Christmas Eve Triple Feature: Blankets

Baby, It's Cold Outside....

Wrap Up Tight With

Brrrrrrr! A cold home life and a cold Midwestern Winter set the stage for this deep and introspective tale of religion, redemption, acceptance, and finding a place in the world.

The comic has become a classic, and I highly recommend getting a copy for your bookshelf. It can be bought at this link but until your holiday money arrives it can be read free at Read Graphic Novels Online. I'll quote those good folks in synopsizing the story:

" In this autobiographical work, Thompson recalls his childhood, his coming-of-age stage, and his first love. In this book, Thompson also focuses on his spiritual journey, how growing up in an Evangelical Christian family has profoundly affected his life.

In this marvelous illustrated memoir, Thompson takes readers into his rather rough childhood: he always became the target of the bullies at school, his inconsiderate teachers, his relationship with his little brother Phil, and how he found their passion in drawings and art. In the later stage of his teenage years, Thompson met a girl who brightened up his seemingly gloomy life. It was his first love, Raina. Also around that period, Thompson faced an inner battle as he sometimes felt his passion in making illustrations somehow contradicted the Christian values he got from his devoted Christian parents."

The Rating

Off. The. Charts.

The Raves

This. Comic. Is. Gorgeous.

I could look at this thing all day. Really, I could.

But after the visual treat, you begin to see the beauty of the psychological forces involved in the storytelling. This is a story of loneliness and acceptance. Setting most of it in the bleak midwinter of the American Midwest only intensifies the theme. The difference between being outcast and finding those you belong with is as stark as stepping inside out of the bitter chill. And learning who you truly are is as subtle and as freeing as the melting of the ice in Spring. Anyone from the Midwest (and, originally, I am) will understand. For those of you who are not, I'll sum up: the cold of the winter will kill. So will the cold of rejection and dismissal. Warmth and acceptance will save your life.

This story explores both the pleasure and the pain of the cold, both the joy and the agony of coming of age and becoming who we need to be.

This story  is complicated all the more by a rigid and brittle type of christianity that demands conformity from its followers. Being alive is practically impossible, and the unhealthy nature of a belief that cannot bend is explored with compassion and with clarity in this work. In equal parts deeply moving, oddly funny and affirming, 'Blankets' will warm your heart and remind you that the place where you belong is out there, but it's up to you to decide you need to look. This is a story that does the most difficult thing in the world: it takes innocuous experiences of a pedestrian upbringing and shows the depths of pain and the heights of ecstasy to which they can deliver us. The cruel word of a teacher can crush us. The smile of a friend can send us soaring. And that is what it means to be truly and fully human.

If you've ever been lonely, if you've ever been an outcast, this is a story for you. There is understanding in these pages. There is redemption. More importantly, there is perspective. And we all come out the better for reading it.

The Revue

Light the fire. Wrap a quilt around you. Cuddle up against the cold and read. Let the pages sing to you.

Christmas Eve Triple Feature: A Christmas Carol

For many years, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has been considered not only one of the classic Christmas books but also one of the seminal books in literature. This classic work had been adapted into every media imaginable. 

Now one of the biggest Comic book publishing companies in Britain, Markosia, published a graphic adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Dickens’s story was rewritten by Stephen L. Stern (known for his Beowulf Graphic Novel) and illustrated by artist Douglas A. Sirois. The collaboration between Stern and Sirois is fairly successful in bringing the classic to life. 

The Rating

A pleasant little Holiday ditty.

 The Raves

The tale, of course, is classic, and it isn't done any harm in this faithful adaptation. (Well, maybe a little harm. Maybe my brain kept inserting the music and voice overs from The Muppet Christmas Carol...)

 The capturing of the 1860s is well done, fashions nicely displayed. 

And the textures and brushes used in this work are really gorgeous. The whole thing is pulled together with a sooty, sepia-toned color scheme that fits the material rather well.

The Razzes

So...this story is done with some form of 3d character manipulation program and the output is then put through a number of filters and worked over. It's not a bad artistic method, in fact some great work has been turned out in just this way, like Romantically Apocalyptic and Supergirl.
But here's the thing: when you do it, pay. Attention. To. The. Details.
Don't leave figures looking stiff.

Don't leave characters in akward and physically difficult poses. 

Don't ignore the borders around your characters and leave them look like badly pasted cardboard cutouts in the scene. 

Watch your expressions and, if the 3d render doesn't do a very good job, fix it by hand. Otherwise you end up with a Ghost of Christmas Present with an expression that intimates the fact that he'd rather like to return to his pre-christian Nordic roots and wind Scrooge's entrails around a sacred tree...

And for the love of all gods bright and dark, if you're looking to massage 3d rendered image and make them look like paintings, actually massage the things. Don't just run them through the render engines. You need to change the shading and lighting by hand, remove the overly strong highlights that 3d rendering tends to create and in general spruce things up.

Forget these important details and you end up with awkward scenes as below, which look like a set of shop-window mannequins aping their betters and failing at it. 

And I just wrote 'aping their betters'. Oh dear. No more Dickens for me! 

The Revue

A nice little treat for the holidays. 

Christmas Eve Triple Feature:Thistil Mistil Kistil

From The Frozen North
Comes A Tale...

