Necropolitan Postcards 1: Have You Seen This Foot?

I love the idea of a bunch of humorous postcards (posthumous postcards?) from an underground necropolis. Not the kind of place you'd want to get an I Wish You Were Here postcard.... I'll try and do these pictures now and then.

Roots Under Cities

This building was my studio in art school. So surprised to come home and see it like this.

Listening to Bruce Springsteen on TV talk about how important it is for him to be in touch with his roots. How he stayed in his hometown so he wouldn’t lose touch with the important things. He also talks about how important identity is in his writing. It really resonates sitting in the house I grew up in which is pretty far from where I am now where I have a son and responsibilities and other things that make it hard to remember why I love drawing and making up stuff. The way my love of drawing and art is inextricably tied to my love of dark stories and the things that scared me and delighted me as a kid. As the world wears you down these things can be pushed away until you don’t recognize yourself and your motives seem like someone else’s. I want my vision to grow and thrive, not become something tame and broken.

(The interview is on Elvis Costello’s spectacle. Springsteen is surprisingly eloquent)

Witch Blue

Bedside cannibal sketch. My vacation is pretty much over, I'm working all the time. Missing Toronto. Just got my ear pierced on a whim walking by shop. Have had great full day visiting friends and favorite Halifax shops. Cal at strange Adventures being at the top of the list. Meeting writer steve Vernon for beer at Split crow tonight.

Books: Best Horror Of The Year

I can't believe this is only one years worth of story. Every story is amazing in it's own unique way, there is not a story here I didn't have trouble putting down. The stories run from darkly whimsical to the very disturbing. I'm so happy to be introduced to this handful of authors. I can not recommend this collection highly enough.Some of the stories that really stood out for me are: Mrs. Midnight by Reggie Oliver, a great Jack the Ripper and ghost story. Each thing I Show You Is A Piece Of My Death Gemma Files and Stephen J Barringer is very, very creepy. Also The Nimble men by Glen Hirschberg and The Cravasse by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud.

Also, the cover was really striking and it turns out the author Santiago Caruso, has a blog right here.

Back In The Cave

coSo glad I left the studio intact at my mom. I’m working on The Situation for Tor and really loving it. Few distractions all tucked away in my mom’s unfinished basement playing music on my laptop. I also have a proposal open in a word document, which I hope to have finished by the time I reach Toronto. I’m currently reading Kelly link’s collection Magic for Beginners which is amazing. Worth it for the story the Cat Skin alone. I’m listening to Liszt and Radiohead and bluegrass and watching Extras. It’s raining all the time which suits me fine.

Skinwalkers

One of the books I’ve been reading on the trip is an older one called Werewolves, Shapeshifters & Skinwalkers by Marika Kriss which is a fun little book about the history of humans turning into animals. I think the book is intended as a non fiction account of were-beings but the result is a pretty nutty but really fun reimagining of history as werewolves as secret priests in a world conquered by Christians during a hellish Middle Ages. The writing feels like a barely disguised anti-establishment tale. But the imagery and ideas are great. This sketch was inspired by the book.

I got this book at a New Years party held by my friends Sandra Katsuri and Brett Savory of Chizine. They had purchased a drawing I had done of a werewolf a few years ago so it was a fitting gift

East Coast

Chupacabra Tries To Eat Henry

Writing from Robyn and Matthew's new place. Lovely out here, overlooking the Bedford Basin. The above picture is from Joanne and Sachin's house last night. Their new puppy Kitara loves Henry. The trip is still going great but I'm getting sleepy. Lots of visiting. Wish I was drawing more. Julie and Henry return to Toronto I'll have more time for drawing/work. I am reading lots.

A Tale Of Dirt And Bone

I'm at a coffee shop in Bedford nova Scotia writing quickly while Julie entertains a pretty bored 19 month old Henry. got to make this fast! If you've been following closely ( and I expect no ne to follow my blog closely! Don't mistake this for an admonishment...) you'd be aware that I've started working occasionally on the Bera story again.I mentioned earlier it will be comic but now it's looking like an illustrated novel like The Invention Of Hugo Cabret ( I can hear Henry yelling somewhere in the mall, sounds like " AH-la-la-laLA!!) So, it'll be a dark, funny horror story for younger audiences told in both words and pictures. I'm so excited about this. so that you don't have to go back a year or two into my blog archives Bera is a creature who can pull the dead from their graves to talk to them.

Books: Best American Fantasy Volume Two

This is an incredible collection of stories.They sprawl across time and space and are endlessly inventive. Every story is compelling, impossible to set down yet every story is also incredibly different from each other. a remarkable feet. Grab this collection.

