Comic week is slightly arousing in strange ways

IT CONTINUES! As always, I'm really appreciating the comments and concerns.

Also, my favorite band Grizzly Bear was on letterman a few nights ago with a new song and I'm in love with it SO HARD. I can't wait for their next album due to the fact the two new songs I've heard already have been spectacular.

Comic week smells

Page 2, don't know if I'm liking the messy look or not but it's gotten a little more clean as I've gotten further with this. Which is why I should post some more pages but I want to spread them throughout the week.

And also, as always, why not throw a music video in? Mix M.Ward with Zooey Deschanel and you get She & Him, a fun band with music videos full of cute cartoon animals and decapitations.

IT'S COMIC WEEK

So I've been working on the comic diligently and I feel I've made enough progress with it to post the first five pages since Paul suggested it earlier when I started on it. So throughout the week I'll post them and it'll be a fun little shin dig all around.
I'm just glad I actually want to go further then 10 pages with this idea (and hopefully I will). I've also been trying to do this mostly with traditional media, keeping any digital work or editing to a minimum.

To kick off all these comic pages, Man Man just released their music video for the song "Mister Jung Stuffed" off their newest album, Rabbit Habits, and I'm really digging it. By far my favorite album to come out this year and also one of my favorite songs from it so I might as well POST THAT SHIT NIGGA'

Angry music is the best music, especially when drawing.

inspirational

A Toast! To Posts! Here here!!

Sorry i havent been around too much guyz, iono im just a p. laz-er-ific dudeington.

changing my ways now, here some sketchers. First, the latest from a sketch book

This next one is a sketch of my next Gun Show installment. Really really rough. The final bit (which is actually finished) is sleek and nicer and does not look like it says "Gun Ho" i promise. The idea was for it to look like a label of a whiskey bottle.

maybe i should post the finished version, iono

Pitchfork 2008 part 2: The artening

So basically after day 1 and coming home to collapse for 11 hours I awoke to head out for day 2! Since I ended up sleeping so long I got there a little later then I wanted to and missed seeing HEALTH but at least got there in time for King Khan and the Shrines.

This guy is practically a living super hero and if you ever get the chance to see him live, you need to get in on that shit!

After these events I ended up spending some time in the poster and illustration show with my art buddy Greg and got a chance to meet some awesome illustrators. A lot of the art had kind of a similar and generic look but I found a few that really stood out. So here's a list of them with websites and pics both handy and practical for your internet experience.

Methane Studios

http://methanestudios.com These guys were really cool and had a nice set up, chatted with me for a bit and even gave me a free set of buttons. So they go first because I am a whore who loves free things.

Further down the show was http://gigposters.com which really didn't have any general artist leading the booth but instead were selling these cool collections of posters and playing cards that had almost every gig poster illustrator doing a card design.

Mile 44
Next to these guys was http://mile44.com who had a pretty cool collection of gig posters and illustrations that had a kind of R. Crumb meets 70's style cartoony school poster feel to them for drawing and designs.

Ground-Up Studios/Dan Grzeca
http://dangrzecaart.blogspot.com/ had a really nice use of vivid line work and crazy construction that gave the posters a real nice appeal. Chaotic and fun!

Oddly enough one of my favorites at the gathering, Kollective Fusion (http://kollectivefusion.com/newsite/comingsoon.html), site is still not up so I don't have much of any art to post for them. If that site gets up soon check it out, they had a really colorful urban art style that was fucking awesome.

Plastic Flame Press
http://www.plasticflame.com/ had probably my favorite works. A lot them had an almost cute, childlike look and feel but it was executed so well it became charming. As soon as I get done being broke as fuck I'm going to have to order me one of their decemberists posters.

Valhalla Studios
http://www.vahallastudios.com/ Just scream "VAHALLA!" like a viking and you're set.

Hero design and sound
http://heroandsound.com/ was pretty cool because they also did a lot of designer toys as well as posters. Both done pretty well and with fun vivid colors.

After that I was done and decided it was time to be as white as hell, throw up some W's and go see Ghostface Killah ft. Raekwon live. He was awesome and even rapped a few songs from classic Wu-tang and ODB albums.

I was also welcomed to one of the most intense clouds of Dank Nugz I've ever seen at a festival but I would not expect any less from my Wu-tang.

By this point pitchfork had gotten so crowded I wasn't able to get close for the last two acts I saw of the night which was spirtualized and Dinosaur Jr.. Spiritualized was probably the better of the two but Dinosaur Jr. still proved to have a pretty good set and sound. Needless to say I was ready to go home and I had pretty damn good time this year.

In closing, pitchfork was catshirtwithlasereyesonaskinnyhipstertastic. Oh hipster man, why must you look so sad when you have such a fun shirt?

Pitchfork 2008 part 1: THE MUSICING

So I've been away for a bit but I have returned from vacation and most of all, pitchfork music festival 2008! So here's a big ass, two part post about pitchfork.

