David Chelsea's Blog, page 26

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.

First Thursday on Patreon: Fan Art, And Lady Goddess Gets A Makeover!

It’s First Thursday again, and time to post a selection of Fan Art on my Patreon page. Since no fan drawings of my characters have come my way in the last month, I’ve posted my own drawings of other artist’s characters.

David Chelsea is listening to:

Baroque Masterpieces: Essential Classics

by VARIOUS ARTISTS

First up is Rose Quartz, from the animated series Steven Universe. This character made news recently when a fan artist, stung by online criticism that her drawing made the character appear too thin, attempted suicide. The sad details are here.

Rose Quartz

For my own version, I adapted a piece of art featuring another plus-sized redhead, the calendar pinup Hilda, painted by Duane Bryers:

Hilda Calendar Art

Just don’t hate me if it’s off-model!:

Next, a sketchbook drawing from 2009. A fan at a convention wanted a sketch of my favorite Tintin character. I chose the lookalike detectives Thomson and Thompson:

Thomson And Thompson

To put a little different spin on things, I depicted the characters with apples in front of their faces, a favorite motif of Tintin creator Hergé’s countryman, the Belgian surrealist René Magritte:

Painting by René Magritte

Cartoonist and illustrator Rick Geary is one of the top four artists in my personal comics pantheon (the others being Winsor McCay, R. Crumb, and M.K. Brown) Most of Rick’s work these days is about true-life murder cases and historical figures like Trotsky and J. Edgar Hoover, and he rarely draws continuing characters. One exception is the turn-of-the-century liberated woman Blanche, featured in a series of three comics by Geary:

Blanche by Rick Geary

My own drawing puts Blanche into a period-appropriate setting, the 1911 painting September Morn by Paul Émile Chabas:

September Morn, oil painting on canvas by Paul Émile Chabas, 1911.

M.K. Brown is another distinctive stylist who doesn’t usually draw continuing characters. Probably her best-known is Aunt Mary, star of the monthly strip AUNT MARY’S KITCHEN, which ran in the National Lampoon in the 1980s:

Aunt Mary, by M.K. Brown.

My fan art drawing shows Aunt Mary making a flapjack person, which I took from a cartoon by M.K. Brown’s fellow National Lampoon contributor and onetime husband B.Kliban:

Cartoon by B. Kliban.

R. Crumb, on the other hand, has created a small army of continuing characters, many of whom he has been drawing since the 1960s (of course, these days he mostly draws himself). One of the most persistent, if not popular, is this guy, Mr. Snoid:

Mr. Snoid, by R. Crumb.

Mr. Snoid’s toothy grin and wedge-shaped eyes bear a family resemblance to this character, the controversial Cleveland Indians mascot, Chief Wahoo:

Cleveland Indians logo, featuring Chief Wahoo

Crumb is most identified with San Francisco in the 1960s, but he did live for a time in Cleveland (where he met both his first wife Dana, and Cleveland’s true comics laureate, Harvey Pekar). Since Crumb can be considered a hometown boy, I decided to slightly redesign Cleveland’s logo to honor his Snoid character (and as an incidental benefit, remove all taint of racism):

Next First Thursday on Patreon? Maybe I’ll draw some Winsor McCay characters.

Meanwhile, I’m also posting two new pages of a continuing story involving Snow Angel. In this installment, Snow Angel gives her fellow superhero Lady Goddess a makeover, putting some long johns under her skimpy thong:

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!

Meanwhile, on the Spencer watch, the tribes on Survivor: Second Chances merged on the last episode, after which Spencer found himself a swing vote between two factions, led on one side by Savage, and on the other by his old nemesis “Chaos Kass” McQuillen, from Survivor: Cagayan. Spencer had the chance to repay Kass for saving him from the chopping block the previous episode, but instead he voted with the savage faction, and Kass’s torch was snuffed.

Spencer: still surviving

Fourth Thursday On Patreon: Hangout And Snow Angel

I’ve just posted two more pages of a serialized Snow Angel story on Patreon, in which the Chilled Champion meets both a fellow superhero, Lady Goddess, and a nefarious supervillain, Professor Invidious:

David Chelsea is reading:

Patternalia: An Unconventional History of Polka Dots, Stripes, Plaid, Camouflage, & Other Graphic Patterns

by Jude Stewart

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!

And, because there are four Thursdays in October, I’m doing a second hangout this afternoon at 4 pm PDT. My special guest this session will be Pete Soloway of the webcomic PIZZA GUN. Pete & I will be sketching on-camera, and engaging in a wide-ranging discussion about comics, illustration, politics, and possibly the Steven Universe Controversy.

Pete Soloway

On the Spencer watch, last night’s episode of Survivor found Spencer once again on the chopping block, until his old nemesis Kassandra “Kass” McQuillen from Survivor: Cagayan had a change of heart, and decided to blindside Woo, the laid-back surfer dude (also a holdover from Survivor: Cagayan). Spencer survives!

