Super-Old SNitLoE Sketches

This week my dad is visiting me here in Portland, OR. Even though we're having a blast, hanging out with him is definitely slowing down the process of preparing the book for print. However, his visit is not all bad news for SNitLoE fans: in the dark recesses of my old bedroom back in New Orleans, my parents uncovered an ancient dusty sketchbook which contains the earliest known sketches of the Savage Nobles. Check out this ancient history:

The one of Kafir, I think, is the oldest. "A lot of surly teenagers think of themselves as being imprisoned by their parents," I thought. "But what if a guy's actual parents were his actual jailers." Then I drew this image and it was the springboard for creating the entire character. I kinda wish I'd kept the earring!

The early Tonya and the early Theo were both modeled on baristas that I knew. There is one even older drawing of Theo somewhere, which I can no longer locate.

The less said about my drawings skills in the spring of 2009, the better.

VJ Day in Times Square... With Dinosaurs!

My friends and teachers over at Periscope Studio have a weird and wonderful weekly sketch challenge. This week's theme is "World War II and Dinosaurs." After seeing Ben Dewey's pitch-perfect propaganda piece and the extremely creepy entry by Cat Farris, I knew I had to jump on the bandwagon. WWII-Dinosaurs are surely destined to succeed ninjas, pirates and zombies as the omnipresent emblem of the ironic pop-cultural zeitgeist, and let no one say I wasn't into them before they were cool.

By the way, this really is just a sketch, not like like the gorgeously rendered and researched finished pieces that often pass for "sketches" at Periscope. Way to set the bar impossibly high, guys.