EBD logos, banners -- Opinions?

Hi All. I sent these EBD banners/logos to Luke and he suggested I post them here... any advice, suggestions, etc. about them - as well as how to integrate them into the site redesign - would be appreciated. Also, feel free to grab these and manipulate them in any way you please, distorting, recoloring, adding backgrounds, whatever. The finsished dimension of the banner are 300x600 pixels.This was a Paleo piece I snagged from the site here, just to see what the logo would look like with a contributor's art:

This is just some still from the amazing Jessica Alba film Into the Blue, with the logo on top. I like the idea of using a transparent logo over random imagery (or our own imagery -- below you'll see I used some members' stuff for backgrounds) but I'm not sure how I feel about the results now that look at it... at any rate these aren't meant to be finished, finely tuned pieces, but suggestions. Any of you guys who are more adept at Photoshop, etc. I'm sure could utilize this idea a bit more successfully -- please do!

I actually like this one quite a bit:








I like this, too:

This is another piece I grabbed from the site here, and threw the logo on top of --as you can see, "readability" is an issue with the "transparency" idea, at least as I've attempted it here.

I think this logo (below) isn't quite right... the little "hook" at the bottom left of each letter makes it a bit difficult to read -- the "E" looks like an "S" at first glance and the "D" kinda looks like a "Q".

This one is just silly. And the colored version is by no means presentable -- I'm sort of teaching myself to color with photoshop as I go along...

Early Builds Of Demons

Here's a few early digital build ups of some demon portraits. The lower one will have 6 or 8 eyes peering out of holes spread around the upper half of the head. The second down is going to have some juicy maggots pouring out of the eye sockets.You can see the way I lay out textures in that second pic using various filters to blend into other layers under and over the texture pics.

edit - the top pic is being built over a sculpture based on the devil in an engraving by Albrecht Durer's "The Knight, Devil and Death" seen here.
I wanted one of these demons to have a dog/pig like appearance and that interpretation of the devil was a great place to start from.

Be Bad, Be Glad.

Funny, even though the spread of the internet was the death nell for zines as the awesome micro/macro media they were/are, i've found all sorts of great archives of old zines online which i am now looting & pillaging to create some new zines in the physical world. One day, when we are living on space stations in some alternate dimension, i'm sure it'll be just as weird. Anyhow, check out this great blog "PUNKS IS HIPPIES" full of lots of archived Punk zines.

& Lenny Bruce on sniffing glue.



Just watched the Bela Lugosi Dracula for the first time in quite a while. Fantastic. Just fantastic. Get in the Halloween mood & watch it yourself!

Snowbeard, the Old Storyteller

77 PEURS

http://george-leblogdegeorge.blogspot.com/

Hell Head

Here's an early build of one portrait out of 4 I'm doing for a book of demons being published in the UK.

Ben Wilson

Above: Sleeping Giant 1987
made with branches and nails in Hadley Common, North London
9 meters long and since vanished

A while ago, Mr. Sean's Witch's Head post remind me of this amazing outdoor sculpture i scanned from "Raw Creation" an art brut & outsider art book written by John Maizels, edited by Phaidon.

I searched the web for more images of this artist to link to, but i only found

this

"Raw Creation" mention that Wilson's big outdoor sculptures were routinely vandalized, so i wonder if he decided to make this new stuff a joke on these vandals? he went from the majestic work on the countryside to the three-hair-brush-monk-like work in the City sidewalks, embeleshing the detritus of...sure, vandals!

He even does a portrait of Maradona!

Tempest Sketch

Just had a great idea for a painting and jotted it down, wish I wasn't working on a million other projects or I'd start painting this now. It's some sort of beaked aquatic abomination picking a boat out of the water for a snack. There's going to be clouds with demonic faces blowing wind and lightning out of their mouthes while a swirling ocean surface below spins other boats around the giant monster.

Un-Mounded

I LOVE SUPERJAIL!

This show is RUDE CRUDE AND FULL OF ATTITUDE!!!
Watch the most recent episode here.

Pilot episode on Guba.

Adult Swim page for Superjail..

There's an official site for Augenblick Studios Inc, the folks behind the madness, here.

