Lordy! Next year Spartacock will be THIRTY YEARS OLD!
Spartacock was created way back when I was a strapping lad of 22 and Benny - yes, THAT Benny - needed an illustration for an article about cockfighting. Is that correct, Benny, was it an article about cockfighting? I think it was an article about cockfighting.
If you've ever seen Spartacus, there's a scene at the end where Kirk Douglas as the gladiator Spartacus is hanging crucified after going up against the Man. His wife goes by with some other peasants who are fleeing the oppressive regime and she shows him his son, secretively, so the Man won't kill the kid for being the son of Spartacus. Something like that. Bissette can probably remember every single word of dialog, but my brain does not retain so much detail.
Hey, look at that sissy signature! Ha ha! What a fruity artisty signature! Thank God I finally just settled on the plain block printing.
***
Speaking of oppressive regimes, good ol' blogger is still frustrating people's attempts to post comments on jabberous. Sorry about that folks. I have no power to improve on that ridiculous situation. All I can do is welcome you to send comments directly to me. My address is lasagnalagna at yahoo dot com.
Here's one Sculptor Rick sent via yahoo:
I'd like to add my praise for Eeteed's comic. I enjoyed The Henbanes. It has a real charm. Thanks for sharing your comic.
Oh and about the google searching, watch out if you type in "cream pie". I found that out when I was doing some research for a Fairly Odd Parents piece. Of course the results are determined by the preference settings you set in Google.
13 comments:
Hah! I LIKE that, the part with the hen holding the egg up to the "baked" chicken is hilarious! Nice drawin' too!
That illustration is great. I kinda hoped that at 22, you weren't that good... it would have given me hope for myself and that I might actually get better someday.
And regarding Google preferences, I always found it a bit ironic that they have a setting to filter out the very thing that most people are searching for online.
Good old aged Spartacock!
Yes, indeedy, Pumpie, it was a "commission" for an illustration about cockfighting.
And as I recall, Mr. Hagler thought it might offend people.
Like Eddie and Jackie the doo doo boys cartoon you did.
Man, you were GREAT at 22!
many thanks for all the positive and encouraging comments about my comic.
glad you liked the art, bonzogal, and i’ll let you know when the next issue is complete.
many thanks to jed for the in depth and insightful critique. i would say that your constructive criticisms were pretty much dead on, and i am wondering if you would consider doing some proofing and doing a preprinting critique on the next page one’s coloring?
benny, my thanks to you. i dare say you are just the type of reader i was hoping to find, and i hope you’ll enjoy the next chapter.
greg, thanks to you and i’m glad you enjoyed the comic. i figured that most of mark martin’s fans would not find my work their cup of tea. i know my work is far too sweet and cutesy for y’all, but remember, YOU asked for it!
and also thanks to sculptor rick (i think you should be on a children’s show with that name) for your kind words and praise.
a note to all the people who suggested i should be trying to get this comic published. the pros and cons of getting this published could be debated forever, but all is moot. reason being i am only able to produce ONE comic per YEAR. with such a small output it would be virtually impossible to build a large fan base and to attract a publisher.
i’m guessing this story will be about 6 chapters long, which means i have about 5 more years ahead of me until it is completed. maybe when it is complete i could interest a publisher, and maybe when it is done i will have changed my mind about having it published... but i doubt it.
anyway, 5 years is a long time, and i can make up my mind at the journey’s end.
again, many thanks to all for your comments. they were deeply appreciated and meant more to me than fame and fortune. hopefully we will be doing this again same time next year.
this chick pic' i great! your style here looks so different! what a chameleon!
Very nice Chicken drawing! Very crafty!
And thanks Eeteed!
See I told you I wasn't going to be a dick!
My main suggestion with color for you is to pick a scheme! Have some continuity with the color! A good excercise is to take your favorite impressionist or post-impressionist or any old painter you happen to like, and steal the color scheme outright! And for your art I'd stick with flat color and flat shadows. at least for now. I think you're more of a natural with line than you are a painter. Also, there's the good ol' "variations" setting on photoshop so you can get an instant look at how your colors would look at different settings.
I'd be glad to help in any way I can, but this all depends on how much is help and how much is nosing in. I think our tastes are a little different, and I don't want to impose my aesthetic onto you. If I were to play editor to this story there's a lot of little things I'd change, but that doesn't mean you'd want to change them, or that changes that I'd suggest would be true to the vision you have for your story, so I might not be the best person to ask.
But if I do, does that mean I get to learn your real name?
As for the 6 year gap between stories--there were some pretty big stretches of time between some of Herge's albums, and those were usually 64 pages or so. Maybe it's more of a European market sort of comic.
I guess I'm just not sure what your afraid of here.
Opinions are like belly buttons - everybody has one, except mutants and Jesus.
Here's mine: Ignore what Jed said about the cover colors. And ignore any art direction I might offer about the cover colors. I would have colored that cover TOTALLY differently than you did, and it would no longer catch my eye and be so weirdly unique and make me go "that is really odd and attractive the way he did that solid red page background under those earthtones that most people would have done as bright flat colors".
"Stay true to your school!" - Beach Boys
"Follow that dream!" - Elvis Presley
"Way down down down in that SUBBACULTCHA!" - The Pixies
"
Well that pretty much all goes along with:
"If I were to play editor to this story there's a lot of little things I'd change, but that doesn't mean you'd want to change them, or that changes that I'd suggest would be true to the vision you have for your story, so I might not be the best person to ask."
But then, of course, I'm right about the colors. the modelling looks random and his hair is a bit of a pukey green, which you could probably get away with if the whole thing had more blue in it, but the red is what MAKES the pukey green look even pukier and greenier. Also what's supposed to read as brass reads a little dirty where you've attempted to model it with black--I'd have used more of orange. As for what I mean by stick with a scheme: the red is all more or less in the same analogous scheme, good, the yellows and blues are fine, but then you get to this random arbitrary turquoise in the last panel that doesn't fit with anything else.
You know I think possibly the most profoundly annoying thing anyone can say when you offer your opinion is, "Yes, but that's YOU'RE opinion", as if it might be confused for someone else's opinion and the fact needed to be clarrified.
My answer to this is a big: "well...YEAH."
Not that that's what you said or implied Mark, but the "opinions are like bellybuttons" remark is dismissive of pretty much all opinions and advice out of hand, which is just plain poor advice.
Opinions are like bellybuttons Mark? Everybody has one?
Well...YEAH. And some are useful and some aren't.
Just WATCH OUT Mark, before me and Darwyn Cooke are forced to kick your ass.
God, you're such a GIRL!
dang! seems to me the best solution to this difference of opinion is a "color off". i could send a b&w copy of the cover and you could each color it.
the person whose work gets the most votes wins a fabulous prize (from your truly).
I just received my cover for the Henbanes, and frankly I'm intimidated. I've never tried to color someone elses artwork before. I have enough trouble coloring my own.
On the other hand, Mark called me a girl.
So I accept your challenge, Mark and Eeteed, and I declare Mark a crybaby. You crybaby.
PS: I don't know when I'm going to finish this.
intimidated? yeesh, it's not like you're being asked to color steve mufatti's work or anything like that.
it's all in fun. just have fun with it.
Hey Mark, my dad doesn't have a bellybutton! You couldn't be expected to know that, though.
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