Penny_ToWhatEnd!

I'm now drawing for The Penny Dreadful, an exciting publication I hope survives. Egotistically, I hope that if I give it some nice art, it'll build an audience, get legit, and survive. Perhaps I might leave the Record for this? I don't know. But it was a lot of fun.

Anyway, this piece is an illustration for a story called "To What End!," which you can read after the issue publishes soon.

Easter Eggs: The man in the moon looking worried, the X-Files logo, Pacman/ghost dust wads, and Darling Find brand kicks.

Fun Facts: I'm practicing wacky perspective after Chamba. I realized last night I would love to draw for a living and must break old habits.

Thanks for visiting, especially those across the Ivies. I've only got Columbia left to complete my Bingo card today.

[UPDATE: Peculiarly, the story never got published, so this art never saw daylight either.]

Reuxben

Herald_daDooom.df

Last find: Kelly, after foiling the Ruemore and meeting Joe, finally lands an official post as Darling Find Clerk.
Now find 8!

This special comic is for the first annual(?) Yale Herald Comics' April Fools Day Stunt; half of a collaboration with Dan.

How to read: Our two comics form one big comic--his character asks, "Want to buy a fish tank?" then my top frame, then back to his comic, "An arm and a leg," and then finish with mine. They link through the gutter-crossing phone wires, enabled by Chittenden's tinkering.

Easter Eggs: There's a canceled event involving smiling, a graffiti "screw D," a store called Noooo, the Kool-Aid Man's wall-smashing catchphrase, Find 8 on the Jam Tank, and fishy debris.

Fun Facts: I'd prepared a comic with one panel reserved for Fooling, but they convinced me to make a whole new comic, which fits in the story, too.

Many thanks to the entire comics staff for taking part--last time I proposed a stunt, it failed miserably!

Reuxben

Fun_Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes...
--Paul Laurence Dunbar

I love this poem.

Happy 100th post, 800th visitor, 2nd room draw,

Reuxben

Fun_DressUpJuno

Over break I saw a magazine picture of the Juno girl and tried to mimic it.

Now to business,

Reuxben

Fun_Cheapskate

I'm so cheap, I'd rather camp out in Bradley Airport for eleven hours than use CT Limo just so I can save a few dollars by using the discounted Yale bus service.

Geez!

At least we'll be back at Yale soon; only eight more hours to go!

Reuxben

Fun_UHTSS.df_MO

To close Spring Break posts, here's the MO of a sentimental favorite for me, "UHTSS."

First is the penciled final with posing at left, fight sketches and hangers at top, and D. Kat exits at right.

Of course, at bottom is me trying to figure out how to draw certain underpants; pretty difficult, actually...so penciled "finals" often reveal changes that occurred right before inking, especially in backgrounds.

I've now locked in which lines I'm using and am ready to add blacks and then go back with pencil to hatch in what I think needs grayish color.

The fashion show sequence, especially the middle Katara costume, is a good example of this, where once there was originally white will eventually be some nonblack "color."

This relieving step means we're almost done and that we can finally start "clean up," erasing the pencil to begin adding colors worry-free about pencil undermining ink. There are some patches of spot colors I don't want to forget after clean up, though.

Finally pencil-free, there isn't too much that can go wrong; just lots of sweeping. I tried using real color once, but that went fuzzily wrong when the Herald printers blurred everything up.

Paralyzed by the risk, I only go black and white for now. I dream of using that newfangled Photoshop doohickey to provide colorful online exclusives, but I hate using Macs and don't know much about Photoshop yet.

So until I learn Photoshop, please bear with the panda express as it chugs along.

Reuxben

Fun_BLR_Preview2

It's not that I've run out of stuff to post...

....it's just that I'm eager to preview what a character from "BLR" might look like. Yeah, that's it!

Well, this is an old scan from the development pages of a character named Emo. BLR, again, was supposed to run in Darling Find's place, before I realized I needed more time to iron out the story.

Crossing fingers for '09,

Reuxben

Food_Fitness

It's been a while, but here's a food cartoon for the Rudd Center. This one's about a study that shows that fitness can be helpful towards academic achievement.

Easter Eggs: The kid's shirt has arrows, like Aang's tattoos, from Avatar. Speaking of which, there hasn't been a new episode yet this semester. Ridiculous.

