five fathoms

[ t h e _ w a t c h e r s ]

2012-01-06T14:56:00.004-06:00

first piece of the new year, one of two i knocked out the other day for the upcoming co-billing with old Rossi-time. this is for his short (!) story "The Watchers."

new year's itself was the stuff of legends: a long weekend in ATL with the crew and the lady-love. we may have partied, briefly, with the lead singer from Cake.

always good to see my boys.

/.n [while, five minutes later, still listening to Cake]

[ e d e n _ L I V E ]

2012-01-06T14:49:00.002-06:00

Phil's Parsec award-nominated novella "Eden" is out. oh boy. if you like, you can snag a dead tree edition here at Amazon (there's a hardcover edition too, but the link seems to come and go), or for five bucks on Kindle.

here are my pretties.

another short fiction cover should be out asap - Phil's been sitting on it since November.

/.n [while listening to Cake]

[ a n a m e l e c h ]

2011-10-31T01:31:00.004-05:00

it is Halloween, my blu-ray player is working overtime and owls are going nuts outside my window. rapture.

working on the short fiction collaboration with Phil Rossi, and the season is ripe for such nonsense. this first plate is for his short story "Anamelech," available for free here as part of his "Fiction in Five" collection. it's done in the style, as best my clumsy hands can approximate, of Stephen Gammell. Gammell, known best for his work on the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" series, shaped much of my childhood and ranks among my personal deities. thank you, Stephen.

the final book should have ten tales to it. so. onward.

enjoy today. this is life.
/.n [while watching "House of 1000 Corpses"]

[ r e n d e z v o u s ]

2011-10-25T21:36:00.004-05:00

every Halloween story i've ever done is more or less a love letter to the season.

this one is just a little more overt.

i think this is the first time i've used a pun in art. i blame my time in Japan.

short and [hopefully] sweet this year - the new job, life, etc hasn't exactly bestowed upon me infinite seas of time to invest in cathartic exercises that would probably land me on any number of psychiatric watchlists. i always saw moving to Iowa as an opportunity to participate in a "proper, Midwest Halloween," but of course we ended up in some crazy Indian summer that's made it unduly difficult to get into the season. the good news: Indy Screampark with my crew was implausibly even more epic than last year, and some of the local attractions have been up to snuff.

trust me. i have sampled across a number of states this season alone.

close your eyes and embrace those dark dreams. that's what October is for.

/.n [while listening to Samael]

[ s t u m b l e _ L I V E ]

2011-10-25T21:30:00.002-05:00

seven months later, this showed up:

but it came with a DBK tshirt, so it's all good. ended up redoing the back cover art (see 19 Mar 11) with black-trimmed white lettering, which works much better.

i'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

"Eden" hits print next month, and now that this year's Halloween project is going live (post in about five minutes) it's time to focus on my next co-billing with Phil, an illustrated print collection of ten dark microfiction tales.

get it.

/.n [while listening to Black Sabbath (Dio!)]

[ s u m m e r _ r e n t a l ]

2011-08-20T03:10:00.003-05:00

as promised earlier in the week:

the story was originally podcast as "Squidman," i kid you not, so i could not in good faith put a dark spin on this one. no inky, muted, writhing tentacles fumbling at door latches. no looming silhouettes with, er, questionable implications. this was actually my second take at it, and it reminds me of "Day of the Tentacle" and Jan Piénkowski's "Haunted House." both of those are lodged within the blackest remnants of my childhood heart.

"Summer Rental" is my second co-billing with old Rossi-time, available on the Amazon Kindle store for a buck or as a podcast at Horror Addicts. i would say that the latter is free, but you have to skip a literally unbelievable 45 minutes of intro to get to the blasted thing.

a colleague told me yesterday (i think... the days have been, of late, a grimy smear) that she saw Halloween stuff in the wild. at Lowe's, of all places.

field trip tomorrow.

/.n [while listening to Halfbreed]

[ e d e n _ p r i n t _ e d i t i o n ]

2011-08-18T00:29:00.003-05:00

events continue to transpire.

relentlessly.

i'm "all settled in" up in the surprisingly rad Quad Cities area of IA/IL. while i am, at present, grievously behind in my preps for the fall semester, a while back i found the time to do the cover art for the upcoming print edition of Phil Rossi's Parsec award-nominated novella "Eden." it's available here at Podiobooks for free, or shortly as a handsome dead tree version from Dragon Moon Press. the original podcast art for "Eden" was one of the first entries in this blog, way back ~~in the Devonian~~ on 31 Jan 09. i hope you will agree that this one has been cleaned up a bit.

more stuff for/with Phil is in the pipeline. i knocked out a cover for another upcoming e-pub of his, "Summer Rental," which i'll post upon its availability on Amazon. it's one of my favorite covers, i think.

oh, and then there's the big, bad Halloween project.

soon.

