Lives in: Cambridge, Mass.
Does: comics.
Used to live in: Topanga Canyon, California
But grew up in: Cambridge, mostly
Used to do (maybe still?): Screenwriter, journalist, teaches some too
For nearly 10 years now (!) I’ve been drawing illustrations for Sage Knight’s “Living Well” column in the Topanga Messenger. Â I just finished one for Sage’s latest, on the theme of “Spring Cleaning.” Â I had forgotten (maybe Sage did t00) that there was a piece on the same theme back in 2010. Â Totally different articles, of course, but I thought it was fun to compare the two illustrations.
Old one first, new one below:
The first panel from page 9 of Hooves of Death.  I drew this three times.  I’m getting into a pattern of allowing myself one re-drawn panel per page.
Maybe the first version shouldn’t “count,” because I just abandoned the entire pass at the page, for reasons not particularly to do with this panel. So I never really finished inking it:
So this was my first “final,” finished version:
I felt that this panel was the weakest on the page for a couple of reasons.  I had totally overdone the shading with all those lines… muddied up the panel and the page. It doesn’t look too bad out of context, but when reduced, it really just turns into a gray mess (I’m drawing this story Golden Age-style, “twice-up.”  In other words, it will be reduced by 50% when printed.
Also, the pose of the central figure was not satisfactory. Â So…
Altogether cleaner with simple black and white shading, and by moving the woman to a side view I could call better attention to the baby in her arms.  I made the guy eating his hat larger, and placed the crawling better so I didn’t have to crop him.  I  had to lose some of the background figures… but a stronger read, I HOPE, especially when it’s reduced.
Studies from Golden Age comics, and sketches for figures on page 9 of “Hooves of Death,” comic I’m drawing from a script by Troy Minkowsky. Â 
I just drew the same panel — page 8, panel 5 — four times. Â 
Version 1, in the original page. Â I got feedback that it looked like the horse was crushing his feet, and I didn’t like the falling figure much, and I thought I could do better on the horse. 
Version 2 (aborted). I can’t remember what I didn’t like about this one, actually.  Maybe the fact that the horse looks like a large sausage,  not enough detail in the reflections off the fur.  Oh also I think the guy is too big relative to the horse? 
Version 3… Everything better, except the way I changed the position of the horse (in order to make it bigger), making the panel less dynamic. Now the horse looks stiff and even more sausage-y. Â Also, still relative size problems. Â Either a very large man or a pony, not a horse.
OK.  The figure was probably better in 2 and 3, but overall the best, I think. Composition works… I think my best horse, and put more care into the background details as well. Oh, well, time to move on…  wait, actually… I think there should be heavier shadows on the guy’s right leg…
Five years ago, there was this project going to happen… an anthology of stories based on Golden Age heroes in the public domain. Â Troy Minkowsky wrote a crazy script about an obscure Nedor character called “The Ghost,” and I started drawing it. Â Then the book project fell apart**, and I got busy on other things and left it half-drawn. Â Well, the time has come to finish it, and I’m at work. Â Here are the five pages I drew back in ’10. Â The new ones coming soon….
(**CORRECTION!  My mistake, the book WAS published… Dime Box Comics from Fat Cat Funnies.  So we’re just running about 5 years late on the deadline.  I’m sure they’ll still be able to squeeze us in.)
Lots of great comic art in this show at the MICE space at Lesley. Including the originals for the first three pages of my Sagittarius story from What’s Your Sign, Girl?:
Starting this evening  (Sunday at 5:30, then again on Tuesday night at 10), the first episode of “The Drawing Board” will air on Cambridge Community Television. Â
Of course, only in Cambridge can you see this show on cable TV, but fear not: the show can be seen on Vimeo as well.
In upcoming episodes you can see more cartoonists, like Joel Gill, Mehitabel Glenhaber, EJ Barnes, Zach Giallongo, Roho, Olivia Li, L. J-Baptiste, Cara Bean, Caroline Hu and Donna Martinez.
The to-read pile looms – graphic novels, anthologies, mini-comics, floppies, journals  — there’s a couch under it somewhere, if I remember correctly.  I must climb this mountain one comic at a time…
Last month, I read comics by Marnie Galloway, Adrian Tomine, Heide Solbrig, Ben Doane/Olivia Li/ Jamie Koh, Catalina Rufin, M.R. Trower, Kelly Froh and Max Clotfelter, Max de Radigues, Keiler Roberts, and the Kimball Anderson-edited anthology “Inaction Comics.”
My entry in the upcoming Boston Comics Roundtable urban-fantasy-in-Boston anthology SPELLBOUND (available for preorder now). The book will debut at Boston Comic Con.
Yesterday I drew illustrations for three poems that will appear in the Topanga Messenger. I feel like they work together this way, as a page.
