Return Of The Jedi: Panel Of The Week

Well this is the final panel in this series, I hope you've enjoyed it. It's kind of appropriate considering the day and the background colour (i.e. pink=breast cancer awareness)

Ribs At The Carolina Cafe

In my ever-continuing search for Ribs perfection, I decided to check out the competition. Dave had told me about an American style cafe around the corner from him. It sounded pretty good to me, so we went there for some dinner tonight. Naturally I ordered the ribs, which come with their potato salad. I ordered the regular size, but I think I'll need to upgrade to the large, I don't have that sickly bloated feeling after this meal that I associate with ribs.

But apart from that, they were pretty good. I think I prefer mine still, but I don't know if I could point out the differences. Theirs was suitably sweet, that delicious meat confectionary that BBQ Ribs are. The meat fell quite easily off the bone, though Dave's didn't seem to as easily as mine, but like I said, mine did. One thing though, their's was "drowned" in the sauce, whereas I don't pour the remainder of my sauce over it. Due to their cooking production, I don't think it has the same amount of basting and grilling as when I make it myself, so they need to pour the sauce over theirs to give it the flavour, but it makes for a much messier eating experience. You're a bit loathe to pick up the ribs with your hands since they're swimming in the sauce. Perhaps I over exaggerate, but I'm just saying there is more sauce on theirs than mine.

Anyway, I was pretty happy with them, and I recommend it as a quick fix if you've got the ribs craving and not the 3-4 hours up your sleeve to make your own, or I haven't invited you round for mine.

Untitled Work In Progress

So I painted Jared, but it looks like that time when his head swelled up, so that obviously needs a lot of work. I'm thinking of using a stencil to give me the basic shape, and then just colour it in. I'm wondering if the picture of him needs to be bigger, take up all that space on that side of the canvas. I realised his jumper and jeans were blue, so thought I'd have trouble separating them from the background I'd already chosen around the Angel's head, so decided to use yellow, as I had a lot on my palette and didn't want it to got to waste. Same with the red. I think it turned out pretty well. The problem with this painting is that it has no focus.

I didn't do any work on "B I R D K I L L E R", so here's a bonus picture of a chicken.

Birdkiller And Untitled Work In Progress

So I haven't done too much on this, but I added the white square which I'll paint the bird skull in, and I've painted the two birds hanging from a rope at his waist, which i don't think is obvious from looking at it, but you'll know because I just told you. Also, I slightly ruined the hand, but I'm not too worried, I can fix that up easily enough.

Not much happening in this one, just added more blue to define the limits of the Angel, painted over my face some, and that's about it. I don't think I'll be sticking with that face, as I'm not sure what picture I was using, and it looks kind of stupid. I'll either find another photo to reference, or maybe do like a 3/4 body shot, some kind of dramatic pose. The plan is still to paint the photo of Jared playing guitar, so something that seems to match that, though doesn't have any direct link, is what I'm thinking.

Man Rips Out Eyes

Return Of The Jedi: Panel Of The Week

Orchid #1

 It’s been a while since I wrote up any comic reviews, mainly because I was swamped with comics, but I thought I should put something up about this one, mainly because it’s written by Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave fame. That might be of interest.

So the first thing you notice is the quite striking cover, who one might assume is the titular character, Orchid. You would be right in that assumption, though she actually doesn’t appear till the last quarter of the book, and by then I’d kind of forgotten I was reading a comic about a girl called Orchid.

The book is set in a world where the oceans have risen, society has fallen, and genetic monsters roam the wild eating those too poor to live on higher ground. All that is essentially told to us on the opening/credit page. But then it tells us again as we actually start reading the comic, spread out over the next few pages, the exact same wording. Which would have been fine if I hadn’t just read it on the previous page. I guess it’s a kind of set-up piece that could be at the start of every comic, but if it’s going to be at the start of this first issue actually within text boxes in the comic, then I think that was a mistake to have it as a paragraph on your credit page. Anyway, that’s really my only real complaint. As the text within the comic, it seemed a bit clunky, and I was a bit worried about Tom Morello’s chops at writing a comic, but once we get past that, it’s all ok.

So instead of meeting Orchid at the start, we meet up with a bunch of rebels, who have stolen a mask of a famous rebel leader, which is supposed to have some kind of power, but at the very least is a rallying point for the revolution, and has symbolic power. These rebels are being chased, but one of them named Simon gets away with the mask, and it is through this verbose young man that we eventually get to meet up with Orchid, a prostitute with an attitude of looking out for number one, but also looks out for her family.

So the world building that’s going on here is pretty solid. Tom has set-up the world pretty well, though there’s nothing strikingly original in the ideas. I don’t mean that as a diss, I’m just saying a kind of post-apocalyptic world is familiar, it’d be hard to come up with something no one has ever seen before. Anyway, they’re doing a good job. Scott Hepburn is doing the drawing, and he’s doing a nice job visually. His characters are clear, and the genetic beasties he’s drawing are freakish. The world they live in is well realised, appropriately overgrown and decaying civilisation. So far I’m enjoying it.

I read in the editorial piece at the back that there’s a free download of an original song that Tom Morello has recorded to enhance the reading experience of the comic. The first one I think anyone can download, but the next ones you’ll need the code from the comic. I wish they had mentioned that at the start of the comic, rather than at the end, so I could have had it playing in the background as I read it. Anyway, it’s not what I was thinking, though it’s a pretty solid song, and I’m looking forward to hearing the rest.

So that was Orchid #1. You can buy it digitally if you want, it only costs a buck, though I assume next issue will be more in line with standard comic prices. I liked it, and I look forward to the next 11 issues.

Comictwart Punisher Love

Yeah, another post about comictwart.
This picture is by Francesco Francavilla, one of my favourite comic twarters. I think the picture resonated as much as it did was because I had Italian crime movies on my brain, as I thought I got one in the mail. Turned out I didn't, but this helps ease the pain.

Lora8: Depressed Heroes Art

So I just saw this, thanks to Bleeding Cool, and thought I might share. She has a couple others on her deviantart site, so go have a look.

Return Of The Jedi: Panel Of The Week