Roaches Have Wings

More Than a Month.

2011-12-13T09:24:00.000-08:00

I have been crazy busy on an exciting opportunity from over seas (no it does not involve Nigerian Bureaucrats). I will post more on it later in the mean time here is Newt and Ron.

More Black Conservatives.....yes there are more than 4.

2011-11-08T19:58:00.000-08:00

As always between long post I have been really busy. I have been making stuff, reading stuff, and teaching stuff. Stuff I have been reading is Kate or Die. If you haven't seen her stuff you really should take a look. She has a great sense of humor and style. She had a live chat last Friday and because I follow her I thought I would ask a question about a comic she drew. In her bisexuality comic she says that people should be left alone to choose their own sexual preference (paraphrase. I fully agree, however, the way it was written left open the possibility of those nut jobs that think pedophilia is a sexual preference. During the live chat I asked her what she thought about that. This is where letters on a screen fail. I may have worded it wrong because Kate and everyone on the chat thought it was a ridiculous question. I did apologize on the chat and sent her an email apology. I think her comic does leave the question open. Read it and tell me what you think. Anyway, her work is fantastic so follow her and buy her books.
I have been drawing StrangeFruit 5 to get ready for MOCCA it is (early I know). I have also been working on the Black Conservative Trading Cards. Seeing how Herman Cain has been in the news lately I thought it might be the opportune time to pile on the Cain bandwagon. Below is the new card design for the BCTC.

A Spike Lee Joint....Charlie Brown

2011-10-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

This is a work in progess, I think the image speaks for itself.

MICE, the Business of Con Selling and Star Parker

2011-09-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

MICE was a fantastic show! I really enjoyed seeing all the small press people and taking a few minutes to speak to some people which I never really do because I am so busy selling stuff. Speaking, of selling things all my cartoonist friends (most of whom are better than me) have trouble out selling me at cons. So if any one who reads this here are a few tips.
1. Talk to everyone, even if they are a Republican Presidential Candidate and you sell a comic about that how horrible a person the Republican Candidate is, try and sell it to him. The the best way to sell is to think that everyone wants to buy your stuff.
2. Don't put giveaways on the front of your table. Keep it in the back. and hand it out to them if they like your stuff. That goes for business cards and all. If they can take away something for free they will and that let's them off the hook. So they won't buy.
3. Make deals. I will give you all three for 8 instead of 9. Or throw in the stuff you were going to give away for free. Free is the hook if you don't believe me act now and i will throw in.....I think you get the picture.
4. If you have a nice conversation with some one that has no money give them a book, Or something. They may just come back next time.
5. Last, alway steer the conversation back to what you are selling.
Now it is back to the grind. I am going to work on my Black History Anthology, Alkehine's Gun and more Black Conservative trading cards. I will keep posting my progress. Here is a peek at Series Two of the BC Cards. I am still on the fence with this card I really do not like the "B" but I will keep working.

SPX, MICE, and Messing with Craig Thompson

2011-09-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

SPX was awesome! I met some fantastic people and I sold lots of Comics and Black Conservative Trading Cards. I was interviewed on Comics Forge.I have been busy making stuff these last few week and I just came back from seeing Craig Thompson for a second time this month. The first time I saw him at SPX in the lobby of the Hotel. He was standing with a crowd around him right after the Ignatz Award ceremony. I turned to some people from the Boston Comics Round Table(Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb, Cathy Leamy, Erik Huemiller, and Jesse Lonergan) and said. "I am going to go F@#K with Craig Thompson." I went over to him and in a very menacing tone said,"You the guy that drew the prophet?" He threw his hands up and said something to the effect of, "well I..." At that point I said, " I am just F@#king with you, man!" He laughed and was gracious. He asked me my name and I told him that I was going to bring my daughter to see him in Cambridge at the Harvard Book Store. He said that was great, and he look forward to seeing me there. So that is where Aerial ( my beautiful and delightful daughter) and I just came back from, where I once again asked him about drawing the Prophet. He was happy to answer the question in regards to how it might offend some Muslims. He was a very nice guy and I look forward to meeting him again soon. I now have my very own copy of Habibi. In other news, I put together another mini called A Comic about Black People you can read it in full here and get a copy of this four page comedy master piece at MICE (Massachusetts Independent Comics Exposition) More info on that here. Where you will also be able to pick up screen prints done by me of the posters for the show (I did not create the art I just did the grunt work). Don't forget to come buy my table (misspelling deliberate) where you could be the last one to own a pack of Black Conservative Trading Cards Series there are only 15 packs left. I am working on series two right now along with a poster project that I call a Spike Lee joint, and Theophilius Thompson story for strange Fruit 5. I am going to be busy!

