Rock-n-Shock is Coming!

And I need a nice sign for our booth.

Join us at Rock-n-Shock, October 16-18. I will be there with Mike Dobbs and Marty Langford. MIke will be selling Bizarro DVD's and Marty will be selling Volume 2 of his Western Massachusetts Horror Show DVD series. I will be there selling full color prints of my latest work along with an exclusive 50th Anniversary print for the 50's horror classic Fiend Without A Face! Ask nice and I'll draw you a sketch of your favorite horror Fiend!

http://www.rockandshock.com/

Cheers

Rough Enough for You?

I'm back on The Flock track for at least one more time. I got a great idea for a piece so I'm going to work it up in the same style as the zombie painting and I hope it looks OK. Here's my first rough sketch. Let's meet back here in a week or so and compare the rough to the finished. Might be interesting.

Cheers

I'm Ashamed

I'm ashamed in some of my local towns who, due to possible backlash from some conservative residents in their town refused to show the students in their schools President Obama's speech and Q&A with the kids of Wakefield. When was the last time a PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES had a speech banned? is it his politics? Is it his race? His skin color? We're a bunch of sad human beings. The following is a letter I sent to the City of Longmeadow, MA and to G. Michale Dobbs, Editor-in-Chief at The Reminder Publications.

City of Longmeadow,

I just finished reading President Obama's speech on MIke Dobbs' blog. You know the editor in chief of the Reminder publications? He gave us the truth on what President Obama had to say to the kids in Wakefield and then we were treated to the Q&A that occurred between high school kids and the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! I am so ashamed of a local town in my fair State that, due to possible backlash from some conservative parents and politicians (re: Republicans), actually banned a speech specifically addressed from the President of the United States directly to those kids. What were you afraid of? What kind of damage could this speech have done? Answer: none. Did you read the transcripts? Have you? I bet you're feeling very embarrassed now don't you? I didn't read anything political in anything that was said by either the President or the kids? Did the students ask political tainted questions? Yes they did but most of it was about Universal Health Care. The rest of it dealt with President Obama and how he was adjusting to the White House and how bad of a basketball player he is. Is that what you were worried about? Is that the kind of Town management that Longmeadow has that buckles under pressure about a speech that hasn't been heard yet? I'm ashamed for you and the rest of the City of Longmeadow. Take a good look in the mirror tomorrow morning and ask yourself, am I weak? Was it worth having my personal opinion directed by others? Do I have heart and love for my country NO matter who runs it? I'd love to hear your answers.

Yours Truly,
Mark Masztal



Excuse me now while I retch.

You need a dust jacket

I had a little spare time this morning so I put together a quick dust jacket concept. All we need now is a publisher to bite!

UPDATE: And here's the rot green version of the dust jacket.

Cheers,

Red or Rot?

I've finished digitally coloring this ink wash piece and dropped in the title art. I like it! But I'm also torn between going with the red palette or the rot green? What do you think?

Cheers

The Living End

James Robert Smith blew me away and inspired me with his novel The Flock. If you backtrack a few posts, you'll find cover art I did for a proposed graphic novel or mini-series. Bob has sent me his latest manuscript called The Living End, A Zombie Novel with Dogs. I've read it through twice and it finally hit home, and so did the artwork I was inspired to create for the cover. Bob's idea is to have The Living End published as a novel with spot B&W illustrations. If it happens, he's promised, as much as he can-you know how publishers are, that I'm the guy for the art chores. Before I start doing any B&W illos, I wanted to get reacquainted with zombies. It took a few attempts, the dogs were so easy, so I have this rough concept. I'll start transferring the rough to the nice paper, laying in pencil lines only, no shading. All of the shading will be achieved by grey washes and then I scan it and colorize it using Photoshop. I have an idea of what I want the color palette to be, but it may change.

UPDATED: The ink wash is complete and the art has been scanned. Looking forward to coloring this piece!
Cheers!

