Sixty Minute Monster #5

A fairly simple one this time. I belatedly realized that Photoshop has an "Ocean Ripple" filter that provides a pretty realistic watery effect, but there's something to be said for simplicity.



My take on the kraken is inspired by the Hook Island sea monster, which I think is a pretty awesome cryptid even if it was just a weighted plastic tarp. The kraken was said to float quietly like an island and then suddenly submerge, dragging down any ships unlucky enough to be tethered to it. According to a medieval bestiary translated by T.H. White, it serves as a metaphor for unbelievers who trust in the devil: "They anchor themselves to him, and down they go into the fire of Hell." This also happens to be more or less the plot of the sci-fi horror movie Event Horizon.

Sixty Minute Monster #4

The daily streak continues! I was tempted to keep tinkering with this one, but the discipline of the one-hour time limit is too important to be discarded on a whim.



This one's for my wife, who says that bigfoot is her favorite monster. I think part of the charm of this legendary "cryptid" is the notion of reunion with a long-lost sibling, a form of human-like but non-human intelligence right here on Earth. But if the bigfoot really exists, I wonder if it would be as excited by that prospect. Perhaps that's why it remains so elusive.

Sixty Minute Monster #3

I think this one came out pretty well. This time I'd actually figured out what I wanted to do ahead of time, but when I sat down to draw I did a quick reference search and decided to do something entirely different.



Today's featured beastie is the manticore, which literally means "man-eater." Like the catoblepas, it was apparently based on reports of a real animal, in this case the tiger. Unlike the previous poisonous creatures I don't find it terribly sympathetic; the manticore eats people because it wants to, and its humanoid face makes it something of a cannibal too. When I decided to put it in a tree, I was thinking of the opening scenes of Paul Schrader's Cat People, but the end result is essentially an evil Cheshire Cat.

Sixty Minute Monster #2

Here's another one of these. I wasn't as happy with how this one turned out, but perhaps I can think of it as a rough draft for later improvement.



This, of course, is the ever-popular catoblepas, with its impossibly spindly neck and lethal breath. Many of the creatures featured in medieval bestiaries were based on garbled accounts of actual animals, and it's been proposed that the catoblepas is based on the gnu or water buffalo. With its heavy head and downward gaze, it can be considered an avatar of sloth, but like all venomous monsters I imagine it's mostly just pining for company.

Sixty Minute Monster #1

Now that I've finally replaced my five-year-old Mac, I can actually run Photoshop at a decent clip. To celebrate, here's my first-ever attempt at sketching directly on the computer. Let's see if I get faster and better with practice.



I've always been fascinated with medieval monsters and bestiaries. The cockatrice is a little bit on the under-documented side, since it's often been confused with the basilisk, but it's generally agreed that it's born from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad. (Don't ask me why the end result has a snake tail.) Since the basilisk is the king of reptiles, perhaps the cockatrice could be considered a form of bird royalty, and it presumably shares the same habit of poisoning its environment with its poison breath and petrifying glare. The cockatrice, then, is truly the loneliest of chickens.

Holy Dragons!

Whew! Finally got finished with a fairly intense project, on which more later. In the meantime, here's what happens when my wife says to "draw me a dragon."

More Mars Attacks

Friends, Romans, and/or countrymen! Lend me your eyeballs!

I'm finally getting back to work on my King-Arthur-on-Mars comic, as seen in the previous six pages. I'm aiming to have the next five pages penciled and inked before the San Diego Comic-Con, but in the meantime, I'll put the thumbnails up here in case anyone has any suggestions or pointers. I'd welcome comments here or by e-mail... you can even scrawl them on the bathroom walls if you like, although it's unlikely I'll see them unless it happens to be my bathroom. Excelsior!

This one is supposed to face page six of the previous set. I've updated it with a new thumbnail that replaces the previous version.



...and these form a two-page spread.