Getting ready for SPX.

2011-09-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

I have been finalizing my plans for SPX and getting ready to take the trip south with Jesse Lonergan and Erik Heumiller. I have a lot of Black Conservative trading cards to sell as well as StrangeFruit 1, 2, 3, and the latest StrangeFruit 4. I am currently looking up information on my next series of Black Conservative Trading cards and I have found some interesting folks. I found a women who, as an adult, spent 7 years on welfare had 4 abortions and now wants to do away with welfare and abortions!!??!! And then there is this guy, I think I will make him a superhero called Captain Impeachment. He said that Obama raising the debt ceiling was an impeachable offense. Are we reading the same constitution? Those kooky Conservatives!! Here is my sketchbook drawing of him.

StrangeFruit 4

2011-08-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

Finished StrangeFruit 4 this week and sent it off to the printer. There are always nerves when you ship stuff to the printer. Hoping that I got everything right here is the cover of SF4:

Here is a picture of what the books are going to look like. I will be selling them at SPX. SF1-SF2 2nd Printing SF4 1st printing.

Process.

2011-08-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

When I start a project I usually draw it out in my Joleskine Sketcbook. It is a Moleskine sized sketchbook I bind myself using what ever paper I happen to be in love with that day.

I started binding my own sketchbooks after I saw that Joe Lambert did the same thing and they were much cooler than the store bought variety. I try to map out (with thumbnails and an outline) all the pages in a story and since most of my stories are short 5 to 16 pages it works out well. I also start writing to get the main points and draw the pictures to tell the story. I usually use blue ball point pen that I got from Jet Pens for about 20 bucks for this part in the process.

It is a multi-pen with black gel ink and pencil as well as blue ballpoint pen ink. Once I get the main idea planned I draw bigger more refined version of the each page. Instead of drawing scribbly drawings, the drawings start to take shape. By this point it is cemented in my head so when I start drawing I just have at it.
I draw on Bordens & Riley Bleed proof paper. I used to use Bristol but I found that it would bleed or snag when I use the dip pens so I started using Bordens. It is REALLY expensive but I think that it's worth it. I may go back to using Bristol or Illustration board at some point but I like the Bordens right now. I used to start out really big but then it took too long to do the work, so I started to make them smaller. I think these are about 5 times larger then actual size and before I started out 18x24 which is about 10x larger than the comic. I may go back to bigger drawing because I like doing them. I start out by drawing the sketches in non-photo blue using a lead holder:

and then gradually tighten them up. However, I do not tighten them up completely unless I have to draw something that I am not familiar with. Then I use two kinds of dip pens Zebra G, School nib, and a pentel pocket brush. This is in addition to random assortment of microns and Faber Castell. I used to use Rapidograph, but as Alec Longstreth has attested to they can be a pain in the ass to keep up. I also have a Windsor Newton Series 7 water color brush that I use occasionally, but not enough that I would buy them frequently.
Once I am done penciling I take them over to NHIA ( my employer) and scan them in.
Usually I scan in at 4-600 DPI at black and white. I know there are those that scan in at 1200 but I cannot see the difference when I print on High end and low end printers so I will stick wit it. At this point the blue line is gone and I have minor touch up spots and specs to clean.

I open the file in Photoshop CS5 and use my Wacom Tablet to start coloring. I know a lot of people choose their pallet based on other things I just try to start with a limited pallet and augment it as needed. I always use a base color, it is a lot like painting on a colored ground. I set the black line art on a layer set to multiply and th color layer underneath. I know people do things in channels and color in Illustrator using Vectors but Adobe Creative Suite is a lot like Grand Theft Auto, there are a lot of ways to kill the prosititute. I made some brushes in a sketchbook using my handy Altoids can water color kit that I built usin and another jet pens purchase a small water brush.

I use those brushes to create painterly effect in Photoshop.

After ward I build the comic book and do the lettering in Indesign.
The end.

Richard Potter final stretch, and Theophilius Thompson.

