Damn you, I'm a crazy monkey...

a new Big Pulp cover, and james almost gets punched in the throat

2012-01-25T13:27:00.007-05:00

minding my own business, i got this message the other day:

Bill Olver

Ken,
Any interest in doing another Big Pulp cover for me?

i was pretty psyched to get this, since i think that i did one of my best drawings for the last edition of Big Pulp. and it was a pretty easy job to do since bill pretty much knew exactly what he wanted(sometimes that isn't the best situation to work in, but thankfully that wasn't the case).

so, what was the cover story gonna be about?

Bill Olver

Cool! I've attached the cover story for the March issue. It's a mystery written in a Sherlock Holmes style. I don't have any special ideas for the image. Give the story a scan and let me know what you think. Thanks!

the story had a kinda steampunk 19th century thing going for it, so i wanted to bring that into the image somehow. i put together 4 sketches and sent them off to bill.

the story was a murder mystery centering around a suspicious duel, with a possible involvement of a woman(isn't that ALWAYS the case?). i liked using circle gears in the 1st sketch. 2 and 3 weren't that bad, but not really jumping out either. the 4th i liked, but probably more as a challenge to get the cast shadow of the skull to work.

bill got back to me right away, and agreed that the 1st was the strongest. also, to switch the color theme from last issue(bright red and orange) and go with something darker(blue and green).

next up, the full size sketch

this is 9x12, which is what the final image will be. i fine tuned the main figures and the gears(as inset panels). there is a bullet hole in the skull because that is the result of the suspicious duel(i won't say who or why, but it's an interesting twist). and i threw a drawing of scotland yard in the back. so far, so good

i thought that i would try to do a pencil and oil bar drawing again, mainly because i fucking love to do them

pencil part came out....eh. maybe i can kick it up with the oil bars...

NOPE! not great pencils just got lost with this. i liked the process, so i tried again

and again

and AGAIN

needless to say, my garbage can quickly filled up with crushed bristol paper and acetate sheets(so the oil bars won't permanently screw up my scanner bed). i was aggravated and ready to punch james in the throat. thankfully, for james, he was at work still. so i did the next best thing.

i went out for a walk and listened to some "don't punch james in the throat" music.

ok, so now i'm back at my drawing table. i decide to switch gears a bit and try this as an inked illustration

much better! maybe inking this forced me to tighten up the drawing or...something...but i really liked how this came out.

taking yet another piece of bristol paper, i threw it on top of the inked drawing and put both on my lightbox. using a more simplified color scheme, i think that this will result in a much clearer and less muddy final image. let's see

wooooooooooooi think that i got it! and i was able to finish this and shoot it over to bill on his birthday. because i'm a nice guy. and james did not get punched in the throat(thank you, huey).

i was listening to the soundtrack to the first underworld movie, on repeat, during all of this. possibly why i was a bit agitated, but i don't care because it is fucking great.

storyboards

2011-12-29T11:50:00.003-05:00

these are storyboards for PARK SLOPE FILMS' "The Schenectady Package"

storyboards

2011-12-22T10:52:00.003-05:00

these are storyboards for PARK SLOPE FILMS' "The Schenectady Package"

drawing a walt simonson plot of the spirit=good times

2011-12-07T10:43:00.004-05:00

everyone knows(or should know) of the awesomeness that is walt simonson. aside from being a legendary creative artist, walt is, just as importantly, a super nice guy.

he has also been teaching at the school of visual arts since...i don't know. i do know that walt has politely and patiently handled my tomfoolery and nonsense since 1996, when i first took his graphic novel class.

something that i liked a lot from the class was when walt had guest speakers. he ensured that it wasn't just his superstar buddies, but also recent sva graduates. these guys especially were appreciated because it gave me a look at what my "next step" would be if i were successful. and as part of that, walt has asked myself and jerry ma(pictured below) to return each semester to talk to his students.

each year is different in terms of art quality and commitment from the students. as walt handed out the next assignment, i asked for one for myself. curious if i could handle something other than crazy monkey shenanigans, curious if i could draw someone else's story...fuck, i was curious to see if i could smack around these kids with what i could do. let's see the script.

...oofa...that's a lot going on....thanks, walt

first, i wanted to see how i was gonna fit all of this on one page, so i played around with different panel layouts(on a normal 8.5x11 piece of paper). i reeeeaaalllly wanted to make circle panels work, but i couldn't figure it out. maybe next time.

i went with the 2nd layout option(also on a normal 8.5x11 piece of paper). along with some loose drawing in panel, i threw some notes for what i may want to get into the final page.

for my pencils, i bump up to a 12x18 sketch paper. the extra size allows me to do a little bit of over-drawing, and play around with the final composition. i like to base the drawings on what the background is, so the panel images have begun to change. being careful to leave room for dialogue, i also start to place blacks/shading.

i throw the pencil sketch page on my lightbox, and then go right into inking(brush and ink). along with some cropping of the final drawing, i....holy fuck, it's only after i finished that i realized the fool is trying to shake with the bearded guy with his left hand?! now that gets fixed, and i'm done.

i had a blast doing this. i'd guestimate that i spent about 8-10 hours, from start to finish, on this guy(the final inked page was my 3rd attempt).

and that also means that i listened to 8-10 hours of my chemical romance. they fucking rock.

ny comic con adventures, part II-costumes,chris shows up, and ken runs out of vodka

2011-10-21T16:40:00.005-04:00

ok, so the first day and a half(thursday night and friday) sucked balls for me. but james and i came back for more on saturday morning.

god, i hope it doesn't get any worse.

i tweaked the table a little bit. because that was clearly the problem.

men of action!

this is what i saw whenever i looked to my left. just past cully, you will see those blue partition things. that is where the con organizers were "hiding" the free bags given out to people when they came in. so the people looting back there(all day, every day) already fucking have one. i'm not sure what was in them, but i'm pretty sure i wouldn't need more than one.

great news! i got my first commission request of a "noir-ish batgirl". i think that this came out pretty well for my first time drawing this character.

and now....costumes!

the mighty aquaman and mera! this was fucking awesome

starman checking out cully hammer's THE SHADE comic

within ten minutes of him scream like t, his voice was done

for my second commission i was asked for deadpool. then he asked to throw in jennifer too. no problemo

a stormtrooper checking out my boba fett print

the maestro. very cool

i can't believe that someone came as the coon!

the fierce archangel

"no, really, what is it?" warren took it like a champ

i hope that they didn't come to the con together, and then found each other on the floor

sunday morning brings some sad news: i run out of vodka with my first shot of the day at 9:53am. fortunately for ken, james had a full bottle of jack waiting to back me up. and this leads to the wise words of marc durante,"you can't drink all day unless you start in the morning."

matt finally gets his planet of the apes commission

joe gets a tusken raider print, shot, and sound effect. i aim to please

at the end of the day, team h17 closes the con with a well deserved treat. please note that, for some reason, i have my arm behind my back. i am an athlete

after closing down my table, we shoot over to jerry's booth to help out. jerry was very satisfied with the quality of work provided by the white wave.

well, looking back the con(now a week later), i think it went pretty well for me. yeah, i had a slow start, but saturday and sunday made up for it. thanks go out to james and chris for enabling my shenanigans at the table, jim ma for letting me squat in his apartment when he was in staten island, and jerry ma for not letting me go completely crazy. the countdown to san diego begins...

