Hey all! I haven’t had more then two free seconds in the last eight months to write a new blog, so now that the holidays are freeing up some time I have a chance to dust off the Dabu Blog and get some updates written down on digital paper. Because we all know that’s what the internet is made of… Digipaper!
If you don’t know anything about me, aside from my stupidity on Survivor, you should know that I like my projects. If I don’t have a project to work on, I make up a new one. IÂ work best when I’m overloaded with creative crafting; which is why if ever figure out how to be paid to do this I’m going to be a millionaire. Or that crazy guy you see in the subway making chicken-bone puppets dance because I just keep working on projects that got exponentially weirder and more eccentric.
As far as labeling these projects “secret,” the only reason I mention that here is because there has been a distinct change in my artistic behavior as of late. My standard MO is to post everything I’m working on ad-infinum. I’m a very trusting person; I believe art should be shared and enjoyed no matter what monetary costs might be lost in the process. Growing up I always believed there was a certain “slickness” or under-handedness to asking people to pay for art.
As I’ve grown up I’ve realized, while this is true, in order to continue working on the art you love you need to turn a profit and pay for your living expenses. There also must be some moral and philosophical value attributed to art – while my pure and simple artist brain believes “free stuff (art and content) is free because it should be shared,” it needs to be understood that a lot of people in the world see it as “It’s free because it’s worthless.”
That said, the works I have been tending to lately are pretty exciting but still must remain vague until their completion. So this post is like the old advertising mini-skirt analogy: “Short enough to be revealing, but doesn’t display the entire coochie.” I think that’s the old thing pervery ad-men say.
SECRET PROJECTS:
I’ve been working on my own comic book project titled “Seed of Sam,” which I am debating how to proceed with. It’s a fairly original idea, as original as any idea can be nowadays, with some of the most absurd artwork I’ve had the pleasure of producing; touching on controversial topics such as child-birth, teen alcohol abuse, and mitochondrial DNA sequencing (okay maybe not something that scientific). My dream would be to have it published with Fantagraphics, a more high-brow/low-brow comic publisher.
The second project in the works is titled “Last Monster Standing,” a collaboration project with a local Michigan author Greg Wright. Greg and I met last year at Detroit FanFare ComicCon and after chatting it up about lasers, robots, Survivor, and Godzilla we decided to make a comic book about giant killer monsters on a reality show. I’m currently drawing Issue 2, with hopes Issue 1 finds it’s way to publication. It has been great working with Greg, as his tempered words and my animated characters make the comic veritable “Saturday Morning Cartoon” battle royale. (Pictured above is the Issue 2 coverart currently in production).
My third work-in-progress is another collaboration with a writer whom I knew from college at EMU. The goal of this project is to re-invigorate one of my older comic concepts into a novel. Four years ago I had a really great concept for a story but was having a lot of trouble putting it into comic-form. After multiple attempts I broke the project down to it’s basic elements, realized it needed a lot more in-depth writing rehab, and settled on finding a writer. After multiple attempts at finding a comic-writer, which included a tortured search at Anaheim’s Wondercon in 2014, I realized the sad reality: it wasn’t meant to be a comic book. The plot, the characters, the scope of the storytelling – all of it deserved to be a novel. One thing lead to another and I reached out to a friend and skilled writer for help.
If all that wasn’t enough I will be revamping my websites designs and layouts leading into the new year. ERC.Gallery will be getting a complete makeover and this blog will get more of an integration into that so it will look like it belongs in the family instead of being the awkward second-cousin-twice-removed website it used to be. You know I don’t mean it, DabuBlog *whisper* I love you. *whisper* #notcreepy #hashtag
Lastly, the fifth secret project is so super secret I can’t even give details here. You’ll have to wait for an update on that early next year– but believe me, it’s worth the wait.
See you in 2016!
One Comment
Great to read your blog again Erik. I hope you get to travel soon as those were my favorite posts from you like when you were swimming with the sharks! Anyway, hope your holidays are swell!!