Lookie Here!The Look Out! Monsters $1 Summer Blow Out Sale!

Hey there all you comics fans, art fans, art-comics fans--have I got a deal for you!
ONE DOLLAR COMICS!
yep--you heard right--ONE DOLLAR COMICS!!!
and these aren't just any old smelly comics--these are BIG, FRGIGGIN' COMICS!
with LOTSA PAGES!
& LOTSA COLOR!
LOTSA PRETTY STUFF GOIN' ON!
Not to mention, pain, sorrow, loss and love--and--yes, even a few YUCKS tossed in for good measure!

Here's the details--
For 3 days--beginning at 12:01 AM on Monday, June 6th 2011--and ending at midnight, Wednesday, June 8th, 2011--you can purchase the following comics for ONE BUCK-A-ROO each (+ shipping and handling--hey, I'll give the stuff away, but I can't go broke doin' it!):

POOD #1! (Jim Rugg, Sara Edward Corbett, Hans Rickheit, Joe Infurnari, Andres Vera Martinez and many more!)
POOD #2! (Same crazy cast of lunatics!)
FANDANCER by me, GG! 36 pages! Full color! Artsy type stuff-and deep profound thoughts about big breasted super-heroines, plus! a nasty, scary villain,  a few laffs and adventurous derring do!
LOOK OUT! Monsters! -the original, xeric winning big collage comic that got lotsa nice compliments from my friends and family!

How do you purchase these goodies?
Simply go to www.lookoutmonsters.com--
--and click on the appropriate thumbnail to travel to the publication of your choice!

While the purchase prices will read as usual
($10. for fandancer, $5. for Look Out! Monsters!, etc.) --you will only be charged $1. for each of the above comics when you click the paypal button! & of course, via Paypal we(meaning "I") accept all those credit cards and paypal  methods of payment!


This offer lasts for 3 days and 3 days only-first come, first serve, as long as supplies last-so if you've ever wanted to get a hold of POOD--or you're crazy enough to want to check out  fandancer-
-NOWZ the TIME!
I'm dying to get these goodies outta my house and into your hands--soz I can fill up my house with all the NEW COMICS I wanna make!
And--I mean this sincerely-- just cause I lovezya! AHCHACHACHACHA!

Fandancer: sketches and texture

A comment in my post "Comics Not Comics" about texture (Hi Vollsticks!) -and asking to see some examples of some of the pastel work done in my comic "fandancer" offer a good opportunity to compare some sketches--done in markers---and the finals, done in pastel--to illustrate the difference texture brings to tone and mood, certainly in fandancer-and in comics in general. 

Texture was something that was built into my "vision" for FD right from the start--I knew I wanted color, I knew I wanted color built into the image creation rather than layered on top of line drawings--and I knew I wanted to evoke ben day textures(the texture of print) without resorting to photoshop and without arousing the aura of nostalgia that faux-ben day often brings with it. And so--pastel was my medium of choice.  

 I prefer not to blend or smudge--but lay color down one layer at a time, add fixative, add another layer-more fix, another layer, etc.-to build depth into the color, to allow the surface of the paper to work on the image, and to keep process front and center. Process is as important to me as the image is. 

I don't think those qualities are very apparent in these lo-res digital images, but I think they are very clear in the book itself.

 and of course, here's a couple of "nautical" examples from one of my favorite cartoonists-Roy Crane.

The first, in pen and ink, from his classic "Wash Tubbs & Cap'n Easy"-and the second from "Buz Sawyer", highlighting Sawyer's absolute mastery of the now lost art of zip-a-tone.
(& correct me if I'm wrong--I believe Sawyer used "Craftint" paper-wherein the gray tonalities were actually built into the paper and revealed as the artist applied a developer to the area he or she wanted to shade.)

Sawyer's use of gray tones was an ingenious response to the technology of his day, his textures worked in terms of representation--describing space, light and shade, volume, mood, etc--while subtly cluing the audience into process-and the nature of the medium in print-as well.

 

& just in case you weren't aware--there are some wonderful collections of Roy Crane's

work out now--Fantagraphics is reprinting the "Cap'n Easy"Sundays, and as well as Buz Sawyer . 

Comics, not Comics?

 (There are times when one finds oneself looking in the mirror and asking:"well..how did I get here?" This is one of those times.)

"korumbu! confesses" by geoff grogan; from pood #3.

My wife often tells me that I don't make comics. "You do something else-but it isn't comics" She'll point to some book or another on my shelves-more likely than not something by Jack Kirby or Gilbert Hernandez or Seth or Chester Gould or,or, or.... -and very confidently state: "This is comics. Look at what you do. You don't do that."
Then she'll say-that "...if you want to make comics you should just make comics..."---implying that I should stop screwing around with this other stuff and get back to telling a story with boxes and word balloons. "A comics audience won't be interested in this work because its not comics. Its something else--like painting."

"secret romance" by geoff grogan; from pood #2.

I admit--in my most recent pages for pood--I'm not trying to construct a sequential narrative,  so much as undermine sequence and narrative--and still make comics. I do want these pages to hit you all at once-like a painting--but utilize something of the sequential imperative of comics via discrete "stops" (or stoppages--to borrow a term from Duchamp).
These "stops" in the composition--should move the reader around the page--but not necessarily in a defined-a to b to c -style sequence, but like painting---in more random fashion, determined by the viewer's eye- so that there's no real beginning-and no real end.
This isn't to imply the piece lacks "meaning"-but rather that meaning is elicited via the methods of visual art, suggestion and association, rather than in the more direct fashion of traditional narrative structures.

"See what I mean? not comics!" she says. "and you're not drawing either.  What's with the collage?"

"fandancer" by geoff grogan; page 26

sigh. well, yeah.  I'm doing comics with collage. Old photos, old comics, even old word balloons, cut and pasted rather than drawn.  I've done the traditional method, of course--but while working on fandancer, I made a conscious decision to work with the actual material of comics-so as to make explicit my interest in the language of the media, the conventions of genre and their workings as both sign and symbol.
 Collage introduces a level of conceptual distance and unpredictability--and works to undermine  traditional  narrative - opening the story up to a wide array of suggestions and ideas-many of which I never would have conceived of had I been writing in a traditional
way.  In fandancer, the "narrative" actually percolates beneath the surface incongruities and absurdities, providing subliminal continuity but allowing myriad interpretations and associations that move the piece in multiple directions at once.
Obviously, I'm not a big believer in rock-solid "do's and don'ts"-- in comics --or in art, for that matter. There are many roads to the destination--and even then, not everyone is interested in going to the same place.

"fandancer" by geoff grogan; page 27

"fandancer" by geoff grogan; page 28

Comics? Not comics?   It only matters in so far as it means someone will (or won't) pick up the book and take it home.




*(and despite periodically playing devil's advocate, my wife deb is actually the biggest, best supporter anyone could have--and the most likely to say"stick to your guns! you've gotta do what you've gotta do-otherwise, what's the point?"  hell, she's only stuck it out for 25 years! thanks, love!)