When I was in the seventh grade, I read Farewell to Manzanar and was told that it was the only book about the U.S. internment of Japanese-Americans during World War 2. Fifteen years later, I found out that this wasn’t true. There was in fact another book about the internment and one that was published long before Farewell to Manzanar (1946 versus 1973). Moreover, …
The sixth and final installment is up.
(Not like this.) When I was learning to play trumpet as a kid, I was told to never let my cheeks puff out when I blew. But take a look at almost any picture of Dizzy Gillespie. What do you see? Huge, puffed-out cheeks. So watch out for being too precious with the “rules” that you hear. Yes, you should …
The story of Helen Keller is a famous one and one that has been told many times. So if an artist were tasked with telling the tale, there are many possible versions of the story to look to for inspiration or perhaps fall into the trap of imitating. Yet what Joseph Lambert has created is not simply a Classics Illustrated retelling Keller’s autobiography …
There are many different kinds of nib holders out there, especially if you start to get into antique models. But which one you use mostly comes down to personal preference (the two on the right are the ones I use most often). Even so, there are a few things to keep in mind. (I am only considering straight pen holders here, …
Manga in Theory and Practice: the Craft of Creating Manga by Hirohiko Araki The creator of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has written a book which, he claims, reveals the secrets of creating manga. He calls these secrets “the golden way” and his book is a map pointing us along that way. Are you excited to peel back the curtain and see …
When I got into regularly drawing with dip pens, nibs were easy to find at the local art store and I could get them for thirty cents a piece. So it wasn’t too hard to try out different kinds. These days, not all art stores carry nibs and they tend to be around one to three dollars each. They’re still …
A lot of children’s books are pretty creepy when you think about them. Many of them involve child abandonment or characters who seem whimsical on the surface, but reveal themselves to be agents of chaos. Think of The Cat in the Hat. He’s funny, but also incredibly destructive and unsafe. The new graphic novel by Brecht Evens takes the unsettling …
The story is now posted in full on Tumblr.
I haven’t been posting much new comics work. There are two reasons for that. One, I’m working on smaller pieces that I’m submitting to different on-line and literary journals. Most places want previously unpublished work, so that means I can’t post them here or on my tumblr. But sometimes I have a work that doesn’t seem like a good fit anywhere, …