“TEMPS” TAKE THE STAGE

Below are some pictures of progress on my diorama of the Temptations, now that I’ve completed the bandstand. Since the entire piece, when broken down into its individual parts, has to fit onto pages in FOLKTALES, the trick has been to keep everything properly proportioned to meet the restrictions of a 7X9.5 page. As confounding as that task has been, I’m finding the challenge to be extremely satisifying. More satisfying, though, is the eeriness created by the diorama. I’m not sure that translates into the pictures as evidently as it does in real life, but the happy, pastel colors and the general joyfulness of the scene has a ghostly quality to it. One of the things that attracts me to pop music of the 50’s and early/mid 60’s is its concentration on harmony and slick pop song lyrics that are fairly simplistic rather than emphasizing depth and profound meaning. Doo-Wop music has the same allure for me: I think of it as a tonic, but that simplicity and bubble-gum joy ocassionally leaves me baffled that there was ever really a time when things were so simple and optimistic. That’s what makes it ghostly: That loss of innocence that was never really there to begin with – no more than Norman Rockwell’s deptictions of America were a complete document of the generation from which he came. That ghost, you might say, is largely what keeps me searching through the complicated and nuanced layers of the American myth. Or maybe it’s just my imagination running away with me. Anyway, now to complete the backdrop and enthusiastic fans. Take a look:

“ABANDONED CARS” PAPERBACK BACK COVERS

Below are the back covers for the paperback version of Abandoned Cars:

Below is the influence for these back covers – a reprint of an old Mr. Monster’s True Crime advertisement from the 1950’s:

JASON HAYWOOD CD COVER

This was one of those great freelance jobs that comes along once in awhile. Jason contacted me directly, after reading Abandoned Cars, and asked if I’d be interested in illustrating and designing his new upcoming CD. Jason’s a great Canadian singer/songwriter who’s music would be considered American Roots music, I guess – by that I mean it’s very steeped in traditional country music, without any of the psuedo-country elements that seem to fall under the category of “contemporary country music”. Jason and I also share a similar interest in exploring the Great American Mythological Drama, each in our own way. The best way to describe it is to give you a sample of Jason’s songs: go to his website at www.jasonhaywood.com or check out his last album on Itunes or at http://www.haysalerecords.com/store/store.php

This was the first time a client specifically asked that I use a character from one of my graphic stories: In this case, the freight hopper (i.e.:Me, at the age of twenty-four) in the SPIRIT trilogy. After getting to know his music, I quickly became a fan, and the rest of the project went well enough to establish the makings of a friendship between us. I highly encourage you to check out Jason’s new album, “A Thousand Miles Since Yesterday”. It’s very solid.

“ABANDONED CARS” PAPERBACK COVERS

Below are the two covers that’ll be used for the paperback version of Abandoned Cars, which will be released in April. The intention behind having two different covers is to give them the feel of two different issues of a fictitious obscure Golden Era comic book. I’ve gone further in that direction by distressing the images to make them look like tattered old copies. Special thanks to my friend and art director at the Riverfront Times, Tom Carlson,  for showing me some techniques to accomplish the distressed look.

Here’s cover #1:

Below is cover #2:

THE “CLASSIC FIVE”

Below are a few pictures of the complete classic five Temptations miniatures that’ll be included among the cut-outs in FOLKTALES. Now to produce the rest of the diorama – the background setting, stage, screaming fans, etc (see last post)…

And below are the individual characters, starting with Melvin Franklin…

Eddie Kendricks…

and Paul Williams…

“THE TEMPTATIONS” CUT-OUT FOR “FOLKTALES”

