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Pay the Writer!
2007-12-05 03:33:00
As a bit of a follow-up to the item posted below about Wikipedia and their short-comings in the payment department, I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to this funny and poignant rant by writer Harlan Ellison. It very adequately highlights the issues creative people, like writers and illustrators, face when it comes to receiving (or not, as it may be) payment for their work. Warning: Contains somewhat coarse language… Technorati Tags: Writing
More About: Writer , The Writer

Facebook and Copyrights
2007-12-05 03:15:00
It has been pointed out by Anna Goodson that Facebook has a somewhat (to say the least) scary clause in their Terms of Service that allows them to re-use material posted by their users– and even sell that content to third parties. She points out that anyone who cares about copyright (which we all should) need to be careful: They need to understand that anything they post on Facebook can be used by Facebook and re sold to a third party. This is very important, particularly artists who are sensitive to their copy rights. Here’s a link to the full article about. It’s certainly worth thinking twice before posting illustrations, pictures or other work. Technorati Tags: Art, Illustrations, Copyright
More About: Copyrights

Washington Post Cuts and Shrinks Comics
2007-12-04 21:17:00
It rough out there… Awhile back, the Houston Chronicle drastically cut down their comics section. According to Editor & Publisher, and the Comics DC blog, it’s now the Washington Post ’s turn to drop comics. And not only that, in order to cut down from two to one page of Sunday comics, they’re apparently shrinking the remaining offerings to fit them in. In other news, subscribers will now be supplied with magnifying glasses for easy comics reading… Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Comics, Newspapers, Syndication
More About: Washington Post , Cuts

Wikipedia To Pay Illustrators… sort of
2007-12-03 15:32:00
Here’s an article from the New York Times about Wikipedia supposedly starting to pay illustrators for content. The first list is expected to have 50 illustrations and be completed this month. Contributors will be able to sign up for an illustration and have two weeks to submit it; if it is accepted, the illustrator will be paid $40. Good lord! Let me get right to it! Honestly, even if Wikipedia is a free web resource driven by donations and user contributions, that’s not how to approach this issue. If you find an illustrator who you think is suitable for the project, pay them (and preferably quite a bit more than $40), don’t expect professional illustrators, with the top skills you’re clearly looking for, to send finished illustrations in on spec. I really don’t know if we will be flooded by illustrators clamoring to join, or if the general response will be one of apathy. You will get flooded by illustrators for sure, just not by the kinds of illustrators...
More About: Sort

Redesigning Book Character
2007-12-03 04:09:00
As I was working on my current book, I realized that the look of one of the characters wasn’t working. This isn’t uncommon, but it is still unfortunate, since quite a few changes have to be made. So I spent some time working on it, and the character slowly evolved into something I felt worked better. You can see the old character design on the left and the new character design on the right. Fortunately, I hadn’t started painting this character, but I still have to go through and change her looks in all the sketches. Technorati Tags: Art, Children’s Book s, Comics, Designing, Drawing, Illustration, Sketching
More About: Character , Hara , Signing

Character Design Sketches
2007-12-02 02:35:00
A few more character designs from my sketch book. This time of a weird-looking woman, a hairy monster and an Eas_German skijumper from 1982 called Horst Scheißenweis-Franzmüller. Technorati Tags: Art, Design ing, Illustration, Inking, Character Design, Sketching
More About: Sketches , Hara , Etch

“King and King” Children’s Book Offends
2007-12-01 03:54:00
I came across this gem of an article from The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania this morning. It centers around two outraged parents complaining about a book called King and King (originally in Dutch) by Linda De Haan and Stern Nijland. There’s a horrifying twist at the end of this book. The prince marries the… prince! And they kiss! It’s a good thing the offended mother handled the surprise nicely, though. Quote: I was sick. Oh… Nevermind… It goes on: ”I just want kids to enjoy their innocence and their time of growing up,” Jeff Issa said, explaining his persistence. ”Let them be kids … and not worry about homosexuality, race, religion. Just let them live freely as kids.” Is it even possible to get more misguided? Two people who are in love and who kiss each other on their wedding day makes you sick…? Something tells me their kids would handle this book a lot better than they did themselves, but the sad thing i...
More About: Children , Book , Offend

Pixel Art– Vampire Sprite
2007-11-30 04:20:00
Here’s another feeble attempt at pixel art. It’s a vampire sprite based on a previous drawing, done in Pixen. Technorati Tags: Art, Digital Art, Pixel Art
More About: Vampire , Sprite

