Modok Madness!

April showers may bring May flowers, but did you know that March brings Modok Madness?  I did, and that's why I submitted a piece to the March Modok Madness blog! 
For those who don't know, Modok is a completely mental Lee and Kirby Marvel Comics character who was a frequent foe of the Avengers and their compatriots.  Like many of Marvel's best villians, he is utterly megalomaniacal, and an utter failure, despite having a mega genius mind and the physical prowess of a Mr. Potato Head.  How could a combination like that fail to take over the world?
The good folks over at March Modok Madness have taken it upon themselves to see that this would be dictator gets his due by calling all artists to submit their interpretations of the character to be published on the blog.  There's some wonderfully creative versions over there, such as the "Obamodok" and the Simpsons Universe Modok.  Spending some time browsing the pages is not only entertaining, but also gives a good idea of how many ways a simple character can be interpreted.

My own modified Modok is a slightly askance comment on the Disney Marvel acquisition, but the image below is only a teaser...to get the image in its full glory, you're going to have to click through to March Modok Madness.  What are you waiting for?  Go!

They Can't All Be Zingers....

Almost finished with my current crop of deadlines; it'll soon be time for some downtime.  I think a lost weekend spent pursing the finer pleasures of scotch and Bioshock may be in order.  That is, unless something else comes along to keep me working.
Meantime, here's a sample of the stuff I'm currently working on.  This is part of a larger piece that I'm just finishing up.  This particular panel ended up not being used, not because it was particularly bad, just that it didn't match what the client was looking for in this shot.  Still, I think it's a nice perspective on the scene.  Click the image to see it in all it's black and white glory.
By the way...this is part of the piece that uses the texture I mentioned in my last post.

Want to be the one to keep me from getting any rest this month?  Use the email link to the left to contact me with an interesting project idea and a fistful of dollars, and I'll consider surrendering sleep, studio time and sundry other pleasures to your demands.

Credit Where Credit's Due

I use a lot of resources, both online and off, in any finished work.  It might be reference photos from an old book, inspiration taken from a particular artist's style, or custom brushes and textures taken from online sources (such as DeviantArt).  A lot of these resources are released with an attribution licence, meaning that there's no cost to use them as long as you give credit to the creator.  Unfortunately, there's not always room or opportunity to give credit to so many people in the finished work. 
So, I've decided to create a section for this blog called "Resources" that will be a link catcher to give credit to those people who have (perhaps unknowingly) contributed to the success of some of my work.  Checking the "resources" tag will lead you to a listing of sources, tools and inspiration that may benefit any other creative types in my readership.  I recommend looking up any of them and seeing what they have to offer.

First up is a thank you to Enchantedgal-Stock at DeviantArt, who's Rainbow Splatter Paint Texture is going to save me a bunch of time on a project I'm finishing off this evening.  This seems like it should be a simple thing to create on my own, but given a deadline crunch, this will be invaluable in saving time on work and cleanup.  Thanks, Enchantedgal.

Things Rank and Gross in Nature Possess it Merely...

Just for grins, I've added a widget that tracks my Alexa ranking; you can see it at the lower left.  As of this writing, I'm at 6,731,802, meaning that far from being a star of the internet, I'm ranked well below pretty much any furry message boards and sites for Star Trek slashfic. 
This is not an important number to me....I would rather a dozen important people (e.g. close friends, known associates and paying customers) read this blog on a regular basis than any million people give it three seconds worth of their attention, but I think this will be a fun little game to play, to see how low I can make that number go this year.  If anyone can make suggestions as to how to improve my ranking, please send them my way, and if they do not involve a massive outlay of cash or the sacrifice of a small animal, I'll take them into consideration.


In other news, who does NOT know about the situation in Haiti right now?  Take a country that's already been through a social, political and economic collapse, stir in the most powerful earthquake in 200 years and add a death toll to match many genocides, and you've got a recipe for disaster at its worst...and that's exactly what millions of people are living through right now.  Sometimes you've just got to set aside your political disagreements and realize that people need help. 
I'm not bragging when I say I've just made a donation to the Canadian Red Cross specifically for disaster relief in Haiti.  In lieu of actually being able to go and start cleaning up the mess myself, I can't think of a better way to help, and I strongly urge any reader to go and do the same.  You can go to the Canadian Red Cross donation page by clicking the Haitian crest below, or do a quick Google search for the Red Cross in your own country and make your donation there.  If you're like me, it's the best thing you'll do today.