ny comic con adventures, part I-setting up, slow sales, and super elvis fight moves

2011-10-20T14:01:00.011-04:00

ok, now that i've had a couple of days to regroup, i think that i can objectively tell you about the roller coaster that was NEW YORK COMIC CON 2011! oofa. well, once again, the con seemed to grow even bigger within the javitz center. this was only partially due to the lack of construction this year, which had cut the floor in two between the show room and artist alley. nope, there was just a ton of fucking cool stuff to see this year.

these are the name badges waiting for james and chris. this is what happens when i get to write on things

we got to set up as early as wednesday this year. since i was manning a table in artist alley, i said "fuck that nonsense, i'm coming in on thursday". here is a shot from the top of the escalator. there are a lot of other exhibitors down there trying to figure out where they need to go. and i will say this again, it truly sucks lugging my stuff up and down stairs.

thursday was only for the pros to "network". i'm not sure how much networking people actually did, because i saw a ton of the tables in artist alley that were empty and unmanned.

here at the ep booth, we find jerry and ren. it only appears that jerry was ready to drink, as it took much convincing to get him going here. apparently, there was a major drinking exercise that i had missed the night before, complete with memory loss.

i am a big fan of the new tshirt display. nice job, mr. ma.

here is where i was to set up. as messy as this looks, my buddy and sva alumni dan cooney told me it was a complete disaster only hours before. and thanks to whatever asshole just dropped those boxes of fliers right there(this is not sincere thanks, but in fact it is sarcasm). real deal thanks to my neighbor cully hammer for helping me slide this shit off to the side.

here is dominic sparano of pronto comics, proudly displaying(and testing) my first sale of the con. the pronto crew was out in full force the entire con, and it was cool to see the progress and moxie they showed in corralling their next bunch of creators.

there really wasn't too much else going on that day. afterwards, i met up with jerry, ren, joyce, will, diana, and jim to eat. we ended up at some italian place in hell's kitchen that i can't remember the name of. we were then "welcomed" by what was one of the creepiest greaters in all of manhattan. once seated, that's when the excitement kicked in.

the waiter, isaac(and we assume the owner, more on that in a second) came to the table. he started to talk, but quickly cut himself off, to verbally assault poor jerry. jerry, being a bit exhausted, had left his almost empty gatorade on the table. isaac immediately chewed jerry out about things like "respect" and "restaurants" before lunging over to snatch the bottle away. the table was stunned, and jerry looked pissed. but as the night went on, we grew to love isaac and his ways. i think that it helped that he was, and still is by the dates on some of the framed pictures on the wall, an elvis impersonator.

it was crazy. there were pictures of isaac performing. standing next to famous people. some as early as the '60s, and as late as a couple of years ago. and i'm only now just getting to the fact that, on the bis screen on the back wall, was the most bizzare elvis special that i think has ever been made. this started the group discussion of how awesome elvis would portray basically ANY superhero. good times.

this is what was waiting for jerry and i friday morning at the con. this line wrapped around...well, i don't really know. it was just really long. i asked the guy at the very front what time he got here, and he promptly responded, "5:30!" oofa, that is early.

ok, here is the most adorable costume that you will ever see. clearly, he is a good boy.

and the con is open! here come the people! i am all set and ready...

...to do not a whole lot of anything. i was slow. let me say that again.

i was SSSSLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

man, i haven't had sales that bad in a long time. i'm starting to think that this might not have been such a great idea to drop $500 on the table. but, on the plus side, james was there to drink with me.

after the con, we all met up again for dinner at some morrocan place. once again, shitty service was overpowered by good food. and belly dancers instead of elvis.

so, i saved this picture for the end of part I. after leaving isaac's on thursday night, i went with jim to crash at his apartment. since it was still early, we decided to watch one crappy movie(the mutant chronicals) and one pretty good movie(the outlander), both of which had ron perlman. and drink. quite a bit. until almost 4am.

this is a picture of jim as i am attempting to wake him up for the third time. he called me a "morning cop" as he tried to wish away his hangover. good times

storyboards

2011-10-12T21:02:00.003-04:00

these are storyboards from the movie DEADFALL

storyboards

2011-10-12T20:56:00.002-04:00

these are storyboards from the movie DEADFALL

sketchblog:walt turns in his godzilla

2011-09-28T16:11:00.002-04:00

so i get an email the other day that simply says;

"Okay, boys. You can now officially kiss my ass!

;-)

A drawing from the dawn of time.

walt had sent a...HOLYFUCK, THIS IS AWESOME!

wow.

well, this is now my desktop background. jerry, good luck trying to top this one.

sketchblog:godzilla...right, guys?

2011-09-20T10:59:00.005-04:00

GODZILLA...KING OF THE MONSTERS!

i fucking loved godzilla movies growing up. i felt so lucky when, after saturday cartoons, the afternoon movie was a godzilla one!

GODZILLA...KING OF THE MONSTERS!

sorry, i just love saying that. i watched them all. even the horrible later ones, when godzilla layed an egg(what?), baby godzilla hatched, and either momma(?) godzilla had to stomp on baby's tail or the token kid had to push a boulder on the tail to get baby to breath fire. that last sentence seems so bizzarely awefull, but i remember being thrilled to watch it. i loved these movies so much, i even watched all of the other crappy movies with even more ridiculous monsters(i'm looking at you, gamera). here's what i came up with.

i wanted to show my favorite part of any godzilla(
GODZILLA...KING OF THE MONSTERS!) movie-when he first rises out of the water. this is when you know things are gonna go downhill for people, and fast. then i...

...what was that jerry?

jerry-"after talking with walter, wanted to know if it'd be cool if we switched up the theme to norse mythology.
it'd actually help both walter and me out for ny comic con if we could do so.

so if its good with you two guys, lets go with a norse mythology sketch!"

if you're wondering if i'm pissed, the answer is no. ANY reason to see walt draw norse stuff is good by me. as for jerry, all i need to do is remember that he's a mets fan, and i'm ok again.

oh, and i was listening to the awesomeness that is guns n roses "appetite for destruction" to put me in the right frame of mind for

GODZILLA...KING OF THE MONSTERS!

drawing on location, back to the psyche ward

2011-09-19T13:51:00.003-04:00

so....it might seem like an odd that i would make another run of location drawings at the nearby psyche ward...but it really is a cool place to draw. i like the mix of broken down buildings with overgrown nature. it makes a nice contrast in any image. and there are PLENTY of shadows to keep me happy. so, once again, i grabbed my supplies(18x24 paper, bottle of pelikan drawing ink, raphael #2 brush, a beat up toothbrush, drawing board, booze) and dove in.

this was the second drawing that i attempted(number 1? it sucked, so off to the garbage). while i am not overly thrilled at all with this guy, there are parts that i really did like. i think the building in the background came out ok. i liked experimenting with the toothbrush and ink to try to get the feel of the trees.

time for a challenge. i'm staring at this bunch of trees, and i had no fucking idea what i would do with this shot. so i just started applying the shadows first, then go back and add linework. no toothbrush, just the one raphael brush. i really like how this one came out.

this is my favorite location drawing that i've done in i don't know how long. there was just a lonely fucking bench in shadows, how could i resist? i went to town with both brushes and ended up with ink all over my hands and arms(it dries fast, but not that fast apparently). this is up on my wall at home.

