Gypsy Bandwagon Update!

Time to update on the Gypsy Bandwagon show!

As you may have read (if you didn’t check the last entry, below) my preparations for a GB show often seem to start off rather…leisurely. But things have picked up since then.

On Tuesday I practiced drums for around two hours. Then I restrung one of my mallets, that will be needed when we play “Theme from Gypsy Bandwagon” and “Full Rigged Ship” tomorrow night. Can’t risk an equipment failure.

I did other stuff, but that was art related and office related. Hardly relevant to the GB show.

On Wednesday I got the “official” play list from Lance via e-mail, and made my own based on it. My personal play list has to contain more than just the song name, because I am constantly switching instruments during the show. Most folks must figure, “well he plays drums, how hard is that?” But with GB there is always a tweak here and there. I don’t just play the trap set.

I’ve got the Djembe too, which was added to the set up when I joined the band. ( I’d never set eyes on one previously ). So I have to know if I’m playing the Djembe alone, or with the trap bass, or tambourine, or hi hat ( by foot pedal ). I have to know if I’m using light or heavy sticks, mallets, rain stick, jingle ring, etc. So my notes have to be pretty copious in that way.

Not to mention that the sets and arrangements are always changing. I’m not complaining, but Lance and Carissa keep Karin and me on our toes. I’m always being asked to back off here or there, or bring more energy to this part of a song. A lot of times this happens only in rehearsal, but more than once we’ve done it mid-show! So my playlist has to have everything as neatly notated as possible so that if a change does come midway I can adapt.

Anyway the set list took some time. Then I had to practice for an hour or so.

Then Karin had to go practice in Cashiers, NC for a performance on Sunday morning. While this isn’t directly related to GB, it is an issue, since we’ll be playing from 8-10 pm on Saturday at Purple Onion, then leaving out as quickly as possible so that we can drop all our equipment at the studio and get some sleep before getting up at 5:30 am Sunday to load Karin’s harp and hit the road for Cashiers. So the drive out there Wednesday evening was a “dry run” for that.

Thursday I came in to the studio and ( again ) beside my art duties I wrote down a new song I’d been working on for GB to perform at some future date.

Last evening was our first rehearsal proper for the show. Lance and Carissa showed up here at the studio around 6:40 pm and we worked on material, new and old, until around 9:30. I did get a chance to play my new song for them, and it looks like we might do it! Lance complemented it for being “melody-driven”. Not bad for a drummer.

Today I have to pack up all my drums as well as Karin’s equipment ( Bass, Mandolin, Fiddle, and all assorted accessories ) and get them ready to go to Lance and Carissa’s so that we can practice all the songs we didn’t do last night ( and any that didn’t come off last night ). Once we’re done with the second rehearsal I have to break down the drums again and pack the car for the show tomorrow.

We’re supposed to pick up our friend Courtney on the way there. I don’t know if Courtney counts as a “groupie” per se, but we’re picking her up and Lance and Carissa are driving her back home after the gig. It’s been a while since any of us has seen her, so it will be nice.

( I’m pretty sure that Lance is working on some groupie jokes even as I write this…so look out, Courtney! )

We thought we’d get a break on Monday. Only Karin got a last minute gig for Lake Junaluska Monday night. So it looks like we’re going on to Tuesday before the “tour” is over. We may not be a big name band, but between gigging and roadie-ing I’m devoting a lot of time to music.

This has nothing to do with GB, but my studio is crawling with tiny ants. I should probably do something about that.

I exercise in a most unusual way.

I exercise in a most unusual way.

Most reading that will not get the reference, so why did I use it? Just me being obscure.

The reference is to a song by “Wall of Voodoo”, an 80s band, famous for the tune “Mexican Radio”.

Speaking of obscure bands, Gypsy Bandwagon has a gig this Saturday night at The Purple Onion in Saluda, NC. And I’m getting ready for that gig.

Which brings me back to exercising in a most unusual way. I don’t have a clue how other bands get ready for a gig. I’m sure, like GB, they get together for at least a few rehearsals before the gig proper. But what the individual members do to prepare mentally is possibly, even probably, much different than what I do.

