styling from, but I made it, not them. It's crazy stuff.

But how does one get a chance to showcase these talents?

In my last blog I talked about videos.
My obsession with finding this dream player, well, it sits beside the computer right now and right across from it lies another that I bought foolishly that just didn't work but almost did and I felt bad that it didn't, it took a little piece of me with it, what could have been.
I get so attached to everything.

Well I've been making a lot of realizations since I started thinking I was good at the art making.
I can't draw comic book pages yet.
I will.
I know I will.
I can see all the comic books I'll make.
But they're not here yet.
Neither are the full size strips besides one for someone else.
They're all far from me right now.

I get too excited about materials, I forget how much practice I have to have before I am ready to hit the big boards on the littler sheets.
How many tiny panels I have to do before I even do a half page splash.

I also forget how much easier strips are to market.
And they just got easier.

If I could make a continuing story in a comic strip, it would be really easy to chop those panels up and make a comic book video (like the ones I watch).
Suddenly, things seem easier.

I also was thinking about why comic strips are the best.
I love the idea of making some really funny, action-packed, blood and guts, all-ages, personal comic book, self published, and selling it and marketing it really well and just hoping for the best, but it's so much easier to get someone to read 3 panels with very little words.
Maybe it's a pun, maybe it's some key story or maybe it's clips from a larger story.
Whatever it may be, it's just easier to sell to someone.

So between videos and comic strips and videos of comic strips, I'm hoping that the world of comics gives me a chance, now I am going to go download more videos for my new HD mp3 video player that I've fallen head over heels for!

I liked Zohan.
There, I said it.

Post 477: "Videos"

2011-04-17T03:50:00.000-07:00

I don't usually post rants about stuff I want anymore, but tonight I just felt like it, I've been spending my time researching video players that play small formats (FLV/AVI) and it's become a crazy obsession, I just wanted something to be able to watch old cartoons while on break at work, in bed and ofcourse on the bus to see my lovely ladyfriend.
It's a pretty simple request that has turned into my descension into madness.
I went from wanting to buy a 20 dollar MP3, to a 30 dollar one, to a 60 dollar one, to an 80 dollars one and now I decide between the last 3, the first and cheapest but a distant memory.
I just like new things too much probably, I love to imagine my room filled with new things, it's an addiction.
I think I should just paint my room blue and move all this old shit out of it.
OR maybe take another room, I just can't figure out where to put everything.

Thanks for reading.

476: ALL CAPS

2011-04-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

CHECK OUT THIS BOMB-ASS AVATAR, WORSHIP IT!
I DECIDED TO THIS ENTRY IN ALL-CAPS AS OPPOSED TO PREVIOUS ONES WHERE I JUST USED LOWERCASE LETTERS.
SEE HOW IT GOES.
SEE IF IT MAKES THIS ENTRY FEEL HARDCORE.
SORTA DOES I THINK?

SO, EASIER TO READ AND TYPE, THAT'S A BONUS, YOU WANT TO HEAR WHAT'S NEW?
NOTHING.
I AM STILL LOST AS EVER, IT'S PRETTY BUMS, THAT PHRASE IS COPYRIGHT OF THIS BLOG.
DON'T SAY IT.
I'LL FIND YOU.

SO I FINALLY TURNED 20,000 VIEWS OLD AND IT FEELS PRETTY SWEET.
THE DOWNSIDE, MY BLOG FEELS GOOD, MY GIRLFRIEND'S BLOG FEELS GREAT, AND EVERYONE ELSE I FOLLOW IS PRETTY MUCH SHIT.
LIKE THEY'RE THE SAME, BUT JUST THE CONTENT THEY WANT TO SHOW ME IS GARBAGE FOR THE MOST PART, IF YOU'RE READING THIS, IT'S PROBABLY NOT ABOUT YOU, I FOLLOW I THINK LIKE...100 BLOGS...SO IF 5-10 GUYS ARE STILL DOING GOOD, IT'S NOT DOING MUCH FOR ME.

I THINK EVERYTHING IS BECOMING A LITTLE BIT MORE SHIT AS TIME PROGRESSES.
EVEN THE ART OVER ON DEVIANTART SEEMS TO BE GOING DOWN IN QUALITY.
JUST NOTHING THAT INTERESTS ME, I'VE HAD TO LOWER MY STANDARDS OFF WHAT GETS X'D INITIALLY.
I COMMENT ON LESS AND LESS EVERYDAY BUT FOLLOW MORE AND MORE PEOPLE.
IT'S NOT MY STANDARDS EITHER, THEY'VE STAYED THE SAME IF NOT LOWERED.
MAYBE IT'S NOT A CREATIVE TIME FOR PEOPLE, MAYBE THAT IS MY TIME TO STRIKE.

