John Martz

Mona Leda

I hadn’t been at the drawing board for almost a week, and when I sat down yesterday to tackle some work I couldn’t draw anything I was happy with.  As a warm-up exercise I decided to play along with the Mona Lisa meme that Matt started up over at Drawn!.

The idea for this came from accidentally typing “Mona Lida” in Google while searching for a reference picture of the Mona Lisa.

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Alphabets

How could I let the Illustration Friday theme of aphabets go by without playing along?  This is from my first Machine Gum book of comics, which will soon be available to purchase online once I redo the website.  This image is tiny, but you can see a larger version at Flickr.

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Some lettering work

Bob Weber Jr., creator of the comic strip Slylock Fox recently asked me to redesign his strip’s logo.  Don’t tell Bob, but I’m young enough that I used to read Slylock as a kid, so this was a real treat to work on.

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Me by Joe Bluhm

I already posted this on Drawn!, but here’s a caricature of yours truly created by Joe Bluhm this past weekend at TCAF.  I can now consider my ego fully in check. More here.

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Toronto Comic Arts Festival this weekend

This weekend is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. I’ll be there selling some small books, surrounded by hundreds of other cartoonists, and it should be a real blast.  I’ve never exhibited work at any type of convention or show, so I’m pretty stoked.  I’ll be sitting with my Drawn! cohort and Ojingogo creator Matt Forsythe, and from what I saw of the festival’s seating plan, seemingly right near the entrance, so you can’t miss us.  Also, the event is completely FREE to attend, so please come support local comics creators!

Here’s a quick preview of what I’ll have to offer.  I’ve compiled a collection of one-shot comic pieces (many from Machine Gum, which needs an overhaul), drawings, and even a few poems, and assembled them into the cleverly-titled Machine Gum #1.  Here’s the cover:

And a sampling of the kind of work you’ll find inside its pages:

The other book for sale is called Excelsior, and its name and content are taken from my mother’s 1968 high school yearbook.  In this project, an exercise in abstraction and in developing a style allowing me to draw quickly and consistently, I redrew the entire student body in cartoon form.  At over 1000 heads, the book is nearly 80 pages long, and, if nothing else, serves to offer evidence of my own OCD.  I changed the name of the school and the students themselves to fictional ones. Here’s the cover and a few sample pages:

I may eventually post the whole set on Flickr, and of course have the books for purchase here on the site for those who can’t make it to Toronto this weekend for the show and would like to get their hands on copies.

See you this weekend!

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“Both of you know I canna read a word.”

Yowza.  Has it really been mid-July since my last post?  Things have been busy in Robotland as I hurriedly meet deadlines and prep for the upcoming Toronto Comic Arts Festival (August 18th and 19th—mark your calendars).  My schedule’s now in good standing with my sanity after a rather lonesome but productive week of self-imposed house arrest.  I’ll post more about what I’ll have to offer at TCAF in the coming days; I’m pretty excited as I think it’s going to be a pretty awesome two-day explosion of comics, as well as the first time I’ve ever exhibited anything at a show/convention.  I’m a bit nervous, as it’s impossible for me to gauge how people will take to my meager offerings surrounded by folks for whom this is all old hat.  But it should be fun!

And speaking of comics, here are two pages from the middle of the latest episode of The Card Shop, the regular series I’ve been drawing for Kayak Magazine.  You’ll have to grab the book to see how the story ends… and uh, begins, I suppose.  I finally feel like I’ve fallen into a groove with these stories, and have found a style that works both for me and the tone and content of the scripts I’m given.  I’m particularly happy with the colouring of this last issue, and though I’m slightly ashamed that it’s not hand-lettered, it’s somewhat of a necessity given the time I have and the last-minute copy changes I usually get.

Good Canadians might surmise that this story begins with a look at the Robert Harris painting A Meeting of the School Trustees, popularized by this Heritage Minute:

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Ice cream

This is what happens when you draw in your sketchbook while hungry.

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TIFF approacheth

I purchased my 20 tickets for the Toronto International Film Festival yesterday, and am eagerly awaiting the list of films to be announced some time in August.  I know the Coen Brothers’ latest will be screening, so I have at least one film I’m extremely looking forward to.

And in daydreaming about darkened theatres, I realized I’ve fallen behind in my movie reviews, with a backlog of about 10 poems or so that have been neglected due to my busy schedule, so I’m trying to plow my way through them.  The next few posts should take care of a few.

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Gimme Five with Craig Yoe

Comics aficionado Craig Yoe offers up a short 5-question interview with yours truly over at his Arf Lovers blog.  I knew I was going to regret putting that photo of me on the Internet.

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Drawn! 3.0

After a 17-hour work-day full of clicking and coding, I’ve finally put the finishing touches on a complete redesign of Drawn!, and now that it’s nearly 6 am, and the sun is coming up, I’m going to bed.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t explode while I’m asleep.

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Genie with the light brown hare

From the sketchbook… no background story here, though perhaps there should be.

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Drawn! in CA Illustration Annual 48

There’s a small write-up about Drawn! in the latest Communication Arts Illustration Annual, which is on newsstands now.

Produced by illustrators, cartoonists and artists who decided to take time to goof-off, Drawn! is a spirited take on the world of the professional illustrator. Posts offer quick takes on everything from having your earthly remains cremated and converted into carbon for a pencil, to the high-tech 3-D modeling techniques used to create graphic novels. They call it goofing off, but you can call it research at http://www.drawn.ca.

The write-up is on page 184 under Web Watch.  And we’re in good company, profiled alongside Penelope’s Illustration Friday and Paul’s 100 Years of Illustration.

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Ever get the feeling something sinister is following you?

What a week.  My e-mail has been screwy for the past seven or so days—hadn’t received a single message to my main account until just today.  Ummm, yeah… only slightly stressful when one practically lives on the Internet.

Plus, I’ve been burdened with all that comes with moving—packing, unpacking, changing addresses, etc.  Welcome to Stress City.  Population: John.

But everything is back in working order, AND I have finished moving into a brand-new apartment/studio.  I’m trying to think of the place as a studio and not an apartment since I’ll be spending so much time working here.  Once I’ve finished all the last little bits of unpacking, have all my books put away, and make the place all presentable I’ll post some pictures.

I’m most excited about finally getting my hands on my vintage industrial drafting table that’s been sitting in my parents’ house for the past 8 years.  I’ve been waiting impatiently for the day I had a place here in Toronto with enough space to use it—and as of next week, it’s all mine.  All my work stations are in front of a big window overlooking lots of leafy trees, and—as I type this—the most wonderful pink sunset.

Life is good!

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Illustration Friday: Camouflage

This week’s Illustration Friday theme is camouflage.

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Drawn! profiled by Blogs We Like

Drawn! has been profiled by Blogs We Like, a webzine maintained by NYU’s Department of Journalism: Drawn! provides daily muse for artists.

The site was also chosen by Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker last week as one of Five Reasons to Live:

Constantly updated, always loaded with stuff that makes you want to pick up a pencil and start doodling, or at least waste half an afternoon clicking onto the next image, and the next…

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