Friday, March 5, 2010

yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.

I had to finish this before midterms otherwise I wouldn't be able to concentrate on ANYTHING.

Anyway, this is a short 17-page comic I conceived and executed over the last two weeks. Inspired by a 19th century short story called "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce, the graphic novel "Sin City" by Frank Miller, and a little bit of the Bourne movies.

Tell me if this doesn't make sense. I'm really digging this no-words thing right now but I'm not sure my visual narrative capabilities are good enough to sustain it right now. (Left to right, top to bottom, just like sentences in a book.)

EDIT: (re: Dakota's comment)

Here is the quote that I am going to put at the beginning of this when I finally put together a book.

“He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift--all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by--it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each stroke with impatience and--he knew not why--apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer, the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.”

--Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890)
































































































































































































































































































This last image is a preview for my next project. It's also going to be pretty short with no words...but it has Christian Bale turning into a polar bear so I'm pretty excited.

3 comments:

  1. OK, the visuals here a blowing my mind. You know I am a fan of super high contrast black and white. You are basically taking my visual art fantasy and making it freaking come to life.

    The mix of the super graphic simple backgrounds and the detailed backgrounds are nice. If you described it to me I think I would imagine it not working, but it totally does.

    And as always, the way you do clothes and folds makes me jizz. Usually I am in love with your hatching, but baby, this is just as good.

    Also, I love the characters. I know one is Matt Damon, but I don't recognize the others. I think the kid is adorable.

    OK, the only bad part is I don't follow the story. I think he goes into a memory on page 1, but I'm not sure. Maybe if you had a telling title, or a single line or something beforehand that helped to guide the reader. I think you are right in trying to keep this minimal with dialogue. If you can keep it without dialogue that would be great, cause even without knowing what's going on, the pacing is super interesting and varied and exciting.

    This is a TOTAL taste thing, and not at all meant to be taken seriously. When I see black/white high contrast, I always expect there to be red. (I've done it myself). Sometimes I think it is too predictable. I'm not saying that here, because I don't know the story.
    Actually, maybe it works, cause you know someone is going to bleed by the end, with the gun in the first page and all. I just wonder if it would be more effective with the blood being black. But maybe that would hurt the clarity.

    I love that you manage to make this clean, like super clean looks digital clean, but not sterile. Like, it looks graphic, like a badass movie poster or something. It reeks of Rachael, and at the same time, has a different style I don't see much from you, which I like.

    I really like this and it makes me painfully excited in waiting for the next one.

    Also, you have inspired me to do my short comic soon, as I was putting it off. But mine is literally a porno. Like, literally graphic lady sex. So I don't know how comfortable I would be posting it here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. On second thought, totally disregard what I said about the red. I like it. It is visually satisfying, that's why people do it so much. I love it, you love it, everyone loved black/white/red. Not liking it would just be stupid, indie, and trying to be difficult.

    Give the people what they want. That is what they want. It's what I like to see, and I don't know why I something implying it wasn't.

    ReplyDelete