On the account of a new page made solely in two weeks. Might be time for a collected edition soon - anyone wants to order? Feel free to do it here.
Translation: P1 Pip: What the heck is this? P2 Pip: Look, here's our pack! Colin: Yep, and a letter too! P3 Pip: Whaat...?? P4: letter: Ragazzi! We are short on time so you had to travel right away. Do as I told and find Lord Corvin. Best of luck, Il Principe P5 Pip: So much about testing... Such a shifty crook! What do we do now? Colin: Let's go find this Corvin guy! We are supposed to be on his estates. Someone will give us directions! (Follow-up due soon)
In other news, a relatively big comic event called HungaroComix took place here in late November. Here's me pictured at a stall, browsing for some low-priced American stuff. I also had the chance to have a word with the renowned Unicum-illustrator (see among the links) about the Corvin pages. Not surprisingly, there's a lot to improve, especially in drawing people.
Hope everyone had a nice Christmas.The comics I had ordered a while ago arrived just in time. Two real masterpieces: Jeff Smith's Rose, prequel to the Bone saga, illustrated by Charles Vess
and the graphic version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, adopted and illustrated by P.Craig Russell. Both are well worth looking through.
vasárnap, november 29, 2009
Corvin - chapter one, page one
To have some sense of progress...
Text in the King's English: Pip: Where the heck are we now? Colin: How should I know? I thought we were only testing the spacejump gate and arriving at the courtyard of the palace! Pip: Well, this is positively not Milan!
csütörtök, október 01, 2009
Corvin: end of chapter plus a prologue
Hooray, Chapter 2 is done! Now see if I can put some of Chapter 1 up before the calendar turns over to 2010.
P1
George. Now I’m totally intrigued to know what business you have around here!
Pip: Err… this is a delicate assignment, actually. Lots of expenses and incomings… You know how it goes.
P2
George: Little fellow, I’m warning you now that Lord Corvin cannot stand this merchant talk. Moreover, it clicks the knife open in my pocket too.
Pip: Didn’t you just miss a splendid opportunity to use that famous knife of yours?
P3
George: Well, that’s Crowcastle in front. Take my advice and tell Lord Corvin the truth. Forget the bullshit!
Colin: Perhaps the girl will be here too? I have a feeling that she’s not from that village…
Pip: Oh, there you go! Look for the lady, right?
Script
Thus they arrived at Lord Corvin’s residence amidst hearty conversation.
Meanwhile the Sultan’s vast army was marching across Serbia, getting closer and closer to Hungary’s border.
Also, a wee prologue to the whole story:
P1
There are many kinds of heroes in the world.
P2
The folks expect some do great deeds as soon as they are born.
P3
Also, some want nothing as much as to become a hero.
P4
And then, some don’t even think about it but they end up as heroes eventually.
P5
This happens often in hard times, mister Marzio. When there’s a big need, some people do things they never believed to be capable of doing…
Peacework is at full swing, so only drafts are being made these days. However, here's something I drew when I was 16. U2 are looking for the Angel of Harlem.
Took some weeks to do this page, but now here it is. One more could wind up this chapter - date of competion unknown due to change of residence and main activity.
What the guys say is: Panel 2 Colin: Boy, this was a serious ride! Panel 3 Kaspar: So you love riddles, mate? Panel 4 Kaspar: You should be the one telling Count Ulrik about this then! Panel 5 Kaspar: But I'll resume being a freelance robber rather than meeting his eye with this story!
Now let's move on to a real masterpiece of comics, delivered to me lately straight from the US&A:
Great art and endearing story. Someone labelled it as the Le Petit Prince of comic books and it's not a bad comparison at all. Take my advice and check it out! Probably everyone can relate to images like this one:
I guess most comic book festivals or conventions look a lot like the opening scenes of the Kevin Smith movie, Chasing Amy, save for Jason Leestarting a fight with an utterly cheeky reader. Apart from that you have authors signing (sometimes also selling) their books, publishers doing the same, also presentations and film screenings going on. Pretty much the same went on in Gödör Klub, so I'll settle for a a couple of snapshots here.
First, the foretold stall of the art school exhibiting our works in order to lure more people for the upcoming courses. There was also a presentation on that end, which included words like 'art' and creation' a bit too many times. Sadly, none of the coursemates turned up during the two and a half hours I hung out at the premises.
The festival also had a special guest with a perfectly Hungarian name on account of her grandfather. Kati Kovács is from Finnland, currently living in Rome, but as a kid she spent a few summers in Hungary exporing her roots. She commemorated these experiences in her first comic book, pictured above.
Another author signing books was Dániel Merényi (aka Grafitember), who worked for an advertising company when he started his webcomics - to be found at http://napirajz.hu - partly to deal with his various impressions gained at work (hence the general atmosphere and language of the drawings). Since then he went on to work for a bicycle manufacture in the Italian Dolomits, and reportedly enjoys a lot more chilled-out lifestyle than earlier. He's keeping up with the drawings regardless, and was busy signing the second compilation of them at Gödör.
