Ladybug and Gentleman Beetle Sequence, Illustration vs. Sequential Art

Two vignette samples for Ladybug and Gentleman Beetle. Here Ladybug is telling Gentleman Beetle that she saw something that scared her in the garden, and Gentleman Beetle pours her a cup of tea and reassures her.

This is intended as an early reader book in the tradition of Frog and Toad Are Friends. I anticipate a lot of sequential action like this, scenes that really make the characters come to life and you can take advantage of some of the more subtle aspects of their expressions and body language. This is, in essence, comics to me, or at least, what I call comics. 

Why I Don't Reuse Art Work

the furniture and rug are not reused artwork, but carefully light boxed and retraced. It's subtle,but I still think it has a different feel that people notice, at least on an unconscious level. I really like sequential action, where figures are moving in front of the same or a similar background as if in animation. You particularly used to see this in old newspaper strips. It can really bring the characters to life. Cutting and pasting a background or any repeated element outright is so easy now with the computer, but can really make the scene feel static. A lot of cartoonists I know who do small press comics are anal about this, and I used to fight it, but now I get it. No matter how precisely you duplicate the image, it's going to be just a little bit different, just enough for it to have a little bit of life. There is no good objective reason why this is better, but it works for me. 

Sequential Action in Comics and Picture Books

Sequential action is comics, and Frog and Toad are Friends, is comics. The Cat in the Hat is comics. The Invention of Hugo Cabret is comics. Panel borders, word balloons and captions do not a comic, make. It's about pictures and words that are completely dependent upon one another to tell a story. You can call it comics. You can call it sequential art, you can call it a graphic novel for all I care, but it all amounts to the same thing. 

Why does this distinction matter? Illustration, by its nature, elaborates in some way on the text. In the early days, when manuscripts were decorated with images by the monks who hand copied the text, it was called "illumination," and I think in a different way, this is a very apt description of what good illustration is. It illuminates and brings out the text, rather than simply ornamenting it. But this isn't the same as sequential art. In sequential art the words and text are combined almost seamlessly to the point where the two are so closely associated that the images are the story. If the very nature of the way the story is told, of how the story is expressed through the images, make it hard to conceive of anyone else drawing it, that's as good a measure as any that it's sequential art. 

Thomas Kinkade: a Reevaluation. Or: What is Kitsch and Why is it Bad Exactly?

Or is it bad?

As you probably know, the popular painter Thomas Kinkade died a couple of weeks ago. Popularity on the scale of Kinkade is something few artists experience, but most artists I know hated the guy, or at least, resented the hell out of him. 

The first thing I noticed when he died was how carelessly the obituary on Yahoo had been written. More accurate information could have easily been found on Wikipedia. The author of the obit described Kinkade's paintings as,  "brushstroke paintings," whatever that means. As far as I know there are few other ways to paint a painting than with a brush, unless digital media has become so prevalent that the author felt that a distinction had to be made, but I doubt it. Maybe they meant impressionist? Though his paintings weren't entirely impressionistic either.  But "brushtroke paintings" was simply lazy.  The article ended with how much his paintings sold for, "$100 to $10,000" except this wasn't how much his paintings sold for at all. He didn't sell his paintings. He sold his prints. He sold them in his own chain of stores in malls all over the country. You probably all ready know this, at least the part about his chain of stores, but the author of the article couldn't be bothered. It wasn't even logical: how could the most successful painter in the U.S. sell his original work for $100? So even though I didn't care for the guy's work, I felt that Yahoo had done him an injustice. He deserved better.

Why did people hate him? They hated him because he appeared to be an mercenary opportunist. He  was unapologetically arrogant. I once read a New Yorker profile about him where he described his resentment for art academia, and how they had rejected him. He thought he should be in all the greatest museums in the world, and that time would show his true value as an artist. He once said, "The concept that an artist would be revered by popular culture is an immediate dismissal of his relevance as an artist." I can't deny the essential truth of this statement, at least in contemporary art academia. And time has won out for a lot of popular artists. Through his pictures, Norman Rockwell invented an undeniably unique portrait of american culture that has become such a powerful argument, that his work has entered both the popular and academic vernacular to describe a particular vision of American culture. However you feel about his work, his impact on our collective imagination in undeniable. Kinkade loved Rockwell. He once said, "We've found a way to bring millions of people an art they understand." Supposedly, one in twenty American homes contain a piece of Kinkade's work, so maybe he had a point. One out of twenty people can't be wrong.  People like what they like, and to say that it's because they lack sophistication is too easy. "These paintings are easy to call insignificant by a critic, but they are precious to the people who bring them into their home," said Kinkade, another difficult point to argue.

