This one goes out to Paul,

When I lived in New York,  this must of been in the summer of 02,  I had a dream.  A dream I experienced vividly.  I was in a small band of people.  We were on the move constantly,  like a band of Gypsies.  There was a feeling the we were being pursued.  Not that anyone was right on our tails,  but that we had to keep on the move,  if we ever actually stopped we would be apprehended.  We were in the woods when they caught us,  Some of us escaped but they took me and another guy in,  maybe they had three of us. they took my sketch books.  They questioned us for a while and then let us go.  when they released they gave me back my sketch books,  but they weren't the originals,  they were replicas.  We rejoined our friends,  even more apprehensive,  not sure why they had released us.  Then we were in these cavernous ruins,  and they were coming.  as we ran through the ruins, it was as if we were running through the foundations of different societies.  When we emerged we were in grass lands,  with roman columns shattered around us.  We climbed over a marble stone,  and there before us was line after line of suits.  Just like the bad guy in Matrix,  lines of them,  in military formation.  And every ten seconds another squadron would run into a hole leading below.  We watched as seemingly endless legions of suits ran below in unison.  We knew they would be coming back our way,  so we ran.  Of course it was futile,  The suits caught up to us half way across the field.  It was a slaughter this time.  I felt someone grabbing me and pulled out the only weapon I had,  a pencil.  The last thing I saw as I awoke,  my hand stabbing in the air,  was a pencil sinking into the neck of some faceless business man.  That was my dream.  My grandmother,  who is a Jungian psychologist,  told me the dreams meaning would become more apparent to me in time,  it has. 
         

I'm back

O.K. I have thought about a dozen different things to write about in the last month but never found the time to bring them into fruition.  It's been a busy twenty four hours and now here I sit in my pajamas and a new pee coat in Portland.  I'm unemployed and all geared up for some drawing.  For the first time I have Internet at my house so I can be on the  computer and in my pajamas researching and talking about comics 'till the wee hours of the night.  Fuck yeah,  I am happy about this turn of events in my little life.  I got to see a marvelous friend of mine Morgan Hager,  and have a beer with her and Matt Watkins. That's my kind of night.  Since I was moving out of town my friends took it as an excuse to rope me into one late night debaucherous fiasco after another.  And my jadedness set in each morning with the dense fog hanging behind my eyes.  And I wonder why can't we go for walks down to the river and talk about what we really are thinking,  and afraid to be thinking,  instead of downing beer after beer until we can't talk or walk.  Now don't get me wrong I have problem with a tasty drug acting as our most effective social lubricant in a lonely society.  I just think what brings us together is the quality of the time we have with each other and the more we gather around drug abuse the more we aren't really doing what we intended to do in the first place,  appreciate the people we care for.
       So that's the end of my good bye Eugene rant,  let us proceed to the hello Portland rant (much better).  I have only been here for a few hours.  Morgan drove her dad's '64 Mercedes down and once she got to Eugene it started to leak every fluid but water.  So she had it towed to Portland.  I got home from Meiji (the bar I was working at) at five thirty in the am.  She had already called the tow truck,  and I was coming from a pu pu platter of smooth whiskey tasting (just after I bad mouth booze).  The tow truck didn't come 'till seven.  We quietly sat at the kitchen table,  I wrote a letter to Brett and Melissa thanking them for welcoming me into their home for the last two months.  I will have to call them and see if it made any sense.  Then the truck came,  loaded that classic beauty on it's flatbed,  we loaded ourselves,  and we were off.  A friendly guy with tats on his hands and a handle bar moustache was delivering us from a town I will describe now as small,  sad,  and sorry.  No better exit can I recall,  cops questioning a guy on the porch while the morning joggers go by with head lamps on like miners in the night.  Warm air being blasted on my legs,  and knowing the minute I feel it that no matter how hard I try,  my lids are going to come crashing down.  It was a good goodbye.  You should always leave a town at dawn.  And it took me back.  But now I am in a city again after seven and a half years.  I am going to have to take a long walk tonight.

