Election night drawings…

November 7, 2012Leave a comment

Whilst most people were glued to their computers, tv’s or smartphones awaiting the election results, my roommate & I were huddled around a friend’s space heater in our apartment–sans heat AND internet.

This turned out to be pretty ‘good’ for me, as I was able to work on a drawing for an acquaintance who is having to move back to Seattle, I’m liking how this is turning out and also the direction my ‘swirlies’ are going. Now I just have to figure out a way to get down to the studio, so I can scan this baby in & print it out before she leaves…

Stay tuned…..

PS A grand merci to everyone who sent me texts, tweets, fb messages & emails regarding Sandy.

Unless, you’ve been living under a rock, you prolly know of 2 major events:

October 31, 2012October 31, 2012Leave a comment

1.) Halloween!!!!

Pumpkins! Sexy costumes! Candy Corn! What could be better? For the 1st time in ages I went to a Halloween (or in this case, pre-halloween) party, chock full of interesting people: writers, physicists, professional photographers, and french people. Our hostess provided us with an amazing spread of cheeses, bread, wine, and….

tools for pumpkin carving!!! I brought my own pumpkin (smaller is cuter), and after grabbing a good knife & refusing to share, I got to work carving out my ‘masterpiece’. Now, I have carved a pumpkin in nigh on 18 years, and everyone was uber enthusiastic–including my buddy who’d won last year’s contest–so I had some competition. I decided to stick to my strengths and, eschewing the usual ‘face route’, proceeded to carve my usual trademark:

2.) Hurricane Sandy

Thankfully everyone is okay–a bit of a wild ride, though, as my mom was visiting me and I live on the borderline of zone A & B. My uncle graciously took my mom in to his apartment in midtown manhattan, whilst my roommie & I ‘fled’…er…relocated to Brooklyn, where I was already scheduled to cat sit for my friend. While we never lost power down here, there was definitely major flooding up in my neighborhood, as well as that explosion at the ConEd plant a few blocks away. Not sure when I’ll get back home, so til then, I’m hanging out in another one of my favourite coffee shops–here are some sketches:

A grand merci to everyone who’s checked in or sent well wishes. If you’d like to donate to the red cross, here ya go.

Stressing & Swirlies

October 11, 2012October 11, 2012Leave a comment

These last 2 & 1/2 weeks have been just crazy busy–deadlines galore, anxiety & overall stressing out. As such, the majority of my time has been devoted to my “work–work” as opposed to my comics work, but I’ve found a few spare moments to grab a glass of wine (or as tonight, an americano & a pint of ice cream) and scribble out something.

When I am upset or anxious, the thing that I automatically draw have been these designs (for lack of a better term) that I call “swirlies”–they just seem to flow from the tip of my pen as I am drawn into a rather zen-like state…I’m not sure exactly when I started drawing these patterns, but I’m hazarding a guess that it might have been around the time I was in high school–an artistic sign of ocd tendencies? Who knows, but I have seen others draw similar haphazard designs in a similar vein, so sometimes I wonder…

Recently, I have started trying to use these designs in larger pieces, such as this one, but I’m not quite there yet. Until then, though, I’ll keep drawing these things forever, I have no doubt.

Thank heavens it’s almost the weekend.

1, 2, 3, 4…

September 28, 2012September 28, 2012Leave a comment

I’ve always had an interesting relationship with numbers: for something so “scientific” they’ve actually been a source of consternation for me during most of my life. From a young age, I counted the number of stairs there were or how many times I’d scuffed my feet, and then of course there was the “eat at least 3 bites of everything on your plate” dinner rule (which I appreciate now more so then I did as a child).

As I got older though, numbers became less manageable and rather scary: and I’m not just referring to those dreaded calculus tests! I started counting the miles I had run (always hoping for a larger number), the calories I had eaten (always hoping for a small number) and how much I weighed (also hoping for a low number.) It’s a strange and uncomfortable world to live in when you’re always freaking out over numbers.

So, it was a bit of an interesting experience to design the numbers for the 2nd edition of The Strumpet. I covered pages and pages of my sketchbook with numbers–but this time, it wasn’t numbers of calories or pounds, it was just…numbers–numbers that I created, drew and redrew, to be used for something other than beating myself up.

I realize that this sort of thing might not make sense to many, but, in a small way, creating these numbers marks another step forward for me and I am grateful for that.

SPX-ed!

September 24, 2012September 24, 2012Leave a comment

I can’t believe that is was only last weekend that I had the pleasure of joining the gracious ellen lindner & her husband at SPX in Bethesda, Maryland!

Here’s a bit of a paraphrenalia-n recap!

Sadly due to work stuff (bah!) I had to bus up there on Saturday morning–wearing one of my Strumpet badges (a) This meant I missed ellen’s part in the intriguing sounding panel: “British Comics: Does it Translate” However, after getting my pass (b) I did get to hear Gilbert (of the Hernandez Brothers) speak–confession: I had actually not heard of either “the brothers” themselves, nor of their long running comic series “Love & Rockets” (which is perhaps a travesty to some people, but whatevs–so much to read in the land of comics!)

(c) I stuck to my budget (sort of) and, therefore, only bought 2 books, but I’m excited about both of them! One is the 1st in a series of 6 GN’s about New York called: The Wonder City by Justin Rivers & Courtney Zell. I purchased Vol 1: The Great Whale of Coney, and was informed that portions of the 2nd volume are being uploaded to their site in installments.

I also purchased the really clever & amazingly crafted fold out Burning Building Comix by Jeff Z. Self published & obviously thought out with care, it tells the wordless story of people living on each floor of a 5 story apartment building on fire (I haven’t finished it yet, so not sure how things turn out). Jeff told me that he had originally published these stories as 5 separate rectangular books (ie: floors) that when laid out on a flat surface, were an approximation of the entire ‘building.’

(d) I was able to crash on the floor of the hotel room where my friends were staying–thankfully the hotel provided a plethora of pillows so I wasn’t too uncomfortable.

The next morning, after a brekky of ridiculously expensive [white] toast (who eats white toast???) it was time to hurry to grab the bus back to NYC. I almost missed it however, due to the irregularity of the DC metro (I waited 30 min on the platform for a car, then literally ran (losing my shoe several times) down to the bus stop.) But, they have cute pandas on their cards (e), so I guess I can’t be too upset at them.

Sadly, the trip was over before I knew it, but I was most certainly happy to be back in NYC where the subways run (usually) on regular schedules & where substantial whole wheat toast is served.

PS Don’t forget to go support The Strumpet Vol 2: A transoceanic blaze of comics glory. You’ll get goodies!