Breast Cancer Month

So as I’m sure most people have heard, October is breast cancer month. Now I could make some smart comment about saving breasts, but this isn’t the place for that.

A few months ago I got an email from a guy named Jason Gavin, who was asking comic artists to donate sketches for an ebay auction intended to raise money for breast cancer research. It turns out that his mother and his sister were diagnosed with breast cancer only a couple of months apart, so in honor of them he started the marlabeabenefit and this website. There’s a section on it with all the sketches that are being auctioned off on ebay thru his seller name “marlabeabenefit”. The auction begins on Monday, October 12th, and will last 7 days. Take a moment to see what’s available, and please consider bidding on something that takes your fancy. Remember it’s for charity and a great cause. As an incentive, below is the sketch of the Baroness (from GI Joe/Cobra) that I did for the auction.

UPDATE: the auction has started, so here’s a link to my sketch of the Baroness for anyone crazy enough to bid on it.

SLGallant’s “Baroness” Sketch

Again there are a ton of other sketches to bid on, so check them out as well-

MarlaBeaBenefit Sketches

Remember- bidding ends on October 19th! Good luck!

Baroness sketch on Ebay starting Oct. 12th from seller marlabeabenefit

Hunting, Joe style

Issue 8 hit the stands recently, so it’s time for a much needed update to the blog.

This issue was more fun for me to work on than the previous. It wasn’t because of any problems with the script, but because  I was starting to feel more comfortable with the book as a whole. I was able to play with things more, and worry less, about matching Robert Atkins’s previous efforts. Robert was really helpful by giving me references of the locations he used for Castle Destro, and that allowed me to play with other details.

I preface the following by saying you have to keep in mind one of my prior jobs, where I was illustrating placemats for Kraft’s Cheeseasaurus Rex. Those mats were filled with games ranging from mazes to my favorite – “hidden items”, where you had to find things placed in the images where they shouldn’t be. Granted, in the Joe pages the approach is less subtle, but I still do it. Gone may be the idea of hiding salt shakers and forks in the stones of a castle wall, but tossing in random references in still in the same vein as far as I’m concerned.

On one of the Joe boards, a reader pointed out some of the Dr Who references that found their way into my pages below. Yes, I admit it, I’m a Who fan and worse of one As Time Goes By (which I love as well). He spotted the remains of a Dalek in one scene and references to Dr Who characters on books in the splash page of Destro’s library. I have to honestly say, I love that. It’s fun for me to toss that stuff in, and more fun when people catch it. Granted I’m not trying to hide them, or pull one over on people, but why make it a plain old page? Why not take the time to throw things in? Why not make people look at the art more, instead of the surface glance it often gets.

All of this really stems from my childhood and MAD magazine where guys like Mort Drucker and Harry North Esq. used to hide little details in every corner of the page… gags inside gags. This was a tradition they had carried on from the original artists on MAD, and although I’m not drawing comedy, why not do the same? Maybe it’s ego and I just want people to look at the art more, but I don’t think so. It’s fun for me to do it, and it becomes a game for the audience in the end. Sure you can read the story, and just take in the art to flesh out the concept, but how much more fun is it to come back after the read and find little treasures? The beauty of a comic is you can take it with you, you own it, and you can come back to it over and over. It’s like a film you watch again and again, and noticing things you hadn’t before, that’s the fun of it.

I grew up right around the time the Joe cartoon was hitting it big, although I was more of a Star Wars kid. Those times have a lot of good memories for me, not just of Joes and Star Wars, but of other toys I grew up loving- one of which found it’s way on this page, updated to be a piece of hi-tech hardware.

If you look closely you’ll also see some other things in this page, not hidden items or disguised ones, but things I threw in that I felt added to the characters. This is something I started doing after reading an interview with John Byrne, where he said he always tried to develop a character’s environment to embellish the type of person they were. For example, if they were goofy, you might throw posters of famous comedy actors on the wall, or some such thing. In the previous page I threw in some stuff that is specific to the culture the Destro family comes from, hence the Scottish rugby tee shirt and the jar of Marmite on the counter. As a comedian once said, “It’s not if people get it, but if the right people get it.”

Happy hunting.

Next time: Why I’ll never shave my pits to impress Michael Ironside

Day off?

Sort of.

The only time I really have off is when I’m in-between books waiting for approval on thumbnails. Lately I’ve decided to use this time to remind myself of why I like living in DC. Biggest reason? Free galleries! The National Gallery, the American Indian museum (trust me don’t call them and refer to it as the Native American museum- they hate that!), Freer/Sackler, and others.  I love to go down there and do drawings based on the paintings in black and white on a neutral colored paper, usually craft/brown paper. It’s never about reproducing the images, but more about looking at the paintings/art with a detailed eye. Trying to figure out what they did and WHY they did it. Right now there is a Judith Leyster exhibit at the National, which was fun for me. For some reason this style really compliments the Flemish painters and Impressionists – go figure. No more talk… enjoy.

Judith Leyster- Flute player – Original

My version… I made his face too thin, but whaddah you want for 30 minutes?

A Franz Hals- but of course.

My pathetic attempt… needed to puff up his eyes more. Or he needs a trip to Sephora?

A Thomas Eakins…

I never got the face right. Damn kids today.

Lastly, this was done from Rodin terra cotta study, so this was a bit more difficult. Especially since it was in a square case with the corner being exactly in the middle of the face because of the angle I chose.

Not the same angle…

But I tried!

Those pouty darn lips drove me nuts- well that and the Indian couple who kept hovering while I was trying to draw! Grrrrr- tourists!

Crisps!

