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  • 2 Plays
  • The Walking XperimentSerart

Since I’m writing a new Jack and Liam story along with a few mini-comics to tide people over, I’ve started doing these long writing sessions in Evernote that usually just involve me, my thoughts, a keyboard and whatever’s streaming on my iTunes player. And I recently discovered an album with one of my favorite metal artists, Serj Tankian of System of a Down, collaborating with Arto Tunçboyacıyan, an avant-garde Turkish-Armenian folk singer.


The result is Serart, a very weird mix of the traditional free-form abstract music that comes from Arto’s music and the free-form abstract metal noise that comes from Serj’s line of music. It’s very meditative, surprisingly enough and I recommend it to anyone interested in vaguely-world-ish-music.

Eight Cartoonist’s Tools

Hey, everyone. If you’re like me and you like reading up on other people’s drawing gear, I’m sure you’re curious what your idols use to draw. I look all the time to see what Daniel Clowes or Chris Ware use to draw and I like to save the results whenever I find them. I sometimes use that list to buy my own gear and see what works for me.

So, for your benefit, I’ve decided to compile a list of artists and what they use on this post. If you have any of your own, message them to me and I’ll see if I can add them somewhere:


  1. CHRIS WARE (author of Jimmy Corrigan and The Acme Novelty Library) uses Loew-Cornell Kolinsky sable brushes with Dr. Ph Martin’s Tech ink on series 400 Strathmore Bristol board to draw his comics. [source]


  2. DANIEL CLOWES (author of Ghost World, Wilson and Mister Wonderful) uses Faber-Castell artist brush pens for doodling, but I can’t dig up what he uses in his own work. I hear it’s given in Conversations: Daniel Clowes, but I don’t own a copy of it. I’m guessing it’s a Winsor and Newton something.

  3. CHARLES BURNS (author of X’ed Out and Black Hole) uses a size number 2 brush and though I couldn’t find out what brand, I did find a picture of him using one in action and I’m guessing it’s a Series 7 brush from Winsor & Newton. [source1][source2]

  4. ADRIAN TOMINE (author of Scenes From An Impending Marriage and Shortcomings) uses Rapidographs and a Winsor & Newton series 7 brush. [source]

  5. JAIME HERNANDEZ (author of Love & Rockets) uses a Hunt no. 101 pen nib. He may also use a Hunt no. 22, but I’ve only heard these names tossed around as rumors in comments.

  6. CRAIG THOMPSON (author of Habibi and Blankets) is oddly open about exactly what he uses: he has both a Winsor & Newton Cotman 111 size 2 brush and a Raphael 8404 size 4 on vellum bristol board and Super Black India Ink from Speedball. [source]

  7. ART SPIEGELMAN (author of Maus) apparently used a fountain pen and 8.5x11” typing paper to do the Maus chapters. [source]

  8. BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY (author of the Scott Pilgrim series) uses a Winsor & Newton Series 7 brush, size 2 or 3.

And that’s all I could dig up for these artists. Hit me up with requests and I’ll go back and find them, maybe.

Here are some notes on Reservoir Dogs: This is the quintessential (Quentin-sential?) Quentin Tarantino movie. It’s the personification of the very bare bones of what Tarantino sets out to do in all of his movies. His characters are rude and crude and yet have some form of heart and motivation. The dialog drips with profanity, but is also filled with the essential truth of how messed up life is. The violence is ever-present and ever-brutal, just like it is in real life: you can’t sugarcoat the nature of brutality and Tarantino doesn’t try. This is what every Quentin Tarantino movie is. Tim Roth is the best actor in the movie. No, really, he is. Yeah, Steve Buscemi gets all the best lines and Michael Madsen is the best cold-hard-badass and yes, Harvey Keitel is a great caring character. But Tim Roth gets his role down because he genuinely looks like he’s in pain after getting shot in the face. When he tells Officer Nash, “F**K YOU, I’M F**KING DYING”, he looks like he is dying. You can feel this very real anger and pain from his portrayal. His whimpering, crying and panicked squealing in the car strikes me every time I see that scene. I didn’t draw Holdaway because I forgot about him. I’m sorry. Upon watching the film again, I realize that he actually has a very important part in the movie. In retrospect, if I had been more creative, I could’ve also drawn the radio from the warehouse and have K-Billy under it. I missed a lot of side characters, but I mostly wanted to just do the main characters. If I do another piece (and I will), I’ll be sure to include more of the main characters. Mr. Pink’s monologue on tipping is the funniest, truest thing I’ve ever heard from Steve Buscemi. Why is Mr. Blue even in this movie? Did Tarantino just really like Eddie Bunker and decide, “Hey, he’s in good movies. I’ll put him in mine!” All he does is make a fellatio joke and then die off-screen. Even Tarantino himself gets more lines, and all he does is talk about how “Like A Virgin” is about really good sex. Also, I just realized that Tarantino gets the first line in the whole movie. Let it never be said that Tarantino isn’t at least a little bit of an egomaniac. Then again, he did make Reservoir Dogs. He can get as many opening lines as he wants. Feel free to reblog this as much as you want: the more page-views I can get, the better! Any and all exposure is fantastic for me and if I get enough good reception for this, I’ll gladly do more of these kinds of pieces.
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Here are some notes on Reservoir Dogs:

