i've never been able to draw batman. he doesn't suit my style. but i think this picture turned out rather nice.

spider-man's all done. i'll being posting the whole story sometime in the future, but for now you only get this picture of me holding the comic in my hand.

here is a picture of me taken after drawing two pages, and inking three pages in 13 hours! only one page left to ink on spider-man and then i am done!

I'm a romantic.

Ronin by Frank Miller

I think I purchased this book either late in junior high or early in high school, but haven’t actually gotten around to reading it till now. I’m not sure why I waited so long to read it. I certainly remember flipping through the book a number of times; I even started and stopped reading it a number of times. I guess after 10 years of it sitting on a shelf I thought I should finally read it.

                The best thing I like about this book is that it’s nearly impossible to sum it up with just one sentence. I’d feel sorry for the poor guy who has to write the TV Guide summery for this book. The concept is that a master less samurai, a ronin, tries to avenge his former master by killing the demon responsible for his death. Just when it seems he is about to succeed the demon, Agat, thrust both the ronin and himself far into a dystopian future.  There the battle between them continues, only now there are robots, cannibals, and a super advanced AI along for the ride as well.

                This is a massive book, both in concept and in the art. The story hits the rails very hard right from the first page, and never really lets you go. There is a lot going on but it never feels overwhelming. With so many characters, and so many events, you’d think you might get lost among the pages, but it has a way of holding on to you. You’re being sucked into the world of the book.

                Art wise this book is amazing. When you look at the girls faces you can tell that it’s a Frank Miller book. Other than that though the book has an art style unique to itself. You can’t really point to another piece of work he has done and say, “That looks like a page from Ronin”. There are parts where you can point to it and see that Frank was learning lessons he would later carry over to Dark Knight Returns, but there is a much more European influence here. I’ve always been someone who loves to see the obsession of putting as many lines as possible on a page. This book definitely delivers on that front. If someone was to go through and count all the lines in this book the number might just close to how many human beings live on the planet earth.

                My biggest compliant about the book is that I just didn’t like the end. There is a very sharp turn at the end, which explains everything that’s being go on, that I just didn’t care for. It seemed like a bit of a letdown. I almost felt like Frank had a really cool idea for a story but his mind just wouldn’t let it be a simple story about a ronin and a demon fighting each other through the ages. It has to be bigger and boarder than that. I was also a bit confused by Casey’s sudden action at the end of the book. Was she really intended to do what she was doing, or was she hoping to cause the action that followed? Aside from that I thought this was a really great book and would definitely recommend it to someone who is not just a Frank Miller fan, but someone who loves great Sci-Fi stories as well.

Thought I’d give everyone an update as to what I’ve been doing lately. First up, I still have copies of Ugly People number available. I mention before that I only have a handful left, so I decided to give the rest away for free. Here is an example of a drawing I did for someone who emailed me saying they wanted one.

Remember if you’d like to get one just send me an email at itszackempire@gmail.com.

Next up here are some pencils for my Spider-Man comic. I purposefully made Peter look like me. Just living out my childhood fantasies I suppose. This comic is coming along very well. Although there are three pages, the three pages where Spidey fights the Rhino, which I think I’m going to rethumbnail and redraw. I just don’t like the way they came out at all. I realized after I had drawn them I did the thing where I know what’s going on in the story so draw it like I’m the only one reading it, instead of doing my job of conveying as much information as possible to the reader.

I only have 12 copies of Ugly People number one left. Rather than try and push to sell them all I’m just going to give the last ones away. So if you haven’t gotten a copy yet just email your home address at itszackempire@gmail.com and I’ll send one out to you. I might be nice and throw something extra in there for you, but there are no grantees.

                And hey, don’t forget I’ve got another comic and some original art for sale. Do me a solid and buy some of it so I can buy some goddamn food!

the villian from my spider-man comic is the rhino. oh, spoiler aleart.

some recent drawings.

I was feeling for depressed and overcome with anxiety last night so I drew up this weird drawing. I’m not really sure why but it made me feel much better to do.

The latest installment of disgusting filth, for your enjoyment.

                As I mention before I plan to start posting a new strip every Friday. Mostly likely it will only be a one page comic, like this one, but maybe a few longer ones with squeeze in there. This comic might look a bit familiar because I posted a rough version of it years ago. I did a number of these one page strips in a scratchy style about 3 years ago. I’ve never done anything with them, so I figured why not use them now. I think they are all really funny!

