Gladiator-Gal and Tinkerbelly

The Mezzotint

It's not everyday you get to tell people you worked on a project like this. I was contacted by SelfMadeHero some months back about working on an anthology they were putting together. Given the particulars, I jumped at the chance. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Vol. 1, a collection of four stories by M.R. James, is adapted by Leah Moore and John Reppion. The other artists on this project are Aneke, Kit Buss and Alisdair Wood.

First up is the cover image for the title I worked on:

Secondly, working on this comic was a relatively unusual process for me. Given the writing's fidelity to the source material, two challenges came up from a visual standpoint:

1) Designing a layout that respected a wordy narrator, and:

2) Taking a group of stuffy, early-1900s academics (who love golf a little too much) and making each character look memorable.

Bellow are character sketches of our protagonist, Williams, and some of the fine gentlemen who help him solve the horrific mystery at hand:

The most unusual aspect of the process on this comic was that I started by designing where all the text went and finalized that before doing any drawing. For that, I created layered spreads on Photoshop. This allowed me to move things around and simply replace the artwork under the text at different stages of completion. Bellow are examples of roughs (scribbled directly on Photoshop), final pencils (back on paper), and the final inks and colors (I ink directly over the pencils and then color it digitally):

It's worth noting this was the smoothest working process I've gone through on any project, ever, and I'm particularly proud of how it turned out. It's rare that I can look at a comic months after the fact and not find something terrible to lose sleep over. I do hope however, that its horrors haunt readers into losing countless nights of sleep.

Fragile: A Silent Comic

The full comic is available online at THIS LINK courtesy of Risha Project. The idea for this comic's been in the ol' sketchbook for over a year now so a big thanks goes out to the guys at Risha for reaching out and suggesting a wordless comic. Below, is my favorite panel and an indicator of what the whole thing looks like:

Tales of the Inanely Mundane Presents

This was the product of a break taken while working on a comic. I started out drawing the mom character but ended up imagining it as a cover for a non existent story. Most of the text elements were drawn in with the intention of sounding as stupid as possible. Naturally, it turned out looking like something I'd probably enjoy reading...

Click Image to Enlarge

Night Walk

This post builds on the last one. I'm keeping the details scarce as there's no clear plan for this project at the time of this writing but it's a comic I'm hoping to get to draw sometime in the very near future. The look's pretty close to what I have in mind but the character and the story have changed some more since then. With every draft I write, I end up filtering out whatever happy things remain and at this point, it doesn't feel like the kind of story that could sustain a yellow tint at all times. I do like this color scheme though, so here it is posted.

Yet Another Seated-Girl Drawing

I've been in the long drawn-out process of cracking the script with this particular character's story for several years now and it's dawned on me that the most recurrent pose I draw her in is sitting around doing nothing. On the surface, that probably sounds like a boring description but I've always been more fascinated with people in moments like this. Hopefully, they're thinking about something and it's fun wondering what that could be.

Angry Walk

This sketch is of a character I've been drawing for about four years now. She's popped up in some of my previous posts but I'm refraining from making any formal introductions yet as it's probably going to be a couple of years before I consider giving the project she belongs to the requisite attention (it's a long, long comic).

I haven't mustered the energy to properly document anything I've been working on for a while so I haven't been posting much. This drawing was a nice way to decompress during the late hours of the night and I'm happy with how her walk turned out so I figured I might as well put this up...

Snow

The reasoning behind drawing this was fairly straight forward. It's been snowing and I recently finished reading Blankets, a comic that is for the most part set in the snow. I was blown away by the penmanship (and generally by everything else) in that comic so I decided to try and draw something that was somewhat similar stroke-wise. Stylistically, I didn't veer too far away from my usual approach to comics but this was a fun break from a day otherwise consisting of getting a lot of paperwork done.

