Thursday, July 07, 2011

From the Archives: Graveyard Study

This is a study I did for another piece I was working on.  Sadly the full piece was never finished.  There may still be hope for that one yet, so I won't give anymore details as I want it to be a bit of a surprise if I do pull it off.  Regardless though, I am a bit enamored of this quiet aged graveyard scene.

A brief and tiny hurrah - this is a new record for me:  This post makes 30 posts this year.  This is the greatest number of posts I've done in any given year since I started my blog.  I know it's not much, but I'm looking at it as the beginning of something good.  :-)  My goal is to post a minimum of two posts every week, more if I can manage it.  Time will tell.  I know this is a mediocre achievement, but this is the first year I've taken my blog and truly pushed it.  Thanks for reading so far.  I hope this has all been entertaining.

{Pen & Ink, Sharpie}

Sunday, July 03, 2011

From the Archives: The Ocean

Sequential art is so often based in practical reality, the moment to moment action.  I guess it's my fine art background that makes me want to bring something more into that equation...or maybe just a yearning to explore the possibilities of the medium.  

How do you get that medium to explore the emotional ambiguities of poetry?  The sequence becomes almost anti-story in that view, favoring the emotional to the moment focused on action alone.  Much of current comic book storytelling is point to point plot driven... Mike Mignola being an exception to that...P. Craig Russell another.  

Emotions rarely give regard to barriers or limits or even time.  The emotional moment is a collection of triggers and often time is not even a consideration.  The emotional space allows for the entrance of the lyrical, the dreadful, the exquisite.  It takes several steps outside the day to day to give room to the emerging feeling. 

This piece is in the same vein with some of my other strips where I've combined poetry and imagery.  Another more finishied attempt at turning poetry into sequential art is here.  I drew this mostly with a ball point pen and added darker areas with a sharpie. 

{Ballpoint pen and Sharpie!}

Thursday, June 30, 2011

UPDATE: Green Ghoul - Black & White




I guess all is not lost after all...I took the original scan of the Green Ghoul from my post earlier this week and ran it through Photoshop a few times to get the color out and then cleaned up the black and white.  Also, as a bonus, while I was in Photoshop I added some grayscale to the Black and White image.  I'm reposting the original color for reference.

I'm still feel the black and white image is stronger on its own.  I feel the dramatic contrast makes the Ghoul jumping much more frightening.  The Grayscale is just okay.  The black and white is my favorite.  As before...it is all about the teeth.  That is the part that is trying to get me.  Teeth by their very nature want to bite.  :-O

{Pen & Ink original scanned and manipulated in Photoshop}

Sunday, June 26, 2011

From the Archives: Green Ghoul

A brief homage sketch to Tales from the Crypt style horror.  There is also a quality here that reminds me a bit of the cartoon bunny from The Twilight Zone movie...after its transformation.   I feel like there should be strobing lights or something.  

That scary rabbit gave me that gut wrenching feeling you get from seeing something unnatural and filled with hate.  You just look at it and you know...nothing good can come from this.  Similar to my gut reaction to the spider head from John Carpenter's The Thing.  It pops off and sprouts legs and you are left agape, "That did not just happen! AUUUGH!"  Yeesh.  Always check under and behind furniture!  You never know where toothy evil lurks.

I regret making this piece in color now.  It was initially just a quick black and white sketch and I added the color much later.  I think this may be a lesson for me...if it starts out black and white it needs to stay that way...or if I'm going to colorize, a quick trip to fedex office or scan and photoshop instead of (in this case I feel) messing up the original.  Live and learn!

{Pen and Ink and Sharpie!}

Thursday, June 23, 2011

From the Archives: The Collapse

I wonder if this what a snake's skin looks like to the snake after it has been shed?  That is kind of how this feels to me now.  I recall an overwhelming feeling of dismay and despair upon drawing this originally, but now it seems more like a discarded skin, an empty mask that I once wore.  I am also getting a strong Grey Alien vibe here...or maybe a one of their corpses. 

A bit of a nod here to the Munch's The Scream.  Also an intentional attempt at duplication of woodgrain or linoleum cut print within Photoshop. In the end, just a sketch, but an interesting exploration nonetheless.