What I’ve done, at least enough to call it a routine, is pull out a bunch of “inspirational” videos by other bands. I’m a pretty visual sort of guy (recall that I’m an illustrator in my other identity), so this makes sense to me.

So on Friday and Saturday nights I reviewed “U2: Rattle and Hum”. Sunday at lunch Karin and I watched “The Partridge Family” pilot (all inspiration is not equal). Last night I looked at a batch of 80s videos from MTV (how much hair did we have back then?). As the week continues I’ll doubtless watch various other films and videos that may or may not include; “Oh, brother where art thou?”, “The Monkees”, “Newsboys: Down Under the Bigtop”, “That thing you do!”, etc.

I’m pretty eclectic.

Saturday night I also came over to the studio (where Karin was, working on her MySpace page) and plugged in the electric guitar (with effects) and jammed along with old records of Cheap Trick, 'Til Tuesday, The Clash, Thompson Twins, and (you guessed it) Wall of Voodoo. Those old 45s still sound pretty good to me.

Today I’ve been inking some more on the pirate novel illustrations. I’m very far behind on that project, so it’s a good thing I’ve gotten some more done. (Hi Tim!)

While I’ve been inking I put on GB’s album “Stole My Mule” and harmonized to the tracks where I was supposed to.

So far I’ve hardly touched the drum set. You have to work up to these things.

I just recalled that I did drum briefly on Saturday when I came into the studio to do something that was going to take a couple of minutes. I guess I sat down and drummed to “Voices Carry” while waiting for something to upload, download, or scan. I don’t recall what.

But other than that, I’ve not drummed in weeks. Not consciously anyway.

I do it unconsciously all the time. I suppose that’s how one becomes a drummer. Anytime a song is in the air, I find myself either drumming along or thinking of how it would be improved if done another way. I beat on the steering wheel in the car. I raise a cloud of dust from the floor mats doing bass beats. I have worn a spot of carpet away at my drawing table doing beats with my feet.

One reason I haven’t actually sat down to drum yet (it is, in fact, why I’m not drumming now) is that Karin’s got a student next door playing harp. She’s had students all day, and I hate to be bashing away at some piece and throwing them off their rhythm. So I have to wait until the students go away to get my proper practice in.

Of course today that will be impossible. Karin’s got students until 7pm, and seeing as it’s our 19th Anniversary today, I’m hoping to sweep her away to a fabulous (low-to-mid-priced) dinner and maybe a movie (we’d do more, but we’ve been in a budget crunch since mid-July).

Perhaps I can pull the Djembe over into a corner and do some hand work, now that I think of it.

Anyway, the point is, I do things to inspire me to do well as drummer for GB. The things that inspire me are usually listening to and watching bands that are stylistically pretty far away from the GB sound.

For the record, I do not listen to a bunch of gypsy music or celtic music. Playing it with Lance, Carissa, and Karin is a lot of fun, but it’s not my listening style. I’m sorry if that disappoints any GB fans. (There’s what? At least one of you looking at this, right?)

Of course I did just listen to “Stole My Mule” (the whole thing, start to finish), so that counts, doesn’t it?

So, now I’m going to take the next step and look at the artwork on the cover, and reread the liner notes!

If you're going to swipe, swipe big!

Artwork by James E. Lyle. Batman and all related characters copyright © and trademark DC Comics, Inc.

“If you’re going to swipe, swipe big!” That’s what I told my buddy Aaron when I showed him the pencils for this piece. In comics they don’t come any bigger than Frank Frazetta, and I have been dying to do a swipe of one or more of his Famous Funnies covers for the last 5 years, ever since I saw some of them reproduced in a auction catalog.

But it wasn’t until Jim Amash and I were talking at Heroes Convention ‘07 that I really thought I could pull it off. Then later that day I bought a set of EC Picto-Fiction reprints that contain a previously unpublished story with Frank Frazetta art. The story was “Came the Dawn” from Shock Illustrated #4, and it showed a lot about Frazetta’s process that I hadn’t previously known, and I got real inspired.

