Blasting From The Crypt

                                                                       

                                                                           BOOM!

Just finishing up Cat Island thumbnails today, second draft. And then it's full time on Maddy Kettle for a while. Hoping to be posting some new Maddy art in the coming weeks. And if you're wondering about Marrowbones I'll be floating it around as a pitch soon.

Finished Rosemary's Baby last night, I enjoyed it but it was so close to the movie I felt like I had already read it. Not sure what to read next. Might stick to short stories for a while.

Ectoplasm Cat

Here's an old sketch from a book I've been thinking about again. An ongoing ghost story thing.

At the moment i'm mired in thumbnailing a book. I find this one of the hardest parts of the process, I think because it requires constant thoughtfulness in a way that drawing pictures doesn't. Or maybe it feels like the process slows down to a crawl during thumbnails. I'd love to do a book I thumbnail as I go along rather than putting the whole book together at the beginning. I think either way is fine but publishers usually want a draft of thumbnails to look at. Which makes sense.

Finished reading The Haunting of Hill House yesterday which is just brilliant. Even subtler and darker than We Have Always Lived in the Castle. And I just stated reading Rosemary's Baby. Still not sure what I think yet!

And I need to mention how wonderful the weather is here, I was able to wear a sweater this morning which is perfect weather in my books. I'm done with the sweltering summer. Thankful to see the Fall. 

House On A Hill, Old Rejected Book

A page from a spooky comic I never got around to finishing. I really want to do a spooky comic with really rich detail but haven't been struck with the right idea yet. I'd likely do it in pen and ink rather than pencil though. I'm reading Shirley Jackson's amazing Haunting of Hill House for the first time so I'm getting lots of spooky ideas. Have you read it? I love it and can not believe I'm just getting to it now. I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle a year or two ago and it easily became one of my favourite books. She does something interesting in her stories, combining a real human compassion with unsettling, other worldly ambiance. Brilliant stuff.

Years ago I brought a ghost story to Tor but it was rejected, I was a little disappointed but had more than enough on my plate that it wasn't a crushing blow at all. I shared the idea with Mike Mignola who really seemed to like it so I've been holding on to it and refining it since. With a number of books floating around as pitches maybe I'll finally unearth this concept as a self published book. My experience at Tor made me suspect it's too strange to properly market. And like I mentioned in my last post, Marrowbones showed me that having a self published book can make the whole business of being a cartoonist more viable, when combined with traditional publishing.

In family news, Henry turns 4 next month. We are planning a birthday trip to the pumpkin patch. How much fun is that?

Winding Down Winding Up

I apologise for the sudden drop off in posts the last few days. Every year as Summer winds down I find myself in a sudden panic to complete work and set up work for the Fall and after. At the moment I'm thumbnailing the Cat Island book, which looks to be about 85 pages and I'm completing Maddy Kettle. I'm also doing a few scripts for later works.

Reflecting on the summer and the work I did I am wondering about the best approach to publishing right now. I feel that Marrowbones has been a real success and it was a nice surprise. It sold well and was very well reviewed and with no marketing and sales primarily through this blog. I thought that was pretty amazing. I really enjoy being able to share my work directly with people like that. At the same time I'm not sure I can make a sustainable income just from that and the honest truth is I really like the collaboration that comes with working with publishers. So, right now I wonder if the best route is to do books both with publisher AND to self publish fairly consistently. Maybe this seems self evident to people but I'm always figuring these things out. I find the free content approach pretty baffling, it has never really worked for me. I can't make money from it and it doesn't seem to get as much attention as a collected work one pays for. The most important thing is to tell stories, the second most important is to eat. But both are pretty important.

Just thinking out loud.....

Green Lantern Commission

Sorry, the scan made the green yellow....

Big Bad Wolf Private Commission

Watercolour and ink commission of So great to draw older cartoon characters, I feel like there's a lot to learn from their design.

Today I'm just finishing up the very last commissions and thumbnailing the Cat Island book. Hoping to have to have Cat Island thumbnailed in the next few days and then return to Maddy Kettle to finish that off by late Fall. 

Super Monkey And Super Rabbit Commission

Here's a commission I did, turning 2 sisters in to awesome superheroes. This was really fun to draw. People's kids are tough, I'm always worried about likeness even though my work is pretty cartoony.

Also, check out the header I did for the Automata Blog: http://blog.dugnorth.com/ This is an older commission and the site just went live. 

Griffin Commission

Now that people have received their commissions and people seem happy with them I feel OK posting the commissions in full. Here's a griffin picture I did that I really enjoyed doing.

If you haven't received your commission yet I'm still sending them out so they are likely on thier way soon!

Atlantic Ocean

Was I this  brave when I was three? We went to the beach and the waves were the perfect height for slamming into you but not dragging you off. The day was stunning, sunny and a lively ocean.

