Punisher, FrankenCastle, and now...

I expect Marvel will come knocking at me door any day now -- it's just one of those million-dollar ideas that cannot be ignored, you know? I don't even want to read the book -- I'm happy to just gaze at the cover and imagine the hijinx and hilarity that would ensue with The Punisher running a White Castle (I linked it because some fellow Canadians might not be familiar with the franchise). I'm sure he would 'relish' the opportunity (tsk, tsk...sorry).

He's not really being filleted.
..it's more like 'ground Kingpin'...

Imagine the commercial viability of such a venture!! Marvel can include promotional coupons for discount White Castle burgers (because they're not cheap enough already) and White Castle can sell promotional Punisher cups and have Punisher skull-logos seared into their burger patties.

I am, and always have been, this smart.

In Living Colo(u)r....Kenny Doot!

Meet Kenny Doot. Can he? Yes, he can. That's why he's Kenny Doot.
Kenny can do anything, apparently, including motivating me to work with colour. I really have a fear of colour.

Doot! Doot! Doot!

I'm frightened to paint a wall anything other than white. When it comes to clothing, I've noticed myself slowly gravitating towards the safety of grays and beiges -- there's a good reason for this, I think -- I have trouble discerning between blues, greens, and grays, and I know it. This sparks an irrational fear within me which results in my avoidance of colour coordination at all costs, be it in my everyday wardrobe or interior decorating. Or colouring the hundreds (if not thousands) of pieces of art I've churned out over the years.

I have a distinct memory of lying on the ground as a child and staring at a blade of grass. First, the right eye, then the left -- noticing that each eye had it's own distinct interpretation of 'green'. One's a bit more yellow-ish than the other...and working together, who knows what my eyes are telling my little brain?
Usually, when I do attempt to add colour to art, it's a vomit-inducing train wreck that ends up looking like a cheaply produced cartoon from the 60's. No..no, those looked better.

Somehow, this one turned out. It's because of Kenny -- it has to be. I'd do anything for Kenny Doot.
Kenny, by the way, is from a project I've been pecking away at for years called The Goodbye Corps. I would be finished it by now if it wasn't a sci-fi spacecapade -- you see, there's one thing I hate more than colouring, and that's drawing the interior of spaceships. So many angles and blinky lights. And some of those blinky lights are green, I bet...painting myself into a corner, indeed.

6 Arms to Hold You...

Doc Ock-ward.

I love Doctor Octopus. Most non-geeks know him from the film Spider-Man 2, but uber-geeks are far more familiar with Mr. Otto Octavius... There was that time he tried to marry Spidey's Aunt May, the time he tried to kill Spidey, and that other time he tried to kill Spidey, and then there's that other time he tried to kill Spidey. He's no quitter, I'll give him that much.
He has a whole new hip design now and I think he's supposed to be dying of cancer or something, but I think I'll always prefer him in his dumb green outfit and Buddy Holly specs. But I'm no colorist (ahem, 'colourist' with a 'u' here in Canada) so you'll just have to settle for the ol' black and white.
I'm not really sure what he's supposed to be doing in this picture -- dancing, maybe, going for a hi-five, or just dropping a 'BOO!' on some trick or treaters. You be the judge.
...Alfred Molina did a hell of a job playing him...in fact, Doc Ock turned out to be the highlight of the entire trilogy. Go watch it.

Puny arachnid...

I've been trying to get the Hulk 'right' for years. Until now -- I like this one. I just wish I could show it to you in it's original size. He's much more imposing.

"Hulk SMASH implausibly-
designed costume!!"

But I discovered a new challenge while putting this one together -- Spider-man's f'n costume! What a pain. Some logical part of my brain has been discouraging me from drawing Spidey for years, because it knows, it knows that any attempt at mastering that intricate mish-mash of web-patterns and spandex might push me to the breaking point. And when I say 'breaking point' I mean me, drooling and bound to a gurney in some 40's-era sanitarium for the deranged, laughing and weeping simultaneously.

Here's a theory: perhaps the picture to the left is an interpretation of what I would like to do Spider-man and his demented, Escher-esque little get-up....
Here's another theory: an awkward, nerdy, teenage loser like Peter Parker could never just sit down, design, and stitch together a costume of this complexity. Did you know that the eye-holes in his mask are supposed to be made of some sort of one-way reflective material? May I inquire as to where one might purchase such a material? In bulk?

Zombies and Tigers and Burt Ward, Oh my!

I continue to plod away in preparation for the Toronto FanExpo. Of course, the book comes first, but it always helps to have a few posters and prints to cater to the masses. And you know, the masses love zombies.

This is just a peek. The full-size print contains
a dangerous amount of the undead.

Also coming: Captain America, some DC Versus Marvel mash-ups, a painting of Wilson Fisk (The Kingpin of freakin' crime), and an overabundance of Punisher pin-ups...'cause I'm weird that way.

Oh...and more zombies. Adam West and Burt Ward will be at the FanExpo and I think I may make a photo-realistic zombie-fied pin-up of those two (in costume, of course), maybe chewing on Julie Newmar, I'm not sure.

Archive: The Living Compendium to debut at Toronto FanExpo 2010!

Or maybe this is just an excuse to make my first post. Or maybe I better have some sort of online presence if I'm going to launch this comic in a month. Either way, here it is: Angry Daze Ink.

Who you? Doctor Vu!

I would have called it Angry Days, but some mug already used that name on a blog in which he used to post a single entry back in 2002. Loser.

Anyways, I'd better attach a picture to this, figure out how this whole thing works...

There will be plenty of more material regarding the upcoming premiere issue of Archive: The Living Compendium, and a hell of a lot more.

The Toronto FanExpo will be held August 27th to the 29th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. You'll find me in Artist Alley, brooding.