Visitor

Space folds like draped cloth and light falls into the void created when the visitor arrives.

The Voidchild

The voidchild is the preeminent development in gentech worker fabrication for the new millennium!  The gentech encoded into the voidchild's DNA matrix will allow complete bureaucratic control of all higher brain functions within the voidchild unit.  No need to worry about distractions from job quotas or insubordinate behavior anymore!

Abraxas and the Revelation

The Abraxas portion of the image set itself up quickly and then surprised me by asking for more space, which is unusual in this kind of piece.  I gave it a few more inches of space and suddenly a fog filled hallway became a great grey chasm.

Devil's Head II: The Unquiet Dead

In the dark caves of Hell, trapped and hungry, forgotten desires map out the cursed gift of their continuance.  Their garbled chanting wears the air thin with obscenities.  They stretch free of the underworld like separating meat.  Toothless and eager and undead, they seek us out for one last wet embrace.

From the Sketchbook Archives: The Gateway

Here is another sketch for a larger piece.  I had a vision of a large arched gate that a dark river ran beneath.  My initial thought was of the Moon card from the Tarot, but upon time and reflection, I think this may be an incarnation of the river Styx and the entrance to the Underworld / Realm of Hades.  Considering the time frame during which this sketch was created and Pluto's inevitable ingress into Capricorn (my sign), Styx seems very likely.  Also, the two guardians are very much like grim reapers.  Of course, both visions can be true.  Intriguing.

Devils Head I: Dilemma of the Dark Votive

This is the beginning of a series of four pieces all of which were created from the same source material.  Each had its own voice and message, so I've chosen to give them each separate posts.

This piece struck me as the revelation of a dark device.  Some votive to an ancient devil suddenly discovered in your possession, its raspy voice whispering from the half light of a candle lit room.  What if the Monkey's Paw whispered to you in the night?

From the Sketchbook Archives: The Immensity

A sketch for a larger piece.  This image had been haunting me for awhile, waiting to be addressed. My original thought for this was as a large painting.  I forget where the idea came from, but I want to layer transparent black to develop a subliminal visual space within the piece.  In the meantime, a footnote here to keep the idea burning.  These kinds of ideas never go away, but they do change form.

Gates of the 14 Aethyr

Empty,
I walk through fog and shade and rain.

A door opens within me, before me,
A space within a space.
I step out of nothing into nothing.
I step through and into myself.
I am the gate through which I pass.

All doors swing open,
a vast passage up down to the bottom top
of every no thing.
The sacred hole in the great hedge,
the womb throat of the Universe,
with a great wind singing through it.

Across this vastness,
across this great wallless infinite,
I convey the burden of space.

Recommended Listening:

ELDAR

From the Deep Sea (Featuring Wyrm)

Sapere Aude

{created in Photoshop}

Reading from the Book of Night

In the twilight of the underworld,
The sun within waxes and wanes.
Days stacked like logs in the wood pile
kindle and burn on the mount of knowing.
Harlequin wall totem reads from the great book. 

The mother day sprays light to inoculate the reading
and fertilize the thoughts for growth.
Father predator spits darkness into her.
A deception that by her nature she converts into light.
His light within reads the necessity and
sees the voice and light needed for the reading.
Between them all, a darkness gestates
the darkness of absence, of emptiness,
of the void.
A darkness through which all things pass
to reach the light of the coming day.

In the desert of ignorance,
the scarab rolls its children into a sphere of darkness
tucking them safely into that fecund enclosure
knowing that at their birth,
they will eat their way to the light.

Recommended LIstening:
Subheim
Hollow
Approach

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: Portfolio 2001 Back Cover

This is my favorite of the three 2001 portfolio pieces.  The aura of mystery alone sustains it.

The front cover initiates the portfolio.   It is very presentation oriented and uncomfortably intimate.  The table of contents, still presentational, is focused on organized content.  This is the end of the portfolio, or even further after the end.  The portfolio is finished and these are the last visual echoes of its passing.

The fire of inspiration has been extinguished and the plumes of smoke evaporate into the night sky.  Here the hand of the artist is retreating, fading into the night of clouds.  The portfolio has been presented and the hand now moves away, leaving you to think on what you have observed.  The image block of the moon has lost its glow and become transparent, its contrast and intensity diminished.  It is being absorbed now by the sky. 

This piece is best observed while listening to Cocteau Twins or Dead Can Dance.  I recommend Victorialand or Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, respectively.  I know this is all pretentious and silly, but once in awhile there are those images that move beyond mere representation and step into the mythic, the symbolic.  I am very grateful to have had this image move through me.  Pretentious or not, the mystery within this piece moves me.

Like the preceding pieces from my 2001 portfolio, this was scanned from a physical copy.  This one had many touches up as well and also was sadly lost to The Hunger of the Zip Disks.

{digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

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!}

Depths

Bones are always buried.  During our lives, they are buried in our flesh, and when we die we place them under the soil. 

{created in Photoshop.}

The Absence

The Absence

A place in my head that used to make me very sad.
Now it is actually quite comforting.

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop.}