And I'll call him...Shar-Pei

These words, uttered by The Godhead, sparked a life changing moment for me and Tom Sniegoski. We met through Steve Bissette. Tom had been writing and submitting short stories for awhile and one of them was adapted in Taboo #1, edited by Steve Bissette and drawn by MIke Hoffman. I'd been running into Steve while he was out doing Swamp Thing signings throughout the Northeast. Tom called and said that Steve suggested we pull our talents together. I called Steve and he said Tom was good people. We spoke on the phone a few times, he was from the Boston area and I was in Western Massachusetts. We eventually met at a Boston convention in 1988. We hit it off and we started to bounce ideas around. I would travel out to Boston and hold up in Tom and his then girlfriend, now wife, LeeAnne's apartment on Beacon Hill. To get in the door you had to subject yourself to a walk around the block with their Shar-Pei, Spencer. Once you did this you were allowed in the door. We eventually started goofing about how would Spencer look in a kimono. Well one thing led t another and we had a pretty good design for Shar-Pei.
He wasn't our orignal idea though. Our original project was called Gutter Rat and that's what we were selling at the Albany NY Fantacon. however no one was buying. They did however like the rough drawing I had of Shar-Pei. Well we went back and started putting together our first 6 page story. Armed with Chinese reference material, Frank MIller's Ronin and a pile of duo-shade board, I drew from Tom's script a quick 6 page adventure. LeeAnne lettered it, because my hand lettering, although good, wasn't good enough.
We trotted down to NYC to the latest Fred Greenberg Spectacular and there we met Gary Reed from Caliber Press. We did our song and dance about what we wanted to do with a mini-series and Gary said he'd call us. Well, he did and we had a deal to do a three issue mini-series. This was 1989 and we were both excited. I started cranking out pencils and then inks. Then once the pages were lettered I went through and used the duo-shade board and the occasional zip-a-tone to finish the book. I hand-colored the cover and The Swords of Shar-Pei was done! After the next 2 remaining issues were completed we collected the issues into one spectacular romp with a new wrap around cover and we hit the convention circuit traveling along the Northeast.
We followed up the Swords with the Guns of Shar-Pei. This time the story was driven by our love of gangster movies, spaghetti westerns and Lawrence of Arabia. The Guns was an adventure in itself because Tom was writing stuff that I had never drawn before and it made me draw out of my comfort zone. It was fun and challenging. As we saw numbers dwindle, we moved away from Caliber. I stayed on and inked a couple issues of Deadworld and Tom went on to write Vampirella for Harris Comics. We worked for the same publisher, Dark Moon for a couple years but the bad business practices of the company left us no choice but to walk away and watch the company fold. Eventually Tom struck up a friendship with Billy Tucci and Crusade Entertainment. Bill wanted to grow his company so he offered a select number of creators to join his crew and self-publish through his Crusade imprint. Shar-Pei was back, but this time the book was called Dogs-O-War!. We teamed up Shar-Pei with a female Doberman sidekick named Gypsy and continued our story, this time introducing more, bizarre characters and helping me on the art chores were inkers Ethan Van Sciver, Nathan Massengill, Eric Powell and Chuck Angell. This I felt was a great mini-series. Unfortunately Billy Tucci pulled the plug on the creator owned books and we finished up our run and we were done. It's been a long time since I drew Shar-Pei, but I felt this was the time to draw him again and see if I could still do it.
I guess I can.

Woof!!!

It's Fiendish

Fiend Without A Face. 1950's b-movie classic. I love this film. Over the past couple years, I've met Richard Gordon, who produced this movie. He's a wonderful man and someone I highly respect. Mike Dobbs and I are thinking of attending Rock-n-Shock this Fall and setting-up as guests/vendors. We want to let everyone know about the 50th anniversary of this great movie and I'll be selling this print in 2 versions. One signed by myself and Richard and a less expensive version signed by myself. I'm posting the B&W art and then 2 color version that I gave the Photoshop treatment.

Cheers

The Flock...Movie!

As most of you know that check in here at Barkings, I was working up some art for graphic novel adaption for James Robert Smith's book The Flock. A great read for anyone who's into great characters and Prehistoric 9ft TerrorBirds. Warner Bros. picked up the rights that squelched any graphic novel adaption, but I just recently read that Producers have finally been made public about The Flock movie. Follow this link over to Dark Horizons. Congrats Bob!!!

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/14601/murphy-wells-take-to-the-flock-

Cheers

By Asgaard!

Here's a piece I pencilled back in 96 for Chris Golden's Thor book he created while we were all over at Crusade Entertainment. John Lind inked it and I really like how he dirtied up my sometimes too tight pencils.

Cheers

Wild Things...Color...Done!

Almost done. The logo is complete and I have to color it, then I wrap up the rendering on the Wild Things and then this one will be done and then I can submit it over to Cory at Terrible Yellow Eyes.

UPDATE: The color is done. I think it turned out exactly how I envisioned.

