Girl Bands

This illustration was featured in the Chromosome XX version of the 4th issue of F / I / M ² / P. It accompanied an article about girl bands of the 60s and three bands were on the must-feature list. They are from top to bottom: The Ronettes, The Supremes and The Shangri Las. The fun part of working of this was drawing from reference but with a thick brush. I ended up abstracting them in a way I normally wouldn't have thought of.

The Marked Cat of Evilness

I Google searched a skull and stuck it on an old sketch of a cat for this one...

Roy Invades the Ring

Ol' Roy here's attacking an area I worked a particularly annoying job once.
For composition's sake, I couldn't work in his snail friend.

Groin-Kick

This is a poster I illustrated for the launch of the new issue of F / I / M ² / P (details on the poster). The issue's driving theme is Men Vs. Women so I wanted to do something involving aliens and astronauts considering men are from Mars and women are from Venus (obviously). As I started drawing it, I figured the saying alone wasn't enough to base myself on so I added a groin-kick. That's midnight-drawing-logic at it's finest for you.

Monster-Girl

This was a surprisingly fast drawing given the way it was shaded. Getting started, the only idea I had of how it should turn out was that I wanted something small to be saying that line. The rest was all figured out on the spot, but generally it was meant to be reflective of how people tend to define themselves by their (perceived) flaws quite often.

On a technical note, this was one of the first drawings I've done using Photoshop CS6. Some of the brushes that come with the update seem to respond a lot faster than in previous versions so I'd highly recommend a lot of people try it.

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.

Alien City

(Click image to enlarge)

This drawing was a sample I made for a project that never came through but I'm still very happy with it.  The idea was to try and combine M.C. Escher and Dark City as the project involved world building in a way that used distorted perspective. It was a pretty cool project and it fell apart mostly because I didn't manage to fit it in schedule-wise... One of those lost opportunities...

Celebrating the New Year and Poop

You're probably wondering why this post's title includes the word "poop." The highlight of my celebrations for the new year was indulging a request by my younger cousins to draw a man pooping. They started by demanding that I draw Santa performing the aforementioned action but after an extensive negotiation, I convinced them that his metabolism works in such a way that he doesn't need to use the bathroom (I already drew him on heroin so I figured I'd cut him some slack).

At this point, you're probably wondering how this has anything to do with the above drawing. I ended up drawing a myriad of things with my cousins as we ended up playing a guessing game for most of the evening and this is something I suggest for all illustrators to try out. There's nothing like drawing live for a bunch of kids to get the old noodle working so by the time they got sleepy and went to bed, I was in a pretty good drawing mood and this sketch came out. It's one of my favorites in a long time so the lesson of the day is:

If a kid asks you to draw a man pooping, you'd better do it.

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.

Santa's Another Victim

(Click Image to Enlarge)

Monkey-Wrench Malcolm

This guy started out as a conversation between two of my friends. I walked in on them repeating the phrase "Rubadubdub Mutha@#!?ah." As they progressed to imagining the guy who would use this phrase on a constant basis, they ended up thinking of a very large plumber who uses it as an introduction to his clients. I was hoodwinked into promising I would draw him with a payment of almonds (I was very hungry) so upon further discussion, I ended up suggesting he should also be a crime-fighter who uses his wrench to wreak havoc upon those who stand in the way of justice and we settled on the name Monkey-Wrench Malcolm.

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:

In space, no one can hear you cluck.

This is what happens when you give a doodle card to someone with an Alien-fascination at a chicken themed restaurant... I'm relatively proud of this one as I've never inked anything as loosely before.

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.

Death Proof

This faux poster for Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof was a contribution to the latest issue of F/I/M²/P. The original posters (like the film itself) also replicated the feel of a 70s exploitation movie but what they did was replicate the style without overemphasizing one of the film's selling points: Kurt Russell playing a badass again. In attempting to try a different approach, I ended up doing just that.

The title lettering also functioned as a bit of a personal throwback. While sketching this out, I remembered once going through an Alex Ross sketchbook and looking at how accurately he would redraw the title on every sketch he'd do for a comic book cover. I figured it'd be a shame to let my graphic design education go to waste...  Drawing the title ended up being the most enjoyable part of working on this poster.

A Vampire Chipmunk in a Hat and a Mutant Cucumber

These two were started a while back while I was waiting for a very long document to be typed up. The first one was finished during the wait but the second was completed while I was up in an area named Khiara (for non-Arabic-speaking readers, it translates to Cucumber). That second guy was initially supposed to be some kind of fish zombie but it was up there that everyone pointed out he looks like a cucumber... Take a long look at him and enjoy eating your salad from now on folks.

Each of these was drawn on a post-it with different colored bic pens. The first color that was applied was the green. It's not as strong as the black or red pens so it's ideal to start drawing with. The black's good for finishing up the darkest areas and then the red's good for embellishing it... or adding blood.

Enjoy that salad.

Fanning the Flames

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 Evil Platypus of Death

This guy marked a return to drawing evil little animals after a somewhat extensive hiatus. I was sitting with a friend who was about to travel (for good) the next day and she informed me how everyone was compiling their drawings for her to take. Feeling relatively useless, I decided to draw something. Somehow, an evil platypus of death seemed like the obvious choice for a parting gift.