Page 6 of Sanctus Sanatorium is online

I am actually quite happy with the progress I have made so far. I have been able to update weekly on Sanctus Sanatorium despite having a job and other obligations. I cannot promise however, that this will be the norm. But I can promise that it will be updated at least twice a month.

Below is a panel from page 6

The site, Tales of Obscuro now has its own news section here.

If you have found Tales of Obscuro on the web then you have found somethings rather odd and obscure.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I am doing it.

Tales of Obscuro now has its own domain

Tales of Obscuro has moved to here.

Sanctus Sanatorium

I have just completed the first page of my online graphic novel and am currently penciling the second page.  The banner below is the entrance to the site once it is fully functional. I don't intend to upload the first page there until the first chapter is completed. This is the link.

Obscuro

Here is a preview of the first page:

 
Below are some questions and answers:

 How often will it be updated?

I work full time and am putting a lot of energy into this. I cannot make any promises on how often it will be updated but it will be a completed storyline.

How long will this story be?:

Pretty damn long. It does have a definite ending already worked out in my head. But I will say this, if this project goes well and I am happy with it then there will be other stories told about the town Obscuro.

Where is Obscuro?:

In my head.

What time period do things happen in Obscuro?:

Victorian/Edwardian times

Your tag line states that there are as many tales as there are cats in Obscuro, are there a lot of cats?:

Unfortunately many of the cats that dwell in Obscuro are not "fixed", so yes, there are many.

What is Sanctus Sanatorium?:

It is an asylum fashioned off the old Kirkbride Buildings that were built in the mid-1800's to house the homeless and insane. Sanctus is Latin for Holy but right now there isn't much that is Holy in the asylum right now.

Will children be able to read this?:

I would advise against it, there will be mature themes in the story line, as well as horrific entities.

Are you going to be doing other artwork while working on this?:

Unfortunately no. This is my only project right now. I pray I grow to love it.

Yes it is copyrighten.

Obscuro

Several years ago I toyed about with an idea for an online graphic novel that I was going to entitle "Asylum".  Though I really liked the concept, the story never did evolve into anything that took hold on me creatively. It ended up in the unfinished project stack and became forgotten.  Last year I started writing a book for young readers having to do with a library in an imaginary town called Obscuro.  I had actually cranked out five rough chapters but once again I hit a space in the story where I couldn't make everything "gel".  It also got placed in my unfinished stack.

Lately I have had some of what I would call ominous comments from folk who seem to think I should do something in a graphic or illustrated format. I resisted the idea heavily. I had attempted to do it once before and it just never seem to either gather the audience or attention I thought it should, so I let it go.  That was some years ago and since then I have run from the idea as fast as I could. Then I saw something that a friend at work shared with me and it not only adjusted my attitude, it inspired me. I suggest you give it a view before you read this entry any further.




This teaser for MARWENCOL actually hit me on a deeper level than some I share this video with. In fact one person I showed it to said, "Ok, a movie about a man playing with dolls." Then I understood, not everyone is going to get it but I caught something humbling about my attitude towards doing an online graphic novel compared to an individual that suffered an horrendous injustice and turned to a creative outlet to cope with life. I could see no difference between this man and say Tolkien's  elaborate Middle Earth or say Dr. Who's universe. It was simply all about the act of creation and its therapeutic value.  Perhaps the need to create is validation enough.

Then ideas started to fall into place like tumblers on a lock being turned by a key and I felt an inky black, furry muse curl up into my lap like a wisp of ether and start telling me a story. Not really, but it sounded good. Actually I began to see that Obscuro was my MARWENCOL, and in this imaginary town that existed in some Victorian/Edwardian era had more than just a library but also an Asylum and funeral parlor and much more including supernatural infestations and mysterious esoteric avenues of self discovery.

The process of building Obscuro and inhabiting it will be a long and laborious one but hopefully a rewarding one as well. If it gathers no interests other than myself and if it does end up being a project that seems like creative masturbation, perhaps the therapy will be fruitful.

The first entry will be the story entitled Sanctus Sanatorium. It is an ambitious tale but also will introduce Obscuro and some of the players that hopefully will lead to another story about a fat, black cat that sleeps heavily in a Library in the center of town.