Super-Bonding

(Click image to enlarge)

This illustration accompanied an article titled "DC vs. Marvel" in the third issue of FIMP. My plan was originally to draw a giant battle or something extravagant like that. While that's still there to some extent, I made a last minute decision to bring forward what mostly drew me to superhero comics in the first place and it's that they're essentially a bunch of orphans dealing with their issues on an operatic scale. Enough people seemed to have found this drawing funny so I suppose the humor inherent to the genre came across pretty well.

The Reaper

The pages above are the first three from a new comic featured in the latest issue of FIMP Magazine. This comic is a bit of a departure for me as it's my first attempt at making one in Arabic and also the first I draw with a brush. The choice of language was the more difficult of the two transitions so I needed some help with it. For that, a big thanks goes out to Hiba Krisht for translating the script I originally wrote out in English (my Arabic is shamefully underdeveloped for someone living in Lebanon). Equally big thanks go out to Joanna Douba for lettering the Arabic text and helping to flesh out the original idea, and Krystel Kouyoumdjis for the gigantic service of stopping me from making the mistake of essentially rewriting an earlier comic (read: nagging).

The guys at FIMP get credit for letting me try a somewhat unconventional approach given this issue's theme: Superheroes. I was tasked with creating a short comic featuring a superhero that would be relevant to Lebanon so the approach was to try and create something that didn't ape the existing template but rather deal with violence in a very specific way to the country. I'd rather not go into a more detailed explanation here as the magazine features something of a manifesto to accompany the comic. Suffice it to say, the thought process led to the skeletal woman in the above pages.

Spike & Lilac

This is a short comic featured in Kalimat Magazine, Issue 7 now available on newsstands worldwide and at kalimatmagazine.com/shop.

For a list of shops that carry Kalimat, click here.

Eventually, I'd like for this comic to be part of a much longer narrative but like a lot of ideas that seem worth pursuing, putting the necessary time into writing it comes across as a daunting challenge that keeps getting pushed off. For now, I'm happy to have the following two pages:

Migration

This illustration was a contribution to the fifth issue of La Furie des Glandeurs. I won't get into a lengthy description but I will say the issue's themes were travel and migration.

5th International Festival of Comics - Beirut 2012

This post should have been up sooner but here's the invite/poster for the 5th International Festival of Comics - Beirut 2012 (open it in a new tab to see it at a large size).

The opening is Saturday the 20th of October at 4:30 PM at UNESCO Palace, Beirut.

The program on the opening day includes:

An exhibition of Lebanese professional artists, international guest artists and the work produced in the Lets Comics workshops held in Lebanon this past year.

An awards ceremony declaring the winners of the Lets Comics competition 2012 (there's a change in the rules of the competition in that two winners were awarded a trip to the Lucca Comics and Games Festival 2012.

And my favorite activity: the Comics-Music Jam. We've essentially got the latest edition of the Kharbesh Bilsenak event organized by Karma Hamady but with some added tweaks this year. We got 12 illustrators (these include the international guests) jamming with two freestyle rappers (with superhuman abilities): Double A the Preacherman and Mazen El Sayed. We also got Rami Obeid (Stikfiggr) providing the beats. It's tough to do this thing justice with a description so I'll simply implore everyone to come check it out opening day.

The festival goes on till Monday the 22nd on October at 8 PM. The program on the last day includes a public jam open to all.

“Let’s Comics - A Euromed Window for Young Comics Artists” is a project co-funded by the European Union, run by COSV (Coordination of the Organizations for Voluntary Service, Italy) and SPGIL (Syndicate of Professional Graphic Designers and Illustrators in Lebanon). It is a long-running program initiated in Beirut in 2007 under the slogan of “Let’s Comics!” 

UPDATE 0ctober 19 at 10:49 PM from Beirut: Due to current events, several activities have been cancelled from the festival out of respect for the national day of mourning. The space will remain open for anyone who wishes to come see the exhibit at the previously announced times (Saturday Oct at 20th 4:30 PM till Monday 22nd at 8 PM). A space will also be open for artists to come in and jam.

UPDATE October 20: The festival has been postponed.

FINAL UPDATE October 22: The festival has been closed down.

The Rules of Jerky-Boy Engagement

I'm not sure why I thought of Leprechaun II while drawing this.

