Doughboys

Here's a piece I did for a show in Austin that got canceled. I was just going to sit on it until they booked another show this would be appropriate for but I'm so happy with it, and how it came out that I decided to post it anyway. The band is a hardcore grind crust legendary type of band, and I wanted to go pretty far into black terrain with some guttural doomed out gasmask imagery. Also, the fans of that kind of hardcore, in general I think they respond to black and white art more than bright vibrant eye-popping oranges and pinks. So I knew I wanted to do something I could easily do a black and white version of also, and make it crusty and stark. I've done that before and I've got a couple projects I'm working on where that will be the case for other reasons (cost of printing).

I'm pretty stoked about sneaking in that Chuck Taylor. That was fun.



I always liked the term "Doughboys", which seems so locked into that time and place of the first World War and like, that generation of Americans. Trench warfare is such a completely insane idea. They did a pretty great job depicting it on the first episode of the second season of Downton Abbey, which just aired last night. Watching that might even been what encouraged me to post these. At any rate, there's a character that goes on leave from the trenches a couple times, and I just can't imagine being able to get away from that hell and then having to go back.





Get this: the last surviving Doughboy that fought in the first World War just died last year, at the age of 110! Frank Buckles! What a dude.

Anyway, here's the ink splatter I scanned and used to create the colors of the sky and background of this one. Splatters. I can't believe I'm still doing this. Just making a mess and turning it into something. I'll be posting some more stuff later this week. I've got an announcement and some other stuff. Working on some posters that I'm super psyched about! Stay tuned!

Old Friend for a New Year: Hunrgy Hungarian Returns, MELT 2012!

Hey friends, it's January, it's 2012, it's time for The Hungry Hungarian Paprikash Melt at Melt bar & grilled!
Pulled Roasted Chicken
Huge Homemade Dumplings
Creamy Paprikash Sauce
Provolone Cheese
Amazing Vegetarian Version Available

As you can see, I went with a nice quiet snowy winter scenario starring our favorite polar bear friends and family, Junior Bear looking out the window watching the snow fall and accumulate. I have pretty fond memories of doing that as a pup, just watching the sky full of flakes and clumps of snow. It always blew my mind, the idea that no two snowflakes are the same. Sometimes, if it was particularly clumpy snow, you could pick a cluster drifting on the wind and watch just that one, try to focus on it and follow it through the path to the ground, or watch it get pushed back up into the gusts of wind. Those were good moments.



I wanted to show the process a little more for this one, but I don't know what I did with the rough sketches I used to develop the concept. I knew I wanted to use the polar bears but I wasn't sure how. I landed on this after thinking of the "watching snow fall" idea, and wanting to do an warm color inside vs. cold colors outside juxtaposition. So, here's the black and white line art, drawn with brush and ink on 11" x 17" Bristol Board.



On to the colors, the first step was just to go bonkers in Photoshop with the warm/cool effects. I chose my pallet and kept it pretty limited. I had a good time though. I really like the looks on the cat and dog's faces.



Here, all I did was add a subtle texture to everything outside the window using a map of ink splatter I made specific for this piece, then changes the color of the line art inside the window to that brownish orange, the color of lines of the Christmas lights, and then created a glowing effect on the window and the lights on a separate layer set to a pretty low opacity. Some of these touches are overt and some are simple and subtle, but I think it's all important. I think in some cases there's a fine line between kill and overkill, especially in Photoshop.



Lastly, for the illustration at least, I added two layers of snow falling. It's just a matter of making those ink splatter pieces, dropping them over the art and changing the color to white. Then setting one of them to ...shoot, I think it's only 35% opacity, but it's pretty low.



I drew the text by hand and scanned it. Here's what it looks like before coloring it and adding it to the poster. I like these banner moves. I used to do that a lot, then migrated away from it for a long time. Now I'm finding really good uses for banners all over the place at Melt. It definitely falls into the "tattoo art" themes have been a large part of Melt's visual dynamic.



Here's the line art for the Hungry Hungarian Melt sandwich. I've drawn so many of these, I can draw them in my sleep. This is actually the last thing I do for these posters now. Sometimes I draw the sandwich when I draw the illustration and the text, but lately I've gone all the way up to final colors before drawing the sandwich. It occurred to me to just reuse the sandwich drawings from last year, but eh... that would be weak sauce. Weak. Sauce.



Here's the final again, with the text and sandwich. It's a great sandwich, too. I highly recommend it, especially on cold cold Cleveland in January nights after trekking around in the snow and winter all day.



Also, Beverly Hills Cop is being screened as one of the January Melt Late Shift movies at Cleveland Cinemas' Capitol Theatre on Saturday, January 21st at Midnight. Melt is doing a special Fried Banana in the Tail Pipe Trick Melt sandwich, with fried plantains, grilled pineapple, fresh avocado, spicy tomato relish, and muenster cheese. I can't wait to try this.