Cheers

Wild Things...inked

This piece is finished at the inking stage. Next is the color and that's when Max will pop and the Terrible Eyes will be...terrible!!!

Cheers

Wild Things!

Here's Max and all the rest of the Wild Things.

Cheers

Hobbits and Terrible Yellow Eyes

I like a lot of different styles of art. Picasso, Mucha, MIchalangelo, Kirby, Buscema, Bissette, Totleben, Muth...you get the picture. Well Justin Gerard has been added to the list. He's been doing some fine art work over at his blog. He's been tackling Tolkien. One of the most beloved authors of two of the finest pieces of literature. I recommend you check out his brilliance.
Another interesting project Terrible Yellow Eyes. It's a tribute blog dedicated to Maurice Sendak and the brilliant book; Where The Wild Things Are. Different artists invited to present their vision of Mr Sendak's amazing book. I grew up reading this book. I was Max...later on I became one of the Wild Things. Guess I'm still a bit of a Wild Thing.

Raar.

And I shall call thee...Robot God!

Part 2 of my planned 2-piece set. I'm imagining either a flip-book or variant covers.

Cheers

ROBOT GOD pencils!

I finally finished this piece. It wasn't that it was hard, the piece was in my head and travelled down my arm and then to my hand and sprouted on the page, it was just that I put a lot if line detailing into it and it took longer that expected. I also had to dig up some reference on the rifle and arm of Will Hart.

Cheers

Star Trek...I think

Major Spoilers, avert your eyes now!
So my wife and I saw the new Star Trekmovielast night. We're both die-hard fans of the Classic, and she is a die-hard fan of NextGen. We liked the new movie, but we didn't love it. They messed with the time lines too much and I know that by killing Kirk's father they change entire time-lines, but too much was changed.
Kirk's brother Sam; gone. Will never exist.
Spock's mom; gone. Killed while transporting?
Spock and Uhura snogging all over the transporter pad; stupid and meaningless.
Captain Pike placed in a wheelchair; what happened to the Menagerie?
Spock serving with Pike prior to meeting Kirk; wiped from History.
Leonard (The Corpse) Nimoy; please leave him out. WTF?
By introducing more stupid Time Travel storylines (seems to be the only way to write a Star Trek movie lately), Abrams and company open up the door that lets them play in the Star Trek sandbox but not stay within the rules/guidelines. Give me all of the cool flashy stuff, but throw away all the meaningless history and backstory that makes Classic Trek that much more Classic. That seems to be their new haiku.
As for the good stuff? I did like the flash of the movie. The new Warp effect was simple but it worked for me. Casting all around was good. Zach Quinto was made to be Spock and Karl Urban (usually a huge action star) brought us the grumpy McCoy that we've grown to love. Simon Pegg's Scotty was fun but underused. Sulu, Chekov and Uhura were all fine, just not amazing. I was confused by all of the new alien races that were put in front of us as eye candy and I had a hard time understanding why an Orion Slave Girl is now a member of the Star Fleet Academy.

Beam me out of here. Scotty

Robot God!

Robot God is part of the Silent Scream story and it all ties into the power struggle between The Trust and The Kabale. Dennis' take on Robot God is this:Robot God, the movie and the world domination concept, has souls implanted into the robots which gives them choice, except for them being turned into somnambulists by Dr. Caligari.
Here is my pencil rough and then rough blue-pencil drawing. I'll firm up The Trust faces and then start detailing with my HB pencil.


Cheers

SilentScreamtheComic.com

We got a great deal on a domain and hosting so bookmark the site. We'll have content as soon as we can.
Silent Scream!!!
Cheers

Dogboy and Fatman go to the movies

It was a warm, overcast Friday evening and our hereoes; Fatman and Dogboy jump into the JunkMobile and...aw heck, me and MIke Dobbs went to see Wolverine last night. It was good. We both thought there were some problems, but we also agreed that the characters were good, the effects were good, just...something was missing. (Spoiler Alert): I had a few problems in continuity. Sorry but Scott Summers shouldn't have been in this movie. Professor X should have also not been in this movie. I know there is a desired tie to the first three X-Men movies but I still had a problem with these characters being jammed into the movie. Jackman was very good, Schreiber was nasty, and Danny Huston was a good bad guy (duh). We also saw one of the supposed 5 endings. I look forward in seeing all 5 when the DVD comes out. Mike and I also stayed past the credits to see if there was a special ending. There was. It sucked monkey junk. What a waste of time that did not help the movie at all.

Nuff said.