David Chelsea's Blog, page 25

SANDY & MANDY, Part Two, in Dark Horse Presents

Today, Wednesday, December 16th, 2015, is Beethoven’s birthday, and also the day the second installment of my comic SANDY & MANDY appears in Dark Horse Presents #17

David Chelsea is reading: Trashed

by Derf Backderf

Cover of Dark Horse Presents #17

Also in this issue: Paul Levitz and Tim Hamilton premiere Brooklyn Blood! In a precinct not known for murder, a killer is on the loose. If Detective Billy O’Connor’s PTSD doesn’t get in the way, he may be able to help his partner Nadira Hasan solve this eerie case.

This issue also features new chapters of Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder,Shawn Aldridge and Julius Gopez’s Last Act, and Dennis Calero’s The Suit. Alex de Campi and Jerry Ordway’s Semiautomagic and Brendan McCarthy’s Dream Gang conclude!

* Eisner, Harvey, and Stumptown Award winner!

In this story, the two friends split up for eight pages. Sandy goes on a deep sea adventure:

While Mandy has a blind date that turns seriously psychedelic:

By the way, if you don’t have time to go to the comics store, you can buy the digital version of Dark Horse Presents #17 here!

Don’t miss the thrilling conclusion of SANDY & MANDY in next month’s Dark Horse Presents!



Previous blog post about SANDY & MANDY.

Another one.

Read part one of CANDY & MANDY, the sketchbook precursor to SANDY & MANDY, on my Patreon page.

Second Thursday On Patreon: From CANDY & MANDY To SANDY & MANDY

Today is Second Thursday, when I post comics from my archive on Patreon. This month, it’s part one of CANDY & MANDY, a comic from my sketchbook that served as the basis for SANDY & MANDY, a three-part story that began appearing in Dark Horse Presents last month. The time seems right to repeat this blog post from last year:

David Chelsea is watching: Amy

with Amy Winehouse

I recently wrapped up work on SANDY & MANDY, an upcoming story for DARK HORSE PRESENTS, so here are some more preview images from it. The sequence of panels below shows my working method, from sketchbook rough to pencil to inks to watercolor to the final assembled frame:

 

 

This story went through more than a few changes from the original version in my sketchbook to the final color comic. Sandy & Mandy started out as CANDY & Mandy, and they looked considerably different. Mandy lost her baseball cap and sneakers in favor of a Pebbles Flintstone topknot and crocs, while Candy/Sandy went through a total makeover, from a soccer mom look to milkmaid braids and a peasant blouse (she also acquired my favorite style of eyewear, round black glasses); it all has to do with a plot development that I won’t spoil:

 

Sandy & Mandy’s friend Colleen changed less; in both versions her look derives from this still of Shelley Duvall in NASHVILLE:

When I began work on this story both of these characters were new, (I have since used both of them in 24 Hour comics) so I did some exercises to get familiar drawing them. Here is an early set of model sheets, before Mandy got her topknot. I later rethought her tattoos, eliminating the eye on her navel and shifting Snow Angel from her back to her bicep:

I went through a few sketchbooks and copied old one minute poses from life class, substituting Sandy & Mandy’s heads. Don’t get too excited- there’s no nudity in the comic itself:

 

Next up- the men of SANDY & MANDY!

Previous blog post about SANDY & MANDY.

 

 

 

Also today, I’m putting up the latest two pages of my continuing webcomic about Reality TV (also featuring Mandy), ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? on Patreon. In this episode Mandy & Mugg are hunting houses on the program Nest Quest, thoroughly checking out the attic, basement and garage:

Incidentally, one panel riffs on a 1970s National Lampoon photo comic written by Michael O’Donoghue, UNDERWEAR FOR THE DEAF, which I hadn’t seen in something close to forty years. I found the comic online after I drew this page, and it turns out I had come close to reproducing the dialogue verbatim:

Panel from UNDERWEAR FOR THE DEAF, 1975

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? Takes A Tumble

My Reality TV webcomic,  ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?, has been up on Patreon since July, but now I’ve put an archive of pages completed to date on Tumblr, starting here.

