this is the first panel of a one-page gag strip i’m running in my friend morgan’s comic zine, presented here in colour. the comic was all drawn and lettered by hand on vellum or tracing paper, though i did the balloons, assembly, and colour digitally. i plan to build a lightbox this term, since i use tracing to tighten up my linework pretty frequently. for the less nerdy among us, from l-r: a random rodian, figrin d’an and the modal nodes (the mos eisley cantina band), ponda baba and dr. evazan (although he looks more like chalmun from that side). and baba is aqualish, but i had to take a dig at his walrus butt face.

work is coming along gradually. trying to keep myself busy while i don’t have class in session.

finishing up some of my final final projects. in about a week there will be a lot more prints and artworks documented here. the main impetus for this post was to comment quickly on the subject of community. i participated in my first print exchange, having been previously very reticent to show work or contribute to projects like that. it was a wonderful first experience and i’m very grateful to the people who made it happen. almost out of the woods now.

i also began a micro-performance today, fs: teenage mutant ninja turtles action figures, priced by sentimental value, which can be found here. i anticipate that someone will flag it or respond to it — anything but the senescence of eventual expiration will be documented on this blog.

it’s a 3D work i made using screenprint, including water-soluble crayon monoprinting, reproducing an actual-size litho stone and roller. i wanted to use a naive aesthetic, because the medium makes me feel like a child.. crayons seemed appropriate. i’ve done lithography before and since, but failing to fully understand the science behind it makes it a little mystifying and alienating. it’s made out of paper and whatever support materials i could get to work (a styrofoam dowel, plastic container lids). here’s a detail of the text:

it should be noted that the antagonist of the text is not a real person. lithographers are some of the nicest people i’ve ever met.

full text:

HEY, DUMMY. WHAT’S THE MATTER? TOO STUPID TO TELL ACETIC FROM NITRIC? ARE YOUR PUNY ARMS TOO WEAK TO GRAIN, WUSSY? WHAT A WIMP. YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE. THEY ALL KNOW THAT IT’S TRUE: YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR LITHO.

another experimental work i did this year was a site-specific piece for OCAD’s yellow stairwell. the only real guideline was that it needed to be a print medium. i took it as an opportunity to try something out. the piece was, ultimately, a failure, but the process was interesting.

the image is a borrowed jack kirby panel from one of the first issues of fantastic four. first i laid down a rectangular substrate of gesso, hoping to work on a less saturated area than the yellow of the walls. i applied what was supposed to be an aged newsprint colour (it turned out a little pink) of acrylic screen ink. the colour areas (the C, M, Y, and K) were prepared as hand-cut vellum stencils. i attempted to mimic the look of offset printing by pushing my ink through a coarse wire frame with a sponge. the colours were applied using period-correct screen angles, by rotating the screen mesh with a protractor.

the end result was too saturated, and too uneven. my ink was too opaque for the amount of colour that made it through the screen. it did, however, produce interesting shapes and patterns, as seen in this detail. there was a chunk missing out of the wall, which created an unsightly and undesired big black blob. while it was an unwelcome addition to the piece, using an uneven surface, one that resists uniform applications of ink, or has hidden recesses and texture, is a tool i’d like to consciously revisit later.

i’m in a very inspiring class at school called text & image, taught by the inimitable shannon gerard. she’s just started a class blog for myself and my classmates, which will be posted there as a sort of retrospective of our work. just a few things have been posted so far, including my friend natalie’s incredible interactive print-sculptures (above), one of which adorns my mantle, and a wonderful song by my friend kyle.

check it out at http://thismachinekillsfashionistas.tumblr.com!

so here are a few pieces that i’ve finished in the last two semesters, in my second third year of OCAD print.a juggernaut of regression. 8×10″ digital print.

self-portrait w/ problems. approx 3×4″ three colour mini-screenprint on aged newsprint. enlarged to show detail.

numero uno. staged photo w/ screenprinted t-shirts, photography by kaelan.

pardon the bad cell phone photos of these next things.

big naturals. three-colour reduction linocut.

decision-making machine. black monoprint w/ watercolour & pen. rolled dice to determine numbers.

you can’t put anti-gravity discs on friends you don’t have. 11×17″ three-colour screenprint.

mother box. 18×24″ digital print, with collaged spreads from jack kirby’s mister miracle.

this is just a sampling.. there are more works that haven’t been photographed (some are 3D) and i’ll be sure to share them when i’m in the position to do so.

it’s called archaeology. would it be too pretentious to italicize that? click through for less fuzzy, less tiny versions.

and i drew a doodle of man-thing tonight while watching tv, after ploog or whoever did the marvel encyclopedia entry. fountain pen, sharpie, photoscharp.

this is half of what’s probably going to be a diptych. just thinking about presentation and choosing a second image. this was recreated by blowing up a scan of the issue (tomb of dracula, vol. 1, #3), tracing it with a sharpie, re-scanning, and digitally colouring it, using my four-colour palette. something else that didn’t get mentioned yet in this or the previous entry is that i’ve been reading a lot about colour printing processes in comics, and their role in the assembly line system, and i find the separation process very fascinating. recently, david brothers at comics alliance picked dave stewart’s brain about colouring, and the article linked to a great frank santoro article on steve oliff.. and i love hand-lettering. i find colouring and hand-lettering really rewarding.. when i had the opportunity to talk to jim rugg at TCAF this year, he said something to the same effect. it’s part of the love of the package.

incidentally, this series is brutal as all-get-out.

my nanopublishing class (this was months ago now) put on a small show at a secondhand boutique called 69 vintage. i designed patterns for 3D letters to be used as decorations, in collaboration with andrew bailey (bitmap patterns) and jim brannen (printing&colour), which were assembled by myself and samantha ross.

i’ve been doing a lot of reading.. i’ve realized that OCAD and TPL will let you take out, like, enormous stacks of books, and i’ve just been ploughing through. what have i been reading, you ask? taxonomies of reptiles, histories & analyses of underground and overground comics, essays on narcissism, cruelty, war, & ethnic conflict, bronze-age exploitation comics (lots of tomb of dracula and man-thing.. “for school”), alternative/literary comics of varying degrees of quality, my first foray into canonical or well-recommended bandes-dessinées & manga.. and some of my first 2000AD.
a lot of people are rocking my world right now, which is difficult, because it inspires me more to create, and mortifies me at the disparity in quality. hopefully i’ll have some new work to put up soon.