Not blindsided

Becoming Lady Goddess

I’m posting two more pages of the latest serialized Snow Angel comic on Patreon today. In this story, Snow Angel meets a team of crime-fighting superheroes, The Congress Of Crusaders.

David Chelsea is listening to:

Beach House

by Beach House

Principal among these is a female superhero, Lady Goddess. Here is her entrance in the version I first roughed out in my sketchbook:

Lady Goddess went through some wardrobe indecision between first concept and the final inked version on Patreon. Initially, she had a tiara like Wonder Woman’s, and a thong like Vampirella’s, as well as a cape and a vaguely Grecian hairdo.

(BTW, both Wonder Woman and Vampirella have recently adopted new, less revealing costumes in response to feminist criticism. We’ll see how long that lasts.).

The tiara soon gave way to a goddessy crown of laurel leaves:

I still wasn’t entirely happy with the design- I found it hard to figure how exactly the hairdo and the laurel leaves fit together. Also, the cape covered her up a bit more than I would have liked (part of the story involves Lady Goddess complaining about how her skimpy costume leaves her freezing in winter), but I needed a striped element to go with the starry thong:

Things came together more when I gave Lady Goddess a 1940s hairdo, giving her the look of a character from the Golden Age Of Comics:

I was finally able to let go of the cape when I realized that I could put stripes on The Purse Of Power, Lady Goddess’s indispensable accessory. Here is the all-but-final version of the character (not quite final because I eventually hope to publish a version in color):

Since this is the Fourth Thursday of the month, I’ll be holding a video hangout this afternoon at 4 pm PDT. Today, I’ll show how to draw Snow Angel, and if there’s time, Lady Goddess!

Further Spencer news: after a couple of episodes in which his tribe won immunity, Spencer again found himself possibly on the chopping block, part of a minority of two within the Bayon Tribe, against a four-person alliance. However, a last-minute strategic squabble within the alliance led the other members to blindside Monica instead. Spencer survives!

Whew! That was close!

Snow Day!

Today, Wednesday, October 21st, 2015 is the day DARK HORSE PRESENTS #15 goes on sale at comics shops everywhere. This issue is very special for me, because it contains the second Snow Angel story ever in print, an extra-spooky adventure set on Halloween!

David Chelsea is reading:

The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America’s Coldest Cases

by Deborah Halber

In this story, Angel takes a break from fighting crime to go trick-or-treating in a headless man costume, but no matter- there seem to be PLENTY of Snow Angels walking around:

(Color by the incomparable Jacob Mercy).

Eventually, the real Snow Angel DOES make an appearance, but to find out why, you’ll have to buy the issue!

Buy Dark Horse Presents #15!

Writers: Carla Speed McNeil, Alex de Campi, Brendan McCarthy, Shawn Aldridge, Steve Horton, David Chelsea

Artists: Carla Speed McNeil, Brendan McCarthy, David Chelsea, Jerry Ordway, Julius Gopez, Chris Marrinan

Cover Artist: Carla Speed McNeil

Genre: Short Stories / Anthologies

Publication Date: October 21, 2015

Format: FC, 48 pages; Ongoing

Price: $4.99

If you can’t make it to the store, buy the digital edition!

Meanwhile, my daughter Rebecca, the sort-of-model for Snow Angel, has her own Halloween costume ready to go:

Secret Stash On Patreon: 1990s Portland And New York In Reference Photos For DAVID CHELSEA IN LOVE

The Third Thursday of the month is when I post Secret Stash material to my Patreon page; sketchbook drawings, old decorated envelopes, and other ephemera. This month I have a gallery of reference photos shot for my first graphic novel DAVID CHELSEA IN LOVE.

David Chelsea is reading:

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink

by Elvis Costello

Drawn between 1989 and 1991, DAVID CHELSEA IN LOVE is set a decade earlier, and recounts my failed romance with an actress I call “Minnie Maurier”, as well as flirtations, one-night stands, and short affairs with a half-dozen other women.

The events in the story largely take place in Portland, while at the time I was working on the book I was living in New York. It was important to me to include specific and recognizable locations in the story, so I needed visual reference. Nowadays I would be able to gather all the material from Google Street View and Google Images, but at the time visual reference for Portland, Oregon was not easy to come by in New York, so I was obliged to shoot my own. Fortunately, my family and many of my friends were still living in Portland, and I brought my camera along on visits home.