And a couple more short cartoons by one of the show creators, Christy Karacas...

March of Alka Malka

Here's two tunes by the band I'm in 'March of Alka Malka' called 'Concrete Sleep' and 'Chimpera' if your ears can stand it there's more here: http://www.myspace.com/marchofthealkamalka

Seeing With the Mind's Eye

Hi All.

Not much work of my own to present lately, so I'll continue with some regular-style "blogging" of found junk -- hopefully of interest.

Here are a bunch of images from a book I came across in the free pile at the library, called Seeing With the Mind's Eye: The History, Techniques and Uses of Visualization by Mike Samuels, M.D. and Nancy Samuels. I think it's a fascinating, evocative set of pictures. Most are labelled, but for a few I unfortunately lost any identifying artist info -- if you can name the artists for those few works, it would be appreciated. The book is probably about 30 years old, and was printed in B&W -- even though most of these images are probably available somewhere online in full color (and higher resolutions) I think they're all pretty effective, even creepy, in monochrome.

I believe this (above) is actually by Yves Tanguay.

St. George and the Dragon has long been one of my favorite subjects in art, and I save as many versions of the legend that I can find.

I love these three images by Redon (above, and the two below). I don't know much about them, but they appear to be part of a series?



Finally, this is just a random image from another book I found at the same time, but I thought it was almost "of a piece" with those from the other book.

DENNIS DREAD: THE BATTLE FOR ART

I've been following the work of Dennis Dread since the mid-90s when i came across his underground art zine "Destroying Angels". Dennis works almost entirely in ball-point bic pen, in an advanced version of what i always called "jail style" art, with the hyper-rendering & the skulls & leather & all that good stuff. He mainatains the blog "The Battle For Art" with exciting pictures, how-tos, contests & all manner of excitiment, & each year he curates the "Entartete Kunts" show at the Optic Nerve Arts gallery in Portland. Most excitingly, he's done some record sleeves for Black Metal legends DarkThrone. Let's get to know this guy!

Sean: So Dennis, Wimp Art & Underground Art... i know what they are, i know what the war is about, but how can other people begin to understand what this is about?

Dennis: The Battle for Art is the struggle against complacency, stagnancy, and laziness. It is the battle against false pretense and weakness in art. Despite all my swaggering hyperbole, this has nothing to do with bonehead machismo and it doesn't necessarily refer to "hard" or "extreme" imagery. Beautiful and subtle art can be very powerful and more subversive than many self-proclaimed "brutal" artists. I also want to be clear that I don't necessarily have a problem with commercial art. In fact, many of my own influences from childhood came directly from commercial "trash culture" debris. Everything from Count Chocula cereal boxes and KISS trading cards to album covers and Wacky Packages. Commercial book cover illustrators like James Bama and Frank Frazetta also made a big impact on me as a very young kid. I also really love all the old EC horror comic artists from the 50's. Those EC covers were some of the most amazing mass produced stuff of the mid-20th century. The economical linework and stark composition just seemed to say so much. And those guys were cranking out stuff at a pace I could never imagine. They had a real solid work ethic and considered themselves blue-collar entertainers and not some precious "artistes". I identify with that spirit very much. Those EC guys also had a sense of comradery that somehow embodies an important aspect of the best underground art. They posed for each other's drawings, inked each other's pencils, helped each other get jobs and generally promoted the development of each other's individual styles and specialties. Today so many artists seem shallow and self-serving and competitive. And the lines between underground and mainstream commercial art have blurred more than ever. I guess it's difficult these days to articulate precisely what makes great underground art and what makes wimp art. But you know it when you see it!

Sean: You mention KISS cards, Wacky Packages & Count Chocula. I also remember alot of the 70s & 80s kid's stuff as being quite cool. But today, when i look around the toy stores everything seems like complete crap. Alot of it is better made, more fancily painted & all that, but there seems to be no soul and nothing cool about it. At the same time, there's all these designer toys being made for nerdy adults, but i think people are forgetting the kids! The kids Dennis. Let's talk about the kids.