this is my drawing buddy, marian. at this point, i needed to draw a person(i can apparently draw dark and gloomy buildings/trees/benches for only so long). this was actually a pretty quick one, and i liked how it turned out as well. you can see that there is a cup on it's side in the right foreground. that meant we ran out of rum, so it was time to go.

on an unrelated note, outkast's "b.o.b." has to be one of the greatest fucking songs of all time. i've just listened to it 5 times in row.

sketchblog:masters of the universe

2011-09-14T13:39:00.003-04:00

so.....it seems that jerry and i have fallen "a bit" off schedule with this. but now that football has us focused again i'm sure that we can get our act together in no time.

like most kids in the '80s, i watched the awesomeness that was he-man and the masters of the universe. i especially liked how cool every character, no matter how lame(i'm looking at you, moss man and mekanek), were designed. even the ridiculous look of skeletor, a jacked up guy except for the fact that he has only a skull for a face, seemed great.

except for his voice.

holy fuck, this is the WORST voice for a character! ever. i defy you to find one that's worse. try picturing a 20% less masculine david spade. with a cold. that is constantly whining. and then in the movie, he's just some creepy old guy. ugh.

so, i thought i'd try to do a truly bad-ass skeletor on his throne. he had to have that evil looking ram head staff. and i gave him a goblet to drink to his incredibly rare victories.

and i made beast man a gorilla. because i think that would be cool.

here's what jerry went and...is this in fucking color?! i think i see an oil bar sketch coming up, buddy...

"I did this Stratos piece while watching football on tv. I was really just experimenting with some watercolor pencils.

I love winged people. I always have.

So Stratos was a no-brainer for me to do.

See….I’m doing actual sketches here. Goddamn Ken is whipping out full blown pin-ups and killing them."

oh, and jerry got smacked around in fantasy football, while my team, the mighty aquaMEN, won in both of the leagues that i'm in.

drawing on location

2011-08-31T12:03:00.002-04:00

something that i keep trying to get back into is drawing on location. it's as basic as it sounds; i take my drawing board, 18x12 sketch paper, tape, and some drawing tools somewhere and draw whatever catches my interest. i loved john ruggeri's class from sva. it was fucking great.

but...it's been a while...

this is actually from the second trip i made to the pilgrim state psychiatric center(the first time ended up with some awful drawings that went right into the garbage). of the 4 drawings i did, this was the only one that i kept. i liked using brush and ink. and to get the tree, i stuck an old toothbrush into the ink and painted with that. but then i knocked the ink over and it all spilled out. fuck.

nearby the center, there is a small marina with a dock. again, the pencil drawing went into the garbage and i went back to brush and ink. i like this one.

this is my favorite location drawing that i've done in a long time. again, brush and ink. but i started with the toothbrush for the pilings, and went from there. the only thing that sucked about this was that i was swarmed with bugs. i hate bugs.

sketchblog:fearless(jet li)

2011-08-22T19:42:00.004-04:00

when jerry suggested "fearless" as this week's sketch, i felt like a rookie pitcher trying to groove a fastball past pujols. on a 3-2 count. with the bases loaded. in short, i felt like i was gonna come up waaaay short compared to what jerry would turn out(this is one of his favorite movies).

so i watched it again today, and it is a beautiful movie. the fight scenes are amazing, as are the landscapes(from the city, to the middle of nowhere, and then back). but the fight scenes are the draw, as i assume it is for everyone that has ever watched a martial arts movie. i chose the final fight, just after jet li's character huo yuanjia has been poisoned. yuanjia chooses to finish his final challenge, inspiring the crowd to cheer, "we are triumphant!" if you have never seen this movie, go right to best buy and pay them the $5(yeah, that's it) to get your own copy.

and don't forget to pick up a copy of THE WAR ZONE while you're there, too.

here's what jerry felt like unloading on me...

I had the huge urge to sit at home an watch some kung fu movies. So doing this as a theme seemed like the perfect fit. I know everybody keeps talking about Ip Man as the best martial arts film in the last few years. But I would beg people to rewatch this movie and reconsider their opinion.

Now I’m not saying Donnie Yen or the Ip Man films are no good. In fact, I love both.

But what I am definitely saying is that Fearless is an amazing film. And there are like….5 different versions out there. And most people have probably seen the American release, which spreads out all the fights sporatically throughout the film. But the Chinese version they show the fights in the order they were intended, which was 4 in a row.

This movie also marked the final true martial arts film that Jet Li will ever do. And I believe he considers this his best film to date.

Give this movie another chance, and I promise it’ll make you want to go outside and pick a fight with someone. Just make sure he….or better yet, she is much older and smaller than you

This drawing was done on a 9″x12″ piece of paper with my Sharpie pen. Like last week, I found this a difficult drawing to do. This time, the challenge was in capturing the motion of Jet Li in action. Not only do I think I failed in doing that(he seems to stiff to me here like he’s posing), but I didn’t really get a very good likeness of him either. Overall, I think the piece is ok. Not awful, but not very successful either.

sketchblog:fight club

2011-08-16T14:06:00.003-04:00

fight club is quite possible one of the greatest fucking pieces of art that i have ever seen. it is easily my favorite work from the awesome threesome that is david fincher, brad pitt, and ed norton. no, i still haven't read the book yet, and i'm not sure that i even want to at this point(i love this movie that much).

so....what am i gonna draw?

after watching fight club the other day(i love to do "research"), i came away with 2 images.

1. a creepily smiling brad pitt, wearing rediculous vintage clothes

2. ed norton shooting himself in the face

this is my 9th stab at this week's sketch. holy fuck, this seemed impossible for me to get done. what was throwing me?

i couldn't get tyler to look right(proportions, posing,...everything)

i couldn't figure out how to work in norton. i tried him in the background...in the foreground...even not there(i was ready to give up).

i thought that i had it last night, finally, just before the jets game where they kind of tried to win. but when i woke up this morning, i looked it over again. and it went right into the trash with everything else.

after emptying the trash, i went to the gym to try to clear my head by running for a half hour. i got back home and was determined to give this one last shot.

but that one sucked, too. so i gave it one more try(hurray! this one was it).

now i'm going off to get some burger king.

oh, and i did all of this while listening to the awesomeness that is the dust brothers' soundtrack.

jerry, however, did this COLOR drawing in about 8 minutes. at least that's what he told me.

oh, wait, that's not what he said at all. i'm just venting off because sometimes i can be a dick. here's jerry:

"I can’t believe this movie came out in 1999??? Holy cow…is that right?

I haven’t watched this movie in a couple years, so it was great to rewatch again. After rewatching it, I realized how difficult it was trying to pick out a single scene to illustrate. So I just basically started doodling as I watched. I seriously had a blast watching and sketching this movie.

It took me a while to color it up…

I had a hard time picking out colors because of how dark the movie was. Each time I colored it, it just got darker and darker and harder to read. When I eventually landed on the final product, I was pretty happy with what I ended up with.

This original was done on a 9×12 piece of paper. Drawn with a 4H pencil and a Sharpie Pen. After scanning it in, I created a bitmap tiff out of the line art. And laid down the textures and colors in Adobe Illustrator."

sketchblog:the avengers!

