So. Cyberpunk Blues is finally completed and can be found HERE! A poignant tale about the lengths some crazy folks will go to for publicity. With jetpacks and partial nudity.
It only took 3 or 4 tries to figure out how to color the thing, and I'm still not 100% satisfied, but it's done. And I totally ripped it from Casanova, the best comic that no one has ever read. Here's a segment from the second volume, illustrated by the awesome Fabio Moon:
Sadly, I can understand why no one read it. It was put out by Image, a 16-page indie comics, one of Matt Fraction's first published works. But now it's being rereleased through Marvel's Icon imprint, and the first issue came out this week, in glorious full color, as well as HAND-LETTERED.
I picked up my copy today. I love it. Casanova is everything good about comics, lovingly crafted, psychadelic, and explosive. It is beautiful. Definitely in my top 5.
Back to Cyberpunk Blues, I'm glad it's over. I wish I had some more pages to work with, but everyone else was going over their page count, so I'm glad I could reel myself in. I think it's successful as it is.
I can pinpoint my influences easily. A lot of the perspectives were ripped straight from the pencil of Jack Kirby himself, courtesy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, which also taught me a great way to figure out shading, one of my biggest weaknesses. Casanova, as I mentioned, influenced the color, and the use of blacks in the backgrounds too. The original inked pages don't have quite as much black as the actual comic itself. And Scott Pilgrim, too. Gail's design is clearly inspired from Lady Gaga's strange fashion choices, but how I'd like to think Jack Kirby would design her. Vincent is totally one of my Second Life avatars. Tetsuo Coil combines the awesomeness of tesla coils with my favorite Japanese body horror film, Tetsuo the Iron Man.
Music played a big part too, especially since the two characters are in the music business. I had two specific playlists, titled PUNK and GLITCH, that I listened to a lot. Here's a glimpse at some of the tracks that propelled me through this project:
Rancid - Maxwell Murder
The Pixies - Debaser
The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die
KMFDM - Feed Our Fame
Death From Above 1979 - Pull Out
Masafumi Takada - Rave On (from the Killer 7 soundtrack)
Daft Punk - Human After All
And more!
This also put me on a large Pixies and Rancid kick, which was why I listed them first. Ever watch Eraserhead? If not, you may be better off, as David Lynch's first film is a mind-bending, nightmare-inducing beast of a movie, but there's a song in it, sung by a lady in a radiator, about how everything is fine in heaven. And the Pixies did a smashing cover of it, which was introduced to me by my co-worker at G2K, the great Jeremy Massie, creator of the Deadbeat, which you should buy and read. Anyways, the song:
So the summer session is over, and until the Fall semester begins I'll be working my butt off at G2K Games in Kingsport as well as my regular job at the storage buildings. Rest assured, I'm slow-boiling some new comic ideas too.
There's more. A lot more, probably, but no time. I'm getting exhausted. READ MY COMIC FOOLS.
[Brett]