2011-08-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

I am in the final stretch of Potter and should be done this week. I am coloring about two and a half pages a day. Once the coloring is done I am going to do a post on process. Until then here is another Richard Potter colored page and also a sample page from my Joleskin (hand bound sketchbook) of Theophilius Thompson. Thompson is the first Black American Chess player of note, possibly the first chess master. Born a slave he learned the game by watching!

I am really close to finishing Richard Potter.

2011-08-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

Only one page left to ink. Here is a few inked pages (minus editing) and a two page color spread with words.

More Work from My Summer.

2011-08-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

These are some of the pages from Richard Potter. I am about to move on to other black history stories, because I am about to wrap this story up. I was able to move faster since I started drawing the pages smaller, which made me examine my process. Here are the pages. My next post should be a comprehensive process from start to digital finish.

The past 30 Days

2011-07-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

I have been working very hard these last 30 days. I have gotten a lot done. I did a few more vector heros ( I will post those later BTW Captain America was awesome) I taught some talented high school students how to draw, make mini comics and silk screen a entire comic. The latter was just in little over 36 hours. The students and I, in NH Art Allstate, made a color 16 page silk screen comic book. All while also drawing about 10 pages of Richard Potter, finishing a 4 color Print of Wonder Women, reading a few books( The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo Trilogy, A Song of Ice and Fire: A Feast For The Crows, to name a few) and writing cirriculum for the Foundations Department at The New Hampshire Institute of Art. I have about 3 or 4 pages to go before penciling is done on Potter, but I have some colored pages to show. No words yet becauseI am waiting to finishh them all and write it all up at once but until then here is page 2,3,4 with coloring done. I will post more Vector Heros later this week..I am considering doing Dany from ASOIAF. Stay tuned.

Wonder Women

2011-06-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

I have been reading up on the Pen tool and discovered some new thing that I can do. I will post new stuff as it become available. In the mean time here is another vector hero.

More Vector Heroes.

2011-06-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

I did a little more to this one than to the last one. I decided to go all out and do a whole Action Comics Number 1 cover. It took alot longer much but I would say that I am 70 percent happy with it.

More Vector Heroes

2011-06-15T18:07:00.000-07:00

Sadness.

2011-06-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

I have been sad about the Heat losing the NBA Finals, so as a distraction I have been trying to get better with the Pen tool in Illustrator. I called my practice runs Vector Heros Daily. My goal is to do at least one hero a day. Here is yesterdays.

MiamI win Game 3

2011-06-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

Game of Thrones

2011-06-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Just some fan art I have ben working on. This is Brandon Stark and the stable boy Hodor from George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire Fantasy Novels. They are currently a Series on HBO.

Holy vectors, Batman.

2011-06-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

More fun with vectors. I love summer. I have time to do this stuff.

More Mad Men

2011-06-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

I usually get reallly excited waiting for Mad Men but now it won't be out till March. So until then I have done this caricature just like the Don in an earlier post, here is my favorite red head.

Boston Comic Con

2011-05-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

Sold alot of comics. Sold out Strange Fruit 1 and 2. I will have to do a second run if I do more shows. It was nice to get out and see people. Back to making comics.

2011-03-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Finished Ragbox Dave Kender is currently finishing it up for MeCAF. So I just finish putting together Strange Fruit 3 here is the back cover.

I have the power!!!

2011-03-24T21:37:00.001-07:00

2011-02-25T10:31:00.001-08:00

Busy working on a book for Dave Kender. Only have a few pages left. I will be posting more often soon. I am going to start doing more Art School strips. Keep a look out.

Pockets Full of Hope

2011-01-28T16:41:00.000-08:00

So I am currently working on a graphic novel about black history. It will have 5 stories Harry Lew first black pro basketbal player, and Henry "Box" Brown ( you might have seen that in earlier post) along with a few others. Here is the cover:

Richard Potter Page One Readable!

2011-01-18T19:35:00.000-08:00

Here is the first page of Richard Potter with words!

New Colors

2011-01-17T17:38:00.000-08:00

I have been working my coloring skills (not to be confused with my magic skills) and thought that I would post this improvement to my Box Brown page. Here is the original:

And here is the update:

Merry Anti-Christmas

2010-12-26T17:28:00.001-08:00

Happy Merry Ramhanakwanaistmadan!

Interesting blog...

