The Vosburg Sisters

The bad news was that I turned sixty five this week. The good news was that I got two fabulous handcrafted birthday cards from my wonderful sisters Mary and Sue.

While I make a decent living using my art skills in the professional world, my sisters have always been much better at using their talents to adorn their homes and the many social events in their daily lives. They are true artists. And there is a plethora of exquisitely made photographic journals of their travels, tapestries and needlepoint cushions, fairy queen dolls and so many way they have decorated our families' lives.

To paraphrase my loving father:"The best birthday gift I can have is to know you're in my life."

Voodoo Mansion

What I've discovered about jobs over the years is that the more they pay you, the less they actually expect you to do. Working at HBO Animation was one of those jobs for me. So to fill up the extra time I started doodling a couple characters in my sketchbooks that I called Horatio and Zelda…and this eventually developed into Voodoo Mansion. As a long time fan of the horror and mystery short story, I wanted to do something along those lines. I also loved the concept of The Spirit, where the secondary characters were often the main thrust of the story. I wrote the first story (which is on our blog today) and then turned the scripting chores over to my partner Pete Ventrella.

This series really was fun. As I mentioned in a couple of places, I used the rougher, more spontaneous style that I used for storyboarding, working only with markers and rollerball pens.  I was always happy with the results. While I've never had much ambition to do further stories with Lori Lovecraft, Voodoo Mansion is a place I'd always consider returning to.

Lori in Living Color - Part III

Hey Lori fans, here's the last segment of Into the Past - Part I. Originally, this story was done as a stand-alone tale, but we expanded it to a second part when we were doing Lori comics, and expanded it a second time and added a wraparound sequence, the entirety of which become the Lori epic printed in the My Black Pages trade paperback.

Next week - the full color version of the first Voodoo Mansion story that was the backup feature in the original comic!

Lori in Living Color - Part II

Hey folks, here's the second chapter of Into the Past, with Lori in full color!

Lori in Living Color - Part I

Hey fans, here's your chance to read two of the Lori Lovecraft stories from Into the Past in full color! While the comics and the graphic novel were printed in black and white, for some reason I decided to do full color versions of these when I prepared them for print. So, for the first time ever, the queen of black and white B-movies makes her appearance in living color--the better to love that red hair!

This is the first installment of several over the next 8 weeks. We'll run the entirety of the 50 pages of material that was in the two books, including two of the Voodoo Mansion stories.

New Workspace

 

 

Here are a few photos of my new workplace.  I finally got rid of the oversized drawing table that took up too much space with both its top and its base. I've learned over the years that I basically need only enough space for whatever I'm drawing on on a tilt, and the rest I can use as flat surface for reference. So I designed what I thought would be a more concise use of the space and had my contractor come in and build the unit for me. So far, I'm really happy with the new set up. And my assistant can work at the Cintiq and take a deep breath without fear or bumping into my flat file cabinet.

I've also started working with a swing arm on my Cintiq instead of the desk pedestal that it came with. it offers certain advantages, but even after adjusting to the maximum, I still have a certain amount of jiggling when there is contact with the screen. But then, that's one more reason why I still try and do the majority of the work on paper and scan it in to finish in Photoshop.

As you can see with these photos I've learned over the years to have someone else do the work. I had this brought home when  building the rock wall in my backyard (whose sole purpose is to prevent the ball from rolling down the hill when I'm out shooting baskets) and Annie supervised. I've learned to use many of her techniques when dealing with my own assistant, Mitchell.

What do the Cisco Kid and Lori Lovecraft have in common? They were both entertainments produced in color and presented in black and white. Yes, the Cisco Kid TV show with Duncan Renaldo and Leo Carillo was shot on color film, but aired long before there was color TV. And two of my Lori Lovecraft comics I did in full color in Photoshop but because of production costs were only printed in black and white. But coming soon to this blog will be the first showing of those comics in living color! Don't miss it!