The Lake Erie Monster #1

Sometimes we do great things. The Lake Erie Monster #1, an all new comic by myself and J. Kelly, is debuting at Genghis Con this Saturday, November 26th, 2011 AD, at the Beachland Ballroom. The issue is 24 pages of black and white comics with a color cover, for a mere five bones.

I'll be posting more about my Genghis Con set-up later, but hopefully before the show! Stay Tuned!

DRAG'ON

Here's this Rodd Racer homage, the nefarious villain Drag'on. Rodd Racer is an amazing creator owned comic by this maniacal dude Toby Cypress, that kills it. It's incredible because it's a chase comic about these bonkers OG car racers in this sprawling weirdly Hugh Ferriss-ish cityscape, but has this great gangster ass noir overtone that sets up the business that is the chases/races/disgraces. Published by Image earlier this year, in July. It's definitely still available, and I give it my highest possible recommendation. RODD RACER IS THE GOODS!

I had every intention of posting this a long time ago, but it slipped through the cracks. So now I'm trying to catch up and get my blog chops back. I may post the original for sale in the Shiner Comics Store, but that won't be for a couple days.

Anyway, Toby Cypress is also doing a crazy webcomic blog thing called KURSK, which you can check out here: http://kurskcomics.blogspot.com. As of this post, he's got 12 pages up, but hasn't posted any since July, right before San Diego Comic Con this year. So, here's me calling him out and saying GET ON IT, SON! I want more KURSK!

I can't fault him too hard though, being as he's one of the artists behind Blue Estate, another Image comic that blows my mind. It's a collaboration between a fistful of artists including Viktor Kalvachev, Nathan Fox, and Robert Valley. Also credited are the writer Andrew Osborne and Kosta Yanev. I've only really read the first issue, but I've got the Vol. One trade in the mail. I ordered that shit off Thwipster!

Okay, more sooon!

Esqueleto de la Bruja

This show happened, and I bet it ruled. SkeletonWitch is a pretty awesome name for a band, especially for a band from Athens, Ohio. I'd love to meet whoever designed their amazing logo, high-five them, buy them a grilled cheese sandwich and fight against a bunch of lizard beasts with them, in honor of how much they, as a designer, have improved the overall quality of life on earth at the moment. I think it's important to recognize greatness, and whoever the hell designed the SkeletonWitch logo, you rule.



Here is the brush and ink OG drawing. I'm pretty happy with it. I knew I would be reusing the Dio De Los Muertos skull face-painted female thing that I had just done for the Doomriders poster from a couple posts ago, but it was a weird and sloppy journey to get from there to having this occult shamanic military woman with the strange ancient bladed weapon representing in from of the Rushton Triangular Lodge, which I only know anything about because it's referenced in Voice of The Fire, which I've been slowly reading lately. Good book.



Here's the text as it is when I scanned it. Messy and ...not really planned out at all. I just used a crummy brush that I can't really ink drawing with anymore to draw the big words and a small pen to ink the smaller stuff.

This was a fun poster to draw. Heavy Metal seems to be in the atmosphere these days. I'm not really sure what that means other than these days are awesome. I'll be posting some more stuff soon. So, stay tuned! Also, tune in over at the Genghis Con Blog, where we'll be updating regularly until the show!

METAL

International Heavy Metal Day is 11/11/11, or November Eleventh, Two Thousand and Eleven, which I guess can only happen this year (of this century, at least). So MELT bar & grilled is celebrating by offering a special sandwich:

The 666 Number of The BBQ Roast Beast Melt!
Slow Roasted Beef Brisket
marinated in spices and then drenched in a smoky sweet BBQ sauce
Homemade BBQ Beans
Crunchy French Fried Onions
Pepper-Jack Cheese



I really wanted to keep this as simple as I could, and as vibrant as possible. I know there's a tendency in the Metal genre to keep things black and white, or toned down to dark colors, earth tones and be as visually brutal as the sound of the music is. Which is something I actually love about it. There are entire sub-sub-genres of Metal that I don't like to listen to but I love the visuals of. In fact I think in some cases, the better the art they use, the worse the band is. At any rate, I opted for vibrant psychedelics and a simple straight-forward concept.



