work has been crazy busy but i’m enjoying it. picking up new skills that will hopefully be useful for me in the future.

living in an internetless & airconditionless studio/home makes me feel like i was a refugee, hiding in some sort of secret annexe. been cooking every now and then, and been trying to keep a plant too (hanging by the window, next to the wooden horse puppet i’ve got from sonny’s) – both haven’t been very tremendously successful but i’m trying.

deeply impressed by Chekhov’s short stories at the moment, particularly ’The House with the Mezzanine’ which i read a few months ago and still lingers closely on my mind. Also Marquez’ short story ’The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World’ which feels grand to me, just like how Esteban felt grand to the villagers.

A friend told me recently: it’s not about how great your idea is. it’s how you articulate it. I’m still learning.

Visual-time! Two scanned pages:

and this one was written a week (or so) after the one above. So i finally bought the bicycle.

- will update again soon  :)

Really wanted to say “hey all and happy new year!” Also to post to keep up that im am not dead, even tho I have to admit that the comic-making has been on the low lately. School here in sweden is taking up most of my time now, but I have been giving comics a bit of thought, if anything I have been reading alot lately so I thought I would share some of that as there are many great online comics.

There is really a very vast selection online. Alot of these have a focus of games or simular hobby use the comic medium as a extra platform to add more to what they want to say. The five largest ones would be http://www.cad-comic.com, http://www.little-gamers.com, http://www.pvponline.com and http://www.penny-arcade.com. There is still ALOT more that has a main focus on games, aswell as other stuff.

Anyway, even tho I really recoment all of them, there is also quite a number of graphic novels with a stronger focus only on a consistant storyline and so on. One of the most resent I read is “The Meek” by Der-shing Helmer(http://www.meekcomic.com/) that I really do recomend, Its a fantasy tale so I dont know if it suits all of your tastes. But is a quite good exampel of good comics that can be fond online.

Cheers to all! Feels good to be the first poster in 2010!

just thought you might like this. It’s a talk by Art Spiegelman and his wife Francoise Mouly on their compilation of children’s comics. Just watched it, makes me remember what makes comics so special and unique as compared to any other medium. The topic is on kids comics and really, there have been so many great stuff that has been overlooked and that have been fundamental to the growth of comics. The stuff that Carl Barks did on Donald Duck just kills me! And my hero Harvey Kurtzman is mentioned a few times Check out the video and head down to YouTube for the whole thing (9 parts).

Jon

Recently, I’ve realized something about art making that has put things in perspective. I’ve always wondered why we make these things, and whether we should only make these things when we experience some hurts. It bothered me that it might mean I had to throw myself into difficult situations, but I felt that was silly. It was experience I needed, to live my life the best I know and to take risks, not find trouble. I found that these sentiments were echoed in the words of Leonard Cohen.

“Good work is produced inspite of suffering” -Cohen from this

And Charles Bukowski,

“Let them get on the cross, I’ll congratulate them. But pain doesn’t create writing , a writer does.”

I’ve come to realize that all these little drawings, have been a way for me to get by, so more than planning the next exhibition or letting people see the work, making the work has become something of a matter of survival. And because the act has become more personal, I’m finally enjoying the act of creating! It’s crazy! I get really encouraged when I see the works of artists and often times I’m humbled by their output and I think I’m starting to understand what’s behind it. An associate of mine once said to me that good art is all about presentation, the way you frame it. Yeah sure, sure, stop lying to yourself buddy; good art is about hard work. Spiritual labor and … Joy. 

More Bukowski, “Even at my lowest times I can feel the words bubbling inside of me, getting ready. I am not in a contest. I never wanted fame or money. I wanted to get the word down the way I wanted it, that’s all. And I had to get the words down or be overcome by something worse than death. Words not as precious things but as necessary things.”

//Jon

One last entry, some drawings I did using markers. I did them because I really miss painting, will get back to it as soon as I’m finished with these comics but  comics are all I can think of right now.

From a Cover of a book called Death in Midsummer by Yukio Mishima.

