Innocence: A Preview

I recently finished a six-page comic for a storytelling show called the Story Collider run by one Ben Lillie and my oldest friend Erin Barker. It's a great show, and if you're ever looking for something to do in Brooklyn on a Wednesday night I recommend checking it out, you'll be glad you did.

The comic is part of a collection of four, done by myself and three other very talented New York artists, each illustrating a hilarious biographical story heard at the Story Collider live shows and available on their podcast. The compilation is being given away in return for donations that help keep the Story Collider going. The story I illustrated is one by David Dickerson: author and regular contributor on "This American Life," about his troubles finding love, and one man's chances of finding magic in the world.

Now I agreed not to post the full comic here, so if you want to read it you'll have to donate to the fundraiser in Indie Gogo and get a copy of the full book along with some neat other stuff. But I am going to post my favorite panel, to give you a little taste.

That's it. Donate here to help keep a worthy chapter of New York's live comedy scene afloat. And I'll see you next time.

Whalehawk

I recently finished a logo for a delightful musician from Queens called Whalehawk, I thought I'd share it with you. He's an awesome fellow, an upstanding gentleman, you all should look up his music. Hear it here

 And as an added bonus, you may one day see this stenciled on the moon

Another Visit with our Friend the Lion

Here's a little story. Back in 2009 I was working on this animated short, a fun little personal project in my own spare time. I got pretty far on it, too. So far that I was actually starting to record voices for it. I used my own voice for all the characters, not because I don't eventually want to use real voice actors but simply because there weren't any in the room with me at the time.
Now here's where the story takes a turn. You know how a lot of actors say they can't stand watching themselves on screen? Well, watching this cartoon where all three characters had my voice was so painful to sit through for me, I became convinced this short was the worst thing I've ever done, decided none of the jokes were funny, and vowed never to show it to another living human soul.

Jump to two years later, about a month ago in fact, I was digging through the old files on my computer, and I came across the old movie file and decided to watch it again. And you know what? After such a long time I'm far enough removed from the experience of recording it that I actually kind of regret that I stopped it. This project seems pretty funny to me now. I think I'm going to finish it after all.

Here's what it's going to look like.

You can see the original test cells in this old post here.

If only I hadn't stopped working on it two years ago, this 7-minute animation it might be almost part of the way done by now! (Animation takes forever!)

-Joe

Hulk Smash!

I don't often draw characters that aren't mine, but I recently checked out this new Avengers cartoon and it got my mind going on the Incredible Hulk.
One of my favorite parts of the Hulk's mythos is that the angrier he gets, the stronger he becomes, putting the upper register of his powers right up there at infinity. Here you see my vision of the big green machine raging at about a 9: at 10 he just bulks into a pulsating green ball with fingers and a smushed-in angry face.
At first I was drawing the "SMASH" in big stone letters crumbling under the weight of him, but it just looked so Schoolhouse Rock, I had to go in a different direction.

The trademark on the Incredible Hulk is owned by Marvel, which is owned by Disney, who's majority shareholder is Steve Jobs, who also runs the same company that made the computer I used to create this image. Thus, should anyone take issue with me posting their trademarked character on my little blog, it's their own fault for giving me the means to do so. Nyeh.

Mile High

Somehow you can always tell whether a sexy lady drawing was made by a male or a female artist. I don't mean that male artists sexualize the female form any more overtly than women do -- if anything, some of the raunchiest, most big-boobs-havin' art I've seen all came from ladies. Women are just better at it. Not that there aren't amazing pinup artists who are men, and terrible ones who are women too. There's just this strange dimension girls can inject into that subject matter; like a respect or maybe a secret like fraternal (hah!) understanding. Some mysterious energy that, for the life of me, I've never seen a man be able to capture. Could be women just know the physics of curving in those same places better, from experience and all. For a man, drawing the female form is always like guessing at something exterior. I don't know, it's mysterious.

Anyway, here's a drawing of a sexy lady in the sky. Enjoy!