Here's the hand drawn text, I draw all the text I use on every single thing I design by hand, which is to say that it's never an actual font. I mean, the text in the title and the information at the bottom is based on a typeface, but I drew it by hand and scanned it. This jpg is what that scan looks like. I do that to all the text of every poster or anything I design. I think the only time something I design ends up with digitally generated text on it is when I do a Scene Magazine cover- and that's because Scene Magazine's Art Director is a stone cold Design Gangster. I'm usually just the hired illustration gun in that scenario.



Here's the ÜBERMETAL Black and White version, for all y'all Metal Heads that are into this kinda thing. DOWNLOAD THE ÜBERMETAL B/W VERSION PDF for DIY Printing! The full color prints are available at the three Melt locations, though. Or, shoot me an email and I'll make sure you get what you want!

Speaking of Metal, here's a list of some of my favorite Metal records, not really in any order other than... these a good records and I like them. Not really firmly set in the Metal Genre these are, other than... I consider them Metal:



SLEEP'S HOLY MOUNTAIN is probably something I've listened to more times than is possible to count. I also like it even more when I think about the Alejandro Jodorowski movie, The Holy Mountain, which is an amazing ass movie. I want to make a giant comic called Holy Mountain just to throw my wizard hat in the ring some day.


High on Fire, Surrounded by Thieves is maybe the most D&D of all metal records that isn't just full on nerd-wuss bravado, not that I'm opposed to nerd-wuss bravado, I just said I was going to "throw my wizard hat in the ring", but this one comes from a place of true heavy hack and slash style D&D. Like if Sleep records are magic, this shit is blunt force hand to hand combat.


Carl Orff, Carmina Burana is probably the most Metal of all recorded music ever. There are multitudes of versions, including the one pictured that was performed by the Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. This is the jam that plays every medieval movie when the armies of chaotic good and the undead neutral evil clash in a rapture of ridiculous violence.


Brian Posehn, Fart & Wiener Jokes is pretty goddamn great, and in addition to farts and wieners- he has a lot of funny shit to say about Metal, Metal Heads, and a being a nerd. I drew a poster for a gig he did in Austin last year, HERE.


Lastly, but not leastly, I think everyone in the universe should get hip to KRALLICE. They've been around for a while, and making incredible music the entire time. I saw them headline Champagne of Fests III, and I think I got permanent hearing damage from that set.

I think that's it for now. I spent way too long working on this post.

Nine Posters on the Third (Red 7 Owns)

All these posters are for Red 7 is Austin Texas. I think the last poster I drew for them that I posted was this guy, back in promotion for the Illustrious show at Wall Eye Gallery:



This one is so obviously a Mignola/BPRD riff, though I think it predates when I just started including the BPRD logo patch on characters gear. Been doing that a little bit lately.

I've been on a pretty fierce warpath for the Red 7 this year, and here (with the exception of the latest one I'm working on RIGHT NOW) are all the posters I've done for them. I may post future blog updates about some of these individually, but here they are in one huge gang, including links to as many of these bands as I can manage and a couple sentences for each.



Cleveland's own RINGWORM, this band Nails from California, New Lows from Boston, and Bitter End. This is the left hand half of a diptych, and I knew I wanted to go post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior types. I recently found this weird art thing called The Eighth Day that kinda sorta blew my brains out, LOOK AT THIS!



Saint Vitus has been around forever, it's pretty cool to get to do a poster for them. Dixie Witch and The Roller are both from Austin. So is Mala Suerte, which I thought was Spanish for Bad Dream, but it actually means Bad Luck. Mala Sueño is Bad Dream... which I think is up or grabs as far as doom metal band names is concerned.

At any rate, I was way into this comic Orc Stain that this complete and total nutbag named James Stokoe is responsible for when I drew this. I especially like how insane that comic is. The colors are good too.