  • This is the quintessential (Quentin-sential?) Quentin Tarantino movie. It’s the personification of the very bare bones of what Tarantino sets out to do in all of his movies. His characters are rude and crude and yet have some form of heart and motivation. The dialog drips with profanity, but is also filled with the essential truth of how messed up life is. The violence is ever-present and ever-brutal, just like it is in real life: you can’t sugarcoat the nature of brutality and Tarantino doesn’t try. This is what every Quentin Tarantino movie is.

  • Tim Roth is the best actor in the movie. No, really, he is. Yeah, Steve Buscemi gets all the best lines and Michael Madsen is the best cold-hard-badass and yes, Harvey Keitel is a great caring character. But Tim Roth gets his role down because he genuinely looks like he’s in pain after getting shot in the face. When he tells Officer Nash, “F**K YOU, I’M F**KING DYING”, he looks like he is dying. You can feel this very real anger and pain from his portrayal. His whimpering, crying and panicked squealing in the car strikes me every time I see that scene.

  • I didn’t draw Holdaway because I forgot about him. I’m sorry. Upon watching the film again, I realize that he actually has a very important part in the movie. In retrospect, if I had been more creative, I could’ve also drawn the radio from the warehouse and have K-Billy under it. I missed a lot of side characters, but I mostly wanted to just do the main characters. If I do another piece (and I will), I’ll be sure to include more of the main characters.

  • Mr. Pink’s monologue on tipping is the funniest, truest thing I’ve ever heard from Steve Buscemi.

  • Why is Mr. Blue even in this movie? Did Tarantino just really like Eddie Bunker and decide, “Hey, he’s in good movies. I’ll put him in mine!” All he does is make a fellatio joke and then die off-screen. Even Tarantino himself gets more lines, and all he does is talk about how “Like A Virgin” is about really good sex.

  • Also, I just realized that Tarantino gets the first line in the whole movie. Let it never be said that Tarantino isn’t at least a little bit of an egomaniac. Then again, he did make Reservoir Dogs. He can get as many opening lines as he wants.

Feel free to reblog this as much as you want: the more page-views I can get, the better! Any and all exposure is fantastic for me and if I get enough good reception for this, I’ll gladly do more of these kinds of pieces.

Q:I really like your drawings. You should get more attention for it, they really are fantastic :)

thunderturd

Thank you very much and I appreciate the reblogs and likes. I’m glad you enjoy my work, and I myself hope that I can get more attention for all this.

And here are the inks for the Reservoir Dogs comic. I’ll color it tomorrow. EDIT: I reuploaded the picture with my name at the bottom. I’m not terrified of having it stolen, but I’m scared SHITLESS of having it stolen.
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And here are the inks for the Reservoir Dogs comic. I’ll color it tomorrow.

EDIT: I reuploaded the picture with my name at the bottom. I’m not terrified of having it stolen, but I’m scared SHITLESS of having it stolen.

A sneak-peek.
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A sneak-peek.

Here’s a little something I started working on today. It’ll be finished tonight and posted tomorrow.
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Here’s a little something I started working on today. It’ll be finished tonight and posted tomorrow.

writing scripts and doing thumbnails

Two big things are starting to rear their heads into view here at the Pesina Comix Moon-Base (Working title: it’s not so much a base as a small tent.) One involves Jack and Liam, the other involves Neutral Milk Hotel.

Updates will follow once the projects actually start getting done.

—john