Cartoon: Merry Christmas

What Santa said, but may yours be plightless.

Cartoon: Inspiring article

Cartoon: Operation Iraqi Freedom

Cartoon: Reprogramming

Cartoon: Citizens United

The Boston Occupier: The Poster

I was asked to craft a poster to be given to those who gave above a certain amount to the Boston Occupier's Kickstarter campaign. This be it.

Cartoon: Change

Cartoon: Media Focus

Cartoon: Food Bubbles

Cartoon: No Handouts

Cartoon: Halloween

Cartoon: Snow White

Steve and Meg

This be them. A (belated) wedding gift for the lovely couple.

Drawings, featuring people

And now...drawings, featuring people:

Toast at Will's wedding

It's been a while between posts. Considering the written word is itself an art form, the following is the best man speech I delivered over the weekend. I'll leave the couple's full names out in case they don't wish to be associated with it when people google them. Cheers to Will and Brooke.

***

As some of you may suspect, the idea of trying to summarize your thoughts on a dear friend in a mercifully short speech can be a difficult, nerve wracking and even futile endeavor. Regardless, I was quite touched and honored when Will contacted my representatives to float the idea of my saying a few words at his wedding.

For those who don't know me - I'm sorry to hear it - my name's Kip. I grew up not far from here, next to one of those "slow children" signs and met young Willy out on the soccer pitch. He had not long before shunned the potentially high rolling career of a semi-successful pre-tween male model - and the looks that went with it. But despite walking away from catalogue work, he remained a boy with great promise.

As you can imagine it's been a long, colossal effort trying to raise Will - Bill and Susan have been a great help for sure, I thank them. But with I the Jeeves to his Wooster, I managed to steer Will through high school and college fairly successfully, with only minor speakable mishaps.

But all the hard work I put in suddenly seemed threatened a few years back. Will was finally on track to make his long-shunned fortune by working for a large investment bank, when he came to me one day and admitted an addiction. There were many things I thought that a former male model, would be rock and roller and raging capitalist could be drawn to. But I was caught off guard when he said the source of his addiction was porn - and not the kind we go to weekend rallies to protest - this was what he affectionately dubbed "boat porn."

He was spending hours at work trawling websites filled with boats of all shapes and sizes, in all sorts of settings. Graphs depicting large sums of money suddenly failed to capture his imagination, but for these nautical displays he was all hands on deck. Close-hauled cat boats with tantalizing topsides and booby hatches anchored his attention. Images of intrepid interiors produced a cabin fever and I had an inkling his interest in the high flying world of finance was waning.

So I saw Will off to yacht design school, and he commendably drifted away from an industry notorious for leaving people under water, to one invested in keeping people above it. And I knew then that Will was on the right track - that my concerns were unfounded - that, as I always suspected, he is a great friend with an inquisitive nature and the wonderful ability to remain true to himself.

And since leaving design school, he has impressively been expanding his resume with a collection of former employers at a lofty and vigorous pace - a list long enough to make any girl blush.

But I'm sure it wasn't just Will's shunning of the affluent world of finance that drew Brooke to Will's side. Will's abilities as a master shucker, fisherman, guitarist and ukulelist surely rank high. A pioneer of extreme croquette, beach bocce and other leisure activities, he possesses an amazing appreciation for artfully applied alliteration.

And as a dreamer of dreams and a traveling man, he has chalked up many a mile. He's read dozens of books about heroes and crooks, and learned much from both of their styles.

And indeed Will is a hero of mine and a hero to many. He has all along followed his heart, challenged his mind, and made use of his many talents - he did a great job writing this speech.

It's been a long haul raising the lad - and the work is not complete, the struggle must go on - but Bill, Susan and myself are delighted, and relieved, to have Brooke on board to help in our extraordinary efforts - and in a fully realized and legally binding capacity.

So at this point let's raise our glasses to this wonderful couple, and wish them both a long, healthy and happy life together.

O-Bomb-a

He's the President of the United States. It's what he does.

Echo Co. Art

This isn't what the final art for this page will look like - it's a bit too much of a style change this far in - but I like what can be done with the pattern stamp tool in Photoshop. I made a section of crosshatching from this page into a pattern, layered it on and then went in with the eraser tool. Definitely a time saver and the look from the soft edge eraser is pretty nice.

Politicians

Here are the politicians from the "Angry Voters" mobile phone game.

Political Commentators

These are some caricatures for a mobile phone game presently in development called "Angry Voters."

Echo Co. page

The following is the sketch and the final art (minus word balloons) of a page from the book. I'm about 50 pages in - maybe 1/4 of the way through. ETA is sometime next year I hope!

 

Gorey Day

My Mom visited Boston last month to make a trip to the Edward Gorey exhibit at the Boston Athenaeum. We followed that with a swan boat ride, followed by a visit to the carousel in the park. The following recounts the day's events in the Gorey style (the lesbian swans in question are the ones in the public garden, which the Boston Globe revealed a few years back to both be female).

Abstract

I've done a number of abstracts like this (pen and ink and watercolor) - this one being the most successful thus far.

Echo Co. page

This here's page 31 - minus the words - from the graphic novel I'm working on.
There is a script, I promise.

Brian: Zombie Hunter

Something else I made as a 30th birthday gift. The image below was crafted into a life size cutout for photo taking purposes. Many a zombie were slain.

Cieslopoly

For those who have not yet been privy, here are shots of Kasia Ciesla's personalized Monopoly game, Kasia Cieslopoly.

 

It works!

Echo Company panels

My website is a bit of a process to update, so I've taken a long delayed plunge into the world of blogging to give people a better sense of what I'm working on. Here are some recently finished panels from my graphic novel project, Echo Company. You’ll have to wait until it’s published for the word balloons.