/.n [while listening to Rush]

[ f r e d ]

2011-07-20T00:00:00.003-05:00

it has been a while. things have happened.

i successfully completed my PhD, but you can imagine that running the gauntlet of the defense and the ensuing, all-consuming vortex of edits, immediately followed by a conference / series of bacchanalia, left little time for The Art Thang. you would be correct in this assumption.

so. despite presently having no business doing the same, being mired in a manuscript submission, transcontinental move, and preps for fall, i nevertheless fired up the old Wacom (i really need to name this thing) for Phil. he recently unleashed his first entry into the Amazon short fiction / Kindle market, "Frederic's Little Secret." it's available here for a buck, or was originally Podcast on Visionaries Short Fiction.

i'm starting to explore a hastier, more impressionistic style... trying to point in the general vicinity of something that creeps up on you in the most ungentlemanly of ways, rather than overly render it beyond, quite frankly, my level of skill. i'm really looking forward to having summers off so i can work on stuff like this every day.

i'm redoing the Eden cover for print soon, and Phil and i are planning to launch a short fiction anthology this fall. ten [very] short stories, ten plates. he gave me equal billing on Fred, which is both rad and a nice step forward.

we shall see where this goes. i'll be around.

also. um. Halloween is coming. a proper Midwest Halloween. the bug bit a couple weeks ago, and i am lost.

/.n [while listening to The Toadies]

[ s t u m b l e ]

2011-03-19T18:27:00.002-05:00

analyses were running last night, so i did the right thing: broke out the bourbon and horror movies and finished up this art for Ditched By Kate's debut album "Stumble." the cover changed less than i anticipated, and the rest... well, i dig. i hope you will too. need to get back up to DC to see these kids play.

wolfmoon tonight. let's get it.

/.n [while listening to The Vision Bleak]

[ d b k _ m k _ i i ]

2011-02-14T20:32:00.002-06:00

the boys (and girl) have an excellent new website, courtesy one Chooch Schubert. i submit that the upcoming EP "Stumble" is pretty [expletive deleted] excellent, and you can listen to it in its entirety at that interwebs address. first two DBK concepts in the last post missed the mark, which i suspected they would as the whole gravestone concept seemed off.

here is a new one, met with approval (read: will probably see dramatic revision) by Phil. yes, this is how i spent my Valentine's Day. no, you most definitely should not worry about me. sometimes i work in mysterious ways.

/.n [while listening to Ditched By Kate. again.]

[ d i t c h e d _ b y _ k a t e ]

2011-01-22T19:26:00.005-06:00

Phil has a new project, which means he needs new art. band's renamed - "Ditched By Kate" - and has a seductive little corner of the web here at reverbnation. go forth, one and all.

his original pitch: "Things that come to mind, ending up in a ditch after a long and crazy night...shovels, bottles, booze, [ladies]. I think you get the idea. It's in the music." and then he rattled off some stuff about a shovel and a gravestone and i started getting questionable ideas. here are a couple quick concepts; have no idea if they will in any way, shape or form resemble the final product.

i should have been working on science, but the photoshop is a powerful, jealous mistress. alright, back to work.

/.n [while listening to Ditched By Kate]

[ h a u n t e d ]

2010-10-21T21:07:00.004-05:00

Michael Reaves is a terrorist.

when i was three years old, i had the singular experience of witnessing Reaves' masterpiece contribution to The Real Ghostbusters, the episode "The Bogeyman Cometh." this is the kind of stuff that is never, under any circumstances, aired to children anymore. the character design is horrifying, the Bogeyman was virtually omnipotent in his appalling, Escherian domain with doors to children's closets the world over, and he wasn't a ghost. that was the kicker - he tormented Egon as a child and the guys couldn't do a damned thing about it. the wheezing, rotten voice dragging across his fangs did not help. nor did his clicking, cloven hooves.

see this, at about 3:45.

you can imagine that i was profoundly traumatized. indeed, for years and years i dreamt of Bogeymen in various incarnations erupting from my closet (one memorable iteration combined him, a Deinonychus and a werewolf). now that the episodes are available on DVD and more or less on Youtube, it's easy to revisit these memories - for better or worse.

last night, i consumed an unfortunate amount of sugar before going to sleep. i dream vividly almost every night, and just as commonly about pleasant or at the worst mundane subjects.

not last night.

last night, i woke up screaming for the first time in memory; two muffled, fettered cries of abject terror. i'd dreamt of you-know-whom, and in my dream hoarsely wheezed, "HE'S REAL. OH GOD HE'S REAL." oh. and then i had a waking hallucination. that was awesome.

anyway. this has been a long time coming.

i wish they still made cartoons like this.