One of the scariest images in my childhood was the cover to an issue of Batman that I’ve never owned. In fact, I’m not even sure what issue it actually is. I saw an advertisement for it in a copy of Detective Comics I bought second hand at a school rummage sale when I was in elementary school. (Even then the book was coverless, dog-eared, and around 10 years old. I thought I’d found a golden age copy for a steal of a price at 10¢. Turned out to be a 1963 book done just before the “new look” came to Batman). The image was of Batman transformed into a monster hanging from the top of an Empire State type building fighting against airplanes in King Kong style. As a second grader I was pretty timid and this image haunted me. But even then I didn’t like the style it was drawn in.

When I saw Frank Frazetta’s cover to Famous Funnies #213, over 30 years later, I got that same creepy feeling. And I suppose that’s what finally clicked to create this image. Batman transformed into a monster, but drawn realistically.

I’m inking the image as I write this. Frankly, I’m so excited by the work that I had to take a break before my hands started shaking and I ruined the piece. It will be my masterpiece, I’ve no doubt.

This piece will be super clean as my commissions have been since I did my tenure with Buzz Setzer mentoring me about eBay sales. “Art collectors hate white out!” he always tells me, and so I don’t use it anymore. I have also learned that art collectors prefer no paste up when they can get it. So I’ve learned to reproduce logos by hand. Not too hard since I did that for two years when I worked full time in a tee-shirt factory art department (before computers were in common use).

Before I forget, I chose this logo simply because it’s my second favorite Batman logo of all time. First favorite goes to the late 60s logo used during the Infantino to Brown/Giella period of Batman. This logo I like to refer to as the “transitional” logo. There was a period there where the logo on Batman just couldn’t seem to make up it’s mind. Somewhere in the 210s to 220s this logo appeared. On the cover of 223 the lettering appeared “naked” (with no bat around it) and then for a while, in the 230s the word “Batman” got squashed up into the upper three-quarters of the logo to make room for “and Robin” down below (apparently Robin’s departure from Wayne Manor was actually hurting sales and the logo change assured readers that the “teen wonder” was actually in this issue). There was even one issue of Batman with a Neal Adams cover and a much older cover logo that hadn’t been used since the 40s! But with issue 241 the new “pointy eared” logo made its appearance and was used almost constantly from that point on until the 400s (only losing its place on the cover of 366 because Walt Simonson did such a great job of building the word “Batman” into the artwork that it didn’t need a logo).

Don’t get me wrong, I liked the “pointy eared” Batman logo when it first came out. It just suffered from overexposure. So my second favorite Bat logo got relegated to covers of “The Brave and The Bold” in reduced format next to who ever was guest starring in that issue.

When I was working at that tee-shirt factory, we got the license to do some Batman night shirts, and being the resident Batman nut they gave me the opportunity to pitch some designs. This logo was in the official Batman movie style-book and I told them that this would be a big hit with all the comics fans, particularly if we used a cool color scheme. This idea was rejected, along with most of my other pitches on that project. So using it here may be part of my outrage at them for not using it then.

So the next question has got to be, “why Batgirl, and why not the TV Batgirl since you’ve had so much success with that?” Why Batgirl? Because I couldn’t think of a more effective Batman character to have threatened by this monstrous Batman. Why not the TV Batgirl? Well that’s because of the cover to Detective Comics #371, “Batgirl’s Costume Cut-Ups!” A story in which we fans learned that Batgirl’s costume is subject to runs. There’s simply something goofy about that, and I wanted to incorporate that into this image. Yvonne Craig’s costume may be a lot of things, but it was pretty obviously run-proof. Not so the comic book Batgirl.

Or did you mean, “why THAT Batgirl”, instead of the new one? I don’t like the new one. Sorry. And while I like Oracle okay, I’d rather have Barbara out there doing the Batgirl thing. I’ve got a chip on my shoulder about it too. It always bugged me that the writers and editors made Barbara Gordon a boring character and then blamed her for being that way. She started out interesting. She was a librarian who put on a Bat costume and looked really great in it. That was interesting. And the costume was interesting. Black and sleek with hints of yellow and blue.

