More Adaptation

I'm calling this a life saver. Finally got around to wrapping my WACOM stylus so that I don't have to painfully hold my arthritic fingers to a tight point.

Tattoo artists do this often and I used some of their recommendations, going with medical tape as the main padding. It took a little getting used to and, at first, felt like drawing with one of those comically large novelty pencils. But by the end the results were obvious.

I managed to work on the illustration with little discomfort and no need for icing or pain relieving creme until the last three hours of work. Normally, I have to stop and take a break after two hours of drawing.

A big win for these achy digits.

Flashlight, Knife and Flowered Crown (Part 1)

This is the first of a small set of illustrations I'm doing for the story Flashlight, Knife and Flowered Crown, written by the very talented Sarah Avery and published across the next few issues (#134-136) of Space and Time Magazine.

It's a story about faerie abduction and a badass mom prepared to do what is necessary to rescue her child.

It's a detailed, clever, and exciting tale with smart characters which is just as enjoyable on the third and fourth readings. The text is longer than usual, which is why it's being serialized across three issues. Upon being assigned to illustrate the first part of the story, I practically begged to illustrate the rest.

This will have been the first time I've done multiple illustrations for a single story. There were fleeting thoughts of how to integrate the set (a visual thread that connected the images when you placed them side by side in sequence) but this was abandoned when I realized, in order to avoid accidentally getting ahead of the story, I needed to know where the cuts were to occur across issues. This, of course, was no minor task for the publisher, Angela Yuriko Smith, requiring her to plan part of the magazine content several issues ahead of publication.

Eventually I decided to abandon interconnecting the set. In order to avoid jumping ahead of the story, I chose a moment which takes place sometime before the narrative begins --a playground, deceptively pleasant, but with something curious off in the distance. 

Early Fae sketch, too aggressive and inelegant.

While the illustration set will not interconnect, I did find a visual narrative to run through them, deciding that as the story progresses out of the modern world and into that of the Fae realm, I would transition the style. Hopefully, this will provide a nice otherworldly sense to the later half of the tale, and provide a unspoken contrast that these human creatures are not of this magic place. How well this will come across, we shall see. But taken as a set, I think it should work. This is why the fairy in this first illustration does not have the shading lines as the other characters. Things work differently in the realm of the Fae. It is also why I used a thicker pen for the modern world. It will help contrast the human characters later with their environment, and again, hopefully provide a sense of 'otherness.'

In the lower left corner of the illustration is a long, smooth hag stone. Why a hag stone? It's not part of the story as Sarah wrote it. Visually, I needed something in that space. Legend has it that hag/witch/adder stones, when viewed through the hole naturally formed within them, can reveal the hidden world of the Fae. I found it ever more tragic that the parent, who's point of view we take in the illustration, could have witnessed and perhaps even thwarted their child's abduction if only they'd known to look through that stone at their feet. Also, it fills that fucking gap in the lower left corner.

Sarah's story was so enjoyable on first read that I immediately pulled up Amazon and purchased her book The Imlen Brat with it's gorgeous illustrations and an memorable colophon of a seven-pointed crown over a jumping dolphin by Kate Baylay. I'd finished reading the book before I'd finished the illustration and there are a few less-than-subtle choices I made with that book in mind. Colophon is a lovely word, is it not?

Looking forward to continuing on this journey. I find it nice to have just one story to tumble around in my head over the next six months.

LAFFCON4 Poster

Laffcon4 took place in June of 2019.

This year I had a bigger role in things than usual, taking responsibility for choosing and negotiating with presenters for the event and with contributors for the conference booklet. I organized an international Lafferty inspired poetry contest. I also managed the website & social media, did the layout, and published the program booklet. This year's poster was also mine. 

The visual theme was Lafferty's novel "The Reefs of Earth," about a family of goblin-like alien children Hell-bent on destroying humanity. The illustration had to be pulled together quickly. References were taken from pictures of Depression-era children. 

In the story there are six Dulanty children (seven if you count Bad John) [which I did not]. Working on the piece I began to realize that the imagery was coming across as too Holloween'ish. This led to the removal of the old dead tree painted into the background and my choice not to include Bad John, who is a ghost. 

Kevin Cheek will be organizing next year's event.

I'm looking forward to going back in 2020 and in focusing just on the artwork.

 

Adaptation

Just finished a new detailed illustration for Space and Time Magazine and, again, my hand was none too happy about it (osteoarthritis). So, in the spirit of adapting to getting older, I experimented with icing my hand every hour or so. It did nothing for the pain, but wonders for the redness and swelling. There's a creme for pain that works well. Next time, I'll try alternating heat and ice and I still need to find some foam or padding to wrap around the stylus so I don't have to squeeze quite so tightly.