{Created in Photoshop}

UPDATE 022614:

This piece was Exhumed and reinvestigated with color in January 2014.  Check out the Exhumed image here.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Interior Life from the Archives: The Wall

A bit of homage to Arthur Adams from New Mutants Special #1.  I was always fond of the Enchantress' hateful wall.  This also falls into that same category with the inanimate coming to life.  So...if you're exploring a haunted castle or catacombs, don't stand too close to the walls eh?

This condenses one of those horrible days where it seems like the entire world is set against you into a single moment.  "You're not going anywhere boy - we have a very comfy place for you here inside the wall!  Hold still."  EEP.

Just my brief comment on how vexed I get sometimes by the practical inanimate world.  It seems our little bits of stuff control us in many ways.  Cell phones, cars, clothes, dishes, shoes, TV's, gaming platforms, computers, furniture...a laundry list of inanimate things that control our actions and decisions.  We are forced into a slavery by their very presence.  Their comfort leads us into a languid torpor and should we try to escape them, we find their gravity to be insatiable and insidious.    We all become, indeed, bricks in the wall.  Mind you, I'm not saying that homelessness or poverty are great, but at what point does having our every want met become just another drug?  Who is served by the Omnipresence of THINGS?  Who Benefits?

{Pen & Ink}

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Interior Life from the Archives: The Door

More dark feelings from the inside.  I can't remember the inspiration for this piece. hmmm...Perhaps too much D&D or Marvel Comics.  I really cannot remember.  Ah Age.

It reminds me somewhat of the theme of the mouth of hell in many medieval pieces, but without the demons pouring out...not yet.   Ah, the malice of the inanimate suddenly come to unfriendly life.  EEP!  Or perhaps how the gateway of initiation looks to the initiate.  So strange, because there is only light on the other side.  The darkness and bitey teeth are on this side of the door.  

Of course you never want something larger than you coming at you with its mouth open.  I think perhaps this is why babies cry when surrounded by large groups of adults smiling and opening and closing their mouths.  They think we're going to eat them.  That must be it.  It is the ghost of Jaws come back to haunt yet again.  Steven Spielberg and Peter Benchley - you have a lot to answer for!  Not really - Thanks for the Nightmares!  :-)

It all boils down to a fear of being eaten.  Of nature turning and losing one's place in the food chain to something greater or more powerful, of being eaten by the bigger beast.  It is what makes us fear the the Zombie, the predatory Vampire, the hive-minded Alien, and the savage Werewolf.  This is the face the prey animal fears.  Because if it is this large and this close, the face of the greater beast is the last thing you'll see.

{Pen & Ink}

UPDATE 070914:

This piece was Exhumed and reinvestigated with color in July 2014.  Check out the Exhumed image here.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Interior Life From the Archives: Panther Rattler

And now for something completely different...well not really.  The next few drawings were from the same period as my other Interior Life posts from Trail of Bread Crumbs: Sunrise, The Old Blue Man, and The Well.  However, the ones I'm posting here have a definite darker edge.  Welcome to my dark corners.  (Thank you Garth Marenghi!)

When I created this piece and the ones that will follow, I was trying to find some kind of balance between my commercial goals for my art and my emotional needs for my art.   There has always been a therapeutic aspect to my work as well as it being a descriptive litmus for the current state of my life.  Selling that out completely to commercial control seemed ill advised...that and I'm sure I'll never be able to affordable a proper therapist.  So why throw away a perfectly good tool for self analysis and growth?!?  Instead I tried to blend the two by making my emotional works a little more commercially presentable.  I'm not sure it worked all that well in the end as I am currently unemployed, but what do you do?  LOL.  Ah Life!


My idea here was of turning some of my darker feelings into functional illustrations.  This is me on a bad day...a very bad day.  I think this may have been the lurking demon of the steroid, Prednisone.  I took that hateful drug for 4 months and it took me years to recover from its effects.  I would not recommend it to anyone.  It made me psychotic and when I tried to explain it to my doctor he just looked at me and nodded and smiled.  So I did some research and learned what I needed to do to ween myself off it, then went to a nutritional therapist at the suggestion of my friend Su.