2011-08-10T13:24:00.004-04:00

so, after drawing images from our favorite movies(star wars, lotr) and tv shows(gatchaman), we decided to bring it back to the world of comic books for half a second and hit up the premier super team. what is nice is that everyone in the goddamn marvel universe has been some kind of avenger, so we(walt, jerry, and i) have a large group out there to pick from.

i think we'll humbly start off with walt

"So how about this for the Avengers drawing? It’s a little finished for a sketch.

Sorry.

But I figure a lot of folks probably didn’t see it when it was on ebay for Hero Ini tiative.

On the left side of the drawing is the original Avengers line-up, modified slightly in that Giant-Man was really Ant-Man in the earliest issues. I wrote the title for about a year at the end of the 1980s. The Avengers line-up I did in my final issue is on the right. Cap is in the middle because he was in both line-ups, although in my issues, he was the Captain at that time in the M.U. That’s how he’s depicted here. Never had a chance to really write this line-up as I would have done, for reasons that needn’t concern us now. I wasn’t the penciler on the book, so this was my chance to draw my old line-up.

Fun.

I erased the pencil around the figures, more or less, but left the pencil inside the figures to give them more depth.

FYI – Reed is holding the Ultimate Nullifier. As far as I know, nobody’s noticed that up to now.

I figure it would make this a really difficult line-up to beat. LOL."

jeez...wouldn't want to go next after this piece of awesomeness...

here's what jerry decided was worth his while

"I gotta admit that after sketching Star Wars, Lord of The Rings and Gatchaman…I was a little bored by this theme.

Regardless, I basically wanted to draw a emotionless Vision with a “crazy” Scarlet Witch. And I know this may sound silly, but I wanted to have those circle things coming out of The Scarlet Witches hands. ha

To this day it still really doesn’t make any sense how these two could be in a relationship together.

To make it more real, they should have made The Scarlet Witch have like…some weird fetishes or something. I still think the Vision is one of the cooler looking characters. But did he ever have to like….recharge his battery or anything??? Or did he just never get tired?"

that jerry, always thinking about robots getting tired. i feel like they're singing "stop, in the name of love" her. it's a good song.

and here's mine

When Jerry suggested “The Avengers” for this week’s theme, he asked,”well, since you’ve already drawn Hawkeye, who are you gonna draw?”

That Jerry, such a wiseass.

KANG! The time-traveling conqueror! One of the greatest villains of The Avengers, ever! He was Rama Tut, Egyptian Pharaoh! Then he decided, fuck it, I’m gonna go and smack people around from all periods of time! And he has a purple helmet! With a green shirt made out of drapes, flowing over his arms like a true badass!(sorry, but I just rereat Avengers Forever, which Kang owned.)

So here is The Mighty Kang, enjoying a tasty drink after one of his many victories.

sketchblog:gatchaman

2011-08-03T11:59:00.003-04:00

When Jerry suggested doing Gatchaman as this week’s theme, I was fucking psyched! I loved this cartoon as a kid(I think it was Battle of The Planets, with that dumb robot). So, of course, I’m gonna draw science ninja 1, aka Ken.

Aside from him being the leader(and possibly banging Jun), I selfishly love seeing love seeing characters with my name(guess who I ALWAYS play in Street Fighter 2). I thought Ken transforming would be a cool thing to draw. “go bird”!

But what about Joe, the badass of the team? He throws feathers that take people out! So I figured I’d have him and Jun fighting some bad guys. And before I knew it, science ninja 2 was snapping some fool’s neck!

As you can see, there is a ton of thought and planning going into all of my work.

here's what that punk jerry did:

"I L-O-V-E-D this cartoon growing up. This was one of the more influential cartoons on my childhood actually. Right up there with Macross(or Robotech) and Voltron.

I think I speak for everyone though, when I say that Joe was just straight up the coolest one. Don’t you think the guys making the story must have known that??? Why did they make the “leader” Ken drink such weak sauce???"

and i do not, in fact, like that "weak sauce" comment, sir. just you wait...

storyboards

2011-07-26T15:26:00.004-04:00

my monkey's name is jennifer

2011-07-26T14:54:00.001-04:00

rufus+cleveland

2011-07-26T14:48:00.006-04:00

new york city

2011-07-26T14:42:00.004-04:00

wolverine

2011-07-26T14:24:00.008-04:00

sketchblog:lord of the rings(2 towers and return of the king)

2011-07-17T15:19:00.004-04:00

so, getting ready for comic con as we are, this crazy sketchblog of ours has taken a hit. here are the sketches jerry and i have for the 2 towers

the 2 towers is my favorite of the lotr movies(i'm not sure what it is about the bleak middle movies that i like, but that just seems to be where i'm at). this is the scene when boromir has just freed osgiliath from the control of mordor and gives his speech to rally his men for the upcoming battles. for me, this is the emotional heart of the movie(much more than sam's crying monologue at the end) since this not only gives boromir a ton more depth as a flawed hero, but sets up faramir's decision to let frodo and sam go. and c'mon, can we cut sean bean a fucking break at some point and not kill him in everything that he's in?!

jerry's thoughts on this pretty fucking awesome drawing:

Now for me, THE coolest scene of the film was at Helms Deep. When the Uruk Hai were waiting outside the wall and it started to rain. And you could hear the rain rattling off everyone’s armor. That was just too cool for me.

So I tried my hardest to capture the moment by using lots and lots of textures to create the rain. And also using texture to show how messy and dirty the Uruk Hai were.

It would have been really difficult for me to draw the entire army standing there with spears, so I focused on the one leader-type guy standing on that rock.

and here are our drawings for return of the king

this what jerry rambled on about:

I originally wanted to do the scene where King Theodan gives his speech to the men right before they attack the Orcs at Minastirath. That speech really got me hopped up when I was watching.

But then I remembered how much of a hard time Ken Knudtsen had been giving me for not drawing an elephant in our first week theme of The Circus. So I figured I’d draw these elephant riders at the same battle.

I L-O-V-E Lord of The Rings the Trilogy. I remember being said in the theatre at the end of this film just because I wasn’t going to get to watch them anymore. So I’m super pumped to watch The Hobbit.

This piece was drawn mostly in pen with my Sharpie Pen. I used really loose pencils. And I used some black acrylic paint to create the smudge marks which are meant to represent the smoke that was being stirred up from the giant elephants. I put the paint on some paper towels and just started smearing all over the place.

rewatching return of the king reminded me of not only how cool the movie was, but how long it was too. man, that was a never ending movie. so i decided to show the ONLY badass frodo moment, when he turns and says that "the ring is mine". but he didn't count on sam using the two hobbit secret weapons against adversity-crying and begging.

sketchblog:lord of the rings(fellowship)

2011-07-07T11:23:00.010-04:00

now that star wars is behind us, it's time to check out what jerry, walt, and i were able to come up with for the first lotr movie, fellowship of the ring(larry has been preoccupied with some important personal matters, but he will be back shortly).

sweet jesus, walt.....

....

