Archive for March, 2004
March 25, 2004 at 11:39 pm · Posted by karl
Oolong is so calm and patient — he never gets angry when I take pictures of him. When I put various objects on his head, he stays still for a minute. This is just a result of an intimate relationship between me and Oolong.
The main theme of my site is not to show these ‘headperformance’ links,
and it’s not my hope to propagandize nothing but the strangeness of his
headperformance over the world. Oolong’s headperformance– many foreigners
seem to feel it ‘crazy’, but Japanese people feel it just cute and funny.
It is the difference of international feeling.
This turned up in another evening of Google Image searching. I encourage you to visit the site yourself to fully appreciate Oolong’s versatility. The link at the bottom will take you to the main page, where you can thrill to the exploits of Oolong’s successor Yuebing.
Of special note is the photo of Yuebing next to Oolong’s grave, taken on the anniversary of his death, which nearly moved me to tears.
March 24, 2004 at 2:14 pm · Posted by karl
I was asked to do an interview for the Pulse following DC’s announcement of the Mr. Majestic series I’m about to start drawing, but since the story is still in the formative stages and I have yet to put pencil to paper, I asked to postpone the interview. I was then asked for a blurb about how it feels to be working on this project, to which I responded with the following quote.
It was never used, possibly due to its having nothing whatsoever to do with Mr. Majestic, so I thought I’d share it here:
The most difficult thing about drawing comics, in my experience, is generating and maintaining the creative energy and passion necessary to do the work. It’s a collaborative medium, in the North American mainstream, at least, in that different creators come together and contribute words, pictures and editorial vision to tell a single story - very much like they do in the film business, except that in the case of film, the director isn’t locked away in a room by himself to produce the work.
A virtual collaboration, like a romance by correspondence, is rarely enough to satisfy.
When I was approached by DC to draw the Majestic series, I asked editors Eddie Berganza and Tom Palmer about the possibility of a more involved, communicative work experience, in which the writers, artists and editors interact more regularly to brainstorm, input ideas, and provide feedback which would, hopefully, maintain the momentum of the project and strengthen the quality of the finished work.
They’ve been amazing about accomodating me, as have writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. We’ve had long talks about what makes the Majestic character tick and the most effective ways to portray him in the context of the DC Universe. It’s an ongoing process, and I hope to receive as much feedback regarding the pacing and storytelling as I’ve contributed to the writing.
Only time will tell if this process will be successful, but it seems to me that it’s as important to make oneself happy in one’s work as it to make oneself happy with one’s work. After all, each of these projects occupies several months of our lives; we have to make that time as personally fulfilling as we possibly can.
March 24, 2004 at 1:58 pm · Posted by karl
From Stuart Moore’s A Thousand Flowers column, a quote within a quote:
…approaching the question of plot vs. ideas. The two are related, but not identical. Stephen King, whose own work is very character- and mood-oriented, cautions against too much reliance on plot. In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he describes the process of crafting a story in terms of excavating a fossil from the ground with various tools:
“No matter how good you are, no matter how much experience you have, it’s probably impossible to get the entire fossil out of the ground without a few breaks and losses. To get even most of it, the shovel must give way to more delicate tools: airhose, palm-pick, perhaps even a toothbrush. Plot is a far bigger tool, the writer’s jackhammer. You can liberate a fossil from hard ground with a jackhammer, no argument there, but you know as well as I do that the jackhammer is going to break almost as much stuff as it liberates. It’s clumsy, mechanical, anticreative.”
I like that.
March 9, 2004 at 1:05 am · Posted by karl
At long last, the Your Mac Life Superman sketch is here for all to see!
My humblest apologies go out to contest winner John West for taking so long to finish it (and for the inevitable customs delay at the Canada/US border).
Click on the pic below for the full-size image…
(It should also be noted that Superman is the property of DC Comics and is in no way affiliated with Apple Computer or Your Mac Life, nor would he, in his own words, lend himself to any cheap publicity stunts.)
March 6, 2004 at 2:40 pm · Posted by kalman
I’ve added selected pages from my Legion fill-in (#10 for completists) to the comics section in my gallery to celebrate my first significant sale of original art. Inks on all by the lovely and talented Andy Lanning.
My original art is available exclusively at Comic Art Links The site is run by the venerable Shawn Bryan, who also brokers art sales for Francis (Witchblade) Manapul, and, as of very soon, Devil’s Due Publishing. Feel free to contact Shawn, or me, about anything you may be interested in, even if you don’t see it up, because chances are, it’s available anyway.
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