I finally decided to make the images from my little comic into something more substantial. And so: Cold Bill, a story project of sorts. The basic intent is to post an image and story vignette once each weekday. The story website is hosted on the paperninja.net server, but I registered the domain name to make it easier to give the link out and as incentive to put some effort into an actual project. So go have a look.

It was a lot of work. There are a lot of rather thorough sections there, as well as a whole admin section built into the background to allow ease of updating and such. For the more technical sides I had Chan to help out. Due to the co-operative nature of the project we decided to attribute it to “JungleWorkz,” a collaborative sort of organization put together by some of us UH art students.

My first big project from beginning to end. Now it’s just up to fixing problems as they arise and figuring out what to do next.

Again I have hidden away the majority of this post beneath this Read More link.

As before, click on an image for a larger version.

“Tall grass,” by Louie Del Carmen.

I picked up a little booklet by Louie entitled Steel-Noodles. The above illustration came rather naturally, as it’s some of the imagery featured in the Steel-Noodles story.

“Sitting,” by Sarah Mensinga.

I found Sarah at the Flight booth. Most people had little books or one-shot comics laying around, but she only had a tallish notebook with some postcards and large prints. It was unfortunate, as I’d have liked to pick up a book by her. She did say that she would be coming out with something within the next year or so. Her art was very flowing and she had streaks of purple in her semi-curly hair.

“Grass stains,” by Scott Bevan.

Hooray, White Ninja! Scott said that he and Kent took turns drawing the comic, but that most people couldn’t tell who had drawn which strip. I can sort of tell after reading through many. While I was perusing one of the collections, which I ended up buying, he asked, “Have you heard of this before?” I said yes and he expressed relief at not having to explain what exactly was going on in the comic. Apparently some people really needed everything spelled out for them, which is kind of tricky with something like White Ninja Comics. They also had a really wonderful shirt for sale that I really wanted, though my funding was limited by that point. Some day!

“Grass guy,” by Steven Silver.

Steve is probably best known for his character designs for the series Kim Possible. I found him Thursday evening, when there was almost nobody around. He was a bit flummoxed with my request, finally jotting down the above sketch. I probably found him at the best time, as every other day his booth was completely swamped with lines of people.

“Relaxation,” by Val Hochberg.

I picked up my first button at Val’s booth. I really liked it but it became my first casualty when, by the middle of the second day, I found that it had vanished from my bag. He was giving away this odd action comic about Jesus.

“The Grass Elf,” by Wardell Brown.

Thursday, when I first asked if it was possible to get a sketch, Wardell said that he was all sketched out for the day and to try the next day. So I did, and he remembered me and asked that I leave my sketch book for a while. When I came back I found the above. I had a few artists ask what exactly I meant by “grass,” so I always tried to be clear when I first made the request.

“Ruins,” by Steve Leialoha.

Steve Leialoha is my favorite artist discovered at the convention. I had never heard of him prior to stumbling across his inconspicuous booth the first day. He doesn’t have any sort of web presence so I feel obligated to go on a bit about his work.
He does the inks to a comic series called Fables, but the inks really say little about his true talents. I visited his booth all three days I was at the convention. The first day for the sketch, the second day to buy a book, the third day to talk about the book. His art uses very delicate, careful lines. I’ve scanned one just to give an example from the book I purchased. Each is about 3″x5″ and he said he tries to do one a day every day in a little moleskin sketch book he carries around. He doesn’t have any story books of his own out, though he’s mulled the idea for a while.
As I was talking to him on the last day Percy happened to walk by. I called her over and we three had a conversation about art. He had something to say about the artists we brought up and he even passed along information about them that we didn’t know. Percy ended up buying her own copy of the book I had and we suggested that Steve create a daily art blog posting his little creations. He admitted that he hadn’t considered it before, and we tried to assure him that it had the potential to become very popular due to the quality and quantity of his work.
There was never really anyone around his booth, save for someone eying a book and wandering off. Which was really unfortunate. I really hope he actually does create a website or a daily art blog, as more people need to see his work!

And that’s all of them! It was a fun project that I’d like to try again some day.

This will be a very tall post, so you’ll have to click below to see the whole thing. Also, it was getting to be a bit too long, so I’ve split the artists in half. Here is the first half, and I’ll post the second half tomorrow.