Not long ago, the wife and I went on a much needed, but late arriving, vacation to the land of merry ole England. Part biz, part pleasure, we had the joy of hanging out with the awesome editorial staff at Titan Books. The team of Steve, Andrew, Den & Phillipa, Ellie, and Rona made us feel welcome, and like part of the family. So much so, that Ned and his wonderful wife to be Carly, invited us to their engagement party! What little I remember, after all the strong beers, was that I had a great time. One of the things that I always pictured as being part of pub life was free flowing bags of chips, or crisps as the Brits call them.

Now we’re no strangers to strange flavors or odd concept snack foods in the States… hell we gave the world Twinkies and Slim Jims (crimes against nature), but the Brits are willing to put damn near any taste on a fried bit of potato and call it a snack. In preparation for our trip, we did a little research. The wife and I had our own priorities- hers being shopping for clothes, mine was tracking down various comic shops and art stores. In our quest, however, we discovered that recently Walker crisps had set up a contest to help decide some new flavors for their line of chips. Now keep in mind they already have tasty treats like Prawn Cocktail, Cheese & Onion, Beef & Onion, Pickled Onion (man they love onion), Roasted Chicken,  Marmite, and even Worcester. However, that wasn’t enough- no they needed a contest to come up with something that had a wider appeal to increase sales; hence their recent contest of “Do us a Flavour!” (Brilliant title though isn’t it?) They set up a competition for fans to send in flavor suggestions, which the top few would be produced for a limited time, and the winner would then become a standard option. So what do they offer? For consideration they selected great British culinary standards like…

Fish n Chips – fair enough- it is what most Americans think of first

Builders Breakfast- sounds like a Willie Wonka concoction- now I taste green peas!

Chili n Chocolate – ok- I can see the idea being like jalepeño in hot chocolate

Onion Bhaji- sure, I know there are a lot of people of east Indian decent in the UK

Crispy Duck-  again, I know Britain held Hong Kong for @ 100 years, so ok

But the last was one I couldn’t quite get… so while in England we hit every Marks & Spencer around until we found what we were looking for.

No seriously- it was one of the options.  I additionally like an appeal for a vote from a squirrel who looks like he’s either in prison, or in the head lights of an on coming car.

I’m not sure what flavors the US sister company of Walker (Lays chips) would come up with for a similar stunt?

Ballpark Franks?

Biscuits n Saw Mill Gravy?

Chips & Salsa?

But Heaven help us if some “neck” were to suggest “O’Possum” flavor! Do we need that? I hope not, as if pork skins aren’t nasty enough.

One thing I have to give the Brits though- they don’t mince words. I noticed that they don’t put a small Surgeon General’s warning on cigarette packs over there. No, they have a huge billboard across the box practically saying “you smoke this and you’ll die!”, so why should their snack food be any different. They don’t have confusing nutritional boxes on the back of the bag with tiny numbers, uh-uh- it’s a slapped right on the front with big, eye grabbing graphics that remind you what a lard-butt you’re going to be after chomping down your bag of grease, infused goodies.

If the flavor didn’t deter you enough, maybe this will. With American obesity at critical levels, perhaps this is the best option. I say we let people eat junk food to their hearts content (or detriment), but remind them with big intimidating type about their poor choice. Then, to increase the odds, lets only offer flavors that a even a starving raccoon wouldn’t eat. Hmmmm… Raccoon?

GI Joe Lucky 7

Well this weekend is San Diego Comic Con, although there are those among us who say it’s time for them to drop the “comic” bit since the show is almost anything but comics. That’s a whole other discussion.

For me though this is the week that the first issue of my run on the regular Joe series hits the stands. With issue 07 I take over the drawing chores from Robert Atkins, but don’t worry, he’ll be back with issue 13.

One thing some of the fans have been asking for, is a more realistic approach to military equipment and environments. So I decided that would be my focus, as opposed to other artists who’ve worked a more sci-fi angle on their art. I tried to keep the technology more recognizable, being no more than 10 years ahead of its time, when I can. A lot of what you’ll see my issues will have a look and/or feel similar to that of concept cars at an auto show, the neat gadget designs you might find in “Wired” magazine, or on the “Future Weapons” TV show. I wanted it to feel grounded in reality, but still hi-tech. I don’t want the equipment to be so fantastic to the reader that it feels it’s happening on a parallel world or something. I always want there to be a hint of “it could exist”,  so I tried to set that tone early on. At the start Cover Girl is in transport to the Joe base, I took the opportunity to really set in motion the idea that these guys are part of our current military, top secret, but still part of it. To do that, the basic stuff had to be more realistic, so this page shows equipment most people can recognize. It includes things we see on the news from our war zones, with Hummer trucks, and Black Hawk copters, to basic uniforms and huts.

With that set up, I have a platform to establish more advanced technology for the Joes, but I didn’t want to take it too far. As in this scene with a slightly redesigned Shipwreck, we see his small transport submarine. My design for it is really an amalgam of several concept subs I found while doing research, with a bit of artistic license taken to give it a “shark” like appearance. I was so happy to find it wasn’t colored in yellow when it came back.

Lastly, I wanted the characters to be individuals, not just while in costume, but also in their posture, manners, and physical traits. One thing I always related to about Snake Eyes was the “outsider” feelings he seemed to have. Never fitting in with the group, and never to be loved because of how he looks under the mask. When Mr. Dixon wrote this scene I really wanted the audience to feel what Snake Eyes was, especially how the last line of text hurt more than any of the scars on his body. To him it shouldn’t just be a simple sign off, but a slap in the face, which we can see in his eyes reflected in the polished glass of his phone. In that, we see he knows, what we know – it’ll never happen.

Hope everyone enjoys my take on the Joes, some have already pointed out that it’s a different feel than normally found on the book. Don’t know if that’s good or bad, but if you don’t like it, hang in there. Robert will be bringing his wicked art back to the show with issue 13. If you do like it, then hot damn!