Jason Latour.com

Fan Diego Comicon

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:59:08 GMT

It's that time of year again. If you're heading in for the madness of San Diego and you're interested in finding me. I'll be spending the majority of my time at
the 12 Gauge Comics booth, #2547. It should be somewhere in the vicinity of the IMAGE booth I would think.

I'll have copies of the SKETCHBOOKS and LOOSE ENDS DEMOS there for those interested, and I'll likely even take some sketches on the side. I head down tomorrow. So maybe I'll see some of you there.

As for the art quotient of the blog. Here is a pair of old character shots I did for SCH. They're a couple of years old by now, but I just always kinda liked that KING FIST pose.

Back soon, wish me luck...

-J La

Ol' Scratch: prelim-1

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:38:29 GMT

An image and title that'll be related to a sketch/artbook in the future:

"Scratch gets his hustle on." Never to early to think ahead to such things...

-Might be a little inconsistent with the art posts the next week or two. I'm currently in Los Angeles (not hating, but is that dingy yellow color that always lingers here just me or is it real?). I'm going to try and stay on top of it but visiting and SDCC and no scanner might get in the way. So L.A. peeps... wanna hang early next week lemme know!

But at least look for more old school art. I scanned a bunch of ROBIN samples from High School before I left.

Have a good weekend...

-J La

Saving Trees

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:24:43 GMT

The Cintiq certainly saves trees. Here's three sheets of paper alone:

It's still strange drawing on glass. I think they make a texture cover. I might have too look into that. But otherwise I'm starting to really dig the thing. Only downsides are that it's not really portable and it's a tad small. I don't think I need the big one but a middle size might work.

The next two weeks I'll be doing breaks on paper again, which is something I don't ever want to lose if for no other reason than it's something i can do outside of the house.

My yearly journey to the devils asshole, aka SAN DIEGO COMIC CON is right around the corner (I keed, I keed... well sorta). Heading to L.A. on Thursday to hang some. I'm going to try to update the blog while gone though. If you're going to the show and have interest in either a LOOSE ENDS DEMO book or my SKETCHBOOKS then swing by the 12 GAUGE BOOTH where they'll have both for sale. It should be somewhere near IMAGE CENTRAL. I'll be floating around there, but not formally set up.

YOU BARRACUDA FOOL!
I've had to take a couple days off from reading GRAVITY'S RAINBOW just because it requires a lot of mental energy, and I had to devote that to breakdowns. So my entertainment has been a few random innings of baseball/the homerun derby (how bout my fellow NC native Josh Hamilton? Jaysus!) and COMICS! I dug into the last two arcs of Garth Ennis's PUNISHER series (50-58) and MAN, this book is something. I don't know how to describe it... but Ennis is hitting a balance of asswhuppin' action movie and social relevance that comics has rarely if ever seen. I really recommend it.

I also read his BARRACUDA mini, and it was fun, but a little too light compared to his PUNISHER work. Goran Parlov is really a comics art beast when he gets it cranking. Jump on board before it's over.

-J La

HELLVIS 1

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:31:13 GMT

yeah... I dunno. I bought a Cintiq tablet, I was playin' around and, and...

The most immediate result of the Cintiq I can forsee is likely more crappy/fun comics like this.

I kind of have my buddy John Lucas to thank/blame for inspiring this one. At NYCC he mentioned in passing that he thought that Ghost Rider movie would have been awesome had Nic Cage done an Elvis impersonation the whole flick. That must have stuck with me because on Sunday my brother and I joked about Elvis GR all day long and then that happened. So I apologize to them both :)

On the Fer Serious tip: If you're not giving Jason Aaron's GHOSTRIDER a shot then you totally should. He's built it into something pretty interesting. As Jason himself describes it "it's the Ghost Rider book for people who don't like Ghost Rider".

-J La

The School of Hard Knocks...