I THINK MY PROBLEM (I HAVE A LOT BUT THIS ONE IS BIG) IS THAT MY SCANNER IS TEMPERAMENTAL, LIKE IF I COULD ACTUALLY KNOW THAT I CAN UPLOAD A NEW STRIP EVERYDAY OR A NEW DRAWING EVERY BLOG, THEN I MIGHT DO IT, IF IT WAS EASY FOR ME. LIKE TAKE "MARKHAM TALES" FOR AN EXAMPLE, I FINISH ONE OF THOSE ALL HAPPY-GO-LUCKY AND PEOPLE ASK FOR MORE, WHEN THEY DO, I MAKE MORE, BUT THERE'S THIS PAUSE OF DAYS IN BETWEEN WHERE IT HASN'T SCANNED YET AND I LOSE THE VIBE TO MAKE MORE WITH NOT EVEN ONE GOING UP.
I KNOW THERE'S A DAILY SKETCH CHALLENGE ON DEVIANTART AND MAYBE IF I COULD DO UP A QUICK SKETCH, SLAP IT ON MY SCANNER AND HAVE IT IN FRONT OF ME THEN I'D DO IT EVERYDAY, YOU KNOW?
MAYBE YOU DON'T, YOU'LL PROBABLY NOT COMMENT BUT GIVE ME HUNDREDS MORE VIEWS BEFORE THE NIGHT IS OUT, YOU SHIFTY READERS!

OH, SPEAKING OF COMMENTARY, IF YOU DO PUT A COMMENT ON ANY OF MY BLOGS AND HAPPEN TO HAVE AN IDEA FOR A BLOG SERIES OR WANT TO COLLABORATE OR ANYTHING ALONG THOSE LINES, LET ME KNOW, I AM ALWAYS LOOKING FOR WAYS TO MAKE THIS THING FEEL MORE INTERACTIVE, THE SHANE INTERVIEW WAS WAY KEEN!

THANKS FOR READING!

astoundingly reviewed number four-hundred & seventy-five: wolf-man turns four!

2011-04-16T04:02:00.000-07:00

and i am back again already.
so i decided to do this review as i read it.
where do i start? at the beginning ofcourse!
this issue begins with his daughter being a huge fucking bitch that you want to punch, does that make me hate it? no! it makes me love it!
i appreciate anyone who can make you truly want to inflict physical pain on someone, apparently i do that in my writing (no, i don't mean that you guys want to hit me) and it makes me damn proud.
recently (this is associated, i swear) edge a.k.a adam copeland, a canadian wrestler, retired as world heavyweight champion from world wrestling entertainment and in his speech mentioned a woman he'd worked a storyline with as his hated, power-hungry wife, the crowd boo'd her immediately and strongly and he took that as a compliment to her doing her job well.
i couldn't have put it better myself, edge, a truly genius statement, if you're an actor and you're a bad guy and people want to fuck you up, you're a great actor.
now the issue i've always had with it is that i want my villains to be uber badass, like in astounding wolf-man (man, i'm good) you see the introduction of seemingly evil, less powerful wolf-men with great numbers, you're loving edward and jacob that way (see what i did there?)
it's like the fantastic four (when there was four of them and they wore blue costumes), you like the fantastic four but you love dr. doom, he's cool, he's got a cape and a hood and a sweet mask and like endless power and money, he never seems to give up whopping rocky orange behind, he's just what you want on a villain, he sells the book without being in the title!
it's like iron man 2, mickey rourke is the most likable character even though iron man is pretty badass too.
i think it pays better to have two guys fight and you love both than two guys fight and you love one, hate the other, but both formulas work and kirkman adds a certain something special by making it be the daughter, who is realistic, which just bugs me even more (laughs).

it then continues to tie up loose ends and progress the story.
what you'd expect.
the werewolf crew returns.
dramatic almost death moment.
big ending that makes you want to tune in next time at the end.
it also feels comfortable when the wolf-man says that he'll be with his mentor every night.
makes you feel like this is a regular gig.

anyways, i rate this sucker another in between but still has enough great moments that it'd be the ideal jumping on point, not too far into the story but makes you want to go backwards and check out the first three: jump on it!

thanks all for reading.

review four-hundred & seventy-four: the astounding wolf-man trilogy!

2011-04-16T03:37:00.000-07:00

and here we are again and yes folks, we're over twenty thousand views, please comment and congratulate me, or you know, continue being huge read-y jerks who never comment and just mock me with thousands of views but no feedback while i am lost in the fog of what works and what doesn't!
just joshing. i dig the views, thanks guys.
to your right you'll see a double page spread drawn by jason howard and wrote by robert kirkman, i don't mean to bash writers but...for this beautiful piece of artwork you see robert kirkman's job consisted of writing *double page splash*, now you see the only reason he deserves respect is because his writing is consistent, addictive, interesting, relatable, sexy, violent, immature, versatile (duh, at this point) and because he writes so many damn books per month. the only person more impressive than him potentially, jeff lemire, writes and draws multiple books! keen!
ofcourse with the team of artists kirkman has found and kept to himself, we'll call it a happy tie.

issue three of the wolf-man was one of those good issues that i don't love or hate, don't even like or dislike, it is just there and brings you from a, wraps things up, and pushes you closer to b and foreshadows c. lots of letters but no sentence, just a jumble of things that have happened and are about to, it has the big ending, the big beginning, some big stuff in between but it doesn't feel important enough to stand alone, it is missing maybe one more small scale action sequence or the talky parts could move faster.