Then they decided to make it gray, and make Barbara a congresswoman. Booorrriing.

Which is not to say that I thought “The Killing Joke” was bad. But it was more of the same for Barb. She even looked old in that book. Older than Batman. “Ho-hum, life sure is dull after you’ve been a congresswoman, guess I’ll read another book.”

When you make the day job more interesting than the nighttime adventures what do you expect the readers to think? The Clark Kent paradigm works. He’s a wimp when he’s Clark, and he’s interesting when he’s Superman. Barbara was powerless and boring as a librarian, but powerful and attractive as Batgirl. That was the point.

Makes me wonder what the point is of having her cowering at the feet of this monster-Batman. Hmmm. That’s going to take a while to figure out. I run the risk of being in the position of Spinal Tap trying to defend themselves over “Smell the Glove”. But she’s still on her feet! She’s got a look of concern on her face, not total abject fear. We all know that if this were the comic that she’d find the antidote and change Bruce back before the tale was over.

Another reason comes to mind. Back when I was first trying to become a comics artist., (around 1980) I drew a sample cover based on an idea from my sister-in-law. The idea being that Batman has so played the “creature of the night” angle that a little kid who didn’t know who Batman was would be scared of the Dark Knight. I thought this was pretty good stuff and showed the cover to Rich Buckler who was a guest at a show. He said the drawing was okay, but there was a “sort of taboo in comics of showing little kids being threatened”. So I never showed the art to any editors. But Batgirl is no kid. She knows Batman, and so this is a call back to that idea too. The idea that Batman can be scary at times, can I make him even scarier?

So what’s with the tattered cape? That goes way back too. When I was a kid I was a big Batman fan (what? You’d guessed already?) Even as a preschooler I saw Batman in everything. I thought the Traveler’s Insurance billboard in my hometown was somehow related to Batman, because I didn’t get that umbrellas weren’t scalloped to resemble Batman’s cape. Scallops have been a big part of my design sense ever since. I still love umbrellas as a design motif; black, satin, scalloped. The say, “Batman” (or “Penguin”, which relates to Batman, so it’s the same thing).

A lot of other designers have seen this potential in scallops. The designers of the Fokker Triplane for example. The designer of “Birdie” from Airboy obviously got this. In fact it seems pretty obvious that the Penguin was just an attempt to get more scallops into Batman comics.

When John Byrne took over Superman in the 80s he made Superman’s cape tearable. I got what this was about immediately. If you can’t scallop a cape (like Batman’s already is) then you tear a cape. The design possibilities become myriad at that point. So when I did T.H.U.N.D.E.R. at Solson I made sure that NoMan’s cape was tattered.

With this image, I wanted to make Batman more and more scary. So I added the tatters. Tatters are, simply stated, very complex scallops. At least that’s how I draw them.

Now, why did I do the complicated Wally Wood styled background? Well, for one that was in the Frazetta piece. But there’s more to it than that. I always feel like the Batcave should be more complex than is usually shown. It should have myriad passages like no other secret base in the whole of comic-dom. The agents of AIM should see the Batcave and drool. Modok should see it and think, “I gotta get me one of THOSE!”

So I figure this is an unused corner of the Batcave.

Why the water on the floor? I can’t explain why, but I keep thinking of the line from Thomas Dolby’s song “Weightless” and the line, “she went to the basement; fruit juice everywhere!”
Well, actually the line is, “she bent to the basin, fruit juice everywhere.” But when I first heard it the line was the former. So I’ve always thought of the line meaning a basement full of fruit juice. If I color the piece that liquid will probably look like orange or possibly cranberry juice. The trick will be to keep it from looking like some bodily fluid in the process.

Speaking of bodily fluids, what’s up with the Batarang dripping grue? I have no idea, other than it’s just supposed to be creepier than if it was just a Batarang alone. It’s not Batgirl’s blood, there’s not a scratch on her. Other than the runs in her outfit (which is, admittedly, a difficult proposition) she’s intact.