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:15:04 GMT

Art school avoided me. Or rather I avoided it. When I was a kid all I really wanted to truly be was a comicbook artist, but I come from a very pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps family background. So while my imagination was certainly fostered and encouraged... self exploration paid for in tuition was not. I went to "normal college" where I drank a way too much beer, played a lot of basketball and ended up stumbling into taking a few invaluable classes (basic photoshop, design 1, figure drawing 1, art history 1). But overall my art school was essential a comics shop,a few drawing books, a once a year trip to Heroes Con for portfolio reviews and a LOT of keeping my head down doing comics. I didn't know many other artists, and the few I did certainly didn't do comics. I was kind of in a creative void for a very long time.

Now I really don't try to see this as something to be overly prideful about. It certainly built a resiliency in me, taught me to be self critical, analytical, brutally honest. Those are good things. But there were plenty of lessons I missed, or had to stumble through on my own, so many times that I wished I had someone there to show me the way. There are problem areas in my work that exist to this day as a result of that.

The point of all this is that last night in my folks attic I found Exhibit A of why my mom is awesome. REAMS and REAMS of paper, scrapped drawings, pages of comics from my childhood. Pretty much my first couple semesters of "art school".

How Many times can you redraw ONE page that's essentially J.Jonah Jameson cursing out Peter Parker? Well at least 9 (and counting as I go through the stack):

For fun, here's two random pages I scanned. One of those J. Jonah loses his shit pages:

And just some random Spidey stops a'rapin' stuff (please don't judge me):

You flip on slow-motion Spidey. You flip on. (Yes, thats a STARCADE '85 shirt, pretty sure it was a joke).

One of the biggest things I learned over all those years, is that you can draw and draw and draw... but if you don't put some real thought and effort into what you do you're ultimately going to end up with nothing but giant stack of bad pages.

So anyways, I'm thinking that I'll probably start posting some of this stuff from time to time. Because A. I think it's funny. B. For my own personal nostalgia C. History is the best teacher, and maybe most importantly D. to remind myself that half the work is done before you ever put pencil to paper.

-J La

PS- IF it's not clear, lemme make it crystal. I believe school can be very valuable, or it can be a complete waste. It's all what you make of it. So I wasn't dissing anyone for going to school, nor was I saying people shouldn't. In the end the work always sorts the wheat from the chafe.

Baseline Mozart-Jordan over Ewing-1

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:13:31 GMT

Early plans for a possible "Michael Jordan dunks on Patrick Ewing" comics-illo hybrid:

So yeah... why?

Since I was in middle school drawing sports figures for my friends and kids in my class for lunch money I've been fascinated by the idea of doing a sports comic that's actually worth something (both as a drawing and a story). In my opinion most comics translations of sport really lack the punch, energy or drama of the actual event. It's something I've always found odd given that comics at their best literally crackle with energy.

A talk with the thermo-nuclear-level talented Nathan Fox in Chicago (who has done some of the rare sports comics and comics influenced sports-illos that I have really responded to) coupled countless moments spent marveling at just how cool my co-conspirator Chris Brunner has made his sports illustration/toy design work for UpperDeck look have really caused my the thoughts on the subject to stir and re-emerge.

So last night, in a drawing funk, I decided to at least start playing around with the idea of something. And thats what lead to that layout up there. The minds-eye image of where it would go is a little more complicated than the layout might suggest (though hopefully it won't "read" as such) and I'd really be wrestling with capturing the raw emotion and the sense memory story that dunk conjures up for me. (Even though he played professionally for Chicago, every time MJ dunked on Ewing it was like small town NC dunking all over big bad NYC for me :)).

But that's why I think it can work. The best sports moments are much like comics in that they gain most of their power from the perception and emotional state of the viewer. So as an exercise I thought that I would try to draw that train of thought and at least attempt to move toward some kind of visual solution. I hope I get time to go further with it.

Oh, for the sake of comparison. The dunk itself is no. 2 on this countdown:

From the game camera angle:

Two really nasty ones on Ewing I'd never seen before:

Last Waltz study- Muddy Waters

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:59:22 GMT

Just a study I did a few weeks back. Of what I consider one of the most bad ass musical performances ever:

You decide for yourself:

-J La

Biz cards

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:47:41 GMT

I finally got around to designing and ordering some long overdue business cards. Collect all 4:

Now if I could only figure out what my title is.

