graven.images

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:04:57 GMT

Above is a work in progress that I need to finish for the upcoming Hellboy themed show at Uberbot. Pretty far along into the piece which is good. Because it's due to be shipped out pretty soon. First time shipping original art like this so I went with a wood panel. Kinda wish I could have gone larger. I'm not set up just yet to ship canvases across the country. Original size is roughly 11 x 15. In an oval shape. Her eye's and horns I used a nice copper paint.

Here's how the first batch of tshirts came out. Turned out pretty well. I think I'd mix either a medium warm or cool grey on the shirts next time. Paler on the baby onesie's. I'm also going to play around with bleach. Did some research online. Info's pretty sparse.

Character Wednesday: Supremor?!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:08:54 GMT

Matt really picked a headscratcher this week for Character Wednesday. Supremor. Never heard of him. I tend to zone out when things go alien in Marvel and DClandia. Posing an challenge to make it interesting.

Lots of good stuff came in this week across the map. New Tor, Batman RIP, Cooke's take on Jonah Hex, Tek Janson, and Hellboy.

Joe Kubert at Mid Ohio!?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:07:03 GMT

That's the first time I've been excited about the Mid Ohio Con in quite a while. I got the email about it today. Joe freakin' Kubert. Still busting it out. I could stare at Tor and Sgt. Rock all day. Speaking of which, new Tor tommorow.

Tommorow, pals incogvito and Dara have books out I think. Igor #3 hits the shelves and I think Vito had a piece in Dynamite's Savage Tales. Igor was the most kid friendly thing we had at our booth this weekend.

Where's Phonzie?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:16:02 GMT

I've been asked this a few times by different people: Where's Phonzie Davis? He fell off the map with the mini's and zines, it's probably because he's been rockin' it in Hugs & Kisses. I missed them entirely on the lineup. If the sound was half way decent, it sounds like it was a really good set. Costumes and everything. I pulled the above pic off of a comfest thread on donewaiting.

If they play out at somewhere other than the Carabar or Bourbon Street, I'll check them out.

Comfest: Day 3!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:21:05 GMT

My friends Steve and Angie showed up from California today. They'll be in for a couple of days still. I come to find out that Dara had come back and we did a ton of buisness after the rain. Wall to wall people. Still there was no way I was going to go back except by bus. Today I caught Paper Airplane and my friend Tito's band: the Main Street Gospel. I almost got up to see the Sun but I was pretty happy where I was at. There was a downpour today. Not like yesterday but it spattered and wailed for about an hour. We killed time taking in the Linsey. Seems I couldn't win with the sunscreen. Either I slather it on and break out like a 14 year old or burn. Oh well, it's once a year. Now a recap of some of the crazy...

We open up and met the guy 'who wrote Oceans 13', his name's not on there or anything but you know.
A topless snakewoman came by and started talking to Tony's fiancee. Lovely chat. The python was under the blanket keeping our gear safe as we rolled our stuff out for the day.
A drunken woman, I think a pro, proceeded to treat two trees behind us like a stripper pole. Somehow managed to keep her underpants on despite being obviously hammered. There was an encore. Everytime I looked over my shoulder there she was drawing a crowd. At one point, trying to stand on her head with her legs slumped over past her head. Pointing to it as declaring, 'yes, this is where the babies come out'. This is framed by the midwives/childbirth tent between us and the tree. This went on for a half hour. She got up pretty high in the tree. A cop walked by: nothing. A comfest guy ran off, but came back with a digital camera. Expect a few shots of this event to go on people's myspace pages really soon.
Only one old hippie guy in a safari hat came by.

That's it for this year. Looks like someone had swooped in and took Craftin' Outlaws spot at Skully's. Table fees were pretty reasonable. If I don't get in to Craftin' Outlaws, I might give it a go.

...and the Kish's are never coming back again.

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:36:15 GMT

In essense, Comfest got rained out. All the booths were told that a bad storm was coming and yeah we should pack it in for a day. It was okay for a while, off and on rain but then the downpour came and washed away all the buisness. I doubt any of them wait it out except for the food tents. Sucks for the bands who were playing tonight. This was probably a bad time for my friends from Dayton to come check out the show for the first time. I hope they try again tommorow.