I don't doubt Kinkade's essential sincerity. If he capitalized on his work, it was out of his own faith that it had value. He knew how to exploit it, and he did. The kind of success that he generated was equal parts artistic ability and business acumen. He used every opportunity to sell his work in every venue possible. There were dish towels, and commemorative plates. There were even TV movies and housing developments. This pissed a lot of people off. Not only did they feel his work was kitsch, but he was making a bundle. Success on this scale has a way of justifying what you do, of proving, on some level, that your work, and by extension, you, are loved. But it didn't seem quite enough for Kinkade. He didn't only want to be loved by the people who loved his work, he wanted to be legitimized by the cultural elite. Clearly this was a point of huge contention with him.  

 He was a deeply, almost aggressively religious man, and he considered the work he did an act of reverence, and that his inspiration came directly from god. Who can argue with that kind of conviction? If god is your muse, who cares about the cultural elite. But apparently Thomas Kinkade, did. At least enough to be vocally resentful about their perceived rejection of him. 

In the last few years, since I've been doing children's material, I've been reassessing what I think about the idea of kitsch. The polish author, Milan Kundera once defined kitsch as "a denial of what is unacceptable about reality." He used the concept to describe the failure of communist idealism, and of idealism in general. One of my favorite books of Kundera, Life is Elsewhere, is about a communist poet who tries to live every aspect of his life by what he supposes to be his ideals, but can't get beyond his own vanity. The gap between what he wanted to be and who he was, was inescapable, and since he could not accept who he was, he became a living example of the concept of kitsch. I don't know if this applies to Kinkade personally, but it's one definition of Kitsch, and Kinkade's work can be easily argued to be Kitsch.

This is pretty typical of the kind of work we associate with Kinkade:

Quintessential Kinkade

 I'm not going to deny that there's something about it that's very enchanting. Intellectually, I want to reject this thought immediately, but there is a part of me, the part of me that liked Disney's Snow White as a kid, that is very attracted to the image. On a technical level it's competently painted. Kinkade is no amateur. His paintings take quite a bit of skill to execute. But it's not simply the way they're executed that's appealing, and there are many other painters who have more technical skill than Kinkade.

Everything in the picture is arranged in a way that reminds me of a manicured and very cared for garden. When I see people with a garden like this I don't think kitsch, so much as, "wow, they really take care of their garden." The cottage is about as enchanting a cottage as you could imagine. It's got a thatched roof, arched door, and cobbled stonework. There is not one, but two smoking chimneys, which seems a little impractical for the size of the house, but its cozy size is also appealing. It is the kind of place you might expect a little elf to live. The bridge, too, is the image of a quaint little bridge. You've got a stream, you've got a little serpentine pathway, and of course, Kinkade's trademark glimmering light and misty background. The whole scene is surrounded by brilliant pastel colored flowers and blossoms. It's a collection of charming and idyllic nouns, all crammed into one painting.

It's hard to see images for their own merits. We tend to pick out the nouns. Tree. House. Car. When we look at a picture, nouns are the first things we think of. Aside from simple expressions of desire and affection, simple nouns are the first things we learn when we learn about language. Our conception of these nouns is elaborated on over time as we learn more about "tree," and "house" and "car." Our collective understanding of a given noun is called it's schema.  Each of these symbols has its own schema and cultural association, and these associations are similar if you share that culture. Kinkade succeeds in evoking a psychological response of quaintness and nostalgia by tapping into that collective schema. Someone who has not been exposed to our cultural idyls will likely not have the same response. There's little denying that Kinkade is very good at this. By effectively illustrating these symbols in combination, he's able to evoke an emotional response, whether or not, intellectually you would like to have that response. I think it's this involuntary emotional response that causes even more resentment in people who don't like Kinkade's paintings. It's like when you watch a movie that you know is emotionally manipulative, that you know is pressing your emotional buttons, but you can't help but feel what the movie is trying to make you feel. When I see a movie like that, afterwards, I feel ripped off. I feel lied to. But as mercenary as Kinkade seems to be as a businessman, I don't think his intentions as a painter are mercenary at all. He doesn't intend to manipulate. I think, by combining all of these elements, he's pleasing himself. It makes him happy to paint this stuff, and he can see that it makes other people happy too.

