Frank Miller Adaptations are the Best in Comic Book Industry

I'm working at the library, doing my comic orders, and started to think of all the comics and graphic novels that have had movies based on them. I thought about the one of my favorite writers, the legendary Alan Moore, and how he has famously hated the movies based on his books -- which include "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", "V for Vendetta", and "Watchmen" -- with some good reason. He first broke through in American comics with his run on SWAMP THING in the 80s, but I'm unsure if the movie is based on his work or his feelings towards the film.

Regardless, it got me thinking about another one of my favorites, and another legend, Frank Miller. It turns out Miller has been lucky enough to have some of his work converted into pretty good movies:





He's even had some good animated adaptations:





But of course, Frank Miller has been responsible for, or has had a hand in some real stinkers. Whether directing, writing or the inspiration, these movies related to Frank have realllllly sucked.



Here's hoping that the next Sin City and 300 movies are successful!

"Honesty doesn't pay, sucker."

Some good news: The Paris Library, which is now my second job, was impressed with my installation at the ArtWalk. They asked me to display my designs as Artist of the Month. Sweet!

With that being said, here is my newest flyer, which is probably too edgy for the library lol. The image is of Lil Ze' from the movie City of God. My intention was to make it appear like an old blaxploitation movie poster from the 70s. I am really diggin' this one!

Halloweeeen

Here's another quick one I did for a Halloween Costume Party. Pretty basic stuff, but it gets the point across.

First Ever Art Show + JERRY SPRINGER

I was asked to do the ArtWalk in Paris, Ky and it was my first time doing something like this with my graphics. I was set up at The Cue, which makes sense, because the majority of my exhibit were flyers I had done for the bar. I also included the skateboards and T-shirts I've designed for DeckAwooD, and a couple of my own designs for Realist Threads. It was a lot of fun. I made several new contacts and got more compliments than I deserve.

One of the highlights though, was meeting none other than Jerry F'n Springer. That guy was super nice and I loved his shoes! We're pictured with Nicole, the owner of The Cue.

Ladies Night/DJ Green

This is one of my favorites. I used a cover image from the comic book "Gotham City Sirens." If you look closely, you can see it's Poison Ivy, Catwoman's whip and the leg of Harley Quinn. Granted, I changed the colors so it may be hard to tell, but hey, I love using Batman villains as much as possible :)

Great visuals drawn by Guillem March, who draws some of the best-looking ladies in comics.

Big Daddy

Here's a quick flyer I did that was somewhat inspired by those old metal gas cans that say GASOLINE!

I was asked to settle on something more basic, so here is what it ended up looking like!

The Citizen-Advertiser | Casting Call for Reality Show

Well, I work at a newspaper in Paris, Ky, and a few months ago, one of our readers turned us on to an open casting call by NBC Universal, who was looking to do a reality show on a small town newspaper. We sent them some background info about our paper, and not long after, they sent us a Flip cam! The instructions were to have a tour of the office, with short interviews with each of the staff.

My interview starts around 17:29!!

I'm not sure if this thing would make a good reality show or not. I honestly don't get into those types of shows, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to see how far we got!

"Let yo inner things out!"

I'm working on a flyer for a friend's birthday party. His idea for the theme would be The Wolfman. I am a huge fan of B movies and the old Universal monsters, so I was excited for this one. I want to try to make one that has the transformation into a werewolf, but it was hard to find good images to do this. While I was searching for images, I found this awesome comic book cover by one of my favorite artists, Francisco Francavilla! I decided to play with it, and came up with this idea.

Marketing pt. 2

As I said before, I am trying to one day start a business making T-shirts and clothes with my designs. The company is called Realist Threads and by co-conspirator in the project is my buddy Adam Wainscott (of DeckAwooD Skate Team fame). I had an idea for a new promotion of the brand.

When we came up with the idea for Realist, we talked about having images of people we respected and just simply have the word "Realist" below their picture. Here is a sweatshirt we made using that concept:

So anyway, I decided that a good promotion plan starting out would be to use the same concept on a T-shirt, but instead it would pose a question: "Who is Realist?" Pretty simple concept; hopefully it does not need too much explaining. :)

"RealGirls" logo

"Association" design

Marketing pt.1

One of my long term goals is to start a clothing company using my own designs. The brand is called Realist Threads and I've built up a nice little catalog of design concepts. When me and my business partner Adam Wainscott came up with the idea in 2012, the idea was to get the shirts out in time to coincide with the 2012 Presidential Election. Therefore, we made a shirt using this logo:

 Well we printed that design along with a couple of other cool sweatshirts, but unfortunately have had to put the project on hold, due to bleak financial situations.

Hopefully one day this project will get off the ground...

Words ... on a Shirt

I been trying to start a clothing company for awhile now, but it is really hard to come up with the funds. I have several cool designs that I think would sell on a T-Shirt. Maybe later I will get around to posting some of those designs!

Sometimes the ideas I come up with are really genius. Others not so much. For some reason I got the idea to put the words "WORDS ON A SHIRT" on a shirt. That's not confusing is it? Reminds me of an idea that George Costanza would dream up. Well at least I think it's funny.

I started laying it out, and had old book covers in mind. Maybe that is an idea for a series of designs? I don't know.

Run For The Roses

Well the good folks at The Cue commissioned another flyer from me. This time the idea was for their first annual Derby Party. No specific directions here, just coming up with an idea and doing it. The border around the flyer is supposed to represent jockey silks. They were originally in the traditional pink, green, blue, etc. that you normally see in the derby, but my girlfriend said it made the flyer look really girly. I agreed with her and kept the design down to 2-3 colors.

The Takeover (Flyer 2)

In addition to the large, artsy flyer, I also designed smaller "hand-out" flyers. I wanted to make sure that this flyer would be more legible from a distance -- less artistic, more practical. I was inspired by old fight cards and boxing posters.

The Takeover

So here is the finished version of the first flyer I did for an event called "Da Takeova." This design was really fun for me because I'm a major bat fan, and the client's idea to use Bane was just perfect.

A Flyer ... part 1

So I'm working on a flyer for an event titled, "The Takeover" for The Cue Bar & Restaurant. The client asked for a picture of Bane from The Dark Knight Rises movie holding a pair of red Beats headphones. I tried different clipart and angles and the second picture is hopefully what we'll go with. The text and image size is nowhere near completion but I think the graphic is really neat so I decided to post.

Comics...

People always ask me about my comic book collection. Actually they don't. But I wish they would, because it's a pretty good one! They would know that my most valuable issue would be Batman #237, which is $300:

My second most valuable issue is a little book called The Walking Dead, issue #6. It's sitting at $120 right now:



So yeah. If anyone wants to talk comics, you know where to find me ;)

Welcome To The Machine

Greetings!

I'll start off my saying thank you for taking a couple of minutes out of your day to check out this blog. I've never done one of these before, but hopefully you and I both will get what we need out of this little corner of the internet.

My girlfriend Ashley (hey beautiful) turned me on to the idea when she started her blog. The difference is, she is a talker and I'm more of a thinker. I will try to use this page as a resource for all my special projects that I got going on right now. And there are many. More on that later.

For now, I'd just like to give a you -- yes, YOU -- a formal welcome into my world. So ... welcome!