2009 - A Year in Review

Yeah, that's pretty much the shape of it.  Here's hoping 2010 shapes up a little better.

Rock in a Hard Place

Just for fun, here's a monochromatic portrait of Paul Chadwick's "Concrete".  I've been reading some of these books lately and quite enjoyed them.  As usual, I'm late to the party on this stuff, but it's quality is so far undiminished for the passage of time.  Well worth a read, if you get the chance.
This piece takes a bit of artistic licence, as Concrete is not really an action figure kind of character.  This
is just the way it flowed off my pen, and it was fun
to draw, and that's all I needed.

October in December

This is just because a Picasa user named Octobriana added me to her/his favorites and reminded me that I had done this one for Whitechapel way back.  Besides, nothing says "Seasons Greetings" like a Wendy Williams clone in a leather bustier aiming pink dildos at a red sky.  Happy New Year, internet.

I'm Madcap Dancing as Fast as I Can

Check out "Behold! Petrellica", the new website of up and coming comics writer Ben Zuerlein.  At Ben's invitation, I am working on a story called "Madcap White Dancing" for submission to Kudzu Comics, an anthology put together by the Yoknapatawpha Art Council in Oxford, MS.  Ben's written a nice short story that's just as reminiscent (to me) of Jaime Hernandez as it is of Neil Gaiman, and I'm really looking forward to digging into it. 
I'll post some of the art from this story online as soon as it is available.  In the meantime, why not check out Ben's site and see what he has to offer.

First We Take Manhattan...Then We Take R'lyeh

Tor.com is doing a Lovecraft theme this month, just in time for Xmas.  I come by my love of Lovecraft by way of 70's Warren magazines, when Berni Wrightson blew my little mind with his adaptation of "Cool Air".  Later, listening to OTR adaptations of "Dunwich Horror" and seeing John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness" (not a Lovecraft tale as such, but as close as any movie ever got) cemented the relationship.  Now I can gladly say I've read the entirety of Lovecraft's fiction, seen most of the movie adaptations, listened to (I think) nearly every radio show produced from his work, and consumed as many comics adaptations as I could get my hands on.

Best of all, I've been involved in some Lovecraft based work myself.  My favorite to date has been Derek Pegritz's sadly discontinued online mythos novel "City of Pillars", for which I designed webpage banners and a set of postcards that have never been published. 
As part of it's Lovecraft month, Tor invited readers to submit their own artistic interpretations in this thread,which I was more than happy to join.  I've just added the image you see below, which is one of the aforementioned postcard designs.  I've got to say, I'm very happy with the way this piece turned out.  For more fun, go to the Tor thread and see all the other fantastic art that's being posted, both in the original post and in the comments. 

Review: Harlan County Horrors

For me, the short story format is the ideal format for horror.  The necessary brevity of the format seems to concentrate the power of fear into a gut punch.  It may have something to do with the fact that a short story can be consumed in a single sitting, and the immediacy of the experience is not lost like the drawn out process of reading a novel.

Even my favorite authors in the genre (e.g. Stephen King, Clive Barker) consistently deliver better in their shorter works (although their longer work is still way beyond the average), and the masters of the format such as Robert Bloch, Lovecraft and Karl Edward Wagner can communicate more in the space of a few hundred words than many other authors can in an entire novel.

So, if the short story is the proper meal for horror, then a collection of short stories is a feast, and an anthology is a proper banquet.  Nothing serves up quite as well, in my opinion, as a selection of dishes from a variety of authors, and in that regard, "Harlan County Horrors" truly satisfies.

"Harlan County Horrors", edited by Apex submissions editor Mari Adkins, is a recent anthology from Apex Books, with all the stories centering on events in and around the mining region of Harlan County, Kentucky, an area apparently well known for its ghost stories.  Aside from that uniting factor, the stories in the collection are on a cornucopia of subjects and themes, from demon dogs and Chinese vampires to dark science fiction and true love gone awry.  A lot of horror tropes a put to good and novel use in these stories, while cliche is generally skiilfully avoided, making each story an exploration for the reader.