I used this screen capture from the movie to get Eddie Murphy's likeness down. Though, this image is from when Axel, Rosewood, and Taggart are in the strip club, I set him outside in what I wanted to be an 1980s styled color wash, almost an abstract blend of pastels and process colors. I really wanted it to pop. I think that worked.



Here's the dessert card for January. Continuing with these characters, I'm not sure this one is as successful as the last two, but I like it. I like using the word balloons and the panel breaks on the card. I've been working on a lot of comics lately, and this is like that bleeding into the way I'm doing everything. Also, Heath Bar Crunch Cheesecake!

That's it for now. I feel like I've been typing for a year. I hope this post made sense. Hey, check back later in the week, I'm going to post some fun stuff and hopefully you'll be into it. I figure if you're still reading this then chances are you will be.

Do They Know It's GRITMAS?

To all the free peoples of Middle Earth, Merry Gritmas.

Ghost Ship Graveyard

This is the first time I've done a poster for The Mohawk in Austin. I'm pretty stoked it's for such a good show, and I was able to do something so ridiculous as a haunted pirate ghost ship. Graveyard from Sweden is a really awesome stoner-ish rock band that reminds me of everything good from classic rock radio without any of the bullshit that sucks about classic rock radio. Speaking of radio, I don't know much about Radio Moscow, but I'd definitely be down to check 'em out, give them a whirl, why not? Also, Eagle Claw! They're playing the New Years Eve show I did a poster for at Red 7. If I were in Austin, I'd be going to both of these shows.



Here's a close-up of the ghosts on the ship. I drew them separate and "ghosted" them in on the art in Photoshop. Pretty fun piece to work on.



Here's the straight up black and white line art for this one. I liked drawing this. I especially liked drawing the water. It's this brush stroke pattern that when you're doing it just looks like a mess, but the closer it gets to being done, the more it actually turns into the intended image. It's almost a surprise sometimes, when that happens.

I feel like the last few weeks, the holidays, really beat my ass this year without me even knowing it. Now I'm torched and confused as to when/how that happened. I'll hopefully be posting some more stuff this week. Been working pretty hard on some things, shaping 2012 into the best year yet. Stay tuned!

Rise MEGACHURCH, RISE!

Meanwhile, in Rusty Ol' Cleveland...



This is just a sketch piece I drew to include with an order a Megachurch fan placed for archival prints of the two record covers. Pretty quick drawing, really fun to draw. I pretty much throw in a quick sketch with every order I get over at the Shiner Comics Store.



Here's the art for a non-specific poster for Megachurch to send to venues and promoters when they play shows that don't already have a poster or flyer ready to go. Megachurch is plying a show this Saturday, December 17th, 2011 at Now That's Class, with Hot Cha Cha and VAMOS! (from Chicago). You should go, it's gonna be fun. I'm probably not going, I have to draw stuff. AND, I don't even like fun!

Hey, here's the more grim blackened white:



If you, or anyone you know, has booked MEGACHURCH to play, or you're just a huge fan, and would like a printable .pdf version of this poster, either the b/w or the full nasty color, please feel free to email me and I will send you what you want. If you would like me to add the text at the bottom, the venue and date and even the other bands playing, I can probably manage that too.

Speaking of Megachurch, here's the greatest music video of all time:


Here's the second greatest, more disturbing:


Hey look, a video of Megachurch playing at Studio-A-Rama a couple years ago:

Mad Weapons

It's a Very Red 7 New Years Eve with Russian Circles, The Roller, Eagle Claw, and Boyfrndz! Kiss 2011 AD goodbye!



When I launched into this I knew for certain I didn't want to do anything ...Russian, or with circles. Also, it being N.Y.E., I wanted to do something eye-catching. This wasn't the moment to be subtle, not that I've been all that subtle over the past few batches of posters, but... y'know, sometimes it just needs to be taken to eleven. This, and the next few posters for shows in Austin, would happen to be some of those sometimes. Anyway, I started with this big ass robot not unlike other big ass robots I've done in the past. This quickly evolved into the last rough, with this primitive Shewolf rockin' mad weapons.



A lot of times I don't take my pencils this far, the refined. I usually keep them rough and then do a lot of the work in the inking stage, but this time around I opted to get more thorough and make sure everything was dope before I starting to ink.

Russian Circles is pretty goddamn good. I can think of a lot of worse ways to spend New Years Eve. Personally, my Ladybird and I will be watching the Lord Of The Rings Extended DVDs all in one sitting. Happy New Year, Gandolf!



