Quick posts of art for a while. Lots of busy work lately and most of it not art. Sometimes that's how it is. When I don't have the time to devote my brain to a fun project I want to create, I revisit things from my past. About twenty years ago I used to ink Dr Strange every month for Marvel comics. It was a lot of work but a great learning experience. I also did finishes on the Ghost Rider story for Marvel Comics Presents every two weeks and penciled Animal Man for Vertigo comics every month. I had no life back then! I always liked the Ghost Rider , but Dr. Strange was the book I would have loved to make. I would think about the character a lot and analyze how he was handled.

My impression was no one looked at it as a book they wanted to stay on. People I penciled had even lifted whole splash pages from other super hero books but changed it enough that the editor didn't notice. Being the guy who was inking it, I noticed it and it was probably the most aggravating part of the job! It was a typical argument that editors always heard from inkers. "I can draw better than that guy!" So I never said anything even though I thought I had a legitimate case. How can this guy be better than me if he had to copy another artist's anatomy, composition, and line-work???

I like the potential for how bizarre and visually psychedelic Dr Strange stories could be if they were handled by Moebius, or Roger Dean, of (what the hell) even me! Instead of some guy whose heart is really in to doing Wolverine, or Spawn, or Superman. Not that they aren't great artists that do that, but there is a subtle difference when the artist is actually inspired to work on the character that will always give it that extra punch.

Inks by me. You might find this very pose in an Image comic book by Mark Silvestri.

An experiment in the old sketch pad.

Truthfully, I haven't thought much about Dr Strange in a long time. I was imagining some strange other dimensional sub-world. Some kind of white globes growing, maybe they are pods or some magical egg that contains either an evil spirit or a good spirit. Also an experiment in my sketch pad with a little ink and minimal gouache.

#Comics #DoctorStrange #surreal #illustration

One of the things I'm doing are these little warm up sketches every day. Caricatures of the presidential candidates for 2016. No favorites for me other than who is fun to draw. So far Bernie Sanders is the funnest to draw for me. Here is a collection so far. I began on Friday, so these are the first three. The Hillary Clinton fits in to my personal "rules" of how I'm going to be working. Pencil, sketchpad, and maybe a tone or ink and white gouache here and there.

I've always liked the grace of some of the animations I occasionally see. I follow a few animators on Instagram and it's so simple looking. I know that's the trick, it appears simple but it's not easy to do. Throwing abandon to the coffee spirits, I began toying around with the style in my sketchpad at a cool little coffee shop on West Broadway and Canal St on the edge of SoHo. They don't have a bathroom for customers so I never stay for more than one cup of coffee! It's small and intimate and I always hear interesting conversations when I'm there.

I started with a circle or oval for the head. That is all I got. I have no philosophy or direction behind it other than trying to be aware that I'm not breaking the spaces up too evenly. I never took a class on it, but I know what I like when I see it.

Drawing in my sketch pad at a bar. Not the greatest lighting conditions. I'll call him "Jimmy"... because that was his name. He owns a bar. I was in a different bar when I drew this. I'm working on a project with a friend at The Week Magazine. Ii like to collaborate with people. New York is full of dreamers. I've met them since the first time I set foot here. I don't think they are any different than the dreamers I've met in other places but there seems to be a lot more of them here. The range of the dreams is long too. From main stream-lets-take-over-the-world!!! to obscure meteorite orbiting a small-barely-a-planet in a tiny galaxy in a remote corner of the universe dreams.

I used to get bogged down in other people's dreams. I have a friend, Steve, who put it in perspective. Something like, "why am I spending so much energy and time working on other people's dreams when I could blow all that time and energy on my own projects??" Ultimately that is more satisfying and rewarding. So I collaborate on projects I like. Of course if there is a paycheck involved, I'll do that too! Rent is pretty over the top in NYC!