Prednisone is the reason I have very little faith in the medical community.  The answer is always - "yeah but you're alive".  QUALITY of life is also extremely important. I wish for anyone who says something like that to be required to take Prednisone until they've eaten their way to 35 pounds heavier in four months, are punching walls at least once a week, are crying themselves to sleep every night, and are laughing and crying at the same time whenever they have ANY kind of emotion...but YEAH...I was alive.
I was just out my F@%&#&^ mind.

(prying his white knuckled hands from the podium, he steps down from the soap box)  Oops...Sorry about that.  Prednisone was a bad experience for me and my doctor was apathetic about its effects on me.  Anyway - how bout that crazy cave creature I drew!

I was worried at first about posting this text because of the intensity of my feelings concerning Prednisone, but I realized that this text matches the drawing quite nicely.  So it stays. 
{Pen & Ink.}


Thursday, June 09, 2011

The Legend of The Maze Part IV: The Maze

PART FOUR: THE MAZE


Jessica heard screams from the bonfire.
She turned quickly, spilling her cider.
Beyond the houses she could see the glow of the blaze.
A thick swath of bats hovered over it.
Jessica gasped at the sight.
Hiking her skirt, she broke into a run.
There was a flash and she heard an explosion.
The glow beyond the houses flared brightly, then grew dim.
A thunderous roar rippled through the air
and suddenly the shadows around her came alive.
They swirled and stretched and sprang up from the ground,
surrounding her on all sides.
Dumbfounded and blind, she stopped,
entombed in darkness.
 
A wave of fear washed over her.
Her arms went numb and her head light.
She dropped the cider cup she still carried.
It made a soft clinking noise as it struck the ground.
The wind moved gently through the dark passages,
buckling the walls around her.
They made a noise like dry leaves being crushed.
Jessica realized then that it was not the walls making the sound,
but something further up the corridor, towards the bonfire.
Something was moving about in the darkness.
She could hear its heavy breathing now as it came closer.
Spreading her arms outward,
 she stepped backwards and to one side,
her desperate fingers reaching for purchase.
She felt the smooth coolness of one of the walls
and stood flat against it.
The shuffling thing came closer.
Her eyes ached from trying to see in the blackness,
but she had become aware of a dim green light
emanating from somewhere further down the corridor.
She stood stock still as the creature moved closer.
She could see its movement now.
She held her breath, sweat dripped from her forehead.
It stopped right in front of her, looking around.
It was Thom.
 
His face was wrought with terror,
his eyes wide and darting.
So relieved she was to see him
that all their disagreements washed away
and she reached out to touch his shoulder.
He whirled around then, yelling,
plunging the knife he wielded deep into her chest.
Jessica screamed and coughed up blood,
falling against Thom as her chest poured.
He pulled his knife free and fled deeper into the darkness.
 
Thom moved quickly now,
fearful of what new terror might lurk before him.
He could hear children crying back towards the bonfire.
In the distance, someone began singing.
The lonely voice trailed off,
lost in some other portion of the maze.
The silence left in its wake chilled him.
He stopped and tried to cut one of the walls with his knife.
He was unsure of what had attacked him before,
but he was determined to find his way out of this trap.
He could not puncture the walls.
He tried to dig beneath it, but to no avail.
 
Behind him, there was a scream...
then silence.
He moved again, almost running,
turning corners blindly as he came to them.
He heard sobbing behind him again,
softly at first, but growing louder.
Some one cried out then,
"MURDER!"
"MURDER!!!"
He recognized the voice.
It was Richard.
The knife slipped from his hand.
His heart was pounding in his ears.
He ran again, slamming into one of the walls.
He placed his hands flat against it and followed the wall,
moving blindly almost at a run.
He saw light ahead, and rushed toward it.
 
Thom stepped into the clearing.
The few townsfolk present stared at him as if he were a ghost.
Their faces harshly accusing
in the dim orange of the dying bonfire.
Richard stood to one side, his face gaunt and stricken.
He carried Jessica's limp body.
She was pale and covered in blood.
Her chest sliced open.
He laid her gently at her father's feet,
and turned to face Thom.
 