-J La

Mac Man-incomplete

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:51:14 GMT

There was some downtime on Sunday at WizChicago, so I started a Machine Man sketch for current MM scribe Ivan Brandon:

I'll probably get around to finishing it in San Diego. I know I've mentioned it a million times but comics featuring Machine Man vs. The Hulk are a couple of the first I remember really hooking me.

Webcomics "advice"
I've seen a lot of mussing and fussing about web comics lately. Particularly conversations about how to make them work, and like everything else in comics everyone has a surefire theory. The truth is that comics, web or otherwise are a lot like quantum physics... people will say they understand the inner workings, they may even possess a much better grasp than most, but at the end of the day no one really does.

Were I to go back and talk to the young web cartoonist I was nearly ten years ago I'd tell him a few simple things that I think apply to comics no matter where they are published:

1. Know what your true goals and expectations are. They don't have to be in stone... but have a clear idea.
2. Doing the comics is half the work.
3. Doing the comics is ONLY half the work.
4. Plan well.
5. Be patient.
6. I don't know shit.

It's nebulous advice sure, but I think creating a career in comics is largely about using others advice as fence posts and figuring out your own way. And you guys know me, I'm long winded enough to talk about this for hours, so brevity is the better part of valor here...

Speaking of web comics I read quite a few on http://www.txcomics.com/ the other day. Really quality stuff. I recommend them.

-J La

Buford Hollis

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:14:12 GMT

Started doodling old RB in all his glory while in Chicago. Maybe I'll finish it sometime soon:

News and Notes
-I've got a couple of outstanding commissions left to finish. So if you're waiting on one of those I hope you can be patient, I'm gonna try to get through them soon.

- I officially began work on my new gig a couple days ago. Still can't announce it, but I hope they do at San Diego.I'm steadily adapting to the strangeness of working at a smaller digest-like page size. In some ways I really like it, but it feels a little breezy at the moment, which I guess is a good thing.

-Speaking of SAN DIEGO, I got my plane ticket. I'll be floating around and spending a little time at the 12 Gauge booth promoting LOOSE ENDS. Going to try to find a place to set up my sketchbooks for sale.

-Been listening to a few new things. The new MY MORNING JACKET album is odd but interesting, it's growing on me a little. I'm still very much in the throws of DRIVE BY TRUCKERS and I just got the new BECK album... which I haven't listened to yet.

Anyways, I thought I had stuff to say but nope... blanky blanky... More soon.

-J La

Doodlez

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:25:06 GMT

A better post coming soon, once I get my head back above water. In the meantime some brush pen life drawing and stray doodles:

-J La

Back from Chicago!

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:53:29 GMT

Back from Chicago and I've got too much to do. It was nice seeing everyone and I moved quite a few sketchbooks/LE Demos, so that was good. I'll share more later but in the meantime here is a (overdone-ish) Steel City Hawk I did for someone:

and some quick ink studies of people in the O'Hare airport:

More soon!
-J La

STORM-WIZ CHICAGO

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:13:09 GMT

Another Heroes Con piece. Here's a Storm I did for Terrance:

-I'll be in Rosemont, Illinois (yuck) for WIZARD WORLD "CHICAGO" this weekend. Despite my feelings about the convention area, it's always a good show. I should be on the back wall of Artists Alley with Moore and Haun. I'll have Sketchbooks, Loose Ends Demos, Prints, Postcards, all my usual swag. So come say hi.

Might miss a few days of posting due to that. But I should have plenty of art posts grow out of the trip. See you folks there...

-J La

HEROES '08 is ovah

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:19:35 GMT

I've been regrouping in the aftermath of Heroes, hence the lack of posts. It was great seeing everyone and it seems like the show did really well, especially considering the costs of travel these days.

It was great seeing everyone. I'll maybe do a longer post later, but for now here is a Cap con sketch I did:

This weekend is WIZARDWORLD CHICAGO. So I'm slammed at the moment prepping for that. I'll holla when I get more free time...

-J La

Finished Painting...

