Art
Webcomics and my inspirations
Tue May 25 2010
Still recovering from a fantastic weekend at the first Hugo House Writing Conference, Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century. There was a great Wacom Intuos4 Small Pen Tablet
with Photoshop. I didn’t have the benefit of a teacher or guide when I started, but now there is one that I highly recommend: The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics
.Artistically, my first, best inspiration was the late great Will Eisner. Although I loved his work in The Spirit
but it was his Contract with God Trilogy
that really got to me. Fantastic writer, fantastic artist and he could tell a deep resonate story with some funny squiggles.Many great graphic novels have come after this early genius. BTW, I got asked this a bit afterwards so if you're looking for a comic to give to non-comic people, I've had a lot of success sharing Persepolis
or Craig Thompson's Blankets
. Speaking of Craig Thompson's work, don't miss his gorgeous travelogue, Carnet De Voyage
. For younger readers, check out Girl Genius
.So how does one adapt a gritty crime drama in a webcomic? My inspirations there were none other than the work of Frank Miller’s gritty take on super heroes, especially Batman: Year One
and Daredevil: Born Again
.My other inspiration, Greg Rucka, who started out writing mysteries
but then graduated to mystery comics, like Whiteout
and his homage to the old spy show, Sandbaggers - Queen & Country
. BTW, I highly recommend Greg Rucka's take on Batwoman
.How do I write with a female lead? Well, after reading Terry Moore'sStrangers In Paradise
, I was inspired. So much so that I have an original drawing of Katchoo in my upstairs hallway.I know my artwork leaves something to be desired. If I had 3 wishes, one of them would be able to draw like Andi Watson. I find his stuff to be brilliant pieces of simple beauty. My favorites of his are Geisha
, Dumped
and Princess At Midnight.That’s all for now, but I’ve got a few more inspirations and recommended reading posts somewhere in my head waiting to be typed out.
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Finding ada
Wed Mar 24 2010
I'm working on drawing chapter 20. In particular, a crucial scene in your basic adventure story. The odds are against our heroine, all her friends have walked away, her enemies have already beaten her down, and what she has sworn to defend has been lost. And now she has to make a choice - accept things the way they are, that she needs to accept that she'll lose this one. Or push on alone, knowing it will only bring her more misery and pain. And it is in this moment that Heidi will make her vow to make a final stand for what she believe is right. It's a little corny and standard pulp adventure stuff, but there are people, real people, I know who have done this. And paid for it. But nonetheless, they are heroes. Heroines, actually.
Thirteen years ago at a Seattle financial institution, I was part of a team of network engineers that would in a few short years grow ten-fold in size. The IT group was unusual in that there were many women in tech leadership roles. Many of the tech staff was female as well the IT director as well as the CIO. They were "old school", from the days of COBOL and DEC systems, which brought with it an intimidating blaze of technical knowledge and demanding exactitude.
Executive management had decided to expand service offerings using a "clicks and mortar" strategy which meant adding Internet "branches" instead of physical ones. This was the mid-90s and our entire organization was currently running on terminals connected to big iron boxes. In addition to the massive infrastructure upgrade needed, we were looking at a very steep learning curve for the users.
This kind of growth is a challenge, especially at the leadership level. Strong IT operations is about hygiene. It's never glamorous and always first to blamed and have its budget cut. In my time as a tech professional, I've encountered many ineffective IT operations leaders. They were technically weak and more often, also weak in fortitude in protecting their people and the stability of the system.
Our leaders stuck to their guns, pushing for infrastructure building with an emphasis on security and stability despite the tremendous pressure for new gizmos and flashy toys. They made people define what
they needed, not what they wanted, and they held staff and vendors accountable for their actions and promises. In fact, I'd never seen higher standards and low tolerance of weak ethics during in a banking
atmosphere in my entire career.
In the end, we learned just how necessary this was. Their efforts supported tremendous growth, far beyond what was proposed by the executive team. The new infrastructure and the team weathered internet
banking, an explosion of new remote sites, business partners, and very sophisticated apps.
Were they rewarded and honored for this? Of course now. Once the foundation was built and apps began to roll, they were herded out the door to be replaced by yes men (I mean that figuratively and literally). They were seen as too pessimistic, too negative and too slow in getting things done. Based on what I've seen in my career, sometimes an organization needs someone to take the unpopular stance
and get things done, keep things on track. And that person needs not only to be smart, knowledgeable and they need personal courage to stand up for their convictions.. But one thing I've learned, that person does not need to be a man.