Anon

Shameless Self Promotion and such...

After ordering several postcards from zazzle.com and seeing that there quality is very nice I decided to offer mini-posters of some of my work.


Design personalized gifts at Zazzle.

The selection will continue to grow. Most of my work is done on 9 X 11 inch Bristol paper mainly due to my scanner size so doing huge reproductions of my work would lose in quality. But the 11 X 14 poster sizes offered at zazzle.com give me room to work in a border and still retain the size of the original.

As I mentioned before I will add more as time goes on, I intend to order these myself to inspect their quality.

Hopeless in Maine

As an artist I think it is also important to promote others' work. Since I started my account on Deviant Art I have been impressed by the community of very talented people that congregate there. Some of even inspired me such as CopperAge with his use of tonal work and pencils. The piece below is excellent combination of steampunk and Lovecraftian horror that he conjured for the Steampunk World Fair held in New Jersey. The Hand of Glory Contraption is deviously inventive and imaginative.



SPWF poster finish by ~CopperAge on deviantART

What is even more impressive is that CopperAge does an online comic entitled "It's a Circle-Hopeless in Main."  Beautifully rendered and often with title pages that have borders that accentuate the page, this web comic is highly unique and very well crafted.  Having attempted an online comic before I can tell you that it is a huge sacrifice to commit your time and talent to construct and sometimes the payoff is non existent. Fortunately CopperAge has the drive and imitative to commit to such a project, that alone is enough for recognition.

Heavy on Lovecraftian influences as well as beautiful art, I highly recommend it.


Hopeless, Maine repaint by ~CopperAge on deviantART 

For the Love of Lovecraft and More Poe News

I discovered H.P. Lovecraft in my early teens when Ballentine Books began publishing a fantasy line reintroducing to the public works from authors like George MacDonald, E.R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith and yes, even J.R.R. Tolkien among others. The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series was the vision of Betty Ballantine and her husband Ian. Lin Carter took on the role of editor and was also later responsible for editing Robert E. Howard's Conan series for Lancer Books. If it weren't for Betty Ballentine and Lin Carter, many fine works of high fantasy would remain in obscurity.

I remember seeing my first Lovecraft book in the local drug store in the paperback book rack. The cover was an eye catching oddity by surrealist Gervasio Gallardo and I was immediately intrigued and became a Lovecraft fan ever since. There was something about his world filled with unseen alien dread and elder gods that lay dreaming on the edge of reality that fired my imagination and kept me lying awake at night staring at the ceiling wondering what cosmic horrors lay behind the stars.

I was quick to recognize even then that Lovecraft channeled Poe in much of his prose and that made me admire him even more. Lovecraft went a step further and created a mythos that still inspires horror authors today like Clive Barker and even Stephen King admitted that Lovecraft was the greatest horror writer of the 20th Century. This inspiration was given recognition by several authors and film directors in a recent documentary called Lovecraft Fear of the Unknown. The documentary supports a full cast of heavyweights that include Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, Ramsey Cambell and directors John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon and Guillermo Del Toro. Each discuss not only their inspirations from Lovecraft but also his neurotic sensibilities and the contridictions that made up his life. For instance it has become common knowledge that Lovecraft was xenophobic yet he married Sonia Greene, a woman with Jewish heritage who was very independent for a lady of that time period. Their nine year marriage ended in an amiable divorce that Lovecraft never finalized.

If you are a fan of Lovecraft and have an interested in his somewhat neurotic and complex life as well as his influence on modern horror, then is a must see.

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For a bibliography of the Ballentine Adult Fantasy line as well a collection of photos of the covers check Phantasma.net 

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Seems that Poe continues to pop up in the news. Already there are two movies with Poe as a character in the works as well as a television series, Poe seems to be everywhere. All the more reason to support a petition that is being circulated on the net. It seems that the City of Baltimore will cease funding for Poe's house and museum and will close it in 2012.  Here is the link to the petition

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Grim Machinations
Recently finished this piece, Grim Machinations. Postcards and photo prints are available at deviant art and post cards as well as T-shirts at zazzle.





Grim Machinations Final by *PoeticCrow on deviantART