Here are the handful of artists that humored me in my art-seeking haze.

Listed alphabetically for some reason. Click on an image for a larger version.

“Grass man,” by Brom.

Brom is an artist that I’ve been following for a while. Being something of a fan of fantasy-based games, such as Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, I’ve run into his art fairly frequently. His publisher had a little booth at Comic-Con, somewhat hidden(as almost all the good stuff was), and while visiting the booth Thursday I found that he would be around Friday for a signing. I showed up the next day and there wasn’t really anyone around except him and the main booth lady that I’d talked to the previous day. So I got to have a little conversation with him about his artwork and previous books. I picked up his new book for the signing and he made the above entry in my sketchbook. Despite the darker nature of most of his works he’s actually a pretty friendly and easygoing guy.

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Grassy sketches by Corey and Tod.

Corey and Tod were at a booth for an organization of their own design called Young American Comics. In talking with them for a bit I found that they’d put it together as a means of getting some independent artists together for projects and talent building. It’s based in Illinois presently but due to the magical nature of the internet they have members from all over. They’ve put out a few books and collections and are always looking for new talents to add to their growing numbers. They have a project coming up called the “52 Comics Challenge” that seems worth trying.

“Mowing,” by James Baker.

James and his buddy were dressed in cheap tweed suits and had a big sign that said “Everything Must Go!” hanging behind them. They even had a shiny toaster with a sign attached that said, “Spend over $900 and get a FREE TOASTER!!” He had a lot of artwork pertaining to very animated-looking elephants. I picked up one of his short books, “Jock,” which he said was made in a style very different from how he usually creates comics(one panel per page). He was soft-spoken with a British-sounding accent and needed some time to come up with something for my project.

“Grass gator,” by James Burks.

Two James with B in their last name! This James was in a booth with another guy, Kyle. I bought a button from Kyle! It was one of the blue-topped girl head that you can see by clicking on his name and scrolling down a bit. I bought lots of buttons at this convention. All of James’ artwork was very cheery(as seen above) and felt very animated. The above character is from a short comic he made entitled “Gabby and Gator.”

“Grass girl,” by Javier Guzman.

I picked up Javier’s new sketch/art book, Glam, while I visited his booth. I didn’t get to talk to him much myself, as a number of people were walking up to check out things, but I did get to listen to him explain his method of art exercises for someone curious that had asked.

“Joy,” by John Nevarez.

Someone whose stuff I managed to misplace. Fortunately I had him attach a sticky note to his sketch with his contact information and everything, so I can at least give a link out to him. Hooray for technology!

“The Prairie,” by Kelsey Mann.

While he at first didn’t have a good idea of how to start his sketch, Kelsey Mann really got into it after he got going. I tried to emphasize that I only wanted a very quick sketch, as I knew that there were fans and potential patrons wandering all around, but he just wouldn’t look up after he picked up the first pen. Every time I thought he was about to finish up he’d dig into his pen case and pull out another darker shade of gray to add more detail. Eventually he had to just stop himself and he pointed out that if I e-mailed the image to him he’d probably give it a final once-over in Photoshop just because. So much enthusiasm! I wish I could draw with that kind of energy.

“Grass skirt,” by Kevin Dart.

Kevin was the first one to make a sketch in my book. He and his accomplice, Chris Turnham, had some really great stuff at their booth. I was obliged to pick up their newest creation, Fleet Street Scandal, which contains a number of their works. One of the titles of Chris’s works, “The Bagman’s Gambit,” looked familiar, and I asked him if it had anything to do with the Decemberists song of the same name. He admitted that he was a big fan of their music and pointed out a couple of other works in the book that were inspired by Decemberists songs. If I had a ton of money I probably would have picked up all of their hand-printed pieces.

That’s all for today! More tomorrow! I have plenty.

• HOW to ART – Collection of some of David’s
  work. Click on the different mice or anything on the page for various projects. The purple mouse project, “Dinosaur Derrek,” makes me really happy.
• Blackmoontides – Personal website of Percy. It hasn’t been updated in…a while, but I hear there’s a big revision coming soon.
• Jungle Workz – Julian, Chan, and a few other UH alumni have gathered together to try to make a collaborative graphics/art-related entity. Right now it’s sparse, as its content relies on Julian suddenly not being useless and Chan sticking to something.