The character's supposed to live in New Jersey so for the sake of accuracy, I ran this sketch by my trusted guide in the ways of all things Jersey, Daniel Drennan. What follows is a selection from a series of emails on the subject:

Me: Does this sound authentically Jersey?

Daniel: Oh my God. Now you have me analyzing authentic Jerseyness?

Okay, if I think about it, she wouldn't be laughing. She would be sympathetic, empathetic, and the stuff she is saying would be more a corrective; a kind of asking: "What did you do that for?" while understanding it all the same on some level.

Her cursing needs to reflect either a kind of escalation or a de-escalation; and it would be "frickin'" more than "friggin'"...

And contrasted with the "dumb" talk would be revelations of "knowing"...the Jersey debate, as it were... Lucky Charms for example had a leprechaun as a mascot and the tag line "Magically Delicious"...

So maybe:

1) "What are you, a frickin' leprechaun?"

2) "Dude! How many times did you watch Leprechaun II?"

3) "What, is someone after your Lucky Charms?"

4) "Cuz you look "Magically Ridiculous!"

Me: I think I'm starting to get the hang of it...

But... I'm also thinking of the times when I go out of my way to win an argument through sheer douchebagery. Would it make sense for her to be super-mean sometimes or is the standard boilerplate to approach the debate with faux-diplomacy and then invert the nature of the cosmos?

Daniel: It really depends on the nature of the discussion and with whom. If I'm talking with a friend, then I assume the diplomatic stance and let them have it in the debate but with the nuance that shows I'm kidding, and things will de-escalate.

If I'm talking with an enemy, then I assume the diplomatic stance and let them have it in the debate but with the nuance that shows I'm *not* kidding, and that things could escalate.

"Invert the nature of the cosmos" LOL

The meanness in this situation is more to show that the other person has let you down somehow; there's no real gratuitous meanness....when you listen to Glen Jones and XRay burns going at it, XRay will often go way overboard, and the best weapon of Glen is his dead silence on the air, as XRay has to slowly back down....

Me: Considering most of [the story is] just gonna be a bunch of depressed people complaining about their lives, I'm thinking more and more about how to use this escalating/de-escalating as a framework for how the characters articulate what's really going on in their head... Like when one of them goes silent, we know we're hitting a sour note and the discussion doesn't need to go further for the reader to understand what to make out of the jerky-boy discussion that just ensued. So the silent moments punctuate the overall structure of the narrative. Whatcha think?

Daniel: Perfect. It also allows for a projection from the reader into what is going on....I'm very much about the "unsaid" saying more than the "said" these days.

Although I feel like I'm giving away "house secrets"!

* * *

If there's a lesson to be learned about the creative process here, it's that one shouldn't ignore Leprechaun II.

Superheroes and Monkeys

This is the poster for an exhibition I've got coming up this Friday (the 13th!). If you agree that it looks pretty badass, it's because it was designed by the fine folks at A Fish in Sea who are hosting the event (my only contribution to it was the Monkey tail and those spotty things).

There's going to be a bunch of original pages and sketches from comic book and kid's book projects I've worked on (and an Evil Penguin!). If you're in Beirut between the 13th and the 20th of July and would like to check it out, open the poster in a new tab to see it at a larger size for all the details. Hoping to run into some readers there!

Let's Comics 2012: THE COMPETITION

This is the visual for the Lets Comics 2012 Competition. I'd advise any comics artist from Lebanon or the surrounding region to apply considering that up to twelve winners are going to be selected for exhibition during the International Festival of Comics Beirut 2012 (as well as publication in the festival catalogue), and up to five winners are going to be selected for publication in the Italian magazine Popoli.

The competition rules are all available at this link.

For more information on the Let's Comics project, you can visit the official website.

Five Minute Comic: The Sequel

PREVIOUSLY (Click here to see)

The latest installment:

Five Minute Comic

This is what happens when you have a post-it, a bic pen, a highlighter and five minutes to kill...