Monster In The Forest
2007-11-29 04:37:00
Here’s another inked sketch I did this evening of a monster in a dark forest. I used the old trusted Faber-Castell PITT artist brush pen. Technorati Tags: Art, Drawing, Illustration, Inking, Sketching
More About: Monster , Forest , Mons

The Commonwealth of TV Obsession
2007-11-28 03:00:00
When we moved from California to Virgina last year, we particularly noticed two things that were different. 1) Nobody, and I mean nobody, in Virginia knows how to merge onto the freeway, or whatever they call them here, and 2) they have to watch TV all the time, everywhere. They can’t live without it, apparently. We go to the local Rec Center and it’s blasting in the lobby on a gi-normous screen. You can’t sit down and relax without hearing Greta Van Susteren’s ear-shattering voice. You go upstairs to work out and there’s 7 (that’s seven) TVs in a row in front of your stationary bike. You might decide to go to the post office to mail a letter and they’re blasting CNN. Head on over to the bank and there you have to watch (or at least listen to) Fox News again, while doing that balance transfer. That’s why (and I’m going to sound like a commercial here) I love Tivo. It tapes stuff by itself, and then you sit down and watch it when...
More About: Obsession

Character Sketch
2007-11-27 04:08:00
Another inked sketch, this time a character design showing a man’s profile. Technorati Tags: Art, Designing, Drawing, Inking, Sketch ing
More About: Character , Hara , Etch

Another Friendly Monster
2007-11-26 03:37:00
Here’s another little monster drawing from my sketch book (probably inspired by the fact that we watched Mons ter s, Inc. this evening)… Technorati Tags: Art, Children’s Books, Designing, Drawing, Illustration, Inking, Sketching
More About: Friendly

Friendly Monster Sketch
2007-11-25 04:30:00
This is a sketch of a friendly monster out of my sketch book. Technorati Tags: Art, Children’s Books, Drawing, Illustration, Inking, Sketch ing
More About: Monster , Friendly , Etch , Mons

Green Hippo Drawing
2007-11-24 04:15:00
Here’s a new panel from the book I’m working on, featuring a green hippo… Technorati Tags: Art, Books, Children’s Books, Comics, Digital Art, Drawing , Graphic Novel, Illustration
More About: Green

The Golden Compass Pulled
2007-11-23 00:16:00
Grrrrr… Technorati Tags: Books, Censorship, Children’s Books, Literature
More About: The Golden Compass , Golden , Compass , Golden Compass , The Go

XKCD Comic Strip
2007-11-22 03:58:00
Love this webcomic, XKCD by Randall Munroe. Go check it out! Here’s a particularly funny recent one… And another one… And one more… Aaaand this. And here’s an article about the cartoonist. Technorati Tags: Comic Strip s, Comics, Webcomics

Racing the Cheetah
2007-11-21 02:53:00
This is really off-topic around here, but I just couldn’t help myself. Check out this Youtube video that I came across while searching for cheetahs to show my son! Technorati Tags: Movies, Youtube
More About: Racing

It’s Censorship Time Again!
2007-11-20 02:13:00
OK, it’s been awhile since I’ve reported on the joys of censorship in comics or children’s books, so here we go: “A leading children’s author was told to drop a fire-breathing dragon shown in a new book - because the publishers feared they could be sued under health and safety regulations.” I believe this pretty much speaks for itself, and I refuse to risk my blood pressure by delving further into the issue at this point… Here’s a link to the article in The Daily Mail. Technorati Tags: Books, Censorship , Children’s Books
More About: Time

More Vampiric Activity
2007-11-19 04:10:00
I’ve clearly entered some sort of vampire phase in my career… So here’s another vampire sketch from today’s sketchbook session. Technorati Tags: Art, Drawing, Sketching

Creepy Vampire Drawing
2007-11-18 04:26:00
Here’s another recent sketch of a sort of creepy vampire type character. I guess this blog is turning into a bit of a sketch blog, but then, sketching is something I spend a lot of time doing pretty much every day. It’s such great practice. Again, I used a Faber-Castell PITT artist brush pen. Technorati Tags: Art, Blogs, Drawing , Illustrations, Sketching
More About: Vampire , Creepy