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:34:57 GMT

Gunfighter (Pistolero?) Uno:

As you can see it got kinda crazy, but thats sort of what I was aiming for. Not the greatest results, but I learned a lot.

If you're attending HEROES CON this weekend, I just found out I'll be seated at AA-308. So stop by and say hi!

-J La

Auction painting?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:21:41 GMT

The latest of my attempts at learning to use paint. I planned so poorly for this, basically just gripped it and ripped it, that I'm having to basically draw it and make corrections as I go. But it's keeping me on my toes:

Depending on how well/bad t his turns out it will either go into my personal collection or on the auction block for HEROES CON this weekend. I'll update you guys as it goes.

I really gotta thank you all for the LOOSE ENDS:DEMO love. THe responses from the places I've posted it were really gratifying. If you missed it go here: http://jasonlatour.livejournal.com/110022.html

Anyways, gotta roll. Lots to do before people start flooding in. More soon.

-J La

LOOSE ENDS: DEMO

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:48:53 GMT

So this con season (basically Heroes Con, Wizard World Chicago and SDCC + anything else I potentially add like SPX) Chris Brunner, Rico Renzi, 12 Gauge Comics and myself will be issuing a 16 page sneak peak at our gritty, slow cooked 4-issue “Southern Crime Romance”.

I'll be back to tease a little more, but in the meantime I'll let the pages speak for themselves (note: the final book will be in FULL COLOR):

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed. Look for more in that DEMO BOOK at the cons. And just so you hear it, I'll say again that you can also sort of follow the process of things(and see lots of other cool art) at Chris and Rico's blog:

http://www.kickstandkids.blogspot.com/

And in case you're curious, I hand lettered this sucker. Should I be proud of that? I dunno but I am :). (Typos and stuff will be fixed later)

-Game 6 of the NBA Finals is tonight. I was a diehard NBA guy growing up in the Jordan-era and this is the most interest I've watched a Finals with since. I dislike both these teams and nearly every player on the court with the exception of James Posey and KG. And yet, I can't turn away. Going for Boston, just because I can't bring myself to pull for Kobe.

-Everyone starts to filter into town for HEROES CON Thursday early, so I'm trying to wrap up what I can in the meantime. If I can remember to do it I might do a running photo blog/con report over the weekend. It depends on how hungover I get, though maybe I could sneak off now and then and recount the events GONZO style. Hmmm...

-J La

FALLEN SON commission...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:35:04 GMT

I'm trying to knock out a few early "con sketches"/commissions before HEROES CON this weekend. One of which is this THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA: FALLEN SON blank cover. This one was a real bear, because it fell into that weird hybrid of consketch/commission due to the fact it needed to be done on the book (which kind of scared me because if I destroyed it not only was there no second chance, but the guy was out a book).

It turned out okay though I think:

The paper on those things really hates ink, in fact it wouldn't even take copic markers at all. I had to use acrylic paint to do that red. Hey, Marvel if you're going to do variant covers for ARTISTS then how about making them so we can actually draw on them?

Anyways, if anyone is coming to the show and wants to get on my list early, just holler at me via jaslatour@gmail.com

Speaking of HEROES CON. Along with my new sketchbooks and new prints, Chris, Rico, 12 GAUGE and I will be selling copies of the LOOSE ENDS DEMO, which is a 14 page process/preview of said mini-series. Tomorrow I'll likely post a couple of lettered pages from it. In the meantime Chris and Rico have posted a mess of unlettered pages and may actually beat me to the punch posting the lettered preview today, so check them out at:http://www.kickstandkids.blogspot.com/

Aight, back to commissions...

-J La

FINAL POP NOIR print

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:57:19 GMT

Finished. I think.The colors are a tad deeper in CMYK.

The idea is that I'll have some of these prints divided into 4 postcards. Collect 'em all.

Hope you guys dig. Cross your fingers that I'll have them for Heroes Con.

