Colorful Nude

A few weeks ago I shared a cab with a woman (not pictured). I got out first, and accidentally took her grocery bag instead of my own. With no way to get back in contact, the deal was sealed. She got wheat bread and peanut butter. I got dates, prunes, vanilla wafers and... COLORED PENCILS!

Happy Birthday Frank Oz!

Untitled Olympia Comic, pt. 4/4

I just realized this is my second comic in a row about somebody plunging back into a grubby, dreary historical setting after a brief visit to a fastastical wonderland.

Part 3
Part 2
Part 1

Untitled Olympia Comic, pt. 3/4

No comic tomorrow - LOST will be taking care of my time-traveling adventures for the day. Come back on Monday or Tuesday.

Part 2
Part 1

Untitled Olympia Comic, pt. 2/4

Since yesterday I've made a few aesthetic changes to Part One.

Untitled Olympia Comic, pt. 1/4

Hey guys. Instead of waiting until next week to show you my next completed comic, I will post it up here a page at a time. Since pencils are already done, and I'm inking about a page a day, this comic should take four days to post. Though not Sunday, as I have religious obligations (Pentecost, LOST finale.)



The title of this comic, when I think of one, will go in the clouds in panel one. This is for an anthology being put out by the Olympia Comics Festival. This is a small but extremely rad festival, appropriate for such a small but extremely rad town. The only requirement for the anthology is that it be related to Olympia in some way.

Etsy Store Now Up

Hey folks - I'm working on a sweet new 4-page comic about the city of Olympia, Washington for the upcoming Olympia Comics Festival. This is gonna be another long and pretty involved project, though hopefully it won't take me as long as The Land of Cokaygne did!

In the meantime, I'm happy to announce the launching of my Etsy Store, where you can purchase ORIGINAL ARTWORK by me. I hasten to add that, though there are only a few things up on that page right now, anything that I post on this blog that is not from my graphic novel, Savage Nobles in the Land of Enchantment or which has not already been given or sold to somebody else is up for sale as well - just e-mail me or comment on this blog and I will put it up on the Etsy Store just for you.

P.S. If you wanna see what a real Etsy Store looks like, check out Periscope Studio's page. Awesome, awesome stuff. Buy Ben Dewey's Catwoman pinup - it will not hurt my feelings.

Congratulations, Raza!

Tomorrow my sister Meredith is graduating from Vanderbilt University! Horrible brother that I am, instead of using my new drawing skills to draw a picture of her graduating, I drew this picture of my friend Raza Panjwani, who is also graduating this week (from Columbia Law school).



As Tom Vinciguerra aptly put it: "Congrats to Raz, the colossus bestriding the campus today and the world tomorrow!"

(as with a lot of my recent work, I used a ton of photo-reference for this: for the skyscrapers, for the law school robes, for Raza's proud mug, and for the unique perspective, below)

The Land of Cokaygne

Imagine my surprise when Anu Garg's Word of the Day today was "Cockaigne!" I've spent this week and the better part of last working on an awesome 4-page comic based on an anonymous 14th century poem about said mystical land of earthly pleasures. See below!






This is for Stumptown Underground's June issue, which has the theme of "myth/folk tales/fairy tales." If this submission don't get accepted, I'll eat my hat! I really busted my patootie on this one.

Back in 2005-2006, when I was a senior at Columbia University, I attempted to write a thesis paper on the poetry of the Goliards, semi-mythical wandering, drunken scholars of the later middle ages, probably best known from the Carmina Burana. I even learned medieval Latin so I could read their doggerel in the original! But no thesis came of it, and maybe from this comic you can see why. It's just a bunch of crazy nonsense! I lost credit from the course and almost didn't graduate :-(

The text of the poetry portion of the comic was freely edited by me based on the original Middle English and two modern translations, all available here. (WARNING: The sex in the original poem is much less consensual than what I've depicted here. Even so, I recommend you give it a read, as there are many beautiful and hilarious parts I had to leave out of the comic for space considerations.)

Heightening.

Another dumb throw-off cartoon because I am still swamped drawing what I think might be the most epic 4 pages of my life, which I will hopefully post early next week.

In college, I was in an improv comedy group. We always talked about comedic "heightening."

10 Minute Marx

Happy 192nd Birthday, Karl Marx.



(apologies for the throwoff sketch today - I am still working on several concurrent TOP SECRET projects which will all come tumbling out onto the internet early next week)

One of my favorite Marx quotes ever is:


"A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties."

Though it always appealed to me, I only realized the quote's deeper meaning when I read this short article by Slavoj Zizek. (This same article addresses one of my other all-time favorite [paraphrased] quotes by Jaques Lacan: "If God is dead, then nothing is permitted.")

In short, the duty of the Communist is NOT to say "You naive bourgeois idiot! You talk as though money were some magical thing endowed with intrinsic properties, when it is really just a reification of labor relations!" No. Rather, to the capitalist, we should say: "Like any intelligent modern man, you freely assert that money is nothing more than a codified system which stands in for certain relations of labor. However, in your day-to-day life, you nevertheless unconsciously ACT as though money is truly it's own magical thing." Wrap your head around that, my friend, and you've finished your first lap around Jericho.

The Weekend's Nudes

I have so much great stuff in the works right now, but nothing I can show you yet (incomplete comics projects, drawings that are gifts for people who haven't received them yet, etc.!) So here are some of my gradually improving nudes. (Warning! Not Safe For Church!)





I must say, I'm particularly proud of that last one - it actually looks like the subject. Er, model. Woman. I mean lady. I mean person.