July 30th 09

One day you wake up and realize that the most important thing in life is following your dreams. You make rash decisions, burn bridges, and run headlong into what other people would consider the dumbest possible outcome they could think of, and it's freaking fantastic.

I feel more myself now than I have in years. It's like waking up from a coma and realizing everything that came before was a dream. Your path is clearer, mind sharper, and heart lighter than it's been in a long time. It's hard knowing that I'm happy and I'm gonna get my nuts kicked in for it because the world around me does not understand it.

Art wise, I'm still hammering Lina's world into something manageable that I can get to drawing, but I'm working on some test bed pages to try out the style & look of the world to see if it's anything like I want it to be. You folks will see some of that coming down the pike in the near future.

In the meantime, as stated in a previous blog, here is a Wonder Woman piece I did for a friend. You can click on it to go to the page to see a full view of the piece since it is pretty big. More coming in the near future.

Song of the Day: Lily Allen - The Fear

July 17: HBP & concept babbling

G'day boys & girls,
Welcome to another horrible disjointed babbling session.

Last night, I went and saw the new Harry Potter flick. Visually, it was a feast and they did a great job of making it into something that grabbed the attention of the audience. Obviously, I miss a lot of what was cut out of the movie & the pacing seemed strange because of it, but I can see why they did what they did.

To put it succinctly, I will just use a quote my friend, Larry, said as we were leaving the theater.
"It was like reading every third page of the book."

I loved seeing Draco as someone who seemed genuinely menacing and really did feel for the character by the time you get to the end of the movie. Luna was amazing and that lion headress rocked. Overall, it sort of feels like a half-remembered dream. I'll have to see it again before I really know how I feel about it, but I know, either way, I did like the movie a lot.

I'm still pounding out the details on the world & story that I want to work on right now, but it's coming along. I was sketching the main character today and had one of those rare "Eureka!" moments that really cemented a lot of the ideas I was working on. Lina is one of the characters I've been casually playing with for awhile and it was great to really see the character come together for the first time. I should be starting on the test pages tonight or tomorrow, so there will be stuff to see from that online in the near future. Who knows what changes will be made from there, but, if nothing else, at least I'll have some new sequential pages online for folks to check out.

The more I work on stuff now the more I find I am drawn to drawing sci-fi books, which is miles from what I thought I would be into drawing. Part of the fun of this concept is that it is a story in a real sci-fi world. I will get to draw flying cars, neon-cityscapes, gun play, and hot women kicking ass. Really, at the end of the day, what more can you ask for?

In other art related news, I asked some folks I know stuff they want to see me draw and will be hammering those out now as well, probably as warm up sketches over the next week or so.

Anyway, I think I'm gonna grab a soda & get back to drawing.

Till Next Time,
Anthony Harris

July 14: Bad artist babbling

You know, when faced with an endless sea of options as to what to draw and what to do to take the steps necessary to nail down some intangible path towards making your life what it is you've always wanted, one, and by one I, of course, mean me, is generally left huddled up in the fetal position in a corner somewhere, weeping softly into a pile of tarnished bristol board , futilely praying that your tears will reveal a pattern on the page that may give you some idea what the hell to do with yourself.

It's harder than I thought trying to come to grips with the idea that the possibilities are endless, my work is only limited by my imagination. The work one can do in the comics medium isn't limited by budget or actors. I can set a scene *anywhere* and can do *anything.* That sort of freedom is mind-boggling and is, for lack of a better term or a willingness to admit to already being considered it, making me crazy. When you sit down to create something, the process is somewhat aleatoric and can be either a masterpiece or self-aggrandizing fluff that forces onlookers to jab nearby objects into their frontal lobe to avoid being forced to view it again.

This is why I am probably going to be a plug & play penciller for awhile. I'm great with coming up with scenes or characters, plotting is fun and interesting, but sit me down to create a complete work and I can't seem to do it. The ideas are plentiful, but I am not a writer. Creating realised worlds to inhabit and a story worth following is something I am not good enough to do at this point. This fact makes me sad, since it doesn't seem the rest of the comic industry is very interested in the kinds of stories I want to tell.

I am a fairly typical guy when it comes to this stuff. I like hot chicks & men dripping with machismo. I like trenchcoats & purple prose. I adore cyberpunk and cityscapes that go on for days. I swoon over kung fu, gunplay, fully realised violence and wanton destruction. These disparate elements are not all very good at meshing together in my brain in anything resembling a coherant story structure. I have 3 pretty well realised concepts that I would love to working on at this moment, but instead I am sitting here , babbling the madness into the internet, trying to get a handle on my own sanity through forcing thoughts into sentences that others can read and understand. This is the blog version of babbling about your problems to friends, not so much so that they can respond or help in any way, but just so that you've had a chance to say the things on your mind and really get a handle on your problems.

I'm going to go get something to drink and sit down to draw now. Hopefully, I'll have something to scan & get online to show folks in time for the podcast tonight. I'm getting tired of becoming a ghost on my own damn show.