Of Mythic Proportions: Extinction. Character Sketches

 

 

         It took me years to begin to appreciate how useful sketchbooks are.  Here are four characters of OMP: Extinction. 

 

 

 

Lord Lizard

 

Lord Lyonmane

 

 

Lord Tapestry with his whips

 

 

Escora of the Northern

Oh How Brechtian. Of Mythic Proportions:Extinction. Book One. Part One. Page Ten.

"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are."

 

Bertolt Brecht

 One of the greatest and most difficult lessons I took from SCAD and storytelling was to start small.  Often new sequential artist want their first story to be an epic saga.  When the daunting task of drawing one good comic page is really before you, you learn.  I realize I have the attention span to work on five to ten page stories.  This is the end of part one of the story. 

            For a week or so I’m gonna drop some sketches and drawings connected to OMP but I have another story I’ll be presenting here in two weeks.  I’m working on the next ten pages of OMP now… we’ll see when I finish. And as soon as I do it’ll be here. 

Reading List: The Book of Daniel: A Novel.

Music List: E.S.P. Miles Davis
                    Ne me Quitte Pas. Nina Simone

Movie/TV List: Fringe Season Five
                          Breaking Bad Season Two.

The Walking Man Walks.Of Mythic Proportions: Extinction. Book One. Part One. Page Nine.

 

 

 

     So a story can be incredibly personal without giving the real names of anyone involved.  You can take jabs at a person from your past who broke your heart are secretly thank an old flame for changing your life for the better without ever leaving yourself vulnerable.  That's what made me appreciate story.  Lyonmane is the unrestrained libido.  His passion is his greatest distraction.  He is the Hunter.


Reading List:  The Bible- Old Testament
                        Mask of God vol. 1: Primitive Mythology.


Music List:   Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell radio on Pandora.com.

Movie/TV  List:  Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
                             Bob's Burgers   

The Primal Reptile Brain. Of Mythic Proprotion: Extinction. Book One. Part One. Page Eight.

         One of the other inspirations for this story are backyard lizards.  I spent afternoons and evenings meditating on my parents back porch.  I would watch ants, birds, lizards, and all type of natural phenomena, while contemplating storytelling.  One day I watched a small lizard wreak havoc on the small insects skittering across the cement porch.  Stalking and gulping done all kinds of little insects.  Oddly enough it reminded me of a comic book run.  Silver Surfer Vol.3 as drawn by Ron Lim and written by Steve Engelhardt.  I remember part of the story arc involved Silver Surfer traveling with a vicious reptilian alien.  If memory serves the subtext of the story talked about the oldest part of the brain, the reptilian brain.  I gotta find those issues. 
The Reptile brain deals with necessity. Survival.

Lord Lizard is all about survival. 

Reading List: Comic Book Events: Trinity War, Infinity, Forever Evil, and Battle of the Atom. 


Music List: Nina Simone Ne Me Quitte Pas & Don't let me be misunderstood

Movie List: Life of Pi.  What a revelation.  Ang Lee gets me again.

Sowing the Seeds of Derision. Of Mythic Proportions Book One. Part One. Page Seven.

    Thinking a lot about layers.  Layers of space, layers of perception, and layers of meaning.  I have done a lot of editing of my original script.  Paring down to necessary text for available space and design.
    Lizard, Lyonmane, and Tapestry are brothers who care deeply for each other.  For these long lived comrades the expanse of time will test their ties and the Greenheart of Behemoth has sown its poison seed.
       But who are these young heroes....


Reading List: A New Earth: Awakening to your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle.
                      The Invisibles Omnibus by Grant Morrison and Various phenomenal artists!
                    
Music List:  Miles Davis.  Nefertiti
                    New Edition. Everything on Youtube.
                    80's R&B.

Movie List: The Lone Wolf and Cub Boxed Set.  Six movies based on my favorite Manga
                    series:Lone Wolf &cub by Kazou Koike and Goseki Kojime. INCREDIBLE!

It takes a village OR On the Souls of Clan Folk. Of Mythic Proportions:Extinction.Book One.Part One.Page Six.

  When the idea for this first part of a much larger story was forming I was teaching art at a University.  I came into contact with a lot of young men(and women) who had issues with male authority figures as a result of the absence of fathers or strong male figures in their lives.  Consequently I thought hard on these young men and their lack of an accessible role model to allow a maturity from adolescence.  The absence of Lord Lizards father and the fate of his mother, the leader of the combined clans, is a central aspect of his character arc and the overall story.  I think if I painted this page it would have the power I want to express.  We'll see.


Reading List: Heretic: Betrayers of Kamigawa. Kamigawa Cycle Book II by Scott McGough.
                       The Path. Issues 1-12. CrossGen Comics.  Ron Marz & Bart Sears

Music List:  Jay-Z. The Blueprint.
                    Street Faerie. Cree Summer

H.P Lovecraft and African Locs...Of Mythic Proportions:Extinction.Book One.Part One.Page Five.Antagonist.

Every comic story needs a villain.  The evil that birthed Behemoth threatens the Realm.  I have realized in the years since I first created this image that the tentacles have become a motif in my work initially unintentionally and now purposefully.  Wild primordial tangles streams of potential energy creative...and destructive.

Reading List: Dante's Inferno
                       Earth2. DC Comics

Music List:   Kanye West. My Beautiful Dark Nightmare.
                     

An obsession with forward progression...Of Mythic Proportions:Extinction. Book One. Part One. Page Four. Title Page

I know I've falling behind but I'm still dedicated to get this stuff up and use this technology.  Sequential art is sibling to film and shares many of the same storytelling conceits visually.  I am a fan of Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick.  I am interested in movement from left to right and a sense of progression in my pages.  Here we see the five young Heroes of our story.  The Title page.

Music List: Steely Dan... anything nostalgic and metaphoric. 
                    Kanye West. The College Dropout.
                   
Reading List: The Gospel of Thomas
                       

Dragons have always been Female to me! Of Mythic Proportions: Extinction. Book One. Part One. Page Three. Behemoth, Seeds of Destruction.

  The art on these pages are two and three years old so I don't have an immediate connection to what I was thinking when I drew it, still there is a narrative intention that tingles when I see the words with the pictures and it SEEMS to make sense.  I do know I was beginning to think a lot about movement and forward progression.  Left to Right.  Behemoth is a fiction of my wounded Anima.  Not understanding how to balance the good and bad in a person that is loved, I create an Ideal that always fails...always destroys. 

  Music List: T-Pain(on you-tube)
                      Ludacris(also on you-tube)                     
                     Charles Mingus, Mingus mingus mingus mingus.

 Reading List: DC Secret Origins(Kevin Nowlan Covers!!)
                        James Bond Movie Posters, the Official 007 collection from Chronicle Books.

What becomes of the Brokenhearted. Of Mythic Proportions:Extinction. Book One. Part One. Page Two: Sophia's Touch

Change often comes after pain or tragedy.  Ruminating over the whys and wherefores of a broken heart inspired the design for this page.

Music List:      A Love Supreme John Coltrane.
                        All is fair in love, Stevie Wonder.
Reading List:  Man and his Symbols, Carl Jung
                        On the Origin of the World, Nag Hammadi Library