I did manage to walk past the small 'God hates Fags' crowd with nary a glance my way. I'm sitting at home right now. Sales were kind of sluggish today but it was picking up. Andy and I were waiting in the rain for his wife to pick us up. A jazz band was playing still the whole time we were there. Sort of like that scene in the Titanic.

I only caught my friend's band the Kyle Sowashes today. They were in rough shape. The drummer had one arm in a cast. The tamborine guy was on crutches with a cast. The tamborine guy is usually the spaz of the group. He still managed to wail his crutch on the drum kit. Hitting the cymbal at odd times. Amusing stuff. I felt like I needed to give them a vicodin by the end.

We'll be back again tommorow. I can hope that stuff doesn't get flooded out or blown away. It was that intense at times. The forecast doesn't look promising for tommorow either. :(

I'm getting pretty annoyed at tv weathermen painting weather as 'mother-nature freaks out'. This is global warming and there's nothing 'weird' about it. Some are beginning to reference it but far too few. It's almost funny but not.

sketches from Comfest: Day 1

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:04:25 GMT

This was the only one I could pop off before the heat got to me. That and chatting with the booth patrons. Today I don't think I'll be bringing all my sketching supplies. The clouds look forboding.

Comfest Day 1!

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 03:52:48 GMT

I just got back from Comfest about 15 minutes ago and man I'm beat. The heat was brutal. Hoping I didn't get a sunburn. Had to keep reapplying the sunscreen. I became a fantastic mess by the end of the day. Enjoyable. We're in the same exact spot as last year. Red Rover has a great spot on Front Street. It came out to be Tony G., Dara and I. I forgot my earplugs for the music so I skipped out on half of the Cheater Slicks set.
I did do some sketching but I'm to beat to even scan it tonight. So here's some highlights...

One of the Tiara crew for Comfest had come by to inform us that we needed to be flush with the other tent beside us. We were maybe 8 or 6 inches off but this really would have been helpful WHEN WE WERE SETTING UP!!! Bitch. I wanted to freaking smack her. I could clearly hear some guy pounding stakes in nearby which is one of the rules that you can't do. This 'tent' rule she made up on the fly is not in the guidelines at all.
Later in the day, I heard a thup noise. Looked up, one of the Comfest crew had hit a bystander with the ladder on his golf cart. Bystanders preceded to yell at the cart driver. I hope the bystander's alright. He walked away before anyone knew what was going on.
Some guy started talking to me about the upcoming year 2012. I have no idea what brought this up. But I know suprisingly a lot about the whole buisness behind it.
I always joke about the body painting but someone seriously asked me if I was the guy that was doing the painting and it wasn't a creepy old hippie guy. They were about to ask me what I charge. Dang it!
I need to do some gay themed art. Something not blatant but two guys asked if we had any gay themed comics. Seriously. That's a third of the crowd at Comfest. Silly Tom.
I mistakenly made eye contact with some drunk guy who started to chat me up. He passed out next to our tent for a little over an hour. People were taking pictures of him as they were walking by.
There totally was cosplayers at the festival!??! I saw a guy in full costume as the Joker and another guy as Spider Jeruselem.
Sales wise we did pretty well. I think everyone sold a few things. Panel sold a few books. Red Rover was doing well. All was good. Do not know about the weather tommorow.
Hit the soft serve machine. The twist was delicious.
I just downed a whole bottle of gatorade.
It was so windy today, the second hand pot smoke was barely noticable. Rim shot.

Gay Pride Parade's tommorow. I'm expecting a 6 block walk and or a possible parking garage fee. Possibly getting called ' Hey faggot' by a couple of jerks on the way over. Rock! Tommorow my pal Kyle Sowalsh plays early. Rock!

New CBT centric Tori page

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:47:57 GMT

Hadn't checked my email yet but saw Lea's post that Tori's got a blinged out Comic Book Tattoo front page set up on her site. Yup, that's me still bummed out that I'm going to miss San Diego. I'll live. I guess it's okay now to say which song I picked. I highlighted it above there.

Miss Genco will be on a panel with Rantz and Ted McKeever at San Diego to talk about the anthology. Can't wait to check out the comps and see how this bad boy turned out.