Thom stared, dumbstruck,
at the body of his beloved
and touched his chest absently.
He looked at the wetness on his fingers
as if it were someone else's hand before him.
His head nodded slowly side to side,
the last of his vain denial slipping.
Richard gave him a severe look,
and spoke,
"We followed the stranger as he left Valleydown...
Only intending to scare him away,
but there was a struggle...
and he-"  Richard swallowed hard,
tears welling up in his eyes.
"He had grabbed a scythe.
When Harold and Thom wrested it from him,
he was stabbed with it...
through the chest...
We hid the body beneath the wood of the bonfire
to burn away any guilt,
but it found us here on this night of revelry.
Now in this darkness,
this fair flower has been cut down by fear,
and all our hands are washed in blood.
To protect myself,
I abided the secret of this jealously,
and let this night of terror unfold.
I cannot undo this abomination good people,
but I can set you free..."
Richard turned to the darkness
and raised up his bloodied hands.
 
"HEAR ME SPIRIT!
I CALL YOU BY NAME!
I HAVE MET YOUR TERMS
AND I CLAIM THIS SHAME.
I CALL YOU STRANGER JACK
AND IN SUMMONS UNTO THEE,
I NAME YOUR PLACE OF DEATH
AND POINT TO KILLERS THREE.
FEARFUL HAROLD,
JEALOUS THOMAS,
AND ME.
'TWAS BY THE ROADSIDE
AND TO THE SOUTH OF TOWN
BY A WAGON NEAR THE RIVER
WHERE WE DRAGGED YOU DOWN."


The bonfire blazed then,
spitting up smoke and sparks.
From out of the haze the spirit came,
his dreadful pumpkin head glowing.
He walked up to Richard and gently
brushed the man's face with his skeletal hand.
Richard visibly shook, but said nothing.
The spirit turned to Thom then
and gestured with his scythe.
Thom screamed and howled as the shadowy walls of the maze
spread like bat wings and enfolded him.
There was a flash of fire and green,
and he was gone.
The spirit turned towards the crowd then,
and they separated themselves from Harold.
He broke into a run,
desperate to escape.
The spirit turned and pointed his scythe once more.
A bolt of flame shot across the clearing and engulfed Harold.
He writhed and screamed,
finally falling into the ashes of the bonfire.
 
The spirit turned finally to Richard,
whose face had gone white as bone.
It approached him slowly,
and spread its cloak about him.
Richard made no sound
but stared deeply into the eyes of the spirit.
The spirit stepped away.
Richard's hair was now white,
and his skin wrinkled and spotted.
The spirit nodded to him
stepping over Harold's corpse and into the bonfire.
It waved its scythe in an arc
and the shadow walls of the maze
were swallowed into darkness once more.

"PEOPLE OF VALLEYDOWN...
MY TIME WITH YOU IS DONE.
EXPECT NO REPROACH FROM ME FURTHER,
BUT INSTEAD HEED MY WARNING:
 
EACH YEAR, HENCEFORTH,
SHOULD THE NEED PRESENT,
THIS LABYRINTH WILL GROW
FROM SHADOWS HELL SENT.
ON ALL HALLOW'S EVE
IN SOME FAR COUNTRY OR TOWN
THE PLAYERS WILL REINACT
THE LEGEND OF VALLEYDOWN.
FINDING IN THEIR OWN DARKNESS,
JUDGMENT OR PENITENCE
OR SWEET RELEASE FROM COIL AND TOIL
WILL BE THEIR ONLY SENTENCE.
AS ALWAYS THERE ARE THOSE
LEFT TO TELL THE TALE.
SUCH IS YOUR BURDEN, VALLEYDOWN,
WHILST I RETURN TO HELL."
 
He raised his cloak, and the bonfire blazed one last time,
and he was gone.   
Richard fell to his knees and wept.

Thus ends
THE LEGEND OF THE MAZE.
The first image is the poster side of the flyer for the 2001 party.  The other side was lots of directions and party rules and not nearly exciting enough to share.  :-P  This is one of the images that was lost to the hunger of Zip disks.  I recently discovered I had a physical copy of the flyer and scanned this image from that.  It isn't as crisp as the original would have been, but it is at least present and viewable.  