It's the spirit of those two women that inspired me as I drew on this sketch, which I call "Heidi defies the universe." You know she'll win.
Thirteen years ago at a Seattle financial institution, I was part of a team of network engineers that would in a few short years grow ten-fold in size. The IT group was unusual in that there were many women in tech leadership roles. Many of the tech staff was female as well the IT director as well as the CIO. They were "old school", from the days of COBOL and DEC systems, which brought with it an intimidating blaze of technical knowledge and demanding exactitude.
Executive management had decided to expand service offerings using a "clicks and mortar" strategy which meant adding Internet "branches" instead of physical ones. This was the mid-90s and our entire organization was currently running on terminals connected to big iron boxes. In addition to the massive infrastructure upgrade needed, we were looking at a very steep learning curve for the users.
This kind of growth is a challenge, especially at the leadership level. Strong IT operations is about hygiene. It's never glamorous and always first to blamed and have its budget cut. In my time as a tech professional, I've encountered many ineffective IT operations leaders. They were technically weak and more often, also weak in fortitude in protecting their people and the stability of the system.
Our leaders stuck to their guns, pushing for infrastructure building with an emphasis on security and stability despite the tremendous pressure for new gizmos and flashy toys. They made people define what
they needed, not what they wanted, and they held staff and vendors accountable for their actions and promises. In fact, I'd never seen higher standards and low tolerance of weak ethics during in a banking
atmosphere in my entire career.
In the end, we learned just how necessary this was. Their efforts supported tremendous growth, far beyond what was proposed by the executive team. The new infrastructure and the team weathered internet
banking, an explosion of new remote sites, business partners, and very sophisticated apps.
Were they rewarded and honored for this? Of course now. Once the foundation was built and apps began to roll, they were herded out the door to be replaced by yes men (I mean that figuratively and literally). They were seen as too pessimistic, too negative and too slow in getting things done. Based on what I've seen in my career, sometimes an organization needs someone to take the unpopular stance
and get things done, keep things on track. And that person needs not only to be smart, knowledgeable and they need personal courage to stand up for their convictions.. But one thing I've learned, that person does not need to be a man.
It's the spirit of those two women that inspired me as I drew on this sketch, which I call "Heidi defies the universe." You know she'll win.
Write-o-rama
Mon Dec 08 2008
Yes, Write-O-Rama is over and it was a blast.
I got 20 pages of sketches done (sample below)
It was an immense amount of fun to spend some time up at the Hugo House, visiting the classroom where Heidi was born. I also spent an hour and took a fantastic little workshop with David Lasky which was a lotta fun.
Thank you to those of you who donated to sponsor me in Write-O-Rama. The House came within 90% of making our fundraising goal for the event. Not bad considering the impending doom of the Financiapocalpyse. Secret bonus: All Write-O-Rama donors will get FREE COPIES of the Tr0jan comic book when it comes out. (and it will be only offered in paper form).
Oh, and I had a birthday too. Write-O-Rama was my special gift to myself. So thanks again to all who helped it.
Desktop art
Sun Jul 13 2008
No update this week. Busy with family and summer and stuff.
But here's a splash screen from your desktop.
For those of you who are curious... yes, this scene is in the current book. Somewhere around Chapter 23. And that's all I'm saying.
But here's a splash screen from your desktop.
For those of you who are curious... yes, this scene is in the current book. Somewhere around Chapter 23. And that's all I'm saying.
Word cloud of book two
Fri Jun 27 2008
Gary
Sun Mar 09 2008
So much being written about Gary Gygax's death. I'd blogged a bit elsewhere, but I feel the need to write a little more. D&D was a big part of my life early on as well. I started way back in 1979 on the first edition, which I still have. I quickly progressed to the addictive job of dungeon-mastering. No doubt, those DM-skills are directly responsible for much of my writing hungers. Why do you think it's called Planet Heidi? It's an alternate world and every book, Heidi faces a deadly new dungeon.
And speaking of Heidi, here's an ironic preview from chapter 6.
Ironic because I wrote what is now called book 2 and chapter 6 a couple of years ago. Yes, Heidi will be facing off against D&D players soon. But it's release will appear to be timely. I didn't mean it that way, but it's inclusion is there because as all the news articles you're reading say, D&D and Internet geeks go hand and hand.
Still alive
Tue Jul 24 2007
Yeah, I'm still alive. And I'm still drawing up the chapters for book two.
And real life is still keeping me on the run.
In the meantime, here's a little pin-up for ya.
