thedrude

[thedrude]

FLASH GORDON original art

(Posted to FB 1/24/22) In 2009/10, I was honored to be asked by JM DeMatteis, one of my favorite comic book writers, to illustrate a Vultan story for the FLASH GORDON 75th Anniversary Anthology. Joe Casey provided the script.Here's one of the original pages. I drew it with black and white inks on gray-tone paper with Blue acrylic paints added. I finished the colors digitally (2nd image).  Now for sale: https://omahaperez.artstorefronts.com/warehouse-originals-limited-editions-standard-products/original_art_products/flash-gordon-original-art-vultan-p4-75th-anniversary-hc?product_gallery=106523&product_id=4690885&fbclid=IwAR2p1JywfgNy3VxqDSA2adaJWrJD-c3jRjumVoGvMM9goNOo-jEdjMtWpgo

(Original art)

(digitally altered for print)

[thedrude]

MIRRORS movie poster 2

A couple days ago I posted the 1st of 3 art posters I did for the 2008 horror movie MIRRORS (archived here: https://thedrude.com/.../679264284824502272/mirrors-poster-1). Here's the 2nd one! 

[thedrude]

THE GRAPHIC CANON pt  2

Pt 2 of my Malory adaptation for THE GRAPHIC CANON v1. (I posted pt 1 a couple days ago. Archived at https://thedrude.com/.../6792633325.../the-graphic-canon-pt1) 

[thedrude]

JACK the Giant Killer

From the archives: JACK THE GIANT KILLER pitch art done for Henson Interactive in the late 90s. Part 1.

[thedrude]

MIRRORS poster 1

(Posted to FB 3/17/22) In 2008, my good friend John Santos (Producto Studios) suggested me to an Art Director putting together a series of art posters for the marketing campaign of the horror film MIRRORS. This first one, I recall doing literally 20 iterations. I felt like the AD was testing me, to see if I could stick it out, no matter what was thrown at me. (I had a similar experience years earlier with Allee Willis.) And sure enough, now knowing exactly what he was looking for, posters 2 and 3 were a breeze. I worked regularly for this AD for the next 11 years.

[thedrude]

THE GRAPHIC CANON pt1

(Posted to FB 3/18/22)

In 2010 or 2011, editor Russ Kick invited me to contribute to (what became) the first (of many) volume(s) of the Massive anthology THE GRAPHIC CANON. Picking an Arthurian tale was a natural for me, and I took on these 2 brief episodes from Malory's LE MORTE D'ARTHUR depicting King Arthur’s favorite nephew Sir Gawaine in action. Gawaine is generally thought of as a heroic figure, but these tales show him to be just the opposite...

[thedrude]

SHOCK THE MONKEY #1

(Posted to FB 2/11/22) In the mid 90s, I curated a 2 issue anthology comic for Millenium Publications called SHOCK THE MONKEY. This was my 3rd comic book project (not counting the odd 1 pager or pin-up), and my first BIG disappointment. I assembled a stellar lineup of creators. This the 1st issue had contributions from Miran Kim, Bill Koeb, Ken Capelli, Franz Henkel, Sean Seigler, Ted Naifeh, Thom Ang, myself, Thomas Rude, and Reuben Rude (the star of the issue, in my mind).

Miran (at the time, doing the excellent painted collage covers for The X-Files comics) had the good sense to insist on being paid up front. Opening that carton of comics from the printers, my heart sank. This was pre-Photoshop, pre-digital files, we sent the original art, and the cover design, with printer instructions on a separate sheet. The publisher, not thinking to ask myself or designer Ken Capelli, butchered the logo by Coloring it in! This first image is a quick comp to give an idea of how it was Meant to print, the 2nd is the disaster of what actually printed... Further, Miran and I were both horrified that the publisher had slapped text saying, “Cover: Miran Kim” ON the cover... Tacky!