/.n [while listening to Crossbreed]

[ t h e _ e n d _ o f _ D r e a m ]

2010-10-12T14:54:00.008-05:00

only one piece for this year's Halloween offering, since the PARIAH arc has closed at last and i am trying to defend and raise up out of Tallahassee.

i was finally convinced to read Gaiman's "The Sandman" series this year by a friend of some taste. i've long been a fan of Gaiman's works in prose, but at 76 issues plus specials, "Sandman" has a high barrier to entry. having completed it, i can do no less than agree with those who suggest it is one of the greatest products of the English language in the latter part of the century.

no, seriously. a comic book series.

my painting will be esoteric to anyone who has not read the books (read: most of humanity), but resonates with me at a deeply profound level. it's one of my favorite scenes from the climax of the story arc. Gaiman was once asked to summarize his story in 25 words or less, and responded: "The Lord of Dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his decision."

this is the decision.

incidentally, the helm was crafted from the skull and vertebral column of a god who once crossed him. nice.

below is the cartoon sketched before the final rendered work. you can see the differences... the action is more dynamic, and strangely enough the anatomy looks better even if it's physically impossible and only the painting is based (virtual trace) on an actual model. i'm still trying to get a grip on the translation between sketching and rendering, and it doesn't help that i paint figures about once a year. a good friend of some repute in the comic book biz offered a helpful analogy on the same, but it is delightfully dirty and not appropriate for the blog (still looking for a real job... any takers?).

"Sandman" has, more than any other work of fiction in many years, done the most to change my ever-calcifying worldview. i'm not a big fan of the art style of most of the books; it vacillates between archaic/weird and overly simplistic ("reductive"), which is why i tried to put a personal touch on this vital element of the tale.

anyway.

Halloween.

enjoy every minute of this, the finest and richest of months.
/.n [while listening to Doktor Dream and the Malpractice]

[ r a d i o _ s i l e n c e _ L I V E ]

2010-07-15T19:31:00.002-05:00

this came in the mail today. slight mods since i posted the original art back in [looks] jeez, june.

Phil did me a solid and sent me disc #2. a good man, that one.

/.n [while listening to David Bowie]

[ r a d i o _ s i l e n c e ]

2010-06-07T16:07:00.002-05:00

in the midst of my absence, high misadventure was afoot. i promise.

the latest product of my continued collaboration with the absurdly talented Phil Rossi is the cover and disc art for his new EP, Radio Silence. Phil and i hung out at Balticon last month, which is as sure a venue for observing weird human phenotypes as one is likely to find outside of the Mos Eisley cantina or a particularly seedy stock car race. met some great people, including authors behind excellent, creative New Media books. Nathan Lowell (Trader's Tale series) and Bill DeSmedt (Singularity) were particular highlights, both being erudite and worldly gents. i attended several of the real science panels and was compelled to drop the biobomb a few times, "mixing it up" and half-ruining the Fringe Science and Cyptozoology panels. maybe i'll host one next year.

Phil's new band, Phil Rossi and the Awakening, played an epic show one night at the con. you can listen to tracks off the EP at his blip page, or hit the presale page here. i highly recommend "I Like Your Grave" - seeing the ridiculously charged exchange between Phil and Jen live was something else. we half-joked that her husband Keith was going to leap his drumkit and attack Phil.

finally: RIP Richard Dunn. :(
/.n [while listening to Phil Rossi and the Awakening]

[ f f t a ] - from the vault

2010-03-31T10:00:00.002-05:00

hello. it has been a while. i've missed you.

last week the .com turned six whole years old, although the twisted, thorny sinews of my sundry and oft-interrupted ventures into the blog-thing extend back very nearly eight. wow. i am getting old.

so, to commemorate this inauspicious occasion i've finally dragged these pieces out of the vault. cave-dwelling animals, they blink their disused eyes at you and, for the first time, feel the warm light of morning on their cold frog skin. they bristle.

anyway.

the top piece was the capstone on the period of my "career" spanning mid-high school through college, in which my favorite practice was taking manga-style art depicting video game characters and rendering it in a more realistic fashion. there are a number of examples in the /art gallery, from sources like Dragon Warrior II, Skies of Arcadia, Pokemon, and so forth. this last drawing honored my clan from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, an impossibly fearsome Krewe of pipe-hitting juggernauts that helped me maintain some semblance of sanity across a particularly troubled stretch of my life. i worked on it extremely intermittently across a year and change. please look at it, wonder why the scan quality is crap, and then read below for the tragedy.

i never properly scanned the original art, instead settling for a quick photo. and then. and then. i moved to Florida and realized that this precious parcel - the art, tucked into the game book - had not made the journey with me. before i could return home to claim it, my mother threw it out: the art, the book, even the bloody game itself, in loathsome fulfillment of the inevitable fate of any dork's possessions.

at this point, i was done. i've not drawn anything similar since, and it was my crowning achievement with pencil and paper. i switched to a wacom.

this was also the only piece for which i drew a detailed cartoon beforehand, working out composition, poses and gear.

back to work. there is more art on the horizon, between commissions for Phil and the first, almost imperceptible, black light tongues of Hallows Fire licking at the periphery of my soul.

it comes.