David Chelsea is reading: Invisible Ink: My Mother’s Love Affair With A Famous Cartoonist

by Bill Griffith







 

First page of ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? on Tumblr

 

Why? Because you can’t read the story straight through on Patreon without clicking back to the home page after each installment. So, for those  readers who may have wanted to check the story out, but aren’t that fond of my home page, here is the answer to your prayers.

I will still be posting on a weekly basis, and new pages will go up on Patreon a week before they appear on Tumblr. The most recent installment is here.

Check it out, and if you like what you see, click the link to Patreon and $how your $upport!

First Thursday on Patreon: Zap Comix 3D Fan Art!

Yesterday was First Thursday, when I post Fan Art to my Patreon page. This month I have something extra-special for my loyal Patrons (as well as freeloading site visitors), drawings of characters from Zap Comix, all in eyepopping 3D!!

David Chelsea is watching: Phil Spector

starring Al Pacino

Zap is of course the legendary underground comics series, first published in San Fransisco in 1968. The first three issues were entirely drawn by R. Crumb, but later issues expanded to include stories by cartoonists S. Clay Wilson, Gilbert Shelton, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, Spain Rodriguez, and Robert Williams. I was an avid Zap reader back when I was just beginning to draw comics myself, and I was influenced to some extent by all of the Zap artists. I pay tribute to each of them in the drawings on Patreon. Here are notes on a couple of my favorites.

S. Clay Wilson is known for extremely graphic stories involving bikers, pirates, and sometimes both groups together, in violent conflict. His most persistent character is the squat, bald and very evil Checkered Demon, who has a consort of sorts in Star-Eyed Stella. Stella is usually naked, and often tied up, but in the story RUBY THE DYKE MEETS WEEDMAN from Zap #5, Stella is cast as a maid guarding Weedman’s pet demon, and keeps her clothes on until nearly the end (when… never mind).

Stella partly inspired my own character, the Girl With The Keyhole Eyes:

To create the 3D effect, I took my drawing of Stella, cloned it in PhotoShop, and then manipulated the lines on one of the copies, moving them incrementally to the right or left, sometimes squashing or stretching them with the warp tool, to create a stereo parallax effect when viewed with the original. You can cross your eyes to see the result:

If you are unable to cross your eyes, I have posted anaglyph versions of each drawing which can be viewed through red and blue glasses:

Rick Griffin (along with Victor Moscoso) is the most psychedelic of the Zap artists, far more about the trippy graphics than coherent storytelling, and indeed he is better remembered for his rock posters and album cover art (often for the Grateful Dead) than his comics. He wasn’t really about continuing characters either (he had earlier created a surfer dude character named Murphy, but never drew him for Zap), but he had a few motifs he liked to draw. Stylized figures based on Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, humanoid insects, and eyeballs with arms and legs (and in this case, a devil tail and wings):

For my Griffin tribute, instead of using PhotoShop manipulation, I mapped my drawing of his eyeball character onto a mesh model in the 3D application Lightwave, and applied a grayscale displacement map to raise or lower areas of the model in a way that resembles an embossed greeting card:

I then created renderings with my virtual camera, shifting position horizontally to create two subtly different versions:

You can see my other drawings paying tribute to Zap artists Crumb, Shelton, Moscoso, Spain, and Williams on my Patreon page. All content is free, but if you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

On Patreon: ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? Returns To The Nest

This week on my Patreon page: after a sixteen-page SNOW ANGEL break, we return to my serialized webcomic ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? with two new pages. To recap, Mugg has sold his soul to the devil in order to get on Reality TV to impress Mandy, the girl of his dreams. In the latest episode, Mugg and Mandy become a newlywed couple hunting houses on the program Nest Quest, hosted by Licensed Real Estate Agent Elsie Dervish.

David Chelsea is reading: Couch Tag

by Jesse Reklaw

This kind of program was epidemic during the housing boom of the last decade, but it never really went away. The British comics Mitchell and Webb nicely boil it down to essentials in this sketch.