When I look at Kinkade's paintings and enjoy them, part of me feels like I'm looking at something elicit. It's enchantment porn. But then I go from being enchanted, to feeling ripped off again. I once read pornography described as something that's only purpose is for you to want it.  I think there's some of this in Kinkade's paintings, but to say that this is their only aim is an oversimplification. But he's not Norman Rockwell. While Rockwell illustrated his world view by telling a variety of stories in a variety of ways, Kinkade tells the same story over and over again. Obviously it's a story people like. To enjoy his paintings, you have to have a willingness to allow yourself to feel the feelings of enchantment and nostalgia that these paintings evoke. All it takes is the willingness, and a cultural affinity for the symbols he uses. It's hard for me, personally, to be so willing, seeing the paintings as I see them. Intellectually I can't allow myself to suspend my dislike for this kind of emotional manipulation, even if it's not cynical or calculated. It's also a very traditional and conservative kind of nostalgia, what my wife would call, "grandma." It's the kind of naive charm that we associate with an era less cynical, and perhaps our cynicism denies us the simple pleasure of what Kinkade has to offer. 

Disney, My Own Work, and How Kitsch is Too Kitsch?

I've discussed in earlier posts my ambivalence for and admiration of Disney films. My ambivalence stems from their aggressive charm, similar to that of Kinkade, and my admiration comes from both the craft of them, which goes far beyond what Kinkade ever achieved, and the naturalism and expressiveness of the best of Disney's character animation, most of which happened prior to the 70s. But this character animation, too, can be aggressively charming and aggressively endearing. I find the best Disney films both an inspiration, and a caution. I look at them and think, what in this seems manipulative, or insincere to me? When I talk about insincerity, I don't mean intention. I'm sure the intentions of the animators were very sincere, even if that intention was to cajole. They did whatever it took to make their characters appealing. But sincerity, to me, is to invest in these characters something that goes beyond Kinkade's nouns. Insincerity, to me, is when, over all else, the intention is plainly to evoke emotion, rather than to express character and the subtle commonalities in human beings. When it's no longer about "bridge" but about a specific and unique bridge. 

In recent years, I've thought more about audience than I ever have before. I'm telling stories, and I want the reader to experience identification with the characters. There is also a marketplace that I have to consider. Books have to be sold. I try not to be mercenary about my approach to that marketplace, but I do know what kinds of images are going to make it difficult for me to succeed in that marketplace. It would be disingenuous to say that I haven't catered my work, in part, to what I know I can sell. Illustration is a business, but also an occupation. I want to tell stories in the most effective way I can, but I can't be very effective if no one is buying my work. So to survive in that marketplace, I have to make certain compromises, but the last thing I will ever compromise is my sincerity. 

Without being particularly self-conscious of it, I try to avoid making pictures that are driven by the kinds of nostalgia nouns and specific emotional objectives that I've described. So far this hasn't proven to be much of an obstacle. Generally I do the work that pleases me, with the intention of telling whatever story I'm trying to tell in the most effective way I can. Is it my attention to charm? Absolutely. But charm is secondary to narrative. And if I'm doing my job right, it's the story that you come away with, and not enchanting nouns, or generic emotions. 

Beetle Inks

Here's an inked figure (so to speak) for Ladybug and Gentleman Beetle, the book I'm working on. This is, of course, a part of a bigger composition, but as usual I'm inking in pieces. Drybrush and ink. 

Messiah Stories in Contemporary YA Fantasy

1.

Protagonist is born with a special talent because of his/her lineage. His/her parents may be keeping this secret from the protagonist, or they may be dead, or he/she may be adopted, or one parent may be absent, and the absent parent may have a special power or may otherwise be a stand-in for God. Of course, specialness can take on many forms, and doesn't necessarily involve superpowers, but generally, it does.

2.

Protagonist discovers said talent when they come of age, and are initiated by a mentor or mentors. Protagonist discovers that he/she must use said talent against the forces of evil, usually one particular antagonist. Despite the awesomeness of their circumstances, the protagonist is at first reluctant to take on this new responsibility, but eventually they give in. They may be fulfilling some prophesy, or they may be the world's only hope. If the author has decided to just screw it and nail the point home by hitting it square on the nose, the protagonist will be referred to as "The Chosen One."

3.

Usually the evil antagonist is exceedingly boring and lacks complexity. Usually wears a cape. May or may not be horribly disfigured. The disfigured are bad. The color black, is bad. 

4.

Insert love interest here.

5.

When called upon to do so, the protagonist rises to the occasion, conquering the evil with not just their power, but their cunning. 

6.

Repeat for as many sequels as you can draw the sucker out for. 

And no I'm not only talking about that book, the book that must not be named. I'm sure you can come up with at least a dozen others that follow the same pattern, even if you don't read young adult fiction. YA isn't the only guilty party. But seriously, I think we can do better. 

What Would Jesus Do?