....well, here's what the never-ceasing-to-amaze mr. simonson thought about on this "sketch"

"A Balrog... When I first read The Lord of the Rings, I thought to draw an illustrated version of the trilogy, just for fun. I never completed the task; I was in college at the time and had other things to do. But I did a lot of research, collected reference material, did preliminary drawings, created character studies, and in the end, made a few finished b/w illustrations. It was really the first time I ever put that sort of effort and concentration into drawing and illustration. I didn't know anybody who made a living drawing back then; I was a geology major myself. So essentially, I just invented my 'process' as I went along. This drawing is based on my designs for the Balrog in Volume 1 from back in the day. He's a bit beefier than my earlier versions but similar. I read the material pretty carefully at the time trying to suss out an accurate design. As I recall, Tolkien's description of the Balrog's wings was somewhat obscure. It seemed to leave open the possibility that the wings of shadow might have actually been cast shadows rather than real wings attached to the Balrog. So I've left the wings here as tonal shapes without too much specific definition. The drawing was done on legal-sized paper with the usual Pentel automatic pencil. I had to tape three sheets together in the end to get all of the figure in, as he was a good deal wider than my original sheet of paper. The drawing ended up being 17 x 14. I've done a little Photoshopping to clean up the seams, the gray smudges of pencil on the backgrounds, and left some of the tone in the figure because I liked the way it looked."

this is jerry's favorite part of the movie, where little boys run away from everything. here's his thought process on this one:

"I had a ton of fun doing “research” for this piece by watching the film again. I used to have a dream of being on that show Beauty and The Geek. I wanted my tag line to be that I watch Lord of The Rings 4 times a week. Which I actually used to sorta do. I would just pop the dvd in before I went to bed so that I could go to sleep with it on.

wow.

I mean…if that didn’t get me onto Beauty and The Geek, what would???"

that is a badass horse...i bet he can draw that from memory as well at the next con.

So for the first LOTR film, it was a tough call for what I wanted to draw. I decided on doing this creepy Gollum in a cave. Something I wasn’t super excited about with him in the movie was how pathetic Gollum was. Yes, I get that was to make him more open to the viewer’s pity, but I always pictured him as more desperate that pitied. I sketched out some scars(I bet he loses every fight he’s in) and ragged clothes. Even a patchy beard. But then I realized the light source blacked all of that out….so I can go fuck myself.

and walt loved my word balloon! that's big news there, kids

sketchblog:return of the jedi

2011-07-03T13:22:00.005-04:00

whoops...almost forgot top post this, the last of our star wars themed sketches. let's hop right on in here with...

walt's darth vader! this is pretty fucking cool, as i can hear him right now hissing out "you were riiiight" to luke. here's what walt was thinking-

“I always thought it was too bad that David Prowse didn’t get to play Darth Vader unmasked. Don’t know the score about that really, but I decided to do a illustration of David, more or less as he is now, as the dying Vader at the end of third movie."

great, i try to follow walt's vader with my own. i was thinking about doing luke in an attack mode before watching jedi, but this scene was surprisingly awesome in the movie. i often mistake jedi as the kiddie movie of the three, but if you remove all ewok shenanigans, it's actually a pretty solid movie.

and wrapping us up this week is jerry. this is a pretty badass jabba behind slave leia. maybe some day jerry will do the awesome speeder race scene he promised. and don't forget to get your very own at-at from memory sketch the next time you see jerry.

aaaaaaaand a celebratory vodka shot goes out to jerry and cliff chiang, who's new shirt is gonna be available at this year's san diego comic con as an epic proportion(booth 1221) exclusive. preorder it now, and jerry might just throw in 5 pushups.

sketchblog:the empire strikes back(part 2)

2011-06-24T12:03:00.005-04:00

talking to jerry about what to do for this week's sketch very quickly became a 2 hour discussion of how cool this movie is. i guess that's when we realized how difficult it was going to be to choose only one sketch to do.

so i, of course, decided to go ahead and do 2 of them. i can be crafty like that.

now we have all this weeks' sketches in(jerry ma, larry hama, walt simonson, and myself) for what is the greatest fucking movie of all time! let's check them out...

this is the 2nd sketch that i did this week, and it's the mighty boba fett! i remember thinking that he was the coolest bad guy in all of movies. until jedi had him girly scream his way into a big burping mouth in the desert.

some cool info, he's so awesome that he isn't even named in the movie! i'm pretty sure he's named boba fett for the first time as a toy or as part of a star wars holiday episode.

next up is walt's sniper trooper. here's what led him to this as a sketch choice:

"Don't know if this costume--or one like it--ever appeared in the film. I have a lot of reference from the days when I drew the Star Wars comic for Marvel a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... I was rummaging through it and found a variety of Hoth snow trooper designs by Joe Johnston. This is one of those designs, not entirely accurately portrayed, but close. I gave him a long rifle, with bipod and scope for fun."

now, if only walt was involved in making MORE decisions about how star wars should be...

this is jerry's sketch, the very cool scene when luke desperately scrambles from his crashed snow speeder to take down an approaching at-at walker. between this and his at-at maze tshirt, i'm pretty sure that jerry can whip one of these guys up from memory. be sure to ask him to do that any time that you see him. he'd love it.

this was my 1st sketch for empire, and i'll say it again:

the greatest character in the greatest scene of the greatest movie of all time.

and wrapping it up this week is larry's sketch of what surely inspired every goddamn kid to immediately go home from the theatre and get into trouble for smacking each other with the closest thing that we could find to a lightsaber.

sketchblog:the empire strikes back

2011-06-20T18:45:00.004-04:00

so, this week's theme is the second of the real star wars movies, the empire strikes back.

this is the greatest fucking movie in the world.

the two greatest characters of all of movies are in this.

and that is why i decided to do 2 sketches this week.

this is the best goddamn scene ever(can you tell i'm excited about this week's theme?), where han decides to go out and find his buddy, luke. as a kid, a hero talking like this just blew my mind. and i got to watch this movie 2x today to boot(for "reference").

sketchblog:star wars

2011-06-17T10:07:00.005-04:00

here we are for week 2 of sketchblog! woooothis is better than green lantern, and i haven't even seen it yet! yes, i am that bold.

so, this week starts our 3 weeks of star wars sketches(episodes 4-6, not the bullshit episodes 1-3). i know that you're excited to see what jerry m a, walt simonson, larry hama, and i have for you...

i'm gonna start off with mine here, because i really like how this one turned out. process wise, i did this the same way as i did the zombiebomb and wolverine drawings. but why am i chatting away? let's see what jerry had to say about his on his blog?

"So this week Ken kicks off our Star Wars: A New Hope theme with the sand people. Apparently Ken chose to illustrate these guys because they always kept him up late at night as a kid and he was freaked out by them.

He always wondered why there wasn’t more done with them in the movie. And as he was drawing this, he could hear them chanting in his head.

Ken likes to drink….a lot."

....you just wait, jerry....

who's up next?....why, it's jerry ma! this is jerry fantastical rendering of the greatest moment that has been ruined by george lucas. actually, it's a pretty nice job, and i especially like the use of linework to create greytones.

what is this?! a second jerry ma sketch?! why, he must be the most productive motherfucker in the world...or maybe he was simply late with this week's sketch, felt guilty, and knocked out a second one. please note that jerry has created 3 sketches, and still no elephants. please let jerry know how much this displeases you here at "new business".

sweet jesus, this is larry hama's princess leah organa. while jerry loves larry for his gi joe, i know him as the guy responsible for the majority of the wolverine comics in my longboxes(i was not allowed to play with gi joe, as i was a jehova's witness until i was 13). i don't think larry even needed reference for this...

and we wrap up with walt simonson's fucking storm trooper on a dewback. please note the fact that he did this on full-size bristol. this is a professional job here! maybe i can swipe this...i mean take a closer look at this...the next time i shoot up to walt's house.

wooosketchblog!