Be warned. The gods live. And they scheme. Beware of snaring yourself in their designs.
Here's a tale of one boy who did. It is the tale of

In the Far North, they tell tales of warrior gods and warrior men. And nobody tells them better than Sarah Schanze in Thistil Mistil Kistl, the tale of an accidental quest, a hero searching for the gift and a trickster's wily ways. Come and hear the tale of the North.

 The Rating

An adventure without end.

The Raves

To begin with, I'll tell you how good this is: I sat still enough for long enough that I got an ache all the way up my spine.

That takes some serious sitting.

But this page should sum up the reasons well.

This story gorgeously balances stylization and craftsmanship in its art, giving the reader the feel of reading runes without sacrificing anatomy or giving any sense of artistic difficulty. The entire world is rendered with skill and wit as our young hero attempts to serve his gods and earn his place in the paradise of Valhalla, helped(?) by the Sly One, Loki. The texturing in these pages lends these pages a rich tangibility, while the color scheme reminiscent of Cartoon Saloon work (creators of the movies Song Of The Sea and Secret Of Kells) bring this ancient world to vibrant and bustling life. And at all times there is a faint hint of runes and patterns just out of sight, hinting at the otherworld a breath from ours.

The story matches the art exactly. While it is intimately tied up in the mythos of Scandanavia, this is no dusty tome. Our young hero Coal is a well rounded character, as is each of his companions. But Sarah outdoes herself in the personality she lends the old gods. She brings each of them sharply and brightly alive, lending them wonderfully dynamic personalities without once losing sight of their original natures in the Eddas. For instance, Loki is cocksure, playful, tricksome and juuuuust a bit of a showoff....juuuust a bit....

 but he's also a dynamic character with a deep love of family and a complex thought process going on behind his smile in this tale. He's allowed to have moods, ideas, and feelings that make him into a person as well as a god.

The story shows the same tact in exploring the interaction between cultures as the Old Religion meets Christianity and Moors meet Danes. It all works in this story because each character is truly a person in their own right, all worked together with impeccably brisk plotting, a compassionate wit, and a nice thread of humor.

And again, the art's stunning. This piece is worthy of animation!

 The Revue

A must read. Curl up with it when the snow falls.

Saturday Revue December 23: Robo Hole

 Brace Yourselves!

Your Life Is Being INVADED By

Black holes. Hyper-evolved technology. Asteroids destroying your yard.

An Algebra test at 9 in the morning to top it off. 

Brace yourselves, you are now entering the Robo Hole. Jump in with your guide, the creator Trusty Shamrock.

The Rating

The Raves

A wonderfully sharp and snarky tone keeps this classic 'alien in my back yard' storyline moving at a good clip, the wheels liberally greased in sarcasm.  This clever and quirky tale takes the idea of E.T. in a far less saccharine direction, replacing adorable grade school characters with jaded middle grade kids and all that comes with it: the angst, the arguments, the snide comments and the wit. The color palette matches the slightly sour mood of all early teenagers as they navigate the rocky road to adulthood, with some very interesting cybernetic twists and alien-induced surprises along the way. Like Stranger Things? Add a fourteen year old sister who's not amused and you've got Parsnip, our main female protagonist.

There's a good sense of world building in this story, and the character design is consistently witty and distinctive.  As the story continues, the learning curve on the art really shows, and the backgrounds on the newest pages are especially gorgeous. I've been more and more impressed by the creator's grasp of texture and lighting in the natural world.  The scene building is both well done and witty. 

The Razzes

Now that we've talked about how lovely the static scenes are, let's talk about human form and movement. It needs a little work. When standing still Parsnip and her gang look pretty good

 But when there's motion, things start to get a little stiff. There's some serious work to be done in foreshortening and in facial structure.
Let's begin with facial structure in profile and at an angle. The human face IS HARD, mainly because we're programmed to read tiny differences in human faces and therefore any minor issue in the face makes our brains go 'wait...no no no not good'. This is a hellish bane to artists.  But there's specific things that can be done to improve.
DragoArt does a wonderful full  tutorial on the subject of the human face, but the basics are shown in a single image:

Another good point to remember is:

Basically, the face is not flat. Unfortunately the creator has a tendency to draw it as if it is, which results in this uncomfortably wrong look.

 I reccomend keeping a copy of a really reliable artist's diagram for the human face and referencing it regularly until the problem is solved. Here's a good one from an old art book.

Another good resource is "Headshots" by Christine Welman a.k.a Errant Crow • Blog/Website (www.errantcrow.deviantart.com)

Now, for the movement problem. There are very few straight lines in the human body, so drawing a figure with straight lines isn't going to help the human eye. Take this piece for example. Without the s-curve to the spine, the body seems stiff and unreal. I recommend trying the Line Of Action method to improve fluidity.

Here's some ideas (MC's note: I got these a few years ago from a friend, if you know the artist feel free to comment with credit dear readers.)

 The Revue

Grab your tunes, turn up the volume and sit down  on Saturday morning with your cheerios and Robo Hole. Give yourself a treat.

Closed For Rennovation. Doors Re-Open In The Winter!

A great deal is going on in the lives of your MC's at the moment. So it's adieu for now dear readers, but not goodbye; we'll begin our reveues anew when the snow flies. See you then!