Here is some inspiration, from one of my favorite artists on DeviantArt, Robbi Rodriguez. He’s got a great distinctive, grungy and cartoony style. I love how his images feel so complete even without the use of much color. His work sometimes veers towards the retro/tiki genre, but it’s way better quality than most old clip art. The way he inserts hard angles into the human form is also something to pay attention to, and it’s something I’m trying to incorporate into my work. He’s certainly a master of pen and ink, so check him out:

• Robbi462 on DeviantArt
• Robbi Rodriquez on BlogSpot

Yes, I said it!

I finally saw the Dark Knight. Don’t get me wrong–it was awesome! But after reading so many rave reviews, I really thought it was going to de-throne Burton’s Batman, and it didn’t do that for me.

First, though, let’s start off with some things the movie does well. Christian Bale makes a good Bruce Wayne, and Alfred and Lucius Fox were great additions to the cast. Gary Oldman made a perfect young Jim Gordon was awesome, and I loved the scenes where Batman disappeared in the middle of a conversation, true to the comics. The story was good for a comic book movie, and I do like the different treatment they gave the joker. He is way better than Caesar Romero, and also better than the bizarre Matsuda version from the newer “The Batman” cartoons.

I guess I’ll always be a product of the 80’s and 90’s though. I’m reminded of this every time I turn on the radio and have to switch it back off immediately. I’m also reminded of it when I watch The Dark Knight. It’s just not the definitive Batman movie for me. Burton’s Batman is still that movie. Here are some reasons why:

• In TDK, Gotham is too real. One of the distinctions of DC Comics is that they don’t try to be too real. I prefer the stylized and anarchronistic Gotham that Burton imagined to the streets of Chicago.
• The new Bat-vehicles are too over-the-top and futuristic. Burton’s batmobile is a classic. I even prefer the vehicles from the Adam West show. And what a shame that the motorcycle made it onto the DVD cover!
• Somebody should have let Lando Calrissian become Two-Face. He and I are both still pissed about that one.
• And finally, the main subject of this post–the Joker! Everybody’s raving about how Ledger’s version of the joker is the perfect crazy homicidal maniac. They’re probably right, but he’s too much “homicidal” and not enough “crazy.” Nicholson understood this. The TDK crew was too busy trying to be dark and missed the boat on the humor and unpredictability of the character.

I know I’m in the minority here, but it had to be said. Recognize!

Yes, I’ve been MIA for a while now. Here’s a little something I was working on when the blog blew up a few (6?) months back. The night I was going to publish it and that shout-out for Mike Turner was the night I realized my blog–along with my professional and clients sites–was hosed. That was a bad day to say the least, and like most shared hosting companies, DailyRazor was completely unapologetic about their incompetence.

Well, when that happened, I had to focus mostly on getting my business-related sites back up and then moved off of DailyRazor. Then things got busy, one month bled into another… and now it’s October!

I’m working on getting Ankhammentu moved onto a new hosting plan. Will it be more reliable? Who knows. I do know I’ll be doing my own database backups from now on. It will at least be a Linux server, so some of the strangeness that comes from running Wordpress on Windows will disappear.

Along with this move is going to come a redesign, and a refocus of this blog. Andrew and I have young kids and are running businesses, and there’s just no way we’re going to be able to put a comic together. I know, that stinks, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t make some cool stuff related to our comic dreams. I’ve got a few works in progress, and I bet he does too.

In addition, I’d like to up the ante on the vector tutorials around here. I have a lot of little-known Illustrator tricks up my sleeve to share, and I think there’s a small but growing community who’s interested in recreating pen-and-ink effects in AI. Those are my peeps, and I want to help you guys out.

The Poser stuff has been the biggest draw of this site, but I’ve been burned out on Poser for a long time now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel it again. Poser is an expensive and time-consuming hobby, and two things I don’t have are money and time!

SO… this was a long way of saying sorry I’ve been gone! Hopefully things will be changing around here pronto. DON’T HOST WITH DAILY RAZOR.

JW Out!