Now I'm in a local coffee shop because the cat wouldn't stop sitting on me and I really need to get some work done. Also, there was snoring. It's raining now which means our planned garage sale is canceled. But that's fine, I need to work anyway.

I think we'll start the drive back early on Monday. The weather should be clear and it'll give me time to finish up a few pieces before the trip. 

Fox Creature

Another Cat Island sketch, I apologize for how light it is! I like this drawing but it was done in pretty light pencil. 

Cat Island Elder

A Cat Island Elder. I'm actually changing the name of Cat Island but still haven't thought up a new name. If you have any ideas I'd love to know!

East

Just leaving the east coast and blogging from a highway rest-stop. Here are some more pictures from our brief trip. I'm looking forward to being back in Toronto and having a schedule again.

On The Road

I started to think we would never get out of Toronto, the traffic in the city was unreal but after that it was fun and smooth. I love travelling through Canada, especially the east when you get that first glimpse of ocean.I read all of a very good book on the way After The Golden age by Carrie Vaughn, one of the best superhero novels I've read. Very highly recommended. A fast and very fun read. I also finished Daniel clowe's Wilson before I even got out of Toronto, another great book. Very short but somehow very epic.

I also brought my Nintendo DS but didn't play much. I'm hoping to play through a bunch of Final Fantasy 3 on the way home.

And I DID manage to work in the car on the way to Halifax, just on Cat Island. I have a first story, just under 100 pages, I'm very pleased with. I'm trying to pack a lot of magic and invention into every panel. Something I love doing, Maddy Kettle is similar in that it is packed with magic and drawing. I'm also playing with new names, right now Hen The Cat Boy is in the lead. I know I'd read a book called Hen The Cat Boy.

Leafy Onion Spirit

Here's a Cat Island sketch of the mailman. I see the whole island as being full of weird spirits and creatures. Fun stuff to draw!

Jack Pumpkinhead Of Oz Sketch

People often say that something gets ost between the sketch and the final piece but I think it's more that they end up different, each with different strengths and weaknesses. You kind of exchange some of the energy of a fast sketch for some sense of polish and weight. I think that's a fair trade, the sketch is still kicking around in any case. 

NightCrawler Commission

As promised yesterday here is a look at the finished Nightcrawler commission. I was surprised, and happy to get a bunch of superhero commissions with this lot of orders. All heroes I grew up with and love and something I don't get to draw very often. I even found myself starting to write a costumed hero comic! That goes way on the back burner. When I told my wife the idea he told me I needed a production team to keep up with my ideas. Which is true, I tend to have a lot of ideas. I'm not saying they're all good but there are a lot of them. 

Nightcrawler Sketch

A sketch I did for a finished commission last week. The final ended up not really looking like this at all but I thought this was an interesting sketch, kind of a cross between Nightcrawler and Sandman. I'll post the finished version tomorrow. 

Off On Another Adventure

We decided at the last minute to take our annual trip out east. I don't have a lot of time so it'll be a working trip. We'll be setting off today before noon, stopping overnight in Montreal ans pushing on to Halifax the next day. Once again I will attempt to work in the passenger seat. That's always been my least effective work place but maybe it'll work this time.

I'm in a good place professionally and am feeling pretty hopeful these days. I have 2 comics with publishers, Maddy Kettle and one other. I just picked up Maddy again and it will be done pretty soon. On top of that I'm working on two pitches with two authors, one for a series of novels and one for a comic. So, I feel like things are going in the right direction.

At the moment I'm finishing up the last few commissions. But those are just about done.

My current approach is to put finishing things above looking for more work. I've said this before but I'm spread too thin once more. If there's one thing I've learned it's to know what I can actually handle.

A Sketch And Some Preparation

A litt;e sketchbook sketch to share today. I'm always torn between drawing big eyed characters and dot eyed characters, I find them both aesthetically really interesting.'

And it seems the family is making a last minute trip to the east coast tomorrow. I'm packing up my work and am pretty much ready to go already. A drive from Toronto to Halifax with a brief stop in Montreal. It'll be a short trip this time. We're planning a proper visit at Christmas time, by train.

In any case I'll be away from the internet for a while. I'll be doing some advance posting but my internet access will be limited to cafes and wireless rest stops along the way.

Talk to you soon!

Catwoman

I felt a bit under the weather yesterday so I took some time off and ended up reading a big pile of Batman comics. And I did this sketch of Catwoman on my iPad using the Procreate app. Catwoman can be a visually really interesting character. It'd be really fun to do a comic set in the Batman universe some day. My favorite Batman comics are the ones that have Batman as a sort of super detective and that really use the geography of Gotham. I find the city in Batman comics a bit underused. So much potential there.