Ludicrousness

Things have been busy on the school front, so the Comics & Animation Blog I keep for my classes has been a bustlin' -- so has the Digital Media Foundations Wiki I work on with Dennis & Warren. Clap clap. So to show I haven't been a complete failure in doing some of my own work, here are some sketchbook scans from last Thursday's Drink n' Draw. Yay. Then to bed with me. Right. Sure.

UPDATE: Actually, it's 3:30 now, but I just finished the Hateball toy. I'm going to have the first three toys to download over at Arms and Ether by the end of the week.

Sketchinesse -- Papercraft Charles Burns-Style! -- Hignite's In The Studio

Above are some sketches I did at the opening campus meetings last week. Exciting stuff! It is nice to draw from observation, though. Must do more.

More inspirational TNT from Charles Burns, courtesy of Todd Hignite's outstanding book, In The Studio which features extensive interviews with Brunetti, Burns, Clowes, Crumb, Jaime Hernandez, Panter, Seth, Spiegelman, and Ware. For anyone interested in these artists, In The Studio is a must read.

Charles Burns, Paper Theater, c 1990
from In The Studio, by Todd Hignite, 2006 Yale University Press

The book gives fantastic insight on the creative process and how each artists' work is formed by specific influences. It's nice to see how varied and wacky artists' inspirational sources are. Check out Clowes' response to Basil Gogos' cover for Screen Thrills Illustrated below. If you click on the image you can read Clowes' description of the massive impact Gogos' illustration had on his creative psyche. Buy Hignite's book, you won't be sorry.

Page from, In The Studio, by Todd Hignite, 2006 Yale University Press

Punk-assed Perspective Procrastination

Miles Inada, Portrait d'un Punkass de Perspective, c 1763

Because I'm not Piranesi or Jack Kirby, perspective can get me down--especially when I'm not in proper fighting trim. It's called being a perspective punk-ass. So, I'm still not done with the latest Arms and Ether. I have to draw a. . . table. . . and . . . a computer. . . impossible! Weak. Fail. Etc.
Oh, and I also don't want to pay the @#$%ing bills which I've been putting off. !@#$%

Saw Derf on a documentary about Jeffery Dahmer with whom Derf went to Jr. High and High School. Crazy. I'm going to check out the comic he did on his experience with Dahmer, My Friend Dahmer. You should probably check it out too.

Pinball, Comics, Deleuze, Hedges

This olden 6 Million Dollar Man pinball playfield I bought offa' e-bay arrived today. I wonder how long I'll be able to enjoy it before someone makes a crappy remake of the show. Time to draw an Arms and Ether and work my way out of my summer funk and estivation.



As part of the end of summer, I've been reading through Jessica Abel and Matt Madden's Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, which I'll use as an optional text for the comics class this fall. The book is well written and smartly organized with many practical steps and suggestions. Abel & Madden are strong but not hopelessly intimidating comic draftsmen (do you hear me, Zombie Winsor McKay?) So, it's a nice book--lots of information in one place. Hats off, you two.

Until, I get something going, check out Warren's post on the Sokal hoax, if you dare.

Dig Some Derf

Just finished Derf's Punk Rock and Trailer Parks which I thoroughly enjoyed. Here's Derf's website: derfcity.com. (Hey, kinda like Inadaville!). Thoroughly dig his Don Martin-inspired visual style. The writing is also top notch as is his musical taste. And finally. . . OHIO. Check out his weekly strip, The City.

Feedbag

I'm going to be posting folks' feedback on Arms & Ether here, so I can reflect on it all at once when I start the serious re-design work in the coming weeks. So comment here, or email any and all suggestions. Keep it coming and thanks!

* The easiest one that I tend to appreciate a lot is a "back to the beginning of the series" button. I tend to be the reader who likes to start at the very beginning and see the progression/evolution of the series.
The second idea is purely aesthic. It might be a good way of introducing a newcomer to the site by having the cast of characters(or the "main" characters that appear the most) stationed on the sides of the site(in the very light gray area). The immediate examples that I can think of are Chris Sanders' banner on Kiskaloo and the top banner on the online Maakies. You wouldn't even necessarily need to redraw the characters---you could just pull some of the cast from previously drawn strips and collage them together.

* I am enjoying the comic (both of them!!!!!!) but the layout is as rough as the dude's delicious garbage is small. The left-sided infobar is distracting, as is the closeness of repetition the A&E logo... Maybe drop all that junk down below? Just peeking out of the bottom of the page?