So Jesus starts out with circumstance number one, but rather than a stand-in for God, it's God himself. Then there are those missing years. Jesus may have had a mentor. Who knows? What we do know is that he had magic powers, but he didn't exactly use those powers to fight the forces of evil. Jesus mostly just talked a lot. He preached. He told people to be humble, and to be nicer to eachother. And what happens in the end? Does he conquer the forces of evil? Well, not exactly. The Gospels really aren't about the devil. It's a more complex, richer story for its ambiguity. It doesn't take the low road by presenting us with easy villains. People are flawed, and Jesus acknowledges that even he, is flawed.

 There's your messiah story, but it's just not exciting enough. Where are the capes? Where's the love interest? 

I'm not a religious person, but I will say, as messiahs go, Jesus makes for a more intriguing and complex messiah than Harry Potter, or Luke Skywalker, or any number of others. 

No More Villains and Messiahs Please

It's harder to write a compelling story without a villain, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. You don't have to preach to your readers to give them something other than black hats and white hats. Your protagonist doesn't have to be Jesus or any other messiah. You can have all the spaceships and dragons you want--who doesn't like spaceships and dragons? But you can still rewrite the script. That doesn't mean eliminate conflict, but not all antagonists have to be quite so antagonistic. People are more complex than that. People are people. Villains are plot devices. So please, please, write something different. Your readers deserve it.

Writing: The Audience is Everything

When you write, the audience is everything.

The biggest problem with not only beginning writers, but writers in general, is that they forget to be readers. There's always the risk of falling in love with your own words, of congratulating yourself for how clever you are. And maybe you are clever. Maybe you've written a fantastic metaphor, or a great description, but great descriptions and metaphors aren't a story.

There are millions and millions of books and short stories for people to choose from. The reader has chosen yours. This doesn't mean your book is the best they could choose, but for whatever reason, they chose it. There is a lot of emphasis in commercial writing on "the hook," the simple high concept that pulls the reader in, but the hook, isn't the story. A good hook is not what makes a story compelling to read, it's what compels the reader to pick up the book in the first place, to choose your book. This is valuable in selling a book, but not necessarily the most important way to engage the reader.

The beginning of a story is an invitation, or at least, it should be. That doesn't mean that it should be expository. That doesn't mean that it should be "the hook," though it doesn't hurt if it is. A hook is a promise, and the story is the fulfillment of that promise, but all stories don't begin with a bang. The best stories don't necessarily pull the reading in, but lead them. You give them a trail to follow. Once you've invited them, it's time to let go and give the reader something to do, but giving the reader too much to do too early on intimidates them. You're requiring them to work too hard, which isn't particularly generous. In the beginning, work for them, don't make them work for you, but after that, try not to do all the work for them.

Too much exposition is hand holding. The common maxim that you hear over and over is, "show, don't tell," and in the beginning, what you choose to show them should be what makes them want to read on. If you don't give enough in the beginning--and I don't mean exposition--you put the reader out to sea. In the beginning you need to anchor them. Sometimes anchoring the reader means putting them off balance, but not so much that you lose them. When I say, "putting the reader off balance" I mean leaving something for them to do, such as leaving out information that will make them want to continue in order to discover more, but you still have to put them somewhere grounded. Maybe it's an actual place, and in describing that place, the reader is intrigued. Maybe it's a piece of dialogue that implies, but doesn't reveal. But whatever the implication, the place or piece of dialogue has to be given context, and relatively soon. The more you wait to tell the reader what's going on, the more you leave them out to sea.

Don't Give Up All Your Secrets 

When I write, I think about one person, and I'm writing to that person. Of course that person is always me, even if it's a letter, not because I'm selfish (well, maybe a little), but because when I write, I'm alone. When I write, I have to fool myself into thinking that I have this intimate relationship with this invisible person. I don't assume that they can read my mind, that they know what I intend, but I also try not to underestimate them. I assume they are smart, that they will get my jokes, that they will be able to infer what I imply, as long as they have context to do it. I want to engage them, so I don't give them everything. I hold back. I carry secrets. I know more about the story than they do, and when I can, I suggest, rather reveal. If you're writing about characters, all characters have a secret inner life and a history, and these are aspects of the character that the reader can never know fully. If the reader knows everything they can possibly know about the character, if they know everything you know, you give up your secrets, and deny the reader their imagination. What we imagine is more compelling than what is true, but the writer still has to know the truth so that they can suggest it. Give the reader hints, but don't give up all your secrets.

Fantasy and Science Fiction: Showing and Not Telling when World Building

This is often the problem that I have with sequels. Often with a sequel, the writer runs out of implications, and all their secrets slowly unravel until there's nothing left for the reader's imagination. In the fantasy and science fiction genres, there's this concept of world building. What some writers think this means, is to explain as much about the world they invented as they can. When I was a kid I loved the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, but most of all, I loved The Monster Manual. It was a catalog of monsters for the game, and featured a description and a little story about each character. These stories were by their nature incomplete. They told about what the character could do, and what their habits were, but the story they inhabited was entirely left to your imagination.

