I realize blogging is the worst way to update this comic so I’ll have a summary slideshow post with a little surprise when I finish. So maybe the surprise will come by Saturday? Don’t mean to be vague, but I’ve started making said surprise, and it already made me happy times 100.
Today’s comic:
From yesterday– I’m excited to draw today’s comic!
My hands and my brain can’t seem to move as fast as time is going but I’ll try to keep up as best as I can in this fresh new 2012.
During my week off for the holidays, I promised myself I’d work on books and comics I’ve left half complete during the year. Here’s my stash so far:
One pile is actually for defective books but the others are real, hand-made books.
A new year is just a benchmark for me– what’s changed? Was it for the better? What changes are there still left to make? 2011 wasn’t so shabby for me.
As always, I want to be making more proper schedules, designing more, printing more, drawing more, writing down more ideas, learning and teaching more, and sleeping properly if I can get to it. The only problem is time– a problem I one day hope to overcome as well.
Anyway, I’m going to blog more too– I only blogged 42 times this year. For shame! I’ll definitely blog 43 times in 2012. :)
Been working hard at another silkscreen book called Hi Neighbor!.
My idea started off as a tiny mockup that I drew on the train:
Measures less than an inch tall
Then, after a few more mockups and a few weeks of printing, Hi Neighbor became real.
The full version on nice archival paper
I chose this book format because it fit the content (slanty buildings) and also because it was easy to make. Just fold a rectangular sheet of paper into eight sections (4 columns by 2 rows) and then cut 2 quarters in the middle divide. That sounds complicated, but trust me, it’s not.
You can get an idea of how it's made from this picture
Look inside and there’s a little surprise — blueprints of everyone’s apartment!
A lot of easter eggs on this side
I only made 16 of these– 1 of which I accidentally cut incorrectly, which found a home in my sister’s collection, leaving me 15 good ones.
Comics soon!
For the past few weeks I’ve been printing, cutting and gluing together Smell Book, a little step accordion book about a little guy who’s smelling about town.
The cover
The hardest part about printing this was making sure the smells lined up when I folded up the accordion. Of the 50 I made, 5 of them were defective. Don’t cry for them though, those 5 will find good homes with forgiving friends and family.
Open sesame!
I tried to connect the smell scenes together either by color changes or connecting lines. I’ve come to realize that I love making accordion books– depending on how you design them, they can be separate narratives or one long continuing one.
A little close up
It took about 3 weeks to get this done. For every 3 hours of studio time, I can usually print 2 (3, if I’m lucky) of colors at a time. Cutting and gluing is the easiest part since I can do those from home.
More books to come!
Screen printing has taken over my life lately. It’s a long trek to the studio and it takes forever to set up to print, but something about it keeps me going back. Here are a few projects that I have going on:
Jellyfish and Skulls pattern!
Jellyfish and Skulls
A macro shot of our new friends
How Milo Died: a double sided accordion book.
The ghosts are printed with glow-in-the-dark ink
Ghost boy's name isn't Milo
You'll have to read it to find out who it is
Alexandra Bequez, Alden Viguilla, Estrella Vega and I decided to put together an anthology comic under the name of Three Armed Squid. There are 4 of us so we decided that the first issue would be each of us making a four page comic themed around items that come in sets of 4. We thought about it for a while and finally agreed on making comics about the four seasons.
My sketches started in a little notepad I carried with me on my subway ride to Flushing:
And now it’s become this…
This one’s been tentatively named “A Pumpin’ Halloween” and will be released along with all the other comics in the anthology next year at Mocca!
EXCITEMENT.
P.S. Can you guess which season I got?
Inspired by the game started by Matt Madden and Tom Hart, Alexandra Beguez and I decided to play the Tic Tac Toe comic game for ourselves. How do you play? Let me explain!
- Find an appropriate location– preferably a relaxed, uncrowded place with food and drink to keep up your energy and spirits. We chose the Schnippers on 23rd street where we enjoyed milkshakes, chicken fingers and homemade potato chips.
- Bring an arsenal of paper, pens, pencils and erasers. Here’s our setup:
Any pad is fine. Mine was 8.5 x 11 and Alex's was 11 x 17
- Draw a 3 by 3 grid on 2 pieces of paper. Don’t worry if your boxes are uneven (mine definitely were).
- (Optional) Choose a theme for each tic tac toe comic. My theme was “creepy” and Alex’s was “science fiction.”
- The person who plays the X on one sheet of paper plays the O on the other. Each play you make has to have relevance to an X or O, whether it be making the shape of the letters in the panel or using X or O words in the speech bubbles.
- Now you’re ready to draw! Start the comic from wherever you’d play your first move in tic tac toe– if you start at the center box, you start the comic in the middle of the story. The next person plays their next move by placing their panel wherever they’d want to go next, and so on and so forth till you finish the game. The object is to win, but you can also just play by drawing the panels you want to draw.
Mid-game: I started in the center. In this game, you can tell the X or O by the speech bubbles.
Mid game: Alex started on the upper right. This comic was wordless so we had to make X's and O's in the drawing.
- If there’s a non-win, which we both had, then the rule is to draw an OX in the last drawn panel. (Get it? O and X?)
- The game takes hours so set aside some time. We moved locations midday because Schnippers closed so we finished our final panel and then inked the comic at a nearby cafe. Here are our final results!
I was O. Alex was X.
I was X. Alex was O.
News!
I’ve snagged a table for the 2012 MOCCA festival, an indie comics fest that’s been held in New York City for the last 10 years. I’ll be tabling with a friend under the name Blood Bakery where we’ll be selling comics, postcards, pins and more! I’ll also be selling a few of my comics/prints/books so get those fat wallets out of your pockets.
A few other friends and I have started a comic collective called Three-Armed Squid– and we’re making a comic anthology together! There are 4 of us so we decided the theme should always be items in groups of fours. This time around, it’s the 4 seasons. My season is Autumn so I’ve been making some sketches about pumpkin kids.
So where is Hearts & Holes? I took a comics seminar to help me finish up the ending, but the class ended up giving me more questions than answers. It’s not a bad thing at all — I’m smarter and more careful now because of it. Plus, I’ve worked on it for almost a year now… I don’t want to waste all the time I’ve invested into it. I’ll be making a small update on that soon.
I’m being productive, see?
Welcome back to the blog to me. I’ve been welcomed with a badly hacked WordPress (damn you!) that i’ve spent the last 5 hours fixing. WHY DO YOU TORTURE ME INTERNET.
Aside from that, here’s what I’ve been up to.
For a new silkscreen book
Hearts &Holes
I Look like this a lot
More soon. Promise!
I’m feeling productive.
© 2013 Ghost Cult by Kim Ku | Theme by Eleven Themes