Can Someone Explain This to Me?

I liked the Image series "Debris" that came out last year. It was a little heavy on the hero's journey/ Mono-myth stuff for my taste, but it was fun and the art was really good. I even did fan art for it!

The four issues of "Debris" were recently collected into a trade paperback. I was surprised to see how differently the lead female character was portrayed on the cover of the paperback as compared to the comics.

Here's what I mean: Here is the cover of the first issue featuring the protagonist, Maya:

And here is the cover of the trade:

Can we see that one more time? (this time with the cover of issue #3):

 

The cover artist for the trade is not the same artist for the book. OK, fine.

But I thought the depiction of women* in the book was pretty respectful. Maya was young and attractive, and sure, wore tight clothing, but she was at least drawn realistically.

I was happy to see a more realistic portrayal of a female character. It's a little sad now to see that character all sex-potted up. Fishnets and a flowy evening dress are not practical for fighting giant robots!

Also, she's straddling a penis-shaped pipe! Seriously!?



*(There was actually more than one woman! This is what we call progress in comic books.)

Workspace Upgrade!!

So here is my desk/ workspace as I last posted it (around October of last year):

And here is my desk now:



Getting that cork board changed my life.

Not really. But it is nice to have somewhere to put things. I was tired of taping things to the wall.

Also, my wife painted the bedroom. No more gross yellow.

Plus! I have a new computer. My last computer was purchased back in 2005, so I was overdue. I mounted the monitor and stored the CPU under the desk so I could keep my drawing board. Not pictured is the Wacom tablet I also bought. I'm pretty happy with the whole set up, but it's given me a lot of new tools to learn (Including Manga Studio 5) 

Anyway, I'm still working a with traditional media. Here are a couple sketchbook pictures:

Astronaut looking over alien landscape.

Astronaut looked terrified and amazed.

Both of these are studies for a new comic I'm working on at the same time as I finish my Mars one.

In other news, my lovely wife has taken up blogging. You can now find her at Projectophile! I've been blogging for a long time, but she is already blowing me out of the water with her blogging proficiency (It probably has something to do with the fact that she's a way better writer than I am).  This one about mid-century modern houses that will kill your children has been particularly popular.

Mars Story, First Three Pages

I still have a bit of work to do on these, but I had such a positive response when I posted the first page that I figured I'd post what I have done so far. I have about 5 more pages to do on this story.

Enjoy!

Orbital Plumber

NOTES: I made this for the Middle Coast Zine fest here in Chicago a couple weeks back. It's a micro-mini, meaning that it's 4.25" x 5.5" (Basically one sheet of paper folded twice). This is why the lettering looks so big now.

This is based on a true story, apart from the space aspect of it. One of my childhood friends is a plumber and this actually happened to him. Instead of stale sanitation crystals, it was a dried trap letting sewer smells in the house.

Also, I finished this, photocopying and all in about three days, which is some kind of record for me.

A Study in Style

(Or: What I Did Over Did Over Thanksgiving Break)

I've been thinking a lot about personal style lately.

Whenever I practice draw (i.e. Not for a finished piece), I always prefer to draw from real life (or more often, photographs) rather than copy another person's work. There are a lot of artist I respect, but I don't want to have their style, I want my own style. I assumed that if I just keep drawing what I see, eventually, my personal style will just magically form (Like Venus from ocean foam).

I'm starting to rethink this ridged method and came up with a little drawing exercise (I'm can't be the first person to think of this). I drew a page from a published comic, but I tried to emulate another artist's style.

Two of my favorite artists are Sergio Aragones and Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira, at least), so I decided to do Akira in the style of Sergio Aragones.

I picked a page out of Akira at random (I just googled image searched "Akira pages" and picked out one of the first ones that came up).

Here's the original:

 

And here is mine:

 

 

 

 



 

I did this while traveling to St. Louis, so I didn't have much in the way of Sergio reference material. I think it ended up looking more like something by Roberta Gregory (which isn't a bad thing) or maybe Jim Davis (which is bad).