So in a fantasy story, the writer fills in that blank, but if they fill in all the blanks, we're back to that essential problem: they've revealed all their secrets. Star Wars was best when we didn't know exactly how Darth Vader became who he was. We were thrown into a story that had a million implications, and given just enough to imagine a much bigger world. When Lucas made all those sequels, he began filling in every gap, exposing all his secrets and in effect, killing the viewer's imagination.

And why is the audience everything? Don't some writers say that they write just for themselves? I never believe people who say this. Even if they're their only audience, they still are writing to an imaginary person. If it's a diary, that person is your future self, even if you never read it. Writing is language, and language is a vehicle for communication, but communication is only communication if it is received. So even if no one ever reads it, even if you don't read it, At one time you were writing for an invisible person, for an audience, for your future self or whomever you imagined might read it, but it's always for someone. So be generous. Be gracious. When you write, you imagine that somewhere there is a person who is willing, out of all the choices that they have of things to read, to spend their time reading what you've written, a real person instead of an invisible one.

You Are the Reason I Write. 

So thank you for being that person. You're smart, and you get get my jokes and you make me feel understood. You really contribute quite a bit to my self-asteem. So thank you, thank you, thank you. It's good to be alive.

Wednesday Figures

This is a 5 minute pose:

A 10 minute pose:

New Business Cards and Mailers

 Jennifer L. Meyer recently posted her gorgeous new business cards, and so I thought I would do the same! Here are my new business cards and a couple of recent mailers. I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. 

Ladybug Character Design

Here's another character design for my beginning reader book in progress.

I have to say, there is a fine line, when anthropomorphizing insects, between creepy and cute. It took about a week to resolve these two designs so that I was happy with them. There's no telling how many times I'll have to draw these guys, so I took my time getting it right. 

Someone on Google+ asked me about my process in designing a character, and this was what I answered:

Thanks! Well, looking at pictures of beetles, of course, looking at pictures of dapper gentleman, looking a little bit at illustrators from the past, like Grandville and Beatrix Potter, and just trying to give the drawing life and character. My object was to make it not too anthropomorphic, but not too creepily insect-like. I wanted to do something that didn't look like "A Bug's Life," but also didn't quite look as realistic as Grandville. So I suppose figuring out what I didn't want to do was as important as figuring out what I did want to do. I wanted it to have as much real bug anatomy as I could get away with while still keeping him relatable.

The best way, I think, is not to think too much about what other people have done--it's good to look at other people's work, but you have to think about who the character is. In this case he's a polite, dapper, old fashioned guy. There's a sweetness to him as well. When he starts resembling that guy, you're on the right track. Just trying to come up with a cool looking character will probably lead you down the wrong path. Sometimes you get so caught up in making the character look cool, or cute, or whatever, that you forget to make it human. Don't forget who the character is. If you start thinking about other people's characters you're going to draw their character instead of your own. But that's essentially what I keep asking myself--does he look like he could be this guy? What would make him look more like the guy in the story?

Edit: Description of character is for the character is the previous post, as I was addressing an earlier comment.

Genteman Beetle

Design for one of the main characters of a children's chapter book I'm working on.

Now Officially Official!

Also, now it is officially official! I'm on the Red Fox Literary site!

Click Here!

Thanks again to my new rep, Abigail Samoun!

Fred Rogers, John Waters and Self Esteem in America

Fred Rogers' message in Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, first and foremost, was for children to accept themselves, and to accept others. That everyone was unique, and special, and of worth. This implied an acceptance not only of the self, but of diversity in general.  He had a unique talent to speak to children, and he was very conscious of his audience. The message was directly to them. He addressed not only the need to accept yourself and to accept others, but he acknowledged the feelings of children. In his song “What Do You Do With the Mad That You Feel?” he sings,

“What do you do with the mad that you feel, when you feel so mad you could bite

When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong

And Nothing you do seems right?”

On the cusp of the punk movement, John Waters expressed his anger through his films. His films weren’t an endorsement of the behavior he portrayed, but they satirized the absurdity of what society rejected. Society rejected difference. The characters in his film reveled in that difference and rejected society’s rules, taking this rebellion to its ultimate extreme, as Waters acknowledged that rebellion too can be just as absurd when taken to great lengths. It wasn’t a rejection of rebellion, but a self awareness of it. Rebellion is necessary and healthy, but rebellion for the sake of rebellion is absurd.

