Brandon Graham's Blog, page 197

Any chance the Royal Boiler Redux at SPX will get a recorded treatment? That lineup is wayyyyy too good to miss. And please please (if you haven't done so already) ask Liz Suburbia to contribute to Island. Her series Cyanide Milkshake is as hilarious as it

It was recorded. I’ll see if I can get a link soon. It was really cool to be able to do a panel with Liz, Farel and Ron. I like those dudes.

and yeah, Liz has been asked. I would love to have her work in Island.

Any chance the Royal Boiler Redux at SPX will get a recorded treatment? That lineup is wayyyyy too good to miss. And please please (if you haven't done so already) ask Liz Suburbia to contribute to Island. Her series Cyanide Milkshake is as hilarious as it

It was recorded. I’ll see if I can get a link soon. It was really cool to be able to do a panel with Liz, Farel and Ron. I like those dudes.

and yeah, Liz has been asked. I would love to have her work in Island.

“It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the...

“It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

“

uhh yeah, I drew some Archie sex. Betty is into that sort of stuff.

Dilraj Mann & Tessa Black Interview (Each Other)

islandcomics:

Tessa Black: Who would you say are some artists that have influenced your work the most?

Dilraj Mann: I really love Katsuhiro Otomo and Taiyo Matsumoto. Their story telling and panel transitions are revelatory. Cleon Peterson, Keiichi Tanaami, Jaime Hernandez, Chris Ware, Lucian Freud,  Jose Munoz, Zaha Hadid, Ralph Bakshi. David Mazzuchelli’s work in Batman Year One is something I read annually to show me economy in art and panel layout. I tend to find that I fall in love with someone’s work early on and then fall in love with something else. So new inspiration is Marie Jacotey, Aisha Franz  and Hattie Stewart, Jillian Tamaki. I find music incredibly inspiring and something that influences my work, currently  stuff like Jlin, Philip Glass, Dirty Beaches, Clark and Jai Paul and I’m hoping to do a comic based on his lyrics soon. How about you?

TB: I’m pretty all over the place with artists, mainly as a function of how little time I give myself outside of work. I draw from a lot of artists such as Otto Von Todd, Gulliaume Singelin, Anna Cattish, and Asiey Barbie. I go through a lot of different artists but those are generally the folks I come back to I admire artists with a lot of versatility or at least a body of work that stretches far back. It’s interesting to see what they learned or tried with different approaches, and helps me get a better sense of what I like about their style.

I don’t think I can draw without music, and I usually look to artists such as Tettix, Goose or Lorn for focus. Something about their tone really tunes out my surroundings and helps get work done, though I look to Swans, Tycho, or Joanna Newsome for pure inspiration.

continued after the break

DM: It was a Lorn mix that introduced me to Jai Paul in fact.

I read somewhere that Richard Williams (animator of Roger Rabbit) and Vivienne Westwood both say that working with any kind of music is a distraction and that they have to work in silence to really focus. I like having music on unless I’m doing layout or writing.

TB: Yeah, I feel like it really helps me feel a sense of cohesion when illustrating, every part of an album or song influences aspects of the drawing. Even if the audience will never see it or understand, I still have that memory and experience that makes me view my art differently because of the experience.

You sometimes speak a little about the folks you draw in public, how much do you take from a subject once you get to know them at all, in contrast to observing someone you’ll never meet.? When I draw folks I don’t know or will never know, I often find myself filling in or imagining them with traits of friends or family that I think would suit them.

DM: I was drawing girls that I saw around Dalston and a few times I asked one or two if I could take a photo for reference. I’d show them my blog to further explain but I found that I felt an obligation to stay true to the reference especially when a few of the girls contacted me to say that they couldn’t wait to see their illustrations. It was generally their clothes or style that I gravitated towards anyway so I preferred to memorise and then draw it as soon as I got the chance. I try to sketch people on the bus or while I’m out as much as possible though.

Some of your work is pretty sexy. I find that I try to get a perfect curve, bump, pose or angle that represents what I really want to capture without repeating myself. Are you looking for the perfect pose?

TB: Thank you! I see myself gravitating towards certain poses, but I’m happy to explore and toy with anatomy and flexibility to achieve different compositions. There has definitely been “flings” with certain body parts and traits that are hard to shake. my personal art started off with me drawing my own body over and over again, with varying styles and clothing, but quickly grew tired of it. I find myself fascinated with how varied people can be, and dive into anything I like and want to master drawing, even if viewers don’t notice at all.

Have you played much with fashion design outside of comics or drawing folks in public? I find myself drawn more and more into clothing design as a way to break up designs or express something about a fictional character.

DM: I’ve done a few things for small fashion firms but I’d love to do more. I spoke to a friend who’s a fashion blogger and we spoke about the representation of women in fashion illustration. She said firms pretty much wanted slim and tall so not what I try to represent at all. It’s definitely something I’d like to explore.

Do you have a bunch of stories that you really want to tell or would you like to work with writers?