Dennis: I do it for the kids every day! My daughter turned 10 this summer and published her first zine and my step-son is now 13 and already towers over me. They're both incredibly beautiful and bright children. Up the kids! It's true, there is a glut of hipster toys these days. Some of them look really amazing. There are some incredibly clever designers out there. I have a wind-up Pushead toy near my drawing table that never fails to amuse me. My problem with all these designer toys is that they're all too expensive. The price tag and "collectability" steals all the fun and they become nothing more than fossils of imagination. Toys should be played with, they shouldn't be designed to sit on some dick's computer monitor in a cubicle. My suggestion for the next D.I.Y. punk movement: Liberate the Toys!

Sean: The artists today REALLY do seem shallow, self-serving & competitive! There are some of these young aspiring professional illustrators who are cut-throat dogs. I've heard terrible stories. But, this seems to be a reflection of our society, which is shallow, self-serving & competitive. People like us come from "the scene", which gives us a built in community & set of ethos, let's talk about values.

Dennis: I don't know that I've ever been embraced by any particular scene and I don't fool myself into thinking I have a built in community. There are a lot of shit talkers and pretenders to the throne in any scene. But there are also many honorable allies out there. If it weren't for my friends in Engorged I would still be sitting in my basement drawing zombies in complete obscurity. Oh wait. I still am...haha. I pour myself into every drawing I do, regardless of how much I'm paid or how "high-profile" the project. I live my life without shame.

Sean: It seems like this period of time & maybe since the mid-nineties, there has been a resurgence of both Undergroud & Wimp art, alot of it is found in Portland... it reminds me of when Emo started creeping out of the Punk scene & us kids with spikey jackets, reeking of alcohol were no longer welcome at certain shows.

Dennis: Yeah, this stuff comes in waves. I've been around long enough now to recognize the ebb and flow patterns of art as well as "scenes". Chumps arrive on a scene like they invented something, talk a bunch of shit, contribute nothing, and then disappear two years later. Fuck 'em! Underground art and underground music will always thrive just below the surface of any scene. In fact, real underground art will probably thrive exactly where it is most unwelcome. Going underground is always an act of resistance and survival.

Sean: Commercial art... you've got some album art that is directed at people like us, is most likely some of our primary influences. Commercial art sometimes only obeys the dollar, but other times, you just happened to be being payed by someone for art that they like, the economics aside. Where is the line on selling-out?

Dennis: "Selling out" is generally the poser-speak of the rich and talentless. You can bet if some corporation ever offers me big money to draw a bunch of zombies playing basketball or drinking Diet Coke, I'll be laughing all the way to the bank! I got bills to pay! Anyone who has ever hunched over a drawing table until the sun comes up should understand the value of being respectfully compensated and I've always been a big advocate of artists getting paid. Bands should pay their cover artists well and on time. They should properly credit their artist. And they should give their artist enough freedom to develop their own style. It's obvious when a band asks an artist to rip off some 80's album cover and there are enough Pushead and Mid imitators out there to embarrass even the most well-intended fans. My feeling is that most people have an internal guiding system that rings an alarm when they're doing something lame or that goes against their true artistic and spiritual instincts. When that internal alarm rings you should ask yourself what's going on and take a closer look at your intentions. Trusting your own instincts and questioning your own motives is always sound advice.

Sean: So, the question of selling out doesn't actually have to do with money, but about being true to yourself & pursuing your own fate. What about the more public or social perception of doing "dishonorable" work. I don't think that everything is personal, there is a large social or community element to art too, so maybe your zombies become associated with a company like Coca Cola, or you only do snow boards or something like that, isn't part of it associative? On one hand, you don't want to listen to the peanut gallery, on the other hand, the peanut gallery is your fan base right?

