Entry 141: Tribute to Jean "MOEBIUS" Giraud

My entire body of work might as well be in tribute to Moebius. His influence on me is obvious, I think. And my other influences, well they were influenced by Moebius. I was born into a world already affected by the genius of this man. I lived and partook in a Moebius world and I didn't even know it. I was already affected by his work before I had ever picked up one of his comics. And when I did pick up one of his books, it was like a big piece of the puzzle clicked into place. And through his work I could see the roots of so many things that I loved and it gave me a better understanding of those things.

The first Moebius book I picked up was H.P.'s Rock City published by Dark Horse, which, among other short stories, contained "The Long Tomorrow." All of the stories were great, but "The Long Tomorrow" astounds me. With a mere 16 pages Moebius creates a rich, textured sci-fi world full of fantastic, iconic visuals. He creates a genre.

How many graphic novels, movies, books, t.v. shows can be traced back to these 16 pages. A lot, I'm sure.

When I heard that Moebius had died, I was shocked. Not at his death, but at the fact that up until the day before he died, he was a living person. In my mind he's always been some kind of god. Sure, I knew on an intellectual level that he was a person and that he was alive, but it hadn't occurred to me that we lived in the same realm of existence, or that he would ever die.

I don't believe in an afterlife, but with Moebius, it somehow makes sense. Wherever he is, my voice joins in with the chorus of countless others singing out our thanks to him.

This panel cheers me up and reminds me that his work lives on.

Entry 126- Starwatcher

Brandon Graham has started a kind of redraw cover meme. He did a sketch of his own version of Moebius' famous Starwatcher piece and challenged other artists online to do the same. Here's the original Moebius drawing.

 Here's a link to Brandon's blog Brandon Graham

And here's were you can see all of the different takes on the Starwatcher.

Entry 113: Tsunami Relief

The subject of this week's Periscope Studio sketch challenge is Japan. The idea is to have a week of pieces that we can auction off and have the proceeds donated to tsunami relief.

Edit-- This piece is now sold.Check out other pieces up for auction from other Periscope studio members here. All of the pieces are for tsunami relief. (I might bid on Aaron McConnell's piece myself.)
And a big thanks to everyone who bid.

I had pretty much told myself that I wouldn't be participating in many more Periscope sketch challenges for a while because I need to be focused on work. But when the idea of doing a Japan week was suggested I was immediately on board. There are probably a lot of artists who feel this way, but for me this is a chance to give a little back to a country that has given me so much. Many of my greatest artistic inspirations are Japanese. Which brings me to the piece itself.

I considered doing a piece directly related to the tsunami and everything that's happened there but it seemed so depressing. I turned to the idea of Japanese pride. I thought about all of the amazing and super cool things Japanese culture has brought to the world. I actually felt as though Japan itself was going to look at what I did and judge whether or not it was in the right spirit... I'm not sure what that means, but it made me think of the end of Akira (the manga).

---Spoiler Alert---

At the end of Akira, after Tetsuo has been killed and the UN can finally reach the shores of the devastated Neo Tokyo with supplies and medical aid, Kaneda is there. He's clearly assumed a leadership role-- after all, he was always a leader-- and he tells the UN essentially to beat it. We don't need your help. Just then Kei rides up on Kaneda's bike. Kaneda hops on, they ride off into the city, and you get to see these two strong characters finally joined together. Maybe things are going to be okay. What can stop these two? The ghosts of Kaneda's friends, Yamagata and Tetsuo, appear riding along side them. They zoom out ahead and vanish and we see the city start to rebuild itself. The last shot is of Kaneda and Kei riding into a perfectly reformed Neo Tokyo as the last bits of debris fly back into place. It's a beautiful and hopeful ending.

Akira is my very favorite comic series ever. The only thing that challenges it's #1 spot for me is Tezuka's Phoenix, also a Japanese book.

Click over to the Periscope Studio Tumblr to see the other pieces that will be available.

Thanks,
Dustin

p.s. click the "japan love" tag for past Japanese related posts.

Entry 95: S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 Fourth Print and Ben Bates

Okay, this is starting to become ridiculous. Shield #1 sells out again and goes to a FOURTH print! What are these print runs like? Seriously, retailers, this book is doing better than you keep thinking it will. Order more copies.

I guess these reprints are good press. And obviously people buying the book is a great thing, but we are running out of things to put on the covers!

No really. Daniel, the assistant editor on the book, called me up and told me that we were going to a forth print. Great news! "But we don't have anything to put on the cover," he says. He mentioned the idea of putting a big image of the shield, and then asks if I have a big image of the shield. "Nope," I say. He says, "we'll have to think of something, let me know if you think of anything." And we hung up.

That's when Ben Bates came to the rescue.

Ben is a studio mate of mine. He's just getting started with his professional career in comics and he's doing a fine job of it.
He was recently interviewed on Newsarama for his work on S.h.o.o.t. First featured in Dark horse presents. He's also penciled issues 217 and 218 of Sonic The Hedgehog, which will be out in September and October. And he's currently working on more Sonic. Here's a link to his sight.

So after my conversation with Daniel, I got to thinking about the forth print cover and I thought it would be cool to have the shield with a reflection of Da Vinci in it. I asked Ben if he would be willing to help me out with getting it done since I was desperately trying to make a deadline and couldn't do it myself. I've helped Ben out a number of times, so he kind of owed me, and he agreed to to it. And he did a great job! He created a perfect version of the shield, colored it, and together we worked on dropping the Da Vinci reflection in.

Ben has helped me out once before, back when I did the 2 page Thing Thing story for Fantastic Four Adventures. He did a lot of the color flatting and made such good color choices I hardly had to do anything since almost all the colors are flat colors.

Just for fun, here are those 2 Thing Thing pages. I posted panels from this but never the whole thing.

Entry 94: Astro Boy Fan Art

Looking through my sketchbooks I realize that there are fewer and fewer drawings done for fun and more and more drawings that are for work. It's making my sketchbooks less interesting. Less fun. So I thought I'd have a little fun.
I've been reading a lot of Astro Boy lately. I've got Astro on the brain right now and once I got it in my head that I wanted to draw him it became an itch that I had to scratch.