Funny how that word “creepy” keeps coming up. I have considered that this is sort of like a “what if?” proposition. That is, “what if Jim Warren had somehow gotten the rights to do an issue of Creepy Magazine featuring Batman?” This might have been the cover. Frazetta would have drawn the most amazing Batman covers ever. But he never did. So I get to. Okay, nobody assigned the work but me alone, but I’m still having fun with it.

Now, getting back to the whole thing of swiping from a Frazetta piece. My wife even asked me, “can you do that?” My response was that Howard Chaykin did a number of covers to American Flagg! that were direct swipes from Harvey Kurtzman covers. So I guess I can.

Actually there’s a long tradition of swiping poses in fine art. One of the most obvious would probably be “The sleeping Venus” by Giorgione in 1509, the pose swiped by Titian in 1538 for “The Venus of Urbino”, and much later (1863) appropriated by Manet for “Olympia”. So I defend my choice of appropriating this pose.

Summing up; What’s the point of it all? The point of it all is to have fun. If I can’t own a Frank Frazetta piece I can make an approximation of it. That’s one of the great things about being an artist, anything I can visualize I can, in essence, make my own by simply drawing it. Sometimes this is a curse. In situations like this it’s a real treat.

Hope everyone enjoys it. I’ll be working on the inks and enjoying them.

Deadlines

Why Deadlines are our friends.

The name “deadline” seems pretty intimidating. It always has to me, anyway. Ever since I first encountered the concept sometime in my early teens as I was grasping the various concepts associated with my chosen field of drawing stuff.

So it doesn’t surprise me that we have expressions like “the dreaded deadline doom” in our society. But I’ve come to realize just what a boon deadlines can be.

I just finished one up, in fact. Yep. I just finished another series of illustrations for Weekly Reader Corporation (the little darlin’s just keep coming back for more, and I couldn’t be happier about it). Burned a disk, packed it up and sent it out via UPS to the WR folks in Stamford, CT. (I won’t tell you who, what, or how much…sorry, some things are still private).

But I will tell you this, I got the job about 22 days ago, and have been on the work pretty much since then. I was glad to get the work, as I had just gotten back from MegaCon in Orlando…which did not go as well as I had hoped it would.

So I went from discouraged to full out elated in about two seconds when WR got in touch.

But, unlike some other clients, WR is a breeze to work with. (I should mention that this has been my experience at WR throughout my time doing freelance there. I’ve worked with three awesome art directors so far, and hope to do more there in the future). I think it helps having a tight deadline.

This one was extremely tight. Four illustrations in 22 days may not seem like much to some, but recall that these each had to be presented to the publication every step of the way: I had to turn in thumbnails, get those approved by art director and creative director (and probably editor too); go to pencil roughs, get those approved; do the inks, get the okay; then do all the colors, and make sure those were good.

There was not a lot of time for rethinking things along the way. Every step had to be pretty much on the mark, every time. So I’m proud of what I’ve done. And I’ve even managed to keep several other freelance projects going at the same time.

Hopefully, this will mean that I can pay my taxes on time.

I’d like to publicly acknowledge my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for making it all possible, and keeping me healthy during the drawing phase (because I couldn’t afford to be out sick or the whole thing would have fallen apart). I’d also like to thank my wife for doing her part to keep the food coming, and getting me to our chiropractor and massage therapist a couple of times during it all.

I was talking about deadlines.

In this case the deadline was my friend (although at around 11 this morning it was looking pretty evil when my CD burner was acting up). If the deadline hadn’t have been tight I might have been asked to make major changes in my art.

Not that WR has ever done this to me! (I like working at WR and don’t want to mess that deal up, that’s why I keep coming back to this point).

I hate making changes over and over. That is extremely frustrating. I’ve had clients who want to micromanage and they drive me nuts.

Almost as bad is the client who has an artificial deadline that is much too tight, and then when you do as good a job as you can during the time given…and that job sort of stinks because you did it too fast…then the client sits on the job for another six weeks! If I’d had a week more to fix that job it could have been great. But the artificial deadline messed it all up.