As Waters emerged, so did the punk movement. The punk movement too was about a rejection of society’s rules, and the DIY aesthetic was all about existing outside a dependency on that society.  It was this kind of rebellion that Waters both satirized and embraced. He had a great affection for those who rejected conformity, but he also recognized that rebellion was not an end in itself. In romancing this rebellion, the punk movement formed a parallel culture that in its way was just as conforming. Hand painted leather jackets, Doc Martens and band pins became a uniform. The punk ethos became competitive--who could be more punk? All of this lost sight of the true origin of the movement. It became rebellion for rebellion's sake, much like what Waters illustrated in his films.

But Waters understood and embraced a similar core Ethos, and his heroine was the embodiment of it. Devine was not only everything that society rejected, but she was rejected by another emerging parallel culture, what was rapidly becoming the gay mainstream. To the more conservative side of gay culture, she was an ugly caricature. To Waters she was beautiful. She was beautiful because she embraced and celebrated who she was. Society couldn’t tell her who she could be. Waters was saying in his films, in effect, that Devine was special just the way she was. 

Devine: Special Just the Way She Is

Though the parallel shouldn’t be taken too literally, Lady Elaine Fairchilde was Rogers in drag, his own version of Devine. Like Devine, she could be abrasive, she could be loud, she could be a mischief maker. She was Rogers' vehicle to express this side of himself, but like Devine, it was an affectionate portrayal. Just as Rogers loved each and every one of the characters in his Neighborhood of Make Believe for their individuality, Waters loved each and every one of the characters in his films for the very same reason. The only truly unsympathetic characters in Waters' films were authority figures, or those who caused shame in others. While Roger’s taught you not to be ashamed of who you are, so did Waters. He exaggerated and satirized shame, and showed the absurdity of the people responsible for imposing that shame.

Rogers in Drag?

Both Waters and Rogers approaches were (and in the case of Waters, continue to be) largely uncompromising. Rogers approach in many ways was as much gorilla theatre as Waters. The sets are simple and spare, some of the performances by the cast could be amateurish and unpolished. Like Waters dialogue, sometimes Rogers songs are a little blunt, and hit the mark a little too square on the head. This uncompromising approach was also an evolving one. In the early years, before Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, Rogers incorporated religious songs into his repertoire, and initially, when he was asked to exclude them, he refused. Later he accepted that the addition of these songs could narrow his audience. In Waters earliest films he didn’t always behave in the most responsible, or humane (I think some of you might know what I’m talking about) way he could have. In more recent years Waters' has explained that he's no longer as angry as he once was.  But I don’t want to take this parallel too far. I’ll just end by saying that both men have had an enormous impact on our acceptance of diversity and individuality, and the world is a better place because of them.

The Best Three Zombie Movies You Haven't Seen!

What has been great about my relationship with Reg over the years is that slowly she's begun to love my nerdish enthusiasms. Superhero movies, Doctor Who, and more recently, zombies. It all started with Shaun of the Dead. I couldn't get Reg to watch a horror movie of any kind, until Shaun of the Dead. We had watched the BBC series, Spaced, which she loved, and I told her that Shaun of the Dead had much of the same cast and was made by the same people. Not only did she love Shaun of the Dead, but she said she wanted to see a real zombie movie. So we went through the canon: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, and newer ones like 28 Days Later. I knew I had fully corrupted her when I warned her that there was a zombie birth scene in the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and she said, "we have to see that."And we did. And she thought it was great. Now The Walking Dead has just ended its second season, and she's starved for good zombie entertainment. If you're in a similar boat, here are a few recommendations.

Pontypool

 A "shock jock" radio host has lost his national radio job and is forced to work at a radio station in the small Canadian town of Pontypool. Of course, there's a zombie Apocalypse...

The entire film takes place in the radio station, as it begins to dawn on the radio station staff that they may be the last people in the town who haven't caught the bug. The bug, in this case, in a very novel twist, is language itself. Somehow this zombifying disease has imbedded itself in the English language as spoken by the townspeople, and the more they are exposed to certain words and phrases, the more they are at risk of zombification. It could almost be a play, but this stagey quality doesn't prevent it  from being very tense and very scary. Great writing and great performances by all.

The Signal

In this one, the vehicle for zombification is a signal sent  through radio, TV and cell phone broadcasts that makes people go homicidally nuts until they slowly become mindless homicidal zombies. Some are able to resist the signal. Some are only able to sort of resist the signal. It's not always clear by how much. So people are in various stages of confusion, bizarre behavior and homicidal intent, and some people who seem OK, aren't exactly. Or maybe they're just a little OK. It's this ambiguity that makes the movie so much fun. The three sections of the story are written and directed by three different auteurs, but it's not an anthology format. It's all one story, centering around a couple who are trying to reunite in the midst of the disaster. There are lots of scares, but at times it can be truly hilarious, especially the second of the three parts. The tone of each part is a little different, and some people have complained about this, but it didn't really bother me. Again, it's a sharply written, well acted and genuinely scary movie. 

