The Work Journal of Artist John Amor

First Look: 1888

Colors by Homeros Gilani

Two weeks to go before the pledge period ends, so if you’d like to see this scene played out, I highly recommend heading over to Kickstarter and backing the project.

Tres Komikeros 47 – Swamp Thing

In the first TK Book Club episode, EJ, Alex, and John assemble to talk about Alan Moore’s classic run on everyone’s favorite muck monster! With Jad chiming in at random parts of the show to spoil us all, join the boys as they share their thoughts on this classic Vertigo series, and then discuss recent changes in the Zuda Comics modus operandi.

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Tres Komikeros 46

EJ, Alex, John, and Migs… that’s right… the whole zoo crew returns for some spankin’ reviews of Invincible Returns #1, Turf #1, and SHIELD #1.

After a round of quick shots, find out who the Tres Komikeros would rather be stuck with in a post-apocalyptic world: Grant Morrison or Jeph Loeb.

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Tres Komikeros 45

In this special episode of TK, John and Migs are joined by Comic Book Club’s Alex Zalben, all the way from New York. The guys talk about Alex’s first Marvel series, Thor and the Warriors Four (out in the states today), and then they have an in-depth review of last week’s finale to DC’s Blackest Night.

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Eagle Nebula

via tumblr

Tweetworth 4.29.10

If der tamting twange…

in da neighborhood…

watchuwatchucall…

80s Nostalgia Dream Teams

It’s close to midnight, I just finished prelim pencils for a page, and I need to let the fanboy out to play for a bit before I bust out the inks.  My first list was flawed in that I pretty much chose the slowest artists ever, but hey… I figure that covers the wish aspect of it.  This time around, instead of comics, I figured I’d do something a little different and picked only 80’s cartoons.
1.) Silverhawks – Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke
2.) Thundercats – Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
3.) Tigersharks – Tony Bedard and Andy Clarke
4.) Centurions – Mark Millar and Stuart Immonen
5.) Dino-Riders – Jeph Loeb and Arthur Adams
6.) Ninja Turtles – Matt Fraction and Jerome Opena
7.) He-Man – Ed Brubaker and Frank Cho
8.) Ghostbusters – Rick Remender and Tony Moore
9.) Inhumanoids – Mark Waid and Ryan Ottley
10.) Visionaries – Grant Morrison and Carlos Pacheco

Reading: Blacksad

My favorite thing about European comics is that a collection of books isn’t called a series, but rather an album.   And with that simple twist of terminology, each bit of story becomes less of a book and more of a song.  Oh how gloriously artsy.

Blacksad was created by Spanish talents Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist), under French publisher Dargaud.  It features crime noir fiction with anthropomorphic characters playing out the drama.  Think Dick Tracy meets Animal Farm.  Of course, the first thing that came to mind was the term “furry”… with “furry sex” not far behind, given that the stories have adult themes.  But that blunt expectation fell away three pages in.

The three books that comprise Blacksad boast intricate stories nicely rendered in this rough watercolor atmosphere that a lot of my favorite Euro books share.  The characters all have an effective depth, so much so that five pages into any arc, the superficiality vanishes and you start to forget that these are animals acting things out.  And I like this same logic when it was used by Quesada and Middleton in NYX, where a fairly dark story was being played out by whimsically rendered characters, making the grit of the tale much more accessible.

Despite the use of lighthearted artwork to veil dark themes, there’s also nothing fake about how Guarnido brilliantly takes full advantage of the animal qualities of each character to help define personalities —  Of course the police chief is a German Shepherd; What better fit is there for the cold-blooded hitman than a reptile?  And how else could you portray the singular pederast than as a polar bear?

From layered comedy to in-your-face drama, Blacksad is a rich tale of crime and romance that any comic lover worth his salt just has to check out.  And true to the European nomenclature, the full album does a wonderful job of evoking 50s blues in a mere three books.  Here’s hoping that rumored fourth one really does come out eventually.

Umbilicus

The funny thing about being a comic artist for a living is that even though enjoying the medium is definitely escapism… the act of actually making the comics is very often not.  In fact, it’s the furthest thing from it.

You may be drawing images of fantasy, and the creative potential in that is near limitless, but I find it difficult to allow myself to get lost in that frame of mind when things are rough in the real world.  Of course, I may just be one of these overly dramatic types who can’t separate their lives from their livelihood, but consider this — how safe would you feel jumping into the deep blue depths if you weren’t sure you’d have a boat to swim back up to?

There is no spacewalk to fix the Hubble if the shuttle is not in place.

Eyjafjalla… Galactus