of the interview here.

Part one of a 3 part interview can be found here.

A MESSY HOUSE…

I haven’t been able to work or blog for a bit due to having lots of work and repairs done around the house. We’ve been living with contractors for about the last 3 weeks. I had planned on working through it all but things didn’t quite work out the way they were in my feeble brain. We had to put a new roof on the house because of it’s age and we were having leaking problems. The leaking caused damage to both bathrooms and therefore they needed major repairs done. Yay. Anyway, $15,000 dollars later and having total chaos around here I’m finally getting back on track.

I’m starting work on the second issue of the “unnamed” project and finally finishing up my one off issue of Jonah Hex. Oh, and look for something involving an ambushed bug.

MASTER OF HORROR…

No, this is not a reference to the poorly executed tv series of the same name. I’m referring to horror comics master Junji Ito. I’ve just recently completed reading the 3 volume set that dark horse had published. As to be expected they were truly haunting works. The first 2 volumes dealt with his Tomie stories. Truly creepy. In fine Japanese tradition they were about obsessive behaviors and usually ended up with the horrific death of Tomie. She is this girl who keeps coming back to life in one bizarre circumstance after another of men murdering her in very violent ways. But it quickly becomes much more complicated than pure fantasy of men having power over women, which is what the author wants you think you are reading at first. That you are reading a misogynist male powertrip. But in essence it really is an exploration in the power of survival in the guise of an unknown demonic or alien entity in the form of a girl that uses obsession to provoke one to dismember her in garish ways. You see this is how she multiplies. Her individual dismembered body parts slowly become multiple versions of herself. One of the interesting things though is in one story is that the separate versions of herself are compelled to kill each other as well. As to say that she must continually struggle to become the most evolved version. Strongest of the fittest. What is fascinating is that you would think that the murderous rampage images would be the most horrific. Though they may be horrific, the most shocking and truly creepy, make your skin crawl, images come from the scenes with her regenerations. Mr. Ito may be trying to say that formation of life is messy and icky. The other thing about Junji Ito’s work, as in other Japanese horror, he doesn’t try to explain the technical reasons for what is happening. You just have accept what you are seeing. I think this lack of explanation found in Japanese horror is what truly makes it scary and thought provoking. It is very chillingly compelling when compared to American horror, where most of it explains everything to such a degree that it takes any of “thrill” out it. In my opinion, good, truly scary horror, is when something is completely unknown, unexplainable. It touches on a more primal fear. My only complaint is that the Tomie stories don’t form a single narrative larger story much like his other works I’ve read.

Volume 3 focuses on his short stories. Some of them are okay but others are truly amazing.

Other Junji Ito works I recommend that are available in english are Gyo and my personal favorite, Uzumaki.

MUSIC…

Perversely playing with my ipod with obsessive fervor.

Her name is Brooke Devine and she put some batman art pages on hold sometime ago but i have misplaced her contact info. I know its probably a long shot but if any other collectors reading this blog know her, could you be so kind as to see if she would email me through this website? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

As some of you have already discovered, the official store is now open as of sometime sunday evening. For now we are presenting a large number of original pages and concept work and tidbits like that. Also the sketchbooks are available in there as well. In the future we will be adding some limited specialty items such as signed comics sets and tpbs as well a some other goodies. At some point we will be adding a very few sketched edition hardcovers too. In the meantime enjoy looking at what is in there. Feel free to email us with any questions.

A certain someone for whom this website belongs to and is very giddy at the moment as he writes this blog has this thing over at the ComicsNexus that he wants to share with all of you…and the award goes to…__________

GALLERY…

The uploading process has begun for the gallery. It all is sort of random to what is going up. So this round as with the subsequent uploads will not be in any particular order. Hopefully that doesn’t annoy anyone. This time around there is all kinds of stuff. Some batman, some promethea, con sketch commissions. and various other things. I think I may have added at least 50 new images. My goal is to create something that people can come back to time and time again. To come to the gallery and view things at your leisure. I know most online artist galleries aren’t going to be as large as this as time goes by and hopefully you will come to enjoy the vastness of it as it progresses. I wish to show multiple versions of things that went through major or minor changes as the work was completed or as changes needed to be done based on editorial notes as work progressed. I’m showing these sorts of things to promote thoughts on design and process. Particularly with cover images and their relation to the logo work I had done. I know some of this will be a bit redundant but I want to create an online documentation of various aspects of every image I produce. I hope, even with the redundancy, you will find merit in this notion of a full on compendium of my work as it develops over time. Anyway, enjoy the new images for this round of uploads.