2011-06-03T09:54:00.005-04:00

"CIRCUS!"

whoops, getting a little bit ahead of myself here.

so, jerry ma has always yelled at me for not posting enough(he's right, but he's also a mets fan). to combat this, jerry suggested something along the lines of doing a "sketch of the week" to keep us going. each week would have a different theme to give us an unified focus along with a timeline of regular posting. AND we have 2 big time creators in with us(i'm not sure if i can say who they are yet, i'll have to check with jerry on that). then jerry made his first mistake...

"ken, what do you think the first week's them should be?"

"CIRCUS!"

namely, circus fun!

now, it should be pretty obvious as to why i'd choose "circus", seeing as how the circus has birthed so many of my favorite comic book characters. guess who i decided on yet?

...

...

...

the purple archer HAWKEYE!

here's my initial pencil/marker thumbnail.

i' pretty surprised how happy i was with my first stab at it. i like the composition, hawkeye's got his goofy smile, and there's a goddamn elephant in the background(all i can think of when drawing that was the "i want my elephant" from the simpsons).

okay, so now it's time to pencil!

i throw the thumbnail(it's on 14x17 sketch paper) onto my lightbox. then i use a 2b pencil on 400 series bristol paper and got this...

not too bad, i thought. so i went outside for a walk. coming back an hour later, i wasn't so sure anymore. it seemed a bit lacking. then i inked it.

waking up the next morning to look at this again, i was now sure. sure that i wasn't happy with it. at all. so...i penciled a a new one.

MUCH happier with this. i feel like i nailed everything this time. except that i gave hawkeye an extra finger on his right hand. oops

i was so happy with this, i jumped right into inking hawkeye.

so today i'll ink the rest, and i'm good for this sketch! i think that we're posting the finals on...monday? tuesday? so whenever it is, i'll put everyone's up.

oh, and i listened to the first mr. bungle to get myself into the circusy atmosphere.

suck it, brett favre!

2010-12-14T10:39:00.003-05:00

so, it finally fucking happened. brett favre decided to not continure his overly drawn out consecutive game streak, and will not get to 300 games.

i hate brett favre.

it wasn't always like this, but i think that every green bay and jets fan will agree with me. he used to be loved by everyone, highlighted by everyone on earth cheering for him in the game right after his dad passed away.

and now?

the only thing that i'm disappointed about is the fact that the giants did not have the opportunity to put him 3 inches into the turf in detroit last night.

oh, and cliff lee...you can suck it as well

talking about myself(part 2)

2010-12-09T17:05:00.009-05:00

first off, time to thank lisarrr for her overseas support and love of all things jennifer!

so, last week i shot over to a monthly comics meeting in nyc. i was invited to speak to the group by james babbo and his crew at PRONTO COMICS. i guess that they thought that i had something useful to convey to people that like to read/create comics. knowing that this is a huuuuge mistake by james, i brought along some help(aka jerry ma).

but jerry is a cruel friend, and insisted that i meet his vicious demand that i join him and his co-workers for a pre-meeting drink. this quickly became more than a couple drinks(and shots), as jerry had his co-workers convinced that i was in fact about to give a talk on "single and dating in the city". i look forward to continuing this conversation. then it was time to do work.

being honest, i had no idea of what to expect. i was pleasantly surprised to see that almost the entire group was there early and waiting in the very spacious hallway outside of the room.

once inside, james and his crew went right to work. i was very impressed with not only how organized everything was, but how quickly and efficiently the room was being run(i am german, so i appreciate how hard this can be). within 15 minutes, the floor was mine.

if you ever have the opportunity to speak publicly, i strongly encourage it. if for nothing else, you will become a much more gracious and patient person the next time you are sitting in a room with a guest speaker. this shit is not easy.

thankfully, i've had some experience with this in both comics and at my job. i feel that most important thing to keep in mind is that you, as the speaker, are not the most important person in the room. if someone wanted to do nothing but here you drone on about yourself for an hour, they could simply look you up online.

so, you may ask, what am i supposed to do then? good question. in fact, that's what you do-ask and answer questions relating to whatever it is that you think you do well. i started off by asking some general comics questions to try to get a feel of the room. by knowing what the majority of people are trying to find out enables me to keep the conversation flowing. this may be why aquaman was only mentioned twice. both times by me.

but even this gets a bit stale. so this is when i got to abuse both jerry and james with a little bit of role playing. i like to use this to visually make a point or to reinforce something that might have been said already. and it was fun for everyone else to laugh at their slightly nervous performance. and to teach us that, given the opportunity, jerry will take your goddamn water that you've been drinking instead of the fucking unopened bottle right in front of him.

the reaction in the room made me think that things went well. i know that jerry and i had a blast, and i hope that i was able to present some helpful information. it was cool to take james up on his invite to go out for a drink after the meeting(thanks james!). i, unfortunately, had to bounce out early due to a very serious issue with an employee's family member(she is ok now).

overall, i think this went well and i look forward to continuing meeting with the PRONTO COMICS gang. oh, and thanks to my official photog jma! enjoy the pictures

talking about myself

2010-12-02T12:02:00.004-05:00

for this, i'm not referring to this awesomely irregular blog. nopenope, i'm talking about self-promotion, aka interviews and public speaking. my buddy jerry ma(SECRET IDENTITIES 1 AND 2) have been doing this on and off since we graduated from SVA.

how much good actually comes from this? well, i believe a great deal does.

jerry and i, when we first started throwing our lives away by creating comics, decided that a public persona was an incredibly important part of our "succeeding" in comics. and, in my opinion, something that is sorely lacking in comics in general.

comic conventions are the obvious thought, right? this should be your best days of the year, because all of the hard work and lonely weekends have paid off with your very own comic!

yet think about the last time you walked through a con. how often did you look right past the person behind the table? and it's not even your fault. most creators are just seated in the chairs, hoping for someone to want to talk to them. i know that's what we were afraid of falling into. but since both jerry and i have sales experience, we made some conscious choices on how to better present ourselves and our work. in other words, how to "sell" ourselves to random strangers. we do "stretching exercises" throughout the day to be loose and engaging. we invite our non-comic buddies(wooothanks to james, jim, chris) so it seems that you're walking by a cool(or at least not too creepy) group of people, so come by and hang out!

interviews have been a huge reason behind my getting(and retaining) fans. i always make time for any interview request(largely because i' embarrassed that someone wants to talk to me that much), and i recommend trying to do a phone interview over an email one. it is definitely more work for both sides, but they are without a doubt more fun to do(and read) because it becomes a conversation that can literally go anywhere.

speaking engagements are a whole different situation. they can encompass everything from simple q&a to art exhibitions to long periods of unsettling silence. this is something you should check out jerry's blog("for what it's worth" on epicprops.com), because he does quite a bunch of them all year long.

the reason that i'm yapping about this shit is that i'm headed out to do a speaking thing tonight at 8:30(http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=150341181678125&index=1), and i have 2 interviews this week. i think that doing this is fucking cool, and it helps keep me motivated in continuing my comics. i'll let you guys know how it goes!

