Hey Everybody.
So I'm Joe. Just turned twenty, just joined Void, just finished my first comic ('cept it wasn't really finished), and am wanting to be the best I can friggin' be. I know I'll have a long way to go, and it'll probably be a neverending journey but endings are shit anyway, so here we go!
Alright, where I am now. I moved to London when I was 18 to study 'Art and Design' whatever that means, turns out I seemed to be suited for Illustration, well durr, been doddling and making shit up nonstop ever since I was a kid. So right now I'm on the first year of an Illustration Course which is very focused on trying to make me able to be self sufficient and employable. Great. It really is, but its not always my cup of tea. As I'm in England there is no massive comic scene, its frowned upon really, or video game scene, etcetc. and what there is that I have a passion for, e.g. nerdy shit, its not catered for on my course. Basically its all Graphic Design, Editorial Illustration, Posters, Advertising, stuff like that. Heres a peek at some stuff that I've done.
Please bear in mind the focus is on quantity rather than quality. I think this is a good approach, drowning myself in as much work as possible to improve rather than being all anal and pretty about everything I do. Gotta just punch it out youknow.
This is a Romeo And Juliet Poster designed for the London Underground. Its meant to be HUGE and the original is a HIGH resolution. Basically designed to be as tall as a train. I was inspired by the dark, emo, teenage angst kind of things, cuz in my opinion this was Shakespeare's 'emo' play. Looked at HeavyMetal album covers pre-Raphaelite art, old English Illustration.
Next!
Reggae/Dancehall Compilation Album Cover for the Record Label Greensleeves featuing Albarosie, Gyptian, Vybez Kartel and Mavado. Good fun. If you know them at all you may get the in jokes. Thats what I enjoy about all this, immersing myself into stuff, probably to an unecessary degree. I get told off for being too self indugent but you gotta keep it fun or you'll just shrivel up and die inside. Yay!
Not something I've done this year but the year before, this is an attempt at the sort of trendy editorial Illustration that 'cool' Londoners love.
Right now...
These are for a fake Silent Film Festival in New York. Mean to be Charlie and Harold Lloyd. Anyway, they were supposed to be posters, but again, I thought oooo, lemme have some fun with some narrative, I actually did 4, but the other ones are a bit poop, and they're a sequence. So ye, told off again. 'This aint a fuckin poster these are book Illustrations'. Which is good! I really wanna illustrate books, maybe even write some too.
But they're meant to be posters. So, redoing them.
However, despite the fact that it was not what I was supposed to be doing I though Gaahh!! I always deny myself what I wanna do. I should make comics. I'd never thought of it as a serious thing to do. But hell I'm always making stories and drawing images for them. I swear I'm slow sometimes. So off I went around London, traipsing around the comic book shops, literally spending days in them. This is not a new thing. I have quite a strange and eclectic collection but what I found recently struck a chord with me.
Becky Cloonan
Brandon Graham
And guess what James Stokoe... and many more from there, all the brilliance keeps on coming.
So ye, getting the lowdown on James found out abut Void. Here we are. Wish I'd found it earlier!
Anyway, got a tonne of stuff I've done in the last few days which is ready to show but I is tired, and if you feel like it check out the comic battle I've just done for the Void Invitational against Con with Morrow.
http://entervoid.com/index.php?action=comic%3bid=4099I'll update again tomorrow. Sorry about the life story.