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Tommorow Dara, Tony and I embark on setting up for Comfest Music fest. A long stressful morning. Worth it though and honestly more fun than most mainstream comicons. It becomes sort of an odd reunion where one can run into ex-girlfriends, people from college or work, etc. Get accosted by a crazy drunk guy, see a gay pride parade, women running around topless and the ever present second hand pot smoke coming from somewhere. Bring the kids.

I had finished up the piece for my parents, barely. The annoying apartment manager was no where to be found. I don't even know what they look like. I kept going back out in the heat to see if they were there at their scheduled time. Tried calling. Got the voice mail. He/she gets one more shot before I have to call the landlord on them again. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Mellowing out for tommorow..

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:32:01 GMT

I'm kicking back before Comfest tommorow. I hope the weather is nothing like it was last night. Tornado siren going off every half hour, torrential downpours. Yikes. Bob stopped by and dropped off some S.P.A.C.E totebags he silkscreened and some flyers. The lineup for the weekend looks like I'll be camping out half the time at the Offramp stage. Makes it easy. I was planning to skip out Sunday but there are even bands on Sunday I'd like to check out. Hmmmmmmm.

I didn't realize that Michelle Shocked and Black 47 were local acts. Heh heh. Still neat I guess. It was pretty cool when Jello Biafra was here a couple of years ago. Guess he was seeing a local.

Friends Steve and Angie will be coming down to the show Sunday.

Today I'll be drawing up something for my folks and renewing my lease. Excitement.

Screw drilling offshore, this is it!

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:19:07 GMT

This civil engineer designed a home that not only heats, cools, and powers itself. It will 'gas' up your car as well. I was floored when I read this article. The only drawback is that conceivably this cuts out a lot of some powerful lobbyists: nuclear, ethanol, big oil and other fossil fuels, and to some degree the auto industry (you are your own gas station). Not such a bad thing really as most of those involve either shortening up our fuel supply or destroying our habitable planet. It took $500k to build it but after all the R & D, the price drops down to $90k. That is a deal considering the cost of gas and other energy sources. Imagine the roll-out nationwide and it would drop it even further. The car is an electric/fuel cell hybrid. The hydrogen gas comes from the thing he rigged up with solar panels on his roof. It even utilizes some geothermal power.

Coming to Red Rover: SPB wear... for kids

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:31:20 GMT

So my cohorts at Red Rover and I are screening up some SPB goodness on t-shirts & onesies for toddlers to kids. Just about anything you could silkscreen on. They're also screening up some stuff from other artists in the Panel group. This will all be ready for sale at Comfest which is in one week from now.

You know you want this in a baby onesie. C'mon.

Eventually I'm sure this will also be for sale at the shop. I worked out another design but it may not hit Comfest. They're on a time crunch.

Later once this all calms down, I'll be trying out some screening myself. Been looking into bleaching and dyeing tee's.
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The Chemset antho No Formula got the good nod over at Broken Frontier. It's still available for preorder through your local comic shop in this month's Previews. If they're being bastards about it, it's also available on amazon.

Look away young David

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:45:55 GMT

Shadow a dear, a female dear. What?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:55:09 GMT

It's Character Wednesdays again. Check out the other drawings over at the Panel blog. This one really stumped me. It took me three tries before I got something a Shadow I moderately liked. Next week is Dara's pick: the Grendel. We're counting out the days till Comfest which is the following weekend in Gooddale Park.

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Well the percentage point went up a point. I'm currently rockin' a sad 7% in my heat over at the Cover contest. I need 250 votes to surpass the guy ahead of me. It's been a day and the percentages haven't changed any even though more people have voted. Thanks to those who have voted. For those of you who haven't yet, please do. I'm in the first heat. 'Thomas Williams'. It's sort of like Zuda but not really. Like I said, in this one you could technically vote more than once (if you had access to more than one computer).

Don't let the terrorists win.

