Thumbnail Illustrations

For a few years I did a number of projects for the now, sadly, defunct Shaman Drum bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The work ranged from small in-store displays, larger window displays, an enormous installation for the children's section and some images for their website.

The images shown here were all done as illustrations for the website, meant to symbolize various categories of books being sold. The images were also designed to be viewed at a small thumbnail size of less than an inch in height, which is how they appeared in their header locations on the category settings.

The actual pieces weren't much bigger. Most were less than five inches in height. The visual components had to be simple and easy to read at such a small scale and also to visually encapsulate what they represented. I also tried to stay away from obvious clichés.

Since Shaman Drum is no longer with us and their website is now simply an announcement of closure, I've decided to post the images I created here, in an easier to view size. Click each image to enlarge. Keep in mind these were meant to be viewed much, much smaller.

The image at the top of this post was for "cultural studies."

                                                                       "Business"

 I think this one served double duty on "cookbooks" and "wellness."

"Environment and Science"

"Literature"

"Michigan and the Great Lakes"

"Language"

"Classical Studies"

"World Studies"

There were other categories that I never got to such as "History," "Philosophy" and "Poetry." There were some that were made for categories that ended up being dropped, and one other that I completed for "education," that I can't find the image for.

To see some of the other work I did for Shaman Drum, including the unused images for the dropped categories, look here and here.

In Comic Book Stores Today

THE WEB #7 is available in comic book stores today. In the co-feature, THE HANGMAN has an action packed rematch with the Ugly Man that puts the Hangman's secret identity at risk of exposure, and leads to a mysterious encounter that will shape his future for all time. Tom Derenick and Bill Sienkewicz with Guy Major and Travis Lanham provide the visuals. 

The main feature is brought to you by Matthew Sturges, Roger Robinson, Guy Major and Travis Lanham. 

What I'm Writing Now

I'm working on a lengthy article about one of my favorite places.

Monsters on the Horizon

In something of a dream come true for me, here are some of the characters I loved as a kid that I'll be bringing to Saturday morning television.

Fess Parker 1924-2010

Fess Parker, who starred as Disney phenomenon Davy Crockett  as well as the other coonskin hat wearing frontiersman, Daniel Boone, has died of natural causes at the age of 85. After a long career as an actor, he went on to run two winery resorts in California.

Edison Frankenstein Turns 100

 

Today, 100 years ago, Edison's Frankenstein movie was released. Short, and stagey, the film does feature some inventive moments.  In particular, the monster's creation scene, filmed in reverse, which depicts matter attaching itself to a skeleton until his anatomy becomes fully realized is a real treat.

Frankensteinia has been running a great series of informative articles on this film all week long.

You can watch it here.

It's Rondo Time Again

I've been remiss in mentioning this, but there's still plenty of time to vote. The nominees for the 8th Annual Rondo Hatton awards celebrating classic horror cinema are now up at the official website. There's no need to vote in all categories, but if you're a fan of classic horror, there's bound to be something you'll want to chime in on.

There are also some write in categories. If you're stumped for who to vote for for best artist, here are a month's worth of cut paper collage portraits of classic movie monsters to consider.

Voting ends April 3, 2010.

vote here

Alice in Wonderland

This weekend, my daughter and I went to see Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland." My daughter, who is eleven, and well read for her age and very bright really liked the movie, though she had some points to quibble about.  I, on the other hand, found myself underwhelmed by this rather lackluster movie. I've been a fan of Tim Burton's since I saw "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" when it first came about. We have an overlapping sensibility which is probably what draw me to his work. I've found something to enjoy in all of his movies except "Planet of the Apes," and while I admire the design of "The Nightmare Before Christmas," I find the film itself unengaging. 

I had a similar problem with "Alice in Wonderland." As I'm sure you know by now AIW is not a straight adaptation of the beloved books by Lewis Carroll, but is actually a sequel in which a 19-year old Alice finds herself back in Wonderland in order to save it from the Red Queen. What you may not know is that there is   absolutely no reason for this change. Not only does Alice not remember ever having been to Wonderland in the first place, but once she arrives, she essentially follows the same steps that Alice does in the Carroll story; she follows the White Rabbit down the whole, she drinks and gets small, forgets the key, then has to eat to get big, she meets the caterpillar who asks her who she is, she meets the Cheshire Cat, she attends the not so mad tea party, and so on. The only real reason to change course from the genuine Alice story is so that Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter can appear in more than just one scene and so that Alice can fight the Jabberwocky at the end of the movie. So storywise, and characterwise, everything is really dulled down and unengaging. Over familiaririty to the story could partially be blamed, but I think its more that there's a lack of enthusiasm for the story or characters on the part of everyone involved in making this movie. 

What about just watching it for the eye candy? I thought I'd at least get that from this film, but even that was lacking. When Alice emerges into Wonderland, it's meant to evoke Dorothy stepping out into technicolor Oz, but visually, even with the 3-D which never makes you feel as if you are in an immersive environment, there are none of the "ahs" you get from Oz. The design feels incredibly lazy. 