Attentive readers will notice that the host of Nest Quest sports a pair of round black glasses: she is meant to be the devil in disguise. A bespectacled devil clone appears in each of Mugg’s Reality TV adventures, sometimes as the host, sometimes in another guise. That the cartoonist behind this comic also wears round black glasses is no coincidence.

The many faces of Evil

In roughs I drew the real estate agent as a man, but then I decided it would be more inclusive, as well as fun, to make the character a David Chelsea in drag with fabulous streaks n’ tips (more true to life as well; most of the realtors I personally know are women). I also think it makes the scene more pointed; Mandy has a very particular use in mind for the first floor closet, which the realtor instantly picks up on, while Mugg is left in clueless male befuddlement:

One additional benefit to making the character a woman: this scene arguably passes The Bechdel Test, depending on whether you consider Mugg’s presence in the room a disqualifier (this very long online thread considers the question; suffice it to say that opinions differ). Whatever the two women are discussing, it’s definitely not a man. Why DO we need plumbing in a closet? All will be revealed next week.

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

Since it’s First Thursday, I am also posting a batch of Fan Art on my Patreon page, which is SO very special that it’s getting its own blog post, which goes up tomorrow!

Spencer: still a player

On the Spencer Watch, it all came down to the immunity challenge on Survivor last night. Invincible Joe was on the verge of winning immunity yet again, balancing a Buddha statue on a 14 foot pole, when he passed out from exhaustion, giving the win to Keith, the perennial second-place finisher. There was some momentary concern and sympathy for Joe, which lasted about as long as it took him to regain consciousness. The on-set doctor quickly gave the go-ahead for Joe to continue in the game, but his goose was essentially cooked, as the remaining players (Spencer among them) weren’t about to let him go on to win more immunities in future episodes. The producers tried, through clever editing, to make it look as if the contestants might instead vote out the ultra-annoying Abi, but in the end Joe had his torch snuffed. Hey- it wasn’t Spencer! (As a plus, this week’s Reward Challenge included a visit from Loved Ones Back Home, so we got to see Spencer’s girlfriend. She’s pretty.)

For Thanksgiving: Paper Dolls and Pinups!

Since it’s Thanksgiving, just a short post today. The conclusion of my serialized Snow Angel story goes up on Patreon today. Actually, the story part of the story wound up last week; this week it’s extras- a paper doll of Lady Goddess, and action pose pinups of The Congress Of Crusaders:

David Chelsea is reading: How About Never–Is Never Good for You?: My Life in Cartoons

by Bob Mankoff

Although it’s Fourth Thursday, I’m skipping the hangout. You know, Thanksgiving. Next week on Patreon: ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? returns!

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

On the Spencer Watch, last night was a double episode of Survivor. On the first half, Joe, the invincible Golden Boy who keeps winning Immunity Challenges, won yet again, and opinion settled on Stephen Fishbach, the nerdy schemer who is just a bit TOO eager to make “big moves”, as the one to go. However, Jeremy, who is in an alliance with Steven, pulled out an Immunity Idol at the last minute to save Fishbach from the chopping block, so instead it was Ciera who had her torched snuffed (I can’t remember which side Spencer was on).

Survivor strategist Spencer says “Sayonara, Stephen!”

On the second half, Spencer pulled out an unexpected victory over to Joe to win his first immunity this season. It seemed a golden opportunity to get rid of Joe, but Spencer instead decided to target Fishbach, and got his alliance members to go along. At Tribal Council, Fishbach, sensing danger, used an “advantage” he had won earlier in the game, which allowed him to cast two votes, and neutralize another player’s vote as well. However, it was not enough to overcome the votes against him, so Stephen went home. The Tribe Has Spoken. My nephew Ivan’s former college roommate is now two steps closer to winning the million dollars.

Secret Stash On Patreon- Celebrity Envelopes: The Men

It’s the third Thursday of the month, the day that I post The Secret Stash on my Patreon page– that is, sketches, reference photos, old flyers, and other ephemera from my files. Today I have a selection of decorated envelopes sent to friends over the past four decades or so, specifically ones that depict famous people. Because there are so many of these, I split the pile up into male and female celebrities. This month it’s men; I’ll post envelopes with women at some point in the future.

