MLK 24-Hour Zine

This past weekend, I participated in a fundraising stunt for the Portland Zine Symposium. The goal was to make a 24-page zine in 24 hours. A bunch of us holed up in the IPRC with pizza, donuts and coffee and set to work!

Because I didn't trust myself to produce coherent text after 18 hours of wakefulness, I opted to do an annotated printing of one of my favorite sermons ever: "Can A Christian be a Communist," by a guy you may have heard of named Martin L. King Jr.

I first came across a transcription of this tape-recorded sermon one night a few years ago. Wracked with anxiety from my never-ending quest to reconcile my commitment to Marxist politics with my love for Jesus Christ, I despondently turned to Google and found a sermon with my question's name as its title. Though the sermon is available online, I wanted to do a decent printing of it . . . hopefully this zine will fall into the hands of some other struggling Christian leftist, and the words of King, Amos, Isaiah, and of course Jesus will help to order his or her thoughts, as they did mine.

Allow me to summarize, briefly, King's thesis [spoilers]:

For the zine itself, I added illustrations of some of the philosophical and political figures King mentions, as well as some miscellaneous spot-art to liven up the pages.

G.W.F. Hegel

 Ludwig Feuerebach

 K-Mizzle

 Archbishop William Temple

 James Meredith

 Ross Barnett

This was really fun and enlightening to make. I've already mailed out zines to my sponsors, but if you'd like a copy for your secret commie library, try to get a hold of me - I sell them for one dollar, plus shipping if you're not in Portland.

Apple Netwon

I drew this for Stumptown Underground's upcoming anthology with the theme of SCIENCE:

March Penciling

Hey y'all. My progress on Symphony Number Six has been pretty slow, but I'm still getting some good penciling in. Here's a sequence:

And here's a panel I just drew yesterday, depicting Cincinnati Music Hall. I love placing my vanishing points really, really far apart!

Bride of the Water God Fan Art

Hey guys! I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here. Symphony Number Six is chugging along (slowly) but I took some time out this weekend to do some fan-art for Bride of the Water God, a deceptively compelling manhwa by Mi-Kyung Yun, published in English by Dark Horse. ("manhwa" is, I believe, Korean for "twelve educations of the adulterous winter," but I might have that wrong.)



I drew the titular water god, Habaek. He's a pretty interesting character - short-tempered, haughty, but also quite loving. He's trapped in the past in more ways than one - figuratively because he can't move on from his ill-fated first marriage to a human woman, and literally because every day when the sun rises his body transforms into that of a small child.

BotWG has more wrist-grabbing than I've ever seen in a comic or anywhere else. A panel of a wrist being gripped by somebody's hand occurs probably 7 or 8 times an issue! Sometimes it's erotic, sometimes it's violent, sometimes it's humorous. Mi-Kyung Yun clearly loves to draw grabbed wrists!

February Figure Drawing

I went figure drawing with the Periscopalians yesterday. Erika Moen hired a terrific-looking model. I'm please with some of the rapider sketches, but as we transitioned to longer studies my still-lingering inadequacies as a draftsman became more apparent. I was sitting on the floor for most of this, so my point-of-view resulted in some funny foreshortening.







Here are Steve Lieber's renderings of the same subject - can you tell where he was sitting in relation to me?

I'm Still Drawing, I Promise!

This month I began my next comic, "Symphony Number Six." Since it'll only be 32 pages long, I'll be releasing it all at once and won't be maintaining a regularly-updated website as I did for SNitLoE. But for my friends who want a behind-the-scenes peek, I'll be posting the occasional panel on this blog. Here's panel one:



Yes, I am once again beginning a comic with a car driving toward the horizon. Looks a lot better than last time though, huh?

New Years Revolutions

(click for larger image)

Man, what an amazing year! From January to December, I was filled with so much hope, even though many movements met brutal opposition and the struggle still continues everywhere. Here's to the People in 2012!

From left to right, Juventud Sin Futuro (Spain); South Sudanese secession (South Sudan); "Russia Will Be Free" (Russia); Camila Vallejo, Communist student leader and leftist dreamgirl of the decade (Argentina); Generic Union Guy; Old Man 2011 with Baby 2012; "Islam is a religion of Justice and Tolerance" (Tunisia); Egyptian Revolution (Egypt, where hundreds of protestors swept up their own mess); Wall Street Occupier (U.S.A.); "Indignants in Syntagma" (Greece); Madison, Wisconsin Occupier (U.S.A.)

Happy New Year! Proletarier aller Länder vereinigt Euch!