Φ Run more white space in between title of comic and the border

Φ Center the strip

Φ Be rid of gray background

* One thing I felt funny on was the side bar, I like the slanting, sideways text...but something about their size and position felt funny to me, mabye their placement in the long gray box (shrugs) I dont know, the site is awesome

Makin' Lists and Makin' Love (I loves me some Brad Neely)

As I write this post title, I think fondly of Brad Neely's life-changing animations and comics. I think in particular of his music video, Kenny Winker sings "Making Love" in which tri-corner hat-clad Kenny sings "There's a ton of shit we've got to do before we can make love." Admire. Gush. But alas, when I went to post the video for your viewing pleasure, I find it has vanished from the internets as a result of the economic downturn. Super Deluxe.com, the hosting site, is no more. Apparently, Neely is putting the videos up on his own site which will take some doing. Sigh. In the meantime, go check out his stuff, it will make you happier than you are now. I assure you. Soldier on, Brad Neely. Keep the tri-corner hat squarely in the public eye.

To tide us over, here's one of Neely's first animations that got all viral a while ago--Washington.

My list for the weekend:
1. Finish sixth Arms and Ether strip --starring Megaleos and Ginger Childe!
2. Fix Arms and Ether url issues.
3. Apply for promotion to "full" professor (college teaching guy who has eaten too many tacos in his time).
4. Make further allusions to "Taco Time," one of the planet's great restaurants.
5. Insulate The Shack.
6. Prepare Monday DMF lecture.
7. Prepare for other classes and review student blogz.
8. Keep fiddling with my online stuff. Cleaning up post labels--that kind of thing
9. Put together SOU Art Dept. Web material.

And then. . . only then. . .

A Desperate Plea

Screw my stuff. But for the love of anything holy in this world, do the following:

1. Buy Tony Millionaire books. The gentler souls (like me) should buy his picture books. They're beautiful.
2. The rougher, more cynical among you (like me) should buy his Maakies collections. I was laughing til the tears rolled last night.
3. Go read Maakies on line.
4. The lazier among you (like me) should watch this pilot for the Drinky Crow show. This intro is also quite uplifting. The Drinky Crow show is now on Adult Swim here. It looks like it's done in 3D with 2D texturing and funky compositing. It's a cool look.

Oh yeah, still shooting for Monday for the Arms and Ether launch.

Crepuscular Color

Two nice flat color schemes that have been on my mind lately. The mind-numbingly talented Chris Ware (duh) and this Waiting For Godot cover that made me nostalgic for home during my freshman year. Anyhow, I was working on an evening scene for Arms and Ether, so I busted these for inspiration. I have to be careful, lest "inspiration" turn into "inferiority complex."

Let thar be Light n' such

Big Nick came o'er today and wired up the studio real good. It was swell to hammer stuff and eat cold day-old Taco Bell tacos with him. They go well with them Starbucks frappacinos. (You can get a 4 pack for 4.99 at Bi-Mart!) So now the studio has lots of sockets and some very Klass-E recessed halogen dimmers for the ceiling. I'll have romantic mood-lit dinners with myself out there. Yes.

Here is a hilarious muscle-y leg study I did as a warm up yesterday. Source was that kind of annoying but actually pretty useful book, Incredible Comics with Tom Nguyen.

Savage Beat Down by Psycho-Physiology

Wow. Felt absolutely wretched today. Slept in, then passed out again for a 3 hour coma/nap. Still felt cruddy. Ooogh. I think I'm fighting off a cold or something. Yug. Looking forward to a complete slap-happy recovery tomorrow. Wargh.

Here's a page from Volo, a comic I did several years back. A close relative of Volo's named Hateball will be appearing in Arms and Ether. Who knows, Volo may show up too. I love you, Volo.

Robot Love: Charles Burns n' Scott Raedeke

If I ever get a tattoo, it will be on my face and it will be of this Charles Burns comic page from El Borbah's Hard Boiled Defective Stories. I read this when I was 22 or 23 and it changed my life. I mean, this thing electrified me. Reading this is what trying heroin for the first time must feel like. I was on the subway in New York, laughing to keep from crying. Damn. I could talk about this page for days, but I won't, because I need to get back to making my own second-rate stuff. BUT, If you or anyone you know might even vaguely appreciate Charles Burns, you should buy El Borbah for them immediately. They will love you forever.

