I Will Lurk No Longer!

[absenter]

RRRAAAA!
It is I, He-Who-Will-No-Longer-Lurk-On-This-Forum-Though-He-Looks-At-It-Like-Every-Day!

So yeah, like you all I am a total head for Mr. Mignola's work. Secretly, I have watched you from afar, aloof and undiscovered, while you posted images, debated stuff and rendez-voused in hotel watering-holes. (No, I'm not your ex-boyfriend!)

But no longer! I have decided to join your digital community and step from behind the electronic pale whence I hid! As such, I will share artwork and whatnot, bestow critical opinions and be generally as cheeky as possible in persuit of total on-line, integrative harmony with all. Big UP!

I will promise to uphold your strict standards of whatever and protect all you hold dear like tentacles, guy davis, semiotics, truth and justice, horrible man-mutants, black, comic books, Cthulu, ( Germany just scored goal # Zwei ! ) tattoos, rock AND roll, the need to use money you probably should have saved for rent on a brilliant peice of original art, swimming, wonkyness, rotten pistachios JUST KIDDING (wanted to see if you're still paying attention), candy, puppies and all around hipness.

Friends, will you have me as one of your own?!

(aaaaaaaand what kind of friend would I be if I didn't ask you for a favor? Right? So could some dear soul out there pick me up a copy of the "Some Drawings" sketchbook and one a them-there "San Diego 2006" Prints? I got money......No really I can pay you for them.)

[Tad]

Welcome from the shadows.

But I'm already suspicious that'll you'll try to pay people in rotten pistachios. "Oh...but they're magic pistachios!"

Sure they are.;)

[Jawa]

I'm no longer lurking, either. Of course, I wasn't lurking in the first place, I just wasn't even reading! I'm making my return, is more like it :)

[hellboyone]

We totally knew you were there and we would talk about you when you weren't around. :) Welcome!

[absenter]

My brothers and sisters this is awesome!:mad: no wait:D yeah! That's what I'm talking bout!

[morna]

Let the cheekyness begin!


er... I mean continue ;)

[Myron L]

I knew I felt someone peeking over my shoulder...now let the light be cast on thou most foul creatures of the The Lurk (just kiddin' about the "foul" part...welcome !)

[absenter]

Okay cool, lets keep this boat a rockin, and i cordially invite everyone to come a knockin. I'm gonna name some things and you tell me if you think they're cool or not.

1. N.C. Wyeth illustrations made for R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island. These are cool. Their high stylization (is this a werd!?), palpable feeling of movement and great uses of light and dark could be called kin to Mignola's stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like the book and it's also cool, but i really like the illustrations. Apparently the originals are as tall as a man.


2. The Loving Sounds of Static by the Mobius Band.

3. Giant Squid.

[Sparky]

1. N.C. Wyeth illustrations made for R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island.
3. Giant Squid.
Welcome to the forum!

N.C Wyeth, and his teacher Howard Pyle (one of the few great things to come out of my home state), are two of my favorite artists. I do like NC's son, Andrew's, work as well, but it's pretty bleak compared to his father's more colorful stuff. If you're ever in the Pennsylvania/Delaware region, you can see lots of Wyeths (and visit his studio) at the Brandywine River Museum (http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/collect.html). Chadds Ford is a lovely area, although I haven't been back in a while...the wooded fields and stone fences may now be nothing but Walmarts and Hummer H2s.

The Delaware Art Museum (http://www.delart.org/view/collections/collections_home.html) has quite a few Howard Pyles (piles of them!): my favorite being Marooned (http://pirateshold.buccaneersoft.com/hold/hpyle-marooned.jpg), which is much more haunting and desolate in person.

I'm also with you on the giant squid. sorry, don't know the Mobius Band, although I can make a Mobius Strip out of a piece of paper.

[Otto66]

Nice choice, Sparky. One of my favorites, also. Seeing the original must
be really impressive.

Anyway. Welcome, absenter. And rewelcome, Jawa.

So. If ya read Jnapper's sticky about rules ya know whats what as far
as the mod side of things gos. Have fun and if ya do have an opinion, be sure
that its more than THIS SUCKS! Although, at time, some things will/do suck.
Still, its better if you expound.

Oh, and please don't stare at my hump. Its rude.(KIDDING):D

[absenter]

Right. If you really think it sucks then so be it, your opinion is yr own. Lay it on me. But qualify! And further, unless you are eaten by a giant squid, I don't see how they are not cool...and really even if you are eaten by a giant squid that makes for a great story and is pretty cool.