Each photo in this series is paired with a panel from DAVID CHELSEA IN LOVE. Though I was trying to evoke the early 1980s, my photos wound up being a time capsule of the early 1990s. Here, I backdate a 1990s photo to 1980 by adding a street sweeper cleaning up ash from the Mt. St. Helens eruption, without bothering to change the cars to what actually would have been on the road that year:

Many of my photos were shot with a vintage Kodak Stereo (a gift from my very tolerant and forbearing wife, Eve). This shot of the street sculpture familiar from the “Expose Yourself To Art” poster became part of an acid trip sequence (Note the Tom Peterson stencil on the trash can- that was really more of a 1990s thing):

Parts of the story take place in New York, so I shot reference photos there as well. Judging from the movie names on the marquee, this must have been taken in 1982, so it appears I used an existing photo from my files for this panel:

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

Curious to see more of DAVID CHELSEA IN LOVE? It’s out of print, but you can buy a copy from Amazon:

Meanwhile, I am also posting two new pages of a serialized Snow Angel story today. In the last installment, Snow Angel met a previously unheard-of superhero, Lady Goddess:

In this episode, Lady Goddess introduces Snow Angel to an entire team of crime-fighting superheroes, The Congress Of Crusaders:

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!

RIP, Dennis Eichhorn

 

Like many in the comics community, I was saddened to hear of the death last week of Dennis Eichhorn, who was best known for his very frank series of autobiographical comics, which were published under various titles, mostly in the 1990s (including REAL STUFF, REAL SMUT, and REAL SCHMUCK), and collected in the book REAL STUFF in 2004.

David Chelsea is reading:

Ruins

by Peter Kuper

Like Harvey Pekar, Denny was a cartoonist who did not draw himself, and the artists he collaborated with are an honor roll of 90s-era alternative comics notables: Peter Kuper, Drew Friedman, Pete Bagge, Jaime Hernandez, Mary Fleener, Julie Doucet, Jim Woodring, J.R. Williams, Joe Sacco, Dave Cooper, Roberta Gregory, Colin Upton, Ivan Brunetti, Carol Swain… The list goes on and on. I am humbled to have been one of them.

The Many Faces of Dennis Eichhorn

I first ran across Denny’s comics when I was at work on my own autobiographical comic, DAVID CHELSEA IN LOVE, and his example definitely goaded me to be more explicit in exposing myself than I might otherwise have dared– I suspect that is true of a lot of people who were drawing autobiographical comics at the time. The Denny we meet in his stories is a raucous character who seemingly can’t enter a bar without getting into a fight (the wildest story of that kind has to be the one in which he kicks out a guy’s eye), or meet a woman without taking her to bed. When I met him in person at my first San Diego comic con, I was surprised at how BECALMED he seemed– perhaps he had gotten all the sex and violence out of his system by then.

Denny had seen and noticed my work, and he had a couple of stories that he felt I was particularly suited to draw. Probably he liked the way I drew naked women, because that’s what the stories I illustrated were heavy on. One was about a time when his wife became the most popular nude model at art school:

And the other recounted another of his innumerable one night stands:

My favorite piece of art done for Denny was a private sketch sent to him in a letter that he nonetheless printed in REAL SMUT; playing on his Idaho heritage, I showed him screwing Mrs. Potato Head. Given the solemn occasion, is to soon to post this image? I don’t think Denny would think so:

Want to see more? Check out the Dennis Eichhorn collection, REAL STUFF:

Rebecca: The Votes Are In!

Thanks to all of you who voted for Rebecca’s penguin in the Design-A-Sock contest. Ultimately, she won third place, behind the skull flower one and the dinosaurs in space, which means that her design won’t be going into production, but she will be collecting the $250 third prize. Eve & I will have to think of an appropriately penguin-themed celebration.

A Double Shot Of Snow Angel For October

Another week, another two pages of comics on Patreon. I will be taking a break from my serialized webcomic ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? for the next few weeks in order to devote more time to another project, my newest book from Watson-Guptill, PERSPECTIVE IN ACTION, which is due to be published in Spring 2017. In the interim, I will be running a new story in which Snow Angel comes to the aid of a kid whose tongue is frozen to a flagpole.

David Chelsea is reading:

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed

by Jon Ronson







I don’t want to give too much away, but on the last panel of this week’s installment, we do meet a new superhero:

Also this month, Dark Horse Presents will be running another Snow Angel story, appropriately set on Halloween. The issue goes on sale on October 21st!

Meanwhile, since it is Second Thursday on Patreon, I am also posting comics from the archive. This month, it’s the second installment of ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT, a 24 Hour Comic in which famous cartoonist David Chelsea hosts a Reality TV show in which participants have to draw a 24 Hour Comic. This story was a lot of fun to draw, especially as it gave me a chance to portray myself as a raging asshole:

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!

Vote for Rebecca!

Rebecca’s Sock Design.

Hey everyone! My daughter Rebecca’s sock design is one of thirty finalists in The Sock It to Me “International Design-A-Sock Contest”. Please go vote here to make these adorable penguin socks a reality! Voting closes on Friday so please be quick! I suspect this one is going to be decided not on merit, but on who has the biggest social media footprint, so feel free to Share, Tweet, E-mail and Fax this message to all your circles!

David Chelsea is reading:

The Nao of Brown

by Glyn Dillon

That is all. Another Patreon post tomorrow.