Irvin's Updates

We're Rolling

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:49:45 GMT

I'm so proud of my gf right now. She and her crew are shooting her sci-fi short in our bedroom right now and she's such a confident, commanding presence as a director. She's really doing what she's meant to do. Her cast and crew seem to love her almost as much as I do. My job is basically cooking for them all and we're all well fed so my job is done for today, but I can hear her rolling on, "action" and "cut", sometimes punctuated by laughter. She's not paying one of them, so you know they're all doing it for the love of the material, her awesome script about a lonely divorced man in an overcrowded, distopian future. It must be going well because occasionally I'll hear "I love it!" after a take, and she's very tough and exacting. Maybe I'll post some production stills soon. I better go take some!

X-mas card 2007

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 19:25:47 GMT

My gf and I created a new Christmas card comic this year, with me drawing the ever pompus 3-D Santa and she the irrepressible Stick Figure Santa. She's also the force behind the very awesome bsg_comicses so it's always great to work "in association with" her.

I hope everyone's having an explosive Christmas!

MoCCA Pictures for all to see!

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:27:54 GMT

MoCCA Fest Flickr Set everybody! The new exhibit hall on the top floor really opened the place up and gave it breathing room. An enjoyable vibe permeated the place. Right now I'm feeling so inspired to take my place on the other side of those tables in the future!

Pink Five

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:27:42 GMT

Just writing to make sure that none of you missed the latest installment of the Pink Five saga. What’s Pink Five? It started with a 4 ½ minute Star Wars fan film that won the coveted George Lucas Selects Award in the 2003 Star Wars Fan Film Awards…and I was lucky enough to attend. Since then, the same creators have released 3 sequels parodying the rest of the Star Wars films. They’ve gotten longer and had better production each time, but sadly the next one will probably be the last one since they’ve already stretched their parody of Return of the Jedi out to 2 volumes, and chronologically speaking there’s nowhere else to go.

I think you have to create an Atom Films account to view these, but that’s free and something you should do anyway.

Here are the links to the 4 parts already released:

Pink Five
Pink Five Strikes Back
Return of Pink Five Volume 1
Return of Pink Five Volume 2

Pictures from my trip to Providence, RI

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:49:12 GMT

I finally finished uploading my pictures of our Providence trip in March. The Providence Collection is on Flickr here and there are sets for the RIDS Museum of Art and for the walking tour of Lovecraft's College Hill that I dragged everyone on. Also on the tour were my gf, ctegan, ludens99 and Scott. We all had fun since Providence is such a beautiful old city and it was such a nice day. It really was like going back in time -- it was ancient even in Lovecraft's time. I found the walking tour at the H.P. Lovecraft Archive and it was originally created for the attendees of the 1997 NecronomiCon in Providence. I've included the text from that tour to describe the pictures I took of the stuff we saw on it, but I took plenty of other pictures of the city...93 in all! In short, I got to feel a small piece of the inspiration old Howard Phillips must've felt by being raised there at the turn of the last century.

New Comic: "My Birthright"

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:28:45 GMT

This is a 2-page story I did for Bony Landmarks #3 which is soon to be released. And if there's any doubt, it's as nonfiction as my memories of being a 4-year-old will permit.

Providence!

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 05:11:46 GMT

I get to spend a 3 day weekend in Providence, RI with my GF! We're going to attend a function at Brown University but I'm really looking forward to exploring the city, especailly since I'm such a Lovecraft freak. I've heard too many great things about the place that it can't help but be awesome!

New Gibraltar inking test

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 00:19:40 GMT

These are the characters in a 10 page story I'm drawing (the first in a series) written by andrewlfs. I'm still penciling it, but I wanted to try out some inking techniques to see which way to go with it.

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 06:58:18 GMT

I decided to post the Christmas card comic that my gf and I made this year. I draw and write the always pompus 3D-Santa, while she's the force behind Stick Figure Santa. We're just not into traditional greeting cards, or traditional anything for that matter.

I hope everyone's Christmas is behaving merrily.

Rabbits and Alcohol

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 07:20:18 GMT

Here's my entry in the latest Dada comic project undertaken by the Look For Signage Art Collective. The theme this time: Rabbits and Alcohol, with a requirement that all 5-7 panels be square. Yes, this actually happened to me. Let's just say I've never had a problem getting in to bars. The Dada part of this is that all the entries are to have their 5-7 panels shuffled and laid out Dada poetry style. I will link to the final experiment if and when it is presented online.

Comic Cover Props

Mon, 22 May 2006 05:40:07 GMT

Seemingly out of the blue, I was asked by my old friend Marty to draw two comic book covers as props for his latest movie Comic Book Diaries. He sent me a draft of the script
NICK
Its nothing like that. I have a business proposal to offer you. I'm Nick Levine, by the way. You may have heard of me or some of my work.

They shake hands.

JOHN
I'm John Burns, the owner. Hey, I've heard of you.

NICK
Not many have.