The illustration will appear in issue #134, available for purchase in multiple formats on September 23, 2019.

Twisted-Up Things - Space and Time Magazine #133

Space and Time Magazine commissioned me for a second illustration. This time for a story by author Evey Brett titled "Twisted-Up Things."

Twisted-Up Things takes place in a fantasy world but with slightly more   technology than the average tale (shotguns and pocket knives exist). For me the story has notes of Shelly's Frankenstein and a more serious and personal undertone than the last illustration I did for Space and Time.

I had a lot of stops and starts with this one. I liked the characters and my first instinct was to illustrate my favorite scene when the main character finds their first semblance of peace and acceptance on an old farm. The illustration would have been in my usual cartoonish style and would have had shadow fey lingering in the shadows and corners of the frame. If it had been a book, I would have loved to have completed this illustration for the interior.

But then over the course of a few days the story began to sink in and I realized this scene was too calm and peaceful, wasn't necessarily going to visually draw in the viewer, and generally misrepresented the soul of the story. More importantly, I realized that my cartoonish style could not do the story, or the author, justice.

So I tried something new.

One of the best illustrated Frankenstein stories is Bernie Wrightston's Frankenstein. I've admired the detail and style of those images for a few years now and I loved the idea of trying to shade the image without crosshatching. Finally, I had a use for my old magnifying glass!

 

Eventually, I settled on the image of the main character curled in pain in a hay loft. Other elements from the story filled in the open spaces and even the shadow plays a purpose.

References were from Bernie's Frankenstein, old barns, fantasy spiders, Ren-Fair leatherwork, and some ancient and not so ancient symbols, but NOT any reference to actual hay. I was having just too much fun drawing squiggles to try and make it look like real hay. Plus, i decided, "You know what? Why wouldn't this hay be as twisted as anything else in the world? Those troublesome fae!" And that made everything better.

I'm very happy with the style experiment and proud of the illustration and to be a part of this story. The only drawback was that my hands were aching like all get out through the whole process. All those little lines took a tole on my osteoarthritis.

Worth it, though?

Absolutely.

Stinky, Stinky Little Pig - Space and Time Magazine issue #132

Stinky, Stinky Little Pig

 

Recently I was fortunate to illustrate a story for issue #132 of Space and Time Magazine.

Space and Time has been a creative institution since the 60s, featuring a broad spectrum of short stories, poetry, and artwork in genres from science fiction, fantasy, horror, and weird fiction. It was an honor to provide an illustration and a particular joy being inspired by this story. I especially owe thanks to art director (and fellow Lafferty fan), Diane Weinstein for making this possible.

[Warning: Spoilers]

Stinky, Stinky Little Pig is a tale by author David Sandner about a taxing encounter between an aged Lewis Carroll, a grownup Alice Liddell, and one of her young sons.

In an odd coincidence, I have always been drawn to the lives surrounding the "real" Alice in Wonderland. In the mid-1980s there was a movie titled Dreamchild which focused on the relationship between Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell. It's been a while and I cannot speak to the quality of the film now, but the movie left a profound impression and throughout my life I've read several books specifically about Dodson and the Liddell family. Many of those books are still in my personal library.

So then, as I flipped through the story pages provided by the magazine and it is revealed this is, in fact, a story about Dodgson and Alice, I unexpectedly found myself gasping and tossing the manuscript across the room. It was frighteningly fortuitous that my first experience professionally illustrating a story should be on this subject.

I couldn't finish reading the story immediately. Instead, I Googled the author. David Sandner is a professor of English and scholar of Romanticism and children's literature. I remembered from school that Romanticism encompassed art and illustration as well as prose and poetry and I started looking for something in those works to inspire my illustration for this story. 

I found that inspiration in The Sleep of Reason  Produces Monsters by Francisco Goya.

The image of the dreary artist haunted by woes embodied by wildlife guided my own concept. One difference of note: Goya's monsters are focused upon the man, whereas mine are hidden and dismissive; as if the character is haunted not by their leering eyes but the lack thereof, the exception, of course, being the dodo.

I drew upon a number of references and interspersed as many clues as I could fit, from Dodgson's home at Oxford to Tenniel's original illustrations for Through The Looking-Glass; from portraits of Dodgson to photographs of Alice's children; adapting them as best I could to my cartoonish style.

In total it was a fulfilling experience and in so many ways a dream realized. 

Click image to enlarge

Ike's Chili on the Guna Slopes

Upon my first reading of the R. A. Lafferty story “Old Halloweens on the Guna Slopes” I missed this; a reference to Ike's Chili Parlour. Ike's Chili has been a Tulsa staple since just about forever. It's the oldest restaurant in Tulsa and it has long held legendary status in my family. This September they celebrate 110 years of business.

