The Cloudscape Comic Shop

I have tentatively opened up a minicomics selling blog for all things Harry and Silvio related. Please drop in and tell me what you think. There are still some kinks I'm trying to iron out.

Happy Halloween From Lucy, Dracula And Mr. Gorey.

Every year I intend to draw a Holiday specific drawing for a post but it never works out. Here's an Edward Gorey drawing instead.

Up In The Air

This is a detail from a panel from the 3rd Harry and Silvio minicomic. I had meant to have the minicomic shop up and running today but a deadline got in the way. I forgot how much I struggle with thumbnails. I'll have it up by tomorrow.

Stinkbug Blues

Here's a very short story from the world of Harry and Silvio. I'm going to leave this up for a few days until I'm ready to start selling the new minis. This story will be in issue 3.

Ratcopter

A Moleskine sketch of a new Harry and Silvio character, probably a member of the flying rat pirate crew. I'm hoping tomorrow to be able to post a brand new very short Harry and Silvio story.

Rokit House

Sketch for a possible project.

A Map Of The Outer Cloudscape

I was worried about actually drawing cloud maps produced by Harry and Silvio because I had a really clear idea of what I wanted but was worried it wouldn't translate but I'm quite pleased with this. the arrows indicate the way in which these clouds rotate in relation to each other.

Pekar Heads

Here's a little picture I did of Harvey Pekar, comic book writer,Jazz enthusiast and not curmudgeon to celebrate his 70th birthday. Jeff Newalt asked me and a slew of artists to draw,paint etc. the head of Mr. Pekar. This was a really fun little side project to do and I was honoured to be asked.

Playing With Colour

I'm attempting to paint Harry and silvio using watercolour and gouache. I'm trying to achieve an effect that adds to the art rather then being extraneous. I'm not totally satisfied with the results but not totally horrified either.

The Cloud Map

The Cloud Map, another minicomic to be printed. There are now 5 Harry & Silvio comics.

Part One Of The Great Goldfish Adventure Minicomic

Finally put this together, my first mini in a while. I'll be printing off a bunch of new minis this week. I love minicomics, they are about creating and sharing.

Henry Turns One!

Some pictures from the nights festivities.

Homage To A Toy Maker

It's another Me 'n Henry kinda day so a shorter post. This is a Moleskine sketch I did in homage to one of my favorite illustrators/toy designers Nathan Jurevicius.

Drawing In The Dark At Massey Hall

A drawing I did at the Wilco concert last night.

Wilco At Massey Hall

I just saw the best concert; Wilco at Massey Hall. Incredible venue,incredible band.I was riveted for three hours, from the opening act of Liam Finn through Wilco's final encore. Just brilliant. Check out the amazing moment on video. This was all a birthday gift from my wife Julie. Thanks Julie!

Juggling

Wow. Babysitter got sick and couldn't work today. I wasn't able to take the full day off so I had to lug Henry around working on both the picture book and a comic book proposal. It went surprisingly terrible.From Henry not sleeping all day to running out of ink not even halfway through printing the proposal, today looks like a bunch of dangling loose ends right now. On the plus side Julie and I are going to see Wilco play at Massey Hall, so it aint all bad!

Thimble Witch

Thimble Witch is a new character in the latest Harry and Silvio story. I'm not sure if she's a villain or not. The mask covering all those sharp teeth suggest she might be....

Rumble!

All finished the inks for Harry and Silvio. Now trying to figure out how my new scanner works. You wouldn't think something like that would be such a big obstacle...Over the next while I'm switching gears and working on other projects. I'll be seeing things balance and going back and forth between projects.

Raining White Ink

Here are some revisions and edits for Harry And Silvio. I love adding the whites but rain can get a bit tedious. Things are progressing a little slower then I had hoped but it's still coming along really well.

Hurray For The Riff Raff!!