[ P A R I A H ]

2009-10-18T18:54:00.003-05:00

i invite you to this year's Halloween event, PARIAH. i would be honored if you would attend.

in many ways, PARIAH completes the cycle of the Halloween projects; now five strong, with Sigil as an outlier to the arc. it is a tale of love and loss, fear, flight, closure and redemption. it is a true story, a confession and a call to hope. i hope you have enjoyed the ride. as i wrote earlier [below], certain unexpected events over my birthday in Portland - featuring as its side acts the Oregon Brewers Festival and Ground Kontrol, a unbelievable 80s arcade - swept burdens from my back that i'd carried for far too long.

Halloween is delicious as ever. this weekend saw a cold snap and a number of ghoulish excursions. upon visiting my home at the end of September, a New York Times bestselling horror author declared, amazed and delighted, that my Halloween decorations "are phenomenal." more on that next time.

plate 5 from PARIAH was planned to be a roughly rendered, dark, quickly executed affair. as you have seen, it proved to be something rather different, taking on a life of its own. it's unanimously the public favorite, so i've included the high-rez original below. thank you for the kind comments.

Phil has offered to drop PARIAH in his feed, so a number of humans may actually end up seeing this thing. he is a good and generous brotherman. stay tuned for more from the two of us soon.

this is Halloween. live it.
/.n [while listening to Dethklok]

speaking of...

2009-08-09T21:53:00.002-05:00

re: Portland, the last topic header proved eerily prescient. hmm.

for the first time in many years, i think it's going to be ok. details come October [below].

as always, this extended period of absence come autumn time (at last) means that i'm industriously laboring on the Halloween project. i think it will be something special this year - the first plate illustration is probably the prettiest thing i've ever painted.

this is not to say that its subject matter is beautiful. you know me better than that. need to redo the website design too... this one has worn quite thin on me. if nothing else, my photoshop kung fu is definitely getting stronger. Phil has promised outlandish and draconian demands on my art for The Asherah.

Walgreens rolled out a small portion of their Halloween sundries this week. some of the rest remains boxed as the Ark of the Covenant, complete with orange, casually displayed manifests proclaiming the grisliest confessions of wholesale markups and other sins.

now if only it would get cooler.

off to hang out in Chicago for a few days and sojourn over to my ancestral lands in Indiana. Clay has promised a bug petting zoo and giant pumpkin weigh-off at the state fair.

yes.

/.n [while listening to Jack Johnson]

on the subject of redemption

2009-07-15T18:04:00.004-05:00

scrambling in prep for bailing hard to the conference in Portland over my birthday (coincident with the Oregon Brew Fest... YES). the week thus far has been so inexplicably rife with BS, both transpired and eagerly anticipated, that it's almost breathtaking. i called a mulligan as of 1030 Monday morning.

and then this happened and largely salvaged my sanity.

arrived in tandem with Real Ghostbusters season 1. here comes a smile.

it's been truly epic seeing this thing out in the real world... people happily posting photos of their own unboxing and commenting on the cover, or seeing it in newspapers and magazines and at the top of the Amazon charts. the chart rush was successful - Phil pulled down #1 in Movers and Shakers, #5 in Horror and #52 of all friggin' books on Amazon.com.

shiny.

/.n [while listening to Phil Rossi's Crescent Original Soundtrack]

[ h a r v e y ]

2009-06-29T22:03:00.003-05:00

this Thursday, a week before Crescent's print debut on the 9th, Phil's dropping the first chapter of his new podcast novel Harvey. the man is a pleasant slavedriver, so i had to knock out another cover in wildly short order. the final version:

this one had an unusual twist in development - Phil gave me literally five or six keywords via text message and said "go." as it turns out, that was insufficient and i ended up producing what i thought was a cool cover but apparently doesn't capture the spirit of the tale. he provided the first chapter of Eden way back in the day to help inspire that cover, and the same apparently worked here - he is a big fan of MkII, above. here's the rejected prototype anyway:

long, long day.

/.n [while listening to Michael Jackson]

[ c r e s c e n t ] - video trailer

2009-06-25T17:35:00.010-05:00

here is a thing we put together.

it didn't resize well for the blog, so it's a bit cut off to the right. here is an external youtube link.

the original art was downsampled and cropped by necessity (although Phil did a solid job), so i've included some larger versions below.

had to knock all these out in the space of a day - it's nigh on conference season which means that in doing research nonstop i am becoming increasingly estranged from sleep.

this was fun.

