Darin Shuler just got one of the final Xeric Grants, and with it he is publishing Castle and Wood, his ongoing comic involving some grotesque, yet cute, anthropomorphic individuals. He has a lovely command over black and white. He’s got a great website, he tumbles, he flicks, and sells his comics.
Jesse McManus is pure speed. His skills are frightening. His beautiful line work captures demented children, gremlins, goblins, cats, and very often knives, or just pointy tools in general, with an incredibly demented precision. Listen to his interview on Inkstuds, read some comics, tumble alongside him, and/or tweet at him.
Nice silkscreen work from California-based illustrator and comics artist Kelsey Short. I dig the muted palette full of green, black, and blue. It perfectly matches her washed out, moody style. A lot of Short’s work is like those rainy days where you’re not bummed that you can’t go outside because the quiet sound of the rain just matches your mood for some reason. Hit the tumblr over here for a little insight into Short’s process (artistic and otherwise), and grab yourself a copy of her zine, “Grid” and some prints at her Etsy shop.
Typographical force of nature and NYC-based graff artist Andrea von Bujdoss (Queen Andrea) just closed a show at Erik Foss’ Fuse Gallery. Here are some images of the work in the show, Typograph. The Queen is one of the cleanest out there for this type of thing. And the show was packed to the gills with references to super heroes and comics, 8-bit tribal patterns, and lazer-quality lines from the artist. Von Bujdoss is also a fairly prolific designer/illustrator, pulling down some large clients. Check it after the jump.
Brazilian illustrator and comics author Pedro Franz fills his work to the brim with color, characters, and textual elements. And it’s all happening at once. Before you can take in a single expression or brush stroke, you are swallowed whole. I don’t mind. But when you do recover from the original onslaught of energy, a unique style of narrative is revealed. More images of Franz’s work after the jump, and you can check out his comic, Promises of Love to Strangers While Waiting for the End of the World, right here.
Jon Boam is an illustrator living and working in the UK. He works in a nice, muted palette which he applies in flat vectors to sci-fi line work. I especially like how repetitious some of his stuff is. It looks like he doesn’t easily become bored with drawing one robot after another. And I’m definitely not bored either. The comics influence in Boam’s work is fairly evident, but not heavy handed, which is always nice to see. Now you know what your work would look like if you never stopped doodling in your 3rd grade Arithmetic notes.
Renee French has been making comics for a long time. But for a few years now, she’s maintained a sketchblog full of spontaneous, faded graphite drawings that draw their appeal from creative character design and dubious narrative elements. Think of the black and white surrealist aesthetics of a Travis Louie painting, scaled and repackaged for children’s book production.
It’s been a while since we last looked at the work of Belgian Illustrator Brecht Vandenbroucke. Imbued with awesome pop culture and comics flavors, his work never disappoints. There’s so much going on in these paintings that I can’t always tell the difference between references to Adventure Time, and social commentary. But who says the two don’t mix?
 Graphite Sketches From Renee French "Pin It")