but hey, let's not pick on the bad parts, it has an epic damsel in distress scene that makes it all worthwhile and one of the best super hero plans put into effect i've ever seen, rock on kirky and jay! (totally what they should sign their work).

speaking of work...let's talk about me for a second...you know this is my blog.

i have a lot of ideas floating around in my head right now and i'm at a stage where i care most about if i can market and execute the idea so i can sell it to people, i want to make money, or atleast recoup some of my losses.
it's tough to think of how i'll do this.
i think i'll just start making as much as i can in a uniform style with much references and see where it takes me...on regular sized paper.
some might be pencil, most shall be ink and some might be colour and ofcourse there'll still be strips.

thanks for reading, oh and about that rating: ass-fucking-tounding! (get it?)

review four-hundred & seventy-three: the astounding wolf-man issue two

2011-04-16T02:57:00.000-07:00

to your left you'll see the epic cover to the first part of the epic crossover featuring invincible and the astounding (and epic) wolf-man, which was a totally epic story that fit into the overall epic of both books and yes...moving on...from all the...epic-ness...

i thought that since the first review was a little bit bittersweet and that reviews might attract me some views, only 6 away from twenty-thousand that i might try my hand a second time...so here it goes...

the second issue feels like 3, hell, maybe even six issues of the comic. it moves a lot forward has multiple great action sequences, the art looks a wee bit better and has a little invincible character cameo, as well as a far better ending than the first.

after reading a lot of kirkman stuff you notice he always leaves something undone that has to be tied up next issue, well atleast, whenever he can, a great tip to take into writing, always have the hero entering a new battle or a new villain show up or a crazy development for a regular in the comic book/strip.

it's not that hard really to do either, you just take your 12 issues, then move them back a couple pages, take the intro to the next installment and put it as the outro for the current one.

i love the gore in this one too, the first issue had a rabbit dying, which was...a total watercooler panel, or where ever nerds hang out, but the second issue...literal blood and guts! put a big dark smile across my face.

the second issue is a must fucking read (all ratings will have profanity in them)

the second issue also makes you want to make a page-per-week web comic that lasts 4 years but you create in 6 months.

thanks for reading twenty thousand times, give or take a few views : )

review four-hundred & seventy-two: the astounding wolf-man issue 1

2011-04-16T02:05:00.000-07:00

to your left you'll see a fantastic drawing by the ever-talented jason howard of the astounding wolf-man, a creation by the genius who brought you the walking dead and invincible, robert kirkman and the team who is now bringing you super dinosaur.
it's a strange path that led me to the astounding wolf-man.
it started off with me reading invincible daily, finally, just to see how i felt after waiting far too long to really get into it.
i fell in love with it and read the rest of the issues, that's right, all of them.
the only logical thing to do while you wait for the next issue is ofcourse to read this, the astounding wolf-man.
it has been artistic journey reading these, i grew an appreciation for cory walker but never as much as ryan ottley, however naturally i just don't draw like ryan ottley but much like cory walker, which is a bit of a tease, i also don't draw too far off this artist, jason howard, which has been a big attraction to the astounding wolf-man.
one of the issues i find is that while the black and white original art is filled with energy and fun, the actual coloured printed comic looks like...a tv show spinoff. i like that about it, it adds a lot of charm, it just doesn't make you take the book seriously enough, usually that's more attractive to me but ofcourse...this is only issue one.

it starts off dramatically, then another big action beat, then slows down for a few pages before it hits you with as close to an action scene as you're going to get, a common problem in first issue stories, then you get another long lull that is filled with good banter and provoking character development, but nonetheless, not what you'd expect inside the pages of such an exciting looking and sounding book.

it is followed up by smaller bits of action, a big unveiling and a bit of a what's next? kind of mystery.
i enjoyed it, but i would have gone a little crazy if i couldn't have just read issue two right away, not enough meat for something above all else i want to like more than actually like, ofcourse i do actually like it, i have already seen the wolf-man a good amount reading invincible and i have seen a bunch of wordless-, colourless pages doing art research on jason howard.

moving forward...his art is great, but there's just something off about his splash pages, they look like big panels with the same amount of detail as small panels, like usually when you get a zoom-out you're seeing dotted eyes and when you get a zoom-in you're seeing facial lines, full eyes, lots more shadow, he just draws the same all the time really, i love his art style, i just don't fully enjoy the splashes, ofcourse it is his first issue.

what else? i find that robert kirkman writes it differently, he tries to give every book it's own personality, you can tell they're his by how they communicate and how much dialogue there is per bubble but...this book had the feeling of him doing it quickly every month with quick pre-planned plots to match, like in this issue, he does three things, two small, one big, i'll do them hastily and then spend the rest of my time on the important comics. ofcourse i don't hate that, it's a strange comic to review because what you could complain about is a large part of it's charm, it has an energy to it, it feels like it's supposed to look fast and loose and reads the same way.

how would i rate it?
you can read it for free online.
it was available for free on free comic book day.
it'll suck you in just by making you want to like it more.
if you're a comic creator you'll really want to be productive after reading it, it makes you feel like you can make 100 pages per month.

final rating: pretty fucking good, check it out