This may have been the guy in that Man of Steel movie.
159. Ultraman
158. Black Panther
Seriously guys, this paper is really nice. Once I was done drawing the cover, I turned the comic over and there was a whole ‘nother blank side. I just couldn’t NOT draw on it.
Man, I hope this guy who’s never seen my artwork doesn’t hate it.
157. Black Panther
A while back I did a sketch cover for my pal Joe on the blank sketch cover variant of Green Arrow #17. I loved the cardstock that the book was printed with and loved drawing on it and the feel of drawing on it. If I could draw on that type of cardstock all the time, I would.
Part of the reason that I love it is that when Marvel started this whole blank cover sketch variant gimmick, they were using glossy cardstock, or not even cardstock, just glossy cover stock. It was terrible to draw on: pencil, ink, or color.
So when I was then commissioned to draw Black Panther on the sketch variant of New Avengers #1, I was kind of wary that it would be the same cheap-ass Marvel cover stock.
It seems Marvel has smartened up and have switched to the fantastical wonderful cardstock that DC has been using. Seriously, I love this paper.
So anyhoo, I was commissioned to draw this Black Panther sketch by a guy I had never met and who had never seen my artwork before. So, we’ll see how this pans out.
156. The Baron and Baroness
This was a long delayed commission for Matt Brassfield of his television characters Baron Von Porkchop and The Baroness (Baroness Von Porkchop? I’ve only heard her referred to as “The Baroness”. I think Hasbro and Larry Hama might have something to say about that) from Terrifying Tales of The Macabre, a local horror host program.
Last night, I watched a movie which maybe could have used a host. It’s called The ABCs of Death. It’s a 2 hour and 10 minute anthology in which 26 directors from all over the world were given a letter of the alphabet and made a short film based on that letter, as long as it somehow involved death. Most anthologies tend to run about 3-6 short tales, and even then some of them are fantastic and some of them are turds and then a couple mediocre ones. This movie has 26 stories. The law of averages on this movie is not great. So basically, there’s about 8 good films here and the rest are just so-so or terrible. Also, there are 26 stories! I can’t even remember what the sketch is above here.
It’s mostly foreign directors from all over and a lot of the tales have little to no dialogue. Some are clearly meant to be comedic, some are dark and twisted, a few of them are literally cartoons. But they are all just jumbled together in a way that is incredibly jarring. Such as the comedically animated “Klutz” followed immediately by the insanely dark and disturbing “Libido”. There’s also quite a bit of toilet and scatalogical topics throughout the film, so I guess foreigners think bathroom stuff is super-hilarious or disturbing? I dunno. It was just a weird trend I noticed. I recognized the names of a few directors involved. Nacho Vigalondo (Time Crimes), Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die, V/H/S), Angela Bettis (an actress mostly, has directed one other movie I’ve never seen called Roman), Jake West (Doghouse), Ti West (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), Xavier Gens (Frontiers, Hitman), Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun), Jon Schnepp (Metalocalypse) and Kaare Andrews (most notably a comic book artist who did a fantastic run of Hulk covers during the early 2000s, but apparently has directed a couple things I’ve never seen).
Of that list, Vigalondo, Wingard and Schnepp were among the most memorable of the films (“Apocalypse”, “Quack”, and “WTF?” respectively). But seriously, if the phrase “Mixed Bag” could be singularly defined, I would point to this movie. I can’t recommend it, but I can’t not recommend it either. Watch at your own risk.
I also remember hearing about this movie a while back. I think the creators of the concept reached out to a lot more than just 26 filmmakers. I recall comedian Paul F. Tompkins starred in a entry for the letter “T” and was asking his fans to vote for their film. It did not make it. “T is for Toilet” – a claymation story about a toilet – did.
So there you go. That should probably make your decision for you on whether you want to see this or not.
155
I’m not a fan of the 4th of July. The American Empire has been crumbling for about the past 14 years or so (possibly longer) because… all Empires fall. We’re in a constant state of Us vs. Them, a philosophical civil war that will not end civilly. America will collapse in on itself within my lifetime and as far as I’m concerned this is nothing to get happy and excited about. There is nothing to celebrate right now, patriotically. For ever small bit of progress the country makes toward, I dunno, making the quickly slipping American Dream a reality for EVERYONE, we take about 100 steps back and fuck over another large portion of the populace.