Dead Set

Technically not a movie,  Dead Set is an English mini-series that has one of the most self evidently awesome concepts in the history of zombidom.  There's a zombie apocalypse and the only people who haven't realized it yet are the cast of Big Brother. I haven't seen Big Brother (without the zombies, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to), but  I read that the general set-up  of Dead Set is much like the real English Big Brother series. We've only seen the first three of the five episodes of Dead Set, but so far it definitely lives up to its premise. This one is a lot harder to find, and I don't think it's available on DVD yet, but it's worth seeking out. 

Hope you enjoy, and if you have any recommendations of your own, please leave them in the comments below!

The Figure in Movement: Points of Stress

Points of Stress and Movement in Inanimate Objects

In drawing from life or from a realistic subject, you want to capture the subjects essential character; what is the essence of an apple that makes us read it as an apple? In the figure, the best way to describe movement is to accentuate or exaggerate points of stress.

Anything that's flexible has movement. Every fold of drapery suggests how the drapery is resisting and surrendering to gravity. A force meets another force and there's a fold. Gravity acts as another force and there's a dip in the fold, or part of the cloth rests on a surface or another fold, generating more folds from that contact point. Each point where these forces meet is a stress point. 

Here's a drapery study by DaVinci:

Here, I've tried to illustrate in the same drawing where the points of stress are, and how those points of stress effect one another:

#1 and #2 indicate points where tension converges. #3 indicates a point of stress where gravity rests.

Points of Stress In The Figure

Drapery is a complex subject, but I just want you to get a sense of how something essentially inanimate can be dynamic. Here's a gesture drawing I did from the live model, about a 5 minute study: 

Here I've tried to illustrate the points of stress. The arrows represent the movement towards these points.  Think of a point of stress as that point when a branch is about to break, or a car is about to crash--it's those points of tension before the finish of the action that demonstrate movement, even if that movement has no ultimate destination. Bones don't have to be about to break to show the tension of the muscles or the distribution of weight.

Here's another figure, also a 5 minute study:

The arrow at the center is the center of gravity. Points of stress are all about either resisting, or surrendering to gravity. Points at rest surrender to gravity. Points of tension imply a resistance to gravity. Both points at rest and points of tension are stress points, points that, if given emphasis, describe the most movement in a figure, but the points at rest are just as important as the points of stress. The rest points give us a sense of weight and substance. The stress points give us a sense of suppleness and texture. 

Texture and dynamism in portraits

To get a sense of an object or figure's texture, there has to be a force playing against it. We can't tell visually if a rubber ball is very hard or very soft, or very heavy, or very light unless we see how weight or gravity acts against it (though light too, is a significant force at play in describing texture, but that's another subject altogether). In the same way, the muscles act against the flesh. If there's no points of tension in a figure, the figure will not look dynamic. It will tend to look stiff and inanimate. Even in a portrait, tension and release of tension describe expression, even if that expression is a placid one. There are still points at rest that can be emphasized. Lines on a face, relaxed or tensed describe how flexible the face is. Elderly and wrinkled faces show gravity, how the skin is softer and less elastic, but this is all expressed through stress points.  Here are some longer studies from life:

The portrait is of my dad, but the rest of these drawings are from one of my favorite models who models for us at The Davis Figure Drawing Group, Steve Savage.  A really dynamic and great model! Thanks for reading.

50 Monsters Mock-Up Cover

So here's the mock-up wraparound cover for my unpublished book, 50 Monsters to Give You the Creeps. It's in dummy form right now--a dummy is the roughed out version you present to the publisher. I'm pretty happy with it.

Moebius, 1938-March 10th, 2012

My First Embarrassing Encounter with the Great Jean Giraud (AKA Moebius)

Moebius had more influence on me than any other artist in my teens. He died today before I got a chance to redeem myself for a very embarrassing meeting when I was 13, at The San Diego Comicon, back when Comicon was actually about comics. I just couldn't help myself. I waited in a line to get him to sign my book, and when I got to the front of the line I had a complete nerdgasm. My friend Josh's mother was there with her camera, and I posed for a picture with him, and so somewhere there's this picture of me pointing at Moebius with an ecstatic smile, looking like I'm about to have a psychotic break. I wish I could take it back, but I went completely nuts. My fantasy was that the two of us would meet for coffee some day, and I would show him my work, and he would admire it, and I would tell him how I felt about his work, and I would tell him about that first meeting, and we would laugh about it, and we would find that the two of us shared a deep inner connection, that we two walked the same spiritual plane. Of course that will never happen now. Not that it ever would have. 