First off, me and Paul made some new sticker designs. Since pitchfork took place in a park with not too many walls or places to post them I handed them out to a few people and a bunch of artist at pitchfork's flatstock 17, a poster illustration show they hosted this year. I ran into some amazing and fun illustrators but I'll cover that in part 2.

Paul posted his design earlier, here's mine:

Take that artist! You all suck!

For the music fest itself, I went saturday and Sunday. I've been to pitchfork music fest for the last 2 years and it's usually a very nice collection of independent musicians and bands from many different types of genres and scenes. For part 1 I'm just going to cover Saturday.

First group I saw was Fleet Foxes, they kind of trot the line of folk and rock and sound like a blend of Fleet wood Mac with My morning jacket. The nice thing was they sounded exactly like they do on their albums, vocal harmonies and all.

Fleet foxes know where it's at; Beards and vest

Next after them I went with two of my friends to see Ruby Suns, a fun little new Zealand band, much like flight of the choncords. Of course they concentrated more on psychedelliac pop than humor but it was all good.

The music was fun but his shirt hurt my eyes :[

We then headed on over to see !!! which danced until they could dance no more. They were probably the loudest band of the weekend but at the same time they definitely used it well. They got everyone moving and/or possibly grooving.

Good sound and great short shorts

The last two musicians/bands I saw might have been my favorite at pitchfork this year. After !!! I saw Atlas Sound, a side project of Bradford Cox whose the lead singer of Deerhunter. I've always been a big fan of his but it was even more amazing to see him live. It was just him on the stage with a guitar and sound set up and he reproduced all the sound perfectly. Hearing "Quarantined" live was hauntingly moving.

Amazing as he is skinny

After that I saw the last group on Saturday which was Animal collect which was fucking amazing. On top of doing a lot of their own songs, Panda Bear did "Comfy in Nautica" off his own album from last year. For the final song of the evening they did a 15 minute version of "Fireworks" which was mindblowingly great.

Look at all those nerds taking pictures.

Not quite full to the brim with music that night, me and a coworker from my job meet up at Schubas for an aftershow headlined by High Places. On top of Schubas being one of my favorite venues in Chicago, High places gave a really great show even though I was already feeling dead on my feet after a long day.

They write songs about banana slugs, how could you not love them?

Also having a few stickers left I made sure to mark their exit doors accordingly:

Dark rooms + flash + shiny exit door = :[
At least they looked good next to each other

Finally finishing up day one around 3 am and my friend Shawn referring to me as a gay cowboy named jim, it was a clear sign to head home and sleep. I'll give the second update soon'esque.

sizzle

Coming Soon from Dalk Prisney Pictures!!

well, Mauvais said to me something about drawing a girl who was a lightening bug and since I don't have an original bone in my body I was like.. HAY!! I WILL DRAW THAT!! and here we are.. check out this music video, I really like it. I love it when he's surfing on the special effects.




Time to pretend music video from Ralph Dagza on Vimeo.

COMIC OVERDRIVE MEGA DESTRUCTION COURSE

Alright, so I've sworn to myself that in the next two weeks I'm going to do nothing but work on my comic and draw nothing else. So until I am done don't expect too many post from me, as well as the fact I'll be on vacation later this week. SEE YA BITCHES LATER, PEACE I'M OUT!

and to keep with tradition set by our forefathers (i.e. me) a music video from +/- off their spectacular album "Let's build a fire" which is where I got the title for the comic I am working on.

music + comics = a good life

The adventures of colt 45 in sticker land

Ok, so for the last few days I've been working on some stickers for a concert out in Chicago. Basically Colt 45 was hosting a concert series at the hideout, a really awesome venue, and alls you had to do was rsvp on their website and you got in for free (as well as recieved free colt 45). Free malt liqour was a pretty sweet deal but the real cherry on top was the fact that Matt & Kim were headlining.

Anyways, I just got back and it was god damn awesome. I am pretty much soaked in colt 45 right now (though luckily I didn't get too carried away with drinking the stuff myself) and passed out a lot of stickers as well as plastered the walls with them.
I actually didn't get to post the "you're a cunt!" one on the walls because when I got them out a bunch of people asked for them so I just handed them all out. I eventually became known as "that guy with stickers that says cunt on them" guy, which I found to be entertaining.

As you can guess, all of that colt 45 lead to a lot of antics, including one guy who looked like Seth Rogen who built a fortress out of dead malt beverage cans.
As for the line up we had Hollywood Holt, who rocked and got white kids to dance and throw up gang signs
Then we had Deadset, they were all right. Even their pictures turned out apathetic
And then finally Matt & Kim, who were GOD DAMN AMAZING! They got the whole audience on stage the best they could and even when they had a keyboard malfunction they just went to drums to keep it going because they were unstoppable juggernauts of rock.

After the show I handed Matt a set of stickers and got a big manly hand shake from him and went home quite content, tired and smelling like Grampa. If you're ever out by the Hideout, keep an eye out for odwwart.
And for anyone not familiar with Matt & Kim, check them the fuck out already: