Illo Dump

Yello.

So what the fuck am I up to when I'm not neglecting the ol' bloggerino? Or rather, while I am in fact neglecting the ol' bloggerino. I mean, other than laying around watching tv and eating butter brickle ice cream.

Whelp, I've been lucky enough to get a good deal of illustration work for magazines and comics and books and whatnot. So for lack of anything better to post, here's some of that stuff:

I'll post more of these when I am bored and idle.

Bye for now!

Monkey Redux

Golly hapaloola!

Where does the time go?

It goes to working. And to loafing. Quite a bit of loafing, really. I make no apologies.

Okay, I make some apologies, but decidedly unheartfelt ones.

So what's going on?

Kung Fu Monkeyface, that's what.

If you follow along on the Monkeybunnyüberblog or over at the Untrue Tales site, well maybe you noticed that we just wrapped up Kung Fu Monkeyface Book One. 71 glorious pages of monkey mayhem. And not unlike our short, furry protagonist, we've come to a crossroads of sorts.

My partner in monkeybiz, Gabe Ostley, is moving on to bigger and better things. We had a grand old time working together and I'm pleased as punch at the results thus far. So take a bow, Gabe, and soak up the applause from the peanut gallery. Thanks for a job well done.

But the thing is ... it's not really done. I've got this whole dang monkey epic plotted out and I really kinda like it. And I have a big problem with leaving things dangling. I've got a few other projects left twisting in the wind, and they still nag at me. I wish I had the time to just buckle down and finish 'em all. I just hate to let an idea die on the vine.

So, this time, I'm not gonna.

From here on out, I'm plowing on with the monkey to the bitter banana-flavored end. All by my lonesome. I'm a little ways in, and so far so fun. I'm trying a different tack on this one and trying to continue in the loose cartoony style that Gabe's established for Book One. I'm hoping the artistic changes won't be too jarring. Luckily, I feel like we've established a pretty distinctive tone with the full-color flashbacks and the more sketchy grayscale present-day pages, and that will hopefully help to keep the whole thing cohesive.

If you're a reader of Untrue Tales, I guess you've noticed that my big thing is realism and obsessive attention to detail and reference and whatnot. For Monkeyface, I'm doing my best to cast off some of those self-imposed artistic shackles and just fly by the seat of my pants. No rulers, no ref, no restrictions – just unholstering that ol' number two and letting the lead fly. I'm pretty happy with the results so far and I hope anybody still reading this thing will be happy with it too. If you are, let me know. If not, shut up.

Nah, I'm kidding, any and all feedback is welcome. My goal is to keep chipping away at this thing with a new page every Sunday until we get to the ever-lovin' end. Can't promise I won't slip on a banana peel or two along the way, but my intentions are good.

Anywho, here's a look at the construction of the Book Two cover:

Book Two starts here. Page one coming this Sunday.
Off we go!

.... and we're back.

Oh, yes! We're back in bidness. Monkey-bidness that is.

"But for how long? HOW LONG?!!"
You might shriek in understandable frustration.

Yeah, 2011's been a spotty year. Not much going on around these bloggy parts other than me blogging about how I'm too busy to blog.

So, sorry. I lay myself flat, as they say in Norway.

This year I've got nothing but good intentions and monkey-posting plans every double dang Sunday. Except when I don't feel like it or whatever.

But I'm gonna try REAL hard to feel like it. Promises, promises.

Anywho, we're kicking back off with another flashback sequence. Dive right back in with page 48 here or start back at the beginning here.


















As for you Untrue Tales fans who may or may not be out there, yearning for more Gabe Stein-y goodness...

I got nothin'. Sorry, folks. The monkey is my only master these days. I do have plans for more Untrue Tales down the road, but y'know, busy. Here's one panel of an unfinished story I hope to one day, y'know, finish.
























Until then, look forward to Monkey-sundays for the forseeable future.

Lay-tahz!

What?

Yeah, still awful busy.

Here's this:

Good Gawd Y'all!

Man, I just keep getting worse at this, don't I?






















Same old refrain. The busy-ness, it confounds me. Nary a moment to blog, I say, nor a minute to draw forth the images of comic-bookery. Alas.

I'm not complaining mind you. Busy as a bee though I be, it's all business of the pleasant and luxury sort. Doing tons of paid illustration and comic design work - all fun stuff, I'm really in hog heaven. Just bought a new house and I'm in the process of moving and establishing a new base of operations - the nerd-cave of my dreams. And I have a sweet girl with itchy feet that likes to drag me all over the world on exotic vacations constantly. Yeah, boo-hoo, sucks to be me, right?

I do wish I had more time to draw some dang Untrue Tales though. I assure you, dear unbeliever, I haven't given up the tale-telling forever. Still working on stuff in the backest of grounds. It will see the light of internet at some point in the hopefully not too far-flung future.

We shall see.

In the meantime, you might have noticed that Kung Fu Monkeyface has also fallen a bit by the wayside of late.





















