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| A* art show and a haircut--at Spin's! | Jun 30, 2015 1:14 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:If you visit Spin's Barbershop in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood (just off the main drag, 45th (map)) between now and the end of September, besides charming conversation, you'll also get a free A* art show with your haircut, courtesy of the 17 large, framed A* prints filling up the main wall!
Thanks to Spin, and the usual suspects who helped make this little show possible. : ) I had one there two years ago that went quite well, and they were even willing to have me back, so huzzah!
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| Pure ink A* art for sale! | Jun 27, 2015 7:35 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The Big A* Original Art Sale continues! (I'm thinking I'll be running this for another month or so—where the original A* paintings and drawings you can buy through this site are just $10 each instead of their usual $50!) Just look for the gold "original art" link at the lower left of the comic images to see which pieces of original A* art are still available. You'll find a good number still available as you flip through the comic, but here are a couple examples (still available as of this writing, anyway!) to get you started, hailing from the pure black and white ink days of episode 18: Selenis hotwiring a starship, and then the ship jetting away from the space station at top speed! Click the thumbnails below for a larger view and more info on each piece (you'll find, for instance, that both are 16" wide):
 
Thanks for checking out my art! ^_^
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| Two colors from Sirius | Jun 26, 2015 4:17 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Epic Comics' (a short-lived creator-owned Marvel imprint from the '80s) first limited series, the 4-issue Six from Sirius (1984) by writer Doug Moench and artist Paul Gulacy, made a big impression on me when I read it as a kid; the story and art were quite a bit different than the super hero comic I'd been reading. The original issues were among the comics I rescued from my brother's recent give-our-comic-collection-away bonanza, so I've been re-reading them, and it strikes me that Gulacy's colors could quite possibly have had something to do with my current red and blue color palette for A*; while Gulacy doesn't limit himself to just a few colors, *sometimes* he does for a panel or three, with striking results. A sequence from issue 1:
And a shocking panel in issue 2 that omits black entirely:
A full-page bio of Gulacy at the end of issue #2 (along with one on Moench; they didn't do anything by halves at Epic Comics!) says that "the coloring is the result of an arcane and complex process of experimentation utilizing a variety of mediums, including acrylics, markers, colored inks and pencils." It also mentions that he had taken a break from comics to work in commercial illustration for two and a half years before returning to do Six from Sirius, and I wonder if that's where he picked up some of these multimedia tricks; the character in that second photo also looks heavily photo-referenced, which I understand is used much more in commercial illustration than it usually is in comics.
Another thing I'm noticing, that I couldn't really articulate when I read these back in the day, is that he omits a lot of outlines, which naturally gives a more photo-realistic look—this stands in stark contrast to traditional comic inking, especially inking in the mid '80s, where a hefty black line surrounds pretty much everything.
Anyway yeah, neat art in these. (And it looks a lot better in the original issues than it does in the recent trade paperback from Dynamite Entertainment that I picked up a few years back: the artwork there is reproduced slightly smaller, blurrier, and the colors are much too dark.) I've looked around for more of Gulacy's work, but I haven't been able to find a significant chunk of it that reaches out and grabs me as much as his work in this limited series does—and that is certainly due in no small amount to the outrageous coloring he did here!
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| Outlines : o | Jun 25, 2015 1:42 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Mostly I've been trying to avoid drawing outlines in watercolor, but I did it here because I figured Selenis was going to be against a bright background and I wasn't sure how else to delineate her clearly at this smallish scale. Made for a rather nice smooth illustrationy look as opposed to my recent more painty approaches. Hm!
By the way, a big thank you to everyone who's been buying or bidding on the original artwork for these pages of late, it is a huge huge huge help! Thank you! ^_^
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| Old school sci-fi | Jun 23, 2015 11:39 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:While visiting the fam this weekend for Father's Day, mom surprised me with some old papers of mine illustrating, apparently, that I've been into this sci-fi thing quite a bit longer than I'd remembered. Here's a rocket ship (rocket house?) I drew at age 5:
I think I had a better signature back then.
At age 6, I had never written a note to anyone—but then something *really important* came up and I had to bend all my powers to getting it down in writing so there would be no mistake:
I'm not sure what the Star Wars "thing" was, or why I crossed out "9" and re-wrote it below...and then spelled it out—but I guess I wanted to make really really really sure my mom got the date right so we wouldn't miss it.
