I Tossed And Turned All Night

 

This is a drawing for the Tattoo Story. I couldn't wait to do the layout for this particular scene, I just had to copy a drawing right from the photograph. It's very lovely. I am excited to get to this part of the story.

Tattoo Story Cover

Etching Round Three

Only thing left to do is some aquatint, I hope you're not tired of this thing. It's getting pretty!

Stormy Night

A page from the sketchbook, about something I remembered from the North Carolina trip. There was a really windy storm that woke me up the second night I was there in the cabin, I thought for sure I would blow away. I saw the clouds outside make what looked like two condensation funnels (ack! tornado!) and asked myself what I should do. I settled on going back to sleep and woke up to an absurdly gorgeous day.

Etching: in Progress

Always a work in progress...going to put this in the acid one more time, and add aquatint to the outside border. I like the original drawing better, since it was more delicate. I'm learning a lot of things about how to get that delicate quality in etching and feel the etchings I do later will benefit from all of this stumbling around in the print shop I've been doing. Working on more fun stuff like the actual interior-- story. I think I'm at the point where I am over-thinking and just need to make it. Kinda feel silly making the cover before the inside pages. Onward we go!

Sketchbook Pages

John Haywood, tattoo and fine artist.

Boots.

Me in a field in Vilas, NC.

Plate

Putting this old thing in the acid tonight. 

North Carolina

Just got back from North Carolina. It sure is pretty there.

A Finely Tuned Beginning

Here's the sketch for the cover for issue two...hoping for this one to be longer, think there is lots of good story to cover. Am turning this drawing into an etching and am really excited about it, gonna be really beautiful. I need to work faster but am still getting a grasp of the printshop schedule and just returned from the Alternative Press Expo, which was really awesome! Met a lot of nice folks and made some new friends. The pre-party was in the warehouse lair of Last Gasp, will update later with some photos of that crazy place.

Tattoo Story Thumbnails

I've been gathering notes and photos for the next installment of Status Quo Ante Bellum. I never used to enjoy thumbnails but I've grown fond of them recently, you can make lots of little pretty drawings really fast and kind of throw them away if they're not so good.  The other drawing is from earlier this week when I was feeling sad.

Tattoo Story Drawing

SPX 2011

I went to the Small Press Expo this past weekend with Jen Tong, Li-Or Zaltman and Sara Varon. (I have to add that Sara's new book, Bake Sale, is a pleasure to read--go get a copy!)

Here is a photo of my comic book sketchbook in the hotel the morning we left (I ran out of paper oh no!).

The second is a photo of me nervously and excitedly waiting in line for Nate Powell to autograph my fresh copy of Any Empire.  This book is really wonderful. Nate is a very nice guy and said kind things about my comic, which was awesome--he is one of my favorite artists. It was an inspiring weekend full of big crazy comic books. I recommend looking at Anders Nilsen's Big Questions and Craig Thompson's Habibi, just by size alone they boggle the mind with their ambition and raise the bar for making long-form narrative comics.