the jitters

still image from a 20 drawing complex loop I am animating... I think I am about halfway finished. more soon.

screenin'

My short animation Head Garden will be playing at Lincoln Hall tomorrow evening (September 1st), along with Guy Maddin's short film Night Mayor and Chris Hefner's feature The Pink Hotel.
Info is *here*

raising chicago

I made a comic for this month's issue of Chicago Magazine about the raising and transporting of the city's buildings in the mid 1800's. Here 'tis:

kordian

PARROT
In a thin, raspy voice
Miserere!!! God have mercy on us!

TERROR
Look at her eyes! Her steadfast stare!
Where'er you are, she looks at you.

IMAGINATION
Smell the fragrance of her hair!

TERROR
You've stepped upon a snake. It's split in two!
It bursts to pieces!

KORDIAN
Sweet Mary and Jesus!!!

He rubs his eyes

The dream has vanished...So, forward, forward
With bayonet-fixed to run through the Czar!

CREATURE
Poking his head out of the cauldron
Is it good for us to have a king, or no?

I recently got to make three illustrations for an English translation of the 19th century polish play Kordian, which is being published by Green Lantern Press sometime next year. Caroline Picard from GLP briefly summarizes the play:
"The play begins with the witches and devils making a “brew” in the advent of modernity. Carries on the main character, (also called Kordian) who falls in love, tries to kill himself at the end of act one, has turned to a harlot and gambling in the second act, in the third act meets the pope who has a parrot on his shoulder (in the midst of which a number of soldiers attempt to organize a mutiny), in the fourth act Kordian ends up in an insane asylum, talking to his imagination and terror, and the last act – well. You’ll have to wait and see."

sketchbook

drawn mostly on the bus, on the phone, and in theaters