Monday, December 28, 2009

Ryan Carpentier: Illustrator

CCU has got talent. New Talent.

Ryan Carpentier:
Illustrator/Cartoonist




 Ryan Carpentier recently graduated from the
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
 with an illustration major. His style is very cartoony
and he always attempts
to add humor to his imagery when possible.



His work has been published in magazines around the northern Wisconsin area and displayed at local businesses. Images of Ryan's work can be viewed at his website http://www.ryancarpentier.com/.
After spending a year and half as an illustrator with
 Volume One magazine, which covers
Wisconsin culture and entertainment,
he is now looking to get his work out for larger audiences.


With a desire to create a funny comic strip,
Ryan has been developing the cartoon known as "Alien and Dog."
Always a sci-fi fan (Trekkie alert) and especially a lover of canines
(his dog Penny is always a source of material for his cartoons),
he decided to merge the two affections into a cartoon
that puts a different spin on the old 'owner and his pet' story.

ALIEN and DOG






With the cartoon strip still in it's infancy,
Ryan definitely loves drawing "Alien and Dog"
and can't wait to continue with the two wacky characters
on his blog at


Thanks Ryan.
We're gonna keep an eye out for those two
 and your illustrations. CCU hopes you'll come back
and show off Alien and Dog as it progresses.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

STEVERINO Goes Green


Steve-o here back this week to bring you
the tale of the new Green Lantern of space sector 2814.

GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD DAWN
Book 1 of 6, Dec 1989
Published by DC Comics


"The Sign"  (I guess that's this chapters title.
It shows up on the last page along with the credits)
 Written by: Jim Owsley/M.D.Bright    Inks: Romeo Tanghal
lettering: Al DeGuzman
Yawn. This is said to be essential reading and
THE series to read about GL in Post-Crisis continuity.
OK, but a whole book showing Hal Jordan's dad Lt. Martin H. Jordan
crash and die in front of his two sons (Jack) and a woman I assume
is his wife as well as his Ferris Aircraft co-workers
 and then follows Hal while he self-destructs?
Chapter one of six shows us 23 pages of a story that could have
taken five or six pages to tell.


This is the best page in the book.
It features a dying Abin Sur, the Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814
only we are not told his full name or why he crashed.
I can deal with that but the cool red alien passing
the ring and lantern on gets two pages.Two.


I think the above page is supposed to be the show stopper.
It's not. Like the story it's dull and not well done.
This happened alot in the Eighties.


You see. He almost gives a complete summary
of this comic in three panels. Chapter one of six did
do its job. I do want to read on and see where
Emerald Dawn goes from here.
Hopefully, up.
And now back to the fun.
 How about a fan made GL video?



How about an Emerald Dawn action figure?

 
Ring?


Cookie?


OK. I'll move on.
If I do pull books two thru six out of
The Big Box I'll probably read them too.
How else will I know what happens?

Monday, December 21, 2009

Mark D. Velard: Refractor Industries

CCU brings you:

Mark D.Velard
who brings you:

What can I say. I saw Mark's work on ComicSpace.com
and was blown away.
I've been around long enough to know raw talent
when I see it. This kid has it. Where and how did he tap into it?
I'll let him tell us. Go Mark.

Alright, so here it goes….