It was the custom of my grandfather to take the family to Ike's Chili, gorge themselves, and follow the meal with a spoonful of vinegar taken from a glass bottle off the table. The vinegar, grandfather argued, broke down the grease and helped cleanse the palate. Of course, it's no coincidence that only the men in the family engaged in this sour tradition. And what men they were.

Gray Ghost - A Reminiscence

I rolled a three. Dead man Captain John said that he had a seven. I put a dollar bill in his bony hand when it came up. I shivered when I touched its bones. I was never meant to play games with a dead man.
--  R. A. Lafferty, “Gray Ghost: A Reminiscence”

A personal note about the first part of the story:

Growing up in Tulsa, I lived close enough to the Arkansas river that I was regularly warned from playing on the islands of sand that formed when the water ran low. The river ran low often because it was choked by the Keystone Dam. The islands that appeared were full of air pockets and loose sand and were wholly unstable. The street runs close to the river in several spots and you'd occasionally see someone doing something foolish out there in the middle of the water. I had never heard of anyone digging into the sand as they do in the story, but the threat of the environment was very real as a part of my childhood.

The Rod and The Ring

In truth, it is the game that destroys the world every time it is played correctly, and thus it may be played correctly a maximum of one time.
   --R. A. Lafferty, “The Rod and the Ring”

Over the last few years there have been no small number of achievements made by the Lafferty fans who organize and make up the Ktistec Press. One of the most notable of these being the negotiating for and inclusion of the previously unpublished R.A. Lafferty story The Rod and The Ring.

Feast of Laughter 4 (featuring The Rod & The Ring)

The Rod and The Ring was the first new Lafferty story to be published in nearly 15 years. [Those interested can download a free pdf of the book from the Ktistec website or purchase a physical copy print-on-demand via Amazon.] As a member of the Ktistec team, I had access to the story prior to publication. What kind of fool would I have been to pass up the opportunity to be the first person to illustrate a new Lafferty?

Over the crust of the story is draped clear references to role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. I drew upon this heavily, combining designs from the D&D board games and the iconic red cover from the 1983 starter kit players manual. I'll admit that I took far too much pleasure in replacing the TSR logo with my own signature. For a good 15 minutes I actually thought I was a genius. Not so much after. But I'm still very happy with the idea.

If I had known at the time that our friend Lissanne Lake, a professional artist and longtime Lafferty associate who frequently illustrates his worlds, had been a regular illustrator for Dragon Magazine and other fantasy periodicals and books, I would have begged her for an illustration to accompany this publication. I'm sure it would have been perfect. Unfortunately, I wouldn't discover this until years later.

Pilgrim Felt Dizzy – NTMC

He cleaned himself a little in one of the ornamental fountains that were on the edge of the commodity arrival floor. Then he went into the board meeting room.
- R. A. Lafferty, “Not To Mention Camels”

Shortly after LAFFCON2 ended we artists involved (Lissanne Lake, Yakov Varganov, Bill Rogers, and I) thought it would be fun to pick a Lafferty story and each of us complete an illustration in time for next year's conference. We agreed upon the book Not To Mention Camels (NTMC) and inadvertently changed the shape of the event in the process.

When organizers sat down to pick the year's themes and presentations they looked to the artwork for inspiration. Talks on Snuffles and Not To Mention Camels became two of a handful of hours dedicated to R A Lafferty that day.

And it was fun. I loved being part of our own little semi-secret creative pact. Lissanne's artwork is always dynamic and Yakov produced what I though was some of his best work.

For my part, I had barely finished this illustration before hitting print and shutting down my computer only to quickly pack a carryon bag for my flight to New Jersey the next morning.

NTMC is a book full of grotesque action. I had been looking forward to finding a balance between gore and cartoonish humor. There were three moments that stuck out from the first half of the book, and I produced a sketch for each. But as often happens one image persisted beyond the others.

The character Pilgrim, who the book follows, a powerful and cultish figurehead, has just gotten the shit kicked out of him (and a pint or so of blood) and returns disheveled and light-headed to his boardroom meeting. He's both confused and somewhat impressed with his assailant. And as he licks his wounds and contemplates his next move the board members at the table seem completely oblivious to his distress. That isolated moment of complicated and contradictory emotions became my favorite image. And eventually I found a way to put it on paper.

Regarding the illustration I wanted to make the background the true character of the piece. Which looking back was probably a good call, as what is more boring than a corporate board meeting? I tried to play into the cultish aspects of Pilgrim, with clear church elements in the board room, but also a tribal, shamanistic shape in the structure at the center of the frame, it's arms reaching up toward the ceiling and it's legs running down the center of the table. The ceiling is also a portal of sorts, branching off in many directions and giving access to multiple dimension of reality.

