SPQR Blues Chapter IV: Last Days

Eisner Awards: My friends are AWESOME

klio — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:32:15 +0000

The 2012 Eisner Award nominations are chock full of great books by great people, including lots of friends—including:

Best Publication for Kids (ages 8-12): The Ferret’s a Foot by Colleen AF Venable and Stephanie Yue (omigosh this series is so cute and funny why aren’t there cuddly toys and an animated series yet??)

Best Digital Comic: Outfoxed, by Dylan Meconis (omigosh this comic is so amazing and so is Dylan and look at this nifty gift art from her)

Best Archival Collection/Project – Strips: Tarpé Mills’s Miss Fury Sensational Sundays, ed. by Trina Robbins (Omigosh Trina is a legend, and I’m thrilled to get to work with her on several books for kids)

Publishing professionals, comic book store retailers, and creative artists are eligible to cast votes in the many different categories.

Good luck to Trina, Stephanie, Colleen, and Dylan! I hope some of their coolness rubs off on me!

P.S.: The sidebar sponsors look very cool today. You should click!

I have a shop?

klio — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:51:01 +0000

I forgot this existed.

Given my apparent complete inability to mail things out promptly, I wonder if there’s some similar online shop service I could use for the buttons and mirrors. Hmm…

IFJM page of the day

klio — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:43:18 +0000

So, I thought I’d try out International Fake Journal Month, to go along with the 796-page magnum opus romance novel to be completed this week…

Sketch-of-the-day: an exciting new project

klio — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:44:01 +0000

click for embiggishness

Your humble artist fell off the thrice-weekly schedule, and even the sketch-of-the-day updates, because of intense work on a new Great Big Project. All those pages and character designs from Big Project have to be put to some sort of use, and it’s such an easy step from the genteel plantations of the south to the humid jungles of South America—just add more water and alligators and/or crocodiles. So those pages are being recycled into a completely genteel story about a young lady explorer of the alternate-steampunk 19th century travelling through monster-infested swampland who encounters a hidden tribe of love-starved octopus-men, as one does. True romance ensues.

Click on the image to see a mock-up of the back cover, with descriptive copy, proposed illustration, content warning, Surgeon General’s notice, and an octopus in a squid suit.

The book will be 796 pages with a print size of 1-1/2×2 inches, and the word balloons will only be readable through a jeweller’s loupe. Please be sure to donate to production costs on Kickstarter, where the target goal is $300,000, so that I can get this finished in a week or so and get back to the Romans after the holidays.

Chapter IV: CCXIII

klio — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 03:32:00 +0000

By popular request (well, a couple of requests), a close up on that coin Felix keeps on his personal altar.

Actually, that’s not very close up now that I see it on screen. Hmm.

Sketch of the day: Leonardo da Vinci and I go way back

klio — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:39:43 +0000

click for embiggening

Chapter IV: CCXII

klio — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 06:13:51 +0000

Not completely inked, but I wanted to get it posted. Check back tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to see it finished. UPDATE: Some of the backgrounds and shading aren’t completely as I’d want them, but it’s pretty much inked now.

Oddly, the scanner is working much better after I dropped it three times onto hard concrete while transporting it in a rolly-suitcase.

Chapter IV: CCXI

klio — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 04:01:00 +0000

I’m not as happy with this art as I’d like to be…but, let us carry on!

Sketch of the day: itty bitty portraits and Nordic hippies

klio — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:59:33 +0000

I’m losing track of which pieces from the Big Project I’ve already posted. These were some tiny drawings from old photographs that eventually became part of the proposal for the project. Since I don’t have my scanner set up yet tonight, I’m poking around through some old scans for a sketch of the day. Blast from the past! Or something! (Why are there blank boxes? Don’t ask….)

And then there’s this thing. I belong to a writing group, and occasionally I run out of words and scribble a scene instead. But it’s an opportunity to draw Nordic guys with long hair, which doesn’t come up a lot in Herculaneum.

Chapter IV: CCX – Beware…you know the drill

klio — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:01:00 +0000