Opening the comic, it gets  worse... I had illustrated Franz Henkel’s framing sequences in Black & White, with the stated intention of Only the feature stories being in color. Once again consulting no one, the publisher took it upon himself to hire a colorist to digitally add arbitrary spot coloring to my line art. Disastrous! I have no idea who colored those pages, but they clearly had no idea what they were doing. In one panel, they make the odd choice of coloring only a character’s lips - it looks like he’s wearing lipstick. In close-ups, I was baffled by their choice to Fill the Highlights of an eye with a dark purple (!) with a tiny white highlight of its own. This is a Highlight, the whole thing is meant to be White! Ahh!! It would’ve been infinitely better if they had left it alone!!

Anyway, some great work still shines through despite that publisher’s idiotic choices. The publisher had promised a page rate to all contributors (it’s been a long time, but I think it was $100 a page), I think a few people saw some money from this issue... better than issue 2, which I know for a fact only Miran was paid for. But that, my friends, is a story for another time.

[thedrude]

John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN

(Posted to FB 2/19/22)

Another of the Retailer Incentive covers I did for Devils Due Press, around 12 years ago. Here's both versions I supplied (I just quickly comp-ed in the title treatment, I don't know what issue this was meant for). As with my ZEN cover, my HALLOWEEN cover didn't see print. I think DDP suddenly lost the license, but I'm not really sure... My good friend Jason McNamara, a true Michael Myers super-fan, bought the original scratch-board art some time later.

[thedrude]

The Starship: Enterprise

(Posted to FB 2/25/22)

I believe I did this job about 13 years ago. As with most of the work I did for this particular client, I have no idea how, or if, it was used. (Some jobs were printed and given away at screenings or conventions, some were used solely for viral marketing campaigns...) Anyway, I turned in these 2 versions. I preferred the Star Map, the Art Director preferred the camo. 

[thedrude]

Commissioned by Corben

I posted a video, about a year ago, in which I told the story of being hired by comics legend Richard Corben to do a back-up feature for him. A few days ago, I came across the offer letter from him, and thought I’d revisit that episode.

 I met Corben, when I was 23, at an extremely rare convention appearance. I think it was a con in Philadelphia, but it may have been Dallas... it was nearly 30 years ago! I had a handul  of the over-sized comic magazines he was publishing under his own FANTAGOR label. His drawing and painting were consistently impressive, as was Fantagor’s production quality. Surprised that there wasn’t a long line at his booth, I took the opportunity to introduce myself, and asked if I could show him my own work.

This was maybe 9 months after I’d graduated art school, so my portfolio must have still included some student work. He took particular interest in the pages of my then upcoming comic, PREY FOR US SINNERS. While perusing the pages, he casually dropped, “I’d like you to draw a back-up story for me.” “Sure!” I said, not really believing him. I didn’t take him seriously, I honestly thought he was just being nice. I think his wife Dona must have given me their card. She was MUCH more outgoing, in fact most of my conversations with Rich were actually through Dona.

Obviously, I sent the Corbens a follow up letter expressing my interest in doing a back-up down the line, whenever they had a story suitable for me... Just a week or 2 later, I was excited to find an offer letter from them, accompanied by a few scripts from frequent Corben collaborators, Bruce Jones, and Jan Strnad. They even gave me the option to pitch my own story! I wasn’t doing much writing yet, so based mostly on the fact the Jan Strnad script was a 2 parter (twice the number of pages, twice the pay, and my work would grace TWO issues of Corben’s FROM THE PIT!) , I chose to illustrate “Practically Midnight.”

I photo referenced almost everything back then, too uptight and nervous to draw out of my head. (This approach had really shot me in the foot the previous winter when I tackled a long story for the massive WEIRD BUSINESS anthology. That story was so silly, and over the top, it was not well suited for that approach. I unsuccessfully veered back and forth from what reference I could find, to nervously winging it. I hated that piece and was deeply embarrassed by it, until years later, I looked at it and realized that most of the more cartoony, from my imagination, bits worked quite well. If only I had trusted myself...) I’d spent the first half of ’94 in New York, but by the end of summer I was living in Dallas, where I had more friends, and it didn’t cost so much. I owed a debt of gratitude to my friend John Stack Ross (the male lead), a very indulgent property manager  (whose name I forget) at the apartment complex I lived at (female lead), and the late great artist/actor/ad man/Renaissance man Buffalo George Toomer! They very generously allowed me to light them, pose them, and shoot them with my old 35mm Nikon camera - all for a comic book story that has never seen print!

