Posts tagged books.
It’s been nearly six months in the making… but finally, MEN SEEKING MEN is out! Clay and I spent all day editing, formatting, printing, cutting, and binding these books, yielding 60 perfect handmade copies. We rushed them over to Quimbys Bookshop (at 1854 West North Avenue, Chicago IL) where they will be sold at the low, low price of just $6. Also, we’ll be mailing some out to our favorite queer publications and artists, but I’ll have plenty on hand to offer to anyone interested… like you!
I’m so proud of this book and every detail we slaved over. It’s perfect.
‘Winterings’, my winter/ holiday activity book is complete! I spent the past few days drawing and embroidering, today I’m going to print and put it together! Inside ‘Winterings’, you’ll find a few fun winter recipes, fun facts, and drawings waiting to be colored! Oooh, and the back cover looks like a postcard, so you can mail the whole thing to a friend! I’m going to be selling them for four dollars each, online and at Quimby’s here in Chicago. Let me know if you’d like one!
Wolf & Tiger Men.
I’ve undertaken yet another project, illustrating a collection of Oso Arcilla’s poetry. I’m spreading myself pretty thin over a number of efforts right now. Though it’s been refreshing to have options, maybe I should finish one of these books before starting another!
Yikes!
Wild Stripes, Volume One, Page One.
I’m so excited for Wild Stripes! I wasn’t sure how to start off such an important story and more-so, I wasn’t sure I even liked this drawing until the third frame was complete… But! Now I’m super excited about it; it’s the perfect beginning for Oso Arcilla’s, “Wild Stripes”.
Working on “The Fangs of Red” has been incredibly challenging. I like the effect drawing in the negative creates.. but it’s quite difficult and more time consuming in a lot of ways.
Though, I guess it’ll all be worth it if we can scare just one child.
Today I started sketching out some storyboards for Volume One of Oso Arcilla’s “Wild Stripes”. It’s an amazing, on-going account of one man’s adventure through a fantastic world of the strange and unusual. I’m incredibly excited and privileged to take on this huge project.. and can’t wait to see how it turns out! Woot woot
Wild Stripes, Volume One
As Told By Oso Arcilla
It wasnt until the seconds before, at the bottom with the stinking lake water slamming at the rocks beneath my feet, standing for the first time since my small wooden boat splintered against the massive, jagged chunks of white volcanic rock, that I was stricken with the urge, the desperate need, to walk on solid ground away from this wet hole.
Years had passed between the loss of my boat and the moment I turned to inspect the cliff face. It was the water that posessed me in my lonlieness on those rocks, how it rose and fell in a hypnotic waltz. I thought of nothing else but the dancing currents of twirling tides, pulsing outward on the surface and flooding back below. While it was constantly shifting, refusing any sort of stability, it never changed. One small crest was the next foamy back-splash at my shins, and my clothes stank of rotting algae.
Resolute, I considered my escape. The cliff face that used to loom over me in the nights now seemed only a few lengths above my head. Careful planning would take me to the top but I had no patience for it. I shot up the rock like a tiny clawed lizard, never looking down, moving with instinct and dexterity among the sand and stones now raining down upon my former resting place.
The tips of my fingers found the edge of a flat dusty plateau and I swung my leg over to meet solid ground. Sprawled over the threshold, I noticed my fingers and bare toes were split open and weeping, but i welcomed the pain, drank in the sweet nector of my labors pouring down my limbs.
I lifted myself to face the lake and upon the sight of it I was uncontrollably rent apart with screams. I saw no one but the water, but filled with adrenaline, my mouth was torn wide open to release the raging howl that had been churning in my chest for years. The sound belted across the lake, eventually sputtering down to throaty barks, then soft yipping on into deafening silence.
Heaving, I turned, refreshed, to a forest before me, gnarled and black as pitch but inviting and endless. But before my foot hit the ground upon my first step toward adventure, I heard something call at my back, barely an echo to the blood pounding in my ears. I froze and waited. There again- a braying snipped bark, unmistakably equine yet strangely canine. I turned to scan the rest of the cliff’s edge trailing south along the edge of the black forest and -there! Not a mile away, stood a man wrapped in flannels atop a proud zebra, watching me with warmly lifted brows and half a smile.
