Kurdles Website and Reviews

The Kurdles has a website!  It's at www.kurdles.com.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

The books has also been getting some reviews and so far, they've been positive.  After the time spent on this book, that's a big relief.  Here's a list of some of them.

Publisher's Weekly
Vermicious
Now Read This!
Under the Radar
Adventures in Poor Taste

There's also a Facebook fan page.

And some wood postcards available at Birdcage Bottome Books.

Oh yeah, for my last trick of entering the 21st century, I'm on Instagram as "nidoog". 

Now if I could just find time to update my personal website.

Release Party / Art Show

     After many years of hard work, my book, The Kurdles finally makes its way out into the world with an art show / signing / release party on Friday, April 3 at Secret Headquarters at 7 pm.  The show will stay up for about a month.  Come by and say hello.

The Kurdles

Over the past couple of years I've been hard at work on an all ages graphic novel called the Kurdles.  The story is roughed out and I've just begun the process of doing the final inking and coloring.  Here's a small preview of the roughs that will hopefully be confusing and won't reveal too much about the story.  Above is a one pager that is the first thing to get colored.  There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth on how to color it and I've settled on watercoloring it directly over the inks.

A Mystery

The mystery begins with this cover by Charles Burns. The girl on the top half just weirded me out with her long pliable arm and shoulder that appears broken and brought in towards her chest. I'm amazed at how Burns can continue to disturb me by just making a few things seem a bit off.



Then I came across this page. It was an original drawing from a coloring book that I saw on Ebay. Aha! I thought. He must have had this coloring book as a kid and that image stuck in his brain. Perhaps the shoulder in this drawing always bothered him and he accentuated it in his version. I sort of marveled at the odds of finding this source for his cover and didn't think much else about it.

Until I came across this:



This panel is from an issue of Supergirl that I came across on the web a few weeks ago. I think it's the first comic with Comet her super horse, but I don't know the issue. Was this the image that Burns was taking from instead of the coloring book? Are there more of these out there that I'm not familiar with? It's such a weird, unnatural pose. Strange.

A Great Christmas Present

I got a great Christmas present last night from my wife, Georgene. She knitted me a stocking based on the one in the "covered" Andy Panda cover I did for our Christmas card last year. It's even complete with a hole at the bottom of it (although it's secretly patched). Now I just need the basket and a Batchelder fireplace.

Black Eye

I just got my contributor copy of Black Eye in the mail today. It's a black humor anthology that I did a 2 page story in called, How I Would Survive the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse. Since the story is so short, I can't show too much of it, but here are a couple of panels.



The book has a great line-up of artists who contributed. You can read more about it here. You can also read about a Canadian customs agent confiscating it here.

Below are my two dogs, Idget (left) and Toaster (right). Both are notorious for eating disgusting things.

A Color Test

I've been working on a graphic novel for kids (but hopefully adults will like it too) and color was a big issue for me. My drawing tends to be pretty organic and computer coloring didn't feel quite right. That led me to painting it with water color. The danger there is getting too involved with painting and rendering every leaf on a tree. I think if I can keep it simple, it might work.

Monsters Project

I've got a painting for sale as a part of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's Monster Project fundraiser on Ebay. It's opening bid is only 30 bucks and the frame cost more than that. The image that they have appears to be a photo taken while the painting was in the frame. The one above is a lot closer to what the real thing looks for. Be sure to check their other auctions. There are lots of good art there and the money goes to a very good cause.

Breasts in Japan

The Man who Loved Breasts has been translated into Japanese and is available as a digital download through Toge no Jizo. The download includes everything that was in the english print version which include the title story, George Olavatia: Amputee Fetishist, A 21st Century Cartoonist in King Arthur's Court, as well as end pages. It's basically the exact same 32 page comic, but in Japanese and as a pdf or ePub file. It costs 150 yen, which is roughly a $1.80. It's bound to be one of the stranger things on your Ipad.

Toge no Jizo is in it's early stages of translating comics into Japanese, but you can also download the work of Dutch artist Erik Kriek. Go ahead and bookmark their page to check out what may be next.

I'm having a hard time getting over how cool it is to see one of my comics translated into Japanese.

Gomorrah

This weekend The Criterion Collection curated a film festival for this year's All Tomorrow's Parties in New York. Comic artists were asked to create posters for the different movies and I did the one above for Gomorrah. Criterion art director Eric Skillman did the finishing touches to make it look like an old Gold Key comic.