comment number four

Sound like the worst title ever,  well it is.  I am writing these blogs to the imaginary comic fan in my mind,  but they are rants.  My rants.  I guess that is want a blog is.  I want this to be a little more.  Because making a comic is an adventure.  And I also believe in comics.  They are the medium of the moment.  I ride my bike all over town every day,  and there are these two streets that I have to cross all the time,  sixth and seventh.  They are busy four lane,  one way streets.  You always got to kick back and wait for the light to change.  and as I am perched on my bike I think,  none of these people racing by me in their cars read comics,  but each and every one of them could find a comic/graphic novel that they would enjoy.  That might be too optimistic.  I give comics to my brother all the time.  He reads them.  But I do not register any enjoyment from him.  Of course he sometimes inhales them in the same manner he inhales a hamburger,  in three bites!  so it might be a comment on his ability to enjoy things in general.  As I was saying,  even though people are always getting them out of the library,  they are still pretty much underground.  Which is sad.  I think it should be as common for someone to have a collection of picture books as it is for people to have word books.  And granted the style and subject matter is not as varied,  but that is what we should change. In the next decade I think the production and consumption of comic should explode.  Explode.  Did I say EXPLODE.  And why not,  all people need are stories,  and they are easier to read then books.  Nobody reads much any more.  So where are people getting their stories.  Movies and TV.  Which, I don't know if you've noticed,  happen to SUCK.  Movies are the biggest billion dollar industry of unoriginality I can imagine.  And TV is only starting to look good to some folks because their standards have been so completely decimated by endless CGI explosions and hollow plots in films.  I will sometimes get stoned when watching a flick,  and if it is a modern one,  my brain is shocked by their trite and stupid attempts to manipulate my emotions.  Now I can dig a classic flick.  I recently watched the sweet smell of success, with Burt Lancaster and the recently deceased Tony Curtis,  Phenomenal.  I got stoned and was sucked right in.  One of those gems that I love stumbling across.  Oops,  I got completely side tracked.  Let's get this train of thought moving again on comics,  comment number four.   The big industries are still predominately producing flashy super hero stories with oddly proportioned characters.  That's where we,  the small guys,  step in.  I just approved my proof at the printer today.  And ya know it didn't look too great,  there are still some spelling errors,  I forgot to write in that I wrote and drew the second two stories,  the edges aren't all perfectly straight,  the pencil smudges couldn't be taken out completely,  the title letters aren't well defined and sort of blobs into each other.  But you know what,  it looks like my comic,  at the stage that I am right now in my graphic development.  To me it is gorgeous.  Like Dorthy coming home to Kansas after escaping Oz (Hollywood),  my meager little home is mine,  and I love it.  and you need to do that.  Draw your stories,  and strive to make them great,  but accept yourself,  and where you are at.
   Maybe one day I will start to get this blog on track.
      Signing off
                   JulesBoy

Still Adapting To This

Damn,  Hectic last three weeks,  and it is only two days till one of my bosses Iumei has her baby.  But I have found some time to try to squeeze my ideas out.  Also in the news of my life,  I got the comic book to the printer!  Unfortunately the only person who really Knows is Gen because she helped me scan the originals,  or rather she scanned them while I stood around.  I am sure I mentioned it to my other friends,  but making comics is much more of a personal thing for me,  which is one of my main motivations for wanting to move to Portland.  I work on comics allot,  but I think about them all the time and that becomes this private side of myself that is really why I started this blog.  Back to the issues at hand.  I was going to talk about concealing your lines or flaunting them,  I don't want this to be a strait tutorial,  'cause that's not what I am interested in.  I want it to be more about what it takes to pull a comic book out of yourself.  What thing you have to figure out technically and then the things you go through emotionally.  Because it is an Adventure,  but how do I convey that.  O.K. o.k.,  concealing lines or flaunting them;  One of my all time favorite comics is Akira.  It is a set of massive volume after massive volume,  but if you look at it panel to panel it is never ending action,  So when you sit down with the colored comics or a much larger black and white volume,  you are unlikely to get up,  unless your house is on fire,  and then you probably have time to finish another page,  and another,....    So it has that wonder full absorbing quality.  It also is beautifully rendered,  I mean immaculate and gorgeous.  That would be my definition of concealed lines,  when you look at the panel the image is all you take in,  everything is rendered to the degree that they exist in your mind.  That is your mind doesn't think that's a drawing of a gun,  it just sees a gun.  Now when people,  non professional comic book artists attempt to draw their own comic they are often let down by their inability to render an image to that degree,  ie it reads as what it is.  Don't worry too much about it.  As long as the reader can recognize that it is a gun they can read the comic,  I try to choose what gun I am drawing and draw a recognizable smith and Wesson,  or snub nosed 38.  Smith and Wesson is not a good example,  I should be more specific,  what model and make,  get a picture.  But always remember it doesn't need to be perfect it needs to be recognizable.  I think that might be my most important lesson.  ( I don't know if I have said this already )Your favorite artist drew for a looong time before they did what you love.  My example of this is Frank Miller,  Ronin,  was my fave of his.  Before he got as stylized as Sin City,  or Dark Night.  He was still doing allot of line work. But if you go back to his Daredevil days you can see him still developing,  his human build is correct but it doesn't look nearly as cool as once he really found his style.  And he was still a professional artist with a major title to his name.  I always thought Kirby would draw these weird panels sometimes,  and he was the godfather of the silver age.

