Commencing in January 2003, I (FINALLY!) began doing the art for this original 104-page graphic novel from publisher AiT/PlanetLar. Written by Matt Fraction (Rex Mantooth), it's a man-movie in the James Coburn-Robert Mitchum-Lee Marvin mold. Drink whiskey when you read it, you fuck.

The horse shot above (as well as the diner scene further down this page) were created for inclusion in a Comics Art show at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, an excellent cultural arts museum. "Widescreen" the portion of the exhibit in which my pieces were featured, was curated by David Robson. The show ran from July 26 through October 13, 2002 and featured lots of cool stuff from many different comics artists, covering virtually every style or genre imaginable. The pieces I did are among several which were blown up to huge, wall-filling proportions.

Here's a LINK to a page on Larry Young's website with pics of the opening night gala for the show. You can get a glimpse of me and Lar in front of some of these pieces in their full glory.

Below are some preliminary roughs I did, working up the style I wanted to employ for this particular project.

I did this piece as a birthday present for Matt in 2001 when Larry presented me with the script. Back then I actually thought I was going to have drawn the whole book by summer 2002. HA!

This is an experiment in adding tone in Photoshop, using eraser to create areas of white.

Above and below are prelim roughs I did for the Yerba Buena show. These and the finals were toned in Photoshop. On the horse shot up top, I altered the coloring by removing the black channel after copying it into the C, M, & Y channels as dark brown. I like the effect, but it's more time consuming than I want the process to be for this. Also, as someone who collects art, I am always aware of what collectors want, and many people would be bummed that the tones aren't part of the actual art. That concern will be met with the semi-painted method further down the page.

Below is the other final piece in the Yerba Buena show. It's like 10 feet high or something!

Below are the three stages of the process I chose to use for the final artwork. First I draw on parchment paper or similar, using a sharpie or other permanent marker. Then brush on white acrylic paint for the highlights. Then scan as grayscale. Then convert to CMYK in Photoshop and alter with the Hue/Saturation option (under Image:Adjust). I like the reddish brown tint of the final. I have been thinking for a while to do the book in brown ink and this will meet that need, as well as my desire to do some painting type work, which I miss.

Below are clickable thumbnails for a full figure version done in the same style as the head shots above. This is the main character of the story, the titular Last of the Independents, Cole Caudle. He smokes Camel unfiltered.

CLICK HERE TO SEE (AND BUY) THE ORIGINAL ART FROM THE BOOK.

CLICK HERE to download a 14 page preview of the book in pdf form.

CLICK HERE to check out some cool LOTI shirts available mid-July, 2003.