I turned the first part in pretty quickly. Rich was pleased with it, and we had a brief discussion about how it should be colored. Being so heavily cross-hatched, my thought was that it should be mostly monochromatic. Rich was noncommittal about that, saying it would be an interesting challenge for his daughter, who was to color it. I don’t know if she ever got started on it. They sent me a check immediately. I had already begun working on part 2.

That job was going so well. The Corbens were great to work for. I had started daydreaming about doing back-ups for them semi-regularly, maybe even pitch a longer serial with my frequent collaborator of the day, writer Franz Henkel. I had completed 5 or 6 pages of the 2nd 10-pager when the Corbens called. They had received the latest orders from the comics distributor. The orders were so low across the board (I think they published 3 or 4 titles monthly or bi-monthly), they had decided to cease all publishing immediately. Rich was going to freelance full-time for other publishers. I was asked to stop work and invoice them for the pages I’d completed. I was gutted. But again, the Corbens paid immediately.

A year or 2 later, I was working full-time on video games at Disney in LA. In my spare time, I had compiled the anthologies SHOCK THE MONKEY, and RAW PERIPHERY, and was planning a PG-13 version, PERIPHERY. I had that stack of originals for the nearly completed 2-parter Corben had commissioned. I created this mock cover image and sent the package over to Jan Strnad, suggesting we ask Rich for permission to print the story. Jan said, for him to feel right about it, we would have to pay back our page rates in full, which wasn’t an option for me. The reality of indie comics publishing, even back then, was we were unlikely to make much, if any, profit. And really, the most exciting thing about the project was that I was to be published alongside Corben, in his own magazine! So I let it go.

I wish I had stayed in better touch with the Corbens. Who knows, maybe Rich had more unpublished stories of his own, maybe we could have worked something out... maybe he’d have wanted to do a Fantagor anthology... who knows.

[thedrude]

SAW 10th Anniversary Posters

From the Archives (posted to FB 1/19/22.)

The 2 versions I turned in back in 2014 for the 10th Anniversary re-release of SAW. Both were printed and given out at screenings. I did the illustration. (Text was done by a separate designer.)

[thedrude]

DisInformation

(Posted to FB 2/12/22)  I found this page loose in a box of art books in my office. This is most of a spread I did in the 90s for SF’s late great MONDO 2000 magazine. The subject of the article was Richard Metzger, as he then put it, the “mascot” of the Disinformation Company (and now, the principal mind behind www.dangerousminds.met). The Mondo editor, perhaps vibing that I had no idea what the guy was all about, suggested that I should get together with him. I said sure, at least I could take my own reference photos...

Richard and I hit it off immediately, based mostly on our shared love of Julian Cope (who Richard had met a few years prior) and punk, proto-punk, and post-punk music. We talked about Satanism, Aleister Crowley, and conspiracy theories - interesting guy! I took some reference photos, and felt I had everything I needed for the piece.

I sent my completed illustration over and, soon after, received a panicky call from the editor. “We can’t run that! You put devil horns on him!” she shouted. “Show it to him.” I said. Naturally, Richard loved it. We became good friends after that. I always enjoyed hanging out with him. He’s super smart, with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things arcane, and one of only a handful of people I’ve known able to function and be productive (daily) while smoking a Massive amount of weed. I haven’t seen or spoken to him in a number of years, so I had a peek at his Dangerous Minds site. I’m happy to see that he continues to forge a successful career by focusing on his obsessions with obscure music and weird shit.

[thedrude]

The long sad story behind my one page for Marvel Comics

In ’94, when I was very briefly living in New York, I met then Marvel editor Marie Javins and her assistants, Kevin and Polly. They were editing the remnants of the Epic line and were actively pushing for more Mature Audience titles. Obviously, I wanted to work with them.

