Summer '09 reading list

Fish-philes know I don't read many new comics; but lately, due to friends' recommendations and Comic Con, I have been reading a nice handful:

Godland (Casey/Scioli) which is fun but may veer more toward "Kirby knock-off" than "Kirby inspired."

Charlatan Ball (Casey/Suriano) is also fun and the art is amazing!

X-Men First Class (various) to catch up on work from my comics pal Colleen Coover.

Rex Mundi (Arvid Nelson et al) which has an intricate, well thought through plot...a little tough to follow here and there, but a good read.

The sketchbook image to the left are the two doctors from Rex Mundi. I like the image overall, but I really F'd up the Eiffel Tower. It looked ok in blue pencil, but when I inked it, the perspective went all wrong. Oh well.

I'll keep you posted...there's a lot on my to-read pile.

Comic Con 40

After I moved to San Diego in 1995, I began attending Comic Con. I’d drive my orange Jeep downtown and park just east of the Gaslamp and walk into the con on free passes handed to me by a friend of a friend who worked at the convention center. At that time, I was used to shows about as big from Boston and New York—about 40,000 attendees. I remember looking at the displays, looking at the indie comics, attending a panel or two. But mostly I was buying old back issues. It was definitely the place to complete my 60s/70s Legion and Teen Titans collection.

Over the years, I started getting into the portfolio review lines, trying to meet “famous” creators and publishers, to a frustrating end. Frustrating, but led to good things: turning Arche-Lady into portfolio-level work, and ultimately embarking on a serious self-publishing career. Once I began publishing, Comic Con became “serious business” for me to recup exhibiting fees and networking for new deals.

Years later, the publishing seems to take care of itself, and I seem to get more attention by simply doing my thing rather than active networking. So this time around, I went to Comic Con to see old friends and have fun. And it was indeed very fun! These days Comic Con pulls in 125,000+ attendees—it's crazy!

Thursday, I flew in from Boston. En route, I met an Image artist Christian Ward coming in from London and killed time chatting in Logan airport. When I arrived in San Diego that night, I met up with my hotel-mates at the Gaslamp Westin. After a shower (solo), we went to the infamous Hyatt for industry chit-chat and a few drinks. Friday morning, Aman and I hit the hotel gym and made our way to the convention. After registering, we walked around a bit and went to the DC green room. Spent time in the big exhibits of DC, Marvel, Image, etc, and then through artist alley. Met Seth Estrada, who is making a documentary about his dad Ric (who I knew best for drawing war comics). I then had a signing @ the Prism Comics booth (where my books were on sale) with a steady stream of guests. After a little relaxing, we grabbed some food and then back to the Hyatt for more industry chit-chat.

Saturday, once again, Aman and I hit the hotel gym, though I had to hot-foot it to the con to be on time for my Saturday signing. This one wasn’t advertised, so it wasn’t nearly as busy. Chatted with Andy Suriano a bit and bought his book. Walked through the smaller publishers and gushed over Chynna Clugston a little. We left the con for a drink and then I went back to appear on a panel about romance comics. The panel turned out to be really good. The moderator tailored questions for the panelists, who in turn gave some quality answers. No one dominated the panel either. I think it turned out to be the best panel I’ve ever been on! That night was the BGD gathering and ultimately was back at the Hyatt again.

Sunday morning, friends held a spot in line for me to get into the Doctor Who panel. David Tennant (who looked like he sexily just rolled out of bed) graciously gave us an extended look at his happy trail. That was one weird panel. While I like Doctor Who, and David Tennant is definitely hot, I was surprised by all the girl-squealing going on. I mean, the crowd was crazy-silly. I started watching the show because I am a fan of Catherine Tate (see my post “Doctor, Donna, and kitty”); I was tempted to get in line to ask if David would deliver my drawing of them to her. :P I bolted back to the hotel to check out and headed out of town.

A bit of a whirlwind, and I spent a bit too much money between comics, t-shirts, food, and many drinks…but a very fun time!

Comic Con International

Yay, Comic Con! I haven't been since 2007, so I am eager to go and see many old friends. Comic Con is the largest comic con in the US... 100,000 + attendees. I have been going most years since I lived in San Diego more than a decade ago. When I began self-publishing seriously, I started exhibiting. This year, I will not be exhibiting, only attending as a "professional" and will do a few booth signings and also will be on a romance comics panel. Exhibitng is fun, but exhausting for a large 5 day show. It can be sensory overload. So, very excited to just go for mostly fun.

I drew this little Superman on some scrap Bristol board during TCAF in May. I love goofy monsters and aliens, and here Supes is getting blasted by this one's fire breath. I quickly colored it in Painter to use as a homepage update-y thing for my Comic Con schedule for my site. I purposefully colored Supes in a short sleeved uniform, but I'm not sure if I like that.

France et Serge

Final entry for France Gall week!

I made this for the "Draw Serge" blog which I enjoy. It's a tribute to one of the most influencial song writers ever, Serge Gainsbourg. I like a lot of the art featured there.

Considering his collaborations with wife Jane Birkin and sexpot Brigit Bardot, I'm not wholly surprised there weren't any drawings featuring France Gall, though the two were linked together by a number of pop hits and the "Les Succettes" scandal.

Here I draw them circa 1965, a la their Eurovision Songcontest win. You can see 16 year old France's awful Eurovision perfomance at Youtube. But the song was still good enough to win—the first time a pop song won the contest.

I took the opportunity to draw them for the blog and practice using Painter as well. Aside from the suit stripes, I am pretty happy with my progress using the "chalk" feature in Painter.

France in America(n Apparel)

Taking inspriation from France Gall songs from the '60s comes my "line" of t-shirts: Love, L'amour und Liebe (top); Computer Nr. 3 (middle); and Haifischbaby (bottom). "Computer Nr. 3" was recorded in 1968 and is a song about computer dating!—"love is guaranteed with the computer." The gist of "Haifischbaby" is "I love you so much I could eat you." These designs are printed on high quality soft American Apparell t-shirts and are available for sale at www.timfishworks.com

France en Allemande

France Gall's career was waning ahome when she signed with Decca and scored some hits abroad in Germany. Some of the songs are laughably stereotypical you can imagine people bobbing along in lederhosen. But then other tracks are among my most favorite of all her work. Some of the songs are covers of foreign hits, but lucky France got to record lots of original music, unlike many of her Euro-contemporaries, and I like most of those too.

Recently someone likened her to a late 60s Britney Spears. To that I say "no!" Sure, her career was made possible by a pushy parent (songwriter father) and built on her looks, but as a singer has much more talent and skill than Brit. First, she could sing flawlessly in French, Italian and German (I'm not sure how flawless her Spanish singing was). Second, she could and did perform live—and in at least 3 of those languages. Thirdly, into her adult years, France dealt with much adversity admirably (ie, she wasn't Fd up).

The hair and dress in the drawing here is inspired by her German career. Also, she's singing "Haifischbaby" ("Baby Shark"). This panel appeared in my OGN "Love is the Reason" despite the fact that France circa 1968 appears in a modern-day story. Sure, doesn't make sense, but it's the only time I've ever featured an actual person in any of my comics.

France Gall week

In conjunction to my submission to the "Draw Serge!" blog, I am posting entries of his frequent song doll, France Gall. In the early '60s, France Gall was considered something like the Leslie Gore of France. Though her repertoire ranged from jazz to pop to children's songs. Here are a few pencil sketches I did a few years back, with her various hairdo's. Her later recordings with husband Michael Berger are considered better, but I confess I like a lot of the early work, particularly the jazz-y/lounge-y stuff.