Dennis: I probably don't have a "fan base" and I certainly don't have any wealthy patrons or clients, so I don't worry much about alienating the peanut gallery...haha. For me it has been a struggle just to get the public to consider my ballpoint drawings as art! I think people generally assume my work must be a novelty I learned in prison or while strung out on meth. For the record, I've never done jail time or been stung out on meth. But I agree that once artwork gets beyond the drawing table there is an element of social perception, especially in the image-conscious culture in which we live. Feedback is essential to creative development, but there is also a danger in paying too much attention to the opinions of others and a risk of allowing yourself to be pigeonholed. I wouldn't want to stifle my own creativity by accepting limitations forced on me by some shifting "community" or "scene". It is the challenge of the artist to create work that really engages the viewer and stirs the imagination. This gets back to the struggle against laziness in art. Even dumb art shouldn't dumb down. One of the reasons Garbage Pail Kids struck such a nerve in the 80's was because they were so well rendered. As fast as those things were cranked out, there was still a palpable love for the material in the best of those paintings. The artist was obviously having as much fun painting them as kids were having grossing out their parents and teachers. And that was John Pound, a guy who came straight from the underground. In the final analysis, I think "selling out" is less about money and more about selling yourself short creatively. There's nothing dishonorable about earning money from your craft. I often wish I could earn enough money to draw "full time" and not die starving in a gutter.

Sean: We both have "Luciferian Tendencies", however, one of the central themes of the particular secret masters that i pay attention to is "As above, So Below". So, is the evil element of your work aesthetic? We both have kids, it makes the future a very pragmatic, straight forward thing...

Dennis: At the risk of sounding ridiculously pretentious, I believe that conscious parenting is itself a magical undertaking. As thoughtful parents we are constantly - willfully - influencing our environment and the world around us. The principles of Order & Chaos are the "prima materia" of parenting. The seemingly mundane tasks of paying bills, planning healthy meals, and drawing around us an extended family of individuals who contribute to the inspired lives of our children are all imbued with the potency of sustained ritual. One glimpses the alchemical Philosophers' Stone in the changing of a diaper. As above, so below. Parenting also entails rituals of destruction and the warding off of insidious negative influence. The evil aesthetic serves this purpose well. We must be careful that in creating a "pragmatic, straight forward" future for our kin we don't unintentionally strip our own lives of the mystery and passion and ecstatic visions that make life worth living. Such a clumsy neglect of one's creative vigor would surely result in a sort of extended post-partum depression. Incidentally, "Luciferian Tendencies" sounds like a great band...

Sean: Let's say the Battle For Art is won. What does the world look like? Or is that even a goal?

Dennis: The only goal is struggle. Strength through strife!

The EBD hype Machine Challenge

So, I've started up a Myspace page ( Add me, Bitches!) and Aeron and I were trading some notes thereabouts; Why not an Eaten By Ducks myspace page? It definitely can't hurt.
I'm about halfway done with changing up the look of EBD proper; I'm going to shrink the avatars a little bit, embed links in the images, widen the template, and even add some pages- other urls- to EBD.
But here's the thing- We need a kind of coherent set of images that binds it all together. We need :

1. An avatar

2. Either a banner that isn't done in one of our signature styles, or a cool font, or really great hand-drawn lettering.

3. Some kind of background image that doesn't crowd the page. It would have to be sort of muted, basically, or it will look like a jumble, competing with our posts. We don't "need" this, but I think it could be cool.

I've got a few things up my sleeve regarding the content of EBD. One thing I plan on doing is soliciting for interviews with artists and cartoonists and what have yous that I plan on posting here. I kind of started off with that idea way back when. It's something I've always been interested in.

My hope is that EBD will kind of get to the next level, so to speak. Sean is certainly helping on that front with the in-the-works EBD zine.
( How cool will that be to have the cover image linked-to on the sidebar? )
I don't want to sound like I don't like EBD how it is.We have great, great cartoonists and artists posting here right now and I think lots of people would be into reading this blog if they only knew it existed, or if we offered some more reader-friendly content.I just think it can be more than what it is right now. It can be what's going on here now, squared.