In closing a short video of the festival made by index.hu, targetted mainly at Hungarian speakers - I'm beginning to realize the schyzophrenic nature of writing this blog in English. Can't help sharing the information that there is a bit where one of the festival's award winning artist speaks. The guy is depressed and currently makes his living by cleaning up after horses in a stable. There's something sadly typical about the present state of Hungary in this setup.
Next update of Corvin is likely within a week, by the way!
So the saga is rolling on - not a mad pace admittedly, but inspiration doesn't grow on trees as someone once said.
Page 4
Panel 2
Kaspar: Got an idea?
Thug 1: Sorry, I have no clue.
Panel 3
Kaspar: What do you mean you have no clue?!
Thug 1: I like simple riddles, you know! “When it goes up it’s white, when it comes down it’s yellow” – things like that.
Panel 5
Colin: Guess it’s time we get away!
George: That’s on my mind too.
Panel 6
Thug 2: The Count will surely know. It sounds like his black magic stuff.
Kaspar: Enough of this! Get off now, so that…
So the guys finally got down to some action on page 5. I think there's not much need to translate the text - maybe you can try and guess what they say in panel 1 and 2. Feel free to comment your guesses - I still think it would be cool to make the blog more interactive.
Also, the 5th Hungarian Comics Festival - the major yearly comics event here - is happening next Saturday at the illustrious Gödör Klub located in Budapest downtown. Here's an image from last year :
It gives me great pleasure to announce that Theba Academy of Arts (the art school which held our comic book course) will have a stall of some sort exhibiting our works and they invited us along too.
Some exclusive footage for you until the hotly awaited new Corvin pages are done and uploaded.
First, here's a snapshot of my "studio". If you take a closer look at the drawing board, you can see a new page in the course of being pencilled. To be honest, this is not an ideal drawing table, but maybe one day I'll have an adjustable one. Also, sorry for the wallpaper...
There's always some good stuff at hand on the sofa to provide help with drawing. Scott McCloud's Making Comics is an extremely useful manual for comic work and Jeff Smith's masterpiece is also very handy to consult for the composition of panels and loads of other practical things.
While I'm at it, two photos about the crew of the comics course held in last November:
From left to right: Ági - creator of artistic drawings that depict the modern individual's twisted psyche , Edina - co-writing a story about a group of student acting out Romeo and Juliet, me - uncombed hair, raising my head instead of straightening up as one should, Csongor - our instructor, also with a preference for the topic of urban neurosis, Gergő - Garfield fan and author of the wicked penguin's adventures, Józsi - coming up with a strip about the kung flu slug, Dosadi - excelling in manga with fantastic colours thanks to ProMarker pens.
...and a more spontaneous shot with nothing much happening. Behind the camera Zsolt, inspired by Frank Miller in creating hard-hitting stuff about the darker aspects of our world.
So, thanks for joining me on this footage about the "Fabulous Life of the Hobby Cartoonist". O yea, comments are absolutely welcome! A blog without comments is like a fish without a bicycle or some sad sight of that kind :o)
The previous post contains the first pieces of the story that started to formulate in my head after reading Bone by Jeff Smith. To be honest, I'm also curious to see how it will proceed. Maybe I can give away as much that it is loosely based on a significant event in Hungarian history, but I prefer to treat it more like a fantasy story. The historical source is a good thing, as it provides the backbone, it's only the flesh - a lot of it - that needs to be added.
What I have on my mind is clearly a comic story of some bigger length. These are usually called graphic novels, but at this point it would be premature to state that I will deliver one. Anyway, new pages will appear here from time to time, preferably with the text in English below them.
Also, something ugly happened to the layout of the blog while doing some further editing on the previous post. Hopefully I can restore the original features soon. If you click on this and the first post, you can see the proper layout again. If someones knows what's screwed, just gimme a shout. See ya soon
So, welcome to my outlet and advertising spot for the artwork I attempt to produce when the spirit moves me. I would suffice introducing myself to say that I'm a bloke residing mostly in Budapest, who still hasn't defined his place in the world completely, although he's slowly but steadily leaving his youth behind.
where you can actually see the following 2 page story, which may look like repetition, but as this is my comic blog from now on, it has actually taken its rightful place. So here's the modern and modified interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood (in Hungarian Piroska), in which she goes in a bar to ask directions for her Granma's place and comes upon a rather likeable woolf, but in the end a violent and "dominant " Granma breaks up their party.
If you got so far, you surely noticed that the text is in Hungarian, which is also the case with all my recent comics. Then why is the blog in English? Apart from aspiring to fame, it is in order that my friends living in other parts of the world can also look of my stuff. How will they know what is it about? Hopefully this issue will be soon dealt with as text in comics is often just as important as the images. Some genuinely new material will be visible soon, I can responsibly promise that.
Translation:
Hope everyone had a nice Christmas. The comics I had ordered a while ago arrived just in time. Two real masterpieces: Jeff Smith's Rose, prequel to the Bone saga, illustrated by Charles Vess
and the graphic version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, adopted and illustrated by P.Craig Russell. Both are well worth looking through.