Bus In The Rain

We're having a great trip, except...We just found out Henry has hand foot and mouth disease. Poor guy! He's really irritable. We took him to the doctors and she said he's fine, just uncomfortable. Tonight we hang out with that massive, unruly crowd known as my relatives...

Working On A Situation

I brought the penciled pages from Jeff Vandermeer's situation and am working on it in my old basement studio.

Rain In My Blood

we're back in Nova Scotia and like a present from...something we're getting a good old fashioned rainy weekend. love this place, it's al gnarled wind blown trees and rain. Henry's having a blast too. so many toys here!

Rattling Through The country

I left my camera at home. Of course. So this image and others are borrowed until I reach Halifax. that's fine though. If I had a camera I'd find it distracting, always being tempted to take photographs of cows. Right now I'm passing between Kingston Ontario and Montreal Quebec. I love how sitting on the train you're limited to a few activities. Reading, listening to music, writing, drawing, watching the scenery. Things that a busy life of full time work and parenthood don't always allow. I'll miss my family tonight in any case. I've been traveling a few hours and haven't been drawing but have been writing. I've been working on the Bera story. It's good so far but I'm trying trying to keep the language simple and I think it's sounding a bit heavy and even though it's a horror story I'm trying to avoid a morbid tone which a lot of horror writers adopt. I figure I'll be doing lots of writing over the trip.

(I got the photo here.)

Getting Ready For The Train

The hardest part of any trip for me is picking the right books and the right songs. Really looking forward to the train trip. It's a period where all I can do is sit and read or listen to music. My play-lists are mostly American folk music; Leadbelly, Gillian Welch, Crooked Still stuff like that. I also packed some episodes of Serenity ansd Avatar the Last Airbender on my iPod. I'm also bringing a stack of books and audiobooks and comic books. I'm hoping the train will have wireless, the ticket says it does but you never know. If it does I'll be posting from the train if not I'll be tracking down computers once I'm in Nova Scotia.

Digging Up Things

Eight years ago after the worlds worst break-up ( and before I met the amazing Julie, who would improve every aspect of my life ) I couldn't draw for a while. For months and months I barely scratched out a proper line on paper. I was also busy failing school. A tough time. I could however, write. Maybe not well but there were stories and ideas that had to come out somewhere, somehow. That's where Bera came from. She started off as a troll but I'm not sure what she is anymore. Bera is a horror comic about ghosts and monsters and zombies. Loads of fun. A bit like Burton or Gilliam or Gaiman ( well, in my opinion.) Anyway, I'm babbling. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I was just talking to the good people at Chizine (one of Canada's very best publishers) and throwing around the idea of a short illustrated book about her. This wouldn't be finished for a couple of years but I'm super excited in any case. I hope this happens. Something like this is a dream for me.

Details And Last Minutes

Here's a sketch from the cover I'm just finishing up. Stuff is really busy right now, leading up to our trip to Nova Scotia but it seems like things will be finished just before my train leaves and
I'll have some time to catch my breath. I've also just started using Skype and am obsessed with video chats. Very neat stuff. Eating up too much time.

The Not Cover

Here's a sketch for a book cover that was ultimately rejected. I worked really hard on this cover and still quite like it but the character looked too young for the story so they went with something else. I tried aging him in Photoshop but it didn't really work. Sometimes things just don't work out.

monster monitor

I just recieved this really big monitor as a gift and I'm not sure what I was doing with my tiny one before....this is awesome.

Mexican Monster?

Comics: Shock Suspenstories EC Archives

Even more daring and dark then some of their other collections. Surprised at the "preachies" as well, pretty open minded stuff for the times. Artwork is top notch too. I really wish I could get the whole series.

Books: Just After Sunset By Stephen King

Amazing when it's good and still highly readable when it's not so good. I haven't read a King book in ages but it was pretty easy getting back into his frame of mind. the story N. made the whole book more then worthwhile, an amazingly creepy novella that combines Lovacraftian otherworldly horror with obsessive compulsive disorder. Really effective, I had trouble sleeping that night. Some stories struck me as silly, like one about someone being trapped in a johnny on the spot. That story was still very compelling but I kept thinking how silly it was at the same time. Like anew brand of torture porn...Yuck.

The Old Wall

Finished the new painting! What fun to paint! This one was done for Edward, John Reppion and Leah Moore's son. I hope you like it, Ed!

Sneaky Peak

Here's a preview of my latest painting. I'll post the full thing tomorrow.

Not A Sekrit....

