I know now why you cry.

Doo do dooo doo do

Oh helllooo,

Me and my pal Emily Carroll did a  thing this week where we each did quick comics based off a 5 page Betty & Veronica comic

Here’s mine:

And here’s Emily’s

Here’s the story we based them off of.  ”Boo hoo Deja vu”

The SunnySide mall reminds me of the food in Repo man.

In panel 2 of my pages the song playing on the radio is Faith no more’s Epic> that I got into after Adam Warren put it in an issue of his Dirty pair.  Thus embedding it into my brain as the coolest thing ever. (because it is)

———————-

Also also I settled into a new apartment closer to sweet sweet RX comics. With my misses a block away in her new place (separate apartments 4 lyfe)

I’ve been getting over a slump, I was going through some mild depression and ended up getting on medication for it.  I was just spending too many days moping around when I really have a blessed life these days- so I assumed it must be chemical.  The medication seems to be a huge help so far, I’ve been more excited about working than I have been in awhile. Somedays are still low but it’s a step.

I was talking to some friends of mine, I dunno if it’s just all humans or a life of being indoor kids but depression seems to be a common thing. hmmmm

also thanks for everyone’s nice nice words on the Eisner nominations. Awards are whatevrrrr but it’s great that people like what me (and the other dudes on Prophet) do.

here’s some recent stuff out of my sketchbooks.

My pal Joseph Bergin III (who colors Prophet) has got some Tshirts he drew for sale. I like this one on the left a lot.

You can get them here. 

And here’s some of Joseph’s colors over Simon and Giannis art for the new Prophet that we just sent off to print #35

Here’s a Simon page of the Empire Prophets fighting to over take the towers of Thauilu-Vah. It’s been fun revisiting the tower after a year.

and a Giannis page of Old man Prophet’s team on Troll’s moon.

That squid thing is the far future version of Supreme’s dog Radar. He wears the cape less these days.

It’s nice having multiple artists in an issue. It speeds up how fast it can get done, I was thrilled with how well Joseph handled the different color styles. I think you can see it well on this page that transitions from the more worked colors on Simon to flats on Giannis.

That issue comes out May 1st.

—————

Here’s some stuff from Megazone 23 part 2. I like this Silverhawks pinball machine the guy is playing. Or SHVERNOWK. with a Thundercats symbol in there too. sure why not.

You can watch it here. 

Here’s some Yoshikazu Yasuhiko drawings I thought were cool.

I like the little Char hiding in Hiro’s jacket. A pocket Char for emergencies.

annnd more Venus wars.

also I like these Cat A log images.  Especially the fat little WADF ship.

On the left here is some post it note balls Mr James Stokoe tried to stick on my head when I fell asleep on his couch. and on the right wearing Colin Upton’s cat tea cozy at a recent Rebecca Dart B day party. fun times. Also I need to shave.

And here’s some T2 manga I found on this internet:

Dooo do do da doo

And Mr Inkstuds just put up some more of my and my misses pages for sale on his site, here

I’ll be back.

Later,

Brandon

Nightmare walking psychopath talkin Covers co-co covers

Hellooo,

Real quick I just wanted to put up the two new Prophet covers I sent off this am.

Helen Maier did this amazing one for #39

 

Annnd my homie and Meathaus bruther, farel dalrymple did this fantastic cover for #40

On my end I’ve mostly been working on getting my Walrus book finished. It’s soooo close. I gotta have it turned in damn soon. I am gonna get back to that now.

Ourly Friday

 

 

 

And sometimes when we touch The honesty’s too much

From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe..

I just got most of another deadline out of the way. Soo my schedule is a mess now, sleeping at noon and waking up late into the evening. 

This week I’m mostly getting my Walrus book together. Here’s the 1st page of it– I drew the neighborhood I live in.

And here’s a photo of the place

Also last night I finished a pin up for Ed Piskor’s Hip hop family tree book. KRS ONEEEEeee

The lower part of that picture I drew him at Denny’s.

“We be hanging out late night at Denny’s
Having conversations about every and any”

You can read Ed’s comics here

And here’s my layouts for Prophet #33 that came out recently: (that’s Simon Roy’s eye) There’s a couple pages in there that Giannis reworked to make more readable.

and he added some Greek writing to the robot lady who splits in two–which is more exciting than the made up languages I usually draw on stuff.

I noticed that I’ve got 2 really similar scenes in both the next Prophet (#34) and Warheads #4 (which will be out next week) 

Here’s the Simon Roy drawn, Joseph Bergin III colored Prophet page. With New father John Prophet naked and catching a knife in his teeth. 

and the same kind of one armed naked guy catching a knife in his teeth scene in Warheads:

I didn’t realize that I’d done it twice until I got the Warheads issues back. I always think it’s funny to have two books with clones going at once. Think of it as a theme month for books I’m on.