2010-12-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

I do read an look at alot of Blog especially the ones that have concept art. I found this one by a concept artist named Jkim, to be really good. Sometimes I wish I was a concept artist so I could sit around and draw all day. Then I realize that I am not nearly as well trained or practiced at cartooning as those guys. Well gotta go draw so I can get better.

Good Reading

2010-11-14T08:29:00.000-08:00

I have been hard at work making some interesting things. Below you can see one of my 2 page spreads for InBound 5 The Food Issue. My story, in the latest Boston Comics Roundtable Anthology, is in black and white but I usually print them in for StrangeFruit in color, and both Lil’ Nino Brown in Slumland stories will be reprinted in Strange Fruit 3 and 4 coming out in the spring and fall of next year. I have been working on the The Ragbox a project by Boston Comics Roundtable Founder Dave Kender and you all know that I worked on a little thing called HellBound. I have recently turned over all the financial and sales responsibility of Hellbound to Roho ( T-shirts designed by me and the Mass Market edition can be purchased here). So now I am able to work on my own work for a while. Here are some images that I have been working on.

I recently read a few good books including Mark Twain’s Autobiography, The Color Purple, The Walking Dead Series, and a random assortment of minis and anthologies from Tugboat press’ PaperCutter Comic Anthology to King Cat by John Porcellino and Julia Gfrörer's Flesh and Bone. All of which I would suggest you pick up. These are all great stories, however I would say that if you pick up The Walking Dead I would suggest that you understand that the book is really about people and not zombies, so much so that I think that the people in the new world of The Walking Dead is scarier than the Zombies, much scarier. That book (and The Color Purple for that matter) shows that there is no limit to the depth of human depravity and in the face of that, these is no limit to the human spirit’s will to survive. I hope to make stories that are that interesting. Hope to see you back here in a week.

Inbound 5

2010-11-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

I am in another anthology! Inbound 5 The Food Issue, see it here and if you are in Cambridge go to the Atomic Bean Cafe and see some of the original art from the book. The Anthology InBound 5 The Food Issue is the latest installment from the Boston Comics Roundtable's Anthology. I was in Inbound 4: A Comic Book History of Boston. which was a huge success, this one is moving along in the same direction. My stories are based on my parody of Windsor Mccay's Little Nemo in Slumberland called Lil' Nino Brown in Slumland. Go check it out, buy a copy or 20 and go see the show. Here is what one of the editors Dave Kender suggested that I write:
1. Inbound #5 is now in Boston area book stores and comics shops
2. Inbound #5 is now available for purchase online (same link as above)
3. The Boston Comics Roundtable will be making appearances at a number of holiday events this season see a calander at
/www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com/calendar/. Inbound #5 will be on sale at all these shows, as well as dozens of other
great comics from local creators.
4. Inbound #5 makes a great holiday gift, especially for food lovers or readers.
My name is Joel Christian Gill and I approve this message.

What I have been doing for the past six weeks

2010-09-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have been really busy. First I finished printing and cutting and binding HellBound it should go on sale shortly. I have been working very hard on comic pages. I will post more on that in a minute. I was at MICE over the weekend. It was great. Sold some comics and one HellBound Collectors Edition. I will have some pics up of the finished book with in the next days. I will try to post more frequently over the next 6 weeks, at least once week but today I am going to talk a little about color theory. I have been teaching color theory for a few years now and I think that it is about time that I apply what I know about it to comics. This is an example of what I call the old masters pallet. If you look at following Rembrandt painting you can see that Rembrandt is using a very limited pallet.

He is using a very dark red like a Alizarin Crimson, a warm Yellow Ochre, Lamp Black, and Lead White.
Now In my Color Theory Course at the New Hampshire Institute of Art this is the first Pallet that I have students work with in order to figure out how to use color effeiciently. I recently scanned in a copy of the pallet then I used the select tool in Photoshop to remove texture and flatten the color.

