La forma de Buckingham

Como os decía no hace mucho, hace poco me tragué la primera temporada de The Tudors prácticamente sin pestañear, y tal y como me pasó con Al Swearengen en Deadwood, me sorprendí a mí mismo dibujando mentalmente a un par de personajes de la serie (y desnudando a otras, aunque el esfuerzo mental no era necesario). Uno de ellos era el protagonista, el rey Enrique VIII, a quien dibujé mentalmente varias veces en plan caricaturesco y a quien tal vez trate de trasladar al papel en el futuro cercano. El otro personaje en cuestión era el Duque de Buckingham, pero a éste lo veía más como un dibujo animado que como una caricatura o un retrato.

Por otro lado, hacía poco había leido unas declaraciones del dibujante Skottie Young en las que insistía en que las formas y los bloques más que ayudar son imprescindibles a la hora de crear personajes. Mirando a Buckingham, interpretado en la serie por Steven Waddington, podía ver claramente lo que Young quería decir. Podía ver cómo la forma de la cabeza, cuello y hombros del amigo creaban un bloque imposible de ignorar, y cómo dicha forma transmitía unas sensaciones particulares: fuerza, arrogancia, indomabilidad.

Después de dibujarlo mentalmente varias veces y de imaginármelo en una película de dibujos animados, decidí intentar dibujarlo. Lo hice sin fotos u otras referencias, y éste es el resultado. Creo que recuerda al actor (el color ayudaría), y me parece que transmite las mismas impresiones que en la serie. O eso, o es que me estoy tirando el rollo de artistazo chachi guay y no sé ni lo que digo. De todas formas, ahí queda el dibujillo. Enjoy!

Reading List: January

The first month of 2009 ends with the first Reading List of the year. Four books and seven graphic novels sounds like an acceptable balance for January, don’t you think? Let’s see what I read this month:

Which Lie Did I Tell?
This book by William Goldman is packed with funny bits, interesting anecdotes, and great writing. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to have a good time reading some nonfiction.

Skeleton Crew
An old short-story collection by Stephen King, Skeleton Crew includes The Mist among other great tales. I enjoyed most of them, and my favorites were: The Mist, The Monkey, The Raft, The Reaper's Image, Nona, Survivor Type, and especially The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.

Avengers Disassembled: Thor
The first one of the three Thor books I read this month, this volume was much weaker than I expected. The review is coming, though, so I won’t say anything else here.

Hellboy II: The Art of the Movie
I bought this book after watching the extras on the DVD, and not only did I get cool artwork and pictures from the movie, but the script as well. This book includes the complete shooting script for Hellboy II as well as lots of notes on the visuals of the movie. A fun read!

Las rubias, vol. 3
The third installment in Gaby and Dzack’s blonde-joke series, this volume offers the same laughs and cute artwork we enjoyed in the two previous books.

Thor, vol. 1
The best volume of the three I read this month, the review is coming soon, so I’d rather not say anything else here either.

Secret Invasion: Thor
Once again, you’re about to read about this book in detail, so I won’t spoil it here.

Las rubias, vol. 4
Really, just like volume three, this book is cute and amusing and little else.

Wolverine: Get Mystique
I already told you about this cool Wolverine story by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney here.

The Ultimates 3
This seems to be a recurring theme today, but you’ll read about this book by Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira very soon.

Broken Angels
The second book by Richard K. Morgan starring Takeshi Kovacs was a crushing disappointment. I’m sure you want to hear more about it, and I sure want to tell you. Next week.

Todd McFarlane

Check out this video of legendary comic book artist Todd McFarlane being interviewed by Morgan Webb. And, for those of you who have been living under a rock for the last twenty years, McFarlane pretty much redefined Spiderman (read his amazing Torment) and then left Marvel to be one of the co-founders of Image Comics, where he created Spawn and started a toy company that put every other action-figure maker to shame.

During his visit to the G4TV studios, McFarlane also got to draw a picture to be donated to charity (also in the video), and he hosted a special episode of Fresh Ink (I still think Blair Butler is hotter, though). So, if you've always wanted to know what inspires him and how he makes his ultra detailed action figures, check out these videos!

Mad as a Hatter

This is a quick picture I drew as a thank you note for a friend. As you can see, I drew inspiration from my original Mad Hatter picture to draw this one, but this time I thought I'd use my Prismacolor markers, which I didn't get to use in the original Alice series. The aforementioned friend is one of the drama teachers at school, and this is only the first (and sneaky) step in convincing her she should write a stage version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for next fall. Who knows, she might even think it's a good idea!

Collecting Comics

I’ve recently found myself thinking what a diverse bunch of comic books I collect. I got tired of superhero comic books a long, long time ago, so I started reading some of the “other” stuff. The good stuff.

I’m looking at the titles I follow, trying to find a pattern, something in common. Something that assures me that I am not completely random. However, I do admit to having a very eclectic taste, and I usually like things that are complete opposites. Am I afflicted by some kind of mental illness? I don’t think so. I guess it’s just that I like pretty much everything. And still, by looking at these series, I think I can actually discern some patterns, some common elements: great stories and great artwork.