Its an honor to be a featured artist here on Comic Creators United, so thank you Wit for having me! Wit asked me, for this thing, to write a bio of myself, and the ol’ “got born, grew-up, started drawing comics and so here I am” routine won’t cut it.
So here’s some background.
Like everyone else who draws comics, I’ll tell you I’ve been drawing ever since I grew out of the fetal stage of life, and have been ever since those glorious fetal days. I drew comics through-out high school, usually exaggerated stories of my friends and I, or caricature of the moronic teachers I had. I’m a huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes, and of course owned every book; even a signed copy of “Homicidal Jungle Cat,” (which I have a second, fairly mangled copy of I bought specifically for reading purposes). C&H is really how it all started for me. My love for Calvin and Hobbes was so great that I had decided at the age of 13 that that was it, what I wanted to do: draw a syndicated newspaper comic strip. So, after high school I started work on a webcomic called “Jayhoo and Jawhoo,” while I attended a community college; where after two years I graduated from with an associates in fine art (which, I always say, I could probably eat and it wouldn’t make a difference). After that, I decided “Eff School” and that I’d teach myself everything I need to know. Following “Jay and Jaw” (I did it for 3 years, and I have I would guess a little over a hundred strips) which admittedly was a completely juvenile comic; I started a new webcomic entitled “The White Hot Lightning Masters (Of Love),” which was absurd, and immature. This strip I got published in about 15 college newspaper all over the country in addition to on the web,
and felt pretty good about its run.


While I was doing all of my White Hot Love, I had decided that breaking into the syndicated comics business was damn near impossible. And so I became disillusioned with the whole prospect, and looked to move-on. That’s when a friend of mine introduced me to a comic called
 “Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron,” by Daniel Clowes,
and that changed my entire view of comics.




With Future Space, I tried to do, what I will always try to do, which is mix genres, and use satire, absurdity and any other useful storytelling devices to make a political or social commentary. For example: zombies. The main reason I enjoy zombie flicks, is, because of the social commentary. George A. Romero is the best at this, because, throughout the movie you have to ask: WHO are the zombies? Who are the zombies in our culture, and why is everyone becoming one. Anyway, I’m getting off track..
 uh, what am I talking about?

Right, lately I’ve been fascinated with the storytelling of early 80’s DOS based adventure video games, such as ”Space Quest” (which is my favorite game ever by the way). I tried to actually mix-in some of the feel of that game into Future Space, and I will probably come back to that kind of fun adventure qualities later on. Another goal of mine in comics is to make comics that feel as fluid as movies, and actually feel like movies in how they’re framed and so on, but, wouldn’t work as movies. I think it would be neat to turn it around and make comics that emulate movies, but that are impossible to convert into movies, in terms of style and pace and lighting and stuff like that (This is what I try to do in Bang Pong Pow). I’d also like experiment with advertising, like Chris Ware does in his Jimmy Corrigan comic, in which you’ll have a sensational advert for the comic, as part of the comic you are currently reading. Anyway, I’ll wrap it up.














Next-up, I’ll be featuring the first pages of a new comic on my website RefractorIND.com that I’m working on, entitled “Bang! Pong! Pow!,” in January. This comic will run about 12 pages, in regular comic book dimensions, with a lot of dialogue and character development (not to mention suspense, action, terror, high octane antics, ultra mega violence and curse words!). It will be an action/crime comic about an entire world filled with anthropomorphic ping pong balls, and the weird antics you might not expect (or perhaps completely typical behavior you would expect from an entire world of humanistic ping pong people: I don’t know I guess).


I think that’s pretty much it. My name is Mark D. Velard, I hope you’ve enjoyed Future Space, and that you’ll check out my work over at refractorind.com, and I wanna thank Wit for having me here.

Oh yeah! I should also mention that, if you would like to own a minicomic booklet of Future Space just stop by the blog and I’ve gotta button for you. -Mark


Wow. Embrace him. Hold his work in your arms. Love him.
At least grab a copy of this wunderkinds minicomic.
Go ahead ask him to sign it. I did.

Thanks Mark. We'll keep following your work
and look forward to having you back ASAP.
 
Yippy. My Future Space Mini Comic Booklet
just arrived as we went to post.
It's very cool. Get this for the additional Future Space strip
not shown in this blog.
It's a fun surprise. Also, my booklet came with a neat pull-out covered in great artwork.