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| Wooooooooo... yeah | Jun 22, 2015 11:08 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Oh man! The abuses of the weekend are catching up with me; I'm off to take a nice eight-hour sleepcation. See you tomorrow!
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| Crashing and Burning, the A* Art Sale Goes On | Jun 20, 2015 9:06 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Hello! The Big A* Original Art Sale marches onward, shipping unique pages from the A* story out to readers like you across the world! During the sale, every piece of A* art for sale through this site is just $10, yep! Just look for the gold "original art" link at the lower left of the comic page images, for instance. You'll find plenty just reading through the comic, but here are a few samples—still available as I write this—to get your juices flowing: the first is Selenis crashing and burning in watercolor over the desert in episode 22, and the second is a nice pair of sleeping (or is she? : o) ink wash Selenis eyes from way back in episode 15! You can click these thumbnails to go to their art info pages:
 
And there are lots more still available, just flip through the comic and you'll find them. Thanks for looking, and thanks for reading! ^_^
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| Mind control for the boob tube | Jun 19, 2015 9:51 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The BBC is working on a mind-controlled remote for television; the article itself doesn't tell you much more than that, but this video shows how it works: each menu on the TV has a timed bar progressing through the list of available menu options, and when the bar reaches the one you want, you let your mind go blank ("meditate"), an electronic sensor resting on your forehead registers this drop in electrical brain activity through your skin, and the current menu option is triggered.
It's about as rudimentary a form of "mind control" as you could get (of the ten or so internal BBC employees testing it, one described it as "frustrating," while another (giggling) said it was "a lot slower than the remote control"), but the BBC has hopes that something like it could one day be of use for viewers who, for instance, are unable to manipulate a normal hand-held remote.
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| Breathing: trickier than it looks | Jun 18, 2015 6:36 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Fun fact: normal breathing—you know, with the lungs and diaphragm and all that—while wearing a skin-tight space activity suit similar to Selenis' in vacuum requires that the tightness of the suit is producing pressure of at least "17.3 kilopascals (130 mmHg; 2.5 psi)" across the wearer's torso. I guess this is because otherwise, without the help of Earth's atmospheric pressure, it's too much work to exhale!
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| Zip me up? | Jun 17, 2015 5:56 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:One of the trickiest things about using unpressurized, skin-tight space suits, or space activity suits, such as Selenis' is getting the darn thing on and off, apparently.
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I'm probably going to regret putting a bracing system around the ships here. This took a while to paint! : o
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| Cometary probe Philae lives! | Jun 16, 2015 2:39 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The ESA's tiny Philae probe, mankind's first cometary lander, lost somewhere in a dark ditch on the surface of Comet 67P after it took a hard bounce during its historic landing seven months ago, has come back to life! The comet is nearing perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, and even at the bottom of its steep ditch, the lander's solar panels are now getting three hours of extra-intense sunlight each day, which has been enough for it to wake up and beam short messages to its orbiting mothership. Scientists hope to get the lander to work on sampling the gasses sizzling off the comet—indeed, the increased heating of the comet means Philae now has much richer conditions for conducting its experiments on the comet's composition than it would have had if it had started its work on schedule back in November. Can it recover sufficiently to perform its tests? Can it—and the comet—survive their pass by the Sun? Things are heating up!
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| A* art for sale! | Jun 13, 2015 10:26 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I'm having a sale of A* original art that you might be interested in cashing in on before it's too late! During this current Big A* Original Art Sale, all pieces of A* original art available for sale directly through this site are just $10 each; normally they're $50, so yes this would be a good time to pick up any of your favorite hand-drawn A* paintings or illustrations that haven't sold yet! Just look for the gold "original art" link at the lower-left corner of the comic images as you're reading along: if you see it down there, it means that page is still for sale, and clicking it will take you to that piece of art's info page where you can click a big shiny gold "Buy" button to go on and purchase it instantly with credit card or PayPal; the info pages also have a photo of the piece and specific info about its size and composition.
For instance, here are a couple 16" x 6.75" watercolor pieces still available from back in episode 22; clicking these thumbnails will take you to their info pages if you want to check them out : ) :
 
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| The internet is totally not distracting, nope | Jun 12, 2015 8:03 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Too much drawing and procrastinating, not enough blogging! Oh well, did you know that smaller eyes look more "realistic" than bigger eyes? O_o Not so much ears, though; that was more of an oversight—no pun intended : p
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| Just a dab there...and there, and there and | Jun 11, 2015 4:13 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Been using a kind of super paint-y style this week. Easy to overdo, I guess, but sometimes it looks okay. Also it's just fun to smear white ink all over the place!
