Not Entirely Idle Hands

So this blog has languished. Yes, it's true. But if I described it once as a clarified notebook, then I suppose, like a notebook, one can pick it up at anytime, dust it off, and start again.

I'm not making any promises here, (and no one's listening if I did), but I do think the Water Tree House will get a little more action in days to come. That's all I'll say for now.

I want to post couple of links of some stuff I've had published in the last year. Interestingly, they are pieces that I both wrote and illustrated, a fun process for me. I'll put the pictures here and link to the text.

So, first was an odd story that came out of my dreamings while listening to Dylan's "Please, Come Out Your Window." It's called "A Hole in the Wall Called a Window." Many thanks to Andrew Kozma for encouragement and the title. This piece was taken by Sidebrow an interesting lit-site that was nice enough to let me post an illustration, too. Here's the image--I was still baby-stepping with PhotoShop at this point.

Th second link is to a very cool project put together by the folks at The Owls lit blog, and particularly by the poet (and my friend) Sean Hill. Below is the image, or you can go to The Owls blog where you'll find all kinds of cool folks doing all kinds of great stuff.

Enjoy. Hopefully I won't stay away for quite so long.

Made the Big TIme

Okay, I have not posted to this thing since its initial inception. So no, the experiment in finishing has failed. But not entirely.
As my good friend, Charlie C. told me once, a thing is only failed if it's finished, if you can't go back and change it. I like that.
And in that spirit I figure I can go back and change this blog. Or atleast add to it.
(for example, I think I might switch the photo-viewing site for the Bonestorm 24-Hour Comic, maybe put it on Flickr, I dunno. Suggestions?)
What I can do now, though, is give a link to my only other "published" sketch of date--a quick drawing I got onto the Big Time Attic Blog. BTA is a great studio in Minneapolis. They do comics and flash animation and all sorts of stuff, and they're FOR REAL, like they make a living doing it. And they're super-nice, as far as I can tell. (They all may be Super-Villians in real life, but they hide it well.)
Anyway, here is the link to my little bit of their blog. www.bigtimeattic.com/blog/labels/I%20Wish%20Someone%20Would%20Invent.html
Check out their other stuff, too.
It's vury niiice.

Bonestorm: The Whole Thing

The only way I could figure to do this for free was to post the comic as an album on a photo-sharing site. I like it because a) it's free, and b) if you have a google account, then you can see the pictures without signing up for anything else (I think.) That said, if anybody has a better way of doing this, let me know. I wish you could open each pic in its own browser window, for example, and make it as big as you like, but I am just dipping my toe into the Web Posting world, and I don't know much of anything yet.
Anyhow,
Enjoy.
David

My First Finished Comic

I have to admit, I'm a lousy finisher. Great beginner--but when the shine wears off a project, I usual find another distraction. That may be why I never actually finished a comic book. I've had plenty of ideas, and there have been times in my life when I was drawing all the time. But something about the layout, the boxes, all the pre-planning--I dunno, something, kept me just doodling, not pushing it through.

Anyway, that changed. A couple months ago I saw a flyer for a comic book event to be hosted at the Loft in Minneapolis, at the Minnesota Book Arts Studio. The event: 24-Hour Comics, hosted by a bunch of fellow comic book makin' folk, The Cartoonist Conspiracy Minneapolis Local. I'd first read about 24 Hour Comics on Scott McCloud's great site--the idea is for an artist to come to the table with very little, maybe just an idea for a comic, then sit down and do a full 24 pages in a 24 hour stretch. The event would last from 10 A.M. on a Saturday til 10 A.M. on Sunday.

I admit, I cheated a wee bit. I do a lot of collage, so I showed up with my lil' thrift store suitcase full of supplies and a sheaf full of weird old photocopied etchings. If the photocopies were considered an undue advantage, nobody cared. I looked over the mountain of munchies folks had donated, and the pillar-sized coffee urns, and grabbed a chair.

I lucked out--my table mates--whose names I have unfortunately forgotten at the moment--were great. We shared glue and scissors, just like good second graders. Table Scissors, we called them. Table Glue. And after a while they even started giving me some images they found in comics or magazines they had lying around.

"Can you use a weird Hindu god of war?"
Hell, yeah I can. Table War Gods.

About midnight, after we were all juiced up on caffeine, one Fine Fellow (I'll remember his name soon) goes out to his truck and returns with a cooler of beer. Table Beer.

You'll probably be able to tell where in the comic this odd mix of alcohol, intense drawing, caffeine, and loopiness takes hold . . . hint: Teeth Critters.

Okay--this has gone long enough for an Intro to Anything. What will follow is the result of that day, a full 24 page comic (if you count the covers) that sort of starts a series I have been thinking of. It's called Bonestorm. Thanks to all the nice folks at the 24-Hour Comic day for giving me a meaningless deadline that I could actually meet, and thanks to whoever may be looking at this for being curious.

Be well.
David