Sheep Sketches

Some new pen sketches of pop and son sheep. Pre and post wool removal.

5 on the floor

I had a minute to clean up and reorganize the studio yesterday. It was in another sad state after a couple of months of working and not cleaning. It seemed to me then, a lot could be learned from an illustrator's stuff that's strewn about the floor (or just the messy ones, I guess). So I scanned 5 random objects and here goes:


This is a little 6" x 6" picture book Julie and I picked up on a recent trip to Toronto. Sweet, cool little colored pencil drawings of these two lil' sisses that are moles. One of a series by Roslyn Schwartz. They also sell these awesome little finger puppets too, which we didn't buy.



A sheet of shiny, foil Canada stickers bought on same Toronto trip–meant for our suitcase that has sticks of our various travel locales. As you can see, the stick hasn't made it to the case. In fact, til yesterday, this was still in a studio pile of Canadian souvenirs.



A copy of some songs by FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS (one of the best done shows on TV of recent times). This is not their newest album, but a bunch of songs (from a bootleg or something, I think?) that Julie's library assistant, Katie, was so nice to make for us. Hilarious.



A little work out I did with the pen one day. Always easy to whip up a round of hand drawings (immediate subject matter). Being a righty, I have to draw all left ones.



Phaidon's doing a beautiful suite of Jean-Jacques Sempé books in English translation. This is the first of the series of "Nicholas" books written by René Goscinny with drawings by Sempé. Nice cloth bound volumes with little metallic Nicholas characters inset right into the cover. Very fine, toothy, uncoated papers inside. (Only thing that puts me off is the huge PHAIDON logotype they gotta put on the cover of all their books!) Good stuff. Good times. I even joined Phaidon's "Nicholas Club" but I reckon I'll talk about that some other time.

The Steig Ball, Dropped.

Earlier this week, I noticed three original William Steig single panel cartoon drawings were up for auction on ebay (this is pretty rare). Two were kinda ragged. There were areas cut out and painted out--both, I assume, corrections made by Steig himself. But because of that, I didn't feel like paying up. Though the third was in, what appeared to be, good shape.


It's not an image I was loving, but hey... it's Steig!

Well. I totally forgot to bid on the dang thing, and it just got sold for the one and only bid of 149 bucks! (Last Steig cartoon I tracked on ebay sold for $800.) I'm kicking myself. Really.

Better luck next time.

Dang!

I just finished reading the best interview from Tom Spurgeon (The Comics Reporter) with Julie's and my favorite cartoonist, Lynda Barry. If you're not a fan, well, you gotta be!


Her newest book, WHAT IT IS, was recently published by Drawn and Quarterly. Much of the interview focuses on this, but, there's lots of stuff about her history in comics and recent hardships due to the downsizing and/or selling of the many alt weekly newspapers her comic strip has ran in over these many years. She's awesome. Read this and more here.

How to Ollie in 8 Simple Steps

Here's two more finished pages of my ongoing (currently online-published) graphic novel, VILLAGE PARK. This is the first of a handful of "trick tips" sections/pages that will serve as major breaks throughout the book. And this one kicks off chapter one. Once I get the full first chapter finished, I'll publish it to the official VP webpage. Til then, there's just the prologue for readin'.

(click to zoom)

P.S., R.I.P.

Today, my old Boston electric pencil sharpener died. I got it when I was in the eleventh grade (1991).


Therefore, it gave a good, solid 17 years of service. I felt it going for the last month or so. The motor was wheezing and wouldn't start sometimes when I put a pencil in. Today, I got more of that, then the motor stalled for good. They don't make this old model anymore, but I got the next best thing.


Guess X-acto's teamed up with Boston to make the new ones. A lot sure has changed in the last 17 years. I went with the hideous tan, or "putty", version (bypassing the sleek, all-black one) for old time's sake.

Funny thing. It died with me sharpening charcoal pencils I'm using to draw a graphic novel that's loosely based on my eleventh grade year of high school. Wicked.

Village Park Prologue

Well, here's the beginning of my ongoing graphic novel, VILLAGE PARK. I've set up a new page from my website where you can click-thru and read what's done, when it's done. So far, the very first section, the prologue, is complete. This means, I'm about 1/40th done! Holy mother. Baby steps. Check it out here:

http://www.matthewcordell.com/VP_index.html

To any of my picture book aged readers, there's some PG-13-ish language. Written for teens and up.

Cartoonists=Crazy

So, while I was waiting on some notes for my next picture book, I tooled around and finally wrapped the first section (the prologue) of a graphic novel I'm writing/drawing. Like I said in my last post, my plan is to just work on this as time allows, not going super crazy yet about trying to get it published. And, for now, I'll set up a page on my website and just start publishing it there. Soon.

Here's four sample panels from some of the pages I just finished. (click it to zoom.)


I have to say, this work is frickin insane. It's obsessive and it's tedious. It's terribly difficult. And it's no end in sight. I think full-time cartoonists must have a bit of crazy in their brains. OR, they are completely relaxed. I have a LOT left to go on this, and that's where most of the crazy comes in. I've been trying to lean on what I know about zen and meditation. The whole "mindfulness" and living in the present (not the future or past) idea. It's hard.

But, I think, it's worth it. It's kinda fun.

Check with me in a year or two.

Now... back to picture bookin'.

Anatomy of a Nose

I've been tooling around with this graphic novel idea of mine for a while now. Several months or so. I've shopped it around to a few of my pubs, but haven't had much luck. I think it's good (I'm biased), so I think it'll find a home someday. In the meantime, I've decided to soldier on with it. Drawing it still, and just begin publishing it to my website somewhere (more on this later). Right now, I've got a click-thru of some finished pages here, in the "WORK" section of my website. And character sketches here, also in "WORK".

As I'm digging back in, I found this sketch I did for the main character's nose. It took a while to get the formula just right.

Loosey Goosey

Here's another one of my scratch pieces of paper I scanned. Sort of, doodles in the margin. But I love the way this looks. Someday I want to be able to make a whole book that embodies the looseness and spontaneity of this here drawing. Somehow, it's hard to get to that point, for me.

(click and zoom)