EMAW 10 PAGE 4

4 pages in eleven days! That actually gets me closer to a February end date. WHOOT! WHOOT! I like that jibby cut.

Thyis is my Human Diastrophism page. Although, just now flipping through every version of Human Diastrophism I have, I see that it's not really accurate. It still feels kinda Beto to me. I guess it's better that it's closer to a Hernandez page in my mind than an actual page. But it does make me wonder what I was thinking of.

He was doing some funky letterforms in his titles at the time. And girls dancing in silhouette probably happens dozens of times.

Everything here was done with #7 or #8 brushes, except for the small faces, done with a Rod Stewart india ink marker. OH!

This is also one of my Crazy in Love pages. For a long time, I've wanted to make a comic that looked the way Crazy in Love sounded. It came out of my never-formed ideas of what a hip-hop comic might look like. I spent an undo amount of time on that problem and did all sorts of trashbin-destined diagrams, even. I think the opening sequence in this book is the closest I've come to realizing that questionable dream — all I had to do was stop thinking about it!

This is also the Body Malone page! Body Malone was the first song the Suave Prospects wrote after their one and only live performance. It also might be the song that would sound best perfomed live. IRONY!

EMAW 10 PAGE 3!

I changed "freaks" to ladies. No real reason.



Page 4 is another full-pager, and I think I can knock it out pretty quickly.

EMAW 10 PAGE 2

Well, THAT only took a week.

Schedule-wise, that's a pace that should me having the book done just in time for APE 2008, being held in November next year. OY!

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were pretty much devoured by Suave Prospects of all things! What happened? Our last album came out in 2004! Our next one might be done before 2008! MAYBE! It looks like it's going to be called Tongues in Cheeks. This must be how it feels to be the really eager member of Portishead. We listened to Marcos' new mixes, made a fresh beat and laid vocals. It looks like a 9-Track album. Two other tracks might be included, saved for a later Suave album or used on something called Leisure Box: WHAM of Hip Hop!

It's a strange album, for me. First of all, it took forever to get us all in the right place at the right time. Second, some of these tracks have been sitting as demos for years. Third, it's not as refined as Forbiden Libidinals and contains no guest vocals. Fourth, while some tracks were partly recorded in this apartment, MOST of the work was/is being done at Marcos' solo pad. That might be the weirdest thing. I'm not living with this album, the way I did the others. Also, I'm just not as involved in all the nutsy bolts as I once was.

But, we've listened to most of it, and I think it sounds pretty awesome. Perfect for grandmas at Christmas.

Anyway, here's page 2 of EMAW #10:




Panel one sure has a lot of patterns in it. That's what took the longest to do. I finally stopped making more patterns when I was considering going in and detailing the weave of Bern's jacket. Also, it took me forever to finally arrive upon that layout. The sign on the building will be a reappropriation of the RABBIT'S signage from EMAW #8. The underside of the cars will probably be REMAKERIST ads.

Part of me still wants to add some Metalic Sheen (née Estevez) to those cars. But I'm going to move on, for now.

Panel 2 brings back two characters from #8 who will be playing a bigger role in this issue. It also gets us back into RABBIT'S. The first 10 or so pages should have quite a few callbacks to #8.

Now onto Page 3!

EMAW 10-1

Page 1! Needs some tweaking, but dones!




That took FOREVER! Why do I do this?

JUST A LOOK

At the cover without the yellow background. I can't print these out yet, so I can only judge them online for now.



And I'm about halfway through the inking on page 1.

EMAW #9: BIGGEST OF PREVIEWS!

The big preview page for Earth Minds Are Weak #9 is up. 29 FREAKIN' PAGES!

Here's what someone said about it:

The book is 59 pages of comics, and two pages of notes. And a handy recap page! Also, color covers. The whole thing comprises Chapter 5 of KAIJU JUGORUMA. Cults! Secret police! Flying cars! Rubber fetish! Ultra-violence! Bondage! Transvestites! Geological history! Geriatric street gangs! Robots! Murder most foul!

It's a romp of proportions!

Marcos said, "Sure, it makes sense. What's for dinner?"

Kenny said, "I honestly think you have one of the most eye-catching headers on comics these days..."

Justin said, "She looks like she's wearing a child's bedroom!"

PRELIMINARY COVER COLOR TEST

Just to get a sense of what the cover might look like in color, using #8's scheme:

EMAW 10 COVER

Well, I was going to do a bunch of other things oday, but I wound up doing a lot more for the cover of issue 10 than I'd originally planned.

Here it is without the color:



I have listened to the new Radiohead (In Rainbows) several times. First listen: ok, but it ended before I started getting into it. Second time, the same. Third time: a lot of the songs seem to end before they really seem to start, carrying over to the whole album; also, are they reusing a lot of the same sonics from the last four albums? Fourth time: it's starting to grow on me. Perhaps one day, I'll like lit the way I've come to love Hail to the Thief or accept the greatness of Amnesiac. It's certainly not as immediately awesome as Kid A, OK Computer or the Bends. But it's miles better than Eraser.

LATEST COVER

The latest, and possibly last, version of the cover. I'm running out of time!