The authors for this anthology are the cream of Apex's alumni, who really shine in these works.  Alethea Kontis's "Witch of Black Mountain" is a dark romance that is equally poetic and macabre, while Geoffrey Girard's "Psychomachia" is a bleak humanistic tale built on coal mining, and Ronald Kelly's "The Thing at the Side of the Road" is a fast-paced and bloody monster story worthy of Bloch.  Apex publisher Jason Sizemore even comes through with a nasty little surprise in the story "Yellow Warblers".  With these and the other authors that make up the dozen in the book, it's practically guaranteed that any fan of horror tales will find something pleasing here, although I don't think that any discerning reader will be disappointed by any of these stories.

Honestly, when I first saw this book listed on their store page, I thought it would hold little to interest me.  I didn't know anything about Harlan County, and couldn't see myself caring what these authors had to say about it.  However, given the price it was selling for on Fictionwise, and the strength of previous works I had read by some of these authors, I thought it would be at least worth a try.  I'm glad I did.  "Harlan County Horrors" is one of those books that I cherish while reading, and will recall fondly long after I'm done.

"Harlan County Horrors" is available in print version from Apex's store where you can preview the story "Yellow Warblers", or in ebook version from Fictionwise or the Amazon Kindle store.  For cost and portability, I recommend the Fictionwise version, but to each their own.  In any version, it' well worth a look.

Selling Out!

I warned you I'd be doing this....

Anyone interested in having a "No Small Minds" logo of their own to proudly display and keep the narrow-minded at bay can now purchase one at my CafePress store here.
I've started out with a coffee mug for this design for two reasons:
1) I'm an incurable coffee hound myself and will shortly be drinking my daily fix from one of these.
2) Who doesn't need something to drink out of now and again? Even better if you can make a philosophical statement while doing so!

You will note that I have not included a website link or any information other than the image itself on the mug. That's because "No Small Minds" is not advertising anything; it is not selling anything; it is not promoting anything other than free thought. If you display it, you're not pushing anything other than your own state of mind.
So if you like it, why not grab one and throw a couple of dollars my way? Any money raised, at first, will go towards making more products available through the same store.
Of course, as I said yesterday, the image is free to use, so if you don't want to send me your hard earned money, you can make one of your own. Put it on a T-shirt. Put it on a sticker. Put it on some underwear and moon a politican. It's up to you.

Edit:  Now available, plain white T-shirts.  Stylish, comfortable and ethical, what more do you want?

No Small Minds!

I posted this image here some time ago and promised to add a color version later, which took me forever to actually accomplish.  Nevertheless, here it is, my own personal logo and avatar on many a web forum, "No Small Minds".

This was originally created about 10 years ago as my version of a "Mature Readers" label for my comic book, "The Journals of Simon Pariah".   My reasoning behind this can be found here.  While the points I make in that essay are still valid, I think the usefulness of this idea extends far beyond the comic book world.  Sometimes, I think that I need this warning label on every wall or door that stands between myself and the outside world.

So, to update this a little bit, who does "No Small Minds" refer to?
-anyone who demands acceptance of an idea without proof.
-anyone who tries to create and enforce rules for everyone based on their own subjective opinion.
-anyone who flatly denies the possibility that a dissenting opinion may be correct, despite overwhelming evidence in its favor.
-anyone who tries to stifle discussion rather than engaging in dialogue.
-anyone who tries to make the limits of their understanding into the boundaries of someone else's experience.

These are the people that I, personally, do not want to speak with because I cannot reason with them.  I don't want to deal with them (if it can be avoided) because it cannot be done on a fair and equitable basis.  When it comes to my work (in any field or forum), I want them to understand that they may not like what I have to say.
I've always known that any creative person encounters small minds of one stripe or another at some point.  No matter what you say, somebody's going to take offense at it.  As an adult, which I desperately hope to be one day, I've discovered that these same minds operate in almost every aspect of life, be it politics, religion, or interpersonal communications.  Their purpose in life seems to be chiefly to make everything as unpleasant for other people as possible.
So this emblem is meant as a visual "check your premises at the door" warning.  It's for anyone who wants to tag their work as being for "mature" readers without immediately labeling it as "porn".  It's for anyone who wants to give warning that free thought is being applied, and free speech is being engaged.  It's for anyone who wants to clearly state that the exchange of ideas is encouraged, and the stifling of dissent will not be tolerated.
It's also for anyone who wants something cool and quirky to display on their website.