But I still like deadlines. They give me the right to say, “that’s good enough, I can go on to the next thing!”

For instance, I’ve been writing my own notes for a Sunday School class I’m teaching. I write my notes on Sunday evenings, visit with my minister on Monday for lunch and run those notes by him, then type the notes up during the week, usually finishing up on Saturday sometime. Nice and neat.

My minister, on the other hand, (who is very candid about his process, so probably won’t mind me saying this here) gets up around 4 a.m. on Sunday to get his notes together for his 11 am sermon.

It’s not that he procrastinates at all. He’s been working on that sermon all week. I see him on Monday and he’s working on it even then. He is so conscientious about it that he just has to do that extra work every time.

I told him yesterday, if it comes down to that for me, I’d better start using a lesson quarterly.

But I’ve been doing the deadline thing for so long now that it’s begun to be easier for me. I get to the target date and I can let go. That’s good.

That’s not to say that I’m not a little nervous right now waiting to hear if the overnight package got to Stamford okay. But the creative thing is done. For good or ill, the art is “in the can”.

Now I can get to work on other stuff.

5 Possible Reasons they killed Captain America

Before getting to work today, I thought I’d procrastinate a while.

It’s the professional thing to do (as I was noticing while reading the latest issue of “The Cartoon!st”, the official publication of the National Cartoonists Society).

Anyway, rather than read all the exploits of my fellow cartoonists, or do all the work I have to do (several illustrations for READ! magazine, a CD cover for a metal band out of San Francisco, and a bunch of illustrations for Kaso Comics) I thought I’d comment on the “Death of Captain America.”

Needless to say, I am pretty cynical about this move on Marvel Comic’s part. You wouldn’t catch DC doing this sort of stuff with Superman! Oh, wait, they already did…

Anyway, I thought I’d list off five possible reasons that Marvel chose to kill off one of comic’s most beloved characters.

5) Is Joe Simon’s lawsuit for the return of the rights to Cap settled? I never saw the end of the thing in the comics press, (since that was about the time I got really ticked off about the whole process of trying to be a full time comics artist and decided to actually make a living as an illustrator). If Joe’s still got a case pending, then I can see the wheels turning at Marvel. “We own the TRADEMARK on the name. Joe created a particular character, which he may or may not own the COPYRIGHT on. So we kill off Steve Rogers, wait a while, and then come out with the ‘New-Improved Captain America’ !” (possibly a more PC version, see below).

4) Marvel simply didn’t know what to do with Cap any more. He’s a non-PC character in the hands of more or less PC editors and publishers. You can’t make a character like Steve Rogers “politically correct” without scrapping the entire continuity of the past. Joe Simon was quoted on the news show I saw (on a Fox station BTW) as saying that he isn’t happy, and that America really needs a character like Cap right now. I agree. But a compassionate conservative like Cap just doesn’t fly with the Marvel editorial slant, and so he’s got to go.

3) They were concerned that DC’s “52” was, in fact, outselling Marvel’s “Civil War”. (To be honest I have hardly touched either series myself. Both appeared too grim to even consider, and so I’ve only paid a little attention to either. I have to say that the art has been nice, what I’ve seen of it, on both maxi series). Also, it should be noted that “52” is a weekly series, while “Civil War” has been a regular monthly; so any talk of “outselling” on DC’s part is primarily a numbers game, although if we’re just talking in the sense of moving tons of paper around, then DC has won this hand.

2) They thought it would get the attention of the news media (it did) and help them sell a bunch of comics.

1) They thought it would sell a bunch of comics.

There you have it. A brief, cynical, analysis of the latest event in big-time American comics publishing. I’m not buying a copy myself. I can imagine that even now the comic shops are posting “Sold out of the Death of Captain America” signs on their doors.

I’m not saying that it isn’t an interesting story idea. What I am saying is something my wife mentioned just last night; “why is every storyline lately about death?” I’ll go further than that, “why is every storyline lately about VIOLENT death?” We need more life in comics. We need more life in the media in general. Sad state of affairs.