Yup, the starts have aligned and now It’s naked-one-armed-dude-catching-knives-in-their-teeth-month.

—————————————————-

Also this week I was rereading Yoshihisa Tagami’s 1986 manga Grey–you can read it online here.

There’s this scene in the first issue where 2 soldiers are waiting for bad dude Grey Death to walk out of the desert.

It reminded me of a similar thing Pope did in his 2000 THB:M3 Mars mightiest Mek

I have no idea if Pope’s even read grey. But I always like seeing how different artists handle the same kinds of scenes:

also this week I got some more cool Warheads drawing by artists whose work I dig.

My pal Emily Carroll did this one: I really like that contrast between Sexica as a pretty lady and Nura as a bad dude-lady.

and this nice one by Dustin Weaver:

—Sexica’s jacket in that one almost reminds me more of something Stokoe would draw in old Wonton book.

annd speaking of Jammess Stokoe . he just did this cover for gentleman Robin Bougie’s Cinema Sewer.

I like the snake looking like it realized that he will be immortalized in that pose–as a Cinema Sewer snake dick “nooooo!!”.

I’ve been reading some cool stuff this week. I’m about half way through Heinlein’s Stranger in a strange land. I always like Heinlein’s books and it’s cool to see him play with alien ways of thinking of things.

I was thinking it would’ve been cool to read about the story of the astronauts first finding the man from Mars on Mars.but then Heinlein would have less of his fun showing how his characters deal with the bureaucracy and other Earth nonsense. He seems to like that stuff,

The cover threw me off, With Valentine Michael Smith looking like a soap opera dude.

Reading it I saw him Somethinnnng more like –

I’m sure I’ve pointed it out before but my all time favorite Heinlein cover is on Friday. 

Also,I read some Lando comics. I got a package of his books that I’m slowly making my way through. Him and Stathis Tsemberlidis at decadence comics are putting out some impressive work.

The book on the left is part of a series all written in an unreadable alien language.

Here’s a scene I like, showing the birth of this alien creature that they launch into a soldiers head:

also, also Stokoe got a friend to pick up this Keita Amemiya book from deepest darkest Asia.

It’s got that nice mix of Japanese and European comics that I like so much.

also it has some games in it. a connect the dots and a cut up image to reassemble. 

annnnd really good monsters:

——–

Annd I’ve been looking at Evan Palmer’s work. Here and here. I like his dogs in robots.

and this nice trick with word balloons:

———-

and here’s a Giant Gorg drawing by YAS

and here’s a topless M(L)isa Hayase

Thank you and good night.

Burg Drachenstein!

Hello,

I’ve managed to get my Deadlines under control this week and take back the night. MW #4 is sent off and Prophet is on schedule (My Walrus sketchbook is taking longer than I planned hmmm) 

Here’s the MW #4 cover if you didn’t see it:

This issue is Snerk sized!– that means I added more pages but but it still costs $2.99.

Here’s a 2 page spread from it that I drew around Xmas. Floating islands. 

This is at the end of the book so I wanted to make sure everything fit. I ended up doing a lot of planning on big butcher paper. Here’s me trying to figure out how to draw the insides of that skull island castle:

The idea for it was like if Skelletor’s Snake Mountain Lair in He-Man was taken over by a gentleman who loved to garden. 

Here’s another butcher page roughed out in sharpie:

and the final–That rock with arms is a garden golem. & all the birds on the island are tied to ropes.

I feel like I’m just getting a good direction going after 4 issues–but I guess that’s also just how I work.

—

In Prophet stuff, I just got this amazing cover by Fil Barlow for issue #37 (#33 will be out soon): I love that line of light in the sky. (and the hidden skull)

I’m so thrilled to be able to connect my work with artist whose work I’m so excited about. 

Fil’s Devinatart: 

–

I’ve been going through a frustration with comics recently, and I never mean the medium just the scene can get to me. Trying to aim high and make ART in the middle of all this action figure bullshit can be rough.”snoot snoot” Here’s a Milo Manara comic called Untitled that I think illustrates it well, where he shows Fellini’s Casanova being interrupted by adult diaper commercials:

Or even:

Twitter is probably bad for me, I’m always trying to remind myself that it’s cool that people like what they like and rather than paying attention to whatever Xmen bullshit is going on I can aim my focus towards the parts of comics that excite me. Part of it is just that by working with Image or anything verging on a wider audience I’m in an end of the pool that I never identified with. But I’m here now and I’m lucky to be here so I might as well take what I like from it and try not to take what I don’t. cool? cool.

I found this Cornel West video really grounding, it helped me feel sane. I really like how he talks about not trying for wholeness and the part 11 minutes in where he says “when you have a romantic project, you’re so obsessed with time as a loss and time as a taker”– but how he sees “time as a gift and time as a giver” and gratitude that you’re able to do as much as you do. –Smart dude. Hearing that, helps me deal with things. 