Snuggle up, boys and girls,
Cosy under your quilts
And I'll give you a secret to keep
Do you know what's outside,
Going bump in the night?
Let me tell you of Flions and Meep........

The ball is set up to roll on a very exciting new project with author Hal Duncan. More here....

Owl, Cat And Fox Too

Some more pictures of the painting I'm doing for John, Leah and Edward. I'm having tremendous amounts of fun doing this. These photos show a slightly different process step then usual. Here, instead of doing a full under-painting like I often do when the painting will be in gouache/mixed media, I've done a sepia under-painting/drawing. This is how I did the book Anything But Hank, hoping it would unify the colours more and give it an almost Victorian look.

Bear And Bird Boutique

A very early heads up that I'll be exhibiting in a tarot themed show next year at the Bear & Bird Gallery.

(P.S. Not my artwork above...)

SF Signal Cross-Overs.

I was recently asked the question " What are your favorite cross-genre stories?" by John DeNardo of SF signal. My answer, along with ones by much smarter people can be found here. Thanks for the opportunity John, Ive always loved this column.

Owl, Cat And Fox

Here's a picture I'm working on for John Reppion and Leah Moore; comic book friends and very talented writers. I'm really happy with this one, I think it's one of the better pieces I've done in a while. As I've been working on it I've been watching Hammer horror films...I hope not too much of that gothic sensibility finds its way in.

Gargle

Some sketches I did while watching 100 Years Of Horror. I'm working away on several projects but am getting a bit worried I won't make my self imposed deadline of mid April-when I head out to Nova Scotia for a visit. I'll keep pushing for it though.

Owl

Holiday Repeats

I'm currently working on three paintings at the same time. All three are in the finished pencil stage and are waiting to be transferred to watercolour paper-I almost never work on more then one project at a time but in this case I'm waiting to hear back from art directors and an illustrator really can't sit there and wait when work needs to be done. Since those projects aren't ready to be seen quite yet I'm posting an older picture from my Imaginary Steampunk Novel from a year ago. The family is in Ottawa until tomorrow so I've plunked myself down in front of the computer and am watching movie after movie while I draw nonstop. Kind of a nice way to pass the time.

I Sell The Dead

There a lot of great indie movies out there and some really need to get a wider audience because they are so good. I Sell The Dead is one of them. The Internet Movie Database gives it a full six star rating and describes the film like this:18th century justice catches up with a pair of grave robbers. With only a few hours to go before his date with the guillotine, Arthur Blake (Monaghan) tells his life story to Father Francis Duffy (Ron Perlman). Before long, Arthur spills the beans on how he got started in the grim corpse peddling business with seasoned ghoul Willie Grimes (Fessenden). It stars Dominic Monaghan from Lord of the Rings and Lost as well as Ron Pearlman. GREAT stuff!

The Plague of the Zombies

I like to put on familiar films in the background while I work. I'll put them on on my computer which has the added advantage of preventing me from compulsively checking email. Yesterday it was The Plague of the Zombies by Hammer Films. Great, great movie, a very early zombie film but it's more more spooky Gothic horror rather then the blood splattered newer zombie films. I prefer the older style. Wikipedia describes it like this:

Sir James Forbes and his daughter, Sylvia, travel to a Cornish village at the request of his former pupil, Dr. Peter Thompson . He needs help solving a spate of mysterious deaths, and Peter's wife, Alice is soon the next victim. The trail leads to Squire Hamilton , who has returned from a trip to Haiti armed with voodoo.

Anyway I just discovered that friend and super talented writers John Reppion and Leah Moore has penned a prequel of sorts to The Plague of the Zombies. The art is by Dave Hitchcock and I think it looks great.

Reading, Roughly

A rough sketch for a book cover I'm working on. I'm waiting to hear back from two art directors so I'm going to work on a private commission over the Easter Holidays. Julie and Henry are going to be in Ottawa over Easter leaving me here in Toronto to finish up projects. I'll also watch a lot of movies.

Nosferatu Hates Perspective

I don't really like linear perspective. It feels like math intruding on drawing, which are things I like to keep separate. I find too much use of perspective in comics and illustration really boring. Leonardo Da Vinci said something to the effect of too much perspective will ruin your painting. I love the treatment of perspective in German Expressionist film. Especially in the three examples I've posted at top: The Golem, Nosferatu and the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. These films use angles that seem appropriate to the story and are less about realism then about making you feel something. I recommend tracking these films down, all three are masterpieces and hold up incredibly well today. Nosferatu is downright creepy. Most of my treatment of backgrounds is inspired by these three films.