[Angilas-Man]

I've been registered on this board for months and I still mostly lurk!

[absenter]

Like the "marooned" peice. I love the lineage of Wyeth's too. I've never heard of Pyle before, but the influence is totally there. I'll have to check him out. "marooned" actually reminds me of "christina's world", though not composed in exactly the same manner, there's that feeling of faceless solitude.

I've been to the Barnes Collection in Penn. which was pretty cool. I went with a friend who brought a Nobel prize winner that he knows along with us and he gave me the skinny on Barnes. What a prick! (can I say that?)

I love stone fences and hate H2s. CURSE YOU PROGRESS!

[Hellmistress]

There is also N.C.'s grandson (Andrew's son) James Wyeth, whose work carries both the influence of his illustrator grandfather (try N.C.'s illustrations for Hiawatha - superb) and the immaculate and often disturbing detail of his father.

Here's a favourite, but check out the rest of the images - well worth it. He has a fine sense of the macabre too, which I love, and his passion for the sea and the environs of his home creates works which are just magical. He also has a thing about pigs, so that makes him an okay guy by me!!

http://www.jamiewyeth.com/mischief_night.html

Also, if you can find it, check out his portrait 'Shorty'.

N.C.'s work often reminds me of Breughel.

HM

PS - of course, a Giant Squid would get munched with ease by a Colossal Squid. Big buggers.

[Petersen]

As long as we are linking to NC work, here are a few I was able to quickly google that I enjoy:

http://www.nevadaobserver.com/NC%20Wyeth%20The%20Carpetbaggers%20(1912).jpg

http://www.edizionikami.it/Schwob/images/image013.jpg

http://www.awyethgallery.com/nc/rip.jpg





I was unable to find some of the onse I was looking for. I have this book:
http://www.pralston.com/covers/ncwyeth.jpeg
that I was able to pick up for less than $8 on a Borders sale table

[absenter]

Your second link is the piece on the cover of my edition of Treasure Island. I love how he's holding his muskets. (can I say that?) Really cool illustration of the giant in the clouds. Never seen that one either.

YES! The colossal squid is supposed to be of a "magnitude larger and meaner" than his broham Architeuthus. He's got friggin claws in his tentacles! Specimens of both are found in the gut of sperm whales. When beaks that have been recovered from sperm whale dook are compared to those of whole specimens collected from nets or beaches, the dookie beaks are bigger. That means that the whole specimens collected (already measuring what looks like an impressive 20ft. long with tentacles extended) are juveniles. Wowwy wow wow! If there were a smiley face that expressed the sense of fear and wonder this gives me...I would use it here.

[Otto66]

Nice to see everyone weighing in with some of their favorite paintings.

Is it just me, or is the magic of "Christina's World" lost when all
you see is a woman who has dropped her carkeys n the grass?:confused:

[Jon D.]

lurker you say?... God tell me they don't watch through the bathroom windows... :(

[absenter]

I've seen everything and you should be ashamed of yourself.

RE Chistina's World: HAHA! She'll never find that contact lens

OK, please feel free to continue talking about the Wyeth Family, favorite masterworks or (most importantly) oversized cephalopods, but...in an effort to keep this conversation fresh, allow me to infuse a new topic of note.

How funny is BORAT!
This may well be the most hysterical film ever to grace the silver screen.

[Otto66]

How funny is BORAT!
For me? Not so much. But it ain't him or you. Its me.
Funny is subjective. I've watched movies where the audience
is roaring with laughter, but I'm not. Other times I'm rolling
in my seat and getting dirty looks from people 'cause they
can't figure out why I'm laffing. {SHRUG}

[absenter]

The man is abriliant! :confused: For anyone who has not seen the trailer for Borat's upcoming movie, feast yer lookin balls on this!:

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/borat.html;_ylt=Aqal9iWsc_u8o0PrG6cSal9fVXcA)http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/borat.html;_ylt=Aqal9iWsc_u8o0PrG6cSal9fVXcA

I gotta this froma googlea search fora ahellboy, boo!:

http://www.bigel.net/images/pictureimages/june_2005/hellboy.jpg

[absenter]

I promised myself that at some point I would start an art thread and since it's 2007 and mortality is creeping ever closer, I figured it's time. And since I'm kind of partial to this thread, I figured it might be nice to use it for this.