You could argue that’s very subjective, and you'll find no argument here. I like things most everyone hates, and I despise lots of things everyone else thinks are incredible. Am I weird, then? Well, I never tried to deny that.

These books have other things in common, though: humor, horror, and hotties –the three H’s. (Wouldn't that be a great title for a series?) And I guess that makes sense, since I like those three elements a lot. So let’s see what comic book series I am following, and why I love them.

Witchblade
Month after month I tell you about the best book on the shelves right now. Witchblade, written by Ron Marz and illustrated by Stjepan Sejic is the perfect marriage between great stories, phenomenal dialogue, and eye-popping artwork. Throw in mystery, the supernatural, monsters, and incredibly vivid and realistic relationships between the characters, and the result is mind-blowing. Not a lot of humor, though.

Empowered
Written and drawn by Adam Warren, Empowered cracks me up every time a new volume comes out. Warren’s artwork has really grown on me, and now I’m dying to find some of his original pages for sale somewhere. Lots of humor, terrific dialogue, fantastic plays on words and ludicrously great speeches, alliterations, and references show what an avid reader Warren is, and how much fun he has working on his creation. Plus, Emp and Ninjette are uberhot and scantily clad all the time. I just can’t recommend this book enough.

The Goon
Eric Powell’s brilliant book is a great mix of horror, drama, and humor, and his artwork is both gorgeous and disturbing. There are zombies, monsters, and other strange creatures, all living in a retro world that is both fascinating and impossibly compelling. The jokes and humor in this book hit you like an unexpected hammer and make you laugh at things only to leave you wondering what kind of despicable, twisted bastard would laugh at something like that. Pure genius.

World of Warcraft
I told you about this series recently, so I won’t talk too much about it. If you like fantasy, solid characters, and exciting adventures, you should buy WoW. And the artwork in the first seven issues is really cool. After that, not so much.

The Dark Tower
I’m not sure if I should consider this book a limited or an ongoing series, since it kind of is both. Each story arc starts with a new number 1, but the overall story follows closely from one series to the next, so it really is just an ongoing series broken into separate miniseries. The story, written by Peter David and Robin Furth, is based on Stephen King's series of novels, and it captures the strangeness, the weirdness, and the mindbending combination of elements King offers in his books perfectly. There is blood, horror, disturbing creatures, and an overall oppressive darkness that unsettles the reader, a feeling coming both from the words and the great artwork by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove. A really cool series. Not too much humor here, either.

Uncanny X-Men
I know I said I was sick of superhero books, but the current artistic team of Greg Land and Terry Dodson makes this book a no brainer. Plus, the new direction that kicked off with issue 500 really is interesting. Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction are doing a great job writing this series. Let’s see how long it lasts.

So there you have my schizophrenic choices, which don’t look all that different once examined. Let me know if you decide to give any of these books a try!

Let me Live

To say that Resident Evil: Degeneration is the best movie in the series might not be saying much, seeing as the RE movies are, well, not too good. Still, this CGI movie is lots of fun, and the technical aspects of the film are superb.
Just like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and FF: Advent Children, Degeneration is a photorealistic CGI movie that spawned from a series of successful survival horror videogames. The plot is more of the same: the T-virus is wreaking havoc, and it's up to the good guys to stop the infected from turning everyone into a zombie.

If you know the games, you will be familiar with two of the three main characters in the movie. Leon Kennedy was one of the main characters in Resident Evil 2 and 4, and Claire Redfield was one of the main characters in Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil Code: Veronica. And maybe I'm really, really weird, but Claire was so cute I couldn't believe it! Plus, she's very good with a gun, which never hurts. Talking about cute, Claire Redfield appeared in the last live-action RE movie, Extinction, where she was played by Ali Larter. See? Didn't I tell you she was hot?

At any rate, the movie was quite entertaining, and I recommend it to anyone who likes CGI zombie movies based on videogames. You're saying that's quite a small niche? Well, you may be right, but I'm still endorsing the movie!

Me paso el día

Aquí tenéis un dibujillo que hice el otro día para un cartel para la escuela. Resulta que todos los años en febrero tenemos un Square Dance al que las niñas de octavo vienen con sus padres. Para tal evento, tanto ellas como ellos tienden a aparecer con el atuendo típico de este tipo de baile: sombreros de vaqueros, botas, jeans, etcétera. Como, entre muchas otras cosas, este año estoy a cargo de los eventos sociales de octavo, decidí que en vez de usar una cutrez sacada del clip art de Word como hemos usado en años anteriores, podía poner algo de esfuerzo en la empresa y hacer un dibujo que resultara medio gracioso, y éste es el resultado. Una vez hecho, añadí el texto necesario con PhotoShop, detallando día, hora, e instrucciones para el acontecimiento. Enjoy!