David Chelsea is reading: Amy and Isabelle: A novel

by Elizabeth Strout

Most of the batch are celebrities from the world of entertainment, with a heavy concentration on famous comedians, like Richard Pryor, Peter Sellers, John Belushi, and Peter Cook & Dudley Moore:

However, there is the occasional author, such as this portrait of Raymond Chandler:

One of my correspondents specifically requested that I put a few shirtless men on the letters I was writing him. I obliged with this portrait of Keith Carradine:

Membership has its privileges; all Secret Stash material is viewable by Patreon sponsors at the $4.99 level and above.

Also new on Patreon today: the final page of the continuing Snow Angel story that has been running for the past number of weeks, along with an extra– a Snow Angel paper doll! Next week: more paper dolls, and action pinups!

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

SANDY & MANDY in Dark Horse Presents #16!

Today, Wednesday November 18th, 2015, is the day you can finally march into your friendly comics dealer’s shop, and buy a copy of Dark Horse Presents #l6. This issue of the award-winning comics anthology has a double cover by Brendan McCarthy and Mike Mignola, and features new chapters of Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder, Alex de Campi and Jerry Ordway’s Semiautomagic, and Shawn Aldridge and Julius Gopez’s Last Act! Most importantly for Chelsea fans, it contains the first installment of my three-part story, SANDY & MANDY!

David Chelsea is reading:

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink

by Elvis Costello

Cover of Dark Horse Presents #16

Designed specifically to pass The Bechdel Test, this is a somewhat plotless idyl about two female friends who window-shop, share a bottle of wine, and ponder the deep philosophical questions:

I hope this is not too much of a spoiler, but it looks like they’ve decided on flight:

By the way, if you don’t have time to go to the comics store, you can buy the digital version of Dark Horse Presents #16 here!

Although this is the very first story I drew using these characters, because Dark Horse Presents has an extremely slow production schedule, it is not the first one to appear. Followers of my Patreon page will already have seen Mandy as the reluctant love interest in my 24 Hour Comic ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? (which began a three-part serialization here), as well as the redrawn and expanded webcomic by the same name, which begins here.

Mandy reappears as a clipboard-toting production assistant on a Reality TV show about 24 Hour Comics in which Sandy is a contestant, in the 24 Hour Comic ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT, which was also serialized on Patreon. Here is part one.

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

I posted a number of times on my blog about this story while I was working on it. I will be rerunning these posts over the coming weeks, as well as new material relating to SANDY & MANDY. I will also be serializing CANDY & MANDY, the sketchbook precursor to this story, on Patreon beginning next month.



A post about SANDY & MANDY from last week.

Second Thursday: Snow Angel, And An End To All Day And All Of The Night On Patreon!

It’s the Second Thursday of the month, time for me to load a new comic from the archives to my Patreon page. This month, it’s the third and final installment of ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT, a 24 Hour Comic in which Mugg finds himself a contestant on a Reality TV show hosted by famous cartoonist David Chelsea, in which he has 24 hours to draw a comic. Mugg ends up one of the top two contestants, competing for the top prize with a six-year-old boy in a wheelchair, who draws with a pen in his mouth (the blue ribbon panel of judges includes my own early character Piggola, The Virgin Valkyrie, a video game character who appeared in another strip of mine, THE GIRL WITH THE KEYHOLE EYES, and Kitchenbot, a robot formed of pots and pans and and cutlery, vaguely similar to Paul Guinan’s Boilerplate.):

David Chelsea is reading:

ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color

by Jude Stewart

Also on Patreon this week, two more pages of the latest Snow Angel story, in which she meets fellow superhero Lady Goddess. Things have taken an unusual turn– Snow Angel now has powers and abilities she never had before! In this panel, she makes it rain badminton birdies:

Could this all be too good to be true? Read the story and find out!