Thought I might as well show some of my old stuff, know some of you guys might have seen these but I thought I might as well show them again for those who haven’t. First up it’s a character I created while doing my diploma in Fine Arts. He’s an alter ego of mine,  a sort of representation of my inferiority complex. Well he’s dead now, I doubt I’ll ever use him again, Left him in Goya’s world to die.

Here’s more of my little inventions, SuperBat, Bear Bear (No longer in use), Dinky, Clone Boy now known as Existential boy and Dick now known as FatCrumb and the Penis head character (still in use but will be nameless). These characters will be used again in a series of comic strips with more autobiographical content. It’s strange, but I thought I was done with them, till one day, it all made sense, realized I could use them in a different way.

Here’s some comic stuff from my little sketch book, it’s rare that I do comic stuff in there, for some strange reason. Anyway, a page of little profiles and a couple going through the business of love. After  I did them, the waviness of the lines reminded me of some of Crumbs early stuff before the intense hatching. For those who haven’t heard of Crumb, here is a site I found for some bio, I like it because it has ants! http://www.stat.pitt.edu/stoffer/Crumb.html

Here’s my entry, wanted to do it a couple of weeks back, but I was away, staying at my Grandpa’s. I’ve learned a lot by staying with him, thinking about getting old and memory loss. Realize that it’s not necessarily a bad thing, you don’t have to remember a lot of the nonsense that happens to you during the day. It’s like he’s a baby going into death instead of life. Anyway, here are a bunch of drawings that I’ve been doing regularly as I’ve been travelling in the bus or train. I find it hard to do comics in the bus when there are these people around begging to be drawn. It’s really a great place to draw people because it seems that in the bus or MRT, people are really themselves, they retract into their thoughts and most times their anxiety and loneliness shows. There was only one instance that I got dialogue that interested me and I placed it in, and it was this girl from ACS babbling about the kind of boys she liked (second balloon should spell damn not damd) and an ACS guy listening to her (first drawing). The guy looks better in real life I made him a little ugly, that’s caricature.  The current sketchbook I’m using has eventually become text heavy, and the comics are starting to generate again as seen in the last two drawings.

This is from an old  stream-of-consciousness set in the style of this little stringy ragdoll-ish character i used to draw…

…with many many words…

(some old strips; or rather, pages…part of a set with ALOT of words in it. the worst ones are just about mostly text, written in a shape/trail…)

….sorry, i’m not really in my proper senses these days, mind’s just fleeing me, hopefully to return after the 20th (exams)

-Xin)

More of those random things from my sketchbook. Nothing superexciting or mindblowing (like Osamu Tezuka) – but hopefully uh, entertaining? (ya right)

(yes they are pretty tiny, I’m using the pocket-sized Moleskine and a 0.4 Pilot G-Tec-C4)

As I’ve been sooooo busy with work, the only time I can actually do something is when I am on the train/bus. Observing and/or drawing other passengers have been on top of my list of favorite visual past-time activities (yes, a stalker indeed!) – so yup. Perhaps that explains these:

Well, it’s quite of a common sight, isn’t it! people sleeping, or pretending to be asleep, on the train/bus!

There are more of those bus/train stuff, done since sometime back (about two years ago?). But I noticed that there are more and more people working on the similar subject matter, I am still struggling to make this uniquely mine.

I suppose this one is a little bit different: combination of images (portraits/figures) from observation and text from god-knows-where.

Although that method tends to have a more sombre mood, I still somewhat like it in a special way, as compared to the usual observation.

And there’s another one which is purely random-but-factual:

And the usual talk-to-self thing: André Lump!

And another of the usual talk-to-self thing again, but executed differently:

As I mentioned, I am using the Pilot G-Tec-C4 pen. The tip was bent, but it is still working nevertheless. I wonder who was the person who invented this technology!

Last image from my scanned pages of sketchbook: it is something I am working on at the moment. The temporary title for this series (for the lack of better words) is ‘Imagining Landscape’. Using phrases that were either thought, said, or heard; and putting them together as a dialogue between imaginary characters that exist in the middle of nowhere (literally!)

But surely if I were to do this, one or two of my friends might happen to read and notice certain things. Oh well! We can probably consider this as, uh, inside joke or something. Except that it’s more of a poke rather than a joke.

Right. More update soon.

Til then, have good days!