Organizing my ideas

Yesterday I tried to just dive in ti this and found myself floundering.  I had too much too say.
        So today I will begin with a list.  A list of all the topics and ideas I wish to touch on in (had to pause,  Ruby just puked) So Here Goes.
                 
        - Creating a character (Both the idea of the character in your head and constructing them as a drawn image you breathe life into,  Often a conflicting issue)    Which leads me to the next one.
        - Why comics in particular are attached to the central heroine.
        - Finding inspiration (My ethos;  comics are in their awkward teens,  people love them in part because we are looking for the comic we are dreaming of.  As comic book lovers we have an obligation to be comic creators,  whether you ever print it or not,  we have to search for our own stories at the end of the rainbow)
        - Setting our own standards;  I am an independent comic creator,  making a blog for people who are independent,  we are not marvel,  and I would recommend not trying.  We have to set our own standards and not try to live up to any one else's.
        - Comparing other works;  Generally comparing artists and writers,  looking at their styles and pacing and considering what avenues and moods those styles create.
        - Loosing inspiration;  Making comics is a monolithic task,  at some point your resolution will waiver,  you will fall behind,  your moral crushed.   What then?
        -Making a page;  What I am going through as I continue to create a page every week.
        - Married to the lines;  It may sound like a minor detail,  but a comic is about sequential pictures telling a story,  if they stop and stare at your sweet strokes they aren't reading,  don't worry the art will come,  there is too much story to hold yourself up.
        - Your Story;  the possibilities are endless,  in style and format and content,  you can find an object and draw pictures and write around it,  you could interview a friend and draw a picture of them,   or have the interview in the back round while panels of people strolling past.  a diary in pictures,  or an ant on a paper boat in the rain,  the life of captain amoeba,  endless,  truly endless
        - Inking should be quick and relaxed,  or at least steady and constant,  if you are stopping you have not finished your penciling and are half stepping,  it's an easy trap to fall into
        - Your pencil is your sceptre and sword;  Don't let any thing on anyone come between you and the power of Greyskull.
        -Imitating; There is nothing wrong with imitating here and there.  You love artist 'cause they are good at what they do,  as a beginning independent artist by copying you are just doing your homework
        - Knowing your end result and finding your method to get there
        - Lettering;  exploring the possibilities of an untapped medium
        - Developing what I call the WOW factor;  professional artists are good,  but they also have allot of tricks and little touches to make their work pop.
        - Why aren't there more websites and blogs about making comics;  seriously I choose independent comics as my url,  why wasn't it already taken

       These are just some of the topics I intend to discuss on my blog,  and many more.  And general antics of my life making comics.  If you have any more ideas email me at ajulianboyer@gmail.com

Day one

So I'm in a classic situation for someone producing their own comic,  the crunch.  Of course the crunch is completely self imposed,  but in order for it to work that has to be wiped from your mind.  I am preparing for a convention in Portland.  It is good to sign up for cons,  'cause  you have to do it six to eight months in advance,  and you can wake every morning and remind yourself how much it is going to suck if you spend all this money and time getting ready for something only to be unprepared,  as opposed to how cool it would be, to be proud, confident,  and ready to hustle your ultra rad book.  So how that our minds are right,  we know that every day we could be sliping behind,  we can get down to work.  When writing a comic we have to write ( conceive the story),  story board (picture the story),  lay out (thumbnails or fit the pictures on a page count), then pencil (draw them),  and ink.  Maybe you want a cover to obsess about too.  Sound like allot of work,  it is.  But here is your worst enemy,  getting stuck!!!   O.K.   I'm an independent artist and creator,  I have learned from doing,  I didn't go to art school,  beyond high school,  and watching what my brother was learning,  so I made this up as I went.  That's why I think I have something to share.  It's has been and continues to be a rough and rowdy road.  And you never know where the next obstacle will come from.  You may need something to say to a friend when they are putting demands on your time,  or something to say to yourself when that panel is not coming along the way you want it.  I have always been a perfectionist,  it is one of my worst enemies.  Nobody can read your comic if nobody sees your comic.  That is a constant point to remind yourself,  and take it seriously,  'cause it's true.  Every body's first has problems,  you just need to learn and grow from them.  Well I am going to have to sign off there for today,  time to get ready for work.  Man,  maybe tomorrow my ideas will be a little more clearly lay ed out.