JOHN
Yeah, you're that famous artist from the 80's. You basically single-handedly kick-started violent, mature comics as a mainstream form of entertainment.

NICK
If by violent, mature comics you mean excessive, overblown gun battles and women with big tits, then yes.

JOHN
So I take it that means you must be rolling in the dough thanks to the profits from the "Fren-Zee" franchise. When's the next project?

NICK
Shit man. The publisher bought me out around fifteen years ago. And the next project is this.

Nick pulls out a copy of his latest book. (Title?)

JOHN
Wow. It looks awesome. What's it about?

NICK
Man's constant search for meaning in an unforgiving universe.

JOHN
So basically more gun battles and tits, you say?

NICK
You got it. Only this time it's a modern-day epic. I hope this goes over. This is my last bet.

JOHN
You're Nick Levine! Are you kidding me? You'll always bounce back!

He needed a sample of Nick's old book (Fren-Zee), and the "latest book", although he didn't have a title for it yet. He told me it should be like the punisher in it's violence, but I gathered from the script that it was also very sexually exploitative. I figured Zee was for Zoe, the main character, and that she was an ass kicker:

I found out that The Punisher was actually introduced as an enemy of Spider-Man, only Frank Castle didn't have any powers, he was just a violent and disturbed Vietnam veteran with vengence on his mind. So here's Zoe, slicing up a corrupt caped-crusader named "Greater Than" (like the symbol on his chest), making him beg for mercy.

To come up with the title of the new book, I tried to capture extreme sex and violence in one word. I came up with...Wargasm. The script says it's the same type of exploitation material only a "modern day epic", and what could be more modern day than War?

I call her "G.I. Gina" and here she's getting off on the nuclear detonation seen reflected in her goggles, having a "wargasm" if you will. I just wanted to earn the parental advisory label I was going to put on it. You can probably imagine it's this raw, nasty, screwed up story.

And Marty and company loved it! They're shooting the film now in an actual comic shop, with my covers wrapped around books and bagged in mylar:

Merry Christmas from NYC

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 03:45:50 GMT

This was how my Christmas card was supposed to look, screenprinted on a nice recycled natural cardstock. Well, I ran out of time to do that so I just used my inkjet printer on some white Staples cardstock. I modeled the Santa design from some recently reprinted comic strips by E.C. Seagar drawn in 1919 that appeared in The Comics Journal. People really do wear rhinestone encrusted vanity belt buckles around here, and they send messages to eachother with illegible scrawls on buildings, so I suppose when Santa's in Rome, as the saying goes. If you didn't get one in the mail it's probably because either I mailed them out too late and there's some problem with the Post Office, or I don't have your address.

Anyway, Merry Christmas people.

Fell into the hole

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 22:30:10 GMT

I don't remember my dreams very often, so this morning was eventful even before I woke up. As is usually the case, my memory of it gets more and more vivid as it gets to the inevitable end, but I seem to remember that I was part of the entourage of a supergroup in the late '60s featuring John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards backed by countless backup singers, musicians, percussionists and groupies. I was one of these hangers-on, but my role was less defined.

I was just watching the show for the longest time, enjoying the fusion of sounds and the chemistry of the performers. As I remember, Paul hogged the mic with the main vocals while Mick backed him with an occasional "Ooooh Yeahhhh!" or an "Al Right!" and he paced and jumped the width of the stage, which was just a huge platform in a huge park under a blue sky, the trees green. Kieth played with usual focus and intent, but I noticed that John , with his Sgt. Pepper burns, little mustache and round rimmed glasses seemed to be impatient for Paul's song to end, like he could hardly stand the wait, rolling his eyes at him, just strumming his guitar rhythmically, absently. It made the crowd laugh and smile as we anticipated John's turn when he would top Paul's song, dueling Beatles, as if their group had already broken up and they were honoring a truce neither of them liked for the sake of the new, greater band. I was curious to see how these monsters of Brit Rock could be a cohesive unit, but I was given some chore to do by this guy who seemed to be running the whole operation. I seem to remember he was some kind of combination band manager, drug dealer and pimp, keeping these superstars happy with drugs and sex and I was one of his minions, running errands or watching a corner, being this pimp/boss's eyes and ears, reporting back to him on some sort of radio.