Non-politically, I fucking hate fireworks. I’m not 6. I’ve seen them before, there’s nothing new here. Honestly, when I watched Land of the Dead and they called fireworks “Skyflowers” and used them to distract slack-jawed zombies, I’ve pretty much turned off on them. It certainly doesn’t help that my neighborhood is full of white trash pieces of shit that will set these goddamn things off whenever they feel like it – 4th of July, 10th of May, 26th of September, whenever – as long as there’s a cube of Bud and a roadtrip to Indiana, they’ll set off fireworks, ruining the “specialness” of it. Even if I liked fireworks, there’s a limit. Starting the “festivities” at 6pm and not stopping ’til after Midnight – that’s far too much. Fucking redneck assholes. Some of us have jobs and need to be up at 5am.
Also, no one invited me to any kind of cookout.
I did watch Waxwork though, in between explosions. Pretty fun, goofy horror movie that gets to be all sorts of different horror movies in one. Plus, it’s got Billy from Gremlins in it, not in a Gremlins movie, and the bad guy from Tron. And a midget/dwarf/whatever.
153
I doodled this on the back of a receipt at the Sprint store while waiting to get a new phone and my contacts were being transferred.
152. Phantom of the Opera
If a city could be my arch-nemesis, that city would be Yellow Springs, Ohio. It’s dirty and full of dirty, pretentious fucktard hippie fucks with their hackeysacks, dreadlocks, bongs and the reeking stench of patchouli. I’m an angry, judgemental person, but never in my life have I ever encountered such a large grouping of angrier, more judgemental, snobbish fucking assholes than the entire community of Yellow Springs. I don’t give a damn that Dave Chappelle hides there, I don’t find him that funny. Dark Star is the second worst comic shop in the Dayton area (sorry Mavericks). Have I mentioned the dirty hippies yet? Fuck that place. Fuck that place and burn it right off the fucking map.
The only bright spot is that my friend Juliet hosts a radio show out of Yellow Springs called Kaleidoscope. Last Wednesday, Juliet interviewed my friends Jason and Brian about small press and indie comics – mostly the ones they make and publish. I got to hang out during the show with my pal Matt, who asked me to draw Lon Chaney’s old man as The Phantom of the Opera while we sat around.
It was fun, the live band was great and Jason and Brian’s interview was pretty darn good. I don’t know if the show will be available as a streaming thing or download or not, but if it ever is, I will definitely be linking to it.
And then when we left, Jason, Brian and I got lost and almost died. That’ll teach us to tempt the fates and enter the evil hobbitville known as Yellow Goddamn Fucking Springs.
151. To Serve Man
I watched this classic episode of Twilight Zone a few weeks ago. I remembered it well enough, but also kept getting it mixed up with The Simpsons parody. One thing I was unprepared for was how stoned and idiotic this advanced cannibalistic (spoilers!) alien race appears. I tried to capture that here, I hope.
Two episodes later was one I had actually never seen before, but had seen The Simpsons parody. It’s the one where a little girl’s bedroom wall becomes a portal into an alternate dimension and her parents try to find a way to bring her back. It was written by Richard Matheson, who – among a ton of fantastic Twilight Zone eps – also wrote I Am Legend. Matheson passed away this past week, so do yourself a favor and track down some stuff he wrote, you won’t be disappointed.
150
So Netflix – which has a history recommending bizarre bullshit with their system – has added a new “feature” called Max. It’s an interactive version of their recommendation system, and as far as I can tell it ups the level of their bullshit to a whole new degree. I decided to try it out. It’s mostly terrible. However, on their third shot at trying to get me to watch a suggestion, it threw out Back to School. Comedian Mike Schmidt was a guest on the Never Not Funny podcast recently and talked a lot about this movie and made me want to rewatch it. So… yay, Netflix?
It’s been years since I’ve seen it. It’s funny enough. There are small moments of absolute genius. I had completely forgotten that Robert Downey Jr. was in it, as well as Johnny from The Karate Kid. It’s fun.