I inked the living shit outta this with a brush, then went back in with a rapidly dying Micron .01 pen, then splattered it with a toothbrush. I'm overall pretty satisfied with how well the inks look. I like the fur and the way the robot is textured. I like these characters a lot. As with almost all of my posters, there's a story there somewhere, to be told. I did at one point have a narrative for the Shewolf character I had drawn in the past, vague intentions of a huge volume of pages that wander through that world and the moments that make up this character's reality- bouncing them off our own world and the balance between the microcosms of particular instances and the much much bigger picture of the long view, the grand scheme. The forest vs. the trees (or probably more accurately, a segment of the bark on one tree in the forest) so to say. Maybe some day, I'll make that comic? Someday, I suppose.



So, lastly, here's the lettering and splatters I used to create the textures and the splatters in the coloring stage. I was planning using this one as an example of the process of coloring, but then got carried away and forgot to take screen caps or save the file at various stages. Not that my process is all that informative or complicated, but... it's good to check in on that type of thing every now and again.

Well, I've spent way too long on this post already. I've been listening to the Drive Soundtrack as I've been typing this. Man, I know most people probably mostly love the pop jams, College song Real Hero, or Nightcall, which... great fucking jams, but the Cliff Martinez stuff on this one, the instrumental tracks... holy shit, this is good. Everything about that movie makes me super duper happy.

More coming soon. Two other Red 7 posters, Ten Imaginary Movies, and then some new comics!

Spacefighter Z Comic by J. Kelly

Five copies of Spacefighter Z, Part One: The Final Report of The Dolly Five by J. Kelly are now available at the Shiner Comics Store. If you missed it's debut at this year's Genghis Con, now's your chance to get a copy of this sci-fi/horror masterwork!

Here's the first three pages:




For those new to the Spacefighter Z concept, it's part of the pantheon of ideas known as the Ten Imaginary Movies series of posters painted by J. Kelly. This series spawned an art exhibit where I, John G, created a multitude of fake ephemera for these imaginary films. This is the same project that our new horror comics anthology, The Lake Erie Monster, came from (more info on that, SOON!).

You can see more about the Ten Imaginary Movies at Kelly's blog, Pave The Ocean!

We'll be posting the Ten Imaginary Movies Poster Set in the Shiner Comics Store soon, so keep that interweb tuner clicked in right here for the latest signal broadcast faxes!

Lucy

This piece will be in The Dog Days of December at Kollective Gallery, at 1908 S. Taylor in Cleveland Hts, opening Saturday December 10th, 2011. The show is a benefit for Secondhand Mutts, a great Cleveland dog adoption non-profit.

When I started this I knew I wanted to go bonkers on the details on the lady, and wanted to make it a multiple panel page layout, by design. Also, a dog, I was initially going to try and draw a different kind of dog, maybe a Rottweiler or Doberman, or some kind of huge Mastiff. As I was gunning for that and failing repeatedly, my confidence skinned it's knee and I opted for a wolfish character. I've drawn a lot of wolves in my day, so... that saved me a bunch of time that I then lost while inking like a lunatic. Not entirely sure where the name "Lucy" came from, other than it's short and fit on that heart shaped dog tag.

The finished piece is 9.5" x 16" brush and ink on poster board. I'm thinking about coloring this for the hell of it. Maybe do a limited print run and sell them to make some more loot for Secondhand Mutts?

Here's the link to the facbook event for the show: HERE. Kollective is a really awesome spot, it's also a tattoo shop. If you haven't been there, definitely check this show out, it's going to be pretty great, with contributions from a bunch of killer artists. PLUS, the main show in the gallery for December is the work of Hannah and Ian Petroni. I actually don't know anything about their work but I know both of them and they rule.

Poster Packs Up For Grabs

I've added some poster packs to the Shiner Comics Store, among the other things available for your purchasing pleasure.




10+ Poster Packs
These are is envelopes crammed with between 13 and 16 random posters. By random, it means they're all different assortments, and I have no idea which posters are in each pack. Each pack includes at least one 12" x 18" poster along with the more than ten 11" x 17" posters, plus a handful of random various sized prints and fliers and postcards. They range from older posters for shows in Cleveland at the various venues like the Beachland, Grog Shop and Now That's Class, to Melt Specials posters and more recent posters for Red 7 in Austin. Some of the packs have the 3D Double Dagger 11 x 17, which I included the 3D glasses with it.

I have 5 of these ready to ship, but I can make more if there's demand. Only $10, plus $3 for shipping.



