IPRC – Lucy Bellwood

Indie Comics & Publishing Panel Tomorrow

What ho, blog friends! Just wanted to let you know I’ll be appearing on a panel in Portland tomorrow as part of this neat event called The Wild. If you have an interest in print goodness, why not stop by to hear Sarah Mirk, Zack Soto, Francois Vigneault, and yours truly discuss the state of comics and independent publishing in the digital age? The panel will be moderated by Justin Hocking and it’s absolutely free! It all goes down tomorrow (Tuesday) from 7pm to 8:30pm at the Independent Publishing Resource Center (1001 SE Division St). More details on the event site.

See you there!

Art

Melville & The Peking

I recently had the pleasure of doing some illustrations for my friend Justin Hocking, whose forthcoming memoir, The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld, will be released next September from Graywolf Press. Justin is the Executive Director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center, where I got my Certificate in Comics and Independent Publishing. If any of you Portland folk don’t already know about this fantastic resource, I highly encourage you to check it out. While the book goes through final revisions, Justin was kind enough to let me post these here on the blog for y’all to enjoy before they appear in print. So here’s some boaty goodness!

Art, News

Slew of Stuff

Well well well. It’s been a while. I know. Believe me. But things have been happening! Good things! Some of them are even comics related!

So let’s get on with that.

If any of you happen to pick up a shiny copy of the IPRC’s July + August catalog in the next couple weeks, you’ll be able to see my work on the cover! The illustration basically encompasses what I wanted to be doing back when Portland wasn’t cooperating with the whole “Summer weather” routine. Fortunately those days are over. Time for sidewalk chalk and lemonade! …and comics.

Here ’tis, reproduced on the web for your viewing pleasure.

I’ve also secured a table for the Portland Zine Symposium in August, where I’ll have Baggywrinkles 1 and 2, well as some copies of Tales from the Fragment (remember that?), and maybe some hand-bound blank journals. Woop woop!

However, I have to admit that these last couple weeks have involved very little drawing. As may not be completely apparent from this site, I spend a hell of a lot of time social dancing when I’m not making arts, and summer in Portland means huge dance events all the freaking time. I’ve driven to and from Colorado for Aspen Blues Recess, a week of dancing in marble quarries, aspen groves, pedestrian malls, and artisan hobbit holes, placed second in the local Jack and Jill competition with the ever-talented Kai Hayashi*, and danced over 8 hours a day (often until the sun rose over Mt. Hood) for four days during the Portland Blues Experience.

Needless to say, having limped home from the last of those events on Tuesday morning at 7 a.m., I’m a little shattered, but hopefully the next few weeks will bring recovery and lots of artwork into this magical internet of ours.

*For those of you who don’t know what blues dancing is, or are just interested in seeing the competition, here are a couple of videos from the finals!

Art, Main

Wherefore

Ladies and gents, though I am sick as a very sick dog, I have spent the majority of my Spring Break slaving away in order to bring you new visual goodies. AND HERE THEY ARE. Well, in part. A couple larger illustrations from my final project for the IPRC program. The story, which I’m trying to get a grant to finish over the summer, deals with belonging and language through the lens of dual citizenship. Keep an eye out for more of these as the week goes on.

OH, THE MELODRAMA!

Art, Main

Revolution (NSFW)

To tide everyone over while I scramble around for documentation of other recent projects, here’s a quick one page comic for a zine the IPRC class is putting together. The theme was “revolutions.” Churned this out in a couple hours with no reference, so on the one hand I’m proud of the bits where all the figure drawing I’ve been doing pays off, but on the other there are some heinous liberties being taken with space and anatomy. Ew.

But hey, boobs!

Comics

Hourly Comic Day 2011 (AND OTHER MEASUREMENTS AS WELL)

Hey world! This post is chock full of news. CHOCK FULL. STAND BACK.

First: did some hourly comics for Hourly Comics Day this year. First time trying this, made my inner critic scream with rage, which probably means it’s the sort of thing I should do every day in order to get over myself. Also: cheated and stopped at 8, since the rest of the night was just dancing dancing dancing until midnight and beyond. Anyway: HERE. I MADE THESE FOR YOU.

Oh man. So that. ALSO: Our Monday night World Comics class at the IPRC has started a blog for your enjoyment [that is now defunct so I’ve removed the link]! We’ll be chronicling our adventures and projects there over the next couple months, so check it out. Good things to be had so far, and there will only be more in the weeks to come.

FINALLY: I forgot to mention this when it happened a couple weeks ago, but Baggywrinkles Issue 1 is now actually physically available in a real live comic shop! If you live in the Portland area and would like to get your hands on a copy sans shipping, head over to the totally awesome world of Guapo Comics! They have a few issues in stock, and will be getting the second volume as soon as I finish it. I am, as we speak, slowly working up the gumption to go around to some of the other rad establishments in our fine city, so hopefully that list will expand in the next couple weeks.

I think that’s it for now, but hoo boy. Stay tuned. Shit’s going to get crazy over the next few weeks.

Main

Collaborative Goodies

More on the backlog of things I’ve been doing in the past month! One of our recent assignments was to illustrate a script written by one of the students in the prose class. I was fortunate enough to get paired with Michael Heald, a very talented writer who nonetheless had the merciful impulse to keep his script short and sweet. I am forever in his debt.

Art, Main

Proof!

Heed no rumors of my demise, Internet. It’s just that glorious time of year known as “Finals,” and I have been a very busy bee. To prove that I am not just bluffing about this, and that even in the heat of papers and exams, I am still finding time for comics, here’s a very messy collection of thumbnails for Baggywrinkles Vol. 2, which will be penciled (come hell or high water) by the 13th, inked over winter break, and printed in time for Stumptown! Excitement abounds.

As time permits, I’ll also be rounding up photos of the book I illustrated, typeset, and printed this past month, featuring a poem by the insanely talented Hallie McPherson. The IPRC program has also had me hard a work on various assignments, of which there will be more evidence later.

For now, enjoy some nautical sneak peak material!

(Oh, and for those of you who care about layout and page spreads and that sort of thing, it’s worth noting that I was dumb when I started drawing this in my sketchbook and didn’t lay out the pages to reflect their appearance in the final printed pamphlet. Thus, pages 1 and 8 will appear on their own, and 2/3, 4/5, and 6/7 will be spreads.)

Less smudgy versions to follow as I get these onto Bristol!

Art, Main

Knottage

Well, as a reward for having laid out Baggywrinkles at long last, the Universe decided to bless me with the magical gift of a Facet Joint Syndrome flare-up last week. The details are unimportant, aside from that fact that it involved lots of pain. Fortunately, thanks to the magic of modern medicine, I’m slowly recovering motion in my neck — just in time for my trip to California! So, of course, printing will be slightly delayed. Again. *sigh*

The compensate, here’s a comic! This week’s IPRC assignment was to create a silent how-to comic in 9 panels. I chose a knot, of course, because who doesn’t love knots? Communists. That’s who.