Next I remember I was patrolling one corner of the park, the bands music fainter now, describing the scene where I was to my superiors, when I nearly stumbled into a huge pit in the grassy field, a yawning, black chasm that appeared to have just opened. I stood on the edge and strained to see how deep it was, but it was just solid, impenetrable black in there, framed by frayed roots from the grassy lawn. I called into it and heard no echo at all. When I described what I had come upon, I was told on the radio by my boss/slave driver that I should be careful and avoid the hole, that it was very dangerous and that I could easily fall in so I should get away from that area as soon as I could. I agreed and wandered away, then noticed a couple of the groupies/hookers from the entourage walking toward the hole, and then the pimp/boss ordering them away from it, grabbing them by the arm and pulling as any pimp would, getting rough. They were just asking for a slapping the way the were openly disobeying, and then I noticed that they were all identical, same dark completion, same long, wavy black hair, and the same go-go bold colored attire/boots with huge hoop earrings and gold chains and tawdry makeup with turquoise eye shadow. He'd pull one away from the pit and another would stroll over to it and they seemed to be motioning me to join them there, to look down suggestively into it, then she'd be jerked away violently, given a verbal and physical scolding, but that would only provide an opening for another one to take her place. Eventually I got the message that I should go into the pit, that these women were trying to guide me somehow. When an opportunity presented itself, I stepped up to the edge and dropped in, trusting in my groupie/hooker clone friends.. The blackness swallowed me whole and I fell like Alice down the rabbit hole, but there was no wind, just the sensation of complete sensory deprivation, just black stillness as I fell.

After awhile, I started falling forward, like the freefall ride where after the fall you're gradually taken from vertical to horizontal and then brought to a complete stop. As I now coasted forward, the blackness ahead of me very gradually began to lighten to a grey, and then eventually a bright, blinding white, and as I slowed, the white darkened to form an image, that of an institutional hallway leading to a T intersection, with pale green tiled walls, linoleum flooring and fluorescent lighting. I found my footing on that linoleum and walked unsteadily toward that intersection where I noticed that the walls were covered with children's arts and crafts projects like hand-print turkeys and paper snowflakes, crudely drawn crayon renderings of stickfigures. I was in an elementary school, but also sometime in the late '60s - somehow I knew this. I realized that I was wearing a white coat, the threadbare smock of a lunchlady, laundered and bleached until it felt like tissue paper. Then I looked to my left and there were people, presumably teachers coming and going from what I believed to be the school's office to the right, but right away a woman saw me and became overwhelmed, great relief spilling from her eyes, sobbing on my shoulder, holding me tight. "You made it!", she kept blubbering. I gradually realized that she was one of those hooker clones, same as the others except that she had long straight platinum blond hair parted in the middle flowing down her back. I patted this woman as she cried on me so much that I could feel the warm tears soaking through the white rag I was wearing, me trying to console this quivering outpouring of hers.

Since she obviously knew me but I didn't know her, it slowly occurred to me that I must've forgotten some of the details of my life, or possibly entered a new one. I asked, with all seriousness, "Who am I?". Instead of telling me my name, she told me I was the heir to an important financial periodical, the name of which she told me, although I cannot now remember it, and that I was it's rightful publisher, my father having passed on. It was like The Return of the King or something, the Prodigal Son returns, my reappearance seemed to mean that all was right in the world, and once she said it, I magically remembered my life in a Wall Street Journal type publishing empire, my family being so wealthy we made a living teaching others how to take care of their money. And at this, I too was relieved, that other subservient existence turning out to be just a bad dream.

Then, my girlfriend woke me up as she was leaving for work. For once, I got to experience a resolution to a twisted dream plot, not having been interrupted before finding out what happens next. That wasn't by any means the end of the story, just the beginning of the good part, my real life, my life as it should be, the good life. Now that's getting up on the right side of the bed. I've had good dreams where I was pissed to be awakened from them, but this one just got me psyched to find my real life. I feel now that it's out there, at the end of a tunnel I have to have the courage to enter, just down the hall.

Some self portraits are too realistic.

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 06:12:18 GMT

I had a great day teaching art classes today. My youngest class is primarily 8-11 year old jewish girls, and they're a pretty good, enthusiastic class. Today was self portrait day and they all astounded me by how well they drew themselves. One girl is particularly talented and her drawing was a spitting image of herself, but unfortunately that was not good enough for her. She's pleasantly plump I'll say, very cute in my book, but she complained that her drawing made her look "ugly". Poor thing, I said the drawing was very good, which I'm sure implied to her that she's ugly, but I didn't feel it was appropriate to go into some "each of us is beautiful in our own way" speech. Her drawing didn't reflect her ideal of feminine beauty, so she was instead frustrated with her apparent inability to draw well. A well done self portrait is to deal with yourself in a raw, unglorified way, which can feel refreshingly honest and fulfilling. This is who and what I am. In my teen-adult class, there was an overweight middle-age woman who did a wonderfully flabby and honest drawing of herself, and she was, at least for the duration of the assignment, comfortable with who and what she was. My younger student isn't there yet. Her artistic abilities have outpaced her self-esteem.

Watched the 2 hour premier of 24 tonight as well as the season 2 premier of Carnivale. Along with the Galactica miniseries airing on NBC last night, TV is good. Gives me great hope for the medium.

Is anybody out there?

Sat, 08 Jan 2005 21:22:51 GMT

This is it - my leap onto the blogging bandwagon. It seems everyone is doing it, which is as good a reason as any. Evan Dorkin's LJ is so great to read that it makes me want to have one of my own - it's highly recommended reading.

We'll see how this goes.