Here's the big drawing I did that I broke in half to make this dippy. Infinite Dragon, I don't know where I got that idea, other than I knew I wanted the images to flow into each other but not have like, a mirror effect so much. I did something like this before, with two dudes murdering the shit outta each other. I like to think these are all good posters on their own but then when you see the diptych it's next level type shit. At least I hope so.





A simple straight forward poster for a simple straight forward bill with three great bands. Big Business, Torche, and Thrones. This is actually also a creature design piece of the Lake Erie Monster, of which Jake Kelly and I are doing comics about. Which I will have some announcements about soon!



Man, there is no limit to how much I love Wolves In The Throne Room. I don't really know anything about Megaton Leviathan, but they were on tour with WiTTR, so they must be pretty cool. Pushmen and Skycrawler, I think are from Austin.

This piece was a lot of fun to draw, but getting a buffalo's head right was super challenging. Wolves in The Throne Room is thematically tied to nature and primitive energies, mythology and nature-based occultism, so I really wanted to do something that worked within those themes. Again, this is kind of sort of Mignola-influnced, but ...I think it stands on it's own, aside from that. Someday I'm going to book WiTTR to play on top of a mountain surrounded by a ring of bonfires in a thunderstorm. The poster for that is gonna be nuts.



Space Natives, Cosmic Nomads, I will be making a comic about these characters some day. I do strive to tell a story, imply a narrative with each piece. One poster conveying a bigger picture and a glimpse into a bigger world. Oh, hey: Dead Meadow, they're alright, Spindrift, and Rings Band (which I couldn't find anything about them but honestly didn't look too hard).



HEY New Bomb Turks! I drew this so long ago, and this show hasn't even happened yet! High Tension Wires, Grand Champeen and OBN IIIs. Did rock bands just run out of names? Or just the ambition to come up with a good one?

So, yeah, I drew this poster and then DC Comics relaunched everything they publish and included a Frankenstein comic where he rolls deep with a team of weirdos. Kinda made me happy, but then I got the first issue and was reminded that I am not the person that DC Comics are meant to be read by. Anyway, I like the idea of a carload of bonkers characters on an adventure, and Frankenstein at the wheel. Frankenstein, dudes. FRANKENSTEIN.



This poster is definitely one I will be posting a separate blog entry about. Why? SLAYER. I DREW A SLAYER POSTER. Yeah, so it's part of Fun Fun Fun Fest and it's not like I worked directly for Slayer, STILL.... SLAYER. This was a lot of fun to draw. Also, it's fun to listen to Slayer.

Fun Fun Fun Fest is this weekend and the line-up is absolutely absurd. I can't imagine the logistics of something like that, even just going there as a dude that wants to see bands play, and Brian Posehn talk about farting. I will go one of these years, but holy shit, this year is bananacakes.



Again, I'll be posting another process piece about this one. However, I will mention, this might be the most difficult thing I have drawn in forever. FOUR BMX bikes, with riders swinging various things. DOOMRIDERS to be exact. I will link to all the other bands later. They're playing at FFF Fest Red 7 for FFF Fest Nites, it's a free show you need your FFF Fest wristband to get in to. Still, I'm pretty stoked on this poster.

Next up is a handful of other show posters, and some comics pages. Genghis Con rapidly approaches! and I'll be hyping that up some more. Go check out the Genghis Con facebook page and RSVP to the event. Tell your friends, AND your enemies! Genghis Con is a demilitarized zone for all critical beefs!

Stay Gloomy

Just a quick post today. Gotta flex them blogging muscles. Black Skies is a pretty awesome band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I'm pretty stoked to see this band. I'm not really familiar with Electric Lucifer or Threefold Law, but yeah, I'm in. Now That's Class rules.

Had a blast doing this one. Kind of a Mignola\ riff, but less good. I wanted to color this but we're keeping it black and white for the doom and gloom. It's deep fall, kids. Hoodie weather lasted all of 5 minutes this year. Gotta stay warm out here in The Forest of Wayward Illustration. At some point soon I'm going to dip my brush in the well of ink wash greys and see what happens.