This Pallett consists of Magenta, Yellow Ochre, Lamp Black and Titanium White. All of the other colors you see are a result of mixing all these colors in various amounts. This pallet relies heavily on color relationships, and black as the optical blue. If you look at the gray at the top of the pallet you will see that it looks almost blue. This is a result of color relationships. All these ideas are based on the theory of Color Harmonies by color theorist Faber Birren and Simultaneous Contrast By Michel Chevreul. If you use Simultaneous Contrast you place colors next to each other in order to effect how the appear. If you put a Red- Orange Color on a Red it will look more like orange, or Vice Versa. Color Harmonies rely on the the use of limited color with wide variations in tone (hue+gray) Tint (hue +white) Shade (hue+black).
Now, most people (like me ) use the Photoshop default palletes when they first attempt to color comics. And I have noticed that when I started to color comics almost completely forgot how relationships worked It seemed that I just saw that pallet and though “ Hell Yeah! No more mixing paint!!” But in reality the mixing paint part help train your brain to intuitively see color relationship. I have learned that if you just “pick” the colors laid out for you. As a result we have a tendency to choose poorly, for example:

In Box Brown my, first attempt at coloring comics, I went crazy with the color. I was very specfic in choosing local color, ( local- the actual color in or around the area) when the sky is blue, I make it Blue. If the grass is Green I make it Green and so, on. So with some soul searching (because It took a bit to realize that I got it wrong on Box Brown). SO I did what all teachers would benefit from doing all the time and what I should have been doing.
I scanned in a pallet of colors mixed from the old masters pallet and used it. And used it to color the following page.

The moral of this story is, be creative and use your color efficiently. Practice what you preach.

Ahmad

2010-08-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

I remember back, it was 1994 and hip-hop was the world to me. I heard "Back in the Day" in the summer of 1994 I then played the Ahmad tape over and over. Most people only liked the one song but, I wore out the tape in, my then girlfriend's, 1985 Nissan Sentra. Well Ahmad has a new offering and much has been blogged about it here and here and here. I suggest you go here and pick it up. First music I have bought in years.

Whats New.

2010-08-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

This is.. And other exciting stuff coming soon.

This is really cool

2010-07-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

Open publication - Free publishing

I found this site that will allow you to upload your work and turn it into a digital book. So I did.

HellBound

2010-06-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

I have been very lacks in my post as of late. I have good reasons though. With ROHO I stated an anthology called HellBound. The past 6 weeks or so I have been editing collecting, and since early this week screen printing the stories that will be part of HellBound True Horror, Urban Legends, and Creepy Stories from New England. This past week I have a number few people from the Boston Comics Roundtable come up and help with the printing process. We we able to get a few pages done. I hope that the project takes no longer than a 4 or 6 weeks. Pictured below are Jim Roldan, and the two Steves, Steve Cartisano, and Steve Polakiewicz.

OutBound 2

2010-05-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

My friend ROHO and I will be headed to Montreal to pick up the Sci-fi Anthology that he puts together called OutBound. We tried to go last weekend but there was a hiccup in the printing so we had to turn back. If all Goes well we should have them back here and in stores by Wednesday. I have the last story in the book called Alkehine's Gun. The story is about a group of scientists that develop a military weapon in the form of a chess computer and a little boy who was born with only part of his brain. After a catastrophe the boy is left to fend for himself shortly after become mildly self sufficient. Here are a few images.

BagHead

2010-04-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a story that I created for Strange Fruit 2. I used it to explore the issue of Colorism, a type of racism that happens among people of color. When a person is lighter skinned their value is perceived to be higher, therefore the darker person is seen as lesser than. There is lots of information about it out there. In the meantime take a look.

Work

2010-04-18T16:55:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about the work that I did to get to this place( I am not saying that this place is so great) . I have decided to start posting some of my images, comic pages, painting, and prints. A lot of these works are very developmental. The first few images are from a comic called Dandelions that I set aside about a year ago. It is a story about children and the neglect and abuse they sometimes face. The first page ( the one after the chapter1 page) was my first ever comic book page. After that the pages were planned out a little more. I think the best is the prologue which I will post later.

Black Hole

2010-04-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

I met Charles Burns at MoCCA. He is nice guy and one of my heroes. If you have not read Black Hole you should. At any rate here is a movie a guy made in the hopes that he would some day get to direct the movie. He spent tens of thousands of dollars of his own money. It is really good and captures the feel of the book. The tail is just creepy.

More MoCCA

2010-04-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

I was filmed and accused of being Michael Clark Duncan by ActionRoom special correspondent Scout Durwood . Click the link above.

Joel GIll associated with Bill Ayers

2010-04-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

So I had a BLAST selling Joel C. Gill comics at MoCCA in NYC this past weekend. It was my first Con and I must say that it was a success, I sold all 80 of Strange Fruit 1 & 2. I was also lucky enough to have Michael Kupperman, an artist whom I respect, buy my books prints and my trading cards. I have more images to show that I will post later. On a different note I also had took a picture with Bill Ayers. I found him to be a very nice man and he did not seem to want to blow up anything at all. He said he liked my Black Consevative trading cards. Notice the Riley Freeman shirt that he is wearing.

