June 2007

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Banatail Interview cut-paper artworkI’ve been interviewed!

To commemorate the finishing of my short comic for Mark McKenna’s Bananatail, a couple of guys I know interviewed me about my foray into comic-dom. You can listen to me babbling on (and I do babble! I digress alot too!) about my process and my art on Deconstructing Comics, a podcast focused, appropriately enough, on comics.

Before you do, a DIRE! warning: I literally could only listen to 3 minutes of the podcast before my skin crawled straight off at the sound of my own voice. I sound much, much studlier in my own head. Having said that, you might find a nugget of interest in there, if you can get past that unearthly screech and the fact that the whole thing sounds like it was recorded over a couple of beers in a noisy, smokey bar/coffee shop with overly-loud mediocre psuedo-jazz limping out of the sound system. Which, curiously, it was.

NinjaHeader cut-paper artConsidering that A) I live in Japan, and B) I go by the handle “Cut-Paper Ninja” on a certain social-networking website, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I have never actually drawn a cut-paper ninja. Today, I rectify this tragic shortsightedness.

This also marks the first time ever in my whole life that I’ve made a paper doll action-figure chain. I know that every 7-year old girl is going to laugh at me for saying this, but it’s not as easy as you think! I shredded a small village’s worth of folk before I got to the point where I could risk these samurai. And I’m not ashamed to say that those swords needed a healthy amount of doctoring afterwards.

On the plus side, I spent an hour or so of my working day scribbling out cool ninja poses. I felt like I was in high school geometry class again.

click the image for life-size ninja action!

Illustration Friday

Gravity and the Rebellious Stone artworkIf there is one thing which an owl has never seen, it’s got to be a chunk of rock floating by. And, if there is one thing which a rock wants more than anything else, it must be to break the bonds of gravity.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but for a large part, I discover what makes me happy by finding out what doesn’t, then rejecting it. I’m not really keen on the idea of defining my life by negatives, but it seems to be the way my brain works. One of the most universal human longings has to be to break free from whatever holds us in one place. Whatever that thing is which keeps us from accomplishing our goals. Paradise then is the lack of unwanted bondage and fear. Then again, without this adversity, I don’t know if I would ever get anything accomplished.

Illustration Friday