Goggly Gogol? Johnny Zhivago? The Heaven Seventeen?

Hi hi hi there. Here is a fashionable femme fatale wot I drew.

And here's a couple drawings I did for Claire Donner, an all-around pillar of the community. Those few (but distinguished) readers of this blog are directed to check out donnerpartyofone. I recommend perusing her POISONAL pics and story time videos.

I'm working on a new story with a more cartoony style so I've been looking into the work of artists who draw in that mode. My default drawing style is more realistic- cartoon drawing for me is sort of an affect-I sort of bounce between the two. Cartoon stylization does allow more freedom in terms of proportion and it's fun to do.

Kali Fontecchio is a young up-and-coming artist working in a cartoon style very similar to John K.

I've always thought of John K's work as very "guy" so it's interesting to see that aesthetic filtered from a female perspective. Here's her character- Maude Macher and a page from the Maude comic.

Also- check out this sweet Mark Mothersbaugh piece she did.

You can find more on her blog- Old Men With Kazoos and Beating Drums

Bill Williams is one of my favorite cartoon stylists. He drew a comic called Henry Aldrich but my favorite comics of his are the ones he did with John Stanley- Dunc and Loo and Kookie- a wonderful, wonderful comic that takes place in a 50's beatnik setting.

I also really like this Dennis the Menace in Mexico comic drawn by Al Wiseman.

I love the combination of cartoon stylization along with a realistic and detailed setting. This book gives you a tour of Mexico that is on par with Herge's Tin Tin books.

And speaking of Tin Tin...

Here's a really incredible french album I picked up at the thrift store the other day called Yoko Tsuno by Roger Leloup who used to be an assistant to Herge on Tin Tin.

The artwork in this comic is just impeccable. Check it out.

On Tin Tin, Leloup's work can be seen in The Calculus Affair and he also designed the Carreidas in Flight 714.

All the hubbub surrounding the new Bat flick (which personally isn't really my cup of tea) had me going back and looking at the Batman books I grew up with- The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke and Year One- all classics worthy of their reputation. But another Bat book that I think belongs right up there with the others is Mad Love by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm.

The Batman cartoon from the 90's is arguably the definitive version of Batman and this has everything that made the cartoon great but it's a hair more adult. It's lighter in tone than those other Bat books but I think it's every bit as sophisticated and a really great story about a dysfunctional relationship. Here's a page.

And to wrap things up, here's some really wonderful cartoon urban artwork by M Sasek.

There's been a mother moose with a couple babies hanging out in my back yard lately. A moose with her children can be potentially dangerous but if you're not a dumb-ass and don't fuck with them there's no problem. It's been nice cooking on my back porch while these huge moose are munching away right next to me. It kinda' makes me feel at peace with the universe or something...we'll see how long that lasts...