Black Conservative Trading Cards

2010-04-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

Another example of the screen printed cards that I will be selling at MoCCA. There are 4 in the set Condi, Alan Keyes, Michael Steele, and Clarence Thomas the measurement is 2.5"x3.5".

Brushes

2010-04-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

Alec Longstreth recently came to visit NHIA. This was the second time that I had Alec down. He gave an inspiring lecture and if you ever get a chance to see him you should. He is a very inspirational speaker and has a lot to say about making art your life. Not unlike what David Smith says just alot funnier. He goes into detail about time management in the same way that I do with freshmen during our orientation. Alec was telling me about Charles Burns' inking demo at The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction VT he said that Charles Burns' lecture was uninformative, in that he just whips his brush around and the magic of his line comes out. It may have something to do with drawing comics with a brush since before I was born. But I digress, I wanted to talk about brushes. I have been obsessive over brushes ever since I have been drawing comics. I read Matt Beriner's blog Comic tools and got hooked. Unfortunately, you cannot find the Windsor Newton Series 7 brush in my neck of the woods, but I was going on a trip and intended to do some work so I had to get a new one. I ended up going to Albany NY to get one.

LONG DELAY

2010-04-05T14:49:00.000-07:00

Now I am back to posting on a regular basis. I recently got back into screen printing and recently spent some time making some prints. I did a print of the Lil' Nino Brown

"Auto tuned". I forgot how much of a bear screen printing could be. Basically you make an image scan it into Photoshop ( or another digital editing program) then print out the individual layers called separations. I had six for Nino CMYK and two flesh tones and six for the Black Conservative Trading Cards. below you can see some stages of the process. These images are not in order and show some of the procees from Nino and some of the process for the BC trading cards.

And here is the final images.

Strange Fruit 2

2010-03-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

I am in the process of getting ready for MOCCA. I am finishing up the Screen print of Lil' Nino Brown. I have been out of the screen printing for a number of years so it took took a while to get back in but I think I got it ( images up tomorrow hopefully). My first series was ok but not good enough so I am printing it again hope to be finished by tomorrow. In addition I created a cover for Strange Fruit Vol 2 which will have the new Lil' Nino 2, Original Baller from Inbound 4, and a new creation BagHead. Below is the cover for Strange Fruit Vol 2. It is made from a Fruit Brute cereal and The Studio by Phillip Guston. Both images are before the cover.

Redo

2010-02-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

After some very good critiques and advise, here is my redo.

Lil' Nino Brown 2

2010-02-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

Here is part 2 to my Windsor Mccay:

HellBound

2010-01-09T06:19:00.001-08:00

So, There has been a lot going on during and since the holiday. My story was published in INbound4 which is selling great and I strated a new project:

Right now it is just open to the BCR (Boston Comic Roundtable) but that may change.
I have also started another project about black Republicans. Once I get some images I will post them. I also saw AVATAR , got a PS3 celebrated Christmas and the new year ( is it 20-10 or two thousand and ten?) .

Crazy, Man. Just CRA-ZY

2009-12-01T09:05:00.001-08:00

So there was a second Matrix...

2009-11-28T17:47:00.000-08:00

First let me say that i am about to be published in Inbound 4 an anthology of Boston History you can pre- order it here http://www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com/inbound-4/. So as I try to get this whole digital art thing down I realized that I really need to just use the stuff that I am interested in as inspiration. So I thought that I would start with the Matrix. Now, I won't go into the merits, or lack thereof, of the movies. I will just stick to the really interesting characters and imagery. When the first movie came out I was hooked and I remember that the bandwith on my computer was to slow to see the extended trailer when Neo fought the Agent Smiths in the playground. But that scene stuck in my head for a couple of years as I waited with baited breath for the next movie.
So the other night I did a drawing of Alex Longstreth (he was a visiting artist at my school and gave a FANTASTIC lecture) and I thought that it was o.k. I have done other drawings in Illustrator but I have never really spent any time on thm maybe 30 or 40 hours total. So I was thinking of the art of Samurai Jack and decided to do a Martix type thing. I got this thought in my head that I drew in Photoshop based on the fight in the playground:

I then imported it into Illustrator and built it with shape then I used the pen tool to alter the shapes and the end result is this:

I am going to do Trinity on a motorcycle next.