TB: Ah, I was going to ask about representation. It’s interesting being an artist with the ability to show not only what you like, but also subject matter that you’d like to see more of for the benefit of those involved. I obviously have a certain stake in trans women’s’ bodies, but also draw them purely because it’s something I find personally appealing. I’d really love to see more of your art used for fashion-related illustration, and more bodies like those you draw in general.

I think I’d really like to work with some folks when it comes to storytelling and comics etc. I’ve got a lot of ideas but I’m not really sure if I’m capable yet to tell them. I feel so much more comfortable with a few small illustrations, but anything more seems beyond me. I know it’ll pass with time and experience, and I’m really looking forward to working with folks I’ve previously only been able to admire from afar.

DM: I have a bunch of stories that I really want to tell. Some need a lot of fleshing out but I have lots of seeds of ideas. Saying that it’d be really interesting to work with a writer just to see what I could bring to the table.

Do you find that being trans illuminates all areas of your work? And if so how does it manifest across the differing ranges of work you do?

TB: In some ways yes, I think an artist’s work can never be wholly divorced from how they see themselves. I think my experience with my body has developed a fascination with body horror, which doesn’t generally come out in my regular art, unless you count the more freakish monster girls I draw. There’s also this feeling of indulgence in something unnerving, to be challenged in ways that ask you to reach out or recoil in response. I joke about “awakening” others with my art, but that’s pretty much my experience with art and the internet for my entire life.

DM: Can I ask one last question? What was the inspiration/idea behind the story that you did for Island?

TB: Oh of course! The comic came together in a weekend, so I didn’t have too much time to ruminate on storytelling or meaning. I think ultimately it’s influenced by how I feel coming home at the end of the day. There are all these performative aspects of clothing, a lot of what I wear is purposefully tailored to offset any androgyny in my face or body. It goes beyond “I’m a woman” and into the realm of hiding this identity that I expect others to see as monstrous.

When I get home I strip away all these things, and dwell in this microcosm of a world in my apartment. No matter how I see myself on a given day, I still recognize specific features that others would be disgusted by, but there’s in this space that reflects everything else about me. Stripping my body of its societal framing kind of just reduces it to this collection of parts.

Could I ask the same of your comic real quick? thank you so much for this interview, I’m loving this.

DM: Me too. A few years ago I split up with a girl and then about a year afterwards I bumped into her in a club. She was pretty cool about it but I wanted to impress that I’d moved forward with a new group of friends, new interests etc except… I’d gone to the bar alone and my friends had all disappeared into the crowd so I felt like a total dork.  I also love stories that mess with chronology in order to pack a punch at the end, like The Killing by Kubrick, so used that architecture to communicate the idea.

Excerpts from the artists’ work in ISLAND #3, “Queue” & “Sea Witch”

Dilraj Mann’s artwork can be seen here

Tessa Black’s can be seen here

islandcomics:Sometime during the fall of 2013, when my wife and I were still living in Vancouver...

islandcomics:

Sometime during the fall of 2013, when my wife and I were still living in Vancouver and Brandon was just a coffee shop away, he asked if I’d like to create a piece for Island, an anthology project he was working on with the wonderful Emma

Ríos. I make games during the day, but Brandon’s been hugely encouraging when it comes to me making comics, and without him providing an outlet and reminding nudges, I’m sure most of the stories I’ve drawn would never have seen the light of day. 

I assumed at the time that ‘island’ was the anthology’s theme, not the title, and so I got to work drawing a comic centered around the idea of isolation. It’s a theme I’ve messed about with with before - my first comic, Heart of Ice was similar in aesthetic, but I could spend an entire career drawing wilderness adventure comics and never lose enthusiasm for the stuff. Lost in the Barrens, Hatchet, anything by Jack London - it’s a genre that sunk its claws into me deep as a kid, and there’s undoubtedly more wilderness comics in my future. 

Even as a kid, however, what those stories tended to lack for me was any sense of romance (outside of the platonic, classically masculine romance of THE WILD), and I knew I wanted to push the character motivations to the forefront.

Don’t Talk So Much is (with a one panel exception) a dialogue between two people with a gordian knot of a relationship, and an exploration of the period between something terrible happening, and the relief when help finally arrives.

I hope you’ll love Island #3 as much as I do - it’s a wonderful collection of comics from artists I’ve long admired (we’ve had a Malachi Ward print in the house for years now) and others I’ve only now discovered, and I can’t wait for #4. 

inkstuds:royalboiler simon-roy and popgunwar drew in a big...

inkstuds:

royalboiler simon-roy and popgunwar drew in a big book by everyone’s favorite french cartoonist.

This was like a fun conversation in drawing with two of my favourite dudes and Moebius.  

d-pi:If we were some sort of fantastic team What would our...

d-pi:

If we were some sort of fantastic team What would our respective skills be? Photos from @idieclassy

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Here are my SPX plans for this weekend.

Here are my SPX plans for this weekend.

Do you know if you're going to Emerald City Comic Con this year?

yup. Emerald city every year. I love that con.