I drew all the Jack and the trees and scanned all the parts into Photoshop.  I layered them and made it all into the foggy forest of fear you see here.  I wish I still had that crazy font I used, but I was working on a PC at the time and now that I have switched to Mac...I haven't found a Mac version of the font.  :-(

{Pen & Ink manipulated in Photoshop}

The second image is the drawing I did for the 2002 flyer.  I did the typesetting for that flyer as well, but could not find the file for it.  It looks much better without any text anyway.  :-)  I can't remember why Jack is without his scythe in this one.  Perhaps a Freudian symbol (or lack of one) of the group disillusionment with the Maze parties.  Also I just realized his pumpkin head is missing its characteristic flame.  The dying of the fire...but everything has its season.  Also the revelation of Jacks ribs showing from beneath his robes.  That is the first we've seen of his body except for his arms.  His cloak has gone all tattered...I guess that's what you get for living under a graveyard.  :-P

{Pen & Ink}

The last bit at the end there was Jack's face from the Maze website.   I tweaked it a little for this, giving it the red overcast that is has here.  Before, the background was completely black, but when I previewed it here, it dropped into nothingness, so I gave it the red to give a bit more 'punch'.

{Pen & Ink manipulated in Photoshop}

There is more Maze Art in my previous posts:

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Legend of The Maze Part III: The Curse On All Hallow's Eve

PART THREE: THE CURSE ON ALL HALLOW'S EVE

 
Jessica rose early that day,
Wearing her favorite dancing dress
and a sprig of goldenrod in her hair.
She traipsed about the town,
smiling and humming softly to herself.
Around noon, she stopped by Paul St. John's shoppe
and bought a candied apple
then walked to one of the outer pastures to enjoy it.
She leaned against the fence there
and watched several clouds
as they made their languid paths across the sky.
She finished half the apple and fed the rest to a horse that had joined her.
He chewed happily until the entire fruit was gone,
And then proceeded to eat the stick.
She laughed, but kept her eyes on the road leading from town.
The day was half over and she had not seen any sign of Jack.
She sat down in the wheat grass beside the fence
letting her worrisome thoughts evaporate into the clouds.
She traced the edge of the valley with her gaze,
following it to the river at the edge of the fields.
A soft breeze began blowing as she returned to stare at the road.
Soon her heavy lids began to dance and flutter,
and as the sun passed its zenith,
Jessica fell into slumber.
 
She awoke with a start.
The light was far dimmer than midday,
and the breeze had turned cold and unfriendly.
The sun had moved to the valley's edge,
casting long finger like shadows across the town.
The horse that had guarded her sleep was gone,
And in the distance the bonfire was already burning.
 
Jessica gasped and leapt to her feet,
breaking immediately into a run.
She arrived at the bonfire breathless and anxious,
 just as the first dance was about to begin.
As the fiddler uttered the first wheedle of a song,
she eyed the crowd for Jack.
Not finding him, she looked instead for her father,
whom she found carousing with several of the other town elders,
but no sign of Jack.
Between her run to the revelry and the heat of the bonfire,
Her throat had become quite parched.
She moved to get a cider,
hoping to find Jack near the edibles.
Just then Thom appeared by her side.
He approached meekly and smiled softly at her.
Quite a change from the raging animal she had seen just yesterday.
"Hello Thom." she said coldly.
"Hello Jess.  Mayhap I can ask the next dance of ye?" he grinned dumbly.
"Perhaps..." she said, turning to grab a cider.
Still smiling, Thom leaned in towards her.
Jessica stared at him as if were about to bite her.
"PERHAPS...you should try to treat the man
whose bed ye are to share a bit more kindly,  missy."
She pushed him away and, grabbing a cider,
Rushed away from the bonfire.
Thom scowled as he watched her walk away.
The bonfire was indeed hot this evening,
And he was roasting beneath his dress clothes.
He turned to follow Jessica,
but just then there was a commotion near the bonfire.
 
Black feathers of smoke were pouring out of the bottom of the blaze
and the flames had turned a deep violet.
A column of flame shot up from the fire
And there was a cold rush of air
as the entire blaze turned to smoke.
Thom began backing away from the bonfire.
The smoke became a black smudge
against the dim remains of sunset.
The cloud swirled and twisted.
As the crowd watched, it burst into hundreds of bats.
The revelers began screaming as the tiny creatures swooped down,
their leathery wings swatting and smacking at everyone's heads.
Thom turned and ran, disappearing in the chaos.
 