I've been obsessing over this music all day. I was told about one band on Facebook by Mark Hill; Dark,Dark, Dark. Mark directed me to AllMusic and I just loved them and kept looking for associated bands. There all these bands emerging in the U.S. in the last few years doing this multi-instrumental, Americana, bluegrass, indy stuff and it's all amazing.The term I've heard used to describe this music is Hobo Revival...Last FM describes Hurray For The Riff Raff as

"......currently a 4 piece folk band out of New Orleans, Louisiana. Alynda Lee leads the band with her deep, aching voice, which seems unparalleled yet reminds us of Nona Marie Invie of Dark Dark Dark, and all-star banjo skills. Walt McClements plays accordion, fiddle & toy piano, Aubrey Freeman plays double bass, and Shae Freeman plays the saw, autoharp & vocals."

This music is a perfect soundtrack for Harry and Silvio; all whimsy and creaking and darkness and fun.

The Next Few Months

This is the chapter head for my new Harry And Silvio project. The name of this first chapter is The Cloud Cave. I've finished all the initial inks on the 14 page chapter and am now going to go back and do revisions which largely consists of going back and forth between black and white inks. It should all be done this weekend.

For the first time in over a year I feel like I solidly know what I'm doing over the next 4 to 6 months. I have three projects on the go. It actually feels really good to be making things again and not wheel spinning. I just sent off the contract to Annick Press, a Canadian publisher, to do a new picture book. More on that later. Also, I'll be serializing a comic on Tor's website with writer Jeff Vandermeer. That's that amazing Situation project I've talked about before. And finally I'll be working on this Harry and Silvio story. I'm not sure how I'll proceed with that. I envision a story of about 120 150 pages. Next week I'll be sending it out to publishers. If it doesn't get picked up I'll continue to publish it as a minicomic and perhaps ass a webcomic. I may do this if it is picked up. We'll see, I guess.

Anyway, that's my next few months. I have to go now. Henry is poking the keyboard....

How Do You Stop A Phone From Ringing When You're A Hairs Breadth Away From Finishing Something?

Top is a Moleskine sketch. Bottom is me and Henry this morning. Harry & Silvio proposal is almost done. Listening to new Thom Yorke single and the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack.

Maddy And Ratcopter

Here's a Moleskin sketch I did of Maddy Kettle and new character Ratcopter. I scanned this with my new scanner, which is a great scanner but I'm still not sure how to use it yet...

I'm just finishing up my Harry and Silvio proposal/first chapter. I should be done by the weekend, and then things will really kick into high gear. I start a children.s book,a comic for Tor.com and sample pages for another project. Luckily they are all amazing projects I'm lucky to be involved with.

I Mean Think About It.....

Boy, Steve Martin was great on Letterman last night.

Can't Talk , Drawing......

Page twelve is inked. Two pages to go before I'm done chapter one and stopping for a while to move on to other projects.

Progess

IStill working away on Harry And Silvio. Feeling a bit under the weather, I think Henry's teething again because he's not sleeping and have a deadline looming. Not particularly stressful time but busy. I have three more pages to go before I start to colour it and prepare it for publishers.

Harry And Silvio Pages Nine, Ten and Eleven

Here are the inked pages nine, ten and eleven of Harry and Silvio. I just finished up page eleven last night. For this chapter I have three more pages to go. I'll be putting this chapter together as a minicomic and colouring it for a proposal. I'm hoping to have the mini made next week. I also have about thirty pages of short Harry and Silvio stories that are unpublished and I'd love to have them as minis as well. Today I'm working on page twelve though I'm feeling a bit ill. I'm hoping it will pass because I really don't want to be sick right now. I need to have these pages done next week because I'm starting a new picture book.

Henry Fridays

I'm with Henry all day today so not much real work being done. Here's a shot of my drafting table from last night and the progress on Harry and Silvio page eleven.

Harry And Silvio Page Ten

This page took ages! So many small breaks in my work day over the last week, also this was a complicated and difficult page to draw. I kept changing the composition as I inked. I will break up the obvious oval shape when I use white inks on it which I plan on doing once the first chapter is completed.