marco polo

When I was in art school I had a project which was basically a multimedia fanfic of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. Here are some collage comics of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan having nonsensical philosophical conversations.

Marco Polo: 'Time Flies'

(reverse of previous illustration)
Kublai Khan: 'Yes, but what does it mean?'

Kublai Khan: 'Don't you ever do anything properly?'
Marco Polo: 'What is "properly"?'

Marco Polo: 'Cities look different from outside...'
Kublai Khan: 'Tall?'

drive by comic

the city and the river

One of the first things you learn in history class is that cities usually grow out of rivers by necessity. In time the identity of the city and its river become inextricable. The publisher Thames and Hudson chose its name to evoke the strength and relationship of two of the world's greatest cities. 

Pentel sepia brush pen and washi tape in Muji notebook

 One of my favourite songs is The City and the River by The Rescues - history sung as a beautiful but tragic love story.

Staedler 2B clutch pencil in Fabriano artist's journal

I was walking around St. Paul's Cathedral and saw that it was low tide--a drastic difference, along the Thames! I went down to the rubbly shoreline and sat on a damp rock to draw. It was chilly but not really cold, and the sun came in and out. There was a tour that stopped by briefly, just long enough for me to learn that all the oyster shell fragments I saw lying around were actually discarded from the markets in older times, before the Victorians cleaned up the place. No oysters grow in the Thames, sadly. (Even if they did, I wouldn't want to eat them.)

ps. In related news, I have started a photo blog called London Is My Boyfriend. There may also be drawings in its future.

Noodler's doodles

Trying out different nibs with Noodler's Eternal Luxury Blue, a 'bulletproof' ink with a curious composition. So far it's best with Daler-Rowney Sketch, Cass Art Heavyweight Cartridge, and an old D-R 150gsm sketchbook of mine. This is D-R Heavyweight, at 220gsm, and the ink tends to feather and fade as it dries. An interesting effect, but better for doodles and sketches, not for planned projects like comics.

Collage journal: Smile!

This is for my friends who are seriously considering making t-shirts that say 'THIS -IS- MY HAPPY FACE'. No one owns your face or your feelings except you, and I love you whatever mood you're in.

New Year's resolution

Why feel guilty about my pleasures?

'An it harm none, do as thou wilt.'

Chinese gouache and opaque markers in handmade paper journal.

drive by sketches, colour

A little cleanup, and more legible captions, and these could make decent postcards--maybe for people who actually live here. London is bigger than its landmarks, and this looks more like home than a tourist attraction.

blast from future past: Treasure Planet

Treasure Planet was in 2002, for goodness' sake, and I still can't get over James Pleiades Hawkins and his 90s hairdo and ridiculous face.

I kind of want to draw his adventures at space academy. Scratch that, I really want to draw his adventures at space academy. He'd fall in with a lovable bunch of misfits, only a few humans but mostly alien races, and they'd get far better results than any of the legacy kids, and at the end of the third year there is an attempted pirate takeover and they foil it, and that's pretty much their graduation.

Yes, I have put too much thought into this. That's why it would be amazing.

moleskine sketches

From some pictures I took of Bergdorf's windows when I was in NYC a few years ago.

A little sketch for the merboy story. It is driving me nuts that I still don't have a name for this thing.

the other green-eyed monster

Feeling frustrated this week. Collage journal.

Hulk from Jung-Geon Yoon's cover of Avengers World #2, cut out from Previews Magazine. No actual comics were harmed in the making of this image. Winsor & Newton inks and watercolours with Sharpie on a handmade paper journal my friend Jamie gave me.