Fun with Shapes and Cells!

2009-11-26T08:57:00.000-08:00

I was watching the Matrix (I refuse to acknowledge that there were two other movies made) and I decided to try out some shape designs in Illustrator. I had a lot of fun drawing the image of Alec Longstreth so I deciede to do some more. This morning I decided to try some more digital paintings, this time I decided to try cell shading. It was drawn from life this morning.
Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the artist formally known as Joel Gill and Morpheus purley coincidental.

Alec Longstreth

2009-11-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

I recently invited Alec Longstreth to come to my Graphic Novels and Visual Story Telling Class. He was FANTASTIC. I cannot say enough about how thorough he was. He gave a lecture titled Your Comics Will Love You Back that was funny interesting and informing. He was a great speaker. He spoke with enthusiasm and excitement about comics and the comic medium. What I found the most exciting was the fact that Alec talks about the processing of understanding how to budget your time. This was a excellent lesson for the students to hear from someone other than me . I think that any of the people out there reading would be greatly improved by reading his mini's or his blog.

Another Airport Sketch

2009-11-20T11:10:00.001-08:00

Here is another airport sketch.....seems like I only have time to draw in the airports.

digital sketchbook

2009-11-07T09:05:00.001-08:00

Here is a sketch I did with a wacom and Photoshop yesterday in the Dulles International Airport. More to come after I finish the 12 pages of Immortal Game for Outbound 2 (which I plan on doing in my hotel room tonight).

Trying to Learn How to Digital Paint

2009-10-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

So for a few months I have been trying to get good at digital painting in photoshop. So I have decided to start by painting objects in photpshop from either photo reference or from life. I will try to post at least one a week. Hopeful this will make my attempts to color comics more successful. Arab proverb. " Man Plans, God Laughs."

Dandelions

2009-09-12T04:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent finished pages from Dandelions. more to come

Long time Gone....

2009-08-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

I have been hellabusy ( all one word say it fast) . I have been drawing alot though. I drew a 4 page story that will be added to Strange fruit ( when I get it printed) called Original Baller about the first black professional basketball player in 1902 . It will be printed in the Boston Comics Roundtable's 4th upcoming edition of Inbound. Here are sketchbook pages and a snippet from Original Baller. All Pages are done in my homemade sketchbooks "Joleskins" and represent ideas from this summer.

Water color/pocketbrush in Sketchbook ( Joleskin)

Water color/pocketbrush in Sketchbook ( Joleskin)

Water color/pocketbrush in Sketchbook ( Joleskin)

Ballpoint in Sketchbook

Ballpoint in Sketchbook

Ballpoint in Sketchbook

Ballpoint in Sketchbook

Kohi Nor Rapidograph on Bristol/ lettered in Photoshop

The Last Few Weeks

2009-06-19T06:04:00.000-07:00

I have been working alot the last few weeks. I went to NYC twice, I saw the Claus OldenBerg Show and the Francis Bacon Show at the Whitney and the MET respectively ( Francis Bacon is possible the greatest figure painter of the 20th century). And I also went to MoCCA where I met lots of great cartoonist ( my first ever comic convention!). I also have been going to the Boston Comic Round Table, a group of cartoonist in Boston, which has made me want to make more and more work. I have made some stuff over the last few weeks, and I have done alot of drawing, what iIhave here is the thumbnails for a parody of Little Nemo in Slumberland and the drawings attached. I am currently drawing a another Strange Fruit Story about the first Black Professional Basketball Player for my book and BCR upcoming anthology INbound 4 , more on that to come. ( I intentionally colored Lil' Nino Brown to make it look like old style dot matrix color comics, and I also shifted the black line to make it seem like it was a little off registration). Tell me what you think.

StrangeFruit

2009-05-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

So, I have just about finished "Out of the Box Thinking" however, I am not going to post it for obvious reasons. But I will post the cover and give away the name of the book. Strange Fruit is based on the Song by Billie Holiday and I started to work on this theme in a group of painting about 10 years ago. At the time I had been looking at lynching photos and I got to a point where I just could not look at them anymore. I put them aside until 2006 when I was able to bring myself to make a series of prints and paintings called Strange Fruit: Harvested ( www.joelchristiangill.com). When it came time to do this comic I thought of the title again, but the harvest this time is the stories I intend to tell. Volume I will contain 2 stories Dandelions and Box Brown and maybe a few other "fruits" of my labor. More to come.