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

Still watching Spencer

Meanwhile, if you missed the latest episode of Survivor, Spencer was something of a bystander to this week’s events. A bloc led by Savage, Jeremy, and Joe had the upper hand, and had targeted Kelly Wentworth, one of three younger women, for elimination. However, Wentworth turned the tables when she pulled out an immunity idol that no one (except we viewers at home) knew she had, snuffing the torch of Savage, the ringleader. Spencer now has a one–in–11 chance of winning the million dollars!

It’s Wednesday- One Week To Sandy & Mandy!

Wednesday, November 18th, 2015, one week from today, is the publication day for Dark Horse Presents #16. The latest issue of this Eisner, Harvey, and Stumptown award winning anthology features a Brendan McCarthy cover which FLIPS OVER to reveal a Mike Mignola Hellboy cover and a special eight-page Hellboy story!

David Chelsea is reading:

Never Goodnight

by Coco Moodysson







This issue also features new chapters of Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder, Alex de Campi and Jerry Ordway’s Semiautomagic, and Shawn Aldridge and Julius Gopez’s Last Act! Most importantly for me, it begins the long-awaited appearance in print of my three-part story SANDY & MANDY.

Cover of Dark Horse Presents #16

I posted a number of work-in-progress looks at this story while I was working on it. I will be reposting these, along with some newer material, in the months to come. Here is the first, from June 17, 2014:

Here’s a story for Dark Horse Presents that I have been working on for over two years. I have mentioned it in passing in a few previous posts, but I haven’t done a full post about it before because I was making such slow progress. However, now that I’m at the two-thirds point (16 pages finished out of 24) I at last feel ready to offer a sneak peek.

It began as a sketchbook comic drawn during a European vacation I took with my family in the Summer of 2011. Mostly I worked on the plane and during long waits at train stations. The idea behind it was to draw something that would pass the Bechdel Test.

Page 1 of the sketchbook version

Alison Bechdel is the cartoonist responsible for the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For and the graphic novels Fun Home and Are You My Mother? but is best known for The Bechdel Test, which she formulated to determine whether a movie is sexist or not. For a story to pass the test:

1. It has to have at least two women in it,

2. Who talk to each other,

3. About something other than a man.

Some people amend the rules to require that both women have names.

The Test

Even though Bechdel devised this test for movies (some notable ones that fail it: The Godfather, The Graduate, Citizen Kane and the original Star Wars Trilogy) there is no reason it can’t apply to comics; a story is a story. When I first heard about the test I mentally applied it to my own work and was embarrassed to discover that only two stories passed: my first graphic novel David Chelsea In Love, thanks to a single sequence taking up part of two pages (41 and 42 in the Reed Press edition), and the 24 Hour Comic ID. Therefore I created Sandy & Mandy (who in my original sketchbook version were Candy & Mandy), two named female friends who talk about everything under the sun as well as the occasional man (I couldn’t resist having a bit of fun with such a P.C. restriction- notice the convoluted way they manage to bring up men’s names without actually talking about a man).

Since a large part of the trip was spent in Venice, I have the characters walking around a somewhat Venetian landscape (it also has features taken from the Venetian section of Las Vegas), even though the story is pretty clearly set in the States. I incorporate elements from books I brought along on the trip or had read recently, among them I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson, The Astral by Kate Christensen, Under The Banner Of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, Paying For It by Chester Brown, Colin Upton’s series of comics about his diabetes, and Alison Bechdel’s own graphic novel Fun Home. In Germany I saw a high school production of Wagner’s Ring,so I threw in a reference to that as well:

I’ll go into more detail on the changes I made between the sketchbook and final versions of the story, as well as showing some working drawings and model sheets of the characters in the next post, but here’s an advance look:

You can read ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?, a 24 Hour Comic with Mandy (but not Sandy), in installments on my Patreon page, beginning here. Warning: this story does NOT pass the Bechdel Test!

The first two of three parts of a later 24 Hour Comic featuring Sandy AND Mandy, ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT, have already appeared on my Patreon page. Here is the first.

I began serializing a revised webcomic version of ARE YOU BEING WATCHED?, which will eventually incorporate ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT, in July. Here is the first installment.