Brandon Graham's Blog, page 132

In the scale of Zdarksy to Brandon Graham, how dirty will Imperial Phase be?

The Zdarsky/Brandon rating scale is the scariest thing I’ve ever imagined.

simon-roy:turbofanatic:Inks are now done for this page!The...

simon-roy:

turbofanatic:

Inks are now done for this page!

The more I think about it the more surprised I am that comics aren’t chock full of hard sci-fi? I mean, really hard sci-fi, like The Martian hard.

A lot of complaints about hard sci-fi writing disappear in the comic format. Boring infodumps? Just diagram your lovingly designed spacetrain or whatever in a panel and the reader will skim or linger as is their preference. Issues with explaining hard concepts? Again, comics can use both words and pictures. Bad characterization? Well, comics can’t help you there but given how popular superhero comics are you should be just fine.

It feels like comics were made for hard sci-fi. There’s certainly a lot of sci-fi, which is great!* But I think there’s a real opportunity for harder sci-fi comics and that’s what I’m aiming for in Aphelion.

*I feel the need to point out that “soft” sci-fi and fantasy are also awesome, because there are too many jerks who think that if you didn’t do enough math your story is automatically bad. Those jerks are wrong but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.

I think it’s because most comic writers and artists have traditionally been such huge comic fans, and mainly produce work that reflects that. I remember hearing of Miyazaki complaining similarly - “Anime’s problem is that it’s full of anime fans.” 

It’s when you start trying to bring the content you love from other mediums, like prose sci-fi and literary fiction, that comics get really good (at least, in my opinion). 

I am a snob, though.

RIP Gene Wilder

RIP Gene Wilder

sorcerersskull:Art by Enrique Alcatena

sorcerersskull:

Art by Enrique Alcatena

tcannoncomics:Here’s the black and white version of my final...

tcannoncomics:

Here’s the black and white version of my final Prophet fan art.  

I’ve loved @royalboiler & @simon-roy ‘s relaunch of Prophet since the beginning.  And I’ve done a lot of Prophet fan art.  So, I thought I should do one more piece in commemoration of the series as the final issue is fast approaching.  

If you haven’t read Prophet, you should really pick up the collections.  They are unlike anything else on the stands right now.

Again, big props to the Prophet team: Brandon, Simon, @popgunwar, @milonogiannis, @grimwilkins, @sayunclecomics, @mattsheean, @malachiward and everyone else on the book for making cool stuff and supporting the community.  And a shout out to the guys at @prophetsharing for spreading the Prophet love.

Color version of this coming soon-ish (I’m a very slow colorist).  You can check out all my other Prophet stuff by clicking my ‘not for prophet’ tag.

Josephine Baker sketchbook drawings

Josephine Baker sketchbook drawings

tcannoncomics:Here is the 8 page story “War/Love” from my Not...

tcannoncomics:

Here is the 8 page story “War/Love” from my Not For Prophet zine.  The zine also contained another 12 pages or so of sketches which I need to post at some point.

I made this story for fun between projects.  It’s funny because I was actually working on  my science fiction romance story for Speculative Relationships: Volume 2 (Kickstarting now BTW, please take a look!) while finishing this up.  I was using this story as kind of a playground for ideas I had about romance comics, which eventually informed a lot of what i’m doing for Speculative Relationships.

In a perfect world, this story was actually supposed to be more like 20 pages and I’d have been able to color it and yadda yadda yadda.  But it was a super fun fan comic that allowed me to also meditate on the things I love about the Prophet relaunch (the metaphors in the story are pretty thinly veiled) and put my own spin on the Prophet+Yilala relationship (a small part of the book that I always wanted more of).

Also I wanted to say that Brandon, Simon, Farel, Joseph, and all the Prophet team that I met and handed the zine to at ECCC were super awesome about it and I really appreciated that.  And big thanks to them for making great comics.  Also a shout out to prophetsharing for fostering a cool fan art community for Prophet.

I want to do another zine (maybe after the series ends?) and include some art from other prophet fans… if anyone is interested?  Let me know.

Thanks ya’ll and enjoy! 

Photo

nonsensquentialart:what a beauty of a page

nonsensquentialart:

what a beauty of a page

malachiward:In a month!

malachiward:

In a month!