I waited for a moment, looking down at my tattered and wasted clothing, soaked with blood and sweat, barely hanging from my shoulders and hips. I looked up again to meet his gaze and he turned his head slightly, questioningly, teasingly. A laugh bubbled up my throat as I turned toward the pair to walk along the edge of the forest and the snapping white lake to see what kinds of companions this man and his zebra would make.
I’ve been so occupied lately, I haven’t had a chance to draw much of anything. But, I had off and it’s been raining all day.. so after making a pretty amazing batch of pesto (with basil from my garden), I finished the first page of “Fangs Of Red”.
It can be really challenging, drawing in the negative, but it can also add depth and texture that can be difficult to create otherwise.
I love it!
I think I’m going to do all of the illustrations for “Fangs Of Red” like this, it looks so scary! Yay
A pack of wolves
running wild in the wood
Looking for trouble
and up to no good.
They would own the night
and sleep thru the day
These wolves did cause fright to all in their way.
To the town
and to the dead
Their tribe was known as The Fangs of Red.
The wolves had come
from a volcanic eruption
inside of the sun
They arrived on the earth
shortly after their birth
While riding a lightening bolt weighing more than its worth.
But from this point on and to the day
It was in the darkness they would stay
Six wolves with eyes of green
Carrying coats of silver
that made the stars scream
In the shadows they would walk
All other life was theirs to stalk
During the night they would howl up at the moon
While reeking of death
and leaving trails of maroon
The town had a curfew at dusk
when the night fell,
staying inside was a definite must.
The Fangs of Red
were being hunted by many men
but in the end
they would all be left dead.
It was soon the sixth of June
a very cold night
underneath a full moon
A little boy got lost in the forest
while looking for his cat named Morris
The town was too scared to leave their homes
to find the boy in the wood and all alone.
The Fangs of Red spotted him from a mile away
while he sat there and cried
and prayed to be saved
He could hear their footsteps
closing in on all sides
and at this moment
he knew he would die.
One wolf!
Two wolves!
Three wolves, Four!
Five wolves! Six wolves,
were going to even the score!
Saliva was dripping from their teeth
Blackening whispers
The smell of fresh meat
The little boy was seeping with sweat
this hunt for morris
he now would regret
The Fangs of Red were built to kill
the taste of warm blood and bite tearing guts
was their only true thrill.
In a matter of seconds
the boy ceased to cry
as the world turned black outside his eyes
From the wolf,
A gruesome greeting
To the town,
which had a meeting
Gasoline their hands were sqeezin’
“We’re gonna send these wolves a bleedin’”
they began to yell
“We’re gonna send these wolves to hell”
The town soon set the wood a blazin’
“Death to the wolves and their demon haven”
The flames were bleeding into the sky
A massive rage rising up so high
The Fangs of Red
were never seen again
to the town
in which they fed
But the howling of the night
is still being heard by the dead.
I just finished making Caboodle it’s own little site! Now you can even buy it direct for just $8, with free shipping!
…and probably little surprises and gifts included because mail is fun.
Progress has been slow on ‘Tea Time’. I just finished page one and already I’m sick of drawing walruses! However, this is one of my favorite of Randi’s stories- so I’m looking forward to working on it. She’s been writing soo many good ones lately, I can’t keep up!
One page down… and thirteen more to go.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
the walrus asked the flying bumble bee.
“Tea, tea, tea, tea”
laughed the bumble bee,
“tea is too hot don’t you see?”
The walrus shook his head and then he said,
“Well of course it’s hot,
for that is what it’s supposed to be!”
“Walrus, Walrus. Bumble Bee’s like me,
we don’t drink hot things like tea.”
The walrus then became very confused
..a little shocked
…and slightly amused.
“I don’t see, Miss Bumble Bee,
why you don’t drink hot things like tea?”
The bee laughed again and then she said,
“Hot things and hot tea are too hot, Mr.Walrus, too hot for me.
I only drink cold things and iced things, like iced tea.”
“Well I am a walrus so that won’t be too hard for me,
I can bring some ice up from the bottom of the sea.
And then we can put the ice inside of the tea.
That is, if you will have tea with me?”
The bumble bee bounced with glee
And then she said,
“I would love to have iced tea with you
and for you to have hot tea with me!”
And then they then drank their tea very happily.