oh, and the new my chemical romance album fucking rocks.

back to the (life) drawing board

2010-10-26T19:32:00.004-04:00

whooooa, a second post this month? that's right, so you can shut the fuck up now, jerry. i said that i would update this more, and here we go.....

one of things that i miss most from not being in college any more is the lack of interacting with other artists in a (mostly) non-drinking environment. so when someone recently invited me to a model session at the society of illustrators building in nyc, i jumped at the chance.

now, i haven't been to a life drawing session in quite some time, so i was a bit anxious to get started. the first round of poses were only 5 minutes each, so my focus had to be "get shit down on paper and be quick about it".

not too bad. i even didn't fuck up the forced perspective on the second and fourth poses.

next up, two 10 minute poses.

eh. the drawing itself was ok, but when i broke out my oil bars(a nifty cross of pastels and oil paint), the end result was kinda wishy-woshy (thank you spell-check, for letting me know that you feel that i've misspelled that).

this one was a little better. maybe i just need to rethink how i use the oil bars.

much better. this was a 20 minute pose, and i took the extra time to decide that i would use one color for the darkest of shadows, and a second color for a lighter shadow. by the way, you might be able to pick up the fact that i sometimes draw on tape in my drawings. if i'm not happy with how a part of the drawing looks, whooosh i put tape over it! now i can draw on the tape and not rage my way into the night.

this was the final pose that i was there for, and it was another 20 minute one. on this one, i started by using the two colors as shadow. while a mess, i think that this gave me a chance to not have to draw everything before going to the oil bars. laying the color down first, i just went back in there with my ebony pencil and added line to the areas that interested me.

i like this last one the best, and it's not because i think that it is the strongest. i like this one because now i have something new to try, maybe as my convention commissions. and now i'm definitely going to be enrolling in some sort of class to keep me going. any ideas(nyc or ling island)?

new york comic con!

2010-10-14T14:20:00.005-04:00

as some of you may have realized, i all kinds of suck at updating this here blog. so, i'm gonna make a better effort at doing this on a MUCH more regular basis. that means that you need to expect more nonsense from me, and for that you can thank jerry.

so...it's been 4 days since the ny comic con ended on sunday, and all i can say right now is HOLY FUCK IS THIS THING AWESOME! it seemed to be 2x bigger than the last one, which was itself 2x bigger than the one before it.

while jerry was showing off his newly remodeled booth with his legends hour(some guys named walt, larry, and geoffe) on the main showroom floor, i decided to give artist alley a shot. i figured that this would be a solid test on whether it was even worth it to keep on pushing through with comics by seeing if anyone even would stop at my table. this lead to my being more than a bit nervous as my weekend started

my train going into the city on friday morning was late. by almost an hour. thanks a lot, lirr, for always sucking.

when i finally arrive at the javitz center, it was pretty easy to find where i needed to go to register and find my table. wait, what's this you say, old man at the counter? "you aren't listed anywhere, ken"? but hey, that didn't stop him from handing me my 2 artist alley badges and setting me loose onto the convention floor!

after discovering a way around the construction site in the middle of the con's floor, i found 2 guys at a help table. "hey, i'm ken knudtsen, where is my goddamn table?" is what i might have said at this point. but maybe i was a bit more polite. friday was a long time ago. "well, you're not listed here(which i already knew, thanks), but there are 2 empty tables at the end. why don't you take one of those?" answered the help man.

woooooi have a table! after making myself a name sign(not being listed=they didn't have one for me), i set up my table. now what? how well would i actually do? if i crash and burn, did i bring enough alcohol to wash away the pain?

it went staggeringly great for me! i sold out the rest of the new MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER v2(you get yours from amazon with this here link
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593621965?ie=UTF8&tag=isisimhmi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1593621965)! i got to see some of my "comics pals" that i hadn't seen in awhile(justin beiber is your hockey idol, joe!).

and i did commissions. man, did do some commissions. james actually had 3 lined up for me in the time it took me to get to the bathroom! i've sprinkled a bunch through my story here to give you a taste of what i mean.

overall, it was a really great time, and i can't wait for next year! thanks to james for helping out, brian for putting together a...spectacle...i'm not sure how to describe the awesomeness that was elite gudz, and to larry, mark, and everyone at reed exhibitions for putting it all together.

and here is my one and only con purchase.

San Diego Comic Con....i'm tired

2010-07-31T20:27:00.005-04:00

ok guys, it's almost been 1 full week since my red eye(with a layover?!) flight got me back to ny, from comic con, at around 10:30am this past monday. this of course wrapped up a comic themed week that began with james, jerry, and i flying out on tuesday morning. that's exhausting to just type...

so, how did it all go? my experience was pretty awesome. first, and foremost, gettting to spend comic con with james, jerry, and the terminal press crew(brian actually got out there on monday!) is always a good time.

oh, and we ALL got our luggage and shipped packages safe and sound(it's been awhile since i could say that). toss in the usual catch-up time with con guys i don't get to see too often like the arvids, eric js, jim johnsons, stupid jon tsuies, amonst many...good times.

and, of course it's always a blast hanging out with new people to corrupt. we even had a booth babe(thank you, mike velasquez)! that would be mike, looking right at the camera being all serious.

but, for me personally, i was most psyched to have MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER v2 available, for the first time, at the con! woooocheck out my signing at the slg booth!

how was it overall? it was draining(this is my "vacation"). it was long. it was all kinds of expensive as fuck. and i already can't wait to go again next year. check out this awesomeness...

but, up next...in-store signings in nyc.....?

wooooalmost time for comic con!

2010-07-08T14:02:00.005-04:00

great news! it's almost comic con time! i, myself am pretty fucking psyched about heading out of new york with my buddies james and jerry on july 20th to san diego for a whole week of comic book goodness.whew, it already sounds exhausting...
but why am i so excited? well, aside from looking forward to this week out on the west coast for the best con of the year here's why else....

1. james is making his triumphant return.

2. the incredibles and the whole TERMINAL PRESS(booth 1221) crew are back in action as well.

3. jerry will have explosively exciting new shirt designs(including a walt simonson exclusive trex) at the EPIC PROPORTIONS booth(1737). i will also be here.

4. THERE IS A NEW MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER! woooooo!

and to promote this, i will be signing copies at the EPIC PROPORTIONS booth (1737) and at the SLG PUBLISHING booth(1815 thurs-sun 1pm-2:30pm).
and as an added bonus, you can win a free marker sketch! come by either booth with the appropriate statement per booth so everyone can hear(no mumbling), and i'll whip you up something cool...

EPIC PROPRTIONS(1737) "bacon makes everything better"
SLG PUBLISHING(1815) "huey lewis rocks the house"

who knows, maybe james and jerry will buy you a monkey drink after a hard day workin' the con and you can have this much fun!

woooonew project!

