Trying to get a job in the big city

It has been quite some time since my last post, but not for a lack of activity. I have been sidetracked for about the last year on widening my net a bit and am now applying to a studio that, while having nothing really to do with graphic novels or illustration, would be an amazing opportunity that I would be an idiot not to pounce on. In any case, should I get the job, I'd be relocating to NYC, and it's very easy to answer the question, Do I stay in Central PA and pursue graphic novels in my spare time while working in a supermarket, or do I move to New York City and pursue graphic novels (among whatever other opportunities may arise) while working in a painting studio for a major artist?

Cookie Monster

I have been trying to work on several things at once, and have succeeded in driving myself nuts and not getting any one of them completely resolved. So, I decided to take a break and sketch a quick, figurative self-portrait for fun, only really planning to use it on my Facebook account. Like a lot of things I've been doing though, I became more than a little engrossed, and what was supposed to be a quick afternoon scribble ended up being a highly-rendered ballpoint pen drawing that swallowed several of my nights. I am pretty fond of it though.

Cthulhu sketch

How the fuck is it that I made it to 27 years of age and had never fucking read H.P. Lovecraft? I've read many who were influenced by him and his ideas, like Junji Ito and Mike Mignola (and there is, of course, the 1982 movie, The Thing), so I guess I could say that Lovecraft has inspired me second-handedly for years. But, holy shit, is there nothing quite like the original material. I found a website that has a number of his works posted to read for free and tore through "The Call of Cthulhu" and "At The Mountains of Madness" (the latter being my favorite of anything of his I've read thus far), and not wanting to have to read off a computer screen anymore, I spent a Barnes and Noble gift card on three of the Del Rey collections of his work. I re-read "Cthulhu" this morning and started into "The Dunwich Horror" right after. Words cannot express. So, here is a ballpoint sketch I did of Cthulhu. There's quite a bit in all of his work that I would love exploring visually. Especially since I have yet to find much of any kind of really proper translation of his work to film or comics.

I need to fill wallspace!

Finally, after living in this apartment almost two years, I am getting around to making something to hang on my living room walls which have been bare since the day I moved in. I want to do some really large pieces on stretched paper. These are some sketches I've been monkeying around with lately for one of the pieces.

untitled werewolf piece

Cryptkeeper sketches

Some Cryptkeeper sketches. The first was a quick one done during the NY Comicon this last weekend. The second was done after I got back home and looked through some of my EC library. For this sketch, I wanted to adjust my style to pull off something closer to that 1950's, almost noir style that many of those artists had. I was thinking particularly of Al Feldstein. He wasn't the best artist in their stable technically speaking, but he had a sense of the image that allowed him to pull off what, in my opinion, were the most memorable cover images of that series. (My personal favorite has always been issue #24 showing a re-animated corpse with its arms tightly clenched around a screaming man as they both sink into a pool of quicksand.)

I get real bored at work... Really Fucking Bored.

Recently, I was leafing through my copy of Junji Ito's Uzumaki after having seen the film version. The film did not compare to the original book, and I missed seeing more of those wonderful snail people.