From the Crypt, Series 2: Lost and Dreaming

Well.

It has been a while, hasn't it?

Sorry about that, really. It's just... you know... Life. And things. Everything's going fine, or as fine as it seems to go, and then next thing... it's like... what happened? When did I stop? Sure, there've been some pretty good reasons for not being here, but really- this was one of those things I'd done, those commitments I'd made, that I thought would be easy to stick with, to see through. Until I realized that I'd started looking at this blog as one more weight on me, one more pressure. Hell, it's just a scanned picture and some rambling- don't even get me started on actually trying to draw anything...

So, to come back here, like this... well, I'm going to give it a go as I had before- I'm going to post some stuff from the past, and comment on it, and make it look like I'm doing something. Let's call it- slow-motion catharsis. I'll be posting some 'new' art soon enough, honest- I'm just not ready to yet.

If you're willing to stick around and look back 17 years or so into my past, then I hope to be somewhat illumination and not make it a waste of your time. Failing illumination, perhaps at least some amusement.

Right.

Okay then.

So, this is the first drawing of my second 'big boy' sketchbook- the ones where I started taking the drawing (too) seriously, instead of scribbles and whatnot. The subject is another recurring character, Neil Gaiman's Morpheus. In this one, he's not really patterned after Kelley Jones' take on the Dream Lord so much as a more goth/proto-emo take of my own. He does have that freakishly elongated physiognomy that I like to think I did intentionally... This drawing bears all the hallmarks of my early 90's art influences- way too much detail in the muscles, over-rendered (and incorrectly draped) clothing, and a vague 'ostentatious without being pretentious' look about it. Oh, just you wait...

As usual, I'm left with a mix of pride, abashedness, and wistfulness when I look back at these drawings. I think I did pretty well back then, for no formal training, no anatomy knowledge to speak of... and I also feel kind of silly for looking at the overseriousness with which I approached just about everything back then. But, having just spent some time at my niece's high school, watching and listening to large groups of teens interact, I'm pretty sure that overseriousness wasn't just me. And a touch of wistfulness, because I drew the hell out of things, then. Day after day. And I had the patience to keep at it- I think the longest I might've gone without putting pencil to paper back then was maybe a week... and I bet if you checked my school notebooks you would've found something in them that wasn't notes.

So there you go. That's today's post. I'll be back with something else 'fore too long. I think there's an anniversary of some sort coming up.

Music: "New Divide" - Linkin Park

From The Crypt, 6: ...Bring Me a Dream...

So it looks like this one was done around April 9, 1992, and this must've been around the time I picked up the fourth trade of Neil Gaiman's genre-defining magnum opus (I could write copy for movie posters, I swear), Sandman. When I first picked up the original two trades (at a comic show in the old Holiday Inn in Monroeville, back when they were locally run and filled a small room), I had no idea what to expect. I'd heard plenty of good things about it, but I wasn't sure I was ready for it- no costumed heroes, for one, although the skinny pale guy dressed all in black, so that was something. I tore through those first two trades, as fast as I could, then re-read them- not just because they were amazingly written, but because there was so much more going on than what would be seen from a single reading.

Sandman is like nothing I'd read before, and to this date still stands apart from all that have come since then. It was a comic with no real action in it (although Morpheus faces down the legions of Hell in the first story arc), but was as gripping as anything I'd ever read. Breaking down social, sexual, religious and storytelling boundaries from page one, it redefined what comics were capable of being, and elevated the art to true literature - though surely not single-handedly; Watchmen came first, of course, but this broke down the boundaries of acceptability. Goth kids everywhere found a new hero. It was the first comic book to win the prestigious Hugo Award (first and only- they changed the rules after it won), and the author, Neil Gaiman, has gone on to critical and public success with a number of novels and stories.

Anyway, one of the great things about the series was that it used a number of comic artists, with wildly varying styles- so if you didn't like one guy, wait a few months, and someone else would show. This particular version of Morpheus was heavily influenced by the great Kelley Jones. He used heavy, heavy blacks and wildly stylistic characters to define the Sandman for many people. The cloak is all Jones.

There's a good chance that you'll see more of Morpheus as time goes by- each time I would pick up a new volume, I'd invariably return to drawing the character.

For folks who aren't into superhero books, but aren't adverse to trying something different, I can't recommend Sandman highly enough.

Music: "Enter Sandman" - Metallica