2010-07-01T09:51:00.004-04:00

hey guys, i know it's been awhile(and irregular), but now that the newest MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER is finished i can get back to somewhat normal. which, of course, means more drawing!
what i'm working on now is a 10 page story for ZOMBIEBOMB, a zombie-themed anthology published by Terminal Press. My story is written by geoff mosse and edited by adam miller, both cool guys that i've know for awhile now thanks to JENNIFER. it's been a needed change of pace, especially since the next thing waiting in the on deck circle is another new MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER!

well, what do you think so far?

things that i like

2010-05-20T18:55:00.002-04:00

ok guys, a little change of pace. i've been blogging about MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER here, and not a whole lot much else. so, here's some shit that makes me happy right now.

shit that makes me happy:music
just finished listening to this for the 2nd time in a row. i can't believe that it's been 10 fucking years since TRAIN OF THOUGHT. the only thing that sucks is that they were on long island and i missed them because i was in the middle of nowhere in washington state.

also, i been listening to the new nas & damian marley, david byrne & brian eno, and jesse malin albums.

shit that makes me happy:movies

i think that it should go without saying that i went to the midnight preview of IRON MAN 2, and it rocked(stay through the end credits, you lazy bastards). but the summer movie that i TRULY enjoyed the fuck out of is this guy

in all seriousness, i really think everyone should go see this, but i think that it's been pushed out of the theatres already. loved the comic, the movie was great!

shit that makes me happy:tasty food

and even more great news-it's gonna stay forever! i'm not lying either! woooooabc news!

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10688500

that's all for now, back to drawing!

woooocomic con time!

2010-04-13T21:45:00.002-04:00

great news!

i can't believe that this is the first comic con of the year for me, but i am off to chicago for the C2E2 on april 16-18. this is run by the same guys that rock out
in ny, so i'm sure jerry and i will love this too. oh, and james is coming along for the awesomeness as well. i guess that i hope he makes it back home, too.

hey, that's me being productive

Why am i doing the new JENNIFER out of order?

2010-02-19T12:15:00.004-05:00

well, because i wanted to really draw their jungle adventure first.

that's why.

but, i just finished the first 3 pages. enjoy oh, and ke$ha is clearly a genius in the making

Why Jerry Ma is moderately useful with comics advice

2010-02-01T18:33:00.006-05:00

so, i was talking with jerry ma(epicprops.com) about how JENNIFER has been going along. and jerry made a pointed comment regarding the pacing of the pages so far. mainly, that it was going too fast due to the low number(3-4) of panels per page. "maybe you need to throw some multi-panel pages in there a little more often", jerry suggested. "sure", i thought.

so, this happened to be the thumbnail for the very next page i was gonna work on:

wooooogod hates me.

basically, it's 2 panels of a chimp sneaking up on kaitlin, then she sneezes on him. how can i break this up? i came up with an idea, and used it for the full-sized(11x17) sketch below.

instead of having kaitlyn and the chimp together, i used insert panels to separate the chimp. as he gets closer to kaitlyn, so do the panels.

i was a bit unsure of how to handle the sneeze itself. doing the usual black ink spatter(flicking a beat up brush dripping in ink in one direction) would make people think that kaitlyn was seriously sick. so.....

i'm pretty happy with how this came out. woooken!

and because you've been so good, here is the next page.

all of this, work, watching the awesomeness that is 12 ROUNDS, and listening to pete rock & cl smooth("the beat is fat, but the rhyme is obese" indeed). not bad for a weekend.

Why Augie de Blieck Jr and Harrison Ford rock

2010-01-22T16:26:00.002-05:00

wooooogreat news! or at least, great belated news. check out this link

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24068

to see that MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER made a "First Pass at Favorite Comics of the Decade"! so, i just wanted to take a second to thank adb jr for his support. augie was one of the first people to review and ultimately expose JENNIFER when it first came out. and, thankfully, he seems very enthusiastic about JENNIFER's return(hopefully on time in july). so, thank you again, augie.

time magazine(yes, i read time, shut up) has a feature called 10 questions. they solicit questions from their readers to pose to a different person each week. the most recent edition had harrison ford answering...about what kind of nonsense you would expect. the final question from sasa todorvic was

"what would be your best advice for a young harrison ford today?"

ho-hum...but harrison's response hit home for me.

"sometimes the only reason you get the job is that you're the only one left. i didn't make a living [acting] until i was 35. tenacity is critical."

oofa...for a guy just about to turn 35, this is something positive that i really needed to see. so thanks to you, too, han.

why this year is gonna rock

2010-01-03T18:58:00.006-05:00

great news! here is my first page of the new year. so, i thought i'd show you how i make the magic that is MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER in page form.

like the cover, i first start with multiple sketches. i chose this guy here. it's got the basics covered-panel # and layout, how i want the figures posed, possible dialogue, any visual notes that i think are important.

next up, i do a sketch on 18x24 sketch paper. at this point, i start working out the lettering and placement of black.

not too bad. now i lightbox the pencils over the sketch. yep, i still handletter on the actual page.

after taking a meal break(and unfortunately watching the end of the giants game), it's time to ink!

has anyone caught the mistake i made up to the inks page? i have jennifer wearing the dress in panel 1 that gets tossed to him in panel 2. ug, who am i making that kind of dumb mistake? am i keith? no, because i fixed that up in the inks.

so, there you go. what do you guys think?

why covers are the easiest thing in the world to do

2009-12-03T18:52:00.008-05:00

soooo, if you haven't heard by now, i am currently working on a new MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER graphic novel(it involves Jennifer and Kaitlyn going on multiple adventures). and a new book requires a cover. it's usually pretty easy for me to summarize any given issue into a single image, which equals cover. how hard would this one be?

this one, in fact, would be incredibly hard. fml for a week hard.

i start by sketching ideas on 8.5x11 unlined paper, and will usually go through 4 or 5 designs before deciding. i am looking at my bed, covered in sketches. 21 pages. double-sided. 2-4 designs per page. yep, this is gonna be easy.

after about 4 days of aggravation(and friendly feedback, thanks guys!), i think that i have found a workable design. so i tightened it up on it's own page.

it's got an angry jennifer, and a design that breaks up the cover in a way to show multiple images. woooo!

next, i do a full size sketch. for those of you that may not be aware of this, original sized comic book art is 11x17. so i do a sketch based on the little guy.

hmmm. something is bothering me about this. jennifer is just kinda standing there, and there isn't really any kind of flow with the top area(a jungle scene with many angry primates). that's why this is a sketch.

so a talk with jerry inspires me to do something with multiple media. pencil! ink! oil bars! charcoal! it's going to be awesome! i attack this with great gusto. and i end up with this guy

fml, what a disaster. it's like i handed my awesome idea to a 5 year old to execute. keith mccleary couldn't have done this worse! what am i gonna do with this?

wait a minute...the angry primates thing looks interesting. i decide i like how this looks as a possible starting point for my next attempt. so i keep that.

what i don't keep is how jennifer looks. it's a mess. everything competes with everything on the cover, and there are only losers here(like keith). so i make a bold decision.

jennifer, the core of the image, surrounding by craziness of colors, must be in black in white. and much darker.

okay! this is much better! i was also able to angle jennifer better so that he is not just a static figure. good job, ken.

so now i'm off to staples to use the self service color copier to fool around with the primates. color, tint, sharpness, color focus...i'm there for awhile. then i go home and do some cut and paste(very high tech). then i go over it with some oil bars, charcoal, and scrape at it with a razor blade. then spray it with quite a bit of fixative.

i think i'm actually very happy with this! oh, and this will wrap around onto the back of the book too(where the gray tone and red will play into the drawings).

now i just have to finish the rest of the book....