Reuxben

Fun_Neener.df_MO

Even though last time was an MO, it would feel odd having a non-DF Friday. So here's the Making Of Neener.

Recently, I've been scanning pencil finals along with rough drafts and notebook drafts, which should be neat for all. And this pencil final is particularly interesting because the ink final has a different ending.

The original was a close up of a defeated Kelly, but after I sketched what her crash might look like I knew that would make a funnier, more logical ending. So after all that practicing for the close up, I discarded it for the doodled ending.

And the comic's left border reveals my attempt at quality control: coloring checklists. The system's still struggling.

Finally, while lettering an hour or so before the Herald's deadline, I debated over the villain's name and had to write it out a couple of times to be sure that's what I wanted. I had wanted the ID tag to read the Ruemore, but that felt too close to the Rumor.

Well, everything worked out for the most part and we have our final comic, Neener.

Reuxben

Fun_BadHabit_MO

From last semester, here's the Making Of "Bad Habit." I've been keeping tighter track of the comic-making process more recently, so we can all look forward to more in depth MOs once we get to this semester's stuff.

But about this piece, first we have some pencil skeleton drafts. The sketch on the left started with a more unconventional layout, with the main characters existing outside of the frames, actually interacting with them. But then I decided a more conventional layout would be for the best. Although I did decide to make the guy spit at the end, after a quick sketch.

So this final layout made more sense, and as a result I created one of my more popular comics from last semester.

Sometimes wacky and revolutionary isn't always the best choice. But then again...

Reuxben

Herald_sciencehill.jk

It's about to get rough around here: jack and I are on Spring Break. While that means 100% more California, it also means no scanner and no "fresh" content for two weeks. So it's off to the ol' art vault starting Wednesday.

But for today, we have some more of jack's anti-14College venting. If you didn't know (?!) Yale's pretty much getting two new colleges, which will undoubtedly change the Yale experience for future Yalies--either by robbing them of what us 12Collegers know so well, or of course, giving someone, who might have been rejected due to space limitations, a seat to experience some kind of Yale.

Happy California,

Reuxben

Herald_Eeeee.df

Last find: Kelly nervously meets Joe, the Orangutan Books clerk before remembering she's got to return that Guffinium to Mr. James.
Now find 7!

This is a record--I completely finished at 3am! 3am! Caveat: I split up the work over three days since I had a midterm on the Herald's earlier pre-break due date and couldn't afford to binge draw. But I think it was worth it because I got to try some new angles.

Easter Eggs: Find 7 is on Mr. James' radio. The couple in frame one reference Depressed plus something else. Dupin's name is based on the same thing as Orangutan Books.

Fun Facts: The Darling Find indeed faces a corner, but I imagine as an "Elite" shop, its customers actively seek it out.

Happy spring break, Yale. It'll be a slow/quick two weeks.

Reuxben

Fun_FroshOlympics_Design

This is how it all started. By "it," I mean my defeatist attitude about T-Shirt contests.

Here's my submission to the JE Freshman Olympics T-Shirt contest, drawn on a Yorkside napkin after Phil's A-hoops championship game.

The JE rep said they'd use it, but then a few days before the event, they decided not to. Wha?

I had even made an alternate version for easier scanning. I could understand a cutthroat rejection if this were a professional job, but come on...these people lived a couple of floors above me.

Reuxben

Herald_interview.jk

With our second jack kelly monday comes a treat at the end--some online exclusives!

Interestingly, jack doesn't cuss even though he easily could have. But I agree with him; why do Yalies do such stupid things? Think whatever you want, just keep it locked up in your privileged little head if you know it's racist. Racism makes even less sense if you're doing it anonymously: what do you gain from people knowing someone hates certain people? It's like being one of a mob yelling "defense" at a basketball game. Really, what's the point?

Just because you can say whatever you want doesn't mean you should. --Glenda Gilmore at the History of Hate Panel
But to be fair, criticism should fly free, just not racism. For instance, say you picked up a copy of the Yale Record's Machine Issue and saw their incomprehensibly unprofessional, outrageously poor execution. Then you might feel inclined to the state the following:

Fair and balanced, jack. Good job.

Reuxben