We're taking a little break on this one as well, while Gabe works on a graphic novel with another guy. Not sure when the monkey will return or in what form as yet. The whole story is plotted so I'm certainly of a mind to wrap the darn thing up eventually. Time will tell. We made it up to page 47 so far. I think it's an OK stopping point for now. You be the judge.

The Hammer prequel A Tale of Two Fiddys is now up on Untrue Tales. This was a fun one to doodle up. Give it a look.













Seen a bunch of movies and read a bunch of books since last I popped in to the blog. But gosh-darn it, I don't have time to get into all that at the moment. Have I mentioned that I'm a tad busy? Flarg.

I will say that if you haven't seen Source Code yet, you're missing out on the coolest sci-fi flick of the year.


















And if you need something to read on the beach, you can't go wrong with Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain and (part two of the planned trilogy) The Fall.
























That is if you like your vampires good and disgusting rather than glam and glittery.

Here's some random sketches.















































Bye Now!

Hurfurfurh

Uffameg.

Blog blog blog. No time for blogging. So much stuff to do. Lots of interesting things going on.

Been doing some cool collaborative things with Juan Felipe Salcedo of Re-Evolution fame.













Man, that dude can draw. We'll see what comes of it, but so far so fun.

Monkeyface is keeping on keeping on.






















As is Fiddy for the time bean.
























Read a good book from Iceland. Voices by Arnaldur Indridason.
























Cool crime novel about a dead hotel santa and the gloomy cop assigned to the case. The whole thing pretty much takes place in a hotel in Reykjavik. Very well-written with a twisty plot and interesting characters. I read this one in Norwegian as part of my plan to improve my stagnated language skills. But it's probably just as good in English.

Saw a couple of good movies. Blue Valentine with Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams is damn depressing and damn good. Top notch acting from the leads. But boy will it bum you out.























Took a look at an old movie from the 60s called Gambit, 'cause I read on AICN that they were remaking it, but the original sounded kinda cool as is.
















This is a comic caper movie with Michael Caine and Shirley McClaine. It's very wacky in that 60s kind of way, but immensely entertaining. Lots of fun twists, ridiculous plot holes and Hollywood closed-mouth kissing. It's a good time if you go with it.

Finally got ahold of The Phantom Edit - that recut version of The Phantom Menace that was supposedly re-edited into a far superior version by some guy. I was very interested in seeing this and convinced myself that I was really going to see a cool version of Star Wars that was hidden inside the shit-sandwich of the original. But, alas. The Phantom Menace is actually even worse than I remembered it. I haven't seen the original since it played in theatres the first time, and I guess my memories were softened by the less-awful sequels, but this movie is actually unwatchable. It doesn't matter how much of Jar Jar and Anakin saying "Yippee" you cut out, it's still a pile of shit. I can't believe I tricked myself into getting disappointed all over again. Oh well. At least I only subjected myself to about 20 minutes of it this time.

What else? Got a neat little gig doing caricatures of Norwegian celebrities for a local verison of those comedy-roast tv-shows. Here's a sample.























Not all that interesting if you don't know who this guy is, I guess.

And here's an old-timey Norwegian writer-guy.























Okay, bye.

This and That

Yello again!

It's Wednesday which means new Buck Fiddy for ya on the Monkeybunnyüberblog!
























Are you following along with Kung Fu Monkeyface?



















Why the hell not? Check it out here or here.

Some one panel funnies:























Went to the movies and saw The King's Speech last weekend.
























It is a good movie. But waaay overrated. Nothing wrong with it, just totally unsurprising. Cool poster though.

Here's what my Oscar picks would've been:

Best Picture: The Kids Are All Right
Best Director: Christopher Nolan
Best Actor: James Franco. Or Jesse Eisenberg. I think these guys had a bigger acting challenge than Colin Firth. He was fine, but I kinda think any British actor could've played that part just as well.
Best Actress: Annete Bening. Natalie Portman was terrific, but Bening was just on fucking fire.

I think they got the supporting actor and screenplay awards pretty much right. The rest of the awards I generally don't give a shit about. And god, what an awful awful show this year's Oscar telecast was. Franco and Hathaway were waylame. They shoulda got Ricky Gervais.

Read a pretty cool book. Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski.



















A mystery of sorts about Christian missionaries, anthropology and primitive hill tribes in Northern Thailand. Fascinating stuff.

Been catching up on the tv show Fringe.

























I watched the first couple of episodes way back when but wrote it off as just an X-Files ripoff. But I got back into it again and boy howdy is this a great show. As the mythology deepens there are an awful lot of "holy shit" moments that had me falling off my couch. They even give a little nod to the X-Files in one episode, suggesting that the show takes place in the same universe and that the Fringe division of the FBI is connected to the old X-division. Nice little Easter egg. I would love it if Mulder or Scully or even Skinner would show up for a guest appearance. Probably too tricky to make it happen though. I'm about 8 episdoes into season 3 now and am just loving it. Wicked cool show.

That'll do it. Go with Gob!