Who Likes Beer? Or Cheese? Or Both?

I did the art for a thing that's actually timely!  If you happen to be in Arkansas this weekend, you can go eat some cheese with beer at the Bernice Garden, just like that dapper fellow on the poster!  I wonder who drew him?  His handsomeness is surely indicative of the artist's own dashing looks.

Colors and design by Ellen B. Reyes.

In the Game of Watchmen...

...you win or you die, or you end up in some sort of murky middle ground with no solid moral compass to guide your actions from here on out, due to the immensely incomprehensible complexity of the changing world.


I have read the books, seen a little of the show, and went about agonizing (not really) for two days which characters to mash-up, and why.  Silk Spectre as Daenerys was pretty obvious, as in the course of both stories she starts out as merely a girlfriend or wife for a powerful man, arranged mostly for political and military ends, and slowly comes into her own.  Nite Owl could have been either Ned or Tyrion, and I went with Tyrion, for his more active sex life, and his habit of being good at spending money.  Dr. Manhattan could have been no one but Varys.  They're both apparently omnicient. Ozymandias could have been a lot of characters too, especially Lannisters, most of whom seem to be very practiced in the art of scheming.  But when you get down to brass tacks, Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish is the only one whose scheming managed to pretty much ruin EVERYTHING, and unlike most other schemers, he's still on top.  I needed a Ned Stark, and Rorschach fit that bill, mostly because of their unwavering moral code, but also because both end up in multiple pieces at the end of the book.  The Comedian could have been a lot of characters too.  GoT has a lot of morally questionable warriors.  Bronn, Jorah, or Jaime all could have fit the bill, but if you imagine Richard Nixon as Joffrey (not hard) the Hound becomes the clear choice.  They even both have facial scars!

From The Line: It Is Drawn, over at Comic Book Resources.

City Browsing

Wow.  Spending time in the book and comic shops of Chicago and New York this week, I have to say, there sure are a lot of zines out there.

But there aren't too many good ones.

I feel an obligation to fix that.

The 8 People You Meet In Coffee Shops

Here's the mini-comic I created as a promotional mailer.  This was actually made as four separate pieces, individually colored, and designed as a 360 degree view of the local coffee shop the Mud House, where I actually drew the entire thing.  The baristas are based on real people, and many of patrons are...uh...completely made up and not based on anyone, living or dead.  Except for me.  That's me looking quite sickly and with many more apple products than I actually own at the Work Station.

This version is not the print version, because the way mini-comics are made, half of this has to be printed upside down to fold properly.  Here are instructions on how to make your own.

If you want to make one of my coffee shop comics let me know in the comments and I'll e-mail you a high-res printable PDF, or let me know in person.  I may just have a physical copy on me.

Scheduling Conflict

Sometimes you have work.  Sometimes you're overworked.  Sometimes you're so overworked you don't have time to do anything at all.  Not even work.

The Line: It Is Gonzo

From The Line: It Is Drawn.  It’s the great comic book amalgamation of 2013! Pick any two comic book characters and our artists will combine them into an, you know, amalgamation! Just like when DC and Marvel did it in the 1990s (Superman and Captain America became Super Soldier, etc.)
DJStinky suggested:

John Prophet (from the delightfully psychedelic current run) and Spider Jerusalem (delightfully high on psychedelics)

Most of the monsters don’t mean anything, but if you look carefully, the grey one in the foreground is a wig monster from John Dies At The End.

The Line: It Wants to Be Anarchy

BigMike20X6 suggested:

V – ‘Cause I wanna be anarchy…

Never let it be said that  tools don’t matter.  They really do.  I use The Line: It Is Drawn as sort of an experimental leap pad for new techniques and general practice, and I have to say, no brush in my collection besides the Windsor Newton Kolinsky Sable Series 7 #4 could have done the hatching in this piece half as well as it turned out.

A little on the topic: it started out as illustrating a comics character with a song lyric, in this case, from the Sex Pistols.  I thought it was a brilliant match, and decided to add a few more elements to the mix: namely, a political angle and a playing card theme.  They seemed to fit together on paper, so I went with it.  Incidentally, given that the “A” is not the same as an upside-down “V” this does not work as an actual playing card.  Even without the lyrics running down the side, which I almost forgot to put in.  I don’t apologize for the stock art background.  I didn’t think I’d be able to do my planned composition justice in the time before it was due.