Before and After

Hi there, I'm currently in the stage of OS collection corrections where I'm re-drawing and re-writing some sections of the book which felt like they needed it. Over the last two days I re-drew one of my least favorite two-page sequences from issue 2. (I'm actually re-drawing a lot of issue 2.)

Here's the original version from issue 2:


Here's the re-draw for the collection:


I feel like I can live with it more now. There are quite a few scenes that have been re-drawn and re-written and re-thought. I'm actually enjoying the process, even if looking at the originals feels embarassing. I feel like doing this sort of process is really informative, I can actually remember the spots where I took short cuts four years ago and see the horrible result of those short cuts much more clearly now. That said, I hope to never have to revise this much again for a collection. Hopefully I'm learning my lesson.

I'm currently reading Tezuka's MW, which is pretty awesome. I also picked up a book by Matsumoto (guy who did Tekken Kinkreet) called GOGO Monster which I'm pretty excited about. Here are some pages I really like (note, I did not scan those images below, I swiped them from the "google"). I'm enjoying how quiet a lot of it feels.

I am also excited for BCGF. I will be there, selling comics and prints with the Sundays gang. I'll probably post more info about that closer to the time of the show, which is less than three weeks away. Which seems crazy.

It's Dead Outside (still workin')

Hello, I've been deep in my own private comics land, working on some new pages for the collection and re-drawing some old ones and fixing some script muck-ups. There are about 30 totally new pages and about 40 totally re-written or re-drawn, which is a lot and has felt that way, but it's also been fun. I hope the final product is entertaining and an improvement on the original series.

Anyhow, here are two of the new pages from various points in the book.





I've also started writing down a bunch of ideas for my next project that comes after this book is done. As excited as I am for this project to be finished and available for people who liked it, and hopefully a bunch of new people, I'm really excited to start the next thing. Happy drawing. See you at BCGF, more about that coming soon.

SPX and Dylan Williams

It feels impossible to think about this year's SPX without thinking about Dylan Williams. I knew him less than a lot of people, so it feels almost wrong for me to write anything about his too-early passing. But it also feels wrong to say nothing. I didn't know Dylan outside of conventions and I can't relate the same stories that some of his friends in comics have written about so eloquently. Nonetheless, he stood out as a model to the rest of the medium. He was fiercely devoted to the art of comics in a way that very few people I've ever met have been. And of those people I've met who seem as fiercely devoted to comics as Dylan, many have been influenced and/or directly impacted by him, and would happily admit as much.

In 2007, after I had completed my first two mini-comics, I sent them to Dylan, completely unsolicited, for feedback. By all rights, he should have ignored me, a dumb kid who thought he knew more than he did. But Dylan responded to my feeble submission with words of encouragement and direct, honest, valuable criticism that I hadn't heard in other places. After that he was always friendly and kind to me at comics shows when I saw him. One time at MoCCA he told me that I didn't have to buy his comics, we could trade because he liked my books (a story I've seen repeated several times recently). It was one of the first times I felt like I was a real cartoonist.

For the past few days I've been reading every rememberance of him and thinking about his impact a lot. As a cartoonist who needs to work a full-time job to make ends meet, I think it's incredible and admirable that Dylan was able to commit fully to everything he believed in and loved and make it work as his full-time life. That takes an incredible amount of courage, and I know a lot of my fellow cartoonists have that courage and I admire it completely. The thing about Dylan is that he also encouraged others to make that same leap and have that same faith - because what they were doing mattered. A friend of Dylan's told me that one of his beliefs was "do what you love and make it work." It's a simple but bold statement. It's what I aspire to. Dylan and a lot of cartoonists he published are beacons for me, lighting the way. As my pals Melissa Mendes and Joseph Lambert said, it's an honor to be part of this community. It's the best community. It's incredibly sad that we lost one of our very best far too soon.

My heart goes out to Dylan's friends and family.

If you want to help (and find some amazing books), please buy some Sparkplug Comic Books. There are also awesome art auctions going on at Divine Invasion that will help.





Because it felt like the only thing I could do to try to help, other than buy some Sparkplug Comics, I did a drawing for Divine Invasion which you might be able to bid on at some point. If you bid on it, everything will go to Dylan's loved ones to help with the bills and stuff. Okay. :(

PACC-man and Ghost(watcher)

Hello.
Tomorrow, I'm riding down to PACC - the Philadelphia Alternative Comic Con - with the Secret Acres gang. This is our second year at the show - last year was really fun, hopefully this year's is, too.

I have something newish to take to the show - a cover of Starwatcher by Moebius. A bunch of folks over at the amazing tumblr The Airtight Garage have been posting their covers. It's fun to see. As far as I know, this recent cover series of Starwatcher was started by Brandon Graham, though I think Paul Pope did an earlier cover of one of the Applepie drawings.

Anyway, here's mine. I might take prints of this to PACC or try something wild and try to sell the original there.



Okay, time to pack for PACC. I'll have all the Only Skin issues and maybe some other prints with me, too. And I'm really hoping to snag a copy of Forming. And some other cool stuff. See you there!

New pages for the Collection

I've been having fun working on new pages for the Only Skin collection. I'm going to try to share a little of what I'm working on for the collected edition here, without giving away too many spoilers.


Here's one of them (click to see it bigger):

The Master Plan - Only Skin edits

Here's a book map I made for Only Skin. The pages in red are re-writes, re-draws or flat out new pages. I'm excited about how the book has come together and changed a bit.

Below is the first page of re-draws - the first page of the book (re-draw on the left, original on the right in color).




Okay. Time to get to work.

Covered! And a review. And also a sketch.

Last week, an X-Men cover I... covered was featured on Robert Goodin's awesome Covered Blog. Here's the link. I have a few prints of my version of the cover - email me at sean.p.ford@gmail.com if you're interested. I'm selling them for $5 - because the prints are comic book cover-sized, not gigantic or anything.



Also, Rob Clough posted a review of Only Skin 7 a little while back over at his great High Low blog. Read that here.

Also, I've been trying to get back to the drawing board more after a busy few months of traveling to a bunch of comics shows, family visits and helping friends move. Luckily, I sprained the heck out of my ankle playing basketball and was trapped at home all weekend. It was actually really nice to get back in the flow of drawing again. Here's one of the sketches I did. Hopefully much more drawing to come soon.



Until next time. Happy summer!