THINGS YOU SHOULD SEE…

Robotika by my friend Alex Sheikman has started up it’s second series from archaia press. Samurai sci-fi with a bit of surreal attitude. I contributed a pin-up to the first series and wanted to point you in the direction of his new material at…

Tabloia is another ongoing project from another friend, Chris Wisnia. Very fun and wild retro-cool-monster-driven stuff. I also have contributed a pin-up for his publication as well. Please explore his crazy worlds at…

These guys need support for their unique vision of independent comics. Find them, buy them, enjoy them.

We have fixed some of the bugs in the gallery. So you should be able to view things without error messages. There are still a few things we need to adjust, but at least it is viewable now. Our esteemed webmaster has set it up so you can navigate through the images using a control slideshow motif that is rather nice or you can go directly to flickr to view images from there. Hopefully next week I will be adding a lot more images to the gallery in one fell swoop. My goal for this gallery is for it to keep growing and sort of be a giant digital compendium of my work. Please enjoy.

GALLERY OF ERRORS…

We have noticed awhile back that we seem to be having problems of a technical nature with the gallery viewing and are working to rework that area of the site. So please bear with us as we remove bugs. Which will be nice so I can add lots of new images that are ready to be put into cyberspace for your viewing pleasure.

MANIFESTATION…

Recently I have been pondering the question of what makes us who we are and how we are perceived by those around us. In some ways our physical persona that is recognizable by others exists because of our desires to be recognized in a certain way. This can shape our appearances and we evolve physically to meet the demands of our imaginations. I believe we are perceived by others in ways we have subconsciously chosen for ourselves and we live out those roles as imagined. Some would say that we are perceived differently than we view ourselves, and to some extent that is true. But we always come back to what we believe ourselves to be and continue to live our lives with our self perceptions. Therefore the choices we make in life lead further toward what we imagine ourselves to be. Manifesting ego and personality. For some this happens early on and for others they constantly morph themselves as changlings. Refusing to be truly known by others. Sort of continuously redefining and therefore they take on changing physical attributes. This idea of self manifestation can be put to control over our environments, shaping our realities in little increments over time to make our lives into what we want them to be. In actuality we choose our fates, even if we don’t want to admit that. Everything we see ourselves being influences where we end up and how our lives are affected. Belief makes reality. But you have to truly believe in something for that something to come into being. If it is half hearted then it doesn’t come to pass. We define ourselves through manifestation of our soul’s desire, not by outside circumstances.

CYBER GHOSTS…

Just finished reading Ghost in the Shell: Man Machine Interface by Shirow Masanume published in america by darkhorse. An extremely challenging read full of very dense futuristic computer navigational references that can be a bit overwhelming. Entire battle sequences take place within the electric digital realm of cyber-reality. I feel if you can past all of that and allow yourself to be immersed in that form of technical thinking, the ending will become that much more satisfying. Basically the ending reveals a new form of combined life, a kind of artificial intelligence. But what I find most interesting is this new life is shown to exist in the cyber-realm, on another plane of existence if you will and is handled in such a way to be more on the metaphysical side. Cascading colors that make you feel things rather explain them. As if you would be looking into creation itself. A very interesting perspective for a story that primarily relies on pages and pages of dense technical jargon and configurations. By having to absorb such a dense and antiseptic form storytelling makes a highly charged and revelatory awakening in the final segment. It sort makes me think that author is saying that no matter how far technology moves in the future that creation is more wonderous and spiritual and metaphysical than we would like to admit. That no matter how separated man gets from unseen energies we will inevitably come back around to the metaphysical no matter how far technology takes us. Another interesting thing to note about the art is how much the author can’t help but focus on the human form, sometimes in titillating ways. Even as characters move through digital realities they are portrayed as nude human forms. This could be taken as just a story telling device, surely, but also it comments on the fact that we will always have to be physical creatures if we are to understand our world and our role in it. So at the end, this new form of life being introduced is shown as light in the eyes of one of main characters, revealing that creation is truly a metaphysical event and not just purely scientific and biologic. This entire series has been nothing really but a question of what makes us what we are. Our spirits and souls exist outside the context of our bodies but need the physical form to self manifest and affect our surroundings and to be known by others, to find some sort of fulfillment to make ourselves into something more. A lot of people have gotten caught up in the computer and technical aspects of the Shirow’s story about the future of mankind but I think they have missed a crucial point being made about humanity and our uniqueness and what is creation exactly.