 

Also, the perspective in panel #3 is way fucked up.

 

I'm not sure what I learned about my style. I was a fun exercise. I enjoyed it. I stretched my drawing muscles in ways I never had before. I think I'll do it again but different artists. Why not?

 

Last Minute Edit: I just remembered I did something like this before.

 

Speaking of St, Louis, I dropped off some mini-comics at Star Clipper. If you live in St. Louis and want a copy of King Crow Comics #1 (for only $1!), head down there.





Hey! It's my Birthday!

 It's also Halloween, so candy and cake all around. My wife made me this card with the help of my daughter. My wife asked her what I like and drew whatever she said. I have to say that my daughter is pretty observant. Note that she said that I like my "Comics Books".

 

That I do!

 

The Show playing on the TV is Doc Martin, my current Netflix obsession.

 

My wife also go me this: 

 

Drawing Words, Writing Pictures, Part 2: Mastering Comics

I've only had time to flip through it a little, but it looks great. I'm looking forward to really digging into this one.

  

Also, I know I haven't posted here in a while, but I assure you, I am working on comics!

 

See, here's my messy, work-filled desk:

 

 

And here is a work-in-progress:



This takes place on Mars, in case you were wondering.

 



Speaking of Mars (and I'm a total jerk for not bringing this up earlier), but my friend, Dave has a cool webcomic called Free Mars that you should check out.

Also, he's doing a kickstarter! So go buy in! Now! Do it!

I have tumblr... and I'm not afraid to use it!

I was originally going to title this post, "I have a Tumblr and I (don't) know how to use it!" Either way, replace "Tumblr" with "gun" and you have a line from cheesey action film.

 

So yes, I finally took the advice of several people and got myself a Tumblr. It can be found at http://scottkroll.tumblr.com/. I also have it as a permanent link on the right bar of this blog.

 

I'm not 100% comfortable with using it yet. I will be putting up a lot of sketches, for sure. I have a lot of little things that I draw that I don't think warrant a full post here on the blog proper. 

 

I would appreciate the advice of any avid Tumblr users, so please send any comments or suggestions my way ASAP.

 

In other news, I read almost exclusively Sci-Fi comics now. I didn't intend this to happened, it just did. It probably started with Brandon Graham's Prophet (here's a great article about why you, too should be reading it) and to a lesser extent, Saga.

 

Anyway, a couple weeks ago, I ordered this trio off of Amazon: 

Medusa Chain, Orbital #1, and The City of Shifting Waters

  

There all pretty good, but man, Orbital is so cool. I'm shocked that more people in the US aren't talking about this book.

 

I'll reserve more in depth reviews for a later date. I'm bringing this all up because I've been writing and drawing more sci-fi themed stuff lately. It's a radical departure from what I've done so far. I don't have much to show yet, but it's coming.

 

For now, enjoy this drawing I did of a robot sky-diving:

  

 

 

Just kidding. That is a drawing of my ear doctor's special ear camera/ microscope (sort of like this one). It's cool: she stuck this camera in my ear and I could see what she was seeing on a big monitor on the wall. and you know what, the inside of my ear is disgusting! Anyway, I think it looks like a sky-diving robot.

Also, I have nearly perfect hearing, so I have that going for me.

Finally, There's a new free newspaper coming to town? And the plan to publish comics? (from their website, emphasis is mine):

The Proof is an experiment. What if we had our own newspaper? Could it be free but support itself? Could it increase instead of decrease the space for comics? Could it treat its contributors like human beings? Could it survive without advertorials, junket interviews, content outsourced to robot aggregators, or whatever new awful profit-maximization scheme comes next? In short: could we make the kind of publication we would like to read and then hire ourselves?
 

Hmmm... I wonder if they want to publish a story about a kangaroo based in Chicago?