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:33:46 GMT

Totally forgot that I entered this thing in some competition. Just checked in and it looks like my piece is doing crappy in the polling. The polling apparently was a problem so they scrapped it once. One could still go from computer to computer and cast a vote so I don't know. The first go, the heat I was in was crashing. You couldn't vote or even check the standings. Wizard was really dragging their feet with this thing. If you feel it, vote for it. You don't have to sign in or whatever. It's about as harmless as voting on a MSN poll. Vote at home. Vote at work and or the library. Apparently Wizard doesn't care. Meh. Voting ends on the 20th'.

Thanks y'all.

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:59:06 GMT

I started off my day by turning on the Today show and watching anchors on the verge of crying on camera. Cut to an hour of local fluff. Then it's back to the awkwardness. I had to shut it off. That was too much. It is sad that Russert died before Father's Day. Something he really enjoyed outside of politics.

Picked up the last of Local today. Reading it, admittedly, I got a little lost. There was all this wrap up that I'm fuzzy on. I think I might have to go back and reread all the books in order.

Looks like Comic Book Tattoo is doing well in the preorders. Can't wait to see the final product.

Hulk... annoyed.

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:48:20 GMT

I signed up with the Bendis board yesterday. It forced me to use my homepage email which I never use to sign in with. To kick things off I posted this lil' sketch on their random sketch thread. Being as the Hulk premiered today it was a given they'd do the green guy.

I didn't realize that the board had subboards with half of Marvel's creative crew on it. A lot of the gang that was formerly doing stuff for Caliber back in the day. Ahhh Caliber, I remember thee well.

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 01:22:55 GMT

I was bummed to hear that Tim Russert had a fatal heart attack. It took me by suprise but I guess no one really expects it. Really hope that David Gregory doesn't take over his slot. That guy comes off as a tool. Especially the way he reacted to the McClellan charge that the *watchdogs were asleep at the wheel on the ramp up to war. They were. Katie freakin' Couric had the tact to admit to pressure from above.

Anyway Meet the Press/Chris Matthews are a part of my morning ritual on Sundays. I looked forward to it. It's as close as NBC ever gets to the daily coverage of the News Hour.

*honestly they've been asleep for quite some time.

Character Wednesdays: Fantastic Four

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:58:34 GMT

It's Wednesday again. Time for another installment of Character Wednesdays. One of the Panel gang picks a character for the group to draw up in a week. As I mentioned before, this week was Fantastic Four. For once, I'm pretty happy with the end result on mine. I had to go into Painter and redo some of the line weight on the crew in the Fantasticar. Bop over to the Panel blog to check out the rest. Molly did one this time. Awesome. It's summer so I'm not going to fault anyone for not trying this week. The weather's been good. Lots of goings on about town and abroad. Kish went to MOCCA. Still waiting to hear how that went.

Tony's already chimed in with next week's pick, the Shadow.

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:19:21 GMT

Three weeks till Comfest! Can't wait. Sales have been growing at our booth every year. Everyone seems to have a good time once things are set up. For certain, I'll have one or two new prints for the fest. Up in the air: the debut of Lollygag! My first new mini in ages though the format will be closer to standard comic format. It hinges on me being able to reign in the last bit of it. I'm four and a half pages into a 6 page story. I keep getting sidetracked in a good way. I was asked to participate in this Hellboy themed show in Florida. I just blocked the painting in. I was going to price it to sell but it's coming out to be a bear of a thing. Now I'll have to up it to something that'll compensate me for my time (if it sells). I would have like to have gone larger with it but then I got to ship it.

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It's been fun catching up on the MOCCA reports coming in.

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So when can I move into this place? That is one nicely tricked out apartment. The stuffed bear is pretty hilarious... or it could be the lingering spraypaint fumes. Man I wish I had a ventilation set-up for the studio room.

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:09:46 GMT

Dara and I are doing a one page gag in a future issue of Archibald. Here was a preliminary sketch I did that got the thumb's up. Or in this case a martini toast.

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:13:19 GMT

I've been on the fence all weekend about checking out the Arts festival. I think I like the concept of it more than the reality. The reality is more of a craft fair. Nothing wrong with craft. There are a handful of artists, I'd be keen on checking out. What I did do was screen this year's crop. The site now has pics of the work to wet the art buyer's pallete. I found a couple that were alright. Anne London skipped out this year. There was the photorealism of Jeanie Maddox and the pleasant abstract vibe of Barbara Bouman Jay. The festival was pretty light on the drawing this year.