                The idea to do this came from an interview I was listening to on TCJ talkies with Evan Dorkin. He was talking about how if he was an up and comer now, doing humor books, he would be putting his stuff on the internet. It only makes since. So I thought I should try a bit harder to get more comics on the internet for people to see. I’m not sure I’ve got the skill, or the time, to do a daily web comic, or even a few times a week, so I thought that doing it once a week would be a good idea. If I’m able to produce it faster than that I’ll work on getting it up to two days a week. If I had a simpler style I might be able to put stuff up with more regularly, but I just overwork the pages too much.

                Speaking of style I did something new with this page! I actually measured out the lettering for the panels! I wanted the pages to look cleaner. My letter is somewhat crazy and lopsided at times. I think it adds to anxiety of my stories, but I also feel that the straighter lettering helps the overall look of the page. It was a pain in the as to do though. I’ll have to find a faster way of doing it if I want to keep it up.  The other big change on this page is that I actually typed the dialogue out on a computer first, to check for spelling errors and grammar mistakes. I’m a bit sick of spelling words wrong all the time so I think I be doing this all the time now.

                I thought I’d give you another update as to what I’ve been up to lately, since my plans from my previous rant have changed. Here are some of my future projects I’ve got in mind.

WEEKLY STRIPS

                I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how to get more of an audience. I feel like I’m drawing comics that get thrown into a big well. I do all the work then just toss them into the dark. It’s not a very satisfying why of working.

                When you’re working on things that are based in humor it isn’t that hard to do short strips. In fact all I used to do is short strips. 3 pages at the most. Now I find that I’m working on stories that are longer and longer. However I still get ideas for the one page gag comics. I draw them up for an issue, but they don’t make the final cut. As a result they have just been piling up.

                I thought it might be a good idea to have some sort of strip that I post regularly to get people coming back to my site. If you want people to buy your comics, or even read them, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to give them a free taste of what you’ve got in store for them. My plan, for now, is to post a one page strip every Friday, starting tomorrow. I’ve got a back log of strips that are thumb nailed out, but haven’t been drawn yet, so I won’t be posting any old stuff. However some of the strips will be the final drawn version of sketchbook comics I’ve posted before.

                Once I’ve got enough of them done I think I will collect them all together in an issue of Ugly People. It will most likely be issue 4 or 5.

UGLY PEOPLE 3

                I’ve started doing the writing for the next issue of Ugly People. This one will be a bit different because I’m actually writing this one out on a computer, before I draw it. This is just an effort to get away from so many spelling and grammar mistakes that I always have. My comics are riddled with them, and it’s something that I often hear complaints about. If I can manage to get rid of the one complaint I always get then maybe I’ll start getting a bigger audience. Positive word of mouth and all.

                With Jerkface comics, and Ugly People 2 (which will be out before the end of this year) I was working more with established characters, trying to build a bit of continuity for the characters. Well, as much continuity as you can have when drawing about a guy beating off several times a day. I think for Ugly People 3 I might do less of that and just try to do some stories that are flat out silly and funny.  Worry a little bit less about building up the Empireverse and concentrate on making people laugh!

SPIDER MAN COMIC

                Instead of doing a whole big thing as a comic for Lucy I decided to do something smaller for her.  I’m drawing a Spider-man comic for her. I’m doing it in my own style, but it’s not dirty like my work usually is. There’s no harsh language or anything. Right now I’m still writing and thumb nailing it out, which is fun. I get to look through old issues of Spider-Man and say it’s just research for my kid! How cool is that?

                Of course I won’t be able to sell this comic, but when I finish it I’ll post it on line.

DRAWINGS

                I still want to just do some drawings that I can sell, or even just to have fun with. All I ever drawing is comics and it’s somewhat dull. I love drawing comics, but I also love drawing. When I was in high school I would do art projects all the time. Mostly I drew pictures of girls that I copied from Maxim or FHM, but it was still fun to do. Gary Panter says that you should never tie yourself down to one thing at a time because if you get bored with it you stop working. One of the things I learned when doing Ugly People 2 was that, while I was able to get a lot of comics done in a short amount of time, it was a bit boring. When I sat down to draw I knew I was only going to be drawing comics. I love doing comics but if I’m being honest sometimes it’s really fucking boring.

                Well that about does it for me. Tomorrow I’ll post a new comic. See you later.