I don't have a scanner at home (though I dropped tons of hints to the GF for this as a christmas present and got a PS2 instead, which is fine by me) so these images are all doodles done at work. I've cropped and scrubbed them up a little bit in photoshop, but mostly they're presented as is. Hope you like!

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/strut.gif

This is the main character of the "when-I-get-around-to-finishing-it" comic. In answer to your question, Yes, he does have a face, but I'm still a bit cagey about posting him.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/creepycouple.gif

Here's a weird one I thought you folks might like. Aren't they just the cutest?:D

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/ghostofipod.gif

This is the spectre that lives in my ipod.

[absenter]

And here's some faces...

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/halfportrait.gif

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/gambitsketch.gif

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/squint.gif

And finally, this thing.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/harpy2.gif

[Vakanai]

Welcome to the board. Aah, I remember when I was doing all the lurking, good times. And everyone should be ashamed of themselves, naughties. Kidding. I don't really know much about art, just that I like the work of Mignola and Brian Froud. And Giant or Collosal squids are awesome. If only there was an equivalent for octopi.

[gdeo]

Nice work...would love to see more!

[Neil Hill]

Welcome from the shadows, and thanks for sharing the artwork interests and images of your own. Post often and play nice.

[6are54]

abs, you are funny, i like that.

[absenter]

Vanakai: Brian Froud is great (theres another Dark Crystal movie in production from what i hear, whether it will be as cool for me as the o.g. was...i dunno). Similarly, squids are great. A giant squid was reportedly caught not long ago and brought to the surface alive. kinda cool.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061222-giant-squid.html

gdeo: okay

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/morepanels.gif

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/panels.gif

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/dunno.gif

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/suggestion.gif

Again, done at off times at wirk and scanned.

[absenter]

And as per a request from prince Namor (actually a capricorn), a nautical theme...

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/turningtarpon.gif
A tarpon

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/crabby.gif
Crabcakes the shy demon of the sea.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/lookingup.gif
While drawing this yesterday it felt like i was looking up from a river bed at a drowning girl and so i added some ripples and voi la! who brought mr. creepy.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/thankssquids.gif
This was done a while ago as a thank you for someone who had offered to pick up an SDCCSB and print for me. I crapped out and didn't get the money to them on time. Probably should have spent that time going to the post office instead of drawing thank you squids.

stygger: okeley dokely neighbor!

6is54again: Welcome back from your extended hiatus! Next time, don't stay away so long okay.

[gdeo]

These are great ...your use of shadows are well done!

[absenter]

Thanks! And because this is a hellboy board, I thought I would make it official. Here's old red-butt, crown prince of hades and all around good guy, your friend and mine, Mr. Boy.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/comic.jpg

[Jake Capps]

Welcome to the board!

[gdeo]

COOL! Let's see more:)

[absenter]

Thanks for the encouragement gdeo. I would love to slake your thirst for MORE, but I don't have a scanner at home, where I have a lot of peices like these that I could put up. I'm in the market for a scanner that I could use for this purpose (got a couple amazon.com gift cards to help me out), but I want to get something that works best for this kind of thing (e.g. scanning artwork) and not for say...photos of your auntie. Please, if anyone has any kind of authority or knowledge about this they could offer, I'm all ears.

Until then, I'll continue to post up a little something from work if i can. I have to do this somewhat covertly (snuck in the thankyousquids peice), but it's fun to knock off an image and post it the same day (i.e. hellboy sketch and drowning girl) regardless of how finished it looks. Cheers!

[lerochelle]

My scanner seems to work well for this sort of thing, take a look at Help. Art. Help. to see. I t is a Cannon CanoScan LiDE 25. Got it for my birthday so I'm not sure as the price though it was prolly around or below $100.

Sneaking is fun. It seems to add to your work a bit. LOL Great job.

Question: If Trevor Bruttenholm adopted Hellboy, Like I have read... Somewhere... Wouldn't his last name be the same?

[6are54]

6is54again: Welcome back from your extended hiatus! Next time, don't stay away so long okay.

the "are" stands for R...it's a very complicated geek code for my name.

[6are54]

love your work btw, especially the faces. I lika that.

[absenter]

the "are" stands for R...it's a very complicated geek code for my name.