The bottled water is just water, a common staple in today's corporate meetings and I felt somehow brings an element of humor to the piece.

Pilgrim Felt Dizzy (NTMC) sketch

LAFFCON3

The third annual R A Lafferty conference took place June 9, 2018. Once again I had the honor of illustrating the official poster for the event. A little known snippet of trivia is what influence artwork had in shaping this year's focus. It turns out a great deal (more on this in a later post.) Part of that influence was my choice to illustrate the short story Snuffles which then later became the subject of an hour long Podcast during the day.

Posters for the previous years had featured the author, in one fashion or another, and I had the feeling that it was time to move beyond portraits and into wilder content that might appeal to new readers and attendees.

I chose Snuffles because it was one of the most loved Lafferty stories, because I'd just finished another illustration which I knew could make a good back cover for the program booklet, and because Lafferty himself admitted that he was probably Snuffles, if he was any character in his writings. Thus, as a transition away from Lafferty portraits, this subject matter made the most sense.

The initial image from the reading was of two figures walking through a field of strange fruit while a large teddy bear like creature observed from rocks above the horizon.

I struggled with this illustration. And even now I feel uncomfortable looking at it, though I'm thrilled with the compliments people have offered. It's not that I'm displeased with the results, it's just that I can still feel the bruises where I wrestled with it.

Elements of the short story I tried to incorporate include the sense that Snuffles (the bear-like creature) was the center of all things and tied to all things, that the world was mercurial and wavering in a psychedelic fashion. The red flowers among the yellow grass are poppies. And there are blue representations of both barley and cannabis in the lower corners.

Jack Bang's Eyes

Flip O’Grady was a chimpanzee of mature years and unusual intelligence. He stood a full four feet tall. He was employed as a penny-flipper at the “Probability Division”; it was under the directorship of Doctor Vonk, and so was Flip.

--R. A. Lafferty, “ Jack Bang's Eyes”

Upon reading Jack Bang's Eyes, I had intended to draw a full characterization of Flip O'Grady, coin in hand, peering at the reader with a hunched back and a knowing smirk. But then while doing some fast and fortuitous research on visual representations of probability I came across this outcome map of a coin toss. To me the map already looked like art. The shift from a full character to just a hand came as a means of adjusting to the pyramidal shape but also to help focus the viewer on the flipping of the penny.

The finished piece was created partly in vector and partly brushed into the computer.

Land of the Great Horses

A Carny in Nebraska lifted his head and smelled the air.
“It’s come back,” he said. “I always knew we’d know. Any other Romanies here?”

--R. A. Lafferty, “Land of the Great Horses”

I managed to grab a hardback copy of Dangerous Visions for almost nothing.  I flipped straight to this story, read the line quoted above, closed the book. It took a few days and a second reading to help understand some of the themes of the story. But for that first night, with a fire behind my eyes, all I knew was that I wasn't putting my head into my pillow until I'd drawn some depiction of a state fair.

Not my best work, but there are elements that I like.

One At A Time

“I have incurred a lot of ill will in my day, and sometimes it boils over. There was one time when a whole shipful of men had had enough of me.”

- R. A. Lafferty, “One at a Time”

Sometimes a single sentence is strong enough to burn an image into the mind's eye. This is especially true of Lafferty's writing, where every sentence seems to land a solid hit (or scratch, or tickle, depending on the author's intent) and every punch seems to come from a different direction.

There have been a few illustrations I've done lately where one might look at the work and think, “Strange, I don't remember that part of the story.” This is one of them.

Note how the sleeves attach and note the hammer at the tip of the belt. McSkee “The Odd One” has been taking it one at a time with many a day between.

This was also another example of me trying to find a faster route toward a finished illustration. The background was all drawn into the computer with a stylus, while the character was clicked into existence via vector graphics.

Royal Licorice

 

He was decked out in Navajo beadwork and a Sioux war-bonnet when he spoke at the supermarket in Indianapolis. Indianapolis really meant Indian City, didn’t it?

---R. A. Lafferty, “Royal Licorice”

I read Royal Licorice just as the politicking engines were getting stoked for the 2016 presidential race. So perhaps it is no surprise that it was those aspects of the story that caught my attention and fed the illustration.

In the story, Candidate Johnson is a bumbling and disassociated sort of man. A political game player given renewed time with which to further bumble and dissociate himself (and appropriate other cultures for reelection).

I drew him with an disingenuous smile (referencing the lipless curl of a popular politician) and an even more disingenuous war bonnet; the feathers fanning outward like a peacock (or turkey?), disheveled, and incomplete.

Dressed a mess to impress the masses and failing horribly.