[ c r e s c e n t ] - cover, sites, etc

2009-06-14T19:02:00.001-05:00

it is true. stuff has gone down.

pretty much all of my recent creative endeavors were executed in the service of Crescent's impending launch. that would be July 9th - rush the Amazon charts at 1pm EST, one and all. Phil unveiled the front cover art (one of two variants - won't be the print cover but rather used for marketing) on the fourth. sorry for the delay in getting it to you.

reactions on the intertubes have been thrilling and humbling. one of my favorites was passed along by Phil, reproduced here in all its convoluted Twitterese. "Good shit almighty! @PhilRossi just dropped the cover art for Crescent! Honestly, it makes my skull hurt from the awesome." sweet. one dissenting voice takes strong exception to symbolism - or is unfamiliar with the concept - and did not get it. can't make everyone happy.

other related artworks are out there, produced in the last few days. clicky where appropriate. did a new header for CrescentStation.net, various accoutrements for Phil's Twitter page, the soundtrack cover, and so on forever. may run up to DC early next month for the book launch party, which would please me beyond all reason.

other than that, it is finally summertime and a couple minor maladies imposed themselves upon my person in the last few weeks. one was caused by an attractive hip hop dancer [accidentally] kicking me square on the ear. another, more scarring, encounter was perpetrated by Sol.

getting older sucks. since that raucous 25th birthday in Montreal, i have been compelled to come more to grips with mortality - if not morality. on those notes, go see Up and The Hangover, respectively.

/.n [while listening to 50 Cent]

east coast misadventure

2009-05-18T17:30:00.003-05:00

before we get started here, a couple professional notes. "Eden" is, as of early this month, up to ten thousand listeners. this makes the cover a front-runner for my most visible work thus far, although the true reach of my questionable dabblings in fan-art during high school can never be estimated. sadly, i suspect that some of those reached more humans.

also!- Phil's publisher approved the final design for the Crescent cover art. it's all done save the fonts and slated for a 9 VII print debut. lock it down on Amazon on launch day, and help a brother out. and now... the show. *ahem*

when the world sees fit to generously bestow upon me less than one week between the culmination of spring semester nonsense and the advent of summer semester nonsense, my mandate is clear. get the hell out of Tallahassee.

and thus was born another ill-conceived but epic trip up the east coast, from Philly back "home" to DC and on to Baltimore. there was much baseball. there was rain, in unwelcome and unending drips and squalls that aborted the Mets @ Phils game with extreme prejudice. there were reunions with old friends, joyous meetings with new ones, and fourteen thousand beers. there was the time i hung out in Poe's deeply disturbing basement, complete with false chimney. and there was climbing above rickety catwalks above the shark tanks, behind the scenes at the Nat'l Aquarium at Baltimore.

and then there were these two tales.

"Phil Rossi Says Dance, Bitches"
i try to keep it clean[ish] here at Five Fathoms, but direct quotes cannot be altered in the name of Puritanical ideals. haha. yes, one night over in Arlington i met up with my infamous partner in crime, one Phil Rossi. i give you evidence of these deeds, or the tenth attempt to drunkenly take a picture of this dark alliance at the bar.

Phil is my kind of gentleman - wildly creative and hilarious with a side of rock star and just a touch of the sleazy. outstanding. we related tales of mayhems and madness up in DC and the dirty south, and he offered some insight into the inner politics of the podiobooks community. he dropped the "Eden" numbers and cover feedback, which were both surprising and humbling.

at one point later in the night, we recorded my appearance on his video podcast, to debut at some unknown date. i have no doubt that it will be embarrassing beyond reason - dark to the point that my head will appear as a blacked-out mafia witness on tv, and half incoherent due to the wiles of the Sierra Nevada brewery. Phil, you'd better edit the hell out of that thing.

you have not seen the last of us, gentle readers.

A Happy Meeting With My Favorite Billionaire
had tickets to four baseball games across those three cities. this took place at the one that was played to completion (of the three that started at all, ugh).

Astros at Nationals Park. sixth inning, slay a hot dog and nestle back into my gray plastic poncho. rain's threatening to kill the game at any minute, so people are bailing and the three rows in front of me are empty. look down and see a guy a bit older than my dad walking across the row with a woman and another dude in a trench coat. he stops and talks to Trench, and the woman looks up at me. apparently she sees my eyes bug out as i recognize the first guy, and mouths to me, "Do you know who that is?" i nod and say, "That's Drayton McLane, owner of the Astros!"

as if on cue, he looks up and sees my Astros hat peeking out from under the poncho. he smiles and i shout, "Mr McLane! How are you doing, sir?" he laughs and replied, "You recognized me? Son, you're the smartest kid at this ballpark." I laugh and ask if I can come down and shake his hand, and proceed to climb over the three rows between us.

we stop and talk for a minute - he's a really funny, charming gentleman. "Do you mind if we get a picture?" I ask. "My dad will flip out." sure, he says, and after i hand the camera to Trench i pull off the poncho and he sees that i have my 2005 World Series jersey on under it. laughing hard, he says, "Son, you're like Superman!" hahaha

before the game, i commanded one of my favorite players - Hunter Pence, my age - to "power slam it" [as seen on Get The Picture], and extended my fist. he obliged, and onlookers were greatly amused.

christ, i miss DC already.