Visually I liked 2 moments in the entire movie: the scene where the Red Queen is questioning the frog footmen (with the fish moving alongside of her) and the extremely brief scene of the White Queen outside of her castle with her people where everything was in pale white and pink with some black and grey. I also found Mia Wasikowska to be quite beautiful in a pre-Raphaelite Gwyneth Paltrow manner. Mainly though, I found myself longing for the days before CGI when people had to actually make things. This is mainly because the CGI, which dominates the film to the extent that you wonder why it wasn't just completely animated, is pretty unconvincing. Pixar movies are not meant to look "real" but they look far more real than anything here.

There's a real lack of imagination apparent, and everything feels randomly crowded together as if to give the illusion of a well rendered, well thought out fantastical environment without actually having to provide one. The composition of the lands is really poor. My daughter made an observation I shared that she made right from the first moments of the movie. It feels just like every other Tim Burton movie, the familiar Danny Elfman music, the same curly trees, etc. Witness the posters below. 

I think we all know what to expect visually from a Tim Burton movie, but usually it feels really fresh. AIW felt like a Tim Burton's greatest hits package, as if Disney demanded these things be included and reined him in to fit their vision of what a Tim Burton Disney movie should look like. It's as if Disney, not content with the girl princess audience that they dominate (and unable to catch that elusive boy audience) has decided to try and secure the girl audience who's not into princesses but likes edgier fare; watered down edgier fare like "Twilight." The whole movie feels lifeless and like no one's heart is in it. I have a real love/hate relationship with the Disney empire. I admire it's creative aspirations and achievements immensely, but loathe its corporate nature in it's crass commercialization and money grabbing nature, and that is mostly what I felt watching this movie.  I had the same feelings of animosity that I have whenever I see a trailer for one of their cheap straight to video sequels such as "Cinderella 3" at the beginning of one of their videos/DVDs and the voice over announcer declares it as "a timeless classic" when clearly it's not. Watching AIW I felt like I was watching a thinly disguised ad for their theme parks, with the less than subliminal design element of the two queen's castles. 

Coincidence of design? I doubt it. Whenever one of the castles appeared I thought about being on Main Street USA and if I went straight through I'd be in Fantasyland. If I took a right I'd be in Tomorrowland, and so on. 

I understand why people are constantly attracted to the Alice books as something to make into a movie, but reading them, it's easy to see why it's so difficult to do so. Every cinematic and television adaptation fails in someway, but this version doesn't even seem like anyone was trying hard to do it right. 

If you want to watch a version of "Alice" which will feel rewarding, I recommend "Alice" by Jan Svankmajer. 

The Milestone Years - A Look Back

Evan Narcisse has written a nice reminiscence of Milestone Media here. Milestone was the publishing company that expanded the cultural diversity of the characters that occupied its shared universe, and in the process told some of the best stories being told in comics. It was at Milestone that I wrote XOMBI, KOBALT, and for a brief time, HARDWARE. This was a period I look back on with nothing but fondness.

BRAVE AND THE BOLD: MILESTONE review

Tony Isabella has given BRAVE AND THE BOLD: MILESTONE a really nice review, and had some particularly kind words to say about my contributions to this trade paperback collection of the recent meeting of DC and Milestone characters in "Brave and the Bold" as well as classic Milestone stories.

You can read the review here:

http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony/back20100304.shtml

Mighty Crusaders Annual Creators Speak

Vaneta Rogers recently interviewed Brandon Jerwa, Eric Trautmann, Matthew Sturges and myself on the forthcoming MIGHTY CRUSADERS Annual from DC Comics illustrated by Javi Pina, which teams up the Web, Inferno, the Shield, the Hangman and others in an exciting story full of intrigue, action, and more DC villains than you can shake a stick at.

You can read the interview here .

In Comic Book Stores Today

In CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #47, the Saturdays investigate the Thetis Lake Monster in a story I wrote with Scott Jeralds contributing the artwork. The cover is by "Secret Saturdays" creator Jay Stephens. There's also a second Secret Saturdays story I had nothing to do with.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Today is Dr. Seuss' birthday, worthy of celebrating for so many reasons including his transformation of the children's literary world from one of stodgy lesson stories, to a a fantastical landscape of fanciful excitement and stories that kids were actually interested in listening too. He has been a major influence on me, and at one point I did have a complete library of his work, though many volumes have been incorporated into my own kids libraries, where they now reside in less than pristine condition, which is how it should be.

In Comic Book Stores Today

Written by Matthew Sturges; Co-feature written by John Rozum; Art by Roger Robinson and Hilary Barta; co-feature art by Tom Derenick and Bill Sienkiewicz; Cover by Stanley "Artgerm" Lau

Matthew Sturges (JSA ALL-STARS, JACK OF FABLES) comes aboard to spin the tales of the Web! Plus, the Hangman's limitations are about to be tested by the crime lord known as Dead Hand Legendre!
DC Universe 40pg. Color $3.99 US

In Comic Book Stores Today

I have two items that go on sale today. First up is the BRAVE AND THE BOLD: MILESTONE trade paperback collection. The book collects the three issues of "Brave and the Bold" (published by DC Comics) that came out last summer featuring team-ups of DC characters and Milestone characters as a means which was supposed to integrate the Milestone Universe into the DC Universe. Apparently only Static was welcome to stay.