This was the book I had him autograph:

I loved everything about it. The simplicity of the drawing style, the fluid line, the colors. It was this wistful fantasy story originally written to promote a French car called the Citroen. Here's a page where Stel and Atan, the two bald-headed protagonists, have driven their Citroen across the desert of the planet they call "pool ball" to encounter a group of aliens from different worlds who have all formed a shantytown around this huge crystal pyramid, that, for some magical reason, they have all been drawn to:

I still have my copy. It has ink stains on it, and is a little worse for wear, but it still has Moebius' signature next to a sketch of his signature character, Arzach. He drew a drawing for every single person in line. Here's Arzach:

Le Garage Hermetic

My second discovery was a book called, The Airtight Garage:

In French, it was called, Le Garage Hermetic, "hermetic" meaning both airtight, and esoteric in French, so that part was lost in the translation. The Airtight Garage was this completely improvised story that Moebius started kind of on accident while trying to meet a tight deadline. He simply made it up as he went along, page by page, each time giving himself some impossible challenge, having no idea how he was going to tie up all the loose threads. And believe it or not, somehow he managed. It all made an odd kind of sense in the end. It has got to be my Favorite Moebius story by far.

I have another well worn book called, The Art of Moebius. The center spread had an image he did in collaboration with an artist named Geof Darrow.  Darrow did the drawing and Moebius Moebiusified it. I looked at this thing for hours.

Moebius Owns Science Fiction in Hollywood


You may not realize it, but just about every science fiction movie in hollywood since Blade Runner has been inspired by Moebius in some way. Including Blade Runner. I don't mean to downplay the contribution of Syd Mead, who may well be just an influential, and who did design much of the look of Blade Runner, but first there was a story by Moebius called "The Long Tomorrow" that looked like this:

And was written some time in the late 70s. Moebius, in the French Magazine, Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal in the US) made the future that has dominated sci-fi for the last thirty or forty years. Everything new and novel about science fiction movies and imagery of today started with Moebius.

Moebius also designed much of the look of Tron though Tron might have looked a little cooler if they stuck to Moebius' original designs:

The recent Sequel to Tron not only borrowed everything from the original, but it missed the point. They took Moebius' elegant simplicity and turned it into, well, Blade Runner. 


The French Avant Garde director, Jodorowsky, gathered together some of the best designers and illustrators of his time in the late 70s, with the intention of making a film based Frank Herbert's Dune. It fell through, but this is how it might have looked with Moebius' costume designs:

Instead of the black Jumpsuits and sepia palette that they ended up with in the Lynch film. Here's one of Moebius' many contributions to the otherwise mediocre The Fifth Element:

And he kept working, and inventing. This is from a book that features a series of drawing inspired by the New Mexico dessert. This is Moebius putting his pen to paper and just letting it do his Moebius thing. Like The Airtight Garage, no sketches ahead of time, just a pen and paper:

But I'll never get to meet him as a less spazzy adult. I'm positive he couldn't have possibly remembered me anyway, but still, I wanted to impress him, and impress upon him, that I was no longer that kid. But now it will never happen. I can't believe he died. He's younger than my dad. It's simply not fair.  He will be very, very missed.

Edit: I forgot to mention the very sweet and modest thing that Moebius AKA Jean Giraud told me at the San Diego Comicon. I told him he was my favorite artist, and he responded, "Then you must not know very many artists." And he was right. With so many egotistical artists out there, (particularly cartoonists) the remark was honest and generous. Speaking of artists less than modest, I once read a cartoonist's remark about how he was affronted when someone told him that he was their second favorite writer. To me, it sounded like a high compliment. We can't all be Van Gogh, or Picasso. We can't all be Dostoevsky. But Moebius remains close to my heart. 

Australopithacat

Another monster from my monster book, the fearsome Australopithacat, the ancestor of the common house cat. The dummies finally complete! I'll post the cover soon.

Leaping Springaloris

Another monster. Getting closer to finishing the cover for my 50 Monsters book dummy. The interiors are already complete, so it won't be long now. I think I started this project 3 years ago, and started with about 70 monsters, then chose my favorite 50 and came up with names and descriptions for each of them. Each description is a sort of cautionary narrative, or represents a particularly annoying sort of person, though some are just silly and don't represent anything. It was a good time. Hopefully it will be a real book some day!

Skippidus Dippidus

Another monster, this one's a little timid. Another for the mock-up cover I'm working on, the last step for the 50 Monsters dummy.

A Hairy Who

A monster not entirely accidentally named after the Hairy Who movement of Chicago. Call it a tribute.

Lummox Galumphus

A new monster with finished inks:

Stachioptrics

And ink drawing of one of the monsters for my monster book.