 A few months later, based I’m sure on my (then) upcoming comic with writer Franz Henkel, PREY FOR US SINNERS, I got a call from Polly. They offered me a fill in issue on a title by an up and coming writer named Warren Ellis. The title was called DRUID (no connection to my later creation THE DRUDE). I was ecstatic! I seemed to be on a roll... I had just been asked by Richard Corben to draw a back-up feature for one of his Fantagor titles, and now this... a full issue for Marvel Comics!

 The regular artist, Leonardo Manco, had a dark moody style not unlike my own at the time. It was a good fit. The plan was to have me fill-in on issue 4 of the series so Leonardo could get a jump on the next storyline. I couldn’t wait to get the script and start work on the issue. I stayed in touch over the next few weeks. One afternoon I was on the phone with Polly and I could hear somebody step into their office and say something. Polly said, “Shit, DRUID has been cancelled...”

 As issue 4 was now to be the final, they had to give it back to the regular artist. They were able to roll Ellis and Manco on to a new, similarly dark title, HELLSTORM. I think the plan was to get me an issue on HELLSTORM, but it didn’t fare much better than DRUID.

I always loved Dr. Strange so I wasn’t dis-pleased when, as a kind of consolation prize, I got to do this pin-up. Taking a cue from my friend and mentor Barron Storey’s play book, I sent them 2 pin-ups with the hope they would buy the 2nd as well. They didn’t have the budget, but it was worth a shot!

 www.omahaperez.com

[thedrude]

TV

Originally posted 1/7/22 to www.facebook.com/OmahaPerezGraphicNovels

As a teenager in the 80s, I would occasionally read mention of this mythical band TELEVISION, apparently a profound influence on the post-punk bands I loved. A few years later, I finally found a copy of Marquee Moon at Berkeley’s amazing Amoeba Records. (And finally I knew who that guy Tom Verlaine was(!), who I’d seen open solo acoustic -actually I think he was solo Electric with no backing band- for The Church in ’86.) This was many years before they opened stores in Hollywood and San Francisco; Berkeley was the One. Pre-internet, I would find these gems by reading mentions in rock magazines, fanzines, and word of mouth. Living in San Francisco while in art school, every few months I would take pilgrimages across the Bay, via the BART train, to Amoeba in Berkeley.

I was really into Marquee Moon, liked most of Adventure, and most of their 1992 reunion album. I was ecstatic about the prospect of seeing them live in SF at the Great American Music Hall. It didn’t matter that my friends didn’t know what I was talking about, and I’d have to see them on my own. They did not disappoint, that show stands as one of the best live shows I’ve experienced (and I’ve been to a LOT).

Naturally with no further Television records to explore, leader Tom Verlaine’s solo catalog was next. I especially enjoyed the first two, the self-titled debut (as a Bowie fan, I recognized “Kingdom Come,” which Bowie covered on Scary Monsters) and Dreamtime. Thank you to the Amoeba clerk, who noticed my interest in the early CBGBs scene, and steered me to Richard Hell and Blank Generation! I had not at that time read even a mention of Hell being a founding member of Television, much less anything about The Neon Boys.

In ’94, while living in New York, as I was tracking down Hell, I also wrote to Verlaine’s manager c/o a Manhattan studio he was recording at. I included a copy of this Portrait Journal entry, asking if I could drop by to get him to sign the original art. The manager responded, expressly asking me to NOT drop by.

I only saw Television the once, but I’ve seen Verlaine perform a few times since... 2 or 3 times in the 90s as lead guitarist in Patti Smith’s group. On one of those occasions, on an off night from Patti’s tour, I saw him at Hollywood’s tiny Viper Room, backed by Patti’s rhythm section. Another outstanding show! It would have been easy enough to bring my Portrait Journal and ask him to sign, but I didn’t bother. I just went to enjoy the music. Sometimes you’re not meant to meet these guys.

https://www.omahaperez.com/warehouse-open-edition-prints/art_print_products/tom-verlaine?product_gallery=100464&product_id=4589497

[thedrude]

Me and JERRY GARCIA

This month’s Print Giveaway is JERRY! Click the link and sign up.

Following is a small piece I wrote last year about some of my experiences with Jerry as I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I hope you enjoy it!

