Eddie Ching Lives
Honestly, I have no idea what that means, if anything, or who Eddie Ching is. However,
EddieChingLives is the online nickname a very talented and funny cartoonist named
Ryan Santangelo who’s putting out a humorous slice of life mini-comic with his wife, Renee.
The Stupidity Continues… No.1 is an amusing and honest look at the life of a struggling cartoonist and his wife and son. Check out the preview he’s provided
here, and if you like what you see drop him an email (
eddiechinglives@gmail.com) and send him 3 bucks and he’ll send you a copy of the book and an original sketch. If you ask nicely he might even throw in a dvd of
videos showing how he makes his comics.
Keeping Busy
It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about work, but I’ve managed to keep pretty busy since Violet was born. Shortly before we went into hospital now ten months back, I had started working with a young writer (well, younger than my aging ass at least),
Adnan Virk, on an excerpt from a comic book he had written called
My Second Life. Obviously I had to put the project aside for several weeks as Samantha and I adjusted to our new status as parents. Eventually I was able to return to work, though I’ll admit the going was rough at first and I definitely learned a lot about the new limitations on my time and energies. Thankfully, Adnan had to patience to let me work through the period of adjustment and I was able to complete the work in a somewhat timely, though very terribly distracted fashion. You can see the results of my efforts
here. At present the pages have been lettered and coloured, and Adnan is seeking a publisher interested in the book. I wish him all the best, and if he finds one I’d gladly return to the project if possible.
Einstein’s Brain
Late February of this year I did another project for Workaholic Productions who produced the
Sharpshooters documentary that I worked on last year. This time the subject was the Big Bang Theory. A segment of the show was based around the idea of Einstein’s World, a mix of a carnival side show and theme park that focused on Einstein’s theories and scientific breakthroughs. I was contracted to do up two paintings to be used as props onscreen. This was a bit daunting, as I hadn’t painted on canvas in over ten years and I’d have to create two large (I think they were about 3’x4’ or so), camera ready paintings in a very short time. Still, I took the challenge as it sounded like fun, and I had a blast. This was easily some of the most rewarding work I’ve done in awhile, and reminded me how much I enjoy painting on canvas. If I had it to do all over again the only
thing I’d change would be to work in oil instead of acrylic. I’d never worked with acrylic and it was a bit frustrating as the paint is so thin and dries so quickly. While I know there are ways to do so, in the short time I had I couldn’t really figure out how to mix and blend the colours on the canvas and build them up in the manner I was used to. Instead I went for a layered colour approach, which is a bit crude but actually fit with the intended look very well. And despite the minor frustrations, I’m very pleased with the results. I don’t have much information on the show besides the fact that it should air on the History Channel sometime in September or August, but I’ll post an update when I have it.
Well, so far so good, though there's not much to report yet. I'm into layouts and character design and having a lot of fun with the material. After Checking with Boom! the word from on high is that I should reveal as little as possible before anything is actually in print. Perfectly understandable of course, but it means I'll have a bit less to put up here than I'd planned. For the mean time I'll be throwing out the occasional warm up-type sketch as seen above. The sketch today isn't anything that's actually going to end up in the comic, just a quick Ork study so I can get a better grasp of the nasty buggers. 
