Quick, everybody! Pick a gal and draw her! I want these on my desk before recess!
“Hell’s 400” 1926
I hate to comic book nerd everything, but my first thought was “Golden Age Female Furies”
This Richard McGuire strip (and the entire issue of RAW it was printed in) was my punk rock moment, when my understanding of what comics could be was torn down and rebuilt in the space of a page. I’d have had a very different career/life if I hadn’t seen this strip while flipping through a weird looking magazine at a mall bookstore.
(Source: clytemnestre, via altcomics)
Forgotten Mistakes/ Forbidden Sins
A wayback repost from the ol’ blog:
They can’t all be good decisions, right? And, we are collectively learning that the Internet makes it pretty hard to keep out mistakes safely buried in the past. Thanks to Google, entirely too many people know about my undergraduate fascination with the Atari Lynx, my affinity for shore diving, and, yes, my brief acting turn in an erotic thriller.
It was 1998, I was living in New York, going to grad school. I was meeting a lot of interesting people, including some actors, directors, and production artists. One day, while sitting in my studio, staring at a blank piece of watercolor paper, I received a call from an acquaintance who needed bodies in a hurry. There wasn’t much budget, there wasn’t much time, and they were pretty much dragging in anyone who owed them a favor or, like myself, was naive enough to think of it as an adventure.
The movie was Forbidden Sins, starring Shannon Tweed. All you need to know about it can be gleaned from the IMDB’s plot keywords: “Sex scene standing up,” “Lesbian Scene,” and “Nude woman murdered.”
I was supposed to be an extra, milling around in the back of a police station. But, when an actor flaked out, I, being the right height for the blocking and already in schleppy-cop costume, was suddenly promoted the role of “Polygraph Technician.” And so, a star was born. A star that shone all the brighter for shining so briefly.
A fair number of people have been stumbling across this little gem from my past lately, and asking me about it. To save everyone the trouble of renting this soft-porn turkey, I’ve lovingly adapted the entirety of my screen time into easily-digestible comics format, below. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Forbidden Sins.
That’s right. Death by orgy, baby.
Hey Tumblr! I will be looking around Tumblr to find the freshest, coolest stuff out there for this year’s Best American Comics anthology! Reblog this post so I can know to check out your work! Also, get ready for the reblog contest of the year! One randomly selected user who reblogs this will GET THEIR ACTUAL WORK SHOWN IN THE BOOK!!!! THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!!!!!
Note to self/everybody: Do this.
4/4/2013 - April 4, 2013
DRAW SOMETHING AWESOME ON GRAPH PAPER DAY
Just about everyone used to draw something awesome on graph paper - and maybe you still do! Dungeon maps, secret headquarter plans, cutaways, robot diagrams, robot soldiers made of perfect squares, who knows?On April 4, 2013, let’s recapture the magic of graph paper, let’s DRAW SOMETHING AWESOME ON GRAPH PAPER!
How to participate: Draw something awesome on graph paper! Make a treasure map, build an inventory page for your favorite role-playing game, draw comparative heights of assorted marsupials, the sky’s the limit!
Then, you can either send your awesome thing you’ve drawn on graph paper to 4x4x2013@gmail.com OR tag it on Tumblr as “4x4x2013”. I’ll repost all of the entries here on the big day!
Be sure to come back in ONE MONTH to see all the submissions, and don’t forget to spread the word!
THIS IS NEXT WEEK! WOO! I just finished my first piece last night, you got yours done too right??
James Harvey: The Awakening Of Bartkira
Dangit, Internet, how could you not tell me about this until it was too late to sign up for pages?
A comics event where every participant takes five pages from the original AKIRA manga, to collectively redraw the entirety of Akira, in our own styles, with characters from The Simpsons.
I saw Ryan Humphrey’s incredible Bartkira piece and realised ‘ok, this needs to be a whole book’. So…
An example of how to use an Ames lettering guide.
The inscrutable Ames lettering guide, scruted.
How to layout a simple grid (or comics panels).
I made some pictures to show my students. Maybe you’ll find them useful?