Eden

2009-02-20T19:39:00.003-06:00

Phil Rossi's "Eden", for which i did the cover, has as of this week scaled the craggy peaks of the podiobooks.com charts - bearing pitons of strange black alloys forged by no man - and landed at #1. uh... epic. two of eight chapters out thus far, with a new one hitting every Wednesday. clicky on the image below and subscribe to the feed for free (and hit up Crescent while you're at it).

quick hack

2009-02-16T23:26:00.006-06:00

weird bug in the blogspot code popped up this week. fixed.

i have been very happy lately. this is in itself highly unusual and almost cause for alarm. almost.

here's to fine weather, good partnerships, strong beer and a stalwart crew.

yep.

[edit] also!- i would be remiss if i did not mention that the first chapter of "Eden" dropped last week, and it's been sitting atop the Podiobooks.com charts ever since. how about doing us a solid and subscribing to the feed for FREE? beautiful, vaguely menacing times await, i promise.

[ w a i t i n g ]

2009-02-03T22:18:00.003-06:00

also, i read Gaiman's new The Graveyard Book. the sum total of these circumstances: haunted mental distress. :/

another "crank your brightness up, folks" entry in this October-wistful series.

got to play Professor in a guest lecture today. whoo.

/.n [while listening to The Toadies]

[ b l a c k _ p u m p k i n ]

2009-02-02T21:33:00.002-06:00

it's gotten worse. i neglected to mention that i've been listening to an excess of House of Krazees, and also spinning classic horror while painting. something had to be done.

may be hard to make out the detail if your monitor's brightness isn't kicked up a level or two. the weather needs to get warmer, and soon, or i'm going to lose my mind waiting on October. i tried soliciting advice from my brother, but he was too busy playing in the snow to offer psychiatric help.

actually, a workable draft of "The Asherah" will probably drop soon... and then i will have nothing resembling free time for fanciful visions of black-lit gourds, twisted hills and quiet madness. i suspect that will beat the spring to my doorstep.

until then, i dream.

/.n [while listening to Alice in Chains]

the great big Phil Rossi collaboration post

2009-01-31T19:27:00.010-06:00

i have been busy.

school thrice over, novel encounters with humans, the usual pervasive madness... you know me. committee meeting, late nights fighting the Dread Wyrm Unix, a pleasant trip home with my brother and de facto sister, and regular skulduggery with the crew. i love the latter two sets so.

i suppose that much is as it was back in the heady days of yore, or the last post - being November, christ. still obsessed with Fallout. over the last ten days Halloween has leapt, resurgent and rested and whistling a dark melody, from my bones. a protracted night of appalling nightmares, re-reading of "Coraline", cool weather, and hanging out at Target and Walgreens - all stirred in a hideous cauldron - is akin to lighting a black candle in Halloween's name. one of those licorice-scented ones that i hoard between Octobers in my cabinet.

::sigh::

[ b u r n ] was, to be honest, much better received than anticipated. i did not expect there to be.. er.. enthusiasm for this or other recent projects among other human beings. it has done much for my soul. much. and so:

the last post, item (i), introduced the proposition of a collaboration with a certain gentleman author/musician based in DC. if you delve into the archives, you'll find way back on 28 V his identity: one Phil Rossi [fiction/music]. we have indeed announced our major project together: an online graphic novel to bridge his debut novel "Crescent" and its sequel. the first Act is due in June (..ambitious..), with a potential multimedia overhaul upon its completion akin to the "Dead Space" comics. small world - my old friend Lorelei is married to the guy who did those books.

i give you the press release for "Crescent: The Asherah"
here's an enlarged, detailed version of the splash image.

the other three projects are much smaller in scale. i'm at liberty to discuss two here, or so i understand. these are covers for the print edition of "Crescent", out in June, and for his new podcast novella (February) "Eden."

final cover for "Eden":

Phil and i labored like madmen on the "Crescent" cover and came up with something that we both truly love, but his publisher didn't bite. here it is anyway... back to the drawing board.

lots hidden in that one. pity.

the final project is part of the online campaign / metastory behind his upcoming podcast novel "Harvey", due later this year. details on that when possible... it's rather humorous.

plate is full. i'm happy. now if only i can survive school...

interstitial

2008-11-12T22:50:00.003-06:00

no new art this time, instead an update post. gather 'round the hearth, one and all.

life in general is rather better now. [ b u r n ] and other recent projects have gone a long way toward reminding me what enthusiasm and satisfaction taste like. it had been a while. coupled with a vastly more entertaining and engaging teaching assignment this fall, as well as establishing a now very plausible alternative career route (which i am not planning on seizing anytime soon), i'm sleeping better at night. well. i have been "experiencing" a long string of bizarre, intriguing and maybe disturbing dreams that i wish to god i could remember enough to write down. i blame Fallout 3, which has additionally reaffirmed in full my faith in the general goodness of the world. um, yeah.

