This coming Saturday and Sunday, March 1st and 2nd, Rudy and I will be exhibiting our books and drawings at S.P.A.C.E., or the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo, in Columbus, Ohio. The show runs from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Saturday and 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sunday, admission is $5.00 for a single day pass or $8.00 for both days, and parking is free. The show will be held at the Aladdin Shrine Center near the Easton Town Place mall. At the show I'll be selling the last 9 or 10 copies of my art book Some Day The Dream Will End for $3.00, all four current issues of "Spudd 64," and copies of the minicomic that I did with writer Dara Naraghi entitled "All In A Knight's Work" for only $1.00. The mini is part of the newest Panel anthology called "Work," which is actually an interoffice memo envelope stuffed with all kinds of minicomics from the different Panel creators. It's sharp. Finally, for the first time ever, I will be selling original art and drawings at my table. So if you've ever wanted to own an original drawing of mine, stop by and flip through the portfolio to see if anything strikes your fancy.
I plan on opening my Etsy shop on the day after the show, since by then I'll have a better idea of what kind of art and comics I have to put up for sale. I really have no idea if I'll actually sell any art at S.P.A.C.E. since I have no idea how to price things and I suspect most people hit the show to buy comics, but we'll see. I'll post something about the Etsy when it's up and running. Hopefully I'll see some of you this weekend.
Matt K.
You know, for some reason, drawing comics has been very difficult for me for quite some time now. I guess it's partially because I am struggling with my own drawing abilities and creativity, but lately every story, every drawing, every panel, every line has been a deepening struggle. It's very strange. I experienced something similar when I was finishing the drawings for my art book "Some Day The Dream Will End" last October. There was a sadness that seemed to take root and just not let go, which, in a strange way, actually led to the title of the collection.
Last Friday night, I finished the final pieces of the comic that Dara Naraghi wrote, a story meant to be included in our upcoming Panel anthology "Work." I was listening to my iPod, and just as I finished the final lines and sat back to look at the work, the song "Le Long De La Riviere Tendre" by Sebastien Tellier began to play in my headphones. Somehow, for some strange and unexplainable reason, I was overcome with a sense of peace and happiness so moving that it brought tears to my eyes. As I began to put away some of the drawing supplies that I knew I wouldn't be needing for awhile, I felt an incredible kind of lightness lift my heart. It was such an odd thing. So very very strange. Anyway, I thought I had best write about it here since this is a sort of journal for me.
This was such a good and peaceful feeling that I don't think I am going to try too hard to figure it out. Not right now. I guess the only thing I really want to write about it is that I have slowly but surely been moving toward picking up a 35mm camera again and printing photographs in the darkroom I am steadily assembling, so I feel that maybe this transition has something to do with that sense of peace. Photography is a troubled part of my past, but somehow now I know I can move forward into that kind of creativity again with a clean conscience and a clear head. Wish me luck.
And thanks Sebastien.
Matt K.
Page 7 of "Spaceman," the ongoing comic written by me with full color art by Steve Black is ready for you all. Finally, the Spaceman faces his first terrifying trial. Below is a small and compressed image, but you can see a larger version and catch up on the story so far by clicking here.
Matt K.
I've already posed this question to one artist and he gave me some very good advice, but I wanted to put it out on the site and get as many different points of view as I could. Basically, I need some information regarding different ways of adding color to black and white pen and ink artwork.
First, a very brief history. I have no formal artistic education beyond high school, so I am not nearly as familiar with different media as someone who went to art school. In 1998, when I first started creating some of the art you see on this site, I used Berol Prismacolor colored pencils on bristol board. I liked the Prismacolors because there was a dazzling variety of color choices and the pencil lead was very soft and waxy so I could lay down several layers and get some really bright vivid colors. Like this...