I read that on average, an artist can make about $5-$6k at this show. It's the anomaly of the Columbus arts scene. Hardly anything art-wise sells in the galleries all year except during the Arts festival. Traffic is insane at this festival. I may give it a shot and try for it. But I'm having a tough time focusing on which direction I'd want to go. A friend tipped me on a local artist spotlight show at the festival. Cool. The catch was that none of the artists were allowed to sell their work in the show. Pretty lame. I caught wind of it too late anyway.

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:51:27 GMT

A couple of interviews out this week of note:

Today the Pulse interview with the Chemistry Set went live today. We chat about the upcoming No Formula anthology, webcomics and everything else.

Also my pal Dara got interviewed again on Newsarama. He talks about his writing chores on the Igor series from IDW. Love the revamp. Almost identical to CBR but in a good way.

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Dang it, Michel Gondry's going to be at MOCCA this weekend. I always say this but next year, I swear I'm going to this.

Sue & Jonny: reboot style

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:01:15 GMT

Haven't added anything to the sketch archive in a while. Here's a study for a Fantastic Four piece. I went all Project Rooftop on it as I'm not really a fan of the current look. Honestly, I haven't read the current Four since Simonson was drawing it. Making Reed about the same age as Sue and Jonny is weird to me. I pictured Reed literally as a professor type. Sue hooking up with him during college. The ol'cliche thing.

I love thumbing through the old Kirby stuff. Can't stand the horrid Stan Lee dialogue. It gets irritating after a couple of stories. I'm a cranky adult now. If I was a 10, wouldn't matter at all.

character wednesdays: iron fist!

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:30:42 GMT

It's Character Wednesday over at the Ferret/Panel blog. This week it's Iron Fist. Next week will be my pick- the Fantastic Four. I honestly wasn't to thrilled with my drawing. Now that I look at it again. It turned out alright. Initially, It was supposed to be like a giant Godzilla size Iron Man getting his arm sliced off by Fist. Who would be a green/yellow blur flying downward. Sort of a homage to an old Iron Fist cover which my friend Craig picked up on.

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OBAMA WON!!!!!!!!!

Clinton... a-w-k-w-a-r-d. If Obama picks her to be his running mate, he's crazy. I think she seriously blew her chances last night by not gracefully bowing out. The entire way she ran her campaign into the ground in such an irratic fashion. Nope. Can't see it. Our governor's been mentioned as being a potential VP. I don't know about that. Barbara Boxer. Now that's a VP I can get behind.

Now I'd like to repeat a couple of myths debunked about Obama:
-Yes, he is a Christian. Cripes! Has never been or ever was a muslim. Not that any of this should matter. Separation of Church & State!! People have to stop voting for idiots just because they're anti-gay and pro-life. That's how they push through alot of horrible policy that isn't christian. Geesh. Look at Bush's run. Side note: marriage laws are state controled. Not on the federal level! And honestly, no matter which way you look at it, I don't believe Roe v. Wade will ever get overturned.
- He worked his way up from modest means. He's one of those guys that never forgets where he comes from. I can only hope he shares his life story. It's a pretty affecting one.
- Preachers can say some bat-shit crazy things sometimes. I can recall a minister who tried to sell buying dog food for your pet as a mortal sin. If cameraphones existed back then, I'd have a few clips to run on Youtube too. Probably screwing up my political career too. The same people still go to that church 20 years later. Fall asleep during the sermon, fellowship, go there out of tradition and or genuine need. Again, this shouldn't matter. It's a non scandal purported by a thrill seeking corporate media. Politicians should be judged on policy. It's a job. Just like Obama's church has done a lot of good for the neighborhood.

Honestly I was rooting for Kucinich but the media buried him before he even had a chance. Obama's alright. One of the first politicians I've seen in a while who's honest. He knew the Iraq War was wrong and recently acknowledged the gas tax holiday for what it was. If his presidency is a fraction of the vibe I get from his speeches, we're in for a good one. One that will repair some of the damage Bush has done. Probably not all of it. Bush reeeeeeeeeeally ran the government into the ground.