Halloween was sublime, and around that time i finally accepted that my personal happiness is intrinsically linked to ongoing creative endeavor - which sadly i am "not so much" getting from school. painting, writing, that's what i need. and so, i am pleased to tease the following projects:

i) a brewing, by no means guaranteed collaboration with one of my favorite authors; a tier-one podcaster in horror and sci-fi. he's interested in spinning a tale - the format of which is not yet settled, to my knowledge - to bridge his first novel and its pending sequel. i would provide artwork for the same: could be a traditional comic style, could be plate illustrations, i'm not entirely sure. considering the audience this gent marshaled for his first outing, it could be big. and the plot concept is potentially weird and amazing.

ii) probable novella kicking around in my head and on paper; a near-future drama with a unique and unforeseen medical crisis leading to massive societal upheaval and the potential (theological) apocalypse. the macguffin is pretty damned sweet, i think.

okay. off to sleep and teach the younglings about brains upon the morrow. out.

[ b u r n ]

2008-10-20T16:28:00.006-05:00

i know i've gone silent for... hmm, exactly two months now. you needn't ask why - the answer will always be the annual Halloween project.

this year's offering, "burn" marks the fourth consecutive fulfillment of a tradition that began with the move to Tallahassee and the elevation of Halloween to something like [secular] veneration. but that's a tale for another day. of the tetrad, three are intentionally obtuse and self-critical assessments of important events of my life, refracted through the murky and cobwebbed lens of Hallows. "Sigil" stands apart in that it is a microfiction retelling of one of the most appalling nightmares i've ever suffered. fun stuff, that.

those who know me reasonably well should not have much trouble exhuming the meaning from "burn." suffice it to say that it describes a very current dilemma. as usual, hidden symbols and suggestions - some minor, one very much not - abound. while i hope you enjoy it, and may peek though the tattered and nighted veils into my head - i reemphasize that these are cathartic exercises.

and on that. enjoy the season and the MLB playoffs.

[ d c _ p o r t r a i t ]

2008-08-20T16:21:00.003-05:00

under the weather this week and going mad from stitching together DNA sequence files all day. took a break for this abstraction, rather unusual for your humble narrator. it's an illustration of my run up to DC over the last [artificially] long weekend. please click to enlarge and observe.

lots in there, but don't expect to crack this nut easily. starting to experiment more with different strokes, symbolism and the overall flow of a piece. i've not had training since middle school, and am trying to be less rubbish one day at a time.

the trip was vastly enjoyable despite a number of my crew defecting to parts unknown, or in thrall of plague. caught [part of, funny story] a Nat's game, went to a zoo full of sleepy animals, and partied to wonderful excess. the energy of that town always grips me the moment i leave the plane, an instantaneous and possibly dangerous pump-up.

i will move there. mark my words.

thanks for a wonderful time.

Halloween has been spotted and deeply absorbed at several merchant locales now. planning has begun in earnest...
/.n

[ f p f n p ]

2008-08-11T23:59:00.002-05:00

...do not ask. under any circumstances, do not ask. sometimes commissioned work is odd. :)

[ d r e a m e r ]

2008-08-03T16:42:00.003-05:00

just a quickie today. went to a house party Friday night that featured a graffiti wall. i could not resist.

lots of weird stuff there, including a mad, immense purple face drawn by an /exceedingly ripe/ hippie probably held in thrall of mushrooms. my "Portal" joke [not pictured] was grokked by... no one, although the hostess delighted and fooled me by enjoying it anyway.

::sigh::

photo courtesy of sweet Palette.

[ t h e y _ w a l k ]

2008-07-31T21:50:00.003-05:00

long hiatus; apologies. madhouse trying to get out of town/country for a week and change, first to Houston to see the family (and the Astros lose, ::sigh::), and on to ichs/herps in Montreal. i've been reading on the deeply convincing and disturbing "World War Z," and have been considering the zombie at great length. hence, tonight's production - fueled by House of 1000 Corpses and a bottle of Knob Creek, one last birthday present to myself.

talk went well in Montreal, or so i'm told. the one-liners were savored as always (at one point i likened myself to Billy Mays... nice). specters from the past/A&M popped up, not unpleasantly. i honestly thought that one of them was a post-party-hallucination.

so, success despite the best efforts of my crew to sabotage me with ethanol the night before my talk (read: my birthday and passage into antiquity). despite every "hey old man" message on facebook, i managed to bounce back in fine form. hah!

Jimmy G did use the Zoloft Shark illustration, although that trickster Morpheus and a VIMS party colluded to make me miss his 830am talk. that said, Jim missed it too - i just didn't hear about the rescheduling. the field report: "he owes you something extra fantastic after that. did you hear the laughs the zoloft shark got in his talk? brilliant!"

it was a good week. and i am tired.

shout-out to T. *

[ l e e r ]

2008-07-01T23:08:00.005-05:00

i'm afraid that this might be the first piece of concept art for this year's Halloween project. the real version is much larger and has here been resized and set on a black field. the original appears kinda cartoony and stylized.

this is what the sky looked like over Tampa Bay when we drove back across the bridge after the first Astros-Rays game. started to wake up the brooding, pensive little kid in me - we know where this goes.

i may get to visit some Aplysia "sea hares" tomorrow. i am excited.