I did less and less of that kind of art the more I got involved with making comics and using pen and ink. For one thing, those colored pencil drawings were incredibly time consuming. Since I was laying down several layers of color on every piece, and carefully using rulers and the sharpest pencils to create the linework, most of those early drawings took me 40 to 60 hours. I was working full time, so it would often take me a month to complete one piece. I got a little impatient with how long the process was taking, and moving to pen and ink was a refreshing change. Additionally, working with colored pencils is surprisingly messy. I was constanly sharpening them, so there were shavings and little crumbs of colored wax everywhere, sometimes even in my ears. Since I don't have a studio space at all and do nearly all of my drawing at our new dining room table, Rudy is not too keen on me messing the place up. Again, the change to pen and ink and the use of Micron pens really helped keep things tidy.
A year or so ago, I started experimenting with adding color to my pen and ink drawings. I was using Winsor & Newton inks, which are very translucent, and occasionally blending them to get more varied colors. I liked the results, but they were more pale and watery than I was expecting and had a completely different feel from the colored pencil drawings. Here is an example of a pen and ink piece I did using Micron pens and Winsor & Newton drawing inks...
And now, my question. I would again like to begin creating some large color pieces, but in pen and ink and not colored pencil. I would prefer to work on bristol board, but illustration board has been suggested to me so I will definitely look into that as well. I would like the colors I use to be bright, vivid and hot like my older colored pencil pieces, and I would like to work with a very wide range of colors. I would love to try silkscreening but space just won't allow that kind of set-up right now, so that option is out. Finally, right now I am not interested in any digital coloring or digital tweaking of the color. I want these pieces to look the same in person as they do on the computer screen, primarily because I will probably frame some of them for my walls, give a few as gifts, and maybe even try to sell one or two on Etsy. Can any of you give me some advice on how to add color to these pen and ink pieces? Brand names and techniques would be extremely helpful to me as well. I have heard some mention of using acrylic paints, but I'm not sure if these can be thinned with water, if I can lay pen and ink down on top of the acrylic paint once it dries, or what brand of paint to buy. Honestly, my only experience with acrylic paint has been those cheap 99 cent tubes of craft paint you can buy at Michael's. Another friend also suggested Pentel watercolors, but when I searched a few sites I only found Pentel brush pens and oil crayons, so I'm not sure if I missed something.
Any help that any of you can offer would be deeply appreciated so let me know if you have any advice. Thanks.
Matt K.
Very exciting news today! The inimitable Steve Black has completed the inks and color for another page of our "Spaceman" story. And hot damn, it really looks magnificent. One of the true pleasures of working with an artist as gifted as Steve is watching how he takes the simplest of scripts and transforms the dry text into a visually stunning narrative. Here is a very small and very compressed image of the new page...
...but you can check out a gloriously larger and infinitely better image on the comics page here. Just click on the sixth (and last) thumbnail in the "Spaceman" section and hold on to your hats.
"Spaceman" is a real labor of love for both Steve and I. He's got a full time job, paying art gigs, personal artistic pursuits, and a serious girlfriend, while I've also got the full time job, art and comics of my own, and an amazing wife to spend time with. Neither of us knows exactly when the next "Spaceman" page will be ready or when we'll have the entire 100 page story complete, but we know that some day we will. And it will be mindblowing. We both hope you'll keep checking in now and then to see how our boy the Spaceman is coming along.
Matt K.
Once, Rudy got a spam email with the subject line "stench temple." She never opened it, so we will never know the contents of the email, but it has become a great joke to us. I Googled the phrase "stench temple" and absolutely nothing came up, so I am hoping that by including it on my web site I can give the lovely phrase a happy new internet home.
Sadly, I don't have a lot of thrilling and exciting news for you. I am busy working on the short story Dara Naraghi wrote for our contribution to the eleventh PANEL anthology which will debut at S.P.A.C.E. in exactly 4 weeks. This time around, the theme of the anthology is "work," and Dara gave me a delightful little script about a severely overworked knight titled "All In A Knight's Work". This anthology will actually be an assortment of individually created minicomics and other stuff crammed into one of those awful brown interdepartmental mail envelopes and it will have some kind of official stamp or sticker on it. It should be a nifty little package. Our story will be a 14 page minicomic measuring 4 1/2 inches tall by 7 inches wide. We're not sure of the paper stock yet. If it doesn't cost too much, we might make a handful of extras to sell individually or give to friends. I'll let you know. And I'll probably start posting a few of the pages here so you can see.
Matt K.