Planet Hell

NIGHTWISH: Because everything is cooler in not America.

Rickipedia

Look! I'm on wookieepedia! Well kinda. Some images are up there from my "Orders" comic in DH's CWA vol4. Awww, and they even make up little backstories for some of it. Have I arrived? In my head, not entirely. Its more like I'm initiating my landing sequence.

-the jedi from the comic: http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Traavis

- the entirety of Aiwha Squad: http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Aiwha_Squad (click on the list of names to see them.)

-even the kid is on there: http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Evan

There hasn't been a full-scale war since the formation of the Republic

This is a wicked busy month for me. I haven't any time for personal drawing. And anything I do accomplish on my own time is usually a scribble based entirely on emotion. Which is usually grumpy and exhausted. Something unreadable that I chuckle at, mostly becuase it looks like crap. Crap I say! Well I found some post-it pen sketches I did about a year ago featuring some knights of the Old Republic. We're talking the oldest republic. Thousands of years prior to the Skywalker family soap opera. During the reign of Exar Kun. Here I tried to associate the Jedi with samurai. I sure do love the warrior caste.

Smut House and the Lake of Fire

It's neon. It's dark and covered in soot. It's windows were boarded up years ago. There is only one road that goes there. The asphalt has been cracked and steam rises from crevices, shrubs and weeds grow from the cracks, dying and rebirthing in the moist air. It's door is cast iron and warm to the touch, it's contours molded in the shape of naked half bodies which protrude at unnatural angles. The neon blinks on and off, a sizzling sound cracks from its design, the signs jutting from under the eaves of the house.

'Smut' 'Smut' 'Smut'

Sitting on the edge of a cliff half eroded, the house seems precariously perched. But its basements run deep into the cliff. It's foundation is of the rock itself, the deep bedrock that forms the cliff, not the top soil that slips, slides and descends into the lake with every light rain. It's Victorian in design and squats there on that cliff, a vulture made of wood and brick, waiting.

The house is never in darkness. When the sun sets, and the shadows of night fall across its neon, the house is lit in flickers and flashes from below. The lake never goes out. It is on fire and has been for just longer than the house has been standing. In the dancing light from the lake, the house seems to move, its shadows shift and shimmer. Occasionally the lake crackles like a hearth fire and the house seems to have set aflame itself. But still, the neon catches your eye first.

Beyond its doors are the archives, underneath its floorboards the labyrinth basements, home to things of blood and fire, of sex and knowledge. It's proprietor is a man named Bodega Smith. His skin is worn and leathered from prolonged exposure to the fire, his eyes are milky and still from prolonged exposure to life and business. His head is nearly bald, his beard nearly reaches his substantial gut. He carries with him during store hours a satchel filled with trinkets collected from his patrons. He has thrown countless items into the fire, each a wish or a curse. He finds his personal, distinct lack of sexuality liberating.

He remembers the day the lake went out and what it took to re-light it. It was his idea to put up the neon. He lives in the back room of the attic, just left of the Austro-Asian Anal Archery Room. Before the house opens, every dawn, Bodega can be seen staring out his one small portal shaped window, out across the infernal lake, at the small house that sits on its opposite cliff. A house he has never been to, one that he only noticed existed recently.

This is Bodega's story as well as it is the houses as well as it is the story of what Bodega saw across the lake of fire.

a little ditty conjured up by

PM Gelatt

as always, photographs herein courtesy of Chas "Redclaw" Lavoie

Holy Crap!

Bobos and Bongos

Sigh. Its been such a hot, uncomfortable day today. One of those days where everything seems to be covered in a film of undesiredness. And it makes me forget how to draw. So bobos and bongos.

Making This Up As I Go.

Ain't that the truth. Another quick sketch during the dreaded morning time. At least I have coffee to keep me company. Here we have the famous obtainer of rare antiquities, Indiana Jones, dedicated to the blogs biggest fan Stefan Parker! Saw Raiders of the Lost Arc at the Ziegfeld theater last week. What a wicked movie to see on the big screen! It still retains all the excitement that a great american adventure should.

All dressed up....sorta

Been up super late recently working on freelance projects, but at about 4:30 in the morning I stopped and needed to draw something else. Thusly, Benton Bagswell in a bad suit. Wonder where he is....?

Upon Armada

Here are a few more character sketches from The Scar. Its hands down one of my favorite books. If anyone hasn't read anything by China Mieville i suggest, nay, beg you do so. They are so packed to bursting with imagination and engaging story lines. Entire worlds and races with new alien technology and gruesome use of magics can be found on nearly any page. I find myself rereading passages just because I couldn't believe that in a single sentence he's created, humiliated and brushed aside a brain fart that could fill an entire encyclopedia volume. Well enough of me rambling on. Here are a few passes at some of his characters. I'd like one day to bring these to a more completed state, but until then, a small attempt at visualising a bit of Mieville's people.


Another version of Uther Doul Silas Fennec, the traveller and scoundrel Hedrigal, cactacae airship captain Tintinnabalum, seafaring hunter/scientist Bellis Coldwine, linguist, scholar, refugee

Doul! Doul! Doul!

An extremely quick sketch I did of one of my favorite literary characters. Ever! Uther Doul, the introverted and cunning conqueror of the Ghosthead empire and best man with a blade of Garwater Riding, or any riding for that matter, on the floating pirate city of Armada. As featured in China Mieville's The Scar. Here, in one of his few rage filled moments. He actaully shouts his own name in the middle of battle!

Storm's a Brewin'

The Labor Days section of the Fields of Obscurity web collective I willingly belong too has been updated. Here are a few inked pages that can be found there. Along with a few extra morsels. One day I'm gonna finish this opus that I and young PMG have concocted years ago, but alas there are bills and rent and mouths to feed so time and again I must put aside the good people of LD and their on going plight to focus on the tasks at hand.
Here we are!

Its Gods and Dolls, not Gods and Gods

Here are few preliminary sketches i had done for a comic adaptation of homer's Odyssey I'm currently working on with Ben Caldwell for Sterling Publishing. The great Tim Mucci is responsible for weaving said adaptation. And what an undertaking it is. It's like our own little odyssey, sans cyclops' and wrathfull gods. We've got screaming sirens a-plenty though.