I just assumed you were a robot, Fred.:D And thanks! (notice that theres a crescent moon in almost every image that doesnt take place under water, instant background!)

Lerochelle: Appreciate the help. I had a scanner at one point, the same thing you have I think. Was wondering whether there might be a higher grade machine (though what would make one scanner better than another I dont know) as I might be willing to shell out a couple extra clams. And I love me some sneakin!

[6are54]

shhhhhh ;)

[absenter]

Heres another one I scanned and scrubbed of paper lines.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/soldier.gif

[absenter]

Did this today. Had to work, but it wasn't so bad.:)

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/mohawk1.gif

[absenter]

Apologies for the repetitive posts, but i snuck some older stuff into wirk today. Bring on the celebrities!

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/batman.gif

This is Batman. It's kind of wak, there's obvious problems with the legs and whatnot, but rather than hide all my mistakes, I'd rather lie naked before you............wait a minute...scratch that.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/spiderman.gif

This is Spiderman. Again, problems with the legs, but I still like this.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/girl.gif

Zombie slut. Mmm. Annnnnnd, for those of you that are fools, truly, I pity you.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/MrT.gif

[6are54]

wow! Those are grwat dude! But Spidey is the bigger slut...look at that spandex!

[parrish]

I think the Batman sketch is the best one, yet. It kind of reminds me of Ted McKeever's stuff.

[Vakanai]

Great work absenter.

[absenter]

Muchos gracias Vak, 6 and parrish. Spidey probably is the bigger slut...he is quite a swinger! ;) The Batman was going to get cropped, so thanks; I'll have to check out Ted McK.

For all your luv-spreadin, I'm going to pass on this because I think squids are cool:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/6357005.stm

[parrish]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/6357005.stm

Weird. Guess its not unheard of though, since there's also the angler fish and electric eel that do the same thing.

[Jankenstein]

Okay cool, lets keep this boat a rockin, and i cordially invite everyone to come a knockin. I'm gonna name some things and you tell me if you think they're cool or not.

1. N.C. Wyeth illustrations made for R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island. These are cool. Their high stylization (is this a werd!?), palpable feeling of movement and great uses of light and dark could be called kin to Mignola's stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like the book and it's also cool, but i really like the illustrations. Apparently the originals are as tall as a man.


2. The Loving Sounds of Static by the Mobius Band.

3. Giant Squid.

1. Charles Vess and I stopped off at the Brandywine Museum a few years back. The Wyeth Treasure Island paintings are H U G E ! It's a totally different experience seeing them up close. Reproductions just don't do them justice. You can see serveral layers of paint on top of each other. Absolutely gorgeous stuff!

2. Have no idea. But I like Moebius, and it befuddles me that an artist of his caliber doesn't have an official website.

3. If you like to keep up with cephalopod news, check out http://www.tonmo.com :D

[absenter]

I picked up an original art page yesterday and I thought you all might enjoy hearing about the adventure. A friend and colleague was bribed into driving me to meet with the person who would be selling and we stopped off at his place to pick up his car after werk. He introduced me to his pet snake, a three foot long python, as we got ready to leave. I'm cool with snakes, but there's always some initial apprehension when they're handed to me and to his credit Slithers seemed to notice this, but still regarded me with placcid, reptilian unconcern, comfortably moving up my arm with snakely interest (I know, I know, I was just another hot rock). I just kind of stood there, trying to be still and let him do his thing which thankfully did not involve biting me.

I spoke with my contact earlier and we had arranged for a rendez-vous point, but I had yet to meet the person in any kind of informal setting and didn't quite know what to expect. He mentioned over the phone that he could bring some other peices by if there was something that I was interested in. I cut him off, "Mignola". "Okay," he said "I'll bring the page you asked for and the Mignola stuff I have." You never realize how big of a dork you are until you start to shiver at the mere suggestion of something like this.

Me and my colleague bumbled along in his Explorer to the rendez-vous and arrived earlier than anticipated. My colleague is not a comic person and continually asked "Is this dude gonna be like Comic Book Guy?" "No." I said and then quickly qualified, "Probably." I looked around the place to see if he was waiting for us and tried not to notice my colleague's obligatory "Worst episode ever." He wasn't there yet and so we made our way to the bar and ordered a beer.