When I first released this on the web in 2002, it was made freely available to anyone to use in any way they wish, with the stipulation that credit be given and that I be sent a link to the work in which it is used.  As I have come to understand it, this perspective has come to be codified as the Creative Commons licence, and its under that licence that I post this here now.  Feel free to use this on your website, in your comics, on your books, or in any other creative way you can imagine.  To misquote Woody Guthrie, anybody caught usin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern.  I created it, that's all I wanted to do.
All I ask is that you give credit (preferably in the form of a link to www.paladinfreelance.com) where credit is due, and let me know where you've used it, just because I'm curious about that sort of thing.
If you take it into your head to use this logo to sell products...well, I can't stop you, because I've just given you permission to do it.  But be warned:  you'll have competition, because I'll likely be doing that myself.

Oh, and in case anyone finds it useful, here's a black and white version of the same thing.

No Small Minds by Mike Dominic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at paladinfreelance.blogspot.com.

L'Chaim!

This is a piece I did just for fun.

One of the things that gets me through a typical workday is listening to podcasts, and one of my favorite podcasts is Keith and the Girl.  It's funny, entertaining and occasionally even enlightening, and well worth a listen.

Recently, one of their listeners, Elvis, started getting KATG related tattoos and mentioned that he wanted to get a portrait of "the girl" aka Chemda.  KATG called for listeners to send in their submissions for a Chemda portrait tattoo, and this was my contribution.  I think I went a bit over the top with this, but once I started, I couldn't stop.

Click to view full-size.

Some notes on the piece:
-the portrait is based on an old photo of Chemda I found through the mighty Google.
-the border is based on a design from the border of a 19th Century Persian plate.
-the lettering below the portrait is "Chemda" in Hebrew (the girl describes herself as both Persian and Jewish), -the lettering above is "L'Chaim" in Hebrew (they open each show with a short prayer that they end with "L'Chaim").
-the biblical reference on the right side is the biblical origin of the name "Chemda" which means "desire" ("Why do you look with envy, O mountains with many peaks, At the mountain which God has desired for His abode? Surely the LORD will dwell there forever.")

It's a bit  rough in spots because I sort of rushed it, but overall I like how it turned out.  I'll be the first to admit that portrait is not my best skill, but I think I did OK this time.

Out of the Shadows...

Here's another drawing to accompany a set of books that will be going up on Ebay this evening.  I've never really been a fan of Valentino's "Shadowhawk"; the art didn't work for me, and I find the costume design impractical and difficult to draw, especially the helmet.  Still, I like the way this one turned out.

On the Auction Block...

Holy mackerel, I'm selling my comics!
I'm a comic junkie.  Have been for as long as I can remember.  There's no cure for it; the only hope is to control the disease.
I have thousands of the things; so many that they're threatening to overflow my studio space.  So, I've decided to sell most of them, if I can.  Like so many hopefuls before me, I've headed off to Ebay to see if I can generate some interest in my collection.
Click here to see all the auctions I currently have up.
I'm doing it a bit differently, though.  Seems like it would probably take forever to sell the collection one book at a time.  So, I'm selling in sets.  Each set includes not only a good selection of comics from a particular series or publisher, but also other related items from my collection.  I've got Previews catalogs going back over 15 years, promotional material from many publishers, related magazines like Comics Journal and Comics Scene, and much more, and all of this will be added to the sets of books as I find things that relate to the comics.
Here's the kicker:  also included in each set will be a piece of original art done on a comic book backing board, featuring a character related to the books I'm auctioning.  This is an opportunity to not only grab some good comics, but also to own a cool piece of original art featuring your favorite characters.  (It's also a good opportunity for me to practice my quick sketching skills and play around with other people's characters.)
Sold so far is a set including the first 25 issues of Spawn, two Spawn miniseries and the issue of Wizard in which Spawn first appeared.  I've got other sets up right now, and will be adding more as I put them together and finish the drawing.
Once again, go here to take a look at what's on auction.

Here's just a sample of the type of drawing I'll be including with the comic sets; this one is currently up for bids with the first few issued of Youngblood.

By the way...my collection is fairly extensive and eclectic, and goes back over 30 years in spots.  If there's something, a particular issue or run of issues, you've been looking for, feel free to email me (the address is to the left) and see if I have it.  If we can strike a deal, I'll give you the option of requesting a custom piece of art to go with your order.