Let's Comics 2012

This is the first visual for a series of promotional materials for the International Festival of Comics Beirut 2012. It's function is to get artists/students under 30 to apply to the Let's Comics workshops that form the first phase of the festival. The official statement is as follows:

The Syndicate of Professional Graphic Designers & Illustrators in Lebanon (SPGIL), the Italian association COSV and the International Festival of Comics Beirut are pleased to invite you to the 2012 Comics Workshop.

Send your digital sample work or portfolio to:
letscomics2012@gmail.com

or a hard copy to:

1) COSV
Sammout St. Najm El Din Bldg -5th floor
Furn el Chubbak-Beirut
Tel: 01/288717
From 10.00am to 3.00pm

or

2) SPGIL
National Museum Square
Behind Volvo Company
Moukarzel Bldg – Ground floor
Beirut-Lebanon
Tel: 01/616771
From 10.00am to 3.00pm

(photocopies are accepted)

Don't forget to specify your full name, age, city of provenience, email, fixed and mobile telephone number, and to choose your workshop:

BEIRUT: 21/04 - 05/05 - 19/05 , COSV or SPGIL

BAALBEK: 15/04 - 29/04 - 13/05, Daari association

TRIPOLI: 28/04 - 12/05 - 26/05, Azm Centre

SOUR: 02/06 - 16/06 - 30/06, Cutural Movement Center in Lebanon -Tyr

(all workshops are for free)

APPLY BEFORE APRIL 13 2012!

On a personal note, I'd like to say that apart from the occasional exception, my experience with the workshops I've applied to in Lebanon over the years hasn't been all that great. It's always apparent that a lot of effort goes into organizing them but my theory is that all the effort gets misdirected. Being one of the people helping out with the organization this year, I'm sensing the same hesitation (or lack of interest) that I'd normally expect from myself when it comes to these things. Having said that, here's my appeal to the two or three people reading this post:

I like the guys over at COSV. I've worked with them for a few years now and they've helped me out a lot early on in my career (they still do) so when they asked me to help instruct the workshops, I automatically agreed. I'm going to be instructing the Baalbek workshop and co-instructing the Beirut one. For my part, I can say that the intention is to avoid any lofty aspirations and focus on what's doable in a three day workshop and when I say "instruct," I'm using the word very loosely. The idea is to get out of the way and hopefully just give people the chance to draw or tell a good story. With any luck, enough people meet each other at the festival this year and we give the comics medium a much needed kick in the right direction here in Lebanon...

Lucca Comics and Games 2011

This first illustration is the cover image for a game entitled The Gang. It's a card game developed by DV Giochi that's based on the idea of playing odd versus even numbers. It's visualized in such a way that the two sets of numbers are rival gangs trying to capture each other (by collecting cards). There are also special cards (a spy, a lookout, and a boss) that give the gangs extra options in capturing each other. Here are the character cards:

An important aspect of the game-play is that the cards are sent to three cities to capture each other. Here are the illustrations for the cities (New York, Chicago and Detroit):

In addition to the game illustrations, I was asked to create a short comic as a promotional item to be distributed with the game during the festival. The title roughly translates to "Odds Against Evens" but I'm told that in Italian, it works with a double meaning that involves shooting.

 

During the second day of the festival, the game was presented at this conference:

After that, I was free to explore the rest of the festival and similarly to last year, I found the best part to be all the original artwork on display (both in the festival exhibitions and from collectors/dealers who had pages up on display). The work on display ranged from contemporary independent pages to the works of such figures as Jack Kirby. From what I managed to see, there was a grater variety of styles and techniques on display this year which made for a very interesting experience. There were also several renown artists in attendance and drawing before the audience. That was a real treat to watch.

My favorite part however, was this:

V for Vendetta was the book that got me to finally try and write a complete narrative through comics after many short attempts as a kid. Seeing a room full of David Lloyd's original work for the book brought out the fanboy in me more than anything else at the festival this year.

On an ending note, I'd like to thank DV Giochi, Gioco Inedito, ECF (for sponsoring the trip) and COSV for their continued support.