Thanks to Curt for sending me this.
Archive for the 'Curt Merlo' Category
From ever-talented Curtmerlo.com:
Curt merlo has a boatload of new art up. Including this portrait of my brother Sam* or a samurai:
*who, by the way, is doing much better than before, he still sometimes howls at night, but we think it’s just out of habit
Curt has some new work up and he is almost done with water polo, which means I will probably be blogging slightly less and working on the graphic novel much more. This is good for me and for you. I have already begun thinking about (hopefully) out next novel together. Not trying to get ahead of myself but it’s always good to have direction. I’m thinking about adapting Out Of The Silent Planet, from the C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy. If your creative, intelligent and spiritual AND you haven’t read it, you should.
Today I give you the first ever international release of the merlo sketches of Johnny Rotten. Rotten is one of the protagonists of the novel, as well as the leader of the much maligned group “the good ol’boys”. For more check out the native american and the lost boy. Any likness to my brother Sam is completely coincidental.
Exclusive sketches of the main character officially titled “The Lost Boy”, from Curt Merlo.
Not only is great to see his amazing art, but his process is very interesting. Curt isn’t creating these sketches just to post, I have seen his desk-sized sketch pad where he is working out all these ideas. It’s amazing, beautiful and exciting. Spread the word.
So it’s official. If you have spent any time with me over the last few days you already know this, but I am working on a graphic novel with Curt Merlo. I will be writing the story and Curt will be illustrating (this would be obvious to you if you have ever visited electronicalifornia.
I will continue to give you updates here on this blog, also make sure check curtmerlo.blogspot.com, as I’m sure he will be posting some sketches.
A little backstory:
I have never actually been into comics that much. I had a couple superman episodes as a child but women in tight leather and men who can shoot lasers out of their eyes just don’t do it for me. I made the point to Curt last night that I think fantasy for fantasy’s sake is worthless. Peeking into other unknown worlds can sometimes gives us a better understanding of our own and be fun (and many comics have actually done that). But the graphic novel is a whole different invention all together. The first widely accepted graphic novel was a book of shorts stories around jewish life in new york city. That hardly has anything to do with destroying nazi’s with a rocket launcher for an arm. I’m not trying to take the high horse here and say all comics are lame and then say, but mine isn’t, though I do hope to transcend the comic norm. I would make the same criticism of film and then try and rise above that. I recently read Earthboy Jacobus by Doug TenNapel. Though it was a little sci-fi for my own taste, I absolutely loved it. The author mixes humor, action, and important issues while keeping it entertaining the whole time. Believe it or not, my wife was flipping through it the other night at the dinner table and began to read it. Though she had to ask me at times, why there was a giant flying whale on earth, she actually enjoyed it. I think this is the way for the graphic novel to transcend the group of 6 boys at the comic store I ran into yesterday flirting with the female clerk with ever romantic talk of teleportation powers.
As you can tell, I am very excited about this. We will see what happens, but Curt and I are both taking this very seriously and coming off our meeting last night we are gonna work very well together.
All this and more only at electronicalifornia*
*You could probably find all this somehwere else.
Fresh new original work from Curt Merlo. This guy never ceases to amaze me. His ability to draw characters is such a strong point for him. Earlier he brought us the untitled “pilot” project and Xerox the pirate. Everytime he does something new it only gets better. We talked today about the possibility of a graphic novel using some of his characters. We’ll see where that goes.
