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

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.

New Beginnings: Of Mythic Proportions. Book One. Part One. Page One. Gnostic Ignition.

I know this is the second time i have put this image up, but I have learned a little about lettering and though alot more about design. 

Reading List: the Nag Hammadi Library

Music List: Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd.

OMP:Notes on Beginning.

OMP: NOTES ON BEGINNINGS….

for REALS, this time.

  

 

            So, the whole time I was sketching out the visuals for OMP: Extinction and mapping out the final larger plot, I was seeing this Artist *wink* and she broke my heart…wanh wanh. 

            But, I was into my craft at the time.  I became an improved draftsman and technician during my time teaching college.  I read a lot, finally finding in The Nag Hammadi Library, the beginning of this story. 

           

Still it really starts with the memory of a kiss…

 

 

            A bit jarring to look at; two engagements, a marriage, a divorce, and a new relationship later, realizing the intensity of that moment (birthday in LA 2006?) and the very different emotions it evokes now from when it was experienced and drawn.   I suppose it would be easier to say six years later… but that’s another story that inspired this story.

            This is this story of Lord Lizard.  A story set in the deep distant well of humanity’s mythic beginnings.  This is a story of entropy. 

 

 

     “---a god outgrown becomes immediately a life destroying demon. The form has to be broken and the energy released.”

        Joseph Campbell. “Hero with a Thousand Faces.”

     So coming every Wednesday starting next Wednesday,  will be a page of sequential art.  Starting out by reworking the lettering on the preliminary pages of OMP:EXTINCTION. 

Of Mythic Proportions: Extinction. Book One. Part One. Page Eight.

  
Sorry for my absence...  is there anybody out there....

Anyway starting to feel like playing with the composing of the lettering
here.  You only learn by doing.  Finding ways to layer the flat comic page.  Creating dimensions of expression.  Making myth.

 

Of Mythic Proportions:Extinction Book One. Part One Page Seven.

    
                                             Art and Words by Kevin L. Patrick.     Copyright 2012


    The different shaded word boxes are indicative of different narrators.  Please bare with me.  O.M.P. is an exercise and evolution for me.  A discovery of process and a defining of technique.  Still thinking a lot about movement and how black & white work to move the eye.  Storytelling.

Of Mythic Proportions:Extinction Book One. Part One. Page Six

         I think I need to letter smaller.  I hate how much of the image I lost.  Or keep paring down my wordy script.  The inspiration for part of this story was young men growing up without fathers.  Instead of Madonna and child we have Widow and child.  I was a little miffed when I saw how much Female Trinities are being played up in the recent issues of Thor.  But thats myth.  What can you do.