Frank Miller Does “The Spirit”
2007-11-16 19:05:00
I’m filled with fear. One of the best comic book characters ever created by arguably the best cartoonist ever to walk the earth is being turned into a big-budget live action green screen movie extravaganza. In this interview from MTV, Frank Miller talks about how he’s bringing The Spirit , by the genius Will Eisner, to the screen. I’m a little perturbed by the preliminary movie poster, to say the least. That’s clearly a Frank Miller interpretation of The Spirit and bares little or no resemblance to the actual character created by Eisner. Let’s hope I’m wrong, but I’m a bit worried about this movie… Technorati Tags: Art, Comics, Film, Movies

“The Suckiness of Sucking”: An Illustrator’s Tale
2007-11-15 21:40:00
It’s always hard to realize that you’re not very good at something. It’s especially rough when it’s your profession you’re not so good at and it’s even worse when you come to this realization roughly once a week or so. I genuinely feel like I’m part of the movie Groundhog Day (a favorite of mine, by the way). It’s the one where Bill Murray wakes up every morning and has to relive the same, boring day over and over and over. Well, that’s how I feel about my work. I go through a week or so, or a couple of weeks perhaps, if I’m really lucky, and then I realize I’m not very good at what I do. Which is annoying, isn’t it? Then I try my best to forget about it and plow right on and do what I’m supposed to do because there are deadlines and bills and the cats seem to need to be fed every day, I’ve found out. At least that’s what I think they’re trying to tell me when they scurry into the kitche...
More About: Illustrator , Tale

Psycho Bunny From Heck!
2007-11-15 01:00:00
Another inked sketch from my sketch book of the “Psycho Bunny from Heck”… Technorati Tags: Art, Drawing, Sketching

Interview with Patrick McDonnell (”Mutts”)
2007-11-14 03:19:00
Patrick McDonnell is one of the most skillful cartoonists around. Both his art and writing are heads and shoulders above almost anything out there. He’s one of those rare people who I’d dare group in with the likes of Charles Schulz, George Herriman and Walt Kelly. He’s just that good, and “Mutts” is just an excellent comic strip. And now his third children’s book about Earl and Mooch is out. Here’s recent interview with McDonnell from the Cincinnati Enquirer. Technorati Tags: Art, Books, Children’s Books, Comic Strips, Comics
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Flying Creature (original art for sale)
2007-11-12 17:05:00
I drew this while waiting for my my wife in the car this morning. It’s inked using a Sakura brush pen this time around, but with no pencil sketch. Incidentally, if anyone is interested in purchasing the original drawing, it’s for sale, so please feel free to email me for details. It’s waterproof and fade proof black ink on good quality paper, approximately 4 by 5 inches in size. Technorati Tags: Art, Children’s Books, Comics, Drawing, Inking, Original Art
More About: For Sale , Sale , Flying , Creature

Finished Graphic Novel Panel
2007-11-12 05:26:00
Here’s another finished panel from my current children’s book project. Sketched and painted in Corel Pinater X. Technorati Tags: Art, Children’s Books, Comics, Digital Art, Drawing, Graphic Novel, Illustration
More About: Panel , Finish , Nish

More Sketch Book Stuff
2007-11-11 03:30:00
“The Amazing Box Man”, “Alien Dragon Dog”, “Fear the Pig-Man” and “Butler”. Drawings out of my sketch book… Technorati Tags: Art, Cartoons, Drawing, Illustrations, Sketch ing
More About: Book , Stuff , Etch

Bad news, bad news from Houston Chronicle
2007-11-09 16:08:00
The Houston Chronicle has always been known for being a good paper when it comes to running comic strips. However, in a notice dated yesterday, they’ve announced major changes, and that they have “good news, bad news on comics”. The good news is that they’ll run one page of their weekday comics in color, the bad news is… they’re dropping a full page of comics from the printed newspaper (these will still be available online, however). Personally, I consider this only to be bad news. Daily comic strips aren’t meant to be printed in color! This all shows us (yet again) that newspaper comics are dying a slow, painful death, along with the medium they’re printed in. Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Comics, News papers
More About: Bad News , Houston Chronicle

Tweeter and the Monkey Man
2007-11-09 05:01:00
Another sketch I did, based on one of my favorite songs, Tweeter and the Monkey Man by the Traveling Wilburys (Bob Dylan). Technorati Tags: Art, Drawing, Inking, Music, Sketching

Tweeter and the Monkey Man
2007-11-09 04:05:00
Another sketch I did, based on one of my favorite songs, Tweeter and the Monkey Man by the Traveling Wilburys (Bob Dylan). Technorati Tags: Art, Drawing, Inking, Music, Sketching