Several years ago, I was leading an art critique.  As the students placed their work on the board, we went through each one, and I invited the other students to weigh in with their opinions.  One student’s statement immediately struck me for its simplicity, clarity, and truth.  In appraising another’s work, he said: “It makes me want to draw.”   When I really enjoy someone’s art, it inspires me to pick up a pencil and create.  It’s like someone captured your muse on a page.  Until this week, I carried that statement with me as the highest praise an artist can make about another artist’s work.  Then I saw this image by cartoonist, Evan “Doc” Shaner, on his blog:

Whatever Evan Shaner saw in my strip, it moved him enough to not only draw, but he drew one of my characters!   No one’s ever done that for me before, mostly because I never really created anything for the public before.  It just absolutely floored me, because Shaner not only drew it, but he drew the HELL out of it.  I love Pastor’s expression, the brilliant composition, the use of the single, flat yellow that is synonymous with the site, and the small, white accents to pop the objects that had a shine to them.  As is evident in the image above, Shaner is an avid student of classic illustrators like Alex Toth, Jack Cole, and their spiritual descendants like Darwyn Cooke and Jeff Parker**, so for him to find merit in my work really meant a lot.

- JEP

**Jeff Parker’s not just a great writer.  Parker illustrated his self-published graphic novel, Interman, which had one of the best surprise endings I’ve read in years.

I rock rough and stuff with my Afro Puffs/ (RAGE!)
Rock on, wit cha bad self

-The Lady Of Rage f/ Snoop Dogg – “Afro Puffs”

Inspired by the incredibly talented guys at ComicTwart, like Evan Shaner, Chris Samnee and Francesco Francavilla, I thought it might be nice to include a sketchblog feature from time to time.  It would give me a chance to flex my artistic muscles and draw something besides the strip.  (I was reluctant to include that link above, because those guys are killing it-just KILLING it-every week, and I didn’t want to look bad in comparison.  For example, Francavilla’s mock Johnny Recon poster from this week…stunning!)

Fellow 2010 Glyph Award nominee, John Aston over at OldeTowneComix.com, is preparing to print a follow-up to his graphic novel, Rachel Rage: Heartland.  The new graphic novel will be comprised of a collection of short stories featuring his Blaxploitation heroine, Rachel Rage and pin-ups submitted by some of his fellow members of “The Next 100,” including Rodney Blackwell, Samax Amen from GhettoManga.com, and myself.  I drew up this illustration based on the Heartland cover, since I owed John a pin-up from last HeroesCon and, besides, it was a great opportunity to inaugurate the sketchblog feature:

These are actually fairly tight pencils for me.  I overlaid the pencils with a sheet of vellum and inked the pencils using a lightbox.  (You will be happy to know that although I did reference the guns, I did not use reference for the butt.)  I was fairly happy with the final inks, except that I lost some of the edginess in her face.  In the penciled version, she’s glaring right through you, but in the inks, that look is softened considerably.  Rachel’s words below are the first ones she utters in the webcomic:

This was also enjoyable, because John created Rachel Rage with such a unique body type, and I tried to stay true to that form with the thick, strong legs and round face.  It’s a very different body type than you usually find in comics, so hat’s off to John for that.  The closest equivalent in comics would be Rosalyn from Larry Stroman’s Tribe, which was published in the early 1990s.  Finally, I was going to conclude with a statement about Rachel bristling with weaponry; her purposeful, challenging gaze; and female empowerment, but it’s late, and at the end of the day it’s still a booty shot.  Enjoy!

- JEP