Crispy Kid

HowGoesIt Blog. I know, I know... I haven't updated in a couple of weeks. But here I am with gifts of recompense. Summer's been good so far, and I hope you had a good Memorial Day. I BBQed with some friends in Lebanon, NJ and had a grand ol' time.

Before I get to the artwork, I just want to say that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the THIRD best Indy movie ever (1. Raiders; 2. Last Crusade; 3. Crystal Skull; 4. Temple of Doom... easy). I was pretty amazed at how much of a throwback it was. There were problems for sure (umm... Shia swinging on vines?), and the alien premise never quite sat well with me. However kudos to that creative team for making me feel 9 years old.

Also I recently viewed the Criterion release, The Fire Within, by the French director Louis Malle. It was quite good, and even though I expected the ending, I was still very surprised. Beautifully shot in black and white, it takes its time unraveling itself. It's sad without being depressing.

And I hate to just throw it in there, but Lars and the Real Girl is good, watch it! If you enjoyed Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson, you'll like this.

Onto the art. I've been working on a sequential story called Crispy Kid, which is about a young boy badly scarred with third degree burns on most of his body. It's an almost wordless story, and I don't necessarily have a plot. The point was to present his existance, not necessarily to provide a conflict of some sort. Here are the first 3 pages (and scroll down to the April 13 entry to view the cover).




It's an ongoing project and I wanted to use simple imagery. I haven't decided how far I want to go with it, and I have a few pages in the can. However, I may leave it as it is as there may not be anything else I want to say on the subject. We shall see.

TakeHerEasy blog.

All Things Altpick

Sup blog. I just got back from the MFA thesis shows for both the Illustration and Design programs. Congrats to both, as the show was outstanding as usual. Being that I'm in the Illustration program, I have to give credit where credit is due. I'm always amazed at the variety of the work, and how individual progress occurs with few stylistic overlaps. Also, it was a well curated show. Great stuff.

Onto other things. I've been doing a lot of stuff for The Alternative Pick and I have a couple of cool projects I'm currently working on that're really exciting. Here are some small things I did for them very recently:

This is the media kit for the new Altpick Double Deck coming out next year. The constant challenge is not to repeat yourself, so I'm gonna try some things I've never done before. This media kit, however, isn't indicative of the deck and stands alone. But I still like the way it turned out despite the amount of necessary copy.



And here's a postcard version of the Altpick ad which will be used at ICON (Illustrator's CONference) this year. I was experimenting with layout on this one, and I like it. I tend to like stuff that hearkens back to the days of early computing.



Thats it for now blog. Next time I'll have summore pretty pictures.

"satisfaction is a type of death"

Playboy, Iron Man, and Blueberry Pie

Hi Blog. The semester's over so now I have a lot of time to focus on my freelance work, which is a good thing. An exhaustive and tiring good thing. First off, I saw two completely different films this weekend, Iron Man and My Blueberry Nights. They were both exceptionally good for totally different reasons. However, I can't say enough good things about Blueberry Nights. The emotions were so palpable and the cast was so good. Norah Jones is a surprisingly good naturalistic actress. Also, David Strathairn was brilliant. I fully recommend this film.

In the world of illustration, here's a piece I am submitting to Playboy's annual College Art Contest. Its based on the short story, "Light, Sweet Crude", which is a father/son story that revolves around the morality of the oil industry.


Until next time.