I had a similar experience about 12 years ago picking up Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library No. 7 for the first time. Good God. . . more on that later, I suppose.

And on the subject of Robot Love, check out the 8-bit Ghost's inspired Christmas Robot. That man is not right, but in all the proper ways.

Lettering--sweet god, save me

Here's a stab at hand lettering--compare it with the image in the previous post. I did several versions of the text on bristol with a Hunt 102 nib, and some Micron pens. The version I used here was done with a .05 micron.

I had to make some of the balloons bigger and adjust some of my word spacing once I got it into the computer. Screen readability is much more of an issue with hand lettering. I do think I'm liking it better than the Digital Strip version.

Seeing as it is going to actually be a pain in the @#$% and probably double my production time to hand-letter, I think I'm going to have to make/commission a custom font based on my lettering. Only thing is, I think I'm going to need to hand letter quite a few strips first before I get a decent sample of my lettering to start creating a font with. Sigh.

T-Bag Special

Not that anyone's listening, but I'm going to commit to daily posting again as a "ramp-up" to "launching" the Arms and Ether web strip. Above is a panel from a 4-panel strip. Three issues:

1. Color.
Advantages: It's in color.
Disadvantages: Color is not essential to the story, it takes longer, and it could suck.
Right now, I'm leaning pretty heavily towards color. I think it looks better to indifferent strangers.

2. Periodicity. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc
Right now, I'm leaning towards "Quasi-Daily," though we'll see. I'm not going to launch until I've got 10-15 strips "in the can." After the launch, I'll then see how efficiently the reserve fills back up and adjust accordingly. If it doesn't fill back up, I'll just get into model trains or something.

3. Is this "it?"
Of course, it's stupid to predict what something will become. But my XXX fantasy is that this strip will be my primary creative focus--that I can channel my many-splendor'd djinn into this form. The hook is that this inter'web thing is tres flexible. I don't have to stick to the 4-panel structure (though I'm currently enjoying working with those creative limits). I could throw in animation or more elaborate drawing as the mood hits. It's "a whole new world" as the marvelous Disney people have told us.

We'll see. Like I said, model trains might be pretty cool. They are, actually.

Herodotus!

Getting the Arms and Ether characters together. . . here's Herodotus. Funny that he doesn't know how to draw togas either.

God help us all. It's milesinada.com

Yes, I finally got my URL act together. So type milesinada.com, inadaville.com or armsandether.com into your preferred web browser, and you will be magically transported here. The reason for all of this foolishness (and my web silence) is I'm gearing up for an internet invasion and an online Arms and Ether comic strip. Ultimately, those URLs will link to a new Arms and Ether "web site." More to come as things develop. I'm pretty manic depressive about the whole thing right now. It's great! It's horrible! Yes! No! etc. More as the creative cycle sputters on. Oops, time for a critique with "the kids."

Comic Class--Roughing in the Story

Here is a .png of the template I used to rough out Arms and Ether.
Download and enjoy. The other images are side by side scans of my roughs next to my finished artwork.

I wanted to illustrate two points for my comic/picture book class.
1. Don't let artwork hang up your writing and your ideas. Get the flow going. REFINE artwork LATER.
2. ROUGH your pages in quickly so that you are able to establish the flow and feel of your story. Make edits in the rough stage before you've dropped a day's work on drawing a page the story would be better off without.

Batroc The Leaper

In Jr. High School, my friend Justin McCarthy and I became obsessed with the French super villain, Batroc the Leaper. He was ridiculously verbose, even by Marvel standards, and he always ended up getting a savage beating without ever managing to offer much of a threat. The Wikkipedia entry on Batroc notes his ". . . stereotypical accent (Batroc ze Leapair), funny name, clumsy vocabulary with the tendency to insert whole French words (which are sometimes erroneous, such as mon capitan), Dali-like moustache, lack of superpowers, and apparent inability to win a fight. . ."

I still laugh for days when I start thinking about him. When I read this part of his biography, I actually started crying:

"Georges Batroc was born in Marseille, France, and served in the French Foreign Legion."

I suppose I mention all this, because I spent the morning working on a 3D character in Maya, to whom I gave the working title, "Batrocque," even though he has nothing at all to do with the real Batroc. Accept no substitutes. I love you, Jack Kirby.