In ABANDONED CARS, I produced a series of “collectible cut-outs” seperating several of the graphic short stories (see the ABANDONED CARS section of this weblog). For FOLKTALES, I intend to produce a couple dioramas, the first of which is my homage to the great Temptations, my favorite Motown male vocal group. My dioramic depiction features the “classic five”Temps – David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin, Otis Williams, and Paul Williams (and back when Ruffin, Franklin, and Otis Williams still “conked” their hair – a painful, scalp-burning method of straightening hair that African-American men used in order to sculpt their hair into a pompadour. Malcolm X describes the process very thoroughly in his autobiography). I’ve always been a big fan of the playful and intricate cut-out dioramic scenes created by Red Grooms, so I can’t say this is entirely an original idea; the development of the free-standing cut-outs from Abandoned Cars to dioramic scenes seemed like a natural evolution. It is, in fact, something I’ve wanted to try for a long time. So far I have finished the cut-out of David Ruffin, one of my favorite soul singers of all time, who wasn’t always the Temptation’s frontman, but very often was. I also have finished Otis Williams. Below are the cut-outs in both 2 and 3-D (both seperately and together). But first, I want to introduce you – for those who haven’t a reference point for the Temptations – to the Temptations in action, circa mid 1960’s. In my opinion, never a cooler vocal group ever existed – and they were never cooler than when David Ruffin was their frontman.

Here are the cut-outs I’ve produced so far, starting with David Ruffin in 3-D:

Here’s Ruffin in 2-D:

Here’s Otis Williams in 3-D

…Otis in 2-D:

…and Ruffin and Williams together in 3-D:

Below is the concept sketch depicting how the diorama should generally look when it’s complete. I expect that it’ll change and become more refined as I progress, but this is a fairly useful place-holder:

I couldn’t resist ending this entry with another clip of the Temptations in action. In this case, they perform two songs – the first of which is “The Best Things in Life Are Free”, which isn’t one of their best, but is cool just to see how the Temptations harmonized and danced in sync. The second song is “Wish It Would Rain”, which IS one of my favorites in their repetoire. Please stick it out through the first song to catch Ruffin in all of his thick-rimmed-spectacle & high-Pomp’d glory. It’s worth it.

Below is the sketchbook page depictingthe origins of the whole idea of using the Temptations. Most things seem to begin by doodling in the sketchbook:

…and below is another sketchbook doodle involving a Motown-inspired concept for FOLKTALES. Not sure in what capacity, though. Maybe seperating stories? It all seems to be about exploring ways to include the influence of music into the graphic stories…

ST LOUIS INT’L FILM FEST 2009

Continuing with the theme of 1950’s B sci-fi movies first introduced earlier in the summer with the St Louis Filmmakers Showcase, here the UFO-like movie camera lands in presumably a field covered in snow. Meanwhile, some locals investigate matters. I couldn’t help breaking from the 50’s genre in one way: The boy wearing the Darth Vader mask. I couldn’t help myself. I guess he’s kind of a portrait of the artist at the age of seven. And the guy standing next to the little boy looks a lot like my grandpa Bert, who did everything he could to help me construct and engineer a time machine, but it never really worked very well.

So now that these commercial projects are completed, I can finally get back to comics….and thank God for that.

BEST OF ST LOUIS, “ARTS” REVISITED

Here’s the revised version of Arts & Entertainment. The art director decided – quite rightly – that the borders and frames of this piece needed to be more consistent with the other illustrations in the series. Hence the new hand-drawn typography and banner. I decided to leave the rest of the illustration frameless to emphasize the “vastness of space”, etc. I hope this’ll be the last time I upload a picture in this series. The love affair is over; the feeling’s gone. C’est la vie. Ooo-wa…ooo-wa…

BEST OF ST LOUIS, “BARS & CLUBS” REVISITED

Think you already saw a Bars & Clubs illustration for the series? You’re right: It was Santa Claus getting a knee in the gut in the parking lot of a strip club. The client decided to use that for a different purpose, so I had to come up with a revised illustration. This new idea came to me in a dream, actually. Anyway, this is the last in the series.

BEST OF ST LOUIS, “GOODS & SERVICES”

The client decided to go with colorized section seperators for this eight section project. All of the previous illustrations in this series are now in color, as well. The influence for this image came from, yet again, an old Dick Tracy newspaper daily form the 1930’s.