24 hour comic crazy

Well, for the first time ever i had a serious crack at the 24 hour comic challenge. (www.comikaze24.com) It's this crazy thing where you try and write and draw a 24 page comic in 24 hours. I did it at a 24 hour event hosted my Melbournes only open comic studio, Squishface Studios. I was working with a pool of 4 writers, (Dale Maccanti, Jason Franks, Matt Nicholls and Georgia Quinn) who each wrote one short story for the project. Thanks to all of them for helping out and to dale for editing a couple of the stories to boot. I brought in a pool of writers so I could concentrate on drawing, although it did work out that i spend a lot of the first 2-4 hours talking through ideas with the writers, but i started drawing in the third hour of the challenge.

I wanted to do a EC and Creepy Mag inspired horror/sci-fi/crime anthology in the spirit of SHOCK SuspenStories. Well, i spent the first few hours talking through ideas with writers, the next 20 hours drawing, and the most i could manage was to pencil 7 pages and ink 2 pages.

I made a few rookie mistakes, one was drawing at A3 size when most of the other artists at the studio were drawing at the (smaller) A4 or (much smaller) A5 size. Drawing at A3 was not a good idea -- although it meant the 2 pages i finished will look pretty good when printed at standard comic size. It also showed my that i could never complete this challenge drawing in my 'realistic' style. If i want to try again, i will have to draw in my 'cartoon' style, as i can draw much faster in that style.

So here it is – the seven page story 'Solitary' drawn by me, written by Dale Maccanti. (Thanks Bro!) As always, click on each image for a larger version.

And you thought the last one was gruesome...

Life just keeps getting busier and busier, but the (zombie) show must go on! Here is the latest gruesome ghoul of a zombie from the (self-titled) master of zombification Brendan Halyday. How horrific!

If you'd like to order one, email Brendan.

Zombie Crazy!!

As many of you reading this already know, I do portraits of people with a twist – I draw them turned into zombies. My favourite type of zombified portrait clients are the ones who say 'Do something as messed up as possible'. I usually limit the amount of disfigurement i draw in the zombifiying process so the client is still clearly recognisable in the drawing. But when people tell me to cut loose, i worry a little less about doing a perfect likeness and focus on doing a kick ass drawing. I'm pretty happy with this one, what do you reckon?

My EC Comics obsession

My interest with golden and early silver age comics has been growing more and more lately. Certainly I have been checking out Jack Kirby's massive volume of work from the 40s through the 70s. But it is the golden age of  EC Comics (from 1950-1955) that have most firmly grabbed my interest. And my interest has been growing to the point of obsession lately.

But there's a problem.

A sizeable part line of EC Comics line has recently been re-released as a line of Deluxe oversize hardcovers printed full colour on thick glossy paper. Sounds great, right? Wrong!

These recently re-released volumes feature the stories re-coloured – and badly at that. The colouring of these new volumes is supposed to faithfully reflect the printing of the originals, but the originals were printed on newsprint on old, outdated presses, and the colours have a cool halftone effect. But with the new editions the thick glossy paper its printed on just amplifies the garish nature of the colouring. In short – for me – it just ruins the art. Which is the very reason I'm interested in EC to begin with.

An aside - The desire to see comics in black and white is another thing i am preferring more and more lately. Particularly older comics. Steve Ditko never looked as good as he does in black and white. But its more than that – i like seeing an artist who can make a black and white drawing look complete on its own, unlike a lot of colour comics today that look boring when not coloured.

I decided that if I have to read them in colour, I want it to be the original colours, on cheap crappy newsprint, just like the originals. I was able to find a small smatting of them at Evil Empire Comics, and then a big stash of them at Collectors Edge in Moonee Ponds (its a great comic shop, well worth the trek out to Moonee Ponds).

But even that wasn't enough. I wanted to see these comics in glorious black and white, as large as possible. I had to do a bit of hunting around to find out IF there were any B&W printings – which there were thanks to Phil from Evil Empire Comics shop.

So they exist.

But they are not easy to get. I turned to abebooks.com to find some, and discovered there was a retailer here in Melbourne that had a four-volume oversize hardcover slipcase set reproductions of the entire run of Weird Fantasy in glorious black and white.

So I went for a trip out to Camberwell and picked up a hefty (in weight and pricetag) four volume hardcover books (with slipcase!) representing the entire run of EC's Wierd Fantasy comics series.

Now that i have these, i want more, luckily Fantagraphics are starting a series reprinting old EC comics in B&W hardcovers, focusing on one artist per volume.

Free Comic Day appearance at All Star Comics Melbourne

Its FREE COMIC BOOK DAY tomorrow (Sat 5 May), and I'll be at All Star Comics Melbourne (level 1, 410 Lonsdale st, Melbourne) doing free sketches from 11am till Midday. Yes, thats tomorrow, Saturday the 5th of March.

Come on down to pick up some rad FREE COMICS courtesy of All Star Comics and free sketches from a whole host of uber talented folk (Andy Issac, Matt Emery, Daz Close, Matt Dunn, Tristan Jones and many more talented folk). There is more info and a schedule HERE.

Bear in mind there is an sketch artist roster and each artist will be drawing for one hour only, so make sure you check the timetable and get there early to get a sketch!

I'll also be selling some of my own comics there and plan to offer packs collecting all of my published work at a special (but not free) price!

For more info on FCBD, click this link: www.freecomicbookday.com

todays zombification

I have used my day off work yesterday and today to catch up on some of the zombified commisions that have been piling up. I was on a roll yesterday and managed to pencil several (of varying sizes) yesterday and have spent most of the day today inking a couple of them. My pencils were more like breakdowns (or roughs) and a lot of the mutilation, and the rendering gets done in the inks stage.  Here is a the black and white linework for one I was working on earlier today. It will be getting a red and gray wash before its done.

You can see more of my zombified portraits at www.getzombified.com.au or by trawling through old posts on this blog.

I've been drawing comics too...

Its been a while since i have had a chance to work on the comic i am drawing for Decay Magazine. But things are changing and comics are finally getting a bit more time on the drawing board. I thought i'd post a little preview, just to hep you hanging. This one should be a cracker! Click on the image below to see a higher resolution version of the drawing.