These three stories featured Static and Black Lightning by Matt Wayne, Howard Potter, Tom Chu and Rob Leigh; Hardware and the new Blue Beetle by Adam Beechen, Roger Robinson, Hilary Barta, Tom Chu and Rob Leigh; and Xombi and the Spectre by me, Scott Hampton, Daniel Vozzo and Rob Leigh.

Filling out the volume are exceptional stories featuring the Milestone characters as they appeared in comics published by MIlestone about fifteen years ago. There's a Static story by Kurt Busiek, Neil Vokes, Prentiss Rollins & Bobby Rae, and exceptional colorists J. Scott J, David Montoya, John Cebollero & Andrew Burrell, and Joseph Daniello handling the letters; a Hardware story by Milestone founders Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan, along with Prentis Rollins, J. Scott J and Steve Dutro; and what everyone tells me is still the best thing I've ever written, the story from Xombi #6 with art by J.J. Birch, Noelle Giddings & Andrew Burrell and Agnes Pinaha. There's also a bonus Hardware piece by Denys Cowan, Jimmy Palmiotti and Noelel Giddings. It retails for $17.99 and sales of this will help determine how many future collections of Milestone material will be published by DC, including, hopefully, my run of Xombi.





















Also available today is SCOOBY-DOO #153 which features a story I wrote with Matt I. Jenkins handling the drawing, Rob Clark, Jr. on lettering and Heroic Age on colors. This story should appeal kids and listeners of NPR alike as the Mystery Inc. gang comes to the aid of a thinly disguised pair of brothers who host a popular car repair radio show. SCOOBY-DOO is also published by DC Comics.

A Monkey Could Do It

People tend to pooh-pooh me when I tell them that my cut paper collages are really easy enough that a monkey can do them, and now here's the proof. Here is the entire step by step process I went through to make a 3-D cut paper collage for my daughter's birthday. I don't know the exact amount of time it took to complete. I constructed it over three nights, working variable amounts of time at each step, and taking a few breaks. The total time was probably between six and nine hours.


















I knew what I was going to do for the collage and didn't really make a preliminary sketch. Instead I made a series of very rough thumbnails which broke the 3-D construction down layer by layer. The centimeter marks were the depths that the layers would be laid at beginning from the bottom most background layer.















Here is the flat far background base layer of the collage. The rough jagged section of the lightest green element on the left side as well as the join area were left unrefined as I knew that these portions of the background would be covered up by scucceeding levels placed over it.















This is the reverse side of the next layer; the one that would sit about half a centimeter above the background. To achieve this elevation I covered the back with risers of that depth. These were essentially cut from scrap bits or card stock folded in three sections; one to attach to the background, one to attach to the piece itself, and one raise it to its required depth.













Here's a slightly better look at the paper risers.















Glue was then applied to the risers and this layer was glued in place to the background.















The same thing was done to the next layer. The only difference was that some of the risers needed to be compensated so that the entire level was raised to the same height. The portions of the trees which rose above the underlayer needed to be raised the full one centimeter from the background layer, while the portions, such as the grass were only raised half a centimeter above the underlying layer.














Again, here are what the risers look like.















The horses were all made first. I always start with the construction of the figures before I do the backgrounds. I didn't do much in the way of sketching here. I looked at photographs of running horses and mentally broke them down into a simpler, slightly stylized version of running horses and simply began cutting. The half-horses were to place along the edge of the image.




























The horses were given some slight dimensionality by a bit of folding and giving their legs on the side furthest from the viewer a treatment similar to the risers. This would all be pretty moot in the finished piece because of the tall grass they are running through.















The middle layer with the two trees is now set in place (without gluing) to determine the placement of the back row of horses.
















The back row of horse is glued in place. They were glued directly onto the background layer they are running across. A couple slight risers were used to add a bit of separation between some of the horses, otherwise they were attached directly to one another.















The middle layer with the two trees is now glued in place and the top layer of horses was then glued directly over this layer and back row of horses. The horses are staggered enough that it gives the feeling of their being more than just two rows of horses, and suggesting more of a herd.















Risers are now attached to the reverse of the top layer of the collage.
















The top layer is then glued in place.

















I ended up not liking the tree on the right. I thought it made the piece feel too busy and claustrophobic, so I removed it, and added a couple more clouds, slightly elevated from the background to add a little depth. The finished piece is now a bit imbalanced and two heavy on the left side, but preferable to the way it looked with the two tree forms in the foreground. This goes to show why the initial sketch, the step I skipped for this collage, is so important. If I were to do this one again, I'd probably have the horses running out of the trees rather than into them, or used a different type of landscape altogether.

Now you know enough to go out and make some 3-D cut paper collages of your own.