Snake Eyes

Action Pieces are always good for me to make.

When left to my own storytelling devices, protagonists often end up lonely
chain smoking depressants, staring out the windows at the scenery.

Then someone says, draw a ninja with an orange gun, and suddenly:

Action!


- J.

(I meet a gentleman named Brandon Jerwa a lot, and he liked that I made all the tools orange.  I won't bother with the significance of that.  The next two days I'll put up two more of this character while I'm working on my 24 Hour Comic.)

Scary Cops!

In the midst of the madness which has been the last few months of my workload,
Rose City 2012 looms large as the highlight of the whole delightfully manic rush.

Many of the best discussions I enter into occur at the Portland cons, since it seems
I never know how to skirt controversy and confrontations, and this show was no exception.

Here is a piece I did on 11x14 inch paper, penciled and inked in a brief period of time.

It was a huge rush, and those kinds of projects always are interesting to view after the fact.

A fun conversationalist Eli wanted to have a rendition of an idea he had been working on
for an outside project, so I put together an illustration based on his desired imagery.

A father of several girls, and an active political activist, he wanted something to portray how
aggressive cops can ruin the dreams of young girls.  Scary aggressive cops?!

I can draw scary aggressive cops all day!

If this is interesting to you, check out PolitiK: Police State which is for sale and also
you can read it FREE online on my other site, because free is the way to be.

- J.

311 Band Tribute Cover

This is a piece I've been working on for a little while.  It's been 90% of the way done
for a long time so I chose to finish working on it today and move it on to the client.

This week was supposed to be the time we were printing his band tribute book however
we had to delay it for a little while, so I'm finishing the cover off and presenting the
whole package of page templates and educational supplemental material to him today.

311 has a pretty diverse cast of band members, and it was fun learning about them, for sure!

I'll be excited to showcase the finished product one day when we determine the interior contents
and put together the pagination.  It is my understanding that we are almost completely finished
with the interior contents.  My task has been to provide guidance on the process and all design.

- J.

24 Hour Comics Day

Done.  Check.

That is where I am right now.

At this point, every ongoing project which is currently active
is either completed or one sitting away from completed.

Every one.  My brain is not on fire, it is tired.
Today is the first day of autumn on my calendar.

This weekend was the 24 Hour Comics Challenge.  It was hosted again by the most awesome Adventures Underground.  There were fewer people this year than prior years, but a lot of people
stopped by to hang out for a while.  A veteran of the Spokane 24 Hour events Jesse Acosta
jammed out for a while with us, and produced a lot of material for his own projects.

Recurring local veterans Ellen Kramer and Oliver Poesenauer showed up, and a lot of people I didn't get to meet.  A happy couple were there together drawing forever too, and a local graphic designer named James brought his time delay camera so maybe those will be fun shots to see some time.

My goal from early on was to focus on drawing full pages fast, but being careful and detailed and
not trying to hit under an hour a page as with previous years.  The plan as it progressed was working
out well.  Fatigue set in and the lack of any music...

At one point I had planned to leave for a few hours and go draw at another location
but I didn't, and I believe this narrative could have used a little input from there.

Each page is finished but for the head I was drawing of the main character when I decided to punch out.  So I'm at 15 hours in, with 13 pages done, which is really about at the NORMAL rate I make pages.  If you look at my older 24 Hour Comics such as This, This, or This, you can see where I cut the fat a little to make up lost time.   I didn't want to do that this year.  I wanted solid, reproducible impressive artwork that I could be proud of, with no "24 Hour Hurry Up Faces" in the crowd.

The final two pages I will show were dream sequence stories which I had invented into my story for
earlier on in it to add cheap fast "inventory" shots into the narrative to speed up production.  So on some level I was fighting with myself to actually make pages I really, really was proud of and also
fighting to make 24 pages before leaving.  While the art which came from those two pages was okay,
it was really an unnecessary and difficult departure from the story which I had intended.

This week I will be finishing this story at 24 pages of quality, and go back and touch them up,
and then will put it up online at PolitikComic.com after which I will go back to the narrative in the
currently online comic Homeland and touch it up as well.  These are actually the same story although it probably doesn't look like it.  

Here is the cover and one page from the story.

- J.

Rocky Job

When I was a younger man
which is just beginning to mean something
there was a job I chose to undertake.

They were building an enormous home
nobody among the laborers then knew just what the value was.

It is my understanding that I could venture an accurate guess.
The guess of a laborer's real estate understanding is not important however.

At the time I was a subcontractor for a labor procurement firm.

High in demand, I was.  For what I was expecting, how could I not be?

My job was to carry small boulders in a wheelbarrow from the bottom of the hill to the top.
Raining, muddy, it was both of these.

The plywood was slippery under the thick soles of my rubber boots.  On my knees, mud in my eyes.

Occasionally, rocks fell out of my wheelbarrow.

The sun would come out, and the board dried up quickly as the surface water rolled down
the board and then off.  The mud in my gloves, thin in the water which had collected
inside my rigid leather finger holes.  Grit under my nails.  Pickle fingers, pale and cold.

Working is hard.  This is how you build large houses.  You have to put your back into it.

In life, many people will stand around watching you lift and bend while they smoke,
laughing at you.  Do not let this dissuade you.  They are not building their home.

 Those who expect you to labor for nothing, they are only building walls around themselves.

- J. 

Metamorphosis of the Metaphor

The Metaphor has come up to the newest level of it's evolution into sustainance.

Once it reached above the fenceline the weather turned big time,
so I thanked it for it's massive productivity and then cut it loose.

Now alone and on its own after the separation
it's time to hang it out on a line and give it time to dry up.

The seeds are really good.  They are tiny, but if I got one out of seven
of these plants to grow, then if I save 1/3 of these seeds
then when I harvest them NEXT year I could get a dozen or more sunflowers.

That's pretty cool.  When the work you have done starts to pay off, and it has taken
a very long time for results to occur, you know things are looking up.

- J.

Trust, Friend, Bully

Judging a man by his character can be a difficult thing.

Some people will trick, flatter, and bully their way into just about anything for free.

It is often hard to tell how to resolve issues like this however
luckily, most of the time a little patience will reveal an ambiguous man's true character.

_______________________________________

Three weeks ago I had a young man at convention ask me
How do I protect myself against people stealing my work or taking advantage of me?

Well, someone who wants to do you harm, or is only out for themselves
will always try to take advantage of you
and make you feel guilty for it.

Those are simply character traits which you can't always see coming.

You can avoid people of low character by learning to spot telltale signs like:

-excessive flattery
-overbearing guilt trips
-ambiguous threats
-unspecific agreements
-handshakes every other sentence

After talking to this young man I chose to share some of the life lessons which I learned in my 30's and which I wish that I knew when I was 10 or 15.

Trust is about ways that you can interact with people which will make them feel valued.

Friend deals with understanding the difficulties presented by those who you let into your life.

Bully shows some sure sound ways to understand if you are dealing with a
common schoolyard bully.

These were also part of a "throw down" challenge to a friend of mine I have mentioned previously.  I'll detail that down the road when I mention Jet City.

These are test models for a younger age group presentation, will be available free online soon,
and are available online now, here.

Enjoy!

- J.