As we sat and talked there was a distinct feeling that we were doing something illegal even though nothing of the sort was going on: It was a unfamiliar part of town, I was constantly scanning the place for my contact, unaccompanied ladies on either side of us giggled and spoke in languages we didn't understand while staring. "You're sure we're picking up comic books?"

Eventually, the seller arrived and pulled out the pages he had brought and we moved to a table. The page I was going to buy was gorgeous, but (surely in part because I couldn't afford them) the Mignola pages stole the show. I felt like I was looking at some holy relic and was really overcome by how beautiful the originals looked, all those deep blacks, the tiny pencil marks; I was in church. They turned my chauffering colleaugue into a geek. He pored over a page from Seed of Destruction that I was freaking out over and you could see him coming down with it; the virus was spreading. It's so much more satisfying to see these works in person than it is to see them on a computer screen, they're so much larger and richer. Even the people at the bar were trying to look over our shoulders. We spoke about how the original pricings differed from the ones I was confronted with, as they were on the page side by side. I lamented how broke I was when it was still possible to pick up some of Mike's work kind of cheap. In the back of my mind I had thought that maybe, just maybe, there would be some illo or page that I could afford and snatch up and it was tough, but eventually I realized that (for now) it just wasn't going to happen.

The seller turned out to be really cool, a comic book guy in the best way and we talked for a while. I came away feeling that I'd been privileged to have seen artwork that I revere, rather than being disappointed that I couldn't make any of it mine. Maybe it's sentimental, but its exactly how I felt.

Anyway...

1. Charles Vess and I stopped off at the Brandywine Museum a few years back. The Wyeth Treasure Island paintings are H U G E ! It's a totally different experience seeing them up close. Reproductions just don't do them justice. You can see serveral layers of paint on top of each other. Absolutely gorgeous stuff!


Cool! Good to know where these are located. Talk about art I revere...

Weird. Guess its not unheard of though, since there's also the angler fish and electric eel that do the same thing.

Certainly not unheard of, bioluminescence is exploited in a lot of different ways by just about everything that deep (don't think electric eels literally light up), but I don't know that that kind of behavior has ever been documented. BTW, just in case either of you missed this:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070222-squid-pictures.html?bcsi_scan_A8AA4F79F19141A2=0&bcsi_scan_filename=070222-squid-pictures.html

and I thought this was really mignoly (don't give up it takes a while):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=z_rFoD1oE6U
:D

[absenter]

Hey all,
Soooooooo...I'm working on a comic (Who isn't!?). And I've been meaning to really get down to some serious wirk on it since it's been knocking around in my head for quite a while now and I think it's at the point where...well...nuthin to it but to do it, right? I figure maybe if I post a little something it will encourage me (read "force me") to follow up with some actual progress. Trying to figure out whether it would be best to go straight to webcomic (which I think would be much easier) or really try to get it printed up. Anyways, here's a qwik sketch of a few of our protagonists. Hope you like it:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/possiblecover.jpg

and while I'm at it, I thought this was really interesting. I know ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, but am I the only one who thinks this looks exactly like a trilobite? It's a young isopod that was recently photographed in the antarctic. Kinda cool:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/photogalleries/antarctica-new-species/

i guess he'll grow up to become this:

http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/nsf/fguide/arthropoda30.html

[parrish]

Your weird animals link reminded me to ask you if you saw the piece about the primitive shark they found.

SHARK! (http://ballyblog.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/rare-primitive-shark-caught-on-film/)

[6are54]

That's so nice!!

[absenter]

Thanks 6! Much appreciated.:D

Parrish, I have indeed seen this shark who wandered up from the depths, but not this particular photo. Gives a great perspective of the snakey, eel-like body. You can also catch a glimpse of that conveyor-belt of teeth in the lower jaw (ever heard of Helicoprion?). Haven't watched the vid yet, but really cool. All kinds of cool stuff lurkin down there...

Hope to put more stuff up soon...

[absenter]

Okay, gonna switch into shameless self-promotion mode. This will be the first in a series of posts intended to promote the comic I'm working on called BAD SEED.

Let's meet our hero, shall we...

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p148/absenter/ClipnsaveLloyd.jpg

The comic gets its name from this fellow (the product of a fortuitous sperm-bank accident), Hap Lloyd, otherwise known as 'Bad Seed'.

[diablo7]

cool artwork...has an amazing screw on head vibe...i'd buy a book with these characters....keep the pics coming..

[Lilitu]

Great charater!! his finger say a lot...:p