MUSIQUE (you should hear)…

NFD — dead pool rising
SIOUXSIE– mantaray
FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM / NEFILIM — self made collections of rarities and mixes
CHRISREEDUNIT — minimal animal
RILO KILEY — under the blacklight
!!! (aka CHK CHK CHK) — myth takes
PERRY FARREL’S SATELITE PARTY — ultra payloaded
VNV NATION — judgement
TEGAN AND SARA — the con
SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER — no! no! no!
FOREIGNER (yeah i know, cheese)– self titled debut
THE HIVES — the black and white album
PINK FLOYD — wish you were here
SUITE 666 — pretty corpse
BANG SUGAR BANG — thwak thwak go crazy!
NEW YORK DOLLS — one day it will please us to remember even this

Well, as usual I’ve got nothing to really say at the moment but it has been awhile since my last blog. so I ‘m feeling the need to blog now! I hope everyone out there who is so inclined to be celebrating a holiday at this time of year really slows down to really enjoy it. Best wishes to you all.

AT MIDNIGHT…

Just finished my last 3 covers to Crossing Midnight and my single interior page contribution to issue 16, fully colored by myself as well (click on image below). It saddens me that my participation in this series is ending so soon. I really enjoy working on it and really tried to give the covers an unusual perspective while still being creatively dynamic. Overall I think I was successful at that, though there is a couple weak spots in my opinion. This series is fantastic in every way. Please pick up the trades as they come out. You won’t be disappointed by the creator’s efforts.

THINGS YOU SHOULD SEE…

Amy Hadley’s work. Known most recently for her beautiful authoring and renditions on Fool’s Gold published by tokyo pop. SEE. very nice work. She also has a project in the works with Matt Wagner.

I just celebrated a birthday on December 18th. Had a really good time and received some awesome gifts, a signed photo of Debbie Harry (which is now proudly displayed next to the drawing table), a new ipod, robinson crusoe on mars dvd, pan’s labrynth dvd, the notorious bettie page dvd, a bottle of booze, a gift card, a signed copy of the black dossier with a head sketch by kevin o’neil (fucking awesome), cerebus the last day, cake and ice cream, and this hilariously cool portrait/avatar by my friend warren wucinich…

MUSIC YOU MUST HEAR…

AIMEE MANN–one more lonely drifter in the snow
MOONEY SUZUKI– have mercy
THE CULT —born into this
DAVID J AND BASIC–splinters of the cross
HANK WILLIAMS III– straight to hell (double disc version)
BUTTHOLE SURFERS– weird revolution
SEA WOLF—leaves in the river
NINE INCH NAILS–year zero
PETER BJORN AND JOHN — writer’s block
THE VINES — vision valley
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM– sound of silver
X — wild gift
X — los angeles
THE SUGAR CUBES — the great crossover potential
DETROIT COBRAS — tied and true
PRIMAL SCREAM — riot city blues
SWAN ISLAND — the centre will hold
ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS — (untitled)
THE AQUA VELVETS –guitar noir
DIE KRUPPS — rings of steel
DIE KRUPPS — odyssey of the mind
HER SPACE HOLIDAY — the past presents the future
MINOR THREAT — complete discography
KRISTOFFER RAGNSTAM — sweet bills