 I told you he would sign it. Mark even drew a little Wit figure. Thanks Mark.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

From the Big Box: Steverino's Random Read


Hey, Everybody! It's android time.
I, STEVERINO have reached into the
Big Box and pulled out the strange and very slick:

Bruce Wayne: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Vol 1, No 1, April 1996
Published by Marvel under the AMALGAM banner
(That's DC meets Marvel folks)



Writer:Chuck Dixon  Penciler:Cary Nord  Inker:Mark Pennington  
Lettering:Richard Starkings/Comicraft  Colorist:Steve Buccellato

That's a lot of credits. Well they deserve a lot of credit.
Fantasy or not this book and story line was outstanding.
I'll focus on this comic for now.

First off Amalgam Comics combines the best of the 
DC/Marvel heroes and bad guys.

It seems that the Green Skull (Lex luthor+Red skull)
is finally cornered by Bruce Wayne and his army.
Wayne has risen to the top of S.H.I.E.L.D. at this point
and wants revenge on Green Skull for knocking off his parents
who were also agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. years ago.
Sergeant Rock and Nick Fury who head the force can not stop him
so they back him up. 
Unknown to Bruce we've already seen Skulls daughter (with Lois Lane) 
Selina Luthor as Madame Cat (Cat Woman+Viper) kill him to take power and lead the evil HYDRA group. Hail HYDRA.

 
The war is in fact on.
Wayne, Moonwing (Nightwing+Moon Knight) and
Black Bat (Batgirl+Black Cat) leave a paralyzed
Tony Stark to man the helicarrier
and go off to kick some butt. Wayne doesn't make it. He's instead knocked out of the air by a crashing jets
explosion leaving Moonwing alone
(I guess Black Bat stood by and watched)
to fight off old friend Jason Todd now known as
Deathlok (Robin+Midnight).
He can't so Fury and Rock shoot Deathlok from the air
killing him... again. 

 
In the back no less. Ouch. By the way, Green Skull activated
 the Planetsmasher program some time before he was killed.
While this goes on Wayne meets Nuke (bane+Nuke of Earth-616)
and yes he screws with his venom supply and wins...again.


Knowing the tell-tail signs of this weapons activation Bruce chides
"We see this through to the end." They know the weapon is going to the critical point and do in fact reach the control level.
Girl hits man with whip, man grabs whip and flings girl
 into computer bank. KRAASH.
"Show me how to shut this weapon down." Grunts Wayne.
"HAHAHA! I can't! No one can! Isn't it rich?" smiles Selina.


Fury, Rock and yes GREEN SKULL look on helplessly. Oh my.

Clap. Clap. Well done Amalgam. This was so much fun.
From the cool new/old heroes
to their costumes to a one shot story-line
that gives us a past that never was and a present that would be very
interesting indeed.  I loved the whole idea.
Look at the scans. Oustanding artwork.
It's a comic book line designed to give us
a mind break from the norm.
This android would like to see a revision of this line
with these two comic big boys working together again this century.

I must show you Baron Zero (Baron von Strucker+Mr. Freeze).


I have to say it. How cool is he?
This is the android known as STEVERINO chillin' out until next week. 

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Mark D Velard

We're about to blow your mind.
Monday, December, 21st



Mark D. Velard

Sunday, December 13, 2009

The Art of: Christopher Chamberlain

It's your pal WIT with more great artwork.
This time around I'm bringing you Canadian talent

Christopher Chamberlain



        Born in the great white north of Canada sometime in the last millennium, Christopher was caught many times by his parents
marking on the walls of the igloo while knocking over vases.


Eventually he turned to paper and other discarded items that took to being marked. Since then a few people have had him create some cartoons and drawings for their picture books. Christopher is always willing to scrawl on some paper for people.

Enjoy the next five pieces of art as Chris shows off:

"Our Hero"














I love this stuff.
The only thing better would be a drawing of me
trying to figure out the universe...oh, wait...




Throw your hats onto the ice folks.
Christopher Chamberlain has the hat trick.
Talent, Story telling ability, and a drawing of me to brag about.

Comic Creators United looks forward to seeing more of Chris and his
fine work on this blog and out in the world of art.
Thanks my friend. Come back soon.

 
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