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| The episode 25 electronical tome | Jun 09, 2015 11:16 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The brand new episode 25 e-book is here! That is, if you're a supporter of the comic through the A* Patreon campaign, I already mailed you a free download link to the new e-book over the weekend, and if you're not one of those folks, you can pop over to the episodes & e-books page and pick up your own copy. And then you can like read the episode offline or whatever on anything that can read .pdf files.
E-books! What'll they think of next?
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| Sleep is for vanilla | Jun 08, 2015 1:43 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I'm beginning to suspect that there are inherent dangers in late night chocolate ice cream. More research may be needed, however.
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| Episode 26! And 16! | Jun 06, 2015 8:24 AM PDT | url |
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Added 2 new A* pages:The space station just visible in the upper middle distance of today's page (the ship referred to in its caption is not visible in the shot; in A*, for security and safety reasons, foreign ships, especially large ones, are not typically allowed within a great distance of most stations, and have to park in a holding orbit some ways off, with their passengers catching an approved shuttle ship to get to the station itself) is one we've seen before! Ten episodes ago, in fact: episode 16, page 30. You can probably guess from that who is talking in this latest page. : )
And speaking of pages from years of A* past, they're on sale! That's right, the Big A* Original Art Sale is *still* going on (hey, people keep buying stuff! : ), which means that the pieces of original A* artwork available through this site can be purchased for just $10 each! (Most of them usually go for $50.) Just look for the gold "original art" link at the lower left corner of the A* comic images, for instance, and if you see it there, that means the actual watercolor painting, ink illustration, or whatever that that comic page was made from is still available for you to buy; click that gold "original art" link to go to the product page for the piece of art, which will show you a large photo of the actual physical piece, as well as more details on it, and its big shiny gold "buy" button, which will let you buy it right then and there with your credit card or Pay Pal. (If you're buying multiple pieces, click each one's "buy" button to add them to your cart, *then* complete the check-out procedure on the pages that come up, so you can buy them all in one swoop AND only have to pay one shipping fee for the lot.)
Here are a few examples, starting with that first view of this space station from ten episodes ago; both of these ink illustrations are 17" wide, and, at the time of this writing, still available for you to buy and have all to yourself for your very own; click these thumbnails to go to their info pages:
 
^ That second one is from a time around episode 17 when I was just drawing the pages with a big inky brush straight off, without any preliminary pencil drawing or anything; it was risky, but sometimes paid off with nifty surprises, like those zingy eyes there that somehow came out so nicely formed from a single Zorro-like brush stroke each. : o
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| Episode 26 starts tomorrow! | Jun 05, 2015 11:50 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:That's it for episode 25! Episode 26 starts tomorrow, and in it Selenis will meet up with another old chum of hers who we've also met before (can you guess who? No, it isn't Vero : p) and he'll have a space mystery for her that only she can solve! Or can she??? Don't miss this next thrilling episode! ^_^
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| Once a rogue... | Jun 04, 2015 4:07 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Here's another sketch I mailed to a reader as their monthly reward for supporting the comic through the A* Patreon campaign : ):
One page left in the episode! It won't even have Thierry in it! And he won't be around once we hit the next episode, so this'll be the last we see of the rascal for a while. I think!
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| Ep. 25 e-book this weekend maybe! | Jun 03, 2015 2:37 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Here's a sketch I mailed to a reader as their monthly reward for supporting the comic through the A* Patreon campaign : ):
According to my current script we have just two more pages left in episode 78, so in theory this weekend I'll be able to put the episode 25 e-book together and get it mailed out to all the folks supporting A* through Patreon at the e-book support levels. : ) That's what I'll be shooting for, anyway!
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| An embedded playlist of A* video episodes! | Jun 02, 2015 12:10 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I added a note to the top of the about page mentioning that A* started off as an animated webcomic, and I added a page to the site where you can watch animated episodes 1-7 back to back in embedded YouTube playlist format. (Over the weekend I flipped back to the start of the comic and was paging through it, and it struck me that I should probably have an explanation somewhere as to why the format and pacing of the first seven episodes is so different!)
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