Edit: Conclusion:  Selling comics on Ebay is more trouble than it's worth.  I managed to move a few, but had to relist each set a couple times, and barely got what I would consider a fair price.  I don't have the kind of time and energy it takes to attempt to move a collection this large in such a piecemeal fashion.  Fuhgeddaboutit.

Once More Unto the Breeches.....

Let it be known that I have shorts, and once again they have been aired.
The drunkenly funny podcast "Air Out My Shorts" starring the inestimable Preston Buttons and the inimitable Word Whore have just read my fourth short story offering to them, "The Incalculable Mrs. McGonegal".  It's a slightly skewed Mary Poppins-esque bit of fluff with which they have a lot of fun and pull off a decent reading.
Go to their site to listen or download the mp3 of the episode from this link.
While you're there, check out their other entertaining episodes and other paraphernalia at their site.  It's been one of my favorite podcasts for a few years now, and your support will help convince them to keep going.

With Friends Like These...

Here's the last of the Marshal Law drawings, and my favorite of the lot.

I'm a huge fan of Bernie Wrightson, especially his and Bruce Jones's story, "Freak Show".  I think it ranks right up with "Frankenstein" as being his best illustrated story.  Obviously, that story was very much on my mind as I did this illustration (one of the characters is actually based on Wrightson's "Jennifer" from another short story). 
I like the idea of the Marshal Law having a backup cast of freakish characters to pal around with.  I can imagine an interesting backstory for each of these.
On a side note, at least three of the characters in this drawing were based on people I knew at the time.

 Be sure to click to see the detail on this one.

Laying Down the Law

Here's two more of the Marshal Law posters I designed wayyyyy back in the 90's for the metal band of the same name in Newfoundland.  Pretty basic stuff here, mostly focused on letter design (which always has been a weak point for me).
The backstory for this character involved him being a lawman who had been lynched by outlaws, then returned from hell as a Ghost Rider-ish character to dispense justice in a bloody fashion.  Simple enough, but there's potential in there for any number of stories, and the concept was a good fit for the musical genre.  I'm sure Iron Maiden may have taken issue with this had it gone far enough, but it really wasn't intended as a ripoff of Derek Riggs's work on Eddie.  It's just that skulls and black leather are such iconic features of heavy metal music that it made sense to combine them in this way, and the name of the band suggested the form.

I've got one more piece to scan in this set.  If you like these so far, the last one should really blow your socks off!

 

He IS the Law!

Here's another blast from the past.  Back in the wild, free-rolling days of 1990, I was involved with the local music scene in St. John's, Newfoundland.  I rented an apartment with a couple of local musicians and we spent a ridiculous amount of our time either attending shows at the clubs or just hanging out with other musicians.  One of the benefits of this for me was that I occasionally got to do some design work for the bands.
Unfortunately, a lot of this work has been lost as I never bothered to keep copies of the posters I designed.  However, this one project was a favorite of mine and I still have good copies of the work I produced. 

Being a headbanger through and through, one of my favorite local bands at the time was a metal band named "Marshal Law" that did a mix of enjoyable cover tunes (from the likes of Metallica, Slayer and Megadeath) and their own, very good, original work.  (This was, by the way, completely unrelated to either the English metal band by the same name, the American country band by the same name, or the comic book by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill.)
The band never really did go anywhere, but I thought they could have if they'd bothered.  In fact, I was so taken with them, that I offered to do a series of drawings for their first CD.  I designed a (admittedly Derek Riggs inspired) character for their band, including a backstory that I was prepared to develop into a full comic book if anyone was interested in going in that direction.  Although the band liked the drawings, they broke up shortly afterwards and the work was never used.  So, technically, this is the first time some of this is seeing the light of day (although I do recall seeing a shot of the character clearly taken from my design used as tattoo in Skin & Ink magazine). 
Here are three of the ink drawings produced to pitch the character to the band.  These were not really meant to be finished pieces, but rather to serve as the basis for paintings for the CD.  I've got a few more that I'll post another time as they're scanned.  Enjoy!

Objectivism Funnies!

Who ever said that Objectivism doesn't have a sense of humour?  To put the lie to that, Ian McDonald offers a birthday card I made for him several years ago.

Click here to read about "The Philosophy That Made a Man Out of MacDonald".