So, my worry is that this change will be seen as sort of presumptuous on my part. It's tricky, trying to figure out what all of you are going to like,or how to negotiate any potential conflict. After all, none of us "owns" Eaten By Ducks, but we all sort of do. But I try to keep in mind that EBD is not, as far as I know, the sole internet outlet for any of us. We all do personal blogs ,it seems.
So EBD should be about something a little different. It's first and foremost for us to communicate with one another. We do that well. But we can do that on our aforementioned blogs. It needs to be about something a little more.
For some, it might be about hyping their own projects, for others, a way to participate in creating media, for others still it will remain a casual way of getting and giving feedback to like minded friends and nothing more. all of those are good motives, in my opinion, as long as it's done with the idea in mind that you're contributing to a larger organ.
Some of us are published artists, some not. But I think the common denominator is that we would all like to be, wether it's commercial work, comics or self-published books and zines. The potential for posting content to that end hasn't really been met by us, I don't think. I mentioned earlier that I plan on adding new pages to EBD; I hope to create one that features links to all of our published work, pdf zines, actual zines- all that stuff.

SO: Let me know what you think about all these changes.
If it seems like very few are interested enough to participate in the discussion, maybe I'll rethink all of it and start up something new.Maybe this just isn't the place to do all this.
If you can't actively participate in the discussion, that's okay- keep doing what you're doing- but If you really don't want any of these changes to occur, make your voice heard.If you have ideas about better ways to change it, let's talk about it.
Also, I realize this might seem even more presumptuous on my part, but there are a few members who simply do not post here anymore. I'm going to take down their links for the time being.If they want to start up again, I'll be more than happy to welcome them back, but based on their participation over the last six months or so, I think they won't even notice ( what a drag!)
Now, let's hit the comments board .

TMNT Ephemera

Sometimes the pieces of paper that come with toys are better than the toys themselves. Toys should always make sure to come with crap like this. Comics, maps, joke books, profile cards & extra writing & drawings. In fact, everything should come with extra ephemeral items. This is the glory of Dr. Bronner's soap, which i don't use, but god bless it, all that tiny crazy text to read. Mad Magazine (who knows about the newer issues) was always crammed to the gills with comics, especially Sergio Aragones "marginals". Comics between the margins! Value! Compulsive space filling! Most cereals don't offer toys inside anymore either. They should be required to have a sticker or a hologram or a plastic thingy in each box, as well as some sort of insane screed filling up all unused space. CRASS records are the same, but should also come with plastic figures to play with. The Ramones Rocket to Russia album with glorious cartoons of each song by John Holmstrom! He-Man figures each coming with a cool little comic! You get the point. Here are some good scraps of ephemeral ephemera.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret Sewer Map #7

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles National Turtle Quiz Jokebook #10

Devil You Know

Anathema

Anathema 667: When Satan spat on Asmodeus, many small minded farts on bred who pretended to be shits on toast applauded for the angry master of evil lost his mind. Dear Satan! Please! Never remember spittle is not spunk.

Lost Time Vault- Also feeling Pretty Cool

-Probably the only really cool thing about drawing so much over the years is that- even though you haven't "done" anything with the drawings- you get to stumble upon them a few years later, having forgotten you ever created them and remember exactly where you were, what you were doing and thinking at the time you drew them.


In other news, I feel pretty cool:
I have an "inky world"..

The Thing Fails At Becoming Human

This slime mold pic looks like bits of the alien from The Thing, it's trying to turn into a person but all it remembers is the eyelashes part and skin, sort of. It fucked the skin part up and made it look more like a bunch of small wax candles, but it got the eyelash part spot on and is overcompensating by making a ton of em, or maybe it just needs them to walk the fuck out of whatever place it's lost in? I don't know but it's not fooling me, I see it for the mutant monster alien from hell that it is. Give me a flame thrower and I'll send that mutant son of a bitch straight back to that hell!

Aeron Spelt Wrong

New (old) FLICKR Account

Hey there howdy. My wife is getting all serious about photography so i'm resurrecting my old FLICKR account. Here it is. Go there & add me okay!?

Here's a drawing i did that i forgot about. It's a self-portrait of sorts, this guy that draws & draws & draws & draws.


Also, is everyone on Eaten By Ducks on the email list? I've mentioned the zine project a bunch of times in mass emailings & have only got responses from a few people. I'm not into harassment & haranguing or guilt trips or any of that, but anyhow, if you'd like to be part of the first Eaten By Ducks zine & are also interested in me not pushing to have you removed from this blog, let me know! Thanks.