From April, 2021

This is the look Jerry had on his face when I, aged 12, walked into his living room to find him sitting in front of the TV, strumming an unplugged electric guitar, and hoarsely singing a Grateful Dead tune. (I just recalled he would plug into a tiny portable amplifier with headphones, so HE at least could hear the guitar.)  Well aware as I was that millions of Deadheads would’ve killed to be in my shoes, the scene was somehow so preposterous I couldn’t contain my laughter. Jerry didn’t mind though. I can still hear him. “Hey Omaha, come on and sit down.” His daughter Annabelle and I would sit with him by the TV talking about movies, comics, and music. (For some reason I was surprised that he was always hip to the “cool” new bands.) We'd hang out for hours, Jerry periodically nodding off in his easy chair. (I didn’t get that until a year or two later.)

How odd is it that I saw The Terminator with Jerry, Annabelle, and Tom Davis (SNL), Jerry driving us around Marin County in his BMW? Jerry and Tom were supposed to be co-writing a screenplay to Vonnegut’s THE SIRENS OF TITAN. I personally never saw them progress past flash cards on a bulletin board. I kinda suspected it was just an excuse to hang out, but that made perfect sense - I went over at every opportunity. Jerry was always fun to talk with and absolutely one of the smartest humans I’ve known in my life (Annabelle being another). I know I’m very fortunate to have those memories. Love you, Jerry! I sure do miss you.

Fine Art Print available at https://omahaperez.artstorefronts.com/warehouse-open-edition-prints/art_print_products/jerry01print-041921?product_gallery=100463&product_id=4589102

Tee Shirt here: https://www.omahaperez.com/tee-shirts-1

[thedrude]

The collision of punk rock and The Grateful Dead

Picking up from the previous post, about Richard Hell... So I met Richard in '94, and we discussed doing some kind of project together. Soon after, he sent me the sexually explicit text to DEAR READER for me to adapt into comics. I made a 10 pager out of it, and ultimately packaged it with some other shorts, as RAW PERIPHERY. Oddly enough, this comic sees the collision of punk rock and the Grateful Dead.

By the end of '95, I had returned home to San Francisco. I spent a little time with family friend, and Dead lyricist, Robert Hunter. We decided to put some comics together, and ultimately he added text to this little scene I'd come up with. I would have loved to have done a bigger project with him, but I'm pleased to have at least worked with him on that little piece.

Here's a write-up I found: "This comic book has full color covers by Omaha Perez and 32 black and white inner pages presenting four stories: Richard Hell's "Dear Reader" with art by Perez, Ann Nocenti's "Jezebel's Virtue" with art by James Romberger, Robert Hunter's (yes, the Grateful Dead lyricist) "The Watchman," art by Perez, and a last story, "Dreamlogic," "dreamt and illustrated" by Perez. Hell's contribution is a baroque story from about 1979 (it was originally published in Hell's "Slum Journals" column in The East Village Eye back then) attempting to seduce the perverse reader into imagining a sexual encounter with his/her "identical twin of the opposite sex." Strange, overwrought, but interesting. Maybe Poe crossed with Borges on crystal meth."

I have a limited supply available here: https://www.omahaperez.com/warehouse-originals-limited-editions-standard-products/standard_products/raw-peripery-comic-book?product_gallery=103381&product_id=4645970

[thedrude]

Message from (Richard) Hell

I discovered Richard Hell & The Voidoids while in art school in the 90s. Blank Generation has been one of my all time favorite albums ever since. After graduating art school, I very briefly lived in New York. I spent most of my time trying to land illustration and comic book work, but I also tried to track down Hell. I talked to Hilly, at CBGBs, who said the only guys from the old days who stayed in touch were The Ramones. Finally, I got a letter (yes, a letter) back from Raymond Foye who was publishing a series of tiny (3x4”) poetry books out of the Chelsea Hotel. Raymond offered to forward some stuff to Richard, and a week later I got a message from Hell! Here’s the transcription of the voice mail, and my Portrait Journal entry. (To be continued...) https://www.omahaperez.com/warehouse-open-edition-prints/art_print_products/richard-hell?product_gallery=100464&product_id=4589494