Here are more pages.... Finished I've been busy!

2009-04-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

Box Brown page 4.

2009-04-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

I just finished Box Brown page 4. Whew... I need to finish this book, fast so I can get back to Dandelions. I think that I might get caught up in the next story about Richard Potter the first black stage magician and I think that that may be all in scratchboard, but I digress.....

I have been looking at other artist's blogs and realize they all have alot more work than I do. That makes me work harder, but I realize that I cannot draw everyday. I wish I could, but then I would be doing a disservice to my students and faculty. So, now I just have to settle for drawing when I can.

Here is page 5 unfinished

2009-03-26T04:52:00.000-07:00

I Have Been Working ( I have a department to run!!)

2009-03-25T20:26:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I posted anything. My (sunshine) wife has been gone (...ain't no sunshine) and I have been held hostage by 4 unruly minors. I saw Watchmen, it was really good to see the characters in "real" life, other than that the movie was a disappointment. I have been working at my real job (NHIA Chair of Foundations) and trying like hell to finish Box Brown so I can print it and start selling it when school is out. So here are the latest unfinished page.

Here it is partially colored in Photoshop you can see that I made some changes:

Interesting....

2009-03-13T12:26:00.001-07:00

For all those Students of mine that are interested in Manga:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/03/13/arts/design/20090313-KRAZY-SLIDESHOW_index.html

Art School

2009-03-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

When I first started teaching I had two student, Brian and Michael that made everyday interesting:

I noticed something, art students are a strange lot. Brian and Michael made me laugh on a regular basis. They were great to caricature so I made a comic in Illustrator, that proves umm.... the unique quality of art students.

Fun With ScratchBoard

2009-03-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

Most of my students and collegues woud be shocked to learn that I once had hair. Lots of interesting hair. I did lots of woodblock and linocut prints in grad school and since my hands are starting to feel a little old I have been experimenting with scratchBoard Here is a experiment that I did, a comic about my various hair styles:

Box Brown Page Two And Three

2009-03-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

I have been stumbling around this format for the past few days and I have finally figured out how to link larger items ( manipulation of HTML is the GREATEST!!).Here is the next 2 pages forBox Brown.

And if you read the previous post, you can now click the first page of OOTBT for a better look. I will be adding my other project soon Art Schoo, as well as an explanation of "Roaches Have Wings". I appreciate all your feedback.

2009-03-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

Two years ago I was lost as a painter and I had trouble finding my voice. I was teaching at a few colleges as a adjunct, and I was also working part time as a caricature artist; as I had for some 12 years or so. One night I was working at a all night prom party drawing caricatures and someone asked me if i had ever drawn comics. Now, this was a question that I had been asked a number of times over the previous 12 years by caricature subjects. I said no I could never do that, it takes so long and besides it was not the "fine art" that I had learned getting my MFA. At the end of the night I looked at the number of drawing I had done in a four hour stretch, (which typical could number about 40 or so) and I thought that I could really do that, I could make a comic. I had stories, like most I started drawing superheros of all kinds when I was a kid but that stopped. But I had stories that I had written down ( with words and everything!) so I read every book on comics I could find and I started with the stories that I already had. That was about 2 years ago and I am about 30 pages into a book that I call Dandelion. It is mostlty posted on my website www.joelchristiangill.com more on Dandelions to come.

A year or so ago I was reading some online comics and ran across a guy called Box Brown, I liked his work and thought I should google him to find more work. Little did I know Box Brown was a slave in Virginia, who mailed himself to freedom in a Box. Now I wasn't sure but I thought that Box Brown I was looking for was a white guy and while he is in the Philly area I did not think he got there in a box. So I emailed him and asked him about his name he explained that he (Brian) was shaped like a Box and that was a named he picked up. He told me that at some point might do a comic about Henry "Box" Brown I said maybe I will beat you to it. A few weeks ago during a lag in Dandelions I thought no time like the present so I started sketching:

And here is the outcome:

This was drawn with a ColErase Blue pencil, inked with a Pentel pocket brush and lettered and colored in Photoshop. There are about 6 or so pages in all I will post more as I finish. Tell me what you think.