20+ Poster Pack
Just like the 10+ Packs, these are envelopes crammed with well over ten random posters. It includes the 13" x 19" archival print from the Anti-Valentine's Day Show, Love Stinks, at least one 12" x 18" poster along with the a lot of 11" x 14" and 11" x 17" posters, plus a handful of random various sized prints and fliers and postcards. Again, they range from older posters for shows in Cleveland at the various venues like the Beachland, Grog Shop and Now That's Class, to Melt Special posters and more recent posters for Red 7 in Austin.

There are only 5 of these 4 of these left, and when they're gone they're gone. These are kind of big, so I'm only doing five sets. Only $20, plus $3 for shipping.

The Mighty Mac Strikes Back: Dec 2011 at Melt!

It's December again, so that means it's time again for our old pal the Macaroni Penguin o break out that scarf and brave the elements to have fun out in the cold weather and build up the hard earned hunger for a Mighty Macaroni Melt at Melt Bar and Grilled.

The Mighty Macaroni Melt is Creamy Homemade Macaroni & Cheese, Breaded and Fried To a Golden Brown, with MORE CHEESE, Choose your favorite! I've heard some amazing combinations like Pepper-Jack and then the Bacon Add-On, or Cream Cheese and Cheddar with the Jalapeño Add-On (which is what I want to try once I finally get mine this December). You should definitely feel free to head over to the Melt Facebook Page and post your cheese/add-on combinations for all to see!



Tonight (which is pretty much over), and Tomorrow (Saturday Dec 3rd, 2011) The DUDEFATHER is on special as a cross promotion with Cleveland Cinema's annual screening of The Big Lebowski at The Cedar Lee. This sandwich is actually made up of items that are on the menu all the time! So fear not, if you can't get to Melt tomorrow, you can just order this whenever you're in the mood to smash a crazy huge sandwich!



This is one of the specials I've been most excited for this year. The Gizmo Chicken and Waffles Melt! Again, this is a tie-in with Cleveland Cinema's screening of Gremlins on December 17th at The Capitol Theatre, which... I dunno about you, but I think Gremlins is one of the best Holiday movie traditions this side of DIE HARD. At any rate, on the sandwich: Ultra Crispy Fried Chicken Breast, Fluffy Scratch Made Waffles, Pepper-Jack Cheese, served with Bourbon Maple Syrup Dipping Sauce and Melt's Signature Habanero Hot Sauce on the side.

This poster was actually really challenging to draw, gremlins, they're tough little guys. I had to watch the movie multiple times to get them right. I feel like while I was working on the poster I listened to an episode of Stop Podcasting Yourself where they talk about how Gremlins re just little guys that really really like to party, but I'm not entirely sure which episode it was. I do know that they just did a LIVE Episode, and it was one of the most incredibly hysterical things I've listened to in a long time.



Here's the desert card design for December. Continuing with the same characters from last month, I'm going to follow this path as far as it will take us. We're still in the getting to know you phase of the dessert crew though. Probably will be for a long time. Seriously though, Hot Cocoa Rice Krispie Treat Bred Pudding!

Thanks for reading, and keep checking back, I'll be trying to post more frequently!

ZULU

Another bonkers joint at RED 7 in Austin, Tejas. THIS MOMENT IN BLACK HISTORY is scrambling down there to play some shows. Bangaar is playing this one, this is the first I've ever heard of Black Congress, but if http://blackcongress.bandcamp.com is any indication of anything then this band is fucking killer. Also playing: Weird Party, which also sounds like they're great. Handclaps and shit. So it looks like if you're on Earth... TODAY, Friday December 2nd, in 2011... Red 7 is where you want to be.



Got kind of obsessed with Zulu Warriors for a minute there a couple weeks ago, though I've always had a healthy love for them- I was pretty stoked on that episode of Deadliest Warrior where they pit Shaka Zulu up against William Wallace, which... y'know, it's not THAT scientific, and it's a pretty hokey show. That being said, I feel like an idiot the entire time I watch it, but I love that fucking show! It's pretty fun to watch, even when you can kind of tell that they maybe edit it to make the dudes that are showing how the weapons work and ...well, the experts... let's just say there's a lot of machismo involved, which is kind of unnecessary if you think about it. There's some episodes where I just want the opposing dudes to acknowledge how insane and awesome each others' weapons and tactics are. But, it is Spike TV so you get what you pay for. And I watch that shit for free on the internet, so... booyah. That being said the 1986 miniseries SHAKA ZULU is on Netflix "Play it NOW". I haven't finished it yet, but that's ten awesome hours of internet TV watching.

Anyway, I got a handful of Red 7 jams coming down the line, so if you're into dope shows and the promo for them... keep your web browser dialed to http://ninepanelgrid.blogspot.com

Also, I should probably be posting a bunch of the other things I've been doing lately. A LOT of Melt jams, Lake Erie Monster updates and a fistful of loose madness. Also, updates at the Shiner Comics Big Cartel.

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.