–

One thing I was thinking about recently is about how people seem to perceive the speed artists draw comics vs my own ideas of how they work. I saw someone commenting on a Nate “non player”Simpson thread awhile back saying something like “he’s so good I’d be willing to wait 2 months for each issue” –maybe it’s just my own putting people in boxes but I feel like there’s a couple basic types of cartoonists (obviously with many exceptions):

Like Nate or Rafael Grampa– are the kind of artists who you can expect maybeeee a book a year from. at best.

And then there’s the 3 books a year guys, I think I’m a 3 issues a year guy who fights to be a 6 issues a year guy. and I end up around like 4 or 5. Other guys like me would be my pal Farel,or maybe Frank Quitely.

and then slightly faster guys like Simon Roy or Stokoe. Who can do maybe more like 6 to 8 books a year.

and then the fast guys- Giannis, Moritat, Ross Campbell or Erik Larsen. who are the unicorns who can maintain a monthly. .

I think my point here is that none of this is about quality, but just knowing the speed that someone works best at. and it seems strange how many books run 12 issues a year when so few artists can match that. I think it’d be nice to see more books run in seasons and switch up artists less (of maybe figure out some scam like we’re pulling on Prophet) 

Annnyywayy I’ve been slowly reading Nausicca.

I read some Nausicca in the 80′s when it was first translated by Viz and I liked it but at the time it never clicked with me as well as the other manga I was reading. But reading it now I’m getting so much out of it–it’s teaching me stuff.

One thing I like is how his storytelling feels so unique to him, I’d want to say it’s like storyboards but it’s better than just that. A lot of comics feel like tv shows or movies when you read them but this feels like it’s own thing. It’s a comic.

It’s interesting to me what he chooses to show, like at the start of book 1 where Nausicca first casually lands. He skips showing her actually land:

and then later in that scene when she’s in a hurry to take off, he shows it with a lot more panels: “1, 2, 3″ 

It’s a cool stylistic choice, you’d think with her being in a hurry he’d want to show it in less panels.Like this—-

Another cool thing is this scene where Princess Kushana cuts Nausicaa’s sword in two. I like how he drew it so you never get a clear look at Kushana’s sword. and how the sound effect cuts across Nausicaa’s face. “Kiiin”

Also, a trick he does in the writing that I like, is how he uses the dialog to emphasize how impressive or important something is. “something special about her” or “the finest swordsman”

it seems to help underline a character’s impact. There’s scenes where Nausicaa will do something cool that might not hit you so hard but then just how he shows the other characters flip out makes it seem so much more “she’s amazing!”

It’s like an argument for — showing and telling. 

—-

I wanted to put up some of the cool MW drawings by other artists I’ve seen. 

Emma Rios drawing Nura:

Emily Carroll drawing Nik and Sexica–

Mmmmmike mcghee drawing Nura & Nik:

Lin Visel Sex&Nik:

annnnd Brahm Revel drawing Nura

and here’s a Brandon Williams Dirty pair drawing he sent me for my B day:

and here’s an Asterix map:

 

later.

pagesss

Hello,

My pal Robin just put up some more of my pages for sale on his site.

Hereee:

http://www.mcconnellart.com/category/brandon-graham/

Here’s a King city and Thickness page.

You can see on the Thickness page how I was trying to figure out how to draw Kei taking her pants down.

And here’s how that page looked finished:

Aight, I’ve gotta do the final 2 pages of MW #4 this week. sooo closeee

Mean see level

Helloooo

I’ve gone off to my inlaws secluded island cabin to finish up the final pages of Multiple Warheads #4, while I watch my dear sweet Marian play video games (zelda/Yoshi’s island) and stumble out every so often to eat something christmasy.–Santa tastes like fruitcake.

I’ve been listening to lots of Rhymefest and these Quiet please radio shows from the 40′s that you can hear here: http://www.quietplease.org/

The nice people at Image asked me to make their helladay card this year. Here’s the front of it:

And the inside:

Getty up.

It’s been a nice year for me. Let’s check the caring meter:

It’s cool Funshine bear, don’t look so stressed.

ok, somewhere between A Salt with a deadly Pepa and the American Robotech Defenders. The caring manual lists that as–”Stone cold lampin.”

ok cool.

Oh also, me and Joseph Bergin III (serious dude who colors Prophet –also draws writes & tattoos) were talking about making some PROPHET FAQ’s in the style of these Death FAQ he did. (so please ask some questions here or twitter or wherever and we’ll have Troll or some power crazy Earth Empire brain mother answer them)

 

Here’s another care bear picture I like– I can only assume that the star Tenderheart is holding over Grumpy bear is like mistletoe for making someone sing. The Grumpy bear I know used to give a fuck, during Xmas could give a fuck less.

 

anyway–