Just then the bonfire exploded in a burst of sparks and embers.
As the smoke cleared, the bats moved away.
Where the bonfire had been, now stood a tall dark figure.
He wore a tattered black cloak,
and wielded a thick menacing scythe.
He was surrounded by a strange green glow,
and his head was adorned with a large jack-o-lantern,
carved in a horrible skull like visage.
He surveyed the fearful townsfolk with his glowing stare
as he stepped from the embers and into the crowd.
 
"BEHOLD!!!" He roared,
raising his skeleton arms to the sky.
As the townsfolk watched in horror,
the long shadows of sunset  stood up from the ground,
reaching upward with black tendril fingers.
There was a rustling of  Autumn leaves,
As the shadows became solid leathery walls
surrounding them and the entire town.
Contained in that space,
they had naught to look to but their captor.
He turned, fixing them with his hellish gaze.

"BEHOLD!" He roared again,
"BEHOLD-GOOD PEOPLE OF VALLEYDOWN!
BEHOLD-MURDER AND DARKNESS IN YOUR QUIET TOWN!
SIX QUICK HANDS DID HOLD ME DOWN!
ONE SHARP BLADE TO PIERCE, THEN KILL, THEN DROWN!
'TWAS WHAT CAME AFTER, THOUGH, THAT SET THE STONE
TO BRING YOU THUS MY MENACING TONE!
A REAPER'S STAFF AND A BODY LAY
AMIDST THESE FLAMES, BUT BURNED AWAY!
AND NOW WE ALL ARE TRAPPED WITHIN
DOOMED TO HELL BY HIDDEN SIN."
 
He arced the scythe over his neck
and slammed its hilt against the ground.
"I TELL YOU THIS AND SAY NO MORE,
BUT OFFER THUS INSTEAD...A DOOR.
 
BRING TO ME THESE KILLERS THREE,
BEFORE THE CROW OF COCK AND DAWN.
LEST THIS OFFERED DOOR SHOULD LOCK,
AND THE MAW OF HELL BEGIN TO YAWN.
THIS LABYRINTH BECOME THEN
YOUR ETERNAL DWELLING
WITH NO REGARD TO SOBBING,
SCREAMS, OR YELLING.
NO BARGAIN HERE OR PLEA WILL IMPLORE,
JUST ONE KEY AND NOTHING MORE.
 
WHO THE KILLER?
WHERE THE MURDER?
ONLY THIS AND NOTHING MORE."
 
And with that,
The glow inside his head turned to violent orange flame,
Exploding his pumpkin head outward
and catching his robes alight.
His headless body danced about,
waving the deadly scythe to and fro
and dropping bits of its burning robes as it twirled.
It  leapt back into the remains of the bonfire,
and kicking up smoke and ash,
clawed its way back underneath.
 
The townsfolk stared in disbelief,
his last words echoing through the thick night air.
The sun slipped just beyond the horizon then,
and Valleydown was swallowed by the night.

To Be Continued...

The first image here is an early rendition of Jack.  Much more Scarecrow than daemonic revenant in this version.  althought he is scary, there is a playful element.  In the second piece he is much more malicious.  I believe this piece was actually done before we began throwing the maze parties.  Sadly in my slackness, I did not write the date on the back so I have no idea what year I created it, but I do know it was around that same time period.  Jack later traded in his pitchfork for the scythe we see him with in the other pieces.  Much more dramatic...and daemonic spirits do love their drama!

{Pen & Ink}

The second image of Jack used here is from a previous post, but I could not resist using it again here for effect.  :-)  I wanted his cloak to be somewhere between bat wings and giant leaves, as if he were a dark green man / scarecrow / reaper combination.  More on the evolution of Jack...next week.  :-)

{Pen and Ink, Prismacolor, manipulated in Photoshop}

The Scythe study was done because I realized after my first drawing of Jack, that I knew ZIP about Scythes.  So in an attempt to make up for that initial drawing of a curved blade on a stick, I did some research and did the study you see here.  I just had a very frustrating fearful moment where I thought I had posted this already...I just did a quick scan and couldn't find it anywhere.  If it is somewhere in all this I apologize for the repeat.

{Pen & Ink}



More Maze History and Art:


 
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...