A Brief Metaphor

This is sort of how my drawing for a living is working out for me right now. 

I made this.  It was the only one of nine which I planted and today it's opened up.  Little late in the season I'm told but it's the only one so that's okay with me.

- J.

My Sustainance

Zach and Emily Kosta are the organizers of the long time running Craft Night Art Night in SE Portland.  Every Thursday night from about 7 pm to close, the event is held at Bar Carlo at 6433 Foster Road and is open to artists and crafters of all ages who would like to come and hang out, create something within a community of like-minded folks, and have a drink.

More recently, they have been organizing formal gallery showing at that location.  The current show is themed "Food," and you should go check it out if you are local.

When I first heard that the theme was "Food" my immediate thought was a couple embracing, something maybe a little zen/meditative.  Two people sharing an aura in one of those light-vein new agey things.  They would be sustaining each other. 

The situation was saddening to me, because there wasn't have enough time to do anything... the ideas sort of came at the right time for it to work out.  A few hours either way and it wouldn't have gotten done.  It was totally being taped up by myself and the shipper as the mailman was standing there with his fists on his hips.  When I painted this was all obsessing on symbolism after returning home from the Zine Symposium.  This was painted a day or two after it I think. 

I wanted a happy gory something.  A thing uncomfortable but warming in a way.  That is what this is.

This piece was put together pretty rapidly.  It is acrylic on canvas with mixed media for the framing materials.  It is currently a part of the display at Bar Carlo.  I think it dried in the mailing tube so go see it before it all falls apart!

- J.

Green Lantern Alan Scott

Alan Scott is the original Green Lantern from DC Comics.  He is to some degree, the Superman of the original generation of superheroes.  Barrel chested, wealthy like Batman, and really mostly a fist fighter despite his ring powers.



Overshadowed unfairly by Hal Jordan, the "movie face" of the Green Lantern name, Alan has definitely got one of the best costumes in all of superhero fashion.  I was commissioned to create this eight foot tall and four foot wide piece during a moment in which the Alan Scott character was being re-imagined, complete with a new costume (which is really pretty good as an update).  I intentionally chose to use the original uniform over the new since I consider it fascinatingly unique, and it predates almost all superhero designs so it is as raw and original as it comes.  It's always been a favorite of mine.

He is unique from other Green Lanterns due to his status as a team leader of the original World War 2 superheroes, the Justice Society of America, and now team leader of a world in which "more recognizable" heroes are all dead, which I think is a downgrade in stature.  At the same time, it is basically his Silver Age status restored, so whatever... I'll let others argue that one out!

This was originally commissioned as a stand-up for portrait opportunities, as seen at here on my portfolio and is now available due to popular demand as a lithograph poster of 11 by 17 inches size.

Hot on the heels of the Green Lantern movie, the character Green Lantern is now a household name, and with the media attention given to the New 52 DC relaunch and Alan Scott in particular, it's well past time Alan got the attention he deserves as the most stand out Green Lantern.  Hopefully he becomes the most popular GL.

This piece was a commissioned piece for Adventures Underground in Uptown Richland, purveyor of fine music, books, collectibles, and more!

If you would like to purchase an 11x17 lithograph print of this, it is available in my shop here.

- J.

Scalped

Scalped has now finished up.  What a satisfying, complex story. 

Most of the time, when discussing or suggesting Scalped to somebody else, the comparisons to 100 Bullets come up.  To me, it is something of  a spiritual successor in some regard to that earlier Vertigo epic.  After having read the conclusion (but with a lot of thought left to put into the overall character arcs) I have to admit it is a very different kind of a story.

Where 100 Bullets was a clever, dark crime story full of unique, eclectic characters and a massively dense plotline, Scalped is far more obvious and far more real.  The characters which Jason Aaron have written are so interestingly crafted and the emotional stakes are so very resonant that any further comparison is difficult.

The darkness of the story doesn't come from a gun, although there are plenty of those (what good crime story couldn't use a few more anyway?) but from the deep separations of the protagonists.  At times, during the years which Scalped rolled out methodically, it was hard to tell just exactly who it was that we were supposed to be rooting for. 

Scalped is about life on a seedy, impoverished reservation, sometimes through the eyes of the corrupt members of the crime family which ultimately run the place, and sometimes through the eyes of the poor people who have no choice but to live there.  The "main character" Dashiel starts out as something of a bastard, goes through some small peaks and some very low valleys in his development, and eventually becomes merely a more experienced and wiser version of himself.

In the end, I'm not sure that there is really any redemption for him at all.  He seems to have simply turned into his father, in many ways.  One major character does undergo a massive redeeming transformation, and if you had asked me at the start of the story, she wouldn't have even been on my radar as a character to invest yourself in deeply.

There was a single moment during the series, a few years ago, when I put down an episode and thought to myself, "Geez, this could be the final issue.  That pretty much wraps up all the plotlines except the deeply emotional ones (which seemed to be too distant and inward to be dealt with)."

I was wrong.  The themes and emotional depths to which this tale went after that stand on their own.

- J.

Open Dialogue

Most of the time, I feel this way.  Is is a delicate pleasure to which I indulge:  an open dialogue.  Those whom know me as a friend, they know I do not judge them.  If I did I would have stopped hanging out a long time ago.  Mostly, I choose to not talk and just have the quiet instead.

- J.

 

Teaching Comics For Kids

Projekt Blackbird was a unique story.

The cover is the scene out of a true story, an Air Force pilot who survives the explosion of an SR-71 during the Cold War.

The scene was my favorite part of the story, what the pilot is seeing as he comes crashing down to Earth from basically outer space, unconscious most of the way.  The actual comic inside is a collaborative effort by 20 artists, mostly kids with a few teenagers and one adult, and was drawn over 2 hours as part of an instructional class I taught.

It's pretty fun, and one of my favorite things I have produced.  The editing chores were some of the hardest and most time consuming things which I ever had to do.  It is also probably the most misunderstood final products I have ever created, and that is saying something!  I'm not sure that anyone has ever liked it or been able to sit through reading it EVER.

Oh, well.  The audience and contributors had a good time and all told me they learned something.  That is all you can hope for.  You can read it online at http://www.politikcomic.com/Blackbird.pdf and it's online elsewhere too, you might enjoy it if you "understand" young people art.

It has been my long term desire to interview the pilot, whom I have confirmed is actually still alive via an Air Force social network.  Maybe one day.

- J.

Graphic Design Website Launch

This is my new website right over here at J. James dot com,

www.jjamesmcfarland.com

where you can see my graphic design portfolio.

For the last three years, I have been creating an extensive backlog of material to view.  It is now time for me to begin putting this material up online.  Consider this a first step in that direction.

- J.