-J La

POP NOIR print inks

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:17:08 GMT

Here's the final inks for the POP NOIR print I'm doing for con season:

When I finish them I'll post the colors. At the moment I'm busy finishing up the lettering and layout stuff for the LOOSE ENDS demo book we're doing for HEROES CON. Maybe I'll share some of that soon too. I purposely posted that smaller image yesterday because I'm NOT done with it and I don't want people pulling that old "I like that one better" stuff before I'm even done :)

Looking forward to the NBA Finals tonight, finishing up reading SUTTREE (it's been a GREAT read so far), and kind of obsessed with the DRIVE BY TRUCKERS at the moment. Blah diddy blah...

-J La

Frogress...

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:22:35 GMT

I spent a good chunk of my weekend working on this Con Print:

Still not done yet either. But hopefully one more pass gets it. I'll share the final and the inks/etc later in the week.

Did anyone else check the NBA FINALS last night? Holy crap that was almost the biggest meltdown I've ever seen.

-J La

Print progress...

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:06:18 GMT

Moving along...

In other news- I made a pretty hefty commitment career wise yesterday. Finally signing that contract thats been collecting dust in the corner. Wish me luck.

-J La

DOOM REFUSES TO USE INSIDE VOICE!

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:45:06 GMT

I did a quick Dr. Doom for Ivan Brandon's sketchthread: http://imagecomics.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?t=41857

I always loved that Doom rarely seemed to modulate his voice.

-J La

Stuff that Excites me...

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:23:14 GMT

In no particular order

LEARNING TO PAINT

Even though I've colored a couple hundred pages on the computer, I don't have much experience with real paint. To be honest it's always kind of intimidated me to some degree. I've always believed it would just be a matter of putting my mind to it, but with all the other stuff I dabble in I never could quite bring myself to taking the plunge for worry of being absorbed by it.

The Human Torch/Submariner sketch card was my first real attempt at it, and it was mostly out of necessity. But the other night I kinda goofed around with throwing some paint on an old figure drawing in my sketchbook:

As you can see it's pretty rough. Just messing with color and trying to get the hang of the actual application of real paint. Plus the drawing underneath was kinda sucko. I think I need to scale up but working small is kind of forcing me to = not over render. Anyways... not happy, but I still think it's a matter of time and effort.

SEEING LOOSE ENDS COME TO LIFE
I'm working on lettering the LOOSE ENDS preview book that we'll likely have available at HEROES CON (I'll also try to scoop up a stash for WIZWORLD CHICAGO as well).

I can't say how much it excites me to see this thing coming to life. Chris and Rico have taken the story and moved it to another level. I don't usually shill stuff very hard, because when it comes to art and comics I'm as critical as it gets... but if the idea of a "Doomed Southern Crime Romance " comic doesn't appeal to you at first glance, I think fans of GREAT (an' I mean great like if-it-were-a-biscuit-on-yer-head-yer-tongue'd-smack-yer-eyeballs-out-reachin'-for-it kinda great) art should be shot for not picking this up.

Plus it just excites me to see my hometown on the map:

HEROESCON
Speaking of my hometown, we're under a month till the Bonnaroo of comics. Have you see this guest list lately? http://www.heroesonline.com/con-guests.html

MUSIC
Speaking of Bonnaroo... god I wish I was going to this show: http://www.bonnaroo.com/artists.aspx

There are at least 10-15 bands on that list I'd like to see. Maybe I can convince my brother into a last minute trip. Though I bet the hotels there are impenetrable.

instantMESS
I leave you with this iMESS style gem, courtesy of my homegirl T-RED

TR: Do you think there is a porno called No Cuntry for Old Men yet?

JL: WIN.
JL: You win.

-J La

Duck You Sucker

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:42:24 GMT

So after years of trying to get ahold of it I finally saw Sergio Leone's DUCK YOU SUCKER (aka FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE aka ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO).

Needless to say I loved it:

Really what that is above is the result of me being bored with drawing people in coffee shops. I desperately needed some inspiration to do life drawing so I decided to try doing movie studies. Mostly eschewed likenesses for compositions, wardrobe, gesture that stuff. It was fun. I think I'll do more.

Feelin' inspired today, and I need it. Con season starts in earnest soon and with all the good it brings it also it means lots of lost time.

So Imma get back to it...

-J La <only believes in dynamite