Here is what I did today. This is one of my more designed pages, with the four tiers, two of the tiers in black and two with motion lines. It seems like many artist have these images and standard panels they use over and over. I’ve found that I have a few of this myself, like ending my stories with a panel that has no boarder. Many of my stories feature people fighting and I’ve noticed that I always draw the same punching panel over and over. You can see a bit of that shot in the fourth panel. When it came time to do this page I tried to find some other way of showing the fight. There seems to be an idea of doing really big panels when you drawing fight scenes, to show the energy and speed of those events I suppose. But why not go the other way? Those were the things I was thinking about when I drew this page.

                It is funny to me that all the way up to high school I wanted to work in Superhero comics, drawing Spiderman, or Batman, and now that I’m publishing my own work I’ve still got that superheroes in my blood, but a servilely perverse version of it. Rather than drawing Spiderman fighting Doctor Octopus, I’m drawing a to-do list fighting a comic book page. What would I of ten years ago think about that? Could he possible understand all the steps and struggles it took for my current style and stories to come about? Something to think about.

                Here is a panel from a comic I’m working on now. I like the classic cartoon images, in this case the image of a “fight cloud”. I realized something while drawing this story; a lot of my stories involve people solving an argument by starting a fight. I’m not sure why that is. Something left over from my days reading superheroes comics perhaps? Or maybe it’s just me living out my fantasy of simply punching people when they get on my nerves?

sketchbook stuff

empire does ditko!



here is a drawing i did the other day while lucy and i were doodling. i had a lot of fun drawing this. i also opened a store where you can buy some sweet comics from me. although i already have each one shown on this page so i'm not sure how often i'll remind people of it.



MONKEY SQUAD ONE: ANNUAL #1

28 PAGES

$2.50

WRITTEN AND DRAWN BY DOUG MICHEL

            Let me just start off by saying that this might be the second best annual I’ve ever read. My all-time favorite annual would be the first Amazing Spider-man annual that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko did. In many ways I think that helps to explain why this one really spoke to me and why I had such a good time reading it.

            As we read through the book we are introduced to the characters and their team affections. There is a short story, followed by character bios and information on the different buildings and vehicles they use. It all does an excellent job of bringing the reader up to speed on what’s been going on in the six issues prior to the annual. Each of the stories is different as well, which was a relief as the reader. I’m glad he didn’t go the route of simply having each team fight a different super villian and explain who and what they do on the team. It’s much more satisfying to discover those things by reading the dialogue between the characters.

            Art wise Doug is very strong. He has a very simple style that lends itself well to the light hearted parody of the work.  When you use a paired down style it can be easy to make the characters look similar to each other, but Doug manages not to do that. None of the characters seem to be stock characters. They all have a very unique look, which is something I always like. Even when two real people have a similar sense of style there are still things that set them apart. The panels don’t get too boring either. He is always changing the angle, making sure not to repeat himself on a page. It seems many artists simply plant the camera at the characters shoulders and drawing from there up panel after panel. It gets very repetitive very boring. I’m glad to see that Doug takes more care in his work than that.

            If I did have any criticism against the work it would be two things, both of which are more because of my personal taste then through the fault of the author. The inside front cover is a retelling of the first six issue. I’m assuming it was meant to bring you up to speed on everything that happens prior to this issue. I didn’t feel like it did that though. There was just too much information that was skimmed over. Perhaps it’s just because I’m so used to reading long super detailed entries on Wikipedia, but I was unsatisfied with the overview given. The second would be that it’s not the kind of work I’m usually drawn to. I’ve really grown out of superheroes and even superhero parody the last few years. So for me the book didn’t have that great hook of catching me right away with the concept of the story.

            Overall this is a really great comic. It is easily worth 2.50. I think the biggest thing I could say to make you interested in this comic, is that I may not be that into superheroes anymore, but I’m into Monkey Squad One! To find out more info you can email Doug at monkeysquadmailbox@gmail.com or check out Monkey Squad Mondays at scannerdorkly.com

does whatever a spider can

here is page two of my spider-man comic. i really like this page alot! i think it's one of the better ones i've done in awhile.

there is a ton of colors now

two panels from a spiderman comic i'm working on for fun. I'm a bit worn out on my own stuff so i thought this would be a fun break. i'll post some more stuff soon.



I'm excited that there is a Tintin movie coming out. when i first heard about it i thought it would be stupid, but it actully looks really good! Lucy and I have been reading the books and they are fantastic!