[ s e c o n d _ g l a n c e ]

2008-06-30T22:49:00.002-05:00

long while between posts, i'm aware. kindly consider me appropriately contrite.

hard to get motivated lately... work is frustrating this summer, so i've taken to escaping as often as is possible. bailed with J down to Tampa for the Astros-Rays series a week and change ago, of which we took two (nearly three) for the win. followed that with consecutive stompings of the Rangers and Bandwagon Sox, and my boys are climbing out of the gutter. nice.

here's something unusual and more light-hearted for you. perhaps WALL-E softened my wrought-iron heart. i can't remember seeing a more charming movie in untold ages. it did very cogently convince me that maybe i should have gone to art school seven years ago. i'd probably be intellectually stunted and otherwise warped, but maybe i could have worked at Pixar. now i'm a slacker egghead who scratches around in Photoshop.

::sigh::

greater significance to this one than i'll let on, but it was fun to paint.

it's taken a while... longer than it did last year (the time is 1200am on 1 VII as i type), but Halloween is creeping into my bones. a cold front blew through with the storms today. i can feel it coming.

mmm.

[ t h e _ o l d _ m a n ]

2008-06-04T22:50:00.004-05:00

long, rough week. not overwhelmed by faith in humanity at present, and further nettled by other delightful trials as spiteful little life-satellites. consequently, another bit of dark art tonight.

yeah. this guy is fully off to spirit away some village's children. i thought about writing a grim limerick about this misshapen fiend earning a town's trust before absconding with their youth, pied piper style. maybe next time.

will have something more pleasant for your next visit. perhaps fluffy kittens or hamsters.

seriously, maybe a hamster.

[ f a m i l y ] - BIOSHOCK

2008-06-01T17:17:00.002-05:00

charming family portrait of a Little Sister and Big Daddy from the unbelievable "Bioshock." it's been admirably vying for my 360-related affections against the colossus that is GTA, and has inspired a disturbing dream or two along the way.

i picked up a perhaps disgustingly awesome tv as a self-congratulatory gift for surviving prelims, and "Bioshock" very much pushes the envelope of terrifying, corrupted art deco near-photorealism. i replayed the intro while E observed. she took several moments before saying, "...wait. You're controlling this?" and was profoundly creeped out by the first, haunted five minutes in Rapture.

one of the best.

[ z o l o f t _ s h a r k ] - for Jim Gelsleichter

2008-05-27T23:31:00.001-05:00

my old advisor down at Mote in Sarasota (soon to be elsewhere) hit me with another unusual art request in the name of science!, as he is wont to do. among many other things, Jim studies the effects of drugs and other organic compounds on sharks and rays. for this year's annual ichs/herps meeting in Montreal, he wanted... a Zoloft shark.

funny guy, Jim.
/.n

[ t h e _ r e d ] - for Phil Rossi's "Crescent"

2008-05-27T23:11:00.001-05:00

i am a seriously enthusiastic supporter of podcast fiction. last summer in Tokyo, i often spent 14 hours a day at a lab bench. my iPod was my best friend, and i discovered some amazing, free podcast novels by the likes of Scott Sigler, J.C. Hutchins, Phil Rossi, and many others. i'd be all too happy to talk your ear off about anthology sites as well, if you're interested.

Rossi's "Crescent" is probably my favorite, combining seriously screwed-up and addictive scifi/horror with the best, creepiest audio engineering in the field. Phil is an all-around nice guy (as are many of this first gen of podcast authors), so i sketched up a "bourbon-fueled quick shot" of one of his story's protagonists, Ina, and something nasty she brings on board the station. i highly recommend checking out "Crescent" - it's excellent, free, and Phil's gearing up to start publishing some new fiction next month after a long hiatus.

can't wait, Phil.

here's some of Phil's feedback on the sketch.

/.n

[ r a v e n ]

2008-05-27T23:04:00.001-05:00

Raven. maybe that's her name. maybe not.
maybe she doesn't exist.

click all thumbnails to enlarge them in a new window.
/.n

Deep breath now...

2008-05-27T22:43:00.000-05:00

so. friends, patrons, ne'erdowells. it has been a while.

the proud, questionable blog-chain of some years was interrupted most suddenly and unequivocally by the advent of grad school and - more importantly - responsibility and public exposure. it would not do for my students to stumble upon explicit evidence of my misdeeds or those of the Crewe (membership since brutally revoked from all but two souls). the Japan blog, Gaijin Apocalypse, and its accompanying photo page were an experiment in responsible blog stewardship. unlike previous forays, that one did not land me in hot water (...thus far). this gave me hope.

here i inaugurate a new run and invite you into the murk. this run is novel in that it may primarily host my random sketches - an outlet again available now that the dread beast Prelims is laid to rest in several messy, charnel pits. indeed, it was